H. E. Ambassador Uldis Mikuts’ founders lecture — The Baltic Way
By Ernests Mikuts
Here we are. In a free and democratic Europe. But not so long ago, there was no freedom.
Before 30 years, a long line of people, hand to hand, stretching from Tallinn, now in modern Estonia, through Riga, in now modern Latvia, and ending in Vilnius, now in modern Lithuania. That was the Baltic Way. The reason it formed was that the USSR occupied the three Baltic states. As some of us might know, one of the main reasons was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with its secret protocols. When the USSR former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev saw what was happening he said: “See, we’ve lost them. We’ll never get them back.” Some questions might arise. How was it possible to organise and inform people about the Baltic Way? Why didn’t the authorities stop them?
It is simple. While the other leaders of the Soviet Union were leading the Union, there was no possibility to make a revolution. The Militsiya (USSR police forces) would just kill the organizers and participants. When Mikhail Gorbachov came to power, he softened the regime, so the organizers were able to make the Baltic Way without being caught. Gorbachov thought that the USSR needed political reforms. Then on the 23rd August, 1989, 2 million people joined hands to form a human chain from Tallinn, Estonia, through Riga, Latvia, and ending in Vilnius, Lithuania.