Socialism in Estonia, 1917-1919

• In Event: World War I and the Post-War Period in the Eastern Baltics (II)

Abstract

The paper discusses the ideology and politics of socialism in Estonia during the 1917 revolutionary year and then during the establishment of the Estonian state in 1918-19. On the one hand, an Estonian Social Democratic Party was established in 1917 which espoused Estonian autonomy in 1917 and a democratic revolution. At the same time, a militant Estonian component to Bolshevik organizations in Estonia remained tied to the Russian Party and espoused a radical workers’ and landless peasant revolution. The politics of the two and their electoral success in various elections in Estonia in 1917, 1918, and 1919 will be analyzed.

Short Bio

Olavi Arens is Professor History at Georgia Southern University and is currently Academic Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS). He has published widely on the history of the Baltic countries in the early twentieth century. His current research focuses on US policy toward the rise of the Baltic States in 1918-22 and on the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and the Baltic Question.

Author

• Olavi Arens, Georgia Southern University