Mark Almond

The Post-Communist Baltic States: A Short History Mark Almond

The Post-Communist Baltic States get a good press in the Western media. Their politicians are often quoted on issues ranging from Brexit to Putin. Their capital cities are post-Communisms Potemkin villages. But what has been the fate of ordinary people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since their Singing Revolutions in 1991? Regular visitors to the Baltic States since 1993, the authors expose the perverse realities of three small nations promoted as post-Communist models. Propaganda about the benefits of EU and NATO membership cannot mask that the Baltic States are in the grip of corrupt political elites and facing depopulation due to the catastrophic social impact of their successful transition to the market economy. Officially-sponsored nationalism and nostalgia for Nazi collaboration cannot disguise environmental degradation and mass emigration threatening their national existence. Escaping Kremlin rule has reduced the Baltic States to the status of front-line pawns in a New Cold War.