THE BALTIC TRIANGLE 453states between the world wars. They preferred to stress that the Baltic
lands had belonged to the Russian Empire before 1917 even though
this counted for nothing in international law. Gorbachëv himself vis-
ited Estonia and Latvia in February 1987 and expounded the benefits
of belonging to the Soviet Union. He felt sure he was making progress:
‘The political situation and the mood of people aren’t bad in principle.’
He told the Politburo that when he did hear complaints, they were
chiefly about planning mechanisms and housing. Gorbachëv wanted
party secretaries Karl Vaino of Estonia and Boris Pugo of Latvia to stay
in post. He had set out to ‘provoke frankness’ among those whom he
met on his visit. He declared that only one individual had become
vituperative – a military veteran who had served three years in prison.
He admitted that lower officials were hostile to criticism and that
perestroika could not succeed until such an attitude disappeared. But
he somehow persuaded himself that there were no ‘oppositional
moods’ on any large scale.^2
Being committed to harmonious understanding among the
nations of the USSR, Gorbachëv found it shameful that very few items
of Estonian and Latvian literature were being translated into Russian.
He denounced the current restrictions on local-language teaching
in the schools – the novelist Vasil Bykaŭ told him that the problem
was common to the peoples of the region, including Belorussia. But
Gorbachëv felt sure that reforms would put things right: ‘How many
nations has America put through the grinder? Total assimilation!
Whereas we offer autonomy. And what’s needed is a concrete approach
to diverse nations, to diverse autonomies. Only sausage can be cut into
equal bits.’^3
Shevardnadze did not share this optimism. For years he had kept
the lid on his disquiet about how the leadership was tackling the
problem. When violent riots occurred in December 1986 over the
appointment of the Russian Gennadi Kolbin to head the Communist
Party of Kazakhstan, he exclaimed: ‘What, didn’t they know about
Kazakh nationalism?’^4 The appointee himself was a political friend of
Shevardnadze, but Shevardnadze looked on things objectively: Kazakhs
felt deep resentment about the way they had suffered at communist
hands in the 1930s. Gorbachëv’s preference for Kolbin was staggeringly
insensitive, but Shevardnadze made his comment to his entourage and
not at the Politburo. He held back from intervening on the ‘national
question’. He was sensitive to the possibility that people would object
to him as a Georgian if he spoke out. He kept his thoughts to himself.