Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 5 · column 3 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
An Estonian immigrant to Russia will have an Estonian child.
By insisting on this sort of nationality registration, the Soviets cultivated a cause for ethnic discord. This is one reason Jews in the USSR are frightened and determined to get out. Historic anti-semitism hasn’t been toned down in a society that, as outsiders, we might expect would cultivate a kind of egality. No, the system punishes a child if his parents, for whatever reason, are the wrong sort.
Both Chinese and Russian communists are committed genealogists. Every family has its reason to despise the Russian dominance of the USSR and to want independence for its nation. Even though Stalin was a Georgian, as tyrant, he gave no quarter to Georgia.
Just because Mikhail Gorbachev instituted the trend to freedom of expression doesn’t lend him and the system he represents credit in the minds of the colonial people. Gorbachev’s sponsorship of procedure that would allow separation from the USSR but which in fact would make independence virtually impossible to achieve and would delay it indefinitely leads Estonians and Georgians to believe that he is just another Russian dictator.
The united colonial resisters cannot understand why people in the United States admire and trust Gorbachev. I have been asked, “But can these small countries make it on their own?” The colonists’ reply is “Yes. Look at Finland. We were as well off as they were. But look at us now. Look at the Finn’s faces and look at ours if your want to know what the Russians have done to us.”
Estonians believe that it is Russia that doesn’t want to stop exploiting them —. just as France insisted that Algeria, Morocco, Vietnam and many other nations were France and indissoluble from that state.
The fact that Russia’s colonies are contiguous to Russia doesn’t alter the imperial character of the USSR and its ultimate relationship to the satellite, captive nations. Estonians claim that more than 100,000 Soviet troops are stationed in Estonia. They view themselves as an occupied country.
One at first might suggest to the rebels that they should work within the system to build themselves up and solve some of their problems before going it alone outside the union. The separatists will tell you that the system they must work through isn’t sympathetic to that idea and that at every turn “Moscow” bleeds them of any wealth they can earn while at the same time providing no material means to make economic growth possible. One private road-side lunch and drinks enterprise we visited in Estonia thought that they may have to close next week because
96.5%