Amir Weiner Getting to Know You

18 AMIR WEINER AND AIGI RAHI-TAMM
home in official communications to his successor, Bernhard Veimar, a
stellar Communist and brother of the chairman of the Estonian Council
of Commissariats. Frustrated by the slow processing of material deemed
relevant for operational use, the Deputy Director of the Soviet NKVD
Archival Administration reminded Veimar that he was personally responsible
for taking all measures to process archival documents on schedule, “because
when archival documents are used in good time, we are able sooner to expose
enemies of the people through the operational department of the NKVD of
the ESSR… . Working through confidential archival documents is the main
battle duty.” 43
Two special decrees on 23 November 1940 and 27 March 1941 ordered
the NKVD archival departments in the annexed territories to compile
registers of “counterrevolutionary elements.” These registers were based on
material found in the archives of tsarist Russia and interwar independent
states in line with the above-mentioned Soviet decree from 21 September
1939 which initiated the index-card system. 44
The search for politically tainted and counterrevolutionary elements was
launched at a fierce pace, targeting members of the political and regular police
forces, army officers, nationalist parties, state officials, and court officers of
the now defunct states. Throughout the spring of 1941, the Estonian and
Soviet NKVD bombarded the archives of the tiny republic with about a 100
daily inquiries about politically alien people, creating an inevitable backlog of
1,400 unanswered inquiries. 45
The Soviet drive was not without its ironies, albeit bitter ones. One
key constituency targeted by the NKVD were the Vapses, members of the
“Veterans’ League of the War of Independence,” the radical-right movement
and main opposition force in the Republic of Estonia in the 1930s. 46 As such,
the Vapses were a key target of the Estonian interwar political police, making
43 Eesti Riigiarhiiv (ERA) f. R-1490, n. 1, s. 2, l. 17 (4 December 1940). In a laconic response
that can be interpreted as either matter-of-fact or defiant, Veimar wrote that the system was
new to the local archives and at the moment was still being studied. He was confident, however,
that once the archives’ inquiries regarding more guidance were answered, they would catch up
by the following year (GARF f. 5325, op. 10, d. 535, l. 44 [27 December 1940]).
44 Korneev and Kopylova, “Arkhivy na sluzhbe totalitarnogo gosudarstva,” 21.
45 ERA f. R-1490, n. 1s, s. 2, l. 67.
46 The Central Federation of the War of Independence Veterans’ League was set up to look
after the well-being of veterans of the War of Independence. Increasingly interfering in
everyday politics, the movement soon became a considerable political force. In the fall of
1933, the league endorsed a referendum that called for radical constitutional changes and won
overwhelming approval. To prevent the league from taking power in the coming elections,
the presidential candidates Konstantin Päts and Johannes Laidoner launched a military coup
d’état on 12 March 1934 and imposed a state of national emergency for six months. The league