The international legal relations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with Soviet Russia and the USSR in the time range from the recognition of the «independence» of the respective «Soviet republics» to the annexation of the Baltic bourgeois democracies in the summer of 1940 are considered in this article. The Council of People's Commissars' attempt to recognize the «Soviet republics» of Estland, Latvia, and Lithuania, dated December 1919, was accompanied by Moscow's initiative to establish a military-political union of all Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus) in June 1919. Such an alliance meant the de facto end of sovereignty. As a result of the armed resistance of the Baltic peoples, the RSFSR, and later – the USSR, were forced to recognize their independence: in the peace treaties, the parties undertook not to support hostile activities against each other. On July 3, 1933, Moscow, Riga, Tallinn and other full-fledged subjects of international law signed the Convention on the Definition of Attacks, concluded in London between the USSR, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan. Article 2 of the document declared that the party would be regarded as the attacking one not only by 1) the declaration of war on another state, but also 2) the «invasion of the armed forces, even without a declaration of war, on the territory of another state. » In turn, Article 3 stated: «There is no reasoning of a political, military, economic or other nature which can justify the attack provided for in Article 2. » With the outbreak of World War II, the agreements of reciprocal assistance have been imposed on the Baltic states, providing for the deployment of Soviet troops on their territory. The policy of appeasement towards aggressor for Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn ended in dire consequences. Contrary to all international legal acts concluded with Moscow, the territory of the Baltics was occupied in the summer of 1940. The negotiators, who were forced to follow the Kremlin-imposed agreements, ended up in Soviet prisons, where they ended their lives.
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