Estonian Communist Party
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Communist Party of Estonia
|
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|---|---|
| Leader |
Karl Säre (1940-1943) Nikolai Karotamm (1943-1950) Johannes Käbin (1950-1978) Karl Vaino (1978-1988) Vaino Väljas (1988-1990) |
| Founded | 1920 |
| Dissolved | 1990 |
| Ideology |
Communism Marxism-leninism |
Communist Party of Estonia (Estonian: Eestimaa Kommunistlik Partei, EKP; Russian: Коммунистическая партия Эстонии) was a political party in Estonia.
EKP was formed November 5, 1920, as the Central Committee of the Estonian Sections of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was separated from its mother party. During the first half of the 1920s the hopes to an immediate world revolution were still held, and Estonian communists had their own hopes of restoring their power. Widespread economic and social crisis gave lots of support for that kind of hopes. Activists of the party had not only to support the agenda, but also to be ready to participate in the illegal actions, such as organising conspirative apartments, transporting weapons and communist propaganda materials, hide undercover activists and collect information for the revolutionaries. It resulted in a standing conflict situation with the governments. As oriented not to the legal goals EKP never tried to legalise itself in the Estonian Republic, as well as didn't abandon demands for the armed uprising and joining Estonia to the USSR.
Although EKP had dropped much below from their popularity of 1917, it still had remarkable support mostly amongst the industrial proletariat, but occasionally also amongst the landless peasants, unemployed, teachers and students. Especially in the 1920s it had strong positions in the trade union movement. In the parliamentary elections EKP front organisations took always more than 5% of the vote. However, following the failed coup attempt by the Estonian communists on December 1, 1924, the party lost this support and membership fell to around 70 to 200 people and remained low until 1940. According to the ECP's own records, there were only 150 party members at the time of the Soviet occupation in July 1940.
Like in the rest of the Russian empire, the RSDLP branches in the Governorate of Estonia had been ravaged by division between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. In 1912 the Bolsheviks started a publication, Kiir, in Narva. In June 1914 the party took a decision to create a special Central Committee of RSDLP(b) of Estonia, named the Northern-Baltic Committee of the RSDLP(b)" (Estonian: VSDT(b)P Põhja-Balti Komitee).
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