Recalled from Nicaragua in June 1988, he led Estonia's Communists through the sovereignty declaration, the first breach in the Soviet wall.
"Our deputies have shown their will to see Estonia as a sovereign and equal member within the Soviet Union," he said after the sovereignty vote, November 1988.
An Estonian from the island of Hiiumaa, Väljas rose through Komsomol and party ranks from the 1950s, becoming a secretary of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party by the 1970s. Suspected of nationalist sympathies, Moscow pushed him into diplomatic exile in 1980, making him ambassador to Venezuela and then Nicaragua. On 16 June 1988 he was recalled to replace the hardliner Karl Vaino as First Secretary; working with the Popular Front, he steered through Estonia's declaration of sovereignty that November, the first such assertion by a Soviet republic. He voted for the restoration of Estonian independence in August 1991 and later chaired the Estonian Democratic Labour Party.
Career Timeline
- 1949–1955Various Komsomol posts; graduated Tartu State University (1955)
- 1955–1961First Secretary, Central Committee, ELKNÜ (Estonian Komsomol)
- 1961–1971First Secretary, Tallinn City Committee, Communist Party of Estonia
- 1963–1967Chairman, 6th Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR
- 1971–1980Secretary, Central Committee, Communist Party of Estonia
- 1980–1988Soviet Ambassador to Venezuela (1980–86), then Nicaragua (1986–88)
- 1988–1990First Secretary, Central Committee, Communist Party of Estonia
- 1992–1995Chairman, Estonian Democratic Labour Party