An Estonian communist leader who chose to preserve the Soviet Union
In 1991, as Estonian independence approached, he joined the Politburo while backing the Soviet Union.
Lembit Annus was a Moscow-aligned Estonian communist leader who stood at the centre of the late Soviet conflict over national independence and preserving the Union. From December 1990 until the party was banned in August 1991, he was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Estonia on the CPSU platform, and in 1991 he joined the CPSU Politburo. After the party's dissolution, he remained active in communist politics as a Pravda correspondent and Tallinn municipal councillor.
Also known as: Lembit Elmarovich Annus
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1941Born in Kohtla-Järve, Estonian SSR
- 1963Joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- 1983–1989Editor-in-chief of Eesti Kommunist
- 1990First Secretary of the Kalinin District Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia
- 1990–1991First Secretary of the Communist Party of Estonia on the CPSU platform
- 1991Member of the CPSU Politburo
- 1991–1999Estonia correspondent for Pravda and Tallinn City Council member
The Soviet Politburo
- Full member 1991.01–1991.08
served until the party ban of 1991.11
Related historical events
Leading the CPSU-platform party to dissolution
In March 1990 the 20th congress of the Communist Party of Estonia voted to break with the CPSU and reconstitute itself as the Estonian Democratic Labour Party. Delegates who backed the CPSU platform walked out and held a rival 20th congress on 26 March. The resulting Communist Party of Estonia on the CPSU platform formed its own Central Committee under Alexander Gusev, and at its 21st congress that autumn it elected Annus as the new First Secretary. From December 1990 until the party was banned on 22 August 1991 he headed its Central Committee.
Annus's leadership took a less confrontational line than its Latvian counterpart, and in April 1991 he expressed willingness to enter a coalition government in Estonia. On independence, however, the party held to Moscow's position. In parallel with the 3 March 1991 referendum on Estonian independence it organised a referendum of its own in Kohtla-Jarve, Sillamae and Narva, asking whether sovereign Estonia should remain part of the USSR. All residents, including Soviet troops, were allowed to vote; only the Sillamae result was published, with a turnout of 83 percent and 89 percent voting yes.
In Moscow, Annus was a party to the contest over who would represent Estonia. At the January 1991 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, on a proposal by Oleg Shenin and Girenko, he was put forward to replace the incumbent Estonian representative Enn-Arno Sillari on the Politburo. A vote of 281 to 128 judged Annus the more suitable representative, but Gorbachev's backing kept Sillari from being removed, leaving Estonia with two Politburo members. On 3 July 1991 Annus raised Sillari's removal again, could not get it onto the agenda, and it was never voted on. Annus himself sat on the CPSU Politburo from 31 January to 23 August 1991.
The party supported the August 1991 coup attempt in Moscow, and after the coup failed the Estonian government declared it illegal on 22 August 1991. Annus left the First Secretary's post with the ban. The Estonian prosecutor's office investigated for nearly nine months what his party had done during the coup attempt and concluded that no crime had been committed; no one was punished. The party's property passed to the state, though much of it was recorded as having disappeared in the confusion.