re: Estonian Song Festival

Lew, the Estonian Song Festival was instrumental in overthrowing communism.  In May of 1988 tens of thousands of Estonians gathered on that field and, to the shock of their communist rulers, began singing traditional Estonian national songs instead of the Russian songs they were previously forced to sing.  It is known as “The Singing Revolution.”  They flew their own country’s flags for the first time in some 40 years.  The nationalist enthusiasm spread throughout the country, and the Soviets eventually just gave up.  Their puppet government wanted to Lincolnize the event and mass murder thousands to teach them a lesson, but their Russian bosses decided to throw in the towell.  As former Gorbachev advisor and friend Yuri Maltsev once told me, Gorbachev simply did not have the stomach to do what his predecessors would have done.

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