Hist Paper

Katie DuPree HIST 104 Peck 4/29/06 The Cash is Greener on the Other Side (of the Atlantic)

During the 1990s there were many Baltic state citizens that immigrated to the US. Many of those citizens would agree that there are greater opportunities in the US than there were in their states when they left. In fact, many of these Baltic citizens came to the US to find better jobs and raise their families. However, one should ask why they would all decide to move at once. Some great event must have had to happen to motivate that many Baltic citizens to all leave their countries at once. It is no secret that Baltic economies are to this day, in a state of recovery but what caused their economies to take a turn for the worst in the first place? There is substantial evidence that points to the Baltic States gaining independence and causing the fall of the USSR that in turn, caused Baltic citizens to emigrate. Although, this paper will address the majority of the Baltic States in regards to the events that led to Baltic emigration, the main focus will be on Lithuania since that is the country my interviewee emigrated from. Since it is the aim of this paper to argue that the fall of the USSR led to the emigration of Baltic citizens, it is important to know what caused the fall of the USSR . What else would it be besides politics? Politics usually favors he who has the biggest stick or those with enough numbers to eradicate the holder of the biggest stick, as was the case when it came to Baltic independence. So when politics finally went in the favor of Baltic independence in 1990 for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia , the USSR ’s metaphorical stick was eradicated (Norton pg. 611). The Baltic Economies in Transition explains, “The Baltic States have a tradition of national independence, they never joined the USSR voluntarily, the goal of independence was generally shared among the population, and there has been no hesitation concerning the grand goal of

transition: to become a normal European state” (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 2). As a result of this, the USSR ’s economy was fatally wounded. This is because as part of the Soviet Union, the Baltic States provided the Soviet Union with the majority of its market for the goods it produced(Lainela & Sutala, 1994, pg. 2). No matter how much of a good you produce, if you don’t have a market for your goods, they will not sell and you will not make any money. Without the Baltic States trading with the Soviet Union, its ability to market is crippled, forcing its economy to nose dive. Due to the repercussions of trade between the Baltic States and the Soviet Union being discombobulated, the Soviet economy did not survive. The USSR fell in 1991 and Gorbachev lost power due to his plunders in striving for Soviet autonomy and his ignorance of Soviet dependence on Baltic trade (Pope, 1991). The fall of the USSR occurs just about a year after the Baltic States gained independence. This is not a coincidence, but a cause and a consewuence. Although the Baltic States were declared independent for about a year before the fall of the USSR, they did not get to really try their hands at a free-market until after it fell. Besides, a state does not transition from being a communist satellite state to being a democratic free-market state overnight and this transition dis not go into full swing until after the USSR was gone (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 2). However, this transition presents a problem: almost as much as the Soviet Union was dependent on the Baltic States for marketing their goods, the Baltic States relied on the Soviet Union for raw materials to produce and market their own goods. Not to mention, having control of their own economies was a new frontier to the Baltic States , since they had never had this kind of responsibility before (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 2). Given their independence, the Baltic States took their own different courses of actions to try and benefit themselves. The Baltic Economies in Transition elaborates in referrencinf the free trade agreement of September 1993, “Latvia wants to protect its agricultural producers from its

European competitors, while Lithuania strives to at a gradual transition and wants to preserve import restrictions and quotas” (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 3). Each state felt that its way of doing things was the right way and the other states were inferior. Ethnocentrism of each of the Baltic States has kept inter-Baltic trade down to a bare minimum, while western trade was still at about 90 percent by the time 1994 rolled around. This proved to be detrimental to the Baltic States as they are still having economic hardships to this day. Some problems they faced as a newborn free trade market states was the risk of becoming sites of money laundering, inefficient privatization (Lithuania), and high rates of inflation. Baltic states probably would not have had nearly as many problems if they had preserved trade with Russia, but their failure to do so impeded the progress of their developing economy (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 3). Economic hardship causes people to lose their jobs or not be able to get good jobs. This in turn means less income for families. Families with limited incomes will spend less money. When people are not spending money, it causes businesses to that are producing goods to not make as much money, make budget cuts and lay people off. They may even possibly go out of business. This lowers the number of jobs and buying power of citizens even more. This leaves all parties of economic hardship desperate for relief. All of this economic uncertainty is probably why it would be tempting to return to something more familiar, as in the case of Lithuania in 1992 when the (ex-communist) Democratic Labour Party came to power and slowed down the transition to a free market economy and improved relations with the Russian Federation. These actions were taken as a result of Lithuanians blaming the Nationalist movement for their economic predicament (Fact Monster, 2007, pg. 5). For Lithuanians, this is probably what started to scare them into wanting to leave. A survey taken in Lithuania in 1991 suggests just this. A survey reveals that 48.3% of

Lithuanians wanted to leave their country for up to a year; 21.4% wanted to leave for1-2 years; 7.3% wanted to leave for up to 10 years and 2.4% wanted to leave forever. 19.2 % of the same people either didn’t know or thought their government would return to a dictatorship in the following five years. That leaves roughly 80.8% of Lithuanians that were optimistic about their government in 1991 after the fall of the USSR (Bryn & Szondalypsos, 1991, pg. 2). If that many Lithuanians were contemplating emigration despite their mostly optimistic attitude towards the future of their government, this is proof of a bad economic situation. Not to mention, this was only a year after the fall of the USSR that they were so optimistic about their government. The Baltic Economies in Transition mentions that, “though there has been no serious danger of a reversal of transition policies in any of the Baltic countries, these developments serve to remind that the support reforms can not be self-evidently permanent” (Lainela & Sutela, 1994, pg. 4) This statement was published in 1994, which means there was still uncertainty about relapsing into a dictatorship three years after the fall of the USSR. The Lithuanian government continued to go back and forth between right and left political sides for nine years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union (Fact Monster, 2007, pg. 6). It makes logical sense that this kind of political uncertainty would only the further sentiments towards a migration mentality of Lithuanians since they wanted so much to be a free market economy and independent from Russia. Agnes Pancevoraite finally decided that they were jumping ship on the unstable Kaukas, Lithuania in 1997 when her mother won green cards to come to the US. They were not the only ones who wanted to move to the US either. For example, I graduated with at least three Lithuanian girls who came to the US in the mid-late 90s. According to Agnes, her parents just needed better opportunities for work. Since the US was doing very well for itself at this time, America seemed like the land of milk and honey. With no resolution to Lithuania’s problems in sight, Agnes and her family moved to America.

After a thirteen hour flight that landed in our very own Chicago O’hare airport with only her clothes and a few toys and books, Agnes’ parents set out to make their new life here in the US. For many Baltic citizens, they found what they were looking for in the US. This was the case for Agnes and her family as well. In Lithuania her father was a chaufferthat drove people all over Europe and her mother worked in a store but later became a stay at home mom. In the US, her father owns his own trucking business and her mother owns a daycare and catering business from their home. So they went from working for the man to being the man. That is a remarkable improvement from their life in Lithuania. As someone who experienced childhood as both a Lithuanian and an American, Agnes agrees that life has improved for her since moving to the US. She says, “I would not have all of the things I have now. I would have never learned English as well as I know it now and I believe my whole view on the world would have been different because I would not have experienced life on the other side of the globe” (interview). Considering that Agnes and the other Lithuanian families I know moved here for better work opportunities, it is quite evident that the events surrounding the fall of the USSR ultimately led to the fall of the USSR ultimately led to the migration mentality of Baltic State citizens, causing them to emigrate.