Communist Party of Estonia

The Communist Party of Estonia (, abbreviated EKP; in Russian: Коммунистическая партия Эстонии) was a regional branch of the Soviet communist party which in 1920–1940 operated illegally in Estonia and, after the 1940 occupation and annexation of the country by the Soviet Union, was formally re-merged into the USSR's All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) and operated as part of the CPSU until 1990. History The predecessor of EKP was formed on 5 November 1920, when 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 Bolsheviks' hopes for an immediate world revolution were still high, and communists and their sympathizers in Estonia had their own hopes of restoring power, and these hopes were supported by the widespread economic and social crisis at the time. 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 material, hide undercover activists and collect information for the revolutionaries. It resulted in a standing conflict situation with the Estonian government and authorities. As EKP was not oriented towards official political action within the established democratic political system, the organisation never tried to legalise itself in the independent Republic of Estonia in 1920–1940, nor did it ever abandon calls for an armed uprising to unite Estonia with the USSR. Although by early 1920s EKP had dropped much below from its 1917 level of popularity, it still had significant support amongst the industrial proletariat and it held a strong position within the Estonian trade union movement. In the parliamentary elections EKP's front organisations took always more than 5% of the vote. However, following the 1 December 1924 failed coup attempt by the Estonian communists, the party rapidly lost support, its membership fell to around 70–200 people and remained low until 1940. According to the EKP's own records, there were only 150 party members remaining by the time of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Estonia in June 1940.