ABSTRACT
How did Gorbachev legitimize military intervention in the Baltic States in 1990? He proceeded as in the well-known Freudian case of the man whose neighbour accused him of returning a kettle in a damaged condition (see Freud, 1976: 197). The accused first replied that he had returned the kettle undamaged, then claimed that the kettle had a hole in it when he borrowed it, and finally, that he had never borrowed the kettle from the neighbour in the first place. Gorbachev’s answers about his responsibilitiy for the bloodshed in the Baltic states were as contradictory as this. First he claimed that in order to maintain the unity of the Soviet Union, it was important to establish direct presidential rule over the separatist republics (including military intervention if required). Then he said that he knew nothing at all of the intervention, since it had only resulted from internal friction in these states; finally, he put forward a third thesis, that although he had not approved the intervention, it had been only reasonable.
