Attitude towards one's past, the farewell to the communist past, has become a vital matter on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The failure of the “building of communism” project has, besides a devastated environment, left behind it a spiritual “homelessness.” For Russians, for whom communism was the path to global power, the collapse of the Soviet Union also meant a collapse of their national identity. “Look back in anger” might be the most concise way of characterizing their attitude to their history of the past seventy years. The same might be said of the other peoples of the former USSR. Sovietologists who treated the Soviet Union as one entity and placed the Baltic nations into the same category as the other “fraternal” people created insurmountable problems for an understanding of Baltic developments, and Estonian, in particular.

In General

The Estonian Center Party was founded in Tallinn on October 12, 1991, shortly after Estonia had regained its independence. The formation of political parties had begun in the country in 1988, and the Estonian Center Party, along with the Estonian Coalition Party and some other influential political forces, sprung up in the so-called second party-building wave. The main core of the party Board (11 members) and most of the rank-and-file members have come to politics via the Estonian Popular Front, and, accordingly, they have taken with them their experience and built their political credo on the programmatic views of the Popular Front. The party defines itself as a center force on the Estonian political scene. (The distribution of political forces does not yet correspond to that common in Western countries.)

“The following text on the activity, views and plans of the Coalition Party is based on interviews with the party's chairman, Tiit Vahi, published in the monthly supplement of the Hommikuleht (“Morning Paper”) and Rahva Hääl (“People's Voice”) daily newspapers.

The determination of the Estonian people and the support of Russian democratic forces made Estonia's statehood possible again. But the crisis in society has not yet been overcome. Estonia's further development can go on undisturbed only when there is stability in national relations, taking into consideration the interests and rights of all the groups of society, and people's safety and domestic tranquility is secured. Today, Estonia's prime goal is to become integrated once again into Europe. Experience has already shown that it is possible to join Europe's current movement towards unity only with a modern, civilized, democratic and stable society. This is how EDLP sees the future Estonia, and it is why EDLP is against all political steps that might endanger democracy, political and economic rights and freedoms, restrict a person's or society's free development, or endanger the stability and domestic peace. EDLP is categorically against all kind of extremism in the political sphere and is intolerant of discrimination aimed against political views. Without opposition there is no democracy. The majority may be right, but the minority has the right to its views, the right to express and protect those views freely—this is the firm conviction of the EDLP.

The vision of the Estonian Entrepreneurs’ Party (Eesti Ettevdtjate Erakond—EEE) of the main principles of developing Estonian society is first and foremost connected with the wish of the Estonian people to build a free and independent, democratic and individual-centered welfare state with an open economy and modern industrial structure. These principles are included in the EEE program and published according to the decision of the EEE board.