The First World War and the revolutions in Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, as a result of which the three empires collapsed, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of national movements in China, India and a few other countries all led to fundamental socio-political changes around the world.1 Their effect was particularly dramatic for Central and Eastern Europe, where a group of new states emerged. Their progress towards independence was spurred by certain external factors such as the Soviet government's first decrees (the Decree on Peace, and the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia) and 'The Fourteen Points' of US President Woodrow Wilson. The Decree made the claim for peace without annexations and contributions2 and the Declaration proclaimed the rights of nations to self-determination until separation and the creation of an independent state3. The purpose of the Bolsheviks was to destabilise the capitalist system and create more favourable conditions for the triumph of the socialist revolution. Moreover, Vladimir Lenin put the interests of the socialist republic above the right of nations to self-determination.4 Meanwhile, 'The Fourteen Points' focused primarily, though not exclusively, on Europe and comprised quite specific propositions.5 The assumption was that their implementation would facilitate the spread of democracy and free trade around the world and keep Bolshevism at bay. Yet, despite their differences, Soviet Russia, and the USA both drew on the premise of the right of nations to self-determination, including the right to secession. This was turning the right to self-determination into one of the basic principles of world politics. The 1919 Peace Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties signed at the Paris Peace Conference only partially resolved the outstanding problems of the post-war world order - the global economy was still in decline, domestic political struggles in most countries intensified exponentially, the amount of German reparations was not determined, and newly emerged states were set against great powers, as well as against each other.6 It would take a few more years to attain relative stability, during which time a number of new treaties were concluded. Among these, the Soviet-Estonian Peace Treaty signed in Tartu on 2 February 1920 took pride of place as the first peace treaty between a socialist power and a small capitalist state. Unlike the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty of 1918, when the German Empire and its allies could dictate their conditions to Soviet Russia, this time the Soviet government could demonstrate just how far it was willing to go in the realisation of the right of nations to self-determination. The recognition of Finnish independence in December of 1917 was not a precedent either because at that stage, the Bolsheviks were sure of the quick victory of socialist revolution, although the German position on Finland at the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk also influenced the Soviet government's decision.7 Both Soviet and Russian academic literature on the Tartu Peace Treaty and the consequent Soviet-Estonian relations is far from extensive. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was a question of propaganda rather than genuine research. For several decades afterwards, the topic was either silenced or mostly reduced to meaningless vacuities. Thus, in all the official publications on the history of the Communist Party - from Stalin's History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Short Course8 (1938) to the multivolume History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1986), these questions were not mentioned at all.9 The multivolume History of the USSR (1967) stated that the borders established by the treaties of 1920-1921 were 'largely in violation of long-standing territorial homogeneity', whereas 'the transient victory of the bourgeoisie in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had cut the republics off from the other republics of the Soviet country'.10 Only the History of Foreign Policy of the USSR described the 1920 treaty with Estonia as 'a solid victory for the Soviet state's foreign policy'.11 From the 1960s through the 1980s, similar judgements were commonly made in publications dedicated to the initial steps of Soviet diplomacy on the international stage. What made Soviet literature distinct was that developments in Estonia and the Tartu Peace Treaty were treated solely in the context of the Civil War and foreign intervention in the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, while the national ambitions of the Estonian people were practically never mentioned. In the post-communist years, Russian research experienced a major shakeup, affecting the study of those subjects as well. The number of scholars studying Estonia and its relations with the USSR and Russia increased. As a result of the release of new documents and the partial opening of archives, the source base expanded considerably and contacts with Estonian and other international researchers were established. The monopoly of Marxist-Leninist methods of approaching social sciences eroded, giving way to elements of pluralism of opinion. Yet, the differences between Russian scholars and their Western counterparts continued to run along the lines of political views rather than theoretical or methodological approaches. Currently, three main trends can be loosely identified. The first one encompasses those who entirely condone Soviet policy towards Estonia, using a wide range of arguments from the Soviet era. The second consists of a large number of scholars who are generally sympathetic towards Soviet policy, however, they employ a completely different set of arguments emphasising raison d'etat as they understand it. Finally, a few scholars are critical of Soviet policy, agreeing partially or in full with the views of international and particularly Estonian scholars. Obviously, these trends are still in their formative stages, hence no clear lines can be drawn between them. The research problem studied in this paper is to demonstrate the significance of the Tartu Peace Treaty of February, 1920 as a case of mutually beneficial compromise between a great power and a small country with antagonistic social-political systems, and the importance of this methodology for attempts to find Russian-Estonian reconciliations in this century.