The World - News from March 15, 1989

Thousands of Russians and other non-Estonians marched in Tallinn and threatened a general strike if the Communist Party doesn’t stem Estonian nationalism and “creeping counterrevolution,” journalists in the republic’s capital said. State-owned Estonian Radio put the number of demonstrators at 30,000 while organizers claimed from 80,000 to 100,000, Finnish radio reported. The protest was organized by Interfront, a group dominated by ethnic Russians. The group claims that the 420,000 ethnic Russians in Estonia are victims of discrimination. Estonia’s Parliament voted to require non-Estonians who work with the public to learn Estonian in four years.