I just can't agree with a principle that says:

"it's wrong to discriminate linguistic minorities*"
*Except if the minority happen to be Russians, then it's ok, because it's ok to discriminate against them since we did not like the USSR.
That seems to be what some of you are saying!

Or are you saying that it is ok in general, to discriminate against linguistic minorities?
I.e.
Forget the Welsh, the Frisians, the Basque, the German speakers in Italy, the Swedish speakers in Finland etc... and force them to speak the majority language using any means possible!
Because that seems to be what you are proposing in the case of the Baltic Russians, in particular.

I don't think even the USSR - which you say you dislike - would have supported such a policy, at least not post Stalin.

So as for the Baltics: Now they are in the European UNION instead, where they have to learn English instead of Russian... Many cannot get a job and emigrate, many live in poverty and they had a currency crisis and big unemployment. Their countries are used as a location for cheap manufacturing within the borders of the EU.

It's nice that they are happy with the current situation, I hope things will improve fast and I am glad to have them in the EU, but if you look at it objectively there are some big parallells between then and now.. The Baltic states were definitely not rolling in any wealth prior to the War and Soviet annexation - it was a similar situation to Finland. With this I am not saying I approve of the Soviet annexation, I don't. But there are two sides to this and I always disliked a one sided super-biaised view of things.

In the case of Finland - they had an absolute crap time of it until about 1980s. I wouldn't say it was much better than the Baltics. Whole villages and large parts of society were forced to emigrate to support themselves, this never happened in the Baltics, until recently. The situation in Finland had nothing to do with the USSR, they were just poor, with no major natural resources etc in a neglected and unglamorous part of Europe. Luckily things have improved a lot during the last 25 years.

I know this sounds terrible but I wish the Baltic people would stop their victim mentality and look to the future. If they want to be Europeans in the EU, then behave like it! Leave the past where it belongs and move on! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Being bilingual with Russian will eventually turn out to be a huge advantage - if they don't take it someone else will.