Stalin took full advantage of this situation. and had his henchmen resort to ruthless and barbaric methods to attain his goal. After these countries were occupied by the Red army. the Soviet authorities rounded up all those suspected of opposing communism in these countries and exiled them to the distant corners of the Soviet Union. Thenceforth there was no question of the sad fate of these Baltic peoples. whether living in their Sovietdominated homelands. or in exile In Asiatic Russia. Neither during the war years nor since has there been any appreciable change in the status of these Estonians. Latvians. and Lithuanians.