German forces to leave. The flag of Estonia was hoisted at the tower of Pikk Hermann, to be removed by the Soviets four days later. The Estonian Government in Exile served to carry the continuity of the Estonian state forward until 1992, when it handed its credentials over to the incoming President, Lennart Meri. Civilian refugees The delay of the Soviet advance allowed over 25,000 Estonians and 3,700 Swedes to flee to neutral Sweden and 6,000 Estonians to Finland. Thousands of refugees died on boats and ships sunk in the Baltic Sea. In September, 90,000 soldiers and 85,000 Estonian, Finnish and German refugees and Soviet prisoners of war were evacuated to Germany. The sole German cost of this evacuation was the loss of a steamboat. More German naval evacuations followed from Estonian ports, where up to 1,200 people were drowned in Soviet attacks. Soviet reoccupation Soviet rule of Estonia was re-established by force, and sovietisation followed, mostly carried out in 1944–1950. The forced collectivisation of agriculture began in 1947 and was completed after the deportation of 22,500 Estonians in March 1949. All private farms were confiscated and farmers were made to join the collective farms. Besides the armed resistance of the Forest Brothers, a number of underground nationalist schoolchildren groups were active. Most of their members were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The punitive actions decreased rapidly after Stalin's death in 1953; from 1956 to 1958, many of the deportees and political prisoners were allowed to return to Estonia. Political arrests and numerous other crimes against humanity were committed throughout the occupation period until the late 1980s. Nevertheless, the attempt to integrate Estonian society into the Soviet system failed. Although the armed resistance was defeated, the population remained anti-Soviet. This helped the Estonians to organise a new resistance movement in the late 1980s, regain their independence in 1991, and then rapidly develop a modern society. References and notes Footnotes References Further reading Narva Generalbezirk Estland Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic 1944 in Estonia