Yestonians was the derogatory epithet for Estonians

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...

 brought from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 to Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 to staff the political structures of the Soviet Estonia with loyal cadre. The term is related to the heavy Russian accent of these people, for many of whom their mother language was second language

Second language

A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....

  Specifically, the correct Estonian words for "Estonians" are eestlased, eestlane, and the term derides the Russian accent

Accent (linguistics)

In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...

 for the first vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

 of the word Eesti (Estonia) as in the word "yes", rather than similar to the one in "end

End

End or Ending may refer to:*End *In mathematics:**End **End *End *End, a division of play in the sports of curling and target archery*End key on a modern computer keyboard...

."

As Mart Laar

Mart Laar

Mart Laar is an Estonian statesman, historian and a founding member of the Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes. He was the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002, and is the leader of the conservative party Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica...

 wrote, in 1946 the Communist Party of Estonia

Communist Party of Estonia

Communist Party of Estonia was a political party in Estonia.EKP was formed November 5, 1920, as the Central Committee of the Estonian Sections of the Russian Communist Party was separated from its mother party. During the first half of 1920s the hopes to an immediate world revolution were still...

 comprised 52% Russians

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

, 27% of local Estonians and 21% of "Yestonians". Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 distrusted local communists, and by 1952 the upper echelons of CPE had eventually become occupied by Russians and Yestonians. During the Khrushchev Thaw

Khrushchev Thaw

The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...

 the number of ethnic Estonians in CPE gradually increased, especially in lower echelons, but still in 1966, the CPE Central Committee

Central Committee

Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...

 had only about 27% of local Estonians.

Another demographic distinction between native and "Russian" Estonians was age. In hopes for gaining more autonomy within the Soviet Union, around 1956 many young Estonians joined CPE, while Yestonians were mostly of older generation.

While some of them tried to re-acculturize, such as Ivan Kebin, who renamed himself to Johannes Käbin

Johannes Käbin

Johannes Käbin was an Soviet politician who led the Estonian Communist Party from 1950 to 1978. He was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1978 to 1983. Initially a hardline Stalinist, he gradually became more moderate in the post-Stalin era...

and notably improved his command of Estonian, most others remained Russian by culture and language.