2
Daina Bleiere
The Soviet Union was governed by an ‘imperial’ system with a strictly centralized administration. The official ethno-federal system put some strain on this imperial model, and they were in constant conflict with each other. Moscow tried to solve the tensions by different means: repression, bureaucratic control, negotiation, and taking into account the national traditions and sensitivities of the local nomenklaturas. Often, all these strategies were used simultaneously.
Therefore, the nomenklatura in the republics was in a dual position. On the one hand, it had to be the All-Union guardian, i.e., of imperial interests. On the other, it had to legitimate itself in the eyes of the local population. In Russia, the legitimacy of the Soviet nomenklatura was based on imperial foundations, and on the pride for the Soviet Union as an emanation of Russia, which was a world superpower. The nomenklatura referred to itself as the guarantor of the country’s greatness. In the national republics, and especially in the Baltic republics, this kind of appeal to imperial greatness did not work. The majority of the local population was still of the opinion that their incorporation into the Soviet Union was a result of military occupation and subsequent annexation, and not by consent of the population. The occupation power and Russia, occupiers and Russians, were perceived synonymously. Due to the occupation, communist/Soviet ideology was perceived as tightly knitted with the Russian/Soviet imperial project, and similarly Sovietization and Russification.
The leaderships of the Baltic republics were aware of the too narrow political and social basis of Soviet power. In part, this fragility was due to unwillingness of the local population to cooperate, but also in part due to class, and to ideological and political barriers established by Soviet authorities, especially in Stalin’s time, but also afterwards. Therefore, Soviet leaders were at least somewhat ready to make some compromises with society. Moscow was constantly suspicious of the tendencies of the republican leaderships to put local interests first – ‘localism’ or what Saulius Grybkauskas in Chapter 6 of this book calls ‘particularism’ – or even to support some kind of separatist disposition, especially in the last to be annexed Baltic republics. Thus, the republican leadership had to play on two levels simultaneously. It had to take into account the disposition of the local population, and to demonstrate its loyalty to Moscow. To find ways to harmonize legitimacy bestowed by Moscow with legitimacy earned from the local population and the titular nation of the republic, proved to be a complicated balancing act. Discontent among the local nomenklatura was not only created by distrust, but also by the fact that republican interests and needs, as well as local conditions, were constantly ignored by Moscow. The already very weak legitimacy of the Soviet power in the Baltic republics was systematically impaired by the Stalinist model of Sovietization based on mass repressions, the politics of Soviet industrialization, and collectivization. The ability and the willingness of the republican Party elites to manage to combine these goals successfully, depended on different factors, which, despite the apparent similarity of developments in Estonia (see Chapter 9), Latvia, and Lithuania (see Chapter 6), worked differently in each republic.
This chapter is devoted to understanding how the internal divisions within the nomenklatura in Soviet Latvia developed along ethnic lines, affecting the triangular relationship of governance between Moscow, the Communist Party of Latvia (LCP), and the Latvian intelligentsia during the post-Stalin years. Cleavages within the republican nomenklatura arose already in the early post-WWII years, but widened and hardened through the far-reaching purge of the Latvian national communists that began in 1959. This purge caused a deep and lasting trauma within the ethnic Latvian nomenklatura, and to the wider Latvian society, especially the intelligentsia. This trauma was never acknowledged in the official Soviet Latvian discourse, but the embedded problems between the national communists and their adversaries did not disappear over time, and resurfaced as an important part of the public debate during perestroika.
Legitimacy and imperial loyalty – cleavages created by path dependency
After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in June 1940, there were too few local communists to fill all the positions in the Party and in the administrative and security apparatuses. Moreover, local communists often did not know how the Soviet system worked, and did not command the necessary, specific administrative skills. Therefore, the process of Sovietization was carried out by the nomenklatura sent by Moscow from the ‘older’ Soviet republics. Some were ethnically members of the titular nationality of each Baltic republic (people who after the establishment of the independent Baltic countries in 1918 decided to remain in the Soviet Union or descendants of the Baltic settlers who moved to Russia before the Revolution). A substantial part, however, were for example, Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians. Ethnically Latvian functionaries who were born or spent their upbringing in Russia, soon rose to the highest positions in the republican leadership, as secretaries of the LCP, the Central committee (CC), people’s commissars (ministers), or heads of departments.
The formation of the republican nomenklatura based on an influx of officials from the rest of the USSR, continued after the return of Soviets to Latvia in autumn 1944. Many of the pre-war local communists who had fought in the Soviet Army had been killed. Latvians who had lived under German occupation were not trusted by the Soviet authorities, believed to be indoctrinated by ‘bourgeois’ attitudes. In the first post-war years, their recruitment to the Communist Party as well as engagement in the nomenklatura was thus very limited. The nomenklatura of the Latvian SSR was instead formed by three other groups: Local people who evacuated to the Soviet rear in 1941, and Latvians and non-Latvians from Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union. Non-Latvians were the dominant group in the first post-war years. On 1 January 1946, for example, ethnic Latvians made up only 32.1% of the members of the LCP (Bleiere, 2015, p. 64). By 1 January 1953, on all administrative levels – the Republican level, in cities, and districts – ethnic Latvians in executive positions had increased considerably, to 46.6% (Bleiere, 2015, p. 61).
After Stalin’s death in March 1953, some measures of liberalization of the Soviet regime opened up a rather narrow window for the Latvian nomenklatura to make some concessions to the feelings of the titular nation. Therefore, the influx of local Latvians into the nomenklatura intensified in mid 1950s, when the importance of the right social background, and of past suspect activities by an individual or their family members eased. The aim was to establish some kind of social contract. The leadership’s right to power was legitimized by its implicit promise to society to procure decent living standards and to covertly resist open Russification in education and the cultural sphere (Anušauskas, 2005, pp. 424–425; Grybkauskas and Tamošaitis, 2018, pp. 50–51; Kuusik et al., 2002, p. 694). These policies started in the mid 1950s, although their effects became more evident in the 1970s and 1980s. Even so, potential nomenklatura officials continued to be scrutinized thoroughly, and attempts to hide ‘black spots’ in their biographies could be used to stop what appeared to be promising careers.
Similar policies as in Latvia were adopted by the Estonian and Lithuanian leaderships, and in those republics measures to increase the proportion of the titular nationality in the republican Party organization and strengthen their position in the nomenklatura proved to be quite successful. In Latvia, however, developments took a different turn. In June–July 1959, the LCP’s attempt to establish a ‘social contract’ with the Latvian population was brutishly suspended. It was the result of both the path dependent processes developing since 1940, which increased ethnic tensions within the nomenklatura, and of the specific situation of Latvia among the three Baltic republics. Latvia experienced greater and more extensive industrial development than the others, which demanded large injections of labour, arriving in the republic from other Soviet ones, mostly from war-torn regions of Russia and Belarus. Social infrastructure (public transport, provision of housing, communal services, etc.) developed very slowly in the 1940s and 1950s, and in fact relied on pre-war (pre-Soviet) infrastructure. If the living conditions in Latvian cities seemed to be tolerable for migrants, the local population experienced a perceptible worsening of their living standards and situation. Additional pressure on the social infrastructure was created by the presence of sizeable number of Soviet troops.
If in Estonia the expansion of industries was mostly limited to Tallinn and the north-east of the country (Narva, Kohtla-Järve), in Latvia it embraced all larger cities – Riga, Jelgava, Daugavpils, and Liepāja – it was spread across the republic. According to demographers’ calculations, more than 400,000 people arrived between 1945 and 1959. Immigration was most intensive in the first post-war years, but from 1951–1991 the population of Latvia increased by 708,000 due to migration. The percentage of Latvians in the republic consistently decreased, from almost 80% prior to World War II to 52% in 1989 (Eglīte and Mežs, 2002, pp. 417, 422).
Soviet propaganda maintained that due to Soviet power and the ‘brotherly assistance’ of the other republics, Latvia had been turned from a poor agrarian country into a developed industrialized economy. That the rapid socialist industrialization of Latvia was possible only because of a pre-existing comparatively developed industrial base and infrastructure, and that Soviet industrialization had created many social, infrastructural, and ecological problems, was passed over in silence.
Industrial workers and ex-military servicemen served as the main source of replenishment of the LCP’s ranks and, as a consequence, also of the nomenklatura’s ranks, especially in the cities. Already in the first post-war years, the practice by which local Latvians could only hold positions in the provincial district level nomenklatura and in the cultural and educational establishments, started to develop (Apine, 1994). At the same time, Latvians were consistently pushed out of industries of strategic importance (railways, sea transport, large industrial enterprises).
The Latvian population blamed the worsening of social conditions on the republic’s leadership, which until the mid 1950s could do almost nothing to improve the situation because most of the industrial enterprises and the military were directly subordinate to Moscow. The republican nomenklatura, especially people with a local background, were well aware that the recognition of the legitimacy of Soviet power among the local population was rather low. It could only be increased by the visible improvement of the well-being of Latvians under the Soviets. The realization that the foundations of Soviet power in the minds of the local population were rather shaky became very acute when uprisings shook Poland and Hungary in 1956. Any attempt to tackle the serious problems of the local Latvian population (language politics, housing, curbing of immigration, etc.) inevitably endangered the interests of recent immigrants and military personnel. Even mild attempts to improve the positions of Latvians by the nomenklatura met with fierce opposition.
Apart from the scale of industrialization and immigration, the situation in Latvia differed from Estonia and Lithuania in another important aspect: the persistence of differing ideologies along ethnic cleavages within the republican leadership. Although local Latvians in general were not trusted, there was one group which was considered as the embodiment of really Soviet Latvian. In the mid 1950s, this group of comparatively young functionaries were promoted to top offices, to the LCP CC Bureau. They had in common their impeccable underground communist or Komsomol (Communist Youth League) membership before 1940, and their wartime records, as well as their local background. These people – among them Eduards Berklavs, Indriķis Pinksis, and Vilis Krūmiņš – formed the core of the Latvian national communists. They were more susceptible to public opinion and at the same time ready to support Khrushchev’s limited liberalization of the Centre-republics relations. They met fierce, although covert resistance, from conservative Stalinist functionaries, who constituted around half of the Bureau’s membership from 1958–1959. Although some older members of the leadership, for example the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vilis Lācis, to some extent sympathized with the younger generation’s ideas, their support was cautious. The differences between the two groups in the nomenklatura would not have grown into open confrontation if the Latvian First Secretary had a strong hand, but in the turbulent situation of Khrushchev’s rule, Jānis Kalnbērziņš instead preferred to balance between the two sides in the Bureau. The lack of a strong leader, who could defend the Latvian leadership’s policies before CPSU CC, had far-reaching negative consequences for the Latvian SSR.
The critical juncture of 1959
After Stalin’s death, changes in Party policy during the brief period of Lavrenty Beria’s initiatives (April–June 1953), before his execution, boosted hopes that the republican administration would have more freedom to solve its problems. After the 20th Party Congress in February 1956, such hopes further increased. The most resolute defender of the enlargement of republican rights was Eduards Berklavs, who between 1956 and 1959 was the First Secretary of the Riga City Party Committee (gorkom) and a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was also, and importantly, a member of the LCP Bureau. In this capacity, he influenced decisions taken by this, the de facto highest decision-making body of the Republic.
Berklavs was not the only one with such expectations – a majority of the republican leadership was in favour of widening republican prerogatives. There was no consistent vision, however, of what form that should take, and no ‘list of demands’ to Moscow on this topic existed. The republican leadership’s attitude was pragmatic and reactive. Probably, Berklavs was one of the few who had a clear idea of what should be done: stopping the discrimination against the Latvian language and of ethnic Latvians in administrative positions. During his studies at the Higher Party School in Moscow from 1948–1951, Berklavs thoroughly studied Lenin’s works, and developed the opinion that Soviet nationality policy in Latvia did not conform to Lenin’s principles. He was a resolute person (short of authoritarian), and managed to push forward some decisions that were important from his point of view to rectify these disparities. His proposals met with support among the majority of Latvians, and were approved of by most of the republic’s leadership – for example, a decision that obliged the people working in the State administration and service sector to learn the Latvian language. He also pushed for limitations on immigration to Riga (and the seaside resort town of Jūrmala, which then was a district of Riga). ‘Latvianization’ of the Party and the administrative apparatus began, although not very decisively. Instead, an increase of the proportion of Latvians was more visible at the midlevel of the Party apparatus. Among the cities’ and district first secretaries, the share of ethnic Latvians grew from 69.6% in 1957 to 80.4% in 1959, and among second secretaries of these bodies, from 53.6% to 67.9%; the figure for other secretaries, was an increase from 51.8% to 64.3% (Bleiere, 2017, p. 89).
In memoirs that were mixed with lengthy excerpts from documents (as well as in some other publications in 1980s and 1990s), Berklavs (1998) presented his activities as purposeful action, which involved placing trusted people in the right places and thereby forming his own group within the leadership. Indeed, Berklavs as a Central Committee Bureau member had a say with regard to the staffing of important positions, and it was quite normal behaviour for a Soviet functionary to try to promote ‘his’ people. His claim, however, that he already developed anti-communist views in the 1950s and intended to erode Soviet power from the ‘inside’ seems exaggerated. His diaries from the period when he was in de facto exile in Vladimir in Russia demonstrate that at least in 1962 he still was a communist-idealist.1 His anti-communist posture developed gradually during his stay in Vladimir and his fight for right to return to Latvia.
Considering the LCP’s ethnic composition, in which Latvians were never in a majority (the highest figure was 39.8% in 1985), the position of the national communists in the nomenklatura was rather shaky.2 The national communists did have some serious influence in the Latvian leadership for a rather short period, from January 1958 to July 1959, or, generously interpreted, from 1956. The liberalization of the Centre-republican relations and the general softening of the political regime helped to increase self-assurance of the local nomenklatura. The process was rather slow, but it resulted in more free discussions at the 15th Congress of the LCP in January 1958, as well as on the de facto ousting of Moscow representative Filipp Kashnikov from the post of the Second secretary (see below). Self-confidence of the local functionaries was boosted also by personnel appointments of 1958, which increased the influence of more flexible and locally-minded people in the republican leadership. After some deliberation, V. Krūmiņš was appointed to the post of Second secretary of the LCP. I. Pinksis became new head of the trade unions and a candidate member of the CC Bureau, Voldemārs Kalpiņš became minister of culture, but Vladislavs Ruskulis – head of Komsomol. Local nomenklatura actions and hopes fell under the influence of the signals Moscow transmitted to the republics about expanding the rights of the national republics and the administrative regions, especially in the field of economics. Unfortunately, Moscow was in search of the right model for relations with the republics, and the signals were often contradictory and misleading. Finally, anxiety about possible separatist tendencies in the republics prevailed. Some wavering between the national-accommodative and the more totalitarian models persisted for the entirety of Khrushchev’s reign. In parallel with periods of more or less liberalizing politics, there were policies with regard to particular spheres of life (culture, the economy, etc.) where these waves did not coincide.
The ideology of the national communists in 1959 did not differ much from LCP Secretary for Propaganda and Agitation Arvīds Pelše (see below) and his supporters, although their recipes for the preserving of the Soviet Union differed significantly. Berklavs’ transformation from communist into radical nationalist in the 1980s was the exchange of one ideology for another. The culture minister between 1958 and 1962, Voldemārs Kalpiņš, who was Berklavs’ contemporary and a man who, probably even more than Berklavs, deserves the epithet of national communist, wrote in his diary in 1993 (some parts of it have been published):
We knew long ago that everything is bad. We turned against the flooding of Latvia with Russians not because of Russophobia. We understood that if things will continue this way, the Soviet Union as such could be destroyed. […] We defended the rights of the Latvian nation for a valuable life not in order to get rid of Soviet power, but in order to preserve it, to mould a new, more human face for it
(Bērsons, 2011, p. 367).
The ideas of the national communists were an expression of their understanding that the Soviet regime had not fulfilled its promises and that the opinion and interests of the titular nation should be taken into account. It was precisely this idea, which was behind Berklavs’ article ‘Conversation from the Heart’ (Saruna no sirds) published in the newspaper Rīgas Balss (Voice of Riga) on 25 February 1959 and in the newspaper Padomju Jaunatne (Soviet Youth) on 27 February 1959. His idea was that honest people (and Latvians in particular) had to join the Party and Komsomol. He rather cautiously mentioned reasons why people were hesitant, including that some mistakes had been made in the past, or that not all communists and Komsomol members as well as functionaries could serve as role models. Berklavs noted that people still had some doubts about the prospects for the survival of the Soviet regime in Latvia, which he discarded with arguments that Marxism-Leninism was the most scientific and victorious ideology, and that membership in the Party or Komsomol was the proper place for honest people who want to make life better. After the article was published, the CPSU CC Propaganda and Agitation Department Head Leonid Ilyichev and the Newspapers’ Section Head S. Shatskov informed Piotr Pigalev, the First Deputy Head of the Department of Party Organs for the Soviet Republics, that the article was ‘politically mistaken and harmful’ – the author had admitted that the best people do not want to join the Party (Šneidere, 2009, pp. 128–129).
The same day functionaries from the Department of Party Organs informed CPSU CC Secretary Aleksei Kirichenko that the article contradicted the principle of individual candidacy and that it called for ‘speeding up the admittance of representatives of Latvian nationality to the CPSU’ (Šneidere, 2009, p. 130). Moscow demanded that the article should be discussed at the LCP Bureau meeting on 14 April 1959 where Berklavs was reprimanded, although rather mildly. In general, it seems that the attempt to appeal directly to society was not appreciated by Moscow or by Berklavs’ closer colleagues. It should be mentioned that Berklavs’ article had previously been declined by the Party newspaper Cīņa (Struggle). Perhaps, its editor-in-chief Pāvels Pizāns fully understood that Berklavs’ arguments were rather controversial from the point of view of the Party’s ideology.
Berklavs’ attempt to appeal directly to the population by mentioning, although with due diligence, what people really thought about the Party, was rather an unusual enterprise. Those in the Latvian leadership with national communist inclinations tried to take into account the public mood, but they did not want to enter into a direct dialogue with society. This was demonstrated explicitly also by the discussion about the building of the Pļaviņas hydroelectric power station that started in 1958. A group of prominent members of the cultural and scientific establishment turned to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vilis Lācis, and declared that this project would be harmful for the most beautiful part of the river Daugava valley, which was rich in cultural significance. Their petition was successful to some extent, and discussion on changing some of the parameters of the project was initiated by the Council of Ministers. When the general public started to petition to halt the project, however, the republican KGB resolutely terminated the communication ‘by administrative means’ (Mintaurs, 2013, p. 70).
The Soviet nomenklatura was not used to dialogue with society, and the Latvian national communists were no exception in this regard. They also felt that attempts to start such a dialogue could potentially have disastrous consequences because the foundations of the Soviet project in Latvia were too shaky. Vilis Lācis mentioned at a meeting with Khrushchev at the CPSU Presidium on 1 July 1959, that the uprising in Hungary in 1956 ‘kicked up a lot of dust’, especially among the Latvian intelligentsia and youth. Nationalist elements started to threaten that if something of this kind happened in Latvia ‘we will hang [you], we will shoot [you]’, and some repression was needed to calm the situation (Fursenko, 2004, p. 374).
In general, politics and processes in Latvia between 1956 and 1959 did not differ much from those in Estonia and Lithuania. What was different and led to the 1959–1962 purges in Latvia, was not so much actions as the discourse and communication with Moscow, as well as the internal split and power struggle within the Latvian leadership (Prigge, 2015). It is true that Khrushchev was not interested in widespread purges and open scandal. On 1 July 1959, at the Presidium meeting when the Latvian situation was discussed, Khrushchev was rather conciliatory, and stated that ‘people who participated in making errors should mend them’. He referred to the possible negative reactions abroad if punitive action was taken (Fursenko, 2004, p. 380). He was referring to the impact of changes in the leadership in Latvia by bringing to the forefront problems of the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states. Khrushchev still approved, however, of the removal of the top leadership in Latvia, and it was inevitable that some kind of purges would follow. There was double-talk, typical for the Soviet leadership in cases of cadre changes. Moreover, the CPSU CC Apparatus thoroughly followed developments in the Latvian leadership and they contributed greatly to the development of the situation that led the Latvian problem to be considered by Khrushchev. The internal struggle for power could only be resolved by Khrushchev, and, indeed, the CPSU CC Apparatus, responsible for the oversight over Latvia, worked hard to obtain his permission for changes in the Latvian leadership. The CPSU CC Apparatus had reasons for this. The most important one was probably the removal of the LCP CC Second Secretary F. Kashnikov in January 1958, when almost a third of the delegates to the 15th LCP Congress voted against him. This was an unprecedented insult to the CPSU CC Apparatus and probably the only case when a person appointed to the position of the Second Secretary was so openly rejected by a republican party organization. Furthermore, complaints from the military, industrial managers, and nomenklatura members to Moscow about language and immigration policies also played a role in the CPSU CC’s efforts to replace Latvian top Communists.
The main problem of the Latvian leadership in 1959 was that it was internally split on many issues: on the necessity and the course of reforms, on attitudes towards society, for example, to be more liberal or more repressive, and on the evaluation of both Stalin’s politics and the subsequent policies of Khrushchev. Besides, the national communists in June–July 1959 and afterwards explicitly demonstrated that they did not have any common idea or foundation. They did not defend each other, on the contrary, the majority tried to save themselves at the expense of others. Arvīds Pelše, LCP CC Secretary for Propaganda from 1941 and a dogmatic Communist, managed to convince Moscow that he would be able to overcome the discord. Pelše’s associates acted in a coordinated way, and it seems that their roles and statements were previously concerted, whereas the other side was disconcerted. Pelše, in contrast to the national communists had a ‘structure, friends, allies and strategy’ (Kruks, 2007) in Latvia as well as in Moscow.
Pelše fulfilled his task well, using direct repression against people who were suspected of ‘nationalist inclinations’ and liberalism, as well as removing unreliable people from offices under different pretexts. Thus, there was not always a clear reason why a particular person was punished in an especially harsh way – a certain arbitrariness prevailed. Considering that Moscow did not wanted visible purges, punishments were carried out in stages. Second secretary Vilis Krūmiņš, for example, was removed from his post in February 1960 and appointed Minister of Education. In December 1961, however, on the pretext of making ‘nationalistic mistakes’, he was removed from this post and instead became Director of the Natural History Museum: a non-nomenklatura position and humiliating demotion. Yet, his fate was not too bad, because in many cases punishments were much harsher. Repressions achieved the intended result: there were no more dissident voices in the leadership.
Unity of the leadership became the main slogan and the first legacy of the purge. Probably, it was demanded by Moscow and this demand was sometimes displayed in an almost absurd fashion. Thus, in September 1960, opinions divided in discussions about the expulsion of a Party functionary. The Moscow appointee, Second Secretary Mikhail Gribkov, who led the discussion, pressed Chairman of the Council of Ministers Jānis Peive and his first deputy Matīss Plūdonis to change their opinion. One of the arguments Gribkov used was that on principal questions, there should not be different opinions among the Bureau members.3
The second important legacy of the 1959 purges of the national communists was the advancement of Russian-speakers and Latvians and their descendants from Russia in the nomenklatura, and especially in the top echelon. From 1959–1988, all first secretaries of the LCP CC were of this origin. CC secretaries were also mostly chosen from this group (except the second secretaries, who were sent from Moscow) (Grybkauskas, 2021). After the purges of the national communists and until the split of the LCP in April 1990, sixteen people filled these offices. Two were Russians, five were of local Latvian origin, and nine were Latvians from Russia. In the higher offices of the administration, the situation was the same. The Latvians from Russia were considered to be more loyal to Moscow than Latvians from Latvia.
If there ever was a ‘Soviet man’, some examples could be found among the Latvians from Russia that populated the Party structures after 1959, such as Boris Pugo, who was LCP CC First Secretary between 1984 and 1988. He was born in Kalinin (Tver) in Russia in 1937. His family returned to Latvia in 1940. His father Kārlis Pugo worked in the Riga gorkom. After the war, the family once again returned to Latvia in 1948. Although he spent almost all his life in Latvia and both his parents were ethnic Latvians, the family language was Russian, which was rather common among Latvians in the Soviet Union who due to the Great terror of 1937–1938 wanted their children to integrate into the Russian milieu as much as possible. Boris Pugo thus spoke very little Latvian, and during his entire career his cultural interests were oriented towards Moscow, not Riga. Pugo’s political career started in 1961, when he became Komsomol secretary of a large industrial enterprise. His climb up the Komsomol career ladder was swift, and in 1963 he started to work in the Komsomol CC apparatus in Moscow. Five years later he returned to the Riga gorkom, and in 1969 became First Secretary of the Latvian Komsomol. Shortly thereafter, Pugo went to Moscow to work as a Komsomol CC Secretary and afterwards as a CPSU CC inspector, thus at the centre of political power. After a few years at Party headquarters, in 1976, Pugo was transferred to the KGB, and in 1980 became Chairman of the KGB in the Latvian SSR. In 1984, he was chosen as the new LCP CC First Secretary.
Pugo’s career was not quite typical because he rose to the highest offices very rapidly, which could be ascribed to his personal merits as well as to his family background. It was, however, typical in the sense that it displayed the crucial role played by having good connections in Moscow. It is difficult to say if he harboured any particular interest or even knowledge of Latvia and its problems, but probably he as well as other Latvians from Russia who reached the top layers of the Soviet Latvian elite, did not consider their remoteness from Latvian society as a problem.
After 1959, there was one more development that had long-term consequences and should be considered a legacy of the purge: partly as a consequence of Pelše’s rise to power, the ideological apparatus gained the upper hand in the nomenklatura. As the long-term ideological secretary of the LCP, Pelše’s main ideological asset was his writings attacking ‘bourgeois nationalism’. In 1949, he contributed greatly to the struggle against cosmopolitism in Latvian culture. Although comparatively well informed about cultural life, Pelše was himself a conservative Stalinist. After the purge started in July 1959, he begun a resolute struggle against any manifestations of liberalism in the cultural field. Editors-in-chief of all the main Latvian language newspapers and magazines were removed and replaced. Moreover, due to Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign, one of main directions of Pelše’s efforts was eradication of any ‘remnants of the past’ as regards folklore and culture. One of his most notorious efforts was the unofficial ban on Midsummer Night celebrations (Jāņi, Līgo svētki) – the most popular Latvian festivity – as a display of heathen tendencies. As a consequence of Pelše’s fundamentalist attitudes, almost any scholarly research on spiritual culture in folklore and ethnology, as well as on German culture in Latvia became impossible. The history of Latvia and the development of Latvian culture could be researched only within the narrow ideological confines of class struggle. Pelše was also behind the reprisals against economist Pauls Dzērve, who was hated by the Stalinists as the ideologue of the national communists. In 1966, Pelše was elevated to Politburo membership in Moscow and moved there. That came as a relief to the intelligentsia but his influence on Latvia’s ideological life continued until his death in the early 1980s.
Pelše’s successor as First Secretary, Augusts Voss, had a career behind him within the LCP CC in positions that also involved supervision of the intelligentsia and with ideology. Voss’ recipe for internal stability in the republic was ‘socialist internationalism’ and ‘Soviet patriotism’. In actuality, it meant a tacit implementation of the politics of further socialist industrialization of the republic, which inevitably led to an increase of the immigrant workforce from other republics and subsequent changes in the ethnic composition of the Latvian SSR, manifested in the decrease of the proportion of Latvians. This kind of politics was not Voss’ invention; it was promoted by Moscow, particularly through the office of the second secretaries.
For many years, the republican leadership boasted about the successes of industry, while agriculture was comparatively neglected. Voss was not the only who should be blamed for this situation. Nikolai Belukha, the Second secretary from 1963 to 1978, also supported the development of industry in Latvia at the expense of the agrarian sector (Grybkauskas, 2021, p. 11). In this, he was in full agreement with the entire republican leadership, although his arguments were not ideological, such as referring to proletarian internationalism or brotherly help, but technocratic and based on the priority of the interests of the entire Soviet Union. Although the justification for the pro-industrial course could be grounded in different motives, there was a unified opinion among the top leadership that it should be prioritized because industrial success much more than agricultural development proved that the republican leadership was doing well according to Soviet priorities, although there were some differences over which branches of industry to support. Belukha was also aware of the necessity to fight against any expressions of ‘nationalism’. It could be that a situation in which all the larger industrial centres were dominated mostly by non-Latvians with Latvians mostly concentrated in the agrarian sector was considered by the Soviet leadership to be profitable from the point of view of political stability. The loyalty of the majority of the Russian-speaking managers of industry, as well as the workforce, to the All-Union values and the needs of the entire USSR was not questioned. Thus, Moscow ensured its ideological control over the most important sectors of the economy.
It would be an exaggeration to say that no differences existed in the top leadership of Latvia about the right course of the development of the republic’s economy or the consequences of attracting a workforce from outside, but people who were deemed to be not entirely supportive of the ‘right’ course were sidelined. One such example is Pēteris Strautmanis, who supported Pelše in the removal of the national communists, although his own biography and views were close to them. He was rewarded for this as he became CC Secretary of Agriculture between 1960 and 1965, and from then until 1974 was the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In 1974, however, he was removed to the honourable, but less influential office of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, probably because of his inclination towards republican interests more than Moscow’s. Former LCP CC Second Secretary Vitalii Sobolev described Strautmanis as person with ‘some kind of nationalist mood’ (Grybkauskas, 2019, p. 173). Strautmanis, for example, had appealed for restrictions on the import of workers from outside the republic.
In general, because of the personal and careerist preferences of Pelše and Voss, ideology in Latvia was prioritized over the economy, and All-Union interests were prioritized over republican ones. Many functionaries in Latvia were, however, aware that this path lead to disadvantageous economic and political consequences. Hence, in the 1970s, it became evident that Latvia was gradually falling behind Estonia and Lithuania in terms of economic and social development. Yet, even moderate appeals to modify the policies in practice would be interpreted as tantamount to nationalism.
De-ideologization and technocratization
The unity of the nomenklatura in Latvia was necessary to get a grip on society at large and to prove to Moscow that the republic’s leadership had the ability to control the situation. The Latvian leadership in Pelše and Voss’ time was more repressive in many aspects than the leadership in either Estonia or Lithuania. There were, for example, no equivalents to the mass protests that took place in Lithuania in 1956 and 1972 and in a similar vein in Estonia in 1956 and at the end of 1970s. The attitude towards dissidents was very harsh, and their actions were closely watched. Moreover, Latvia experienced a more geographically disadvantageous situation than Estonia and Lithuania, who had more contacts from abroad because of Finnish tourists to Estonia, and the proximity of Poland to Lithuania. Latvia was instead locked in between its two neighbours, and bordered Russia and Belorussia. It is striking that no samizdat (illegal underground self-publishing) periodicals were published in Latvia, which occurred in almost every other Soviet republic. This, if anything, was an indicator of the silence of the intelligentsia and the fear that prevailed. A Helsinki Group (dissident human rights organization) started in 1976 in Lithuania, but it took until 1986 and the beginning of perestroika for that to happen in Latvia.
The ceaseless efforts to suppress any opposition voices shows that Latvian authorities were also more afraid than their neighbouring counterparts of the potential for things to get out of control. A typical expression of this fear was the refusal to host the sailing sport contests of the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, which instead was held in Tallinn in Estonia, probably because the KGB doubted its own ability to control such large numbers of foreigners coming to attend the Games. The politics of nomenklatura unity and keeping Latvia under Party control has already been mentioned as having been rewarded by Moscow by granting Pelše a position in the Politburo in 1966; uniquely so among for a representative of the ‘rebellious’ Baltic republics. In 1984, his successor Voss was given a post in the Centre as Chairman of the USSR Soviet of Nationalities. In contrast to Pelše’s position, however, this was rather an honorary office. Another difference between the two was that while Pelše managed to restore control in a situation when Moscow was afraid that it could be lost, Voss was in power for eighteen years when stability was mostly was taken for granted from the Centre after the period of the purges. During Voss’ rule, however, the dire consequences of the practice of ‘sweeping problems under the rug’ became visible and finally, in 1984, Moscow felt that Voss’ rule had led to Latvia’s economic stagnation.
Problems within the industrial sector had already started to become visible in the 1950s, and were behind Berklavs’ actions and his removal from office. In the 1970s, they became even more evident. Attempts to develop more labour-intensive production were only partially successful. Plans for industrial development were still based on the attraction of additional workers from other republics. Between 1971 and 1980, economic planners envisaged that 38.9% of the workforce necessary for the fulfilment of planned industrial production should be obtained from attracting workers from other Soviet republics (Krēgere, 1992, p. 140). If during Pelše’s rule, Latvia still was the first among the Baltic republics with regard to economic development, during Voss’ rule, the republic lost its former advantages and did not obtain new ones. It was especially painful in the agricultural sector, which had been a source of pride for the Latvian leadership in the 1950s in comparison with other Soviet republics, and where Latvia gradually lost ground to Lithuania and Estonia in productivity. Although growth rates of agricultural production, which were particularly low in 1976–1980, displayed some improvement in 1980s, Latvia continued to fall behind Estonia and Lithuania in productivity of dairy cows and in the production of grain (Goskomstat, 1991, pp. 471, 509). According to official statistics, growth rates in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s slowed across all the most important indices: production of national income, gross industrial production, and real income (Gosudarstvennii komitet Latviiskoi SSR, 1988, p. 22). In 1975, when Latvia’s proportion of the supply of the All-Union needs of milk and meat products were increased, the situation became catastrophic with regard to the supplies for the population of the republic. This situation made Voss even more unpopular in Latvia, of which Moscow was probably aware.
Moscow needed somebody younger, more dynamic to head the republic than Voss, and Pugo’s candidacy looked to be the best possible choice. Pugo could hardly be suspected of ‘nationalism’, or as Moscow defined it, the placing of the republic’s interests first and foremost. As the former Latvian SSR KGB Chairman, he was supposed to be competent enough to fight corruption within the nomenklatura, which was considered to be a growing problem. An anti-corruption campaign started, under the new CPSU General Secretary, Yuri Andropov (1982–1984), and continued after his death. Voss, in that context, was an embodiment of the Brezhnev era in Soviet politics, when it became routine for the nomenklatura to utilize their positions for personal benefit. In Latvia, corruption was not as bad as in Central Asia or some other regions of the USSR (see Chapter 4). To use one’s position for personal advantage, however, became so common that it almost was considered not to be a breach of regulations.
Despite the presentation of the nomenklatura’s unity, in reality lines of division within became more visible in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. One such line was between the nomenklatura of the rural districts and the industrial cities of Latvia. It was local Latvians who, based on their, (by Soviet standards) good education and managerial competence, started to replace district Party secretaries and the CC apparatus employees. Due to existing patterns of power and positions, however, they were mostly located in provincial/agrarian districts. If industrial districts of the capital of Latvia – Riga – were managed mostly by non-Latvians, the central district where most part of so-called creative unions (unions of Writers, Composers, Journalists etc.) as well as press and cultural establishments, required people able to find common language with Latvian intelligentsia, thus its Party and Komsomol structures were usually led by local Latvians. Some of them, for example, Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Imants Daudišs, and Mārīte Rukmane became active in the movement for restoration of national independence.
They represented a specific type of district level Party functionary, which developed in 1970s, for whom ideology was mostly a ‘smoke screen’ for solving practical problems and in this way show one’s usefulness for society. They applied in practise localism – or in Grybkauskas’ terminology particularism (see Chapter 6) – on the sub-republican level, thus establishing some kind of social contract with the local population.
Apart from other aspects of the manifestations of such localism, it meant that the Latvian nomenklatura became less ideologized and more technocratic. Time had passed since Stalin’s reign, and governance within the republics became more routine and ‘business as usual’ over time. It was a general trend across the Soviet Union, but in Latvia it helped shield the part of the nomenklatura that sought to live up to the needs and aspirations of the local population. Whereas the national communists had clear ideological motivations because they believed in the Soviet project and never questioned its main dogmas, the new nomenklatura was less committed in that respect. Sometimes they even took liberty in their own circle to make fun of propaganda discourse they used in their official speeches (Pētersone & Būmane, 2020, pp. 89–91). They were solving practical problems in order to make life better for the population in their respective sphere of responsibility.
A rather typical representative of this attitude was Jānis Vagris. On 7 October 1988, on the eve of the First Congress of the Popular Front of Latvia (Tautas Fronte), a giant demonstration of around 100,000 people was convened, the largest of its kind. It was televised and broadcasted on radio. Only three days earlier, Vagris had been elected as the LCP First Secretary, although public opinion was in favour of the much more popular Anatolijs Gorbunovs. The attitude towards Vagris at the demonstration was rather hostile. Vagris won applause, however, by saying sincerely: ‘I never did any harm to Latvian nation’ (Ķezbers, 1992, p. 4). This was the ‘ideology’ and the justification of many members of the nomenklatura of Vagris’ generation.
Perestroika and the national awakening: the Central Committee's balancing act
Suppressed differences within the nomenklatura started to surface quite early at the start of perestroika processes in Latvia. Indeed, these processes were not isolated; they were influenced by what was happening in Estonia and Lithuania. The processes of perestroika and glasnost soon grew into processes of national liberation. Although the Latvian leadership in 1987–1988 tried to maintain control over what happened, it proved more difficult with every day, especially after the formation of the Popular Front of Latvia and its first congress.
Open opposition against the Soviet Union began on 14 June 1987 in Latvia, on the anniversary of the mass deportations of 1941. The civil rights group Helsinki-86 organized a small procession and the laying of flowers at the Freedom Monument in Riga. This event was followed by a much larger and spontaneous gathering at the Freedom Monument on 23 August, the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. During the demonstration, arrests were made, and afterwards there was a broad campaign in the newspapers slandering those who participated. The next ‘toxic’ date was 18 November, the Independence Day of the Republic of Latvia. The authorities took all possible precautions not to allow any anti-Soviet actions. At this stage, there was no visible split within the republican leadership in general and the entire nomenklatura. By Winter and Spring 1988, however, the mood began to change. In Latvia, as elsewhere in the Baltic republics, ecological issues became one of the main concerns, which boosted the opposition.
The first successful protest was organized against the building of the planned Daugavpils hydroelectric power station, which started with the publication of an article by Dainis Īvāns and Arturs Snips (see Īvāns and Snips, 1986). The article caused widespread discussion and a flood of protest letters. Īvāns and Snips also managed to mobilize support from the Moscow intelligentsia, and the hydroelectric station was stopped. The LCP leadership tried to integrate the critics into the system: Īvāns, for example, was nominated as a delegate to the 19th LCP Conference in June–July 1988. This tactic, however, did not help the authorities, rather the opposite: it helped Īvāns to enhance his legitimacy and to win recognition not only within the intelligentsia but also within wider society. In October 1988, he became one of the leaders of the Popular Front of Latvia.
The next significant ecological issue was a campaign against the building of a metro in Riga in Spring 1988. This campaign was crowned by mass demonstrations and a demonstration of around 10,000 people on 27 April 1988. The authorities did not permit the meeting to take place but did not disperse it either and did not take any repressive measures. Along with previous actions, such as laying flowers at the Warriors’ Cemetery in Riga on 25 March 1988, which was organized by the creative unions in remembrance of the 1949 deportations, this signified a change in the tactics of the LCP CC. Tacitly, the Party started to allow actions that did not have distinctly political, that is anti-Soviet and pro-independence connections, and to cooperate with cultural personalities in order to ensure continuous control over society.
Two developments in June 1988, however, contributed to an open split in the Latvian leadership and the nomenklatura. The first was a meeting organized by the creative unions on 1–2 June, inspired by a similar gathering in Estonia in April 1988. At the meeting, all the problems facing contemporary Latvia were presented to the republican leadership and to First Secretary Pugo personally, including Latvia’s ecology, the problematic status of the Latvian language, the changes in the ethnic composition in Latvia, to mention some of the most prominent issues. The main blow was delivered in a speech by the political commentator Mavriks Vulfsons, in which he announced that the incorporation of Latvia in the Soviet Union was not the result of any socialist revolution but of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 (Vulfsons, 2010, pp. 145–149). The then-LCP CC Secretary of Ideology Anatolijs Gorbunovs, in an interview in 2010 maintained that the leadership had not been alerted in advance about Vulfsons’ intentions. If it had been, the leadership would probably not have attended (Gorbunovs, 2010, pp. 298–299).
In the same interview, Gorbunovs admitted that in June 1988 he himself, with his technocratic and Party education, had little knowledge about what really happened in Latvia in June-August 1940, and about the content of the secret protocols. There is reason to believe that his case probably was rather typical of people populating the Party apparatus in this generation. If Pelše himself participated in the creation of the ‘correct’ version of the 1940 ‘socialist revolution’ in Latvia, apparatchiks of Gorbunovs’ generation instead presumed that such matters were for the realm of academics and did not bother much about ideological matters.
The second event, which caused an open split in the Party, was a mass meeting on 14 June 1988, on the anniversary of the 1941 mass deportations. It was organized with the permission of the authorities, and Gorbunovs spoke, as did some well-known cultural and academic figures. It was well attended and soon overstepped the limits intended by the organizers. The national flag was displayed publicly for the first time, and posters mocking academics as distorters of the history of 1940 were shown.
On 18 June 1988, an LCP CC plenum discussed the unfolding political situation. At this meeting, the split became evident and two camps within the nomenklatura formed. The main criticism of the functionaries who felt threatened by developments in the republic was directed against Gorbunovs, who was considered to be the main culprit. His most ardent critics were the First Secretary of the Riga gorkom, Arnolds Klaucēns, the Latvian SSR KGB Head Staņislavs Zukulis, as well as Riga Executive Committee Head Alfrēds Rubiks, and Republican Attorney Jānis Dzenītis as well as First secretary of the industrial October district of Riga Vasily Terekhov (see Protokol, 1988). Although the majority of Gorbunovs’ adversaries, except Terekhov, avoided criticizing him directly, the split already was clear and afterwards widened with every week and every month. After the First Congress of the Latvian Popular Front, the divisions within the Party leadership widened even faster, triggered by the subsequent formation of its adversary, the International Front of Working People (commonly known as Interfront), supported by Soviet military and the managers of large enterprises. Both organizations from the very beginning reflected ethnic divisions. Popular Front members and activists for the most part were ethnic Latvians, although not entirely. Interfront almost exclusively represented the Russian-speaking population, and the people inside the organization with Latvian names were in most cases Russified Latvians (for example, Colonel Viktor Alksnis). Ethnic divisions, however, resulted from political orientation – whether you were in favor of an independent Latvia or were loyal to the Soviet Union.
Perestroika and the start of the national movement were beneficial for the rehabilitation of the national communists. Their narrative of being the victims of the 1959 purges and defenders of republican interests versus Moscow created an image of existence of ‘the bright forces’ in the LCP leadership and contributed to their popularity among the part of the population that was afraid of radicalism within the national movement. The 1959 purges were used as a kind of justification of collaboration with the Soviet regime for Latvian nomenklatura generation of 1980s. National communists of the 1950s served as a proof of good intentions crushed by Moscow and its local minions. Despite some similarities of agenda (dealing with excessive influx of workforce, improving of situation of Latvian language etc.), the conditions in which the new generation of national communists acted were different. As in 1959, they were a minority in the LCP, but they had an energetic core of a younger generation of nomenklatura occupying important positions in the Party Apparatus as well as in cultural institutions, science and education. Many of them, especially representatives of the cultural establishment, had quite considerable support in society. They were not tied-up by ideological dogmas, and they were able attentively listening to political trends in society. There was, however, a paradox in the national communists’ situation in the power struggle from 1988–1991. Their influence was conditional on the strength of the Soviet system on the whole, and in Latvia in particular. As representatives of the liberal part of the Soviet establishment, they played a very active role at the First Congress of the Popular Front in October 1988, but a year later, at the Second Congress, their influence had started to decline. Their strength lied in their ability to engage into dialogue with Moscow and to obtain some concessions from it, but with growing support of Latvians for restoration of independence, Gorbachev and his entourage became less willing to concede. Nevertheless, the role of the national communists’ as a balancing force and intermediator between the population, republican authorities, and Moscow remained instrumental until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of Latvia’s independence.
From 1988–1989, the LCP CC still controlled the situation in Latvia and was in direct communication with Moscow. The Popular Front leadership had to maintain a working relationship with the Central Committee leadership. After summoning Pugo to Moscow and after the election of Vagris as First Secretary, the situation did not change much. As the Popular Front became more established and Interfront formed, however, the situation in the Party leadership started to change. The confrontation grew, and became more and more polarized and concentrated around these organizations, with both pro-independence and pro-Moscow factions were represented within the LCP, which contributed to the LCP’s weakening.
Unlike in Lithuania and Estonia, the new national communist faction in the LCP was small, and it became weaker with every month as Latvians started to desert the Party, as did Russians and other nationalities. In the Latvian case, the Party’s already fragile position was further weakened by this process. In 1988 and 1989, it was not so evident because the Central Committee’s authority and control over the republic was still was quite strong. The national communists had strong positions in the rural districts, in the spheres of culture and education, as well as in the mass media. That the Secretary for Ideology, Gorbunovs, as well as many influential Party and nomenklatura personalities started to support a more liberal course in 1988, made the national communists in the LCP seem stronger and more influential than they were in reality. After 31 May 1989, when the Popular Front started to discuss ways to restore independence, the main split between the supporters of independence and the champions of a unified Soviet Union became impossible to bridge within the nomenklatura.
In this situation, the LCP CC under the leadership of Vagris, still tried to maintain a balance within the Party and nomenklatura and did not allow the confrontation to overwhelm the entire structure. As Vagris (2013) explained in an interview in 2013, his efforts to balance the situation were supported by Pugo and Gorbachev. Interfront tried to convince USSR leadership that Latvia was on the verge of civil war and that harsh measures were necessary. The LCP leadership thus had to work simultaneously on two levels: 1) to hinder the activities of the Interfront’s supporters in order to avoid open clashes with pro-independence forces, and 2) to convince Gorbachev that the Party still controlled the situation, and that there was no need for Moscow’s intervention.
In this unfolding process, the nomenklatura had to make choices, not least whether to join pro-independence or anti-independence forces. This dividing line, however, was often not as sharp as it looks today. A large part of the nomenklatura did not want to side openly with any dominating force, and instead sought ways to escape from their nomenklatura positions, especially from the Party nomenklatura. The older generation chose retirement, while the middle and younger generations opted for newly created business opportunities. One part of the nomenklatura tried to strike a balance between the main forces. It was particularly visible in the case of a strong group of directors and chairmen of wealthy state and collective farms, who were well-ensconced in the Soviet economic system and, although they were not against independence, desired to maintain the existing regime albeit in a modified way (for example, as a confederative Soviet Union). Even after the LCP split in April 1990, when the majority in the anti-independence faction led by Rubiks gained the upper hand, many of them did not rush to leave the LCP and its governing bodies. The restoration of full independence and the privatization of agricultural enterprises were a major trial for this group.
Many of the nomenklatura became active and visible members of the pro-independence movement, for example Gorbunovs, Alfrēds Čepānis, Ivars Ķezbers, and Jānis Peters. After the Declaration of Independence on 4 May 1990, they became part of the political establishment of independent Latvia but public opinion was divided with regard to their past activities and their loyalty to independent Latvia.
Conclusions
The purge of the national communists from the Latvian SSR leadership, which started in June and July of 1959, was the result of internal divisions within the republican nomenklatura and the resulting power struggle, as well as imbalances created by Stalinist economic policies, and the establishment of hierarchical imperial relationships between the republics and the ‘Centre’. Khrushchev’s attempts to loosen Moscow’s grip on the republics unleashed attempts in Latvia to solve some of the most pressing problems, such as increasing the proportion of Latvians in the nomenklatura, curbing the immigration, and enhancing the role of the Latvian languages in official and public communication. These steps were interpreted by Moscow as an expression of nationalism, and the leadership was brutally changed.
The national communists’ base was mostly the LCP and the Komsomol nomenklatura, as well as the intelligentsia. The highest echelons of republic’s leadership after 1959 was instead composed mostly from so-called Latvians from Russia. Fealty to All-Union interests at expense of finding solutions to local problems became the cornerstone of the republican leadership during the rule of first secretaries Arvīds Pelše and Augusts Voss. They both were ideological executives, who based their policies on ensuring ostensible stability within the republic and the nomenklatura. This course was promoted by Moscow and its emissaries, the LCP CC second secretaries.
Local Latvians in the nomenklatura were well aware that the label of ‘nationalist’ could be applied to them at any moment and that they were perpetually in a more vulnerable position that their Russian colleagues. Thus, an ethnic split continued to exist within the republican nomenklatura, although it was not admitted openly. The situation was made even more complicated by the existence of a significant cohort of so-called Russian Latvians, who after 1959 were the preferential choice for the highest positions in the republic.
The cleavages within the republican nomenklatura were, however, not only the product of inner republican struggles. They were also created by Moscow’s imperial policies, although the Centre preferred to deny them and demand the unity of the republican nomenklatura. Ordinary Latvians were of the opinion that the republican nomenklatura in general was more servile to Moscow than what was believed to be the case among their Baltic neighbours, the Estonian and Lithuanian Party apparatuses. Deference to the interests of the Centre was natural to the non-Latvians in the nomenklatura and in part to the Latvians from Russia but it presented a real problem to the ethnic Latvian nomenklatura, who were quite aware of the low esteem the nomenklatura held in the eyes of general public.
Under perestroika, all internal divisions within society as well as within the nomenklatura came to the surface, and already in 1988 polarization between the pro-republican and imperial interests became visible. In 1989, it transformed into a confrontation between pro-independence and anti-independence forces. National communists within the republican nomenklatura started again, as in the mid-1950s, to play an active role as mediators between society, the Party leadership, and Moscow. In Latvia, however, the faction of national communists in the republican Party organization was in a minority, and after the split of the Party in April 1990, the newly established Independent Communist Party of Latvia did not develop into a powerful political force as in Lithuania (where the Party broke with Moscow in December 1989). In independent Latvia, attempts to create a strong social democratic type of party on the basis of the Independent Communist Party failed, partly since left-wing ideas were unpopular among ethnic Latvians. The anti-independence wing of the LCP transformed into the Socialist Party, orientated towards the Russian-speaking population. Already in 1990–1991, Interfront, which closely collaborated with the anti-independence-oriented LCP majority, started to reorient itself from defence of the rights of ‘working people’, to defending the rights of the Russian-speaking population. The political legacy of the development of Latvia under Soviet rule has continued to be the explicit division of political parties along ethnic lines, and until recently this applied to all parties on the Left.
Notes
1 Latvijas Universitātes Akadēmiskā bibliotēka, Berklavs, Eduards, E. Berklava dienasgrāmatas 1964.g. 30.sept.-1966.g. 11.nov., LUAB Retumi, nr. 14792 (University of Latvia Academic Library, Eduards Berklavs, Diaries 1964–1966, Rarities of the ULAL, No.14792).
2 Latvijas Valsts arhīvs (Latvian State Archives hereafter LVA), PA-101. f., 55. apr., 154. l., 10., lp. Statistical report about the composition of the LCP on 1 January 1986.
3 LVA, PA-2160. fonds, 21. apraksts, 113. lieta., 78. lapu. Meeting of the LCP CC Bureau, 6 September 1960.
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