Communist Party of Latvia

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The Communist Party of Latvia ( Latvian : Latvijas Komunistiska partija short LKP) was a political party in Latvia . Their youth organization was called "Young Communist Association of Latvia" ( Latvijas Komunistiskā Jaunatnes Savienība - LKJS). The party's main press organ was the Cīņa (The Struggle) newspaper . The party, which no longer exists today, was a member of the Comintern .

History 1919 to 1936

The party emerged from the Latvian Social Democracy or the LSDSP and joined the Russian Bolshevik Party . It was officially founded by Lenin after the establishment of a Latvian SSR in March 1919. In that year the party had 7,500 members. The first chairman was Pēteris Stučka . At times he was also influential - as head of the "Russian Office" of the Central Committee, which ensured the connection to the ideologically decisive Communist Party of Russia , and as Secretary of the Central Committee - Jānis Krūmiņš . After the loss of national territory in the Latvian War of Independence , the party continued to exist in Russia and had its seat in Pleskau . In the Republic of Latvia, the party was banned from 1920 to 1940 and operated underground controlled by Moscow.

Great terror in the Soviet Union

In the course of the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, the LKP's foreign office, which was in charge of illegal work in Latvia, was liquidated in 1936. The central organ was later dissolved and its members killed. After 1937 and 1938 the party ceased to exist. The bulk of the members were shot and buried in mass graves under the pretext of belonging to a counter-revolutionary espionage organization in the course of the so-called Latvian operation of the NKVD .

Latvian SSR until 1990

During the Second World War , Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact . As early as the summer of 1939, the Soviet authorities had been researching survivors of the purges in order to set up a new party. This was now called LK (B) P, where the B stood for Bolshevik. Despite a high number of ethnic Latvians in leading positions, about two-thirds of the party base in December 1940 were members of the Latvian minorities. Many former Social Democrats turned to Stalin's anti-fascist popular front in the wake of general polarization . The Stalinist terror in Latvia reached a temporary climax with the deportations on June 14, 1941 and was interrupted by the violent German occupation in the German-Soviet war until 1944. After the war ended, the party officials returned and continued the sovietization of the country. In 1952 the party was renamed LKP. Its members occupied all important positions in the LSSR in a one-party system .

Party dissolution and successor organizations

With the beginning of perestroika, Latvian aspirations for independence followed. In 1990 this led to the split off of a Latvian Independent Communist Party (LNKP), which advocated a national variant of communism. After Latvian independence and the failed August coup in Moscow in 1990, the LKP and its party organ "Cīņa" were banned as subversive in 1991. The successor party is the Latvian Socialist Party founded in 1994 (Latvian: Latvijas Sociālistiskā partija ). Its chairman, Alfrēds Rubiks, was also the last general secretary of the LKP and pursued various plans to rename the party with restitution of the party's assets.

literature

  • Ojārs Niedre, Viktors Daugmalis: Slēpenais karš pret Latviju. Komunistiskās darbība 1920. - 1940. gadā. Totalitārisma Seku Dokumentēšanas Centrs, Riga 1999, ISBN 9984-9327-1-0 .
  • Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II: Between Soviet and German occupiers 1940–1946. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76544-4 .
  • Lato Lapsa: Mūsu vēsture 1985-2005. Volume 1, Riga 2007, ISBN 978-9984-34-297-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Latvijas Padomju Enciklopēdija. Riga 1984, p. 259.
  2. ↑ Article Круминь, Ян Мартынович (Krumin, Jan Martinowitsch) in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia , 3rd edition, vol. 13: Конда - Кун , 1973.
  3. ↑ Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II: Schöningh, 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76544-4 , p. 130.
  4. ^ Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II. Schöningh, 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76544-4 , p. 131.
  5. ^ Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76544-4 , p. 91.
  6. ↑ Соцпартия Латвии хочет вступить в "Центр согласия" и восстановить Компартию. on: regnum.ru , December 11, 2005.