crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Heinrihs Strods
Crimes committed in Latvia by the occupation regimes
of the USSR and Germany (1940–90)
The crimes committed by the Bolshevik USSR occupation regime (1917–90) and by the German
National Socialist regime (1933–45) were based on two misanthropic ideological doctrines of the 19 th
century – racism and the class struggle. The goals of both regimes were achieved through the (Bolshevik)
Workers’ Party 1 established by the Russian Social Democrats in 1903, and through the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) 2 established in 1920. Both parties officially proclaimed themselves
the only ruling parties provided by law – the Bolsheviks in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) in 1924, and the NSDAP in Germany in 1933. Both of these totalitarian parties committed
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (in Russia since 1917, in Germany since 1933). In
the Republic of Latvia, the party of radical Communists (Bolshevik and antidemocratic), practically
led from Russia, was declared a seditious organisation and prohibited. After the USSR occupied Latvia
in 1940, this small subversive organisation (with only about 400 members in 1939) came to power in
Latvia by order of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party in the USSR and under the protection
of the Red Army. Latvia’s Communist Party was considered a branch of the Russian Communist Party
and was financed from Moscow. It was dominated by Russified Latvians from the USSR and its ranks
were filled with a large number of soldiers. The leadership of the Communist Party (nomenclature)
together with the leadership of the Russian Bolshevik Party (nomenclature) were responsible for the
Bolshevik crimes in Latvia.
After the occupation, three groups, with distinct approaches regarding the occupational forces,
developed in Latvian society – the silent majority, the collaborators and the differently-minded. Although
relations among these groups changed in terms of numbers, all three continued to exist throughout
the 50 year period of the totalitarian occupation. Agitation and propaganda, political prosecution and
interference with private life were directed towards the differently-minded, who were, to a great extent,
advocating the idea of an independent Latvia. A statement of the crimes committed by both totalitarian
regimes is difficult to make due to four reasons. First, is the version of history made by the winners
of the Second World War in the years 1943–45. Second, is the mythology of World War Two history,
and of the post-war period created by the propagandists of the Communist Party. Third, is the short,
only ten-year period of scientific research since the renewal of independence in 1991. Fourth, is the
inaccessibility of important historical sources from the occupation period in Russian archives.
World War Two was the first war in the history of the world, which ended not only with victories
and defeats of the states in conflict, but also with the proclamation of losers as war criminals. On the
eve of the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg, several agreements were made between the
victorious powers not to mention their own war crimes (Katin, Dresden, secret Protocols of the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact, and others). That winners’ version is still valid when the history of the Second World
War is explained, especially in Russia, even today still excluding Bolshevik crimes in the same way as
in 1945. 3 Soviet propaganda did everything possible to show the crimes of Nazi Germany as horrible
as possible and to connect them with the local population. 4 At the same time, nothing was said about
genocide against Jews with great numbers of victims, and their crimes against humanity in their own
country and in other occupied countries were completely concealed. 5
The Bolsheviks conducted no serious research on the Holocaust. No one was allowed to speak or
write about the supreme crime of the Bolsheviks – the concentration camp gulag and the persons detained
1
Geschichte der kommunistischem Partei der Sovjetunion. The second, amended edition, Riga 1963, p. 56.
2
H. Kammer, E. Bartsch, Lexicon Nationalsozialismus, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, p. 164.
3
I. Feldmanis, “Tribunal Nürnberg: a fortunate event in history or a parody of a just court?”, Geschichte Lettlands, 3, Riga 2006, pp.
84–87.
4
A. Ezergailis, Nazi Soviet Disinformation, Riga 2005.
5
K. G. Karlsson, “Holocaust, Soviet Terror and Historical Consciousness”, in: Pakta zona, Riga 2003, pp. 2–28.
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