crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Total number of dead 2,373 21,453 33,414
Total number of prisoners 3,500 90,000 236,062
Death rate 67.8 % 23.8 % 14.2 %
Death rate of Latvian
citizens in comparison to
Buchenwald
477.5 %
Both systems of totalitarian destruction – the Bolshevik Gulag and the Nazi concentration
camp – were operating on the basis of pre-planned inhumanity. In terms of killing people, the Bolshevik
system of gulags greatly outperformed the Nazi’s destruction system.
In the second half of the 20 th century, the Soviet Union continued the policy of “opening Russia’s
window” on Europe through the Baltics, the policy initiated in the beginning of the 18 th century by
Emperor Peter I. The local populations from Latvia and Estonia were exiled and Russians and other
peoples from the Soviet Union were settled on the territory. The same can be noted in the forced
deportations of 25 March 1949: among the 42,125 deported from Latvia, 40,176 persons, i.e. 95.4 %
of the deported, were Latvians, although Latvians at that time made 62 % of total population in Latvia.
Only 790 Russians (1.9 %) were exiled, although the number of Russians in Latvia then amounted to
approximately 30 %. The Soviet Union made every effort, similar to the Nazis who tried to do away
with the representatives of the “lowest race” in the Baltics, to exterminate Latvians. They used, however,
some other methods and brought into the country about 900,000 Russians; the Russian population of
10 % in 1935 increased to 41.9 %, 23 that is by four times. In the same period, the number of Latvians
in Latvia fell from 1.5 million (80 %) in 1935 to 1,387,757 (52 %) in 1989. For that reason also, the
Latvians and the Estonians are the only nations in Europe that have not yet reached the number of
population from the beginning of the 20 th century. Can there be any doubt, then, that genocide and
ethnocide were committed?
An essential part of the Soviet regime was the atheistic dictatorship aimed at the persecution
of all beliefs. It was conducted and executed by the agitation and propaganda leaders of the Central
Committee of the Bolshevik Party – the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults of the USSR, whose
branch office operated in Latvia. Table 4 shows, that supported by the Central Committee of the Latvian
Communist Party, they closed 118 churches (about 25 % of all churches in Latvia), and subjected 189
priests (about 30 %) to political repression – shot, imprisoned or exiled; the churches were turned into
stock houses, factories or clubs. Considering that each church community comprised at least 1,000
people, it means that by imprisoning the priests of such communities, and by closing the churches, the
Communist totalitarism prohibited about one third of a million (approximately 15 %) citizens from
going to church. In 1960, 655 religious communities and 440 priests operated in Latvia; more than 100
(22.7 %) of these priests had spent several years in camps and prisons. 24
Table 4:
Communist crimes against religion in Latvia, 1940–90. 25
No. Denomination Closed churches Priests: imprisoned, exiled, shot
1 Lutheran 66 37
2 Catholic 5 76
3 Orthodox 29 56
4 Baptist 11 15
5 Roman Catholic 7 5
Total 118 189
23
P. Zvidrins, I. Vanovska, Letten, Riga 1992, p. 57.
24
LVA, 101. f., 24. apr., 54.a l., pp. 138–146.
25
State Archives of Latvia, Inventory 1419, Catalogue 3, File 265, p. 31.
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