Experiencing Totalitarianism

In the course of World War II, the Republic of Latvia was occupied and annexed by the USSR in June of 1940. A year of sovietization was followed by four years of another occupation (1944-1945)- this time by the army of Hitler's Third Reich. After Germany's defeat, the Soviet occupation returned, lasting for the next forty-five years. The book is a documentary history of the presence of these two totalitarian "great powers" on Latvia's soil, the administrations they created, the policies they implemented, and the institutions of control they developed. Containing some previously published documents (mostly concerning the German occupation), the bulk of the collection consists of the English-language translations of documents from the much longer Soviet period. The latter ended up in the national archives of Latvia after the collapse of the USSR and the renewal of Latvian independence. A particularly noteworthy component of the Soviet-era documents are the internal reports (often marked "top secret") of the Soviet-era Latvian KGB, the internal memoranda of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party, and the correspondence between the Latvian Party and its Moscow superiors. The subjects covered include the behavior of the Soviet army on Latvian soil, the sovietization of the Latvian economy, control over churches, punishment of dissidents, dealing with the Latvian migr community, the treatment of the so-called "national communists," and the successful drive for independence from 1987 onward.