Shall Latvians Perish?AN URGENT APPEAL of the LATVIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL to the CIVILIZED WORLD, September 1948

II. Bolshevization of Latvia.

After the occupation of Latvia Mr. Andrej Vishinsky, special plenipotentiary from Moscow and Mr. Dereviansky, the USSR envoy to Latvia, set up without any cooperation with the Latvian constitutional organs a puppet „government” submissive to the far reaching aims of the USSR.

The first task of this puppet „government” was to organize new elections of Parliament.

Article 6 of the Latvian Constitution says, that Parliament is to be elected by general, equal, direct, secret and proportional suffrage. These important regulations of the Constitution were not observed by the puppet „government” forced upon the Latvian nation. No political party, with exception of the Communists, who had never been popular and whose membership amounted at the moment of the invasion only to a couple of hundreds, was allowed to continue their activities and to take part in the elections with their own lists of candidates. All attempts to ensure democratic elections, expressing the will of the Nation, were suppressed mercilessly and the elections were organized and carried out by order of the USSR and by its agents according to directions received from Moscow. The occupation power arranged so that only one list of candidates, dictated from Moscow, was submitted to the voters. There were no meetings, no freedom of speech, with of course one exception only — for the Communist party. The whole press was in the hands of the occupation power and wrote only according to their interest. Above all, voters were bound to deliver their ballots not in sealed envelopes but overtly.

The Nation had no opportunity even to boycott the elections. The passports of the voters were stamped and the people whose passports had no such entry were subject to persecution.

In such undemocratic elections held under most brutal means of coercion, supported by Red Army bayonets and tanks, the only candidates nominated by the Soviet government were proclaimed as being „elected” by an uncontrolable number of votes.

The Bolshevik commissaries ordered the election committees what the election results had to be like and what had to be entered into the Election Record. The number of votes delivered in Lithuania had been published in the foreign press 9 even 24 hours before the district election committees had reported the voting results. This fact clearly proves that the instructions received from Moscow prescribed what the voting results should be.

The fictitious „parliament” created by such means at its first meeting on July 21st, 1940, proceeded in haste to liquidate the independent Democratic Latvian Republic. Promptly and without any debates two fundamental resolutions were adopted as to:

1. abolishing democracy and establishing Soviet order in Latvia, and
2. renouncing Latvian independence and acceding to the USSR.

It is significant that at the same time similar resolutions were adopted by the Estonian and Lithuanian puppet „parliaments” as well. This proves that the respective decisions were dictated by Moscow. Still more: it has been ascertained that the official Moscow representatives designated members of „parliament” who had to speak and that the wording of their speeches had been written down at the USSR Legations and sent to Moscow for approval.

Article 77 of the Latvian Constitution clearly stipulates, that in case Parliament shall amend articles 1, 2, 3 or 6 of the Constitution, then such amendments in order to become valid, must be put to the plebiscite. The decisions adopted by the „parliament” on July 21st, 1940, were contrary to the dispositions of article 1, stating that „Latvia is an Independent, Democratic Republic,” and of article 2. saying that „the sovereign power of the Latvian State is vested in the people of Latvia”, as well as of, article 3 defining the borders of the Latvian national territory, and therefore, according to article 77 of this Constitution a plebiscite should have taken place, but it never did. Consequently, both above mentioned decisions are illegitimate and anti-constitutional and not binding for the Latvian Nation.

The Soviet Union has always pretendet that the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union took place only after the citizens of these states had voted for it. But as it may be seen from the above mentioned facts, such voting never took place in these countries and therefore the incorporation is to be considered as an act of violence on the part of the Soviet Union. 10