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Augusts Rumpēters (1899-1978) was a member of the Supreme Court Senate of the Republic of Latvia during its first period of independence, that is, a "justice of the Supreme Court." His treatise on Soviet aggression against the Baltics, published in 1974, is still one of the best sources extant examining the Soviet-Baltic relationship regarding mutual agreements and international law—and how the Soviet Union abrogated those agreements and violated international law in coercing the Baltics into accepting Soviet troops and then invading and annexing them.
The Soviet Union has entered the pages of history. But Stalin's false dogma that the Baltics legally and willingly joined the U.S.S.R. still echoes today in pronouncements from Russia's political and military leadership1 and in resolutions of its parliament which
"remind deputies of the Latvian Saeima that Latvia's being a part of the
Soviet Union was grounded by fact and by law from the international juridical point of view."
—reported in Pravda, November 19, 1999
For this reason alone, Augusts Rumpēters' superbly detailed analysis is more relevant today than ever.
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| 1 | Russian defense minister, Sergey Ivanov, called occupation claims absurd. "That, which they indicate, that the USSR occupied the Baltic States—this is absurdity and nonsense. It is not possible to occupy that which belongs to you." ("То, что говорят, что СССР оккупировал прибалтийские государства - это абсурд и чушь. Нельзя оккупировать то, что тебе принадлежит.") —reported in RIA Novosti, May 7, 2005. |
Copyright © 1974, The World Federation of Free Latvians, All Rights Retained. Reproduced by their express permission. These materials are intended for personal and academic research use only.
