1940: Latvia

'Although we do not know what 1940 has in store for us, we have no right to cherish the illusion that everything will turn out for the best,' President Karlis Ulmanis, Nebraska-educated dictator of Latvia, told his people on Feb. 13. 'When the decisive hour comes,' he continued, 'at least one man in each home will have to don a uniform.' The term of military service for conscripts, accordingly, was extended on Feb. 24 from 12 to 18 months, and a conference of the three Baltic states in Riga ended on March 16 with a joint declaration of adherence to strict neutrality in an effort to maintain independence.

Entry into the Soviet Union.

The Latvian Minister in Moscow received a note from Soviet Premier Molotoff on June 16, demanding an immediate change in his government and free passage for Soviet troops en route to Latvian cities which the U.S.S.R. had decided to occupy. Latvia acceded to the Soviet demands promptly, and on June 17 Russian soldiers marched into the country. Demonstrations of workers calling for union with the U.S.S.R. were staged soon after the troops arrived. A new Latvian government, subservient to Moscow, was created on June 21, and on July 14-15 it supervised an 'election' of members to a new parliament. Only candidates of the pro-Soviet 'Workers' Coalition' party were on the ballot, and this party was credited with the support of 97.6 per cent of the electorate. On July 20 the newly-elected 'representatives of the people' voted to join the Soviet Union.

Sovietization began immediately, and by the end of July the new parliament had adopted a bill for the nationalization of land, banks and big business concerns. Large estates were divided among landless agricultural laborers, but peasants who had worked their own tracts were allowed to keep as much as 75 acres. Debts and taxes owed by poor peasants were cancelled. Severe penalties were meted out to those who opposed the revolutionary measures. On July 31 Latvian (as well as Estonian and Lithuanian) sea captains were advised to direct their ships to Soviet ports, on penalty of having their families punished if they failed to comply. On Aug. 5 Moscow declared Latvia the 15th Republic in the U.S.S.R., and Latvian citizens became citizens of the Soviet Union. While the United States and Great Britain refused to recognize Russia's absorption of Latvia and the other Baltic countries, by the end of the year virtually all domestic signs of Baltic independence had disappeared under the impact of Soviet expansion. See also EUROPEAN WAR; ESTONIA; LITHUANIA, and U.S.S.R.