- 01 Jun 2005 03:36
#651122
Hmmm....
Perhaps Russians should demand an apology from Latvia for helping to maintain the Bolsheviks in power and unleashing the Red Terror on the people of Russia and others.
Source
Shortly before President Bush's planned visit to Latvia last weekend on his way to Moscow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Latvian parliament passed a declaration demanding compensation from Russia for losses caused by the Soviet Union.
A bit earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations received a resolution seeking an acknowledgment from Russia that its occupation of the Baltic states was illegal. Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the authors of the resolution, urge Russia to make a "clear and unequivocal statement on acknowledgment and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991."
Everybody wants an apology from Moscow these days, but nobody seems to remember that the creation of the Soviet regime was accomplished through international teamwork. And the Latvians, in particular, were among the best players doing a very specific function during the first days of the Soviet state.
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In fact, they played a vital role in saving the Bolshevik regime at its very beginning and helped it survive through its most critical period.
The Occupation Museum in the Latvian capital of Riga, with exhibits which now "remind the world of the wrongdoings committed by foreign powers against the state and the people of Latvia," was previously devoted to the history of the Latvian Riflemen. Those units, formed within the Czarist Russian Army with the beginning of World War I, numbered about 40,000 by 1917. They sided with the Bolsheviks after the revolution and became their strongest, most disciplined and loyal supporters. Known as the Latvian Red Riflemen, they were the only effective forces to whom Bolsheviks entrusted the most important military and security operations.
The riflemen guarded the Smolny and the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks headquarters in Petrograd and Moscow. They literally saved the regime and the lives of Lenin, Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky in 1918 during the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Moscow when the entire city, except for the Kremlin, fell into the hands of rebels, and they then smashed a dozen other uprisings throughout the country.
The riflemen fought in every significant battle during the Russian Civil War. The 5th Latvian Regiment became the first Red Army unit to be awarded the highest military recognition of that time, the Honorable Red Flag of VTsIK (the Central Executive Committee of Soviets).
Harvard historian Richard Pipes writes in his book, "The Russian Revolution," that the Latvian Riflemen "gradually turned into a combination of the French Foreign Legion and the Nazi SS, a force to protect the regime from internal as well as foreign enemies, partly an army, partly a security police. Lenin trusted them much more than Russians."
Jukums Vacietis, the former colonel of the Czarist Army, became the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army. Janis Berzins was a creator of Soviet intelligence service and spy networks in the West. One of the oldest party leaders, Ivar Smilga, the leader of the Bolsheviks in the Baltic Fleet and a confidant of Lenin, was a member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and the Military Revolutionary Committee. Another Latvian, Yakov Alksnis, was the first chief commander of Red Army Air Forces. Martins Lacis, the senior official in the CHEKA, (Extraordinary Commission, or the first Soviet political police) was also the theoretician of the Red Terror, stating that Bolsheviks "are not carrying out war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. We are not looking for evidence or witnesses to reveal deeds or words against the Soviet power. The first question we ask is to what class does he belong, what are his origins, upbringing, education or profession? These questions define the fate of the accused. This is the essence of the Red Terror."
A revolution consumes its own spawn. By the time Stalin decided to invade Latvia in 1940, thousands of Latvians, including those involved in the Red Terror at the first-hand level - and millions of other people - were murdered by the regime.
There is a long way to go for the peoples and countries that once made up the Soviet Union to come to terms with Soviet history, that mix of facts, biases, lies, perceptions and emotions. As it's always with history, everybody has something to answer for.
Perhaps Russians should demand an apology from Latvia for helping to maintain the Bolsheviks in power and unleashing the Red Terror on the people of Russia and others.
Source
Shortly before President Bush's planned visit to Latvia last weekend on his way to Moscow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Latvian parliament passed a declaration demanding compensation from Russia for losses caused by the Soviet Union.
A bit earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations received a resolution seeking an acknowledgment from Russia that its occupation of the Baltic states was illegal. Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the authors of the resolution, urge Russia to make a "clear and unequivocal statement on acknowledgment and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991."
Everybody wants an apology from Moscow these days, but nobody seems to remember that the creation of the Soviet regime was accomplished through international teamwork. And the Latvians, in particular, were among the best players doing a very specific function during the first days of the Soviet state.
Advertisement
In fact, they played a vital role in saving the Bolshevik regime at its very beginning and helped it survive through its most critical period.
The Occupation Museum in the Latvian capital of Riga, with exhibits which now "remind the world of the wrongdoings committed by foreign powers against the state and the people of Latvia," was previously devoted to the history of the Latvian Riflemen. Those units, formed within the Czarist Russian Army with the beginning of World War I, numbered about 40,000 by 1917. They sided with the Bolsheviks after the revolution and became their strongest, most disciplined and loyal supporters. Known as the Latvian Red Riflemen, they were the only effective forces to whom Bolsheviks entrusted the most important military and security operations.
The riflemen guarded the Smolny and the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks headquarters in Petrograd and Moscow. They literally saved the regime and the lives of Lenin, Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky in 1918 during the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Moscow when the entire city, except for the Kremlin, fell into the hands of rebels, and they then smashed a dozen other uprisings throughout the country.
The riflemen fought in every significant battle during the Russian Civil War. The 5th Latvian Regiment became the first Red Army unit to be awarded the highest military recognition of that time, the Honorable Red Flag of VTsIK (the Central Executive Committee of Soviets).
Harvard historian Richard Pipes writes in his book, "The Russian Revolution," that the Latvian Riflemen "gradually turned into a combination of the French Foreign Legion and the Nazi SS, a force to protect the regime from internal as well as foreign enemies, partly an army, partly a security police. Lenin trusted them much more than Russians."
Jukums Vacietis, the former colonel of the Czarist Army, became the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army. Janis Berzins was a creator of Soviet intelligence service and spy networks in the West. One of the oldest party leaders, Ivar Smilga, the leader of the Bolsheviks in the Baltic Fleet and a confidant of Lenin, was a member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and the Military Revolutionary Committee. Another Latvian, Yakov Alksnis, was the first chief commander of Red Army Air Forces. Martins Lacis, the senior official in the CHEKA, (Extraordinary Commission, or the first Soviet political police) was also the theoretician of the Red Terror, stating that Bolsheviks "are not carrying out war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. We are not looking for evidence or witnesses to reveal deeds or words against the Soviet power. The first question we ask is to what class does he belong, what are his origins, upbringing, education or profession? These questions define the fate of the accused. This is the essence of the Red Terror."
A revolution consumes its own spawn. By the time Stalin decided to invade Latvia in 1940, thousands of Latvians, including those involved in the Red Terror at the first-hand level - and millions of other people - were murdered by the regime.
There is a long way to go for the peoples and countries that once made up the Soviet Union to come to terms with Soviet history, that mix of facts, biases, lies, perceptions and emotions. As it's always with history, everybody has something to answer for.
Last edited by Comrade Ogilvy on 01 Jun 2005 05:04, edited 2 times in total.
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