Table of contents        Chapter VI        Chapter VIII

[page 68]

After Wrangel’s defeat the Allies gave up on their hopes to restore an undivided White Russia. The Supreme Council of Allied Powers extended to Latvia a de jure recognition on January 26, 1921, and Latvia became a member of the League of Nations on September 22, 1921. The United States recognized Latvia de jure on July 28, 1922 [1] [2].

The country was devastated. For years the front had stretched across Latvia. Foreign armies had marched back and forth, killing and plundering, burning and looting. Latvian factories were evacuated to Russia and were never returned. Latvian horses and cattle were abducted to Russia and Prussia and were lost forever. Hundreds of thousands of Latvians were killed.

The population of Latvia in 1914 was 2,552,000, while in 1920 it had been reduced to 1,596,000; the returning refugees increased the population to 1,845,000 in 1925 [3]. In 1919 and 1920 about 29% of the arable land was left untilled[4]. Approximately one fourth of the buildings was destroyed[5]. Some 20,000 railroad cars with machinery and other industrial equipment, valued at 500 million dollars, had been sent to Russia in 1915 [6]. Latvia owed debts to Britain, France, and the U.S. for military supplies, and the Lazare Brothers Bank in London claimed that Latvia was obligated to repay a pre-war loan to the city of Rīga[7].

The enemies of Latvia expected her to fail, and her friends had grave doubts about her ability to survive. Nevertheless, Latvia prospered. Within five years, without significant loans or foreign aid, the pre-1914 standard of living was surpassed[8]. This economic [page 69] miracle has been ascribed to a fervent national spirit, high literacy, tenacity, an ability to find a simple solution to a complex problem, and a kinship with nature[7]. The Latvians felt and acted as a community, with common goals, each willing to do his part to achieve such goals. After centuries of foreign rule it was a pleasure to work not for alien masters but for their own nation.

An Agrarian Reform Bill (in several parts) was passed by the Constituent Assembly between 1920 and 1922 [9]. Former crown lands and estates of the German Baltic barons were redistributed to veterans of the War of Liberation and others. Compensation to the Baltic barons for the seized land was proposed in the Constituent Assembly; however, the compensation bill was defeated with the help of the Baltic German deputies because they did not consider the proposed payments adequate. Consequently, they received no compensation; they appealed to the League of Nations, but it dismissed their complaint[10] [11].

The census of 1935 showed that 75.5% of the population was Latvian, 10.5% Russian, 4.7% Jewish, 3.2% German, 2.5% Polish; the remainder consisted of Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and others [12]. The main religious groups were Lutherans, 55.1%, and Roman Catholics, 24.4%. For an unbiased account of the treatment of minorities we should quote a non-Latvian, an instructor at the Institute of English in Rīga, 1927-1935, John Roche[7]:

To anyone who had seen the Latvian people at war, their gentle tolerance in peace was perplexing, and, to modern American eyes, quite abnormal. By the brutally intolerant standards, so common in the world today, one would expect the Latvians to have punished their former enemies, deported all the Baltic Germans, levied discriminatory taxes on the Jews, and made sure that the minorities had no voice in government. Instead, they pronounced an amnesty for those who had fought against them, and passed legislation in 1919 allowing the minorities full citizenship with all its privileges, free education in their own schools, and a quota share in government jobs.

Latvian women had always been regarded as equals by Latvian men. During the revolution of 1905 women voted in all local elections [page 70] and in some localities women were elected as the representatives of the people-thus Latvia became the first country in Europe with suffrage for her women[13]. Because of the heavy losses of men in the war women constituted 54.8% of the population in 1920 [14]. Consequently, women were equal partners with men in the rebuilding of Latvia, and, contrary to the custom in most other countries, a substantial number of women entered the professions. For example, in 1938 30% of the physicians were women[15].

Thirst for education remained on a high level. In Europe Latvia was second only to Denmark in the number of books published in proportion to population (on the average 6.63 titles a year per 10,000 inhabitants) [16]. It was first in the number of college and university students (30 students per 10,000 inhabitants) [17].

Latvian opera and ballet productions were among the best in Europe (in the opinion of an Englishman[7] and a German[18]). Giant song festivals were held roughly every five years; the one in 1938 had an audience of 200,000 and the performers consisted of 425 choirs with 16,000 singers joined into one huge choir[19]. The Latvian national basketball team won the European championship in 1935; Jānis Dāliņš set several world records in walking and finished second in the 50 kilometer race in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles in 1932; Alfonss Bērziņš became the European champion in ice-skating in 1939 [20]. Latvian chess masters refined a defense which is now known as the Latvian Gambit[21].

Latvians received extensive public health care. Unemployment was practically non-existent by 1936 [22]; the world crisis of 1929 was a severe blow but was quickly overcome, and Latvian students of English, visiting Britain in 1933, were appalled by the much worse unemployment in Britain[7]. By the end of the 1930’s as many as 65,000 alien farm workers (mostly from Poland) were imported each summer because of a shortage of Latvian labor[23].

Agriculture dominated the Latvian economy, although the rebuilding of the destroyed industry also made rapid progress. Latvia was the third largest exporter of butter in Europe[24]. Textile, metal, and machine industries were the largest non-food occupations. Besides butter, bacon, and other food products her exports were as diverse as timber, flax, radios, and a tiny photo camera named “Minox” which was in great demand by spies before and during World War II. Fuel, steel and machines were imported. To limit gasoline imports the now popular gasohol (a mixture of gasoline and [page 71] alcohol) was used in Latvia as early as 1931 [25]. The main trade partners were England and Germany.

***

Although the Bolsheviks had recognized the independence of Georgia in May of 1920, the Red Army invaded that country in February of 1921 and annexed it to the Soviet Union[26]; it was an ominous warning to Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania (the only survivors of the independent states born during the Revolution) that they may suffer the same fate. The free Baltic States were a bad example for the other non-Russian nations still held in the prison called Soviet Union; thus the prison wardens were very anxious to recapture the escapees. An armed uprising by Communists (the new adopted name of Bolsheviks) was staged in Estonia in December of 1924 but was quickly put down[27]. Moscow still expected a world revolution even though a revolt in Hamburg, Germany in November of 1923 had also been quickly suppressed[28]. Moscow itself had to deal with occasional uprisings against its power; the Kronstadt sailors rebelled in March of 1921 but were crushed in a bloody battle[29].

During the struggles of the October Revolution and the Civil War the Bolshevik leaders were forced to abandon their Marxist ideas since survival against strong opposing forces ranked first on their list of priorities; without survival there would not be a future state in which to put the Marxist ideas into practice. However, later this attitude degenerated into the notion that even in the absence of strong threats the perpetuation of the Communist leadership was of the highest priority, anything else is secondary (since by their definition Communism is good for the mankind). Consequently, for the sake of a paradise on earth at some time in the future the Communist leaders felt justified to lie, cheat, rob, and kill. Furthermore, internal dissension among the leaders could not be tolerated since it threatened the survival of the whole leadership. Thus the Communist government of the Soviet Union became a plain and simple oppres­sive dictatorship, dedicated to its own perpetuation, with Marxist ideas used for some window dressing only.

Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky and Stalin battled for the leadership of the Soviet Union. Trotsky wanted to concentrate on a world revolution while Stalin proposed isolation from the outside and the development [page 72] of socialism inside the Soviet Union. Their struggle ended with the expulsion of Trotsky from the Communist party in 1927, and two years later he was exiled. He was killed by Stalin’s assassins in Mexico in 1940. Trotsky’s supporters also suffered. Among them was the Latvian Smilga, the leader of the Baltic Fleet in the October Revolution[30]. Smilga was expelled from the Central Committee[31] and later from the Party[32]. When he was banished to Siberia, a demonstration of about a thousand people gathered at the railroad station to protest the policy of banishment[33]. Arrested in 1933[34], convicted in a secret trial, he died in 1938[35].

The Latvians who had remained in the Soviet Union had their own schools, social clubs, theatres, choirs; they published newspapers, magazines, and books[36]. Jānis Rudzutaks attained the highest position. He was a member of the Politburo (the collective leadership of the Soviet Union) from 1926 to 1932 and a candidate-member from 1934 to 1938 [37] [38]. However, as Stalin lashed out against real and imaginary enemies, most of the Latvians in high positions perished, the schools and clubs were closed, the publishing of books and newspapers was stopped.

Stalin initiated a purge of army officers and party members in 1934 to make himself the undisputed dictator of the Soviet Union. In a few years the NKVD (the secret police, the successor to Cheka, now renamed KGB) killed more members of the Communist Party than had been lost in the entire underground struggle against the Czar, the October Revolution, and the Civil War[39]. An organized assault of famine and deportations upon the peasants, begun in 1929, may have cost fifteen million lives[40].

The pretext for the purge was the murder of Kirov, a member of the Politburo, in December of 1934. Bissenieks, the Latvian Consul General in Leningrad, was accused of providing a contact between the assassin and Trotsky in exile. However, the Latvian government denied any connection with Kirov’s death[41] [42]. The purge eliminated all possible rivals of Stalin. We list some of the Latvian victims below.

Rudzutaks was arrested and tortured, forced to sign a fabricated confession. He retracted the confession before the court and accused the NKVD of manufacturing fictitious cases of sabotage and espionage. He was shot in 1938 [43] [44] [45] [46].

[page 73]

Roberts Eidemanis, the commander of the 13th and 14th Red Armies during the Civil War, the head of the Soviet Civil Defense Organization since 1932, was shot in 1937 [52] [53] [54].

Valerijs Mežlauks, Commissar for Heavy Industry, was shot in 1938. So was his brother Ivans, the head of a committee on higher education. It was rumored that the NKVD chief Yezhov personally shot one of the brothers during interrogation[55].

Vilis Knoriņš, a Soviet representative on the Comintern Executive Committee (an international organization of the Communist Parties of the world), was arrested in 1937, accused of being a German Gestapo agent, tortured exceptionally severely, and was liquidated in 1939 [56].

Jānis Bērziņš, the head of the Soviet Military Intelligence, 1920-1935, who with the code name “Grishin” fought in the Spanish Civil War as the virtual commander-in-chief of the Republican Armies was shot upon return from Spain in 1937 [57] [58].

Eduards Bērziņš, the artillery commander in Moscow during the revolt of the Left SRs in 1918 and a figure in the Lockhart Plot who became the head of the Siberian Far Northern Construction Trust, 1932-1937, was accused of attempting to separate the Kolyma region from the rest of the Soviet Union and was shot in 1938 [59] [60] [61].

Peterss, another figure in the Lockhart Plot, was shot in 1938 [58].

Heinrihs Eihe, the vanquisher of Kolchak, was arrested but was one of the few to survive [48].

Roberts Eihe, a candidate-member of the Politburo, 1935-1937, the Commissar of Agriculture since 1937, was arrested in 1938. His ribs broken under torture, he confessed to an anti-Stalin plot which he later retracted. He was shot in 1940 [62] [63] [64].

The Soviet Union was born in deceit. It would not have survived if the non-Russians had realized that Lenin’s promise of self-determination was just a lie. Without this lie the Latvian Rifles and other non-Russians would not have fought on the Bolshevik side. Lying became a way of life in the Soviet Union; even history was [page 74] frequently rewritten to suit the latest party line. All the purged were removed from the history books and other reference works; some names were reinstated after Stalin’s death.

***

After World War I Germany suffered through years of discontent. There was the humiliation because of the defeat in the war. The German economy collapsed. An inflation in 1923 impoverished many in the middle class. The depression of 1929 forced millions into unemployment. The moderates were weak, and the people in despair turned to the extremists, Communists and Hitler’s Nazis. Given a choice between Communism and Nazism, most Germans favored Nazism which preached chauvinism and war as the ennobler of a nation. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and soon usurped dictatorial powers, following the example of Mussolini in Italy.

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of more living space [Lebensraum] for his Germans. In his 1925 outline of his program, published in his book Mein Kampf [“My Battle”], he mapped out the road for the expansion of Lebensraum [65]: “…the new Reich must again set itself on the march along the road of the Teutonic Knights of old, to obtain by the German sword sod for the German plow and daily bread for the nation.” Obviously, he had the Baltic States in mind[66] [67].

***

While the Germans felt humiliated because of their defeat, the victorious Latvians were exalted. While the Soviet Union convulsed in bloodshed and famine, Latvia prospered in peace.

The Latvian Constitution, passed by the Constituent Assembly in 1922, made the parliament [Saeima] supreme. The executive branch (the cabinet of ministers) was weak and dependent on the legislative decisions of the parliament. In reaction to hundreds of years of oppression the election laws were made ultra-liberal. Any group of five people could register as a political party. As a result twenty seven parties were elected to the parliament in 1925. To form a cabinet one needed a majority in the parliament. Small special-interest parties frequently had to be included in a coalition to obtain [page 75] a majority, which made the executive branch very unstable. Latvia had sixteen cabinets of ministers in fourteen years [68] [69] [70].

Similar situations in the other new European nations led to a disgust of the people with politicians and a willingness to follow popular authoritarian leaders. Democracies were exchanged for dictatorships in Italy in 1922, in Poland in 1926, in Lithuania in 1926, in Estonia in March of 1934. Ulmanis proposed to the Latvian parliament in 1933 a reform bill which would have eliminated some of the more glaring deficiencies, but the parliament voted it down[71].

Two extremist groups seemed to be sufficiently strong and foolish to try an armed takeover of the government: 1) a left-wing paramilitary “sport” organization of the Social Democrats; 2) a right-wing “Thundercross” organization. Furthermore, Nazis among the Baltic Germans were becoming troublesome[72]. Thus the Latvian parliamentary democracy was opposed by militant extremists and was supported only weakly by the disenchanted citizens.

On May 15, 1934 Prime Minister Ulmanis and the Minister of War Balodis staged a coup, dismissed the parliament, outlawed all political patties, and organized a new Government of National Unity with ministers from several parties. The coup was bloodless. Some Social Democrats and extreme rightists were taken into custody for a few days and quickly released[73] [74] [75]. The new government declared that the extraordinary step had been taken to insure internal order and to eliminate party strife[75]. It was implied that a new constitution would be drafted and submitted to a public referendum. However, this was not carried out by 1940 when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union.

The next few years after the coup were uneventful. There was very little opposition to the mild dictatorship[74]. The court system remained independent, and the press had a limited freedom[76]. Economically the country prospered. Compared to Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union, Ulmanis’ Latvia was a heaven of liberty.

***

In theory all nations are protected by international law and order. In practice small countries need large and benign protectors or an impenetrable border fortified by nature.

Since Britain and France had assisted the Baltic States in their [page 76] wars for independence, they assumed that they could count on their assistance also in the future. The Baltic States also assumed that they could rely on the League of Nations for protection[77]. Neither assumption was correct.

Several alliances were considered. An early proposal was for an alliance of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. However, Lithuania and Poland were irreconcilable foes because both claimed the town of Vilnius, the ancient capital of Lithuania, which Poland had annexed by force in 1920 [77] [78] [79]. Consequently, all efforts to form a large alliance failed. Only Latvia and Estonia concluded a political and military agreement in 1921 which was made more specific in 1923 and extended in 1934 [80] [81] [82]. Lithuania joined Latvia and Estonia in a political agreement in 1934, but the treaty excluded military cooperation or the involvement of Latvia and Estonia in Lithuania’s disputes with Poland over Vilnius or with Germany over the port of Klaipēda (Memel) [83] [84]. The Baltic States maintained absolute neutrality in world affairs.

Latvia signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1932 [85] [86]. Latvia signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in June of 1939 [87] [88]. Both pacts were worthless in a world of deceit and treachery, intimidation and enslavement, where might makes right.

The League of Nations was weak. The U.S. did not join the League. It could not stop the war between Japan and China in 1931 or the conquest of Ethiopia by Italy in 1935-1936. Hitler ignored the restrictions on German armament in the Treaty of Versailles and rebuilt the German army, navy, and air force. He occupied the German Rhineland with German troops in 1936 in violation of the Treaty. The rest of the world looked on and did nothing or tried to appease the aggressors by making one concession after another. In the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Germany and Italy helped the fascists and began a collaboration which led to an alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan as the Axis Powers. In March, 1938, Germany annexed Austria.

Appeasement of Hitler culminated in the Munich Pact of September 1938 in which Britain and France agreed to Hitler’s demands for a portion of Czechoslovakia; the latter was not even invited to the conference. When the British Prime Minister Chamberlain arrived back in London, he announced that he had obtained “peace in our time.” Actually the Munich Pact had the opposite effect: it convinced [page 77] Hitler that the West was weak and cowardly, and it convinced Stalin that the West was trying to divert Hitler east so as to save themselves.

In March 15, 1939, Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia without armed opposition and burst the West’s bubble of optimism. A week after Hitler’s triumphant entry into Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, he was seasick aboard the pocket battleship Deutschland in front of Klaipēda (Memel), demanding that port from Lithuania. The latter yielded on March 22 [89] [90] [91]. This was the last of Hitler’s bloodless conquests, the next one required force.

On March 31 Britain and France pledged assistance to Poland in the event of a threat against her independence. Italy seized Albania in April. France and Britain countered with a guarantee of assistance to neighboring Greece and Rumania.

The Soviet Union’s position on the various alliances was ambiguous. An isolated outcast since birth, it had achieved reconciliation with Germany by the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, and an alliance with France in 1935. It was admitted to the League of Nations in 1934. It could not ignore Hitler’s conquests since the annexation of Czechoslovakia had brought Hitler’s armies within a short distance from its borders. It was suspicious of Britain and France, especially because of the appeasement at Munich. Consequently, while the Soviet Union conducted unconcealed negotiations with Britain and France about an alliance against Germany, it also conducted secret negotiations with Germany about dividing up Poland and the Baltic States.

In the open negotiations with Britain and France Stalin insisted upon joint guarantees against direct and indirect aggression, to be extended to Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Rumania, Belgium, and other border states[92] [93] [94]. Since the Soviet Union would be free to decide when indirect aggression has taken place, in practice it would mean giving the Soviet Union permission to occupy the border states any time it could stage some provocation. Latvia and Estonia rejected the suggested guarantees, but Stalin pressed Britain and France to agree to guarantees even without the consent of Latvia and Estonia. On July 23 1939 Britain and France finally agreed to begin talks with the Soviet Union on joint military action and to postpone an agreement on indirect aggression [95] [96]. The Anglo-French military mission of low ranking officers was sent by a slow boat to Leningrad and did not arrive in Moscow until August 11 [page 78] [97] [98] [99]. The military mission was instructed to proceed slowly with the negotiations because Britain and France wanted to clarify the issue of indirect aggression and to conclude a political agreement first before a military agreement[98].

The secret negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union started at a cautious low level in the spring of 1939. Stalin wanted to find out who would bid higher for an alliance with the Soviet Union: Germany or Britain and France. On July 26, three days after the agreement to send an Anglo-French military mission to Moscow, the first serious offer of a deal with the Soviet Union was made by a German Foreign Office expert on East European economic affairs while dining at a Berlin restaurant with the Soviet charge d’affaires[100] [101].

Hitler was ready to attack Poland and wanted to be sure that the Soviet Union would not help Poland. The declared arch-enemy of Nazism was Communism, yet Hitler was willing to make a temporary deal with Stalin if it would keep the Soviet Union out of an alliance with Britain and France. Since Hitler wanted to attack Poland before the winter, there was some urgency, but Stalin and his Foreign Commissar Molotov were in no hurry, They demanded a trade agreement first, which was signed in haste in Berlin during the night from August 19 to 20. The next day Hitler sent Stalin a personal telegram asking for speed in the conclusion of a non-aggression pact[102]. Germany and Russia had partitioned Poland among themselves several times before, in 1772, 1793 and 1795. Thus they were old hands at this game. Hitler’s Foreign Minister Ribbentrop flew to Moscow on August 23, and a few hours later the astonished world learned that a German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact had been signed (popularly known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) [103] [104]. Eventually it turned out that the pact was not worth more than the Latvian-German or the Latvian-Soviet pact, but in August of 1939 both Hitler and Stalin were elated.

The pact was signed in a few hours because Hitler gave in to all Stalin’s demands. According to Hitler's original offer of spheres of influence, the Baltic States were to be divided roughly in half: Estonia and northeast Latvia on the right bank of Daugava to the Soviet Union, Lithuania and southwest Latvia on the left bank of Daugava to Germany. However, Stalin insisted on all of Latvia since he wanted the ports of Liepāja and Ventspils. Hitler quickly agreed[105] [106] [page 79] [107]. The Soviet Union also got a free hand in Finland, the Rumanian province of Bessarabia, and the eastern half of Poland. The published pact sounded conventional; the division of the prey was contained in a secret protocol[108] [109].

A week later Hitler unleashed World War II.
_______________________________________________________________

[1] Bilmanis, p.338.

[2] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.63 and p.173.

[3] Rutkis, p.292.

[4] Ibid., p.334.

[5] Samsons, vol.III, p.35.

[6] Rei, p.127.

[7] J.Roche, The Use of Oral Data on Life and Thought in Independent Latvia: A Proposal for Research, J. Baltic Studies, vol.6, p.49 (1975).

[8] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.2.

[9] Rutkis, p.335.

[10] Rei, p.135.

[11] Bilmanis, p.335.

[12] Kavass, Sprudzs, pp.149-150.

[13] Ģērmanis, Latviešu…, p.216.

[14] Samsons, vol.I, p.639.

[15] Bilmanis, p.371.

[16] Rutkis, p.523.

[17] Ģērmanis, Latviešu…, p.324.

[18] Von Rauch, p.132.

[19] Rutkis, p.539.

[20] Ibid., pp.628-9.

[21] W.Korn, Modern Chess Openings (Pitman Publishing Corp., New York, 1972), 11th edition, pp.8-9.

[22] Von Rauch, p.127.

[23] Bilmanis, p.370.

[24] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.147.

[25] Rutkis, p.424.

[26] Chamberlin, vol.II, p.415.

[27] Rei, pp.180-5.

[28] Ibid., pp.175-8.

[29] Chamberlin, vol.II, pp.440-4.

[30] R.Conquest, The Great Terror (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1968), p. 109.

[31] Ibid., p.13.

[32] R.A.Medvedev, Let History Judge (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1972), p.60.

[33] Ibid., p.58.

[34] Conquest, p.30.

[35] Ibid., p.145.

[36] Samsons, vol.II, pp.240-1.

[37] Schapiro, pp.647-9.

[38] Samsons, vol.III, p.249.

[39] Medvedev, p.234.

[40] A.I.Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956. An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Perennial Library, Harper & Row, New York, 1976), Parts V-VII, pp.350-368.

[41] Schuman, p.185.

[42] Medvedev, p.163.

[43] Conquest, pp.452-3 & 211. 

[44] Medvedev, p.193 & 302.

[45] Schapiro, p.418.

[46] N.Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1970), pp.581-2.

[47] Conquest, p.226 & 452.

[48] Medvedev, p.211.

[49] Conquest, p.229.

[50] Medvedev, p.211 & 405.

[51] Conquest, pp.87-8 & 207.

[52] Khrushchev, p.87.

[53] Conquest, p.201.

[54] Medvedev, p.210.

[55] Conquest, p.452 & 463.

[56] Ibid., p.436.

[57] Ibid., p.230.

[58] Medvedev, p.216.

[59] Conquest, p.350.

[60] Medvedev, p.216 & 279.

[61] A.Conquest, Kolyma, The Arctic Death Camps (The Viking Press, New York, 1978), pp.41-6.

[62] Medvedev, p.192 & 302.

[63] Khrushchev, pp.578-581.

[64] Conquest, The Great Terror, pp.450-1 & 474.

[65] A.Hitler, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1943), p.140.

[66] Rei, p.230.

[67] Von Rauch, p.204.

[68] Bilmanis, pp.342-5.

[69] V.S.Vardys, The Rise of Authoritarian Rule in the Baltic States, in Vardys, Misiunas, op. cit., pp.66-7.

[70] Rutkis, pp.239-241.

[71] Bilmanis, p.356.

[72] Ibid., p.358.

[73] Vardys, p.76.

[74] Rutkis, pp.241-2.

[75] Bilmanis, pp.358-360.

[76] Vardys, p.78.

[77] E.Anderson, The Baltic Entente: Phantom or Reality?, in Vardys, Misiunas, op, cit., pp.126-7.

[78] Halecki, pp.376-7.

[79] Kavass, Sprudzs, pp.176-7.

[80] Anderson, p.128.

[81] Bilmanis, p.341 & 381 & 386.

[82] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.175 & 187.

[83] Anderson, p.129.

[84] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.188.

[85] Bilmanis, pp.384-5.

[86] Schuman, p.160.

[87] Bilmanis, p.389.

[88] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.207.

[89] W.L.Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1960), pp.461-2.

[90] Von Rauch, pp.198-9.

[91] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.205.

[92] Schuman, pp.258-260.

[93] D.M.Crowe, Jr., Great Britain and the Baltic States, 1938-1939, in Vardys, Misiunas, op. cit., pp.115-8.

[94] Kavass, Sprudzs, p.203.

[95] Shirer, p.502.

[96] A.Dallin, The Baltic States between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, in Vardys, Misiunas, op. cit., p.104.

[97] Schuman, p.259.

[98] Shirer, pp.503-4.

[99] P.Calvocoressi, G.Wint, Total War (Penguin Books, New York, 1979), p.87.

[100] Kennan, p.327.

[101] Shirer, pp.500-1.

[102] J.Toland, Adolf Hitler (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1976), p.630.

[103] Ibid., pp.636-8.

[104] Shirer, pp.538-541.

[105] Von Rauch, p.209.

[106] Dallin, p.105.

[107] Shirer, p. 539.

[108] Schuman, pp.262-3.

[109] Shirer, p.541.

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HISTORIA.LV