Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic
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Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic | ||||||||||||||
Latvijas Sociālistiskā Padomju Republika | ||||||||||||||
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Motto "Visu zemju proletārieši, savienojieties!" Workers of the world, unite! |
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Anthem Internacionāle |
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Capital | Riga (to 22 May 1919) Dvinsk (Daugavpils) Rezhitsa (Rezekne) |
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Languages | Latvian · Russian Latgaliana |
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Government | Socialist republic | |||||||||||||
Chairman | ||||||||||||||
• | 1918–1920 | Pēteris Stučka | ||||||||||||
Legislature | All-Latvian Congress of Workers' Soviet Deputies | |||||||||||||
History | ||||||||||||||
• | Established | 17 December 1918 | ||||||||||||
• | Recognized by Russian SFSR | 22 December 1918 | ||||||||||||
• | Disestablished | 13 January 1920 | ||||||||||||
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a. | Local languages included German, Yiddish, Lithuanian and Estonian.[1] |
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The Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (Latvian: Latvijas Sociālistiskā Padomju Republika, LSPR) was a short-lived socialist republic formed during the Latvian War of Independence. It was proclaimed on 17 December 1918 with the political, economic, and military backing of Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik government in the Russian SFSR. The head of government was Pēteris Stučka.
History
The LSPR armed forces, which consisted of the Red Latvian Riflemen and other units of the Red Army, quickly captured most of the territory of present-day Latvia, forcing Kārlis Ulmanis's provisional government into a small pocket of territory around the city of Liepāja.
Stučka's government introduced sweeping communist reforms, resuming the radical policy direction from the abortive Iskolat regime. Some reforms were initially popular, such as the expropriation of property from the bourgeoisie. The decision to unilaterally nationalise all agrarian land, however, had dire economic consequences for the cities, as rural support for the regime declined drastically.
The peasants no longer agreed to supply the townsfolk with foodstuffs on the government's terms, and shortages became critical. When the people in Riga and other cities began to starve, contributing to widespread discontent among the proletariat as well, a wave of terror swept both rural and urban areas, seeking out alleged counter-revolutionaries supposedly responsible for the failures of the regime. Arbitrary Revolutionary Tribunals and the so-called Flintenweiber ("Gun-Women") were memorable components of this wave of terror.
When the Entente-backed Ulmanis government counter-attacked with the backing of German Freikorps units in the spring of 1919, they quickly regained the lost territory. The capital, Riga, was recaptured on 22 May 1919, and the territory of the LSPR was reduced to a part of Latgale in eastern Latvia, until the final defeat in the Battle of Daugavpils by combined Latvian and Polish forces in early 1920.
After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 the official historians began to claim, that Soviet power has been re-established in Latvia, and the 1920 - 1940 period of Independence was viewed just as a temporary break in the Soviet power.
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Latvia January 31, 1919.JPG
Maximum Soviet control on January 31, 1919
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Latvia January 1, 1920.JPG
The last territorry held on January 1, 1920
See also
- Iskolat
- Commune of the Working People of Estonia
- Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia
- Finnish Democratic Republic
References
Bibliography
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External links
- Latvia in the Soviet Union (early flags)
- Latvia at www.worldstatesmen.org.
- (Latvian) Significant documents from the history of the LSPR at historia.lv.
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with Latvian-language external links
- Former socialist republics
- Former countries in Europe
- States and territories established in 1918
- States and territories disestablished in 1920
- Pages using infobox former country with unknown parameters
- Articles containing Latvian-language text
- Political history of Latvia
- 1918 establishments in Latvia
- Early Soviet republics
- 1920 disestablishments