K. Markarian, To an Alien Script: Marchers Incited by Western Radio Broadcasters Try to Read Latvian History. August 26, 1987
Original Source: Komsomol’skaia pravda, 26 August 1987.
It seemed as though he was even a little insulted that he got permission to leave the Motherland so quickly. What else could have displeased 21-year-old Roland Silaraups, who had grown up in Soviet Latvia and who had first made his noise as a participant in the so-called Latvian human rights group “Helsinki 86”? The views of this ten-person group all come to the same thing-to separate Latvia from the Soviet Union.
Both Roland and his supporters, clearly from what they are fed by western ideologues, think that Latvia was occupied by the Red Army in 1940. The interpretation of historical facts to reach this conclusion is very free, for they “forget” that detachments of Red troops entered Latvia because of a treaty of mutual aid in the threat of fascist aggression. The former Foreign Minister of bourgeois Latvia Wilhelm Muiters, who took part in the negotiation and signing of the mutual aid pact between Latvia and the USSR of 5 October 1939 writes in his memoirs that, “after the collapse of talks in Moscow between England, France, and the USSR the last hopes were gone that the western nations would support our neutrality. We remained alone. ” That Red Army troops were in Latvia at the disposal of her government was also announced by radio on 17 June 1940, by Karlis Ulmanis, head of the bourgeois republic. Today’s champions of “freedom” from the Helsinki-86 group also close their eyes to the fact that the legal establishment of Soviet power in Latvia in 1940 was proclaimed as result of the vote taken by delegates of the people’s sejm. Even Roland Silaraups couldn’t deny this, when he talked with me. However, as he admitted it, he immediately went off on another tangent, as though he had been specially trained to; “Here I have no freedom to express my views, to achieve justice. ”
With these words the voice of this thin but sturdy lad takes on tragic tones. Let his unproven supposition remain on his conscience. Even his anti-Soviet activity (the dissemination and propagandizing of literature hostile to our nation, which is forbidden by the Constitution of the USSR), for which Silaraups, though he did received five years’ deprivation of freedom, was pardoned after a year in prison. Since February of this year, after his return to freedom, Roland has basically worked nowhere, but before, in his own words, he made a decent living at VER. Apparently though he then decided that he could “earn” more doing something else. And so on 14 June at the monument to Freedom a flower-laying was organized in honor of the dead, presented as a kind of demarche to demonstrate lack of agreement with the facts of history.
Why at the monument to Freedom? Because it was erected during the period of bourgeois Latvia, in 1935, so the monument can be used as a sort of symbol. Which in fact is what the organizers of the flower-laying did, taking advantage of the long absence of any information whatsoever about the monument, even in guidebooks to the city.
The center of Riga. Here on a small square, on a high plinth, stands a sculpture which raises three five-pointed stars in her upstretched hands, symbols of the historical territories of Latvia, Kurzeme, Vidzeme, and Latgale. Below bas-reliefs depict the fighters of the 1905 revolution, their clashes with punitive detachments, the battles of the Red Latvian Riflemen with German occupation troops and with Bermondt’s bands in 1919, at the Riga railroad bridge. Along the edges of the monument are sculpture groups representing Labor, Science, Family, and Defense of the Fatherland. Money for the monument was collected, as they called it, from the whole world. The sculptor Karlis Zale though, at one time lived in Petrograd and was one of the first to enter into realizing Lenin’s plan of monument propaganda. He created monuments to Dobroliubov and Garibaldi, and as A. Lunacharskii describes him in his memoirs, he was one of the best.
However, no one reminded the youths about the history and meaning of the monument with the beautiful words interspersed among the stones, “To the Fatherland and Freedom.” Thus all kinds of whispering became possible: “Look, the Motherland statue there is even facing the West … Not the Daugava River, with which the history of the Latvian people is closely connected, but rather to the West …
I happened to be a witness to the events of 14 June. Before that day various radio stations, I making use of the services of Roland, were summoning people to mark this day with a demonstration. We can explain briefly. In 1941, eight days before Germany attacked the USSR, officers with pro-fascist inclinations, re-enlisters from the former Ulmanis army, agents, members of the fascist organization “Perkonirusts” who had acted illegally, were all sent out of Latvia. However, at the same time there were also guiltless people who suffered-and not just Latvians either, but also Russians, Poles, and others. As well as the members of their families.’ A significant part of these people returned to their native places in the middle of the 1950s, as Soviet citizens with full rights. It is on these tragic mistakes, tragic not just for Latvia but for all the people of our country, that members of the group “Helsinki 86” are trying to speculate today, with the support of foreign radio centers.
So, what took place that day? There was a bicycle race to start at the monument to Freedom, the crown of All-Union Bicycle Sport Week, at 3 PM. At precisely the same time a group wishing to place flowers on the monument arrived. It was spitting rain. The cyclists though were optimistically turning their pedals, going around the monument and moving further down Lenin Street. Naturally during the time of the cycling holiday the area around the monument was blocked off. Then the participants in the action decided to wait. They gathered on Bastion Hill, a rise in the city park, which is nearby. On the hill the orators with their badges “Helsinki 86” gave their speeches, pseudo-patriotic in nature, but more will be said about this in a moment. I remember a moment when someone among them, apparently not sharing the opinion of the speakers, tried to speak. He was not permitted to get near to the little rise in the center. People gathered over several hours oil the rise and in the tree-lined alleys around it. Under the guidance of Roland Silaraups and Eva Bitenietse, who was wearing a national costume, the people moved toward the monument to Freedom. Naturally no one interfered with this advance. They laid their flowers, sang folk songs, including songs of the Red Latvian riflemen. Nothing criminal. It was only in the night that some young bucks appeared at the monument with flowers, shouting and running, and so disturbing the public order. Naturally the hooligans were called to order by members of the militia. Then for several days white and red carnations and roses appeared at the monument, repeating the color composition of the bourgeois Latvian flag. These little scenes were common, as some one of the “heroes,” as they probably styled themselves, made for the monument with their flowers, generally picked right there in the flower beds. The “brave lad” was then applauded grandly, people looking around proudly, as if to say “look, one of ours!” Bravado, you might say; is it worthy of attention?
And what does youth itself think about all this? I asked Ziedonis Chevers, the first secretary of the Kirov Raion committee of the Riga Komsomol (the center of the city, where the monument to Freedom happens to be located) to help me find young people who had taken part in laying flowers at the monument. This wasn’t difficult for him, as he enjoys a deserved authority among the youth of the area. The summer of last year the committee appealed to boys and girls to help clean up the abandoned basements of the old city. The workers of the Komosomol raion committee, as well as their first secretary, without obligation worked alongside the youths in their spare time.
Over the year scores of buildings were cleaned. In many others the work is still going on. In the future these are going to hold special interest clubs, sports halls, youth cafes. Ziedonis and I went to one of the basements where students, school kids, young workers, and students at the technical institutes (PTUs) gather in their free time. Ziedonis is well known here. There are debates here, on the most pressing of issues, and amateur films are shown, various ensembles perform, young artists and sculptures exhibit their work, and finally there are discotheques. In a smallish hall among these ancient walls we met Aigar, Ugis, Gatis, Artis, and Inese. We decided to speak frankly, especially since three of the boys had been at the monument on 14 June. My new acquaintances were all of an age with Roland Silaraups, who in an open letter to the republic Latvian newspapers had written, “We understand that you can not and do not want to understand or evaluate the group “Helsinki-86″ objectively. However, we will leave the freedom to evaluate this question to the Latvian people themselves, the majority of whom are now learning to come to their own independent conclusions, without being lead.” Where does this assurance of
Roland’s come from? No doubt from the fact that so far nothing substantive has been said about his group in Latvia. Is it enough simply to call them “extremists”? So let’s leave the evaluating to the youths themselves.
Aigar: “I went to the monument about three. I knew what would be there. I was told that “Voice of America” had announced it.”
Gatis: “In my family there are people who suffered during the resettlement. They went to the monument to Freedom, because it had been built by the entire people, and people traveled to Riga especially to bring offerings to the monument.”
Here is how the youths describe the slogans on Bastion Hill, among which were such as “Youth must stand in our ranks, ” “The sacrifices of the Red Latvian riflemen were in vain,” and “We want only truth but do not wish revenge. ” There were also comments about the “colonization” of Latvia …
Ugis: “Not everybody who placed flowers that day thought about the meaning of what they were doing. Many people just came for the show of it.”
Aigar: “On Bastion Hill there was one moment when a group began to shout that there was no reason to wait until the end of the bicycle marathon, that we should go to the monument immediately. Probably they wanted that so that the radio could announce that the demonstration was broken up by the militia. It was good though that the majority understood the situation correctly, so that the provocation was unsuccessful. ”
This conversation took place while the tracks were still hot, as they say. Many of the events of those days are now understood in a different way, of course. The problem however, remains. And first and foremost the problem lies in the philistine way in which inter-nationality relations are understood in the republic.
A reminder, by the way. Historically it has worked out that, unlike in neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, members of various nationalities have lived here for a long time. On one street, in one building, Latvians, Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, Belorussians, and Lithuanians have lived as peaceful neighbors. People from the national regions of Russia have studied in the Latvian higher educational institutions. I am flattered to admit that my famous countryman Stepan Shauman’ studied at the polytechnic school, but did not receive his diploma because he took part in the revolutionary movement and was expelled from Latvia. He was guilty of struggling for the happiness of all the peoples of Russia who were exploited by the tsarist government. It is bad to forget the internationalist past of the republic; unfortunately, it is happening.
Why? The young people themselves give as reasons an insufficiency of civility, the lack of knowledge about history among the Latvians and, the lack of knowledge of Latvian of the Russian- speaking population. Sometimes there is also a lack of desire to study it. You will agree that someone who grows up in a republic, who studies ten years in a school, and who can’t put two words together in the local language can easily cause anger. It is important to know how to respect the people among whom you are living, to respect their traditions. These subjects used somehow to be left to one side, and weren’t particularly bothered with. Nor can you solve them on the fly, either. These things must be considered at all times. In the republic this question has begun to receive more constant attention. Thus for example there recently has begun a commission on inter-nationality relations in the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party.
“We are accustomed to interpreting international education as something like having the Russian and Latvian classes conduct a joint evening, and that’s it,” says Ziedonis Chevers. “One evening won’t give you anything.”
A common task, common labor brings people together, gives no opportunity for nationalistic chauvinism to appear. How often have I witnessed various squabbles in the city buses or overcrowded trains; someone steps on someone else’s foot or jostles someone. Immediately “offensive” words fly, with explanations of nationality. We are reduced to that! And believe me, it is in great part from such little trifles that the nuclei of mutual hatred grows. From living offenses on the bus! But what may be said, for example, of a man who after visiting the famous ethnographic museum (in which one can see how the peasants of various districts of Latvia lived a century and two centuries ago) could scratch on the wooden strut of a mill “Beat the Russians! “? Local nationalists attempt to use such pitiful scratchings as proof of the hatred for Russians which is supposed to exist in “enslaved” Latvia. One of the organizers of the flower-laying demonstration was Roland Silaraups. By all appearances he decided that this gave him sufficient political baggage to get abroad.
“I know that reliable people will meet me in West Germany,” he told me a few days before his departure.
Wasn’t he also confident because he could rely on more than his own just deserts. on certain facts of his biography as well, such as that his father was a former SS member and his uncle was a Polizei?
By the by, several of the Helsinki group had been convicted of crimes. For example, one of the founders of the group, Raimonds Bitenieks, was stopped in 1983 in an attempt to cross the border with his daughter Eva, who then was only fifteen. At nineteen (remember?) she was already dressed in a national costume and was heading the “demonstration protest”! It appears she likes to be in the center of attention. Nor is she the only one.
Roland’s example makes it clear that the scandal that blew up on the short waves around their action was to the benefit of the group members. Particularly since in Latvia almost no one knows about “Helsinki 86,” or knows about it only by rumor. The aura of mystery in fact dissipates like smoke once the real goals of the “rights advocates” are understood, which is to present themselves in a profitable light for the western provocateurs. It was not by chance that immediately after Roland’s departure for Vienna at the end of July a press conference was arranged for him.
So who remains active in the group here in the Motherland? Janis Barkanis, convicted in 1981 of attempting to cross the border, convicted in 1983 for anti-Soviet agitation. Or the “elder” of the group, Edmund Tsirvilis, sentenced to ten years in 1945 for betraying the Motherland. He was arrested when he was dropped into our country as part of a troop of paratrooper-diversionists …
These and other “accomplishments” apparently do not disturb those who promise them every support in the West. So we can only be curious about one thing, how Roland is going to defend liberty, national values, and the traditions Of the Latvian people from the other side of the cordon?
At the end of his life’s path, grown wiser from the years he had lived, the former Foreign Minister of bourgeois Latvia Wilhelm Munters affirmed that, “I have no doubt in the correctness of the choice of the Latvian people. I will not hide that not everything in my native Latvia seems to me to be as it ought … However, 1 . am convinced that the preservation of the living strength of my people, her growing well-being, her peaceful life, and the guarantees necessary for these are assured.”
The “how” was announced in the press, the flower-laying of 23 August in Riga, at the monument to Freedom, to mark the anniversary of the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany. Speculating on people’s ignorance about the real historical situation in 1939, for almost the entire month “Radio Free Europe” and “The Voice of America” summoned the peoples of the Soviet Baltic to mount anti-Soviet demonstrations. Members of “Helsinki-86” took active part in this. The day and hour of the demonstration were set-the 23rd, at 5 o’clock.
That Sunday, long before the appointed hour, almost two thousand people gathered at the monument. Some came simply to look at the event, others in obedience to the radio stations, and only a third group, merely some individuals, tried to stir up the people to an open anti-Soviet demonstration. Precisely at 5 o’clock a group of people under the leadership of A. Silaroze gathered at the very base of the monument. Silaroze began with a demagogic challenge to strengthen Latvian friendship with real Russians. Soon, however, flowers, bourgeois trappings, and the chant “Freedom for Latvia!” gave testimony as to the real inclinations of this group. The emotions which they stoked with the skills of actor’s devices clouded the reason of some people, who had no idea who it was that was leading them. They need reminding.
Silaroze, a singer in the Latvian Opera and Ballet Theater, once convicted of encouraging minors to immoral acts, clearly enjoyed being in the center of attention. In order to understand the reasons for this vainglorious desire, it must be said that this year Silaroze was prepared to mark festively his fiftieth birthday in the theater, but the artistic soviet failed to find any particular accomplishments which would permit Silaroze to be feted on the stage. So the singer set up his own jubilee in one of Riga’s palaces of culture …
Naturally the militia reacted to the provocations and hooliganism of the ringleaders. Particularly obstreperous violators of the civil order were taken to the departments of internal affairs. However, no one interfered with the laying of flowers, which continued until 7 p.m.
I spoke with people of various ages that day. In general they were little aware of what was happening, about the true face of the group “Helsinki 86. ” This ignorance was and continued to be used by the enemies of our country, those hostile to a socialist Latvia. To sow discord and distrust among peoples, to use any method to undermine the accomplishments of socialism is their real goal, which they were not able to disguise.
The people of Latvia are also convinced of this, for they once directed their representatives in the people’s sejm to ask the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to permit the republic to enter the Soviet Union. On 5 August 1940, a joint session of both houses of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR granted that request.
Source: Martha B. Olcott with Lubomyr Hajda and Anthony Olcott, eds., Soviet Multinational State: readings and documents (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1990), pp. 500-506.