Socialist Party of Latvia
by Alfred Rubix

Experience in uniting left forces in Latvia under the
conditions of aggressive anti-communism

Esteemed comrades!

Before I proceed to present the subject of my speech, I
would like to express my appreciation and gratitude towards
the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece for the
invitation to this meeting and the assistance rendered in
organizing my arrival in Athens. Thank you!

Latvia, whose communists I represent, does not have a large
territory and population (64.000 square km, 2.45 m.
people.). But being situated on the Baltic shore it holds a
significant position from the geographical point of view in
Northeastern Europe and for this reason it never remained
outside of events, taking place on this continent,
including military conflicts. The history of Latvia in rich
in revolutionary events and the struggle of the proletariat
against the oppressors. Suffice it to say that workers'
power in the form of Soviets was established and restored
three times in Latvia (December of 1917, December of 1918,
June of 1940) and each time it was overthrown under
pressure exerted by the domestic bourgeoisie with
assistance from outside. It happened for the last time on
21 August 1991, when the USSR started to desintegrate de
facto and de jure.

In Latvia the first marxist circles emerged in 1892-1896.
The foundations of the Communist Party of Latvia were laid
in June 1904, when separate organizations and groups of
social-democratic organizations convened their congress.
The social-democrats of Latvia held leninist theoretical
positions and in March of 1919 at the 6th congress of the
social-democrats of the Latvian region the party changed
its name to Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Latvia -
CP(b)L.
Almost one century of Latvian communists' history bears
witness to the fact that the party had success only when it
had a clear, theoretically well-founded programme, wide
support of the working people and solidarity with the
communist movement of Europe and the world. It manifested
itself with particular brilliance in the years of the Great
Patriotic - Second World War and the post-war years.

After the counterrevolutionary upheaval which took place in
this country in August of 1991, the Communist Party of
Latvia was done away with from the organizational point of
view - its organizations were driven out of enterprises,
the party as a whole was prohibited by a parliamentary
decision, without a hearing or investigation, the First
Secretary of its Central Committee was convicted to eight
years of confinement and thrown in prison on a far-fetched,
pre-fabricated accusation and retroactive application of
the law. Communists were persecuted everywhere - sacked
from work and subjected to moral terror and intimidation.
The Communist group was eliminated from the parliament of
the Republic and the sixteen most active Communist MPs were
deprived (again without a court decision) of their mandate
as deputies. To date the Communist Party of Latvia is
banned. An election law which forbids communists who
"operated in the CPSU(LCP)after 13 January, 1991"to stand
as candidates for MP, is now in force in Latvia, which
means that a limitation on suffrage for political reasons
exists in this country, which wants to be considered
democratic; this contradicts all the pertinent
international legal acts valid in this field, including the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Pact on Civil and Political Rights. Article 10 of the
Latvian law on meetings, marches and pickets makes it
unlawful "to spread the ideology of communism".
Simultaneously in today's Latvia, the former legionnaires
of Hitler's army "Waffen SS" freely propagate their
ideology, organizing street marches headed by the
Seim(Parliament) deputies from national-radical parties and
other officials of the regime, holding gatherings where
they try to justify their having served Hitler's regime in
Latvia when it was occupied by Hitlerian Germany.

Under such conditions the supporters of marxism-leninism
faced the question of how to defend and spread their
political views and world outlook. A transition to working
underground was considered to be inefficient and
inexpedient. The underground can be very quickly discovered
and eliminated, given contemporary investigation and
operational methods and technologies. It was decided to
organize and register another party. This party, under the
name of the Socialist Party of Latvia, was organized and
registered in 1994 (it was established on 15 January 1994
and registered on 14 March 1994). At that time I was still
imprisoned in bourgeois Latvia. I got information about
what was taking place outside of prison and when possible I
exchanged opinions with comrades who were waging the
struggle outside. While in prison I knew as well about the
work done by Oleg Shenin in Russia, who was also arrested
in 1991 but released much earlier than me. In my letters
from prison, I repeatedly wrote to comrades about the need
to consolidate the forces of the communist and workers'
movement on a principled marxist-leninist ideological
platform. For this reason I welcomed Oleg Shenin' s
organizing the Union of Communist Parties on the platform
of the CPSU: UCP-CPSU. I saw in this organization a
prototype of a new united Communist party on the territory
of the former USSR and the birth of a new center of the
World Communist International. The UCP-CPSU exists and
operates today and it is a great service rendered by the
communist Oleg Shenin and his comrades. At the same time,
we should recognize, that in its operation the Union faces
many and varied difficulties, beginning with the financial
and material aspects and ending with the continued disunity
of the communist movement on the territory of Russia and
other states as well as the fact that many communist
parties are contaminated with neo-opportunism.
When I was released in November of 1997, I studied the
situation more precisely and took the decision to try and
unite the left political forces of Latvia in order, using
legal possibilities, to withstand the obscurantism created
by the political parties that are in power. During the
ten-year existence of the Latvian Republic, which regained
its independence, its ruling political elite has led the
country into poverty and turned it into a source of cheap
manpower for national and international capital. The
country has been robbed, the people have become
impoverished as a result of savage privatization and
monetary reform; industry and agriculture have been
destroyed; imports exceed the exports nearly doublefold;
mortality is more than twice the birthrate; unemployment
has reached 14%; the state exists thanks to Russian transit
and foreign credits. And for all that there is still no
revolutionary situation in the country. The people exist
thanks to accumulation from the Soviet period, based on the
principle of eating up the food, wearing out the clothes
and living out life; and the government and the regime on
the whole are still coping with the situation by
manipulating people's consciousness, intimidating them with
the possibility of the communists' return with their
repressions and simply unrealistic promises during
elections. Since industry has been destroyed, there is no
organized working class in the republic working with
advanced technical means and technology in large modern
enterprises; that is, what is missing is that very
predominant force able to head and lead the socialist
revolution to a victorious end. The political party heading
the left political forces is also weak. The left parties
are small and mostly comprised of pensioners - former
members of the CPSU. Such a situation does not mean that
the communist concept and the Communist Party are not
supported by the population and workers. On the contrary,
this is disproved by the results of parliamentary
elections, in which the left forces came in third out of
the 21 parties that took part in them with their tickets.
Something else is the issue here. The people are
intimidated, they are afraid of losing their jobs for being
proven guilty of their connection with communists. The mass
media serving the regime keep talking about the criminal
character of communism, demanding that an international
trial - a second Nuremberg - be held to pass judgement on
communists. Incidentally, such a trial was already
organized in neighboring Lithuania.

Under these conditions precisely, I put forward the idea of
uniting left political parties in order to create a
political opposition in society and in the parliament of
the Republic. The idea was supported by three left parties
and in June of 1998, having nominated their candidates on a
single ticket, the union managed to get 16 seats out of
100. And this was really a great success for the Union,
because none of the parties comprising the block would have
been able to overcome the 5 % barrier on its own, perhaps
with the exception of the Socialist Party of Latvia only.

Of course, unity was not achieved easily. The will of
political party leaders for concerted effort by the parties
and the existence of a unity leader whom everyone trusted,
though with reservations on part of some of them, played
the decisive role. Elaborating the pre-electoral programme,
we were guided by the following principle: to include in it
only that which was acceptable to all member parties of the
Union and to leave out those issues which were disputable
and not agreed upon and the realization of which exceeded
the term of the parliament being elected, that is, four
years. Incidentally, the political parties themselves with
their comprehensive party programmes, remained the same old
parties they used to be. All issues were settled not by
subordinating the will of the minority to that of the
majority, but by consensus. We understand that such a block
is far from constituting the highest form of unity, in
which all the parties would join in one united party. But
this is indisputably a stage leading towards something new,
towards new quality and perfection.

In establishing the union, we were guided by the unshakable
principle that it is possible to create any block or
coalition, without meanwhile losing our essence as a
marxist-leninist party, without "dissolving" in the union,
but rather retaining recognizability, being choosy in
selecting allies and fellow travelers.
The unification of left political forces is unfavorable for
the nationalistic ruling elite of the political parties. It
is advantageous for them to have us divided. That is why
they exerted all their might to destroy the union. They
wanted to stir up a quarrel amongst the leaders of the
parties, but they did not manage to. They wanted to
compromise the very idea of the union - and again they
failed. They also used such methods as blackmail,
mud-slinging in the newspapers and bribery, but neither did
these ways succeed.

At the same time, if earlier the proposals that we - with
an insignificant number of left MPs in parliament (five to
seven) - submitted did not even find their way on the
agenda, now the issues we put forward are not only included
on the agenda and examined but sometimes even find positive
outcomes. Thus, for instance, in the law on naturalization,
the so-called "loopholes" or waiting until it was the turn
of the year of one's birth for going through naturalization
and getting citizenship of Latvia were abolished; children
born after the independence of Latvia was restored obtained
the right of naturalization without additional procedures
(passing examinations); the Day of the Latvian Soldier - a
holiday observed on 16 March -which, in fact was the
anniversary of the founding of the Latvian legion "Waffen
SS", which constituted part of the Wehrmacht in Hitler's
Germany, was abolished; amendments to the law on the
crossing of the borders and a series of other amendments to
laws were adopted.
The complexity of today' s situation lies in the fact that
the present generation of communists of the former USSR had
only a theoretical idea of the situation they found
themselves in after August of 1991. We are novices as far
as the experience of working in opposition to the existing
regime is concerned, and as concerns the experience of
creating a coalition or unions of partners in political
opposition. After all, we communists of Latvia were not in
such a position for fifty years.
Unfortunately, until 1991 no one inside the CPSU or the
CPL, which was a part of the CPSU, could even forecast our
present situation; no one got ready for it or prepared the
party cadres and structure; they did not think that we
would be obliged to start our new path towards socialism
almost from zero.

Our own experience and analysis of the events in the
international communist and workers' movement convinces us
of the need to strengthen the consolidation of forces on
the international scale. It is impossible to withstand
imperialist globalization and the international solidarity
of the bourgeoisie without unity of action, cooperation and
mutual assistance. That is why we highly esteem the efforts
made by the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece
headed by its General Secretary comrade Aleka Papariga. The
conceptual ideas on the situation in the contemporary
communist movement that she presented in the article
"Current thoughts on the eighty years since the Communist
International was established" are understood and accepted
by us. Our party is ready to work for their implementation.
Our party supports the call of the UCP-CPSU presented in
the Address on the Occasion of 130 Years since V.I.Lenin's
Birth signed by its Chairman Oleg Shenin, which states the
need for the further unity of communist and workers'
parties, with the establishing of a union of all
anti-imperialist forces on a world scale and the forming of
a Comintern, taking into consideration the present
situation.

We are certain that the cooperation and unity of communists
the world over, their interaction with the workers'
movement is today that main link using which one can raise
the communist concept to the point of solving the practical
tasks entailed in world transformation under the present
conditions of imperialist globalization, which is leading
humanity towards increasing social inequality and the
parasitism of certain states at the expense of others. As
communists we are obliged to oppose such a turn of events.

Thank you for your attention.