BRUNO KALNIŅŠ

The Social Democratic Movement in Latvia

Although Latvia constituted a small part of the Russian Empire, it played a leading role in the revolutionary movement of Tsarist Russia. Latvia’s Social Democratic Party exerted considerable influence in the struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism in the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP). Up to the present, foreign literature has paid little attention to these problems, and Soviet party sources assume a rather biased attitude when describing the Latvian Social Democratic movement.¹ It is the purpose of this paper to give an outline of the history of the Latvian Social Democratic Party and, above all, to throw light on its relation to Russian Menshevism.

THE BEGINNING OF THE LATVIAN
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT

The Latvian Social Democratic movement, dating back to the 1890s, was formed under the influence of German Social Democracy. In spite of the fact that Latvia was a part of the Russian Empire, there had been no connection between Latvian Social Democrats and Russian socialists. The Latvian Social Democratic movement started with the activities of students who, upon graduation from German high schools, continued their studies at the Baltic University at Dorpat (Tartu). Under the influence of socialist books available at German bookstores in the Baltic cities, one of the student circles legally issued a volume of essays entitled Pürs (1892), in which socialist ideas were expounded. Dienas Lapa, an important daily published in Riga, was also in their hands. Since 1891 it had been edited by the young jurist Jānis Pliekšans, known later by his pen-name Rainis.²

In 1893 Rainis went to Zürich to take part in the Third Congress of the Socialist International, where he became acquainted with the leader of German Social Democracy, August Bebel. Bebel discussed the principles of German Social Democracy with Rainis, presented him with a large assortment of socialist literature in German, and told him about his experience in transporting illegal literature across the border. Rainis brought German socialist literature to Riga without difficulty in a suitcase with a double bottom made specially for him by a Zürich craftsman.³

It should be stressed that in Zürich Rainis had been in touch only with Bebel; he did not look for G. Plekhanov or P. Aksel’rod, representatives of the Russian “Group for the Emancipation of Labor” who had also been in Zürich. As a result, he brought home only German socialist literature.

In the autumn of 1893, after Rainis’ return from Zürich, socialist agitation spread in students’ and workers’ circles in the cities of Riga, Liepāja, and Jelgava. In a somewhat camouflaged form it appeared on the pages of the legal paper Dienas Lapa and in legal workers’ organizations for mutual assistance that had existed in Riga since 1867. In 1894 and 1895 three illegal conferences of the first activists of the new movement were held in Riga. During the period 1893-97 this movement was known as the “New Current” (Jaunā strāva).⁴

However, in May, 1897 tsarist censorship and the police took action. The homes of 138 persons who had taken part in the movement were searched and 77 persons were arrested and under administrative procedure were sentenced by the Minister of the Interior to various terms of exile. In spite of this devastating blow, the “New Current” had laid the ideological foundations for the further development of the Social Democratic movement in Latvia.

THE FOUNDING OF THE LATVIAN SOCIAL
DEMOCRATIC WORKERS’ PARTY

Those members of the “New Current” who managed to escape abroad established their own presses, first in the United States and later in London and Berne, and began to publish Social Democratic proclamations and journals. In Boston, where there were a considerable number of Latvian immigrants, the monthly Auseklis was published from 1898 to 1901.⁵ In London the Latviešu strādnieks was published from 1899 to 1900 and the Sociāl-demokrats from 1900 to 1902. The latter monthly was then moved to Berne where it appeared from 1903 to 1905. In Berne, too, a series of Social Democratic pamphlets, originals as well as translations, was published. They were mostly the works of August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, and other German Social Democrats. In all, twenty-five pamphlets had been published up to 1906. The illegal transportation of these pamphlets to Latvia was well organized, and they exerted a great influence on the development of the Latvian Social Democratic movement.

At the same time, illegal circles of workers began to arise, first in Riga and then in other cities. Latvia was then one of the most industrialized provinces of Tsarist Russia, with a total industrial labor force of 140,000, chiefly in large plants, and with 70 percent of the workers concentrated in Riga.

As a result of the growing economic demands of workers and a violent general strike in Riga in May, 1899, known as the “Rebellion of Riga,” workers began to organize socialist circles; the first conference of these circles took place in August, 1899, in Riga. The Riga Committee, charged with leading the circles, was formed in 1901. Jānis Ozols,⁶ then a student at the Polytechnical Institute of Riga, was the principal leader of the committee. In 1901 Social Democratic organizations were founded in Jelgava; these became known as the “Group of Latvian Social Democrats in Kurland” and were headed by the young physician, Dr. Pauls Kalniņš.⁷ In 1902 similar organizations were also formed in other cities. These organizations, with the exception of the Kurland group, formed one common Baltic Latvian Social Democratic Organization at a conference in Riga in 1902. However, controversies of a personal and organizational character were soon settled and the Kurland group joined the others to form the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (LSDSP).

This event took place at an illegal congress which was held from June 20 to June 23, 1904, in Riga. The Congress was attended by eleven delegates, representing five party organizations with a membership of 2,500.⁸ Given the conditions of the time this was a large membership and the LSDSP immediately became one of the leading organizations of the then weak Russian Social Democratic movement. The characteristic feature of the Latvian party was that more than 70 percent of its members were workers, whereas the membership of the Russian Social Democratic Party came mostly from the ranks of the intelligentsia. The LSDSP retained this character of a genuine workers’ party throughout its existence.

The party declared the paper Cīna and the journal Sociāldemokrats to be its official organs. The former had been printed illegally since March, 1904 in Riga and the latter was published abroad, in Berne. The congress elected a Central Committee in which leading roles were played by Jānis Ozols, a publicist Jānis Jansons,⁹ and a worker Voldis Rikveilis.¹⁰ A draft of the party’s program was submitted to the congress, but its adoption was postponed until the next congress.

The LSDSP was formed on a national basis as a Latvian party. However, the congress considered it desirable to unite all the national Social Democratic parties of Tsarist Russia within the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. This was to be accomplished on a federative basis. Thus the LSDSP supported the Bund’s point of view and opposed the decisions of the Second Congress of the RSDRP. In addition, the congress of the LSDSP voted to consider the Bund “the only representative of the Jewish workers.”¹¹ Later, this decision evoked Lenin’s attacks against “Latvian federalists.”

After the congress, in order to coordinate work with the Bund, which had organizations in Riga and other Latvian cities, a special Federative Committee was formed which included representatives of both parties. The Russian Bolsheviks and Mensheviks did not join this committee because they did not approve of the federative principle. In particular, M. Litvinov, leader of the Riga Committee of Russian Bolsheviks, was vigorously opposed to the idea of federation. It should be emphasized, however, that the federative principle was supported unanimously by all the delegates to the First Congress of the LSDSP, including P. Stučka who in 1907 was to become the leader of the Latvian Bolsheviks.

At the same time it should be mentioned that as early as 1904 the Latvian Social Democratic press rejected Lenin’s views on the question of the organization of the party. In biting and ironic language, Sociāldemokrats came out against Lenin’s ideas, as expressed at the Second Congress of the RSDRP, calling for an “omniscient and all seeing Central Committee” which should have the right to “expel from the party all those whom it does not like and respect those who show good behavior.” The article stressed that it was imperative for the Latvian Social Democrats to support “the minority of the Russian Party [i.e. the Menshevik faction] which since the [Second] Congress [of the RSDRP] has been vigorously opposing such [i.e. Lenin’s] bureaucratism.” ¹²

THE LATVIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
IN THE REVOLUTION OF 1905

In Latvia the revolution of 1905 was more successful than elsewhere in Tsarist Russia. Latvia was one of the most industrially developed provinces in Russia, and the large factories of Riga and Liepāja became the main centers of the revolutionary movement. The strength of the movement was not the result of political and social factors alone, however; the 1905 Revolution in Latvia was also a nationalist revolution —a Latvian revolution against Russian-German oppression. Moreover, Latvia had a well-organized, well-disciplined, and strong illegal party, the LSDSP, which assumed leadership from the first day of the revolution. ¹³

The well-organized character of the revolutionary movement became evident as early as the January strike, which opened the revolution of 1905 in Latvia. In contrast to the demonstrations of workers in St. Petersburg, led by the orthodox priest Gapon who was not affiliated with any political party, the Central Committee of the LSDSP asked Latvian workers to launch a general strike to protest the shooting of workers in St. Petersburg. Political and social demands were also stated. These included, for example, the demand for a democratically elected national assembly, political freedoms, an eight-hour day.¹⁴

The appeal of the LSDSP met with enormous success. Eighty thousand workers went on strike in Riga and 12,000 in Liepāja; strikes occurred in other Latvian cities as well. The total number of strikers in Latvia reached more than 100,000. In Riga, large demonstrations also took place. One of them, the demonstration of January 26, was attacked by troops; 73 demonstrators were killed, 200 wounded. After this event the revolutionary movement grew even stronger.

By decision of the LSDSP Central Committee, a new general strike broke out on May Day. The revolutionary movement also spilled into villages, drawing into its ranks laborers and peasants. Villagers met in Lutheran churches where representatives of the LSDSP delivered speeches, and from there marched to the buildings of local authorities and confiscated arms and the properties of German landlords.

At the climax of the developing revolution, the Second Congress of the LSDSP was held from June 24 to June 26 in Riga. Seventeen delegates represented 7,000 members of the party; 2,750 of these were members of the Riga organization, which was divided into 273 circles. Twelve thousand copies of Cīna were published. Approximately 800,000 copies of 530 proclamations were issued in the course of 1905-1906.¹⁵ These facts were illustrative of the remarkable growth of the party and its influence.

The Second Congress adopted a party program, based on the Erfurt Program of the German Social Democratic Party. In matters of political principle, it is important to stress that the congress refused to accede to the demand for a dictatorship of the proletariat, thus adopting a position quite different from that of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Concerning the national question, the program demanded “wide political and economic autonomy” and the introduction of the Latvian language to schools, courts, and governmental and municipal authorities. Their ideology concerning the national political problem was still undeveloped. The demand for autonomy within a federative Russia or even for an independent Latvian state had not yet ripened.

At the same time, the Second Congress agreed on the necessity of the existence of “separate national parties” in Russia. Union with the RSDRP would be possible only under the condition that the internal independence of the LSDSP be preserved and representation in the Central Committee of the RSDRP be granted. In practice, relations with the Russian Bolshevik and Menshevik organizations in Riga in 1905 were not very friendly. These two Russian organizations had only 600 members and their role in the Latvian revolutionary movement was insignificant. They acted separately, refusing to participate in the Federative Committee (formed in 1904) and thereby refusing to coordinate their work with the LSDSP. The Committee of Russian Bolsheviks issued pamphlets criticizing the LSDSP for tactics which were characterized as too moderate. Cīņa repeatedly waged a polemic with the Russian groups, accusing them of disrupting the revolutionary struggle, commenting ironically on the struggles between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, who were fighting against each other and against the national Social Democratic parties instead of “fighting against tsarist autocracy.” The paper stressed the fact that tiny Latvia with its population of two million had founded an illegal Social Democratic Party that had 7,000 well-organized members, issued Cīna, which was printed in Riga and not abroad, and had 12,000 paying subscribers. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, with a Russian population of 130 million people to work with, had only 15,000 party members, and their journals Iskra and Proletarii, which were published abroad, had only 20,000 subscribers in all of Russia.¹⁶ Iskra had also published several polemical articles against the LSDSP. In one of them it was stated that “Leaders of the Latvian Party play a reactionary role. They are afraid of the possibility of an uprising and of the destruction of the Latvian organization.” ¹⁷ The latter was characterized by Iskra, however, as very strong and well-organized.

At any rate, it is difficult to take seriously this show of radicalism on the part of the Russian groups in Riga. An uprising in Latvia alone, without an uprising in St. Petersburg and Moscow, would have been put down immediately by the Tsarist Army. An uprising organized at the wrong time would undoubtedly have led to the complete destruction of the Latvian movement. The Second Congress of the LSDSP admitted that “the proletariat of Central Russia is still very weakly organized and not prepared for an armed uprising,” and it therefore refused to ask the people of Latvia to take “such an irresponsible step.” The congress determined that further revolutionary activities should take the form of earnest political agitation, strikes, demonstrations, agitation among the troops, and “partisan actions” against reprisals by the police. By accepting these tactics, the LSDSP rejected the Bolshevik strategy of preparation for an armed uprising and Lenin’s demand for the formation of a “workers’ and peasants’ government.” Therefore, statements of Communist Party historians that the Second Congress of the LSDSP “acted under the influence of the Bolshevik resolutions of the Third Congress of the RSDRP (Bolshevik)” have no foundation at all.¹⁸ The further development of the revolution vindicated the cautious tactics of the Latvian Party.

The revolutionary activity of the LSDSP continued throughout the summer and autumn following the Second Congress. By October, the party had 18,200 members, of which 7,200 were in the Riga organization.¹⁹ For an underground organization, this constituted an enormous power. There were as many organized Social Democrats in Riga alone as there were in St. Petersburg with its population of two million.

Revolutionary activities continued to spread in Latvian villages. From August 8 to August 11, the first general strike of agricultural laborers took place in southern Latvia. Thirty thousand people participated in this strike, the first of its type in the Russian Empire. The authorities retaliated by declaring the Kurland (Kurzeme) guberniia to be under martial law.

The peak of revolutionary activity was reached at the end of October, when a general strike of railroad workers gripped the whole of Russia and Latvia as well. The Manifesto of Tsar Nicholas II, promising political freedoms, ushered in a two-month period of real freedom in Latvia. Large rallies were held in Riga and in all cities and country districts, with representatives of the LSDSP addressing the crowds. The daily attendance was approximately 60,000. Papers were published without censorship. The Social Democratic paper Dienas Lapa was edited by Jānis Jansons, one of the de facto leaders of the revolution and a brilliant speaker at the rallies. In Riga, actual power passed into the hands of the Federative Committee which had been recognized by the governor, and which issued binding decrees and organized its own militia for the maintenance of order.

It was during this period that the first free trade unions were organized. Thirty-nine unions were formed with a total of 32,000 members.²⁰ Members of the LSDSP also participated actively in the convening of a Congress of Latvian Teachers, which was attended by 1,000 teachers. The congress voted to stop teaching in Russian immediately and to start teaching in Latvian.

At the same time, the agrarian revolution was spreading and intensifying all over Latvia. In all districts power was taken over by the revolutionaries, district authorities were dispersed, police disarmed, and German landlords expelled. With the participation of LSDSP representatives, for the first time in Latvian history local executive committees were elected in general elections, on the basis of universal suffrage [including women]. These 352 committees became the revolutionary organs of the people’s power. They organized a militia in every district. On December 2 and December 3, a congress of executive committees’ delegates was held in Riga. It operated under the political leadership of LSDSP representatives and was attended by 1,000 delegates. During the peak period of the revolution, power passed into the hands of Social Democrats in several Latvian cities, among them Tukums, Ventspils, Kuldiga, and Talsi. Apart from Latvia, the revolutionary movement achieved a comparable success only in Georgia.

A characteristic feature of the Latvian Revolution of 1905 was that it did not follow the Russian model, namely, no Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were organized either in Riga or in other Latvian cities. Soviets were formed in many Russian cities because the RSDRP was still weak and unable to represent the masses of workers. In Latvia, on the other hand, the LSDSP had circles in all factories and plants which were considered by the workers to be their representatives. When necessary, Federative Committees in Riga and Liepāja convened meetings of these Social Democratic representatives. The revolutionary movement in both these cities was actually led by the Federative Committees, and the leadership of the revolution throughout Latvia was in the hands of the Central Committee of the LSDSP.

In Russia at this time, worker support for the revolution was much weaker. In December the political situation changed in favor of the tsarist government. Members of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies were arrested on December 16, and the workers of Petersburg did not come to their defense. When a hopeless armed uprising broke out in Moscow on December 24, a meeting of representatives from all the Social Democratic circles in Riga decided to support the Moscow workers by instigating a general strike in Latvia. The strike lasted from December 25 to December 29, 1905. At the same time, the Riga Bolshevik Committee demanded that the Federative Committee start an armed uprising in Riga. This demand was rejected, because it was felt that Russian troops were not yet ready to lend their support to an uprising; the workers of Moscow had already been defeated and no other uprisings had occurred elsewhere in Russia. The general strike was terminated on December 29, 1905, by a decision of the Central Committee of the LSDSP.

After the defeat of the Moscow uprising, the revolution of 1905 was suppressed in all the Russian provinces. Punitive expeditions were sent to Latvia. The Lifland (Vidzenu) guberniia and Riga were declared to be under martial law, and the 19,000 soldiers who had been sent to Latvia treated it like an enemy country. Field courts martial and military courts were active in Latvia until 1908. In all, 2,556 Latvians were killed, 2,041 of them by punitive expeditions without any trial, and 8,000 people were exiled to Siberia and Northern Russia. More than 5,000 people emigrated, many of them to the United States, where a strong organization of Latvian Social Democrats came into existence in 1906-1907.²¹

THE UNION OF THE LSDSP WITH THE RSDRP

The defeat of the revolution in Russia strengthened the urge to concentrate and coordinate the forces of the workers’ movement in the ranks of a united All-Russian Social Democratic Party. The events of 1905 proved that without a victorious revolution in Russia itself, any revolution in a small country like Latvia would be ultimately doomed to defeat no matter what its initial successes. The idea of union was also furthered by the temporary merger of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in the RSDRP and by the readiness of Russian Social Democratic leaders to make concessions to the demands of the national parties for their preservation as autonomous territorial organizations. Thus the principle of federalism was actually accepted by the RSDRP.

A conference of the LSDSP which took place in March, 1906, decided to present to the RSDRP a project for union. According to this project, the LSDSP was to be the only Social Democratic Party in Latvia. Russian and Lithuanian Social Democratic organizations which had previously existed in Latvia were to be dissolved and their members were to join the organizations of the LSDSP. The party was to retain its Central Committee, its congresses, and its whole party apparatus. It would also retain the right to solve its organizational problems independently. The Latvian Party was to have representatives in the united Central Committee of the RSDRP and in delegations sent by the RSDRP to international socialist congresses. Cīņa commented that the Latvian Social Democrats refused to be dispersed within the ranks of the RSDRP and demanded union on a federative basis. Petr Stučka,²² the future leader of the Latvian Bolsheviks who in 1906 was still a moderate and a national socialist, wrote that it was time for Russian Social Democrats to get rid of their hostile attitude toward the existence of independent national Social Democratic Parties in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, and the Ukraine, and toward Jewish socialists in the ranks of the Bund.²³

The union of the LSDSP and RSDRP took place at the Stockholm Congress of the RSDRP held from April 23 to May 8, 1906. At the twenty-fourth session of this congress, which was presided over first by Lenin and then by Dan, M. Litvinov reported on the question and moved for the approval of the agreement on union which was based on the demands of the LSDSP. The Latvian Party was represented in Stockholm by J. Ozols, A. Buševics, and V. Dermanis.²⁴

In the ensuing discussion, the Russian Bolshevik, M. Vaniushkin (Borodin), representative of the Riga Committee of the RSDRP, criticized the motion and suggested that all points concerning the federative basis be eliminated and that the LSDSP be transformed into a regional organization of the RSDRP. However, these amendments were rejected by the congress. Vaniushkin’s amendment, that the LSDSP not be called the “Social Democratic Party of the Latvian Province” (or “of Latvia” as it was expressed in the Latvian translation), came closest to acceptance. Vaniushkin argued that this was not a suitable name, because there were workers of other nationalities living in Latvia but this motion was rejected by a vote of 28 to 22. Vaniushkin’s proposal that the Latvian Party not be allowed to have representatives in the United Central Committee was also rejected by 42 to 22 votes. The Congress did approve the motion of the Bolshevik Surenin (Shaumian) that “representation [in the Central Committee] is granted temporarily until the next Congress of the RSDRP.” At that point, Rybak (Buševics), representative of the LSDSP, declared that this decision was “unacceptable to us.” After new arguments concerning a motion by the Bolshevik Bazarov, the congress decided to disregard Shaumian’s motion. After a round of applause Buševics said that “now the project of our agreement will be accepted” by the Latvian Party. The entire project of union was adopted almost unanimously.²⁵

The decisions made at the Stockholm Congress had to be approved by a Congress of the LSDSP, which took place illegally in and near the city of Riga on June 18 to June 21, 1906. This Third Congress of the LSDSP was attended by 51 delegates, representing 14,000 organized party members of which 6,000 were from Riga. In spite of the fact that the congress took place at the height of the activities of the punitive expeditions, the number of party members had decreased only slightly in comparison with 1905, a year of rising revolutionary activity. The congress unanimously approved the project of union with the RSDRP. In connection with this the party changed its name. Henceforth it called itself “Latvijās Sociāldemokratija,” the Social Democracy of Latvia (SDL). Its Russian publications were issued under the heading “Social Democracy of the Latvian Province.” Russian and Lithuanian organizations existing in Latvia before the union were dissolved and their members joined the SDL. For the purpose of agitation in the Russian language an illegal paper Bor’ba was published during 1906-1909. Cīņa remained the central organ of the SDL. A newly elected Central Committee issued a special manifesto in which it explained the recent union with the RSDRP. ²⁶

LATVIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN THE YEARS
OF TSARIST REACTION (1906-1910)

The union with the RSDRP immediately introduced the Bolshevik-Menshevik conflict into the ranks of the SDL. A group of Bolsheviks took part in the First Congress of the SDL in 1906 and severely criticized the moderate tactics of its Central Committee during the revolution of 1905. The group demanded technical preparation for a new armed uprising, the purchase of arms, and the adoption of the tactic of individual terrorism (“partisan actions”) against police and government officials. Moreover, they wanted to grant the terrorist organization autonomous rights within the party.

After the congress, radical tendencies were strengthened even further. Many members demanded that the party react against the punitive expeditions and executions of revolutionaries with systematic terrorist attacks. In order to avoid being caught, about 1,000 armed party members continued their revolutionary activity in the forests. In the autumn of 1906 these so-called “Forest Brethren” began to stage raids on private citizens and “confiscate” their property. As a result, a conference of village organizations of the SDL decided in November, 1906, to put an end to this guerrilla warfare and to liquidate the organization of “Forest Brethren.”

Anarchic tendencies were also very strong at the time in the city organizations of the party. In the summer of 1906 a group of “fighters” broke away from the Riga organization and formed an independent organization of Latvian anarchists which was, however, liquidated by the police a few months later. The Central Committee of the SDL was fighting against these anarchistic tendencies and even published a special brochure for that purpose. But the Bolsheviks were not willing to adopt stern measures against the anarchic inclinations of some party members, because they themselves shared many of these ideas. This led to a conflict between the majority of the Central Committee and P. Stučka who demanded a more severe attitude toward anarchic tendencies. The conflict resulted in Stučka’s resignation from both the Central Committee and Cīņa’s editorial board in November, 1906.²⁷Stučka soon left Riga and until 1914 he did not take any active part in illegal work.

After Stučka’s departure, the Central Committee recalled two intellectuals, Pauls and Klara Kalniņš, from their exile in Switzerland and asked them to take charge of Cīņa. Both were known for their moderate opinions and their close relationship to German Social Democracy. They played an outstanding role in defining party ideology and it was largely because of their political influence that the SDL joined the camp of Menshevism in 1911. But this ideological redirection was a slow and gradual process. The first success came when J. Ozols, a member of the Central Committee, was elected to the Second State Duma in February, 1907; 55.1 percent of the votes were cast in his favor. In the Duma he sided with the Mensheviks and became a member of the Presidium of the Social Democratic faction as well as its secretary. On the floor of the Duma, Ozols made two interpellations: the first concerned the use of torture by the secret police in Riga, and the second concerned the activities of the punitive expeditions in Latvia.

In May, 1907, 26 delegates represented the SDL at the Fifth Congress of the RSDRP in London. Shortly afterwards, June 3 to June 7, the Second Congress of the SDL was held in London. Of the 26 delegates, 10 were Bolsheviks, 2 Mensheviks, and 17 Centrists-Conciliationists, the majority of whom were closer to the Mensheviks than to the Bolsheviks. The congress elected a Central Committee in which the Bolsheviks prevailed but which also contained some Mensheviks, among them P. Kalniņš. At the same time it was decided that the party would embark upon a campaign of agitation among the masses, take part in the elections to the Third Duma, and support the re-establishment of legal trade unions.²⁸ The Duma election brought victory to an SDL candidate, the physician Andrei Priedkalns.

In October, 1908, the Third Congress of the SDL took place in Helsinki. It was attended by 14 delegates of local organizations and representatives of the Foreign Committee of the party which was active in Brussels. Between 1907-1908, 804,500 copies of illegal newspapers and proclamations were published. Nevertheless, the party suffered a great deal from police repression and infiltration by its agents. The total number of SDL members, which had reached 17,000 in 1907 (8,467 in Riga), decreased to 5,000 (3,500 in Riga). This congress in Helsinki marked a departure from the radical Bolshevism of 1906-1907 and a return to realistic tactics adjusted to the new, post-revolutionary conditions. Among other things, the congress declared the formation and development of legal labor and cultural associations to be one of the most important tasks of the party. This resolution was approved despite the opposition of the Bolsheviks, whose attitude toward legal associations was strictly negative. The congress elected a new Central Committee, composed largely of Mensheviks and Centrists. The organ of the Russian Mensheviks characterized the Third Congress of the SDL as follows: “It strengthened the reversal of the SDL’s tactics which became gradually more and more noticeable after the London Congress [of the RSDRP]. The Third Congress showed that the party had survived its internal crisis; that all the Blanquist and anarchist tendencies had been defeated.”²⁹

Between 1908-1910, the new Central Committee succeeded in reestablishing a considerable number of trade unions. These organizations united 2,000 workers in 1908, and as many as 3,700 workers in 1910. In 1909, an illegal Central Bureau of these legal trade unions was established. Including cultural associations, membership in these legal organizations reached 8,000. In this way, an open labor movement began to operate within the legal framework of Tsarist Russia under the Duma regime.

At the same time, the party itself suffered continually from persecution because it was never granted the status of a legal organization. It could not officially and legally maintain offices, publish newspapers, or compete in elections even though it did in fact sponsor candidates to the Duma. The Social Democrats in the Duma spoke openly as representatives of Social Democracy, but they were not legal representatives of a legal Social Democratic party. As a result of the repressive police regime, party membership continued to decrease. In 1909, it had 3,500 members (2,500 in Riga); in 1910 only 2,000 members (1,461 in Riga).³⁰ In spite of this, the SDL remained the strongest illegal organization in Russia throughout the years of reaction. According to Stalin,³¹ there were no more than 400 members in the St. Petersburg organization of the RSDRP in 1909; that is, one-sixth of the number of members in the capital of Latvia.

THE MENSHEVIK PERIOD OF THE SDL (1911-14)

The SDL’s transition to Menshevism was completed in 1910-11, when all its leading organs came under the control of the Mensheviks. In 1910, the central organ Cīņa was transferred to Brussels. Its board of editors consisted of two Mensheviks, K. Eliass and F. Menders, and a Conciliationist, J. Jansons. In September, 1911, a party congress assembled in Helsinki but was forced to recess after a few hours when it was discovered by the secret police.³² Nevertheless, it did succeed in electing a new Central Committee in which there was not a single Bolshevik. The party leadership passed into the hands of worker Mensheviks; it was headed by the worker V. Rikveilis, the Central Committee’s new secretary. Before the congress, early in 1911, the Central Committee replaced a Bolshevik delegate to the Foreign Bureau of the RSDRP Central Committee with K. Eliass,³³ a steadfast Menshevik, who supported all the motions of the Russian Mensheviks. The Foreign Committee of the SDL and the Central Board of Propagandists, a branch of the party Central Committee, also passed into the hands of Mensheviks. During 1910-14, the Riga Committee and four of the five District Committees of the Riga organization of the SDL consisted of Mensheviks and, at the same time, exclusively of workers. This was an extremely important fact, because the Riga organization constituted the majority of the party. (In 1911 it represented 1,153 of the 2,000 members.)

During its Menshevik period, the SDL took advantage of all the legal possibilities available under the Duma monarchy. Aided by the growth and development of Latvian industry between 1910 and 1914, a wide labor movement developed throughout Latvia under Menshevik leadership. In 1913, there were 138,000 industrial workers; together with those engaged in the transport and building industries there were about 190,000 workers. In 1914, there were 14 active trade union organizations with 7,800 members.³⁴ Associations of consumers and a number of cultural organizations emerged at the same time, while the older associations of mutual assistance continued to exist. Part of the SDL’s agitation activities was now conducted within the framework of these organizations and thus could be carried on legally. In all, in 1914, about 25,000 members were united in these various organizations; that is, eight times as many as were in the illegal SDL. Of considerable importance were the elections of workers’ representatives and members of the Board of Health Insurance Funds which took place in 1913 on the basis of the Labor Insurance Act of 1912. In 1914, there were 82 active health insurance funds in Latvia, in which 88,661 workers participated. To the governing boards of these funds the workers elected Social Democrats.

All this broad organizational work was done by Menshevik organs alone. Moreover, they had to struggle not only against passivity but also against the open opposition of the Latvian Bolsheviks. In 1911, for example, a Party District Conference of the fourth district of Riga, the only one then controlled by the Bolsheviks, requested that all party members break away from legal organizations, which “were no longer of any importance.” Only afterwards, in 1913, did the Latvian Bolsheviks change their tactics and begin to work in legal organizations.³⁵

The Menshevik leaders of the SDL also established a legally published labor press. Arodniēks, a trade union journal, appeared in 1909. Laika Bālss, a Social Democratic paper, began to appear in 1911. These papers were frequently confiscated by the authorities and banned by the courts. Nevertheless, they would soon reappear under a slightly different name.

The Russian Social Democratic papers, the Menshevik Rabochaia gazeta and the Bolshevik Pravda maintained correspondents in Riga and were to some extent distributed throughout Latvia.³⁶ A well-known Menshevik activist, I. Isuf, in Riga in exile during 1913-15, maintained close contact with the Menshevik leaders of the SDL.

Party activity within the legal workers’ organizations considerably raised the political consciousness of their members and produced a new type of activist within the labor movement. Professional revolutionaries were replaced by workers capable of leading large social organizations.³⁷

The Menshevik Central Committee also changed the political tactics of the SDL. Instead of the Bolsheviks’ radical and politically unrealistic demands, the party concentrated its agitation on demanding the reforms necessary for a gradual democratization of the country. In 1911, following the example of the Russian Mensheviks, the Central Committee organized a “petitionary campaign” in favor of “the freedom of coalitions,” by which was meant freedom of association, press, and speech. “Freedom of coalitions,” K. Eliass, one of the Menshevik leaders wrote, “is the most important and most proletarian demand included in our program. A labor movement can exist without a democratic republic, but it can never and nowhere exist without the right to coalitions.”³⁸ During the pre-war years, this Menshevik slogan of “freedom of coalitions” became the mainstay of party policy. The petitionary campaign was unanimously approved by the Riga City Conference in December, 1911. The signed petitions were sent to Dr. A. Priedkalns, the Riga Social Democratic Duma deputy, and published in the workers’ press.

In 1912, the party organized a broad campaign in connection with the elections to the Fourth Duma. Political freedoms were again the major plank of the electoral campaign. In December, 1911, the conference of Riga party organizations unanimously approved the Menshevik political platform. This platform was approved once more in Riga in June, 1912, by the Seventh Conference of the SDL. On this occasion, Latvian Bolsheviks, following the directives of the Russian Bolsheviks, tried to oppose the Menshevik policies but their efforts failed. The conference accepted the platform by a majority of 9 votes to 2 and declared the Menshevik tactics of the Central Committee to be correct. This was a great defeat for the Bolsheviks and it revealed their weakness in this period.³⁹

The elections to the Duma brought more votes for A. Priedkalns, the candidate of the SDL, than for either of the other two candidates. Nevertheless, he did not obtain an absolute majority. In the second round of elections, his opponents united, and a Russian, Mansyrev, member of the Kadet Party, was elected by a narrow majority.

A new growth of the labor movement in Russia had begun in 1912 and had influenced Latvia particularly strongly. In 1912, 63,000 workers were on strike; in 1913, 180,000; and in the first half of 1914 the number of strikers reached 370,000. The strikes had an economic as well as a political character. In many cases the economic demands were connected with several political demands, especially the demand for political freedoms. This new and very strong growth of the labor movement was developing in Latvia under the political leadership of the Menshevik Central Committee of the SDL. In terms of the sweeping dimensions which the Latvian strike movement had assumed, particularly in Riga, Latvia was once more ahead of Russia.

Along with the strike movement, the illegal SDL also grew stronger. The Menshevik Central Committee did not have the slightest intention of “liquidating” the party, as the Bolsheviks had alleged, but had merely transferred part of the political work to legal workers’ organizations. The whole party apparatus, its seven regional organizations, and its organ Cīņa continued to exist, illegal proclamations of the Central Committee and local committees continued to be issued, and conferences and illegal meetings of members took place regularly. The size of the SDL began to increase under Menshevik leadership. In 1911, there were 2,000 members; in 1912, 2,500; in 1913, 3,000; and in 1914, 3,500 members. As before, the Riga organization maintained its leading position during these years, with two-thirds of the party members belonging to it. It is especially important to stress the results of party statistics (the only statistics of this type in the entire RSDRP), gathered in 1913: in Riga, 97 percent of all members were workers, with only 3 percent belonging to the intelligentsia. No city organization of the Russian party had a comparable social composition. The Latvian Party was a purely workers’ party. As to their age, 76 percent of the members were under 30. They joined the party after the 1905 Revolution and grew up in the conditions of the post-revolutionary period. Only 19.8 percent of the members had belonged to the party in 1905.⁴⁰ Among the veteran party members were the main Menshevik leaders and most active organizers of the party, V. Rikveilis and V. Caune.⁴¹

LATVIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND
THE SPLIT WITHIN THE RSDRP

In spite of its clearly Menshevik policy, the SDL assumed at the beginning a conciliatory position concerning the dispute about the organizational question within the RSDRP. In 1911, K. Eliass published a long ironical essay entitled “How the Russian Comrades ‘Unite,’ or A Fairy Tale About a White Bull-Calf.” In it he characterized fractional disputes as merely the arguments of exiled intellectuals quarreling because the party organization in Russia itself had been smashed by the tsarist reaction. The task of Russian workers, he wrote, “is to throw off the unbearable tutelage of these groups from abroad” and, following the example of the SDL, take the party leadership into their own hands.⁴² In 1911, in order to emphasize its nonfractional and conciliatory line, the Central Committee of the SDL financially supported Trotsky’s Pravda, which was issued in Vienna, because it “always made efforts to stand apart from fractional strife”⁴³ and distributed it among Russian members of the SDL. This conciliatory line was a logical result of the policy of the SDL which was based on the principle of strict organizational unity and consistent opposition to any fractional groups. The Latvian Social Democrats demanded that the RSDRP, too, follow this line even though their political sympathies were with the Mensheviks.

Nevertheless, towards the end of 1911, the SDL had to define more clearly its position concerning the split within the RSDRP. At that time, Lenin’s fraction was organizing a conference, and its representative, G. Ordzhonikidze, sent two letters to the Central Committee of the SDL (dated November 14 and December 16) requesting it to send delegates to the conference. Moreover, S. Spandarian, a member of Lenin’s Organizational Committee, came to Riga in November, 1911, and, with the help of Latvian Bolsheviks, penetrated the Propaganda Committee without the SDL Central Committee’s knowledge,⁴⁴ provoking some confusion there. However, a conference of the Riga organization rejected a Bolshevik motion to send delegates to Lenin’s conference and declared as “entirely correct” the anti-Leninist policy of the Central Committee. The delegates openly charged that one of the Latvian Bolsheviks, E. Zvirbulis, who had arrived from Berlin, “had come as Lenin’s agent and was acting with the help of dark money.”⁴⁵ The Central Committee of the SDL did not send any delegates to the Leninist conference, which took place in Prague in January, 1912. This conference, as is well known, put a formal end to the unity of the RSDRP.

After the Prague conference, in March, 1912, the Central Committee of the SDL adopted a special resolution stating that “this ‘conference’ is only a conference of Lenin’s group and in no case an All-Russian conference.” The resolution pointed out that with the exception of Kiev alone the alleged “delegates” did not represent any genuine organizations and that the conference had not been attended by all national party organizations. Outstanding ideologists of Russian Social Democracy, such as Plekhanov, Martov, Trotsky, Dan, and others, had protested the convening of this conference. The resolution also stressed that Lenin’s “conference” willfully adopted not only the name of an All-Russian conference, but also dared to declare itself “the supreme organ of the party” and to take decisions on problems it did not have the slightest right to discuss. In conclusion, the Central Committee declared that it “expresses the sharpest protest” against this “conference” and “proclaims categorically” that the SDL had nothing in common with its “decisions.”⁴⁶

In December, 1911, several months before this resolution, the Central Committee of the SDL had decided “to take the initiative and convene a meeting” of national organizations active in Russia.⁴⁷ This conference took place in January, 1912, and was attended by representatives of the SDL, the Bund, and the Caucasian District Committee. These three groups were the only Social Democratic organizations that were really operative at the time in Russia. The SDL had 2,500 members, the Caucasus (the Georgians) 1,300, and the Bund 475 members.⁴⁸ The conference decided to ask all Social Democratic organizations to elect delegates to a joint conference to be held in Vienna in August, 1912.

Towards the end of June, 1912, the Seventh Conference of the SDL took place in Riga and approved the Central Committee’s policy by a majority of 8 votes with 2 opposed and 1 abstention. It also decided to send delegates to the joint conference in Vienna.⁴⁹ These decisions were a serious defeat for the Latvian Bolsheviks.

The Vienna Conference of August, 1912, was attended by representatives of almost all the non-Leninist organizations. At this conference, the SDL was represented by four delegates with full voting privileges and a fifth delegate, K. Eliass, sent by the Central Committee, who had an advisory vote only. Among the Latvian delegates, Rudolfs Lindīnš, head of the Central Board for Propaganda and particularly devoted to the Menshevik point of view, was elected to the seven member Organizational Committee of the RSDRP.⁵⁰

After the Vienna Conference, the situation within the SDL grew more and more tense. Lenin began to interfere actively with the internal affairs of the Latvian Party. Early in 1912, he had published “A Letter from Riga” in his Social Democrat, in which he advised Latvian Social Democrats “to go over the heads of the intriguers in the leading organs” and to support the Russian Bolsheviks. The Central Committee severely criticized this article for “urging members to breach party discipline.”⁵¹ But the Latvian Bolsheviks disregarded the position of their Central Committee, and in June, 1912, without the Central Committee’s knowledge, they organized a secret Bolshevik Center at a clandestine meeting in Riga. The task of the Center was to combat the Menshevik Central Committee and to win over Menshevik-led organizations of the party. Roberts Eiche, who later became Soviet Commisar of Agriculture, was one of the leaders of this secret Bolshevik Center.⁵² At the same time, the Latvian Bolsheviks living in exile formed a Bureau of SDL organizations abroad, the task of which was to oppose the Menshevik-controlled Foreign Committee of the SDL and Cīņa. This Bolshevik Bureau was headed by an old Leninist, Jānis Bērziņš, who later became Secretary of the Comintern.⁵³ The Bureau issued its own Bulletin, Biletens Latwijas Sozialdemokratijas Ahrsemju Grupu Biroja isdewums, directed against the Central Committee of the SDL and published with Lenin’s financial assistance.⁵⁴ Lenin was pleased by the formation of this organization of Latvian Bolsheviks and expressed his delight in one of his letters: “Latvian Bolsheviks have started to wage war against their Central Committee!”⁵⁵

The Latvian Mensheviks, who in 1912 controlled all the leading party organs, did not take any organizational measures against these separatist Bolshevik activities, which undermined the party discipline and contravened its statutes. The Central Committee had the right to expel the Bolshevik factionalists from the party. Nevertheless, it did not do so because it feared that this might cause a formal split within the party. This hesitation had fateful consequences because it enabled the Bolsheviks to seize control of the party leadership a few years later.

THE BRUSSELS CONGRESS OF
THE SDL IN 1914

In 1913, the Central Committee of the SDL decided to convene its Fourth Party Congress. At first the intention was to hold the Congress secretly in Latvia. However, the Russian Menshevik leader F. Dan, who had met with V. Caune, the SDL Central Committee’s representative in St. Petersburg, warned against this plan. If the Congress were held in Latvia, the Bolshevik Duma faction would send as its delegate the provocateur Malinovskii, who would certainly report the meeting to the police. It was decided that the Fourth Congress would take place abroad, in Brussels.

The Bolsheviks mounted an energetic campaign to obtain a majority of votes at the congress. Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks supported the Latvian Bolsheviks’ struggle against their Central Committee. In 1913, Lenin corresponded with Latvian Bolsheviks and prepared a draft of a political platform for them. On October 14, the Bolshevik Central Committee voted to appropriate 100 rubles for the support of the Latvian Bolsheviks.⁵⁶ At that time, however, the Latvian Bolsheviks were still independent enough to reject the chapter concerning the national question in Lenin’s draft of the platform. Among other things Lenin wrote in this chapter: “We are against any national culture, which we consider to be one of the slogans of bourgeois nationalism. The congress has to reject the slogan of cultural autonomy and the federative principle in the organization of the party as well.”⁵⁷ In 1913, the Latvian Bolsheviks did not accept these views and that is why their Biletens (Bulletin), No. 9-10 of November 7/20, 1913, when publishing the Leninist draft of the platform, dropped the paragraph concerning the nationalities question and shortened and changed several other paragraphs. Indeed, it is characteristic that this draft was published anonymously under the title, “Our Platform for the Fourth Congress,” thus keeping Lenin’s authorship secret. The Latvian Bolsheviks feared that Lenin’s open interference in Latvian party affairs would cause dissatisfaction among the members of the SDL and would seriously harm Bolshevik agitation during the campaign to elect delegates to the party congress.

Police repression, striking at Menshevik leaders of the SDL in June, 1913, proved to be a great help to the Bolsheviks during the election campaign. On June 10, the entire Propaganda Board of the SDL Central Committee was arrested, including its head R. Lindīnš. On June 14, almost all members of the Central Committee were arrested as well. It took several months to form a new Central Committee and to re-establish contacts with regional organizations. These arrests wrecked the whole campaign on the part of the Menshevik Party leadership against the Bolsheviks. The police did not arrest Bolshevik propagandists at that time, and they were able to continue their campaign against the SDL Central Committee. The Menshevik arrests were later revealed to have been the result of treachery by a Liepāja party worker, P. Augulis.

The Fourth Congress of the SDL was held at a “people’s house” on the outskirts of Brussels from January 26 to February 8, 1914. It was attended by 18 delegates with voting rights; of these 9 were Mensheviks and 9 Bolsheviks. All the Riga districts except one sent only Menshevik delegates. Thus Riga, the most developed and most Europeanized center of the Latvian labor movement, supported the Menshevik line by an overwhelming majority. A minority of the Riga delegates (5 of 13) and the delegates from the Latvian countryside, where the labor movement still stuck to obsolete radicalism, were Bolsheviks.

The outcome of the congress depended upon the vote of the delegate from Liepāja, P. Augulis, ostensibly a Menshevik with conciliatory tendencies. His organization directed him to side with the Mensheviks on all decisive questions. Had he done so, the votes would have been evenly divided and the Bolsheviks would not have obtained a majority. As it turned out, the delegate from Liepāja was a provocateur, who had been registered with the secret police since January, 1913 under the assumed name “Leshii.” His switch-over to the Bolsheviks was prepared in accordance with orders from the Police Department in St. Petersburg which at that time followed the policy of supporting the Bolsheviks everywhere in Russia. In the opinion of the Police Department, placing the leadership of the SDL in the hands of the Bolsheviks would lead to a split in the party and thus to a weakening of the Latvian labor movement. The police also assumed that after his switch to the Bolsheviks, Augulis would be elected to the new Central Committee of the SDL; this had been promised to him by the Bolshevik delegates. Thus, for the first time in the history of Latvian Social Democracy the police would have an agent in the highest organ of the party.⁵⁸

During the opening days of the congress, Augulis remained with the Mensheviks and was elected one of three co-chairmen of the congress. After several meetings, and upon receiving orders from the Police Department, he suddenly switched from the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks. Augulis explained this unexpected action by saying that the arguments of the Bolshevik speakers, especially those of Lenin, had “convinced” him and “made” him change his opinions. At the congress, the Russian Bolsheviks were represented by Lenin, the Menshevik Organizational Committee was represented by Semkovskii, the Bund by Iudin, the Menshevik fraction of the Duma by Chkhenkeli, and the Bolshevik fraction by R. Malinovskii, another agent of the Police Department who supported Lenin at the congress in a very rude fashion.⁵⁹

Twenty speakers addressed themselves to the first point of the program, a report on the activities of the Central Committee, which were attacked by the Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, the debate ended with the adoption of a moderate resolution, appreciating the Central Committee’s merits, on the one hand, while criticizing in a restrained manner its support of the Russian Mensheviks, on the other. A resolution demanding the re-establishment of unity within the Social Democratic fraction in the Fourth Duma was adopted unanimously.

However, sharp and prolonged arguments concerning the attitude of the SDL toward the split within the RSDRP ensued. F. Menders, speaking for the Central Committee, moved that the SDL continue to adhere to the Menshevik August Bloc in the future. J. Jansons took a moderate line, maintaining that the SDL should remain neutral and not join either the Russian Bolsheviks or Mensheviks. In a long speech, Lenin appealed to the SDL to join the Bolshevik Party and was supported by the Latvian Bolsheviks who spoke after him. The Bolshevik motion was accepted in principle by 10 votes to 8. Following this, J. Jansons delivered an able and hard-hitting speech accusing Lenin of wrecking Latvian Social Democracy; he declared he would take no further responsibility for the work of the congress and resigned from its chairmanship.

After Jansons’ resignation, a flood of amendments to the resolution was proposed. The Mensheviks proposed twenty amendments of which only five were adopted. The major Menshevik victory was the adoption of an amendment forbidding the SDL to become affiliated organizationally with either the Russian Bolshevik Center or the Mensheviks. This amendment was approved by a majority of 14 out of 18 votes. Eight Mensheviks and, to Lenin’s great displeasure, 6 of the 9 Bolsheviks supported it. During all of these proceedings Lenin himself was stationed in the lobby, giving continual instructions to the Latvian Bolsheviks. In spite of this, and at the decisive moment, the Latvian Bolsheviks, fearing that the Mensheviks might leave the congress and thus split the party, did not follow Lenin. In 1914, the Latvian Bolsheviks still valued the unity of their party and in this respect differed from the Russian Leninists. Referring to this after the congress, Lenin wrote: “The Latvians acted like reconciliators. . . . The Latvians remained neutral. They have not yet gotten rid of hopes for reconciliation.”⁶⁰

On other matters concerning practical policy the congress acted unanimously. But when electing the Central Committee, Lenin succeeded in persuading the Latvian Bolsheviks to make use of their majority to elect only Bolsheviks. In this way all the power in the party passed into their hands. This had fateful consequences, however, for it gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to use the party apparatus to Bolshevize the SDL in the course of 1914-15. The Bolsheviks ignored the two Mensheviks who were alternate members of the SDL Central Committee, refusing them membership on the Central Committee when, after the Congress, some of its Bolshevik members were denounced by the agent Augulis and arrested. Augulis was elected a member of the Central Committee and remained in it until 1917.

After the congress, the Menshevik delegates held a separate consultative meeting at which J. Jansons appealed “not to give the party to the Bolsheviks,” but to break away from them and found a new, non-Bolshevik party. He predicted, and quite correctly, that after handing over the party apparatus and the press to the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks would never be able to get them back again. But the majority of the Mensheviks still nurtured the old and strong tradition of standing for the unity of the SDL and clung to the illusion that by playing the role of a Menshevik opposition within the party, they could again gain the majority.⁶¹

The Brussels Congress of the SDL represented a sudden change in the policy of the Latvian Party. All power was handed over to the Bolsheviks and to an agent of the Police Department, who proceeded to destroy the once strong and united party.⁶²

WORLD WAR I, THE REVOLUTION OF 1917,
AND THE SPLIT WITHIN THE SDL

In 1914 the Bolshevik Central Committee still adhered to the semi-neutral line which the Brussels Congress had approved. Lenin was quite displeased by this and when the Central Committee of the SDL applied for a loan of 300 rubles to publish the records of the Fourth Congress, the Central Committee of the RSDRP, which was then controlled by Lenin, refused on the ground that in Brussels the Latvian Bolsheviks had followed a conciliatory line.⁶³ At that time, Lenin was not yet sure of the Latvian Bolsheviks’ full support. This is attested by a letter of May 23, 1914, written to Lenin by Jānis Bērziņš, a leading Latvian Bolshevik: “We shall hardly support you everywhere and in everything, but it is nevertheless extremely valuable to you that at least sometimes your side is supported by such a solid and, more importantly, neutral organization as the SDL.”⁶⁴ In July, 1914, Lenin wrote to J. Hermanis, another Latvian Bolshevik: “I am very much alarmed by the fact that some of the Latvians back the Bund’s federalism, or remain hesitant. . . .” He mentioned further that the Latvian party would have to struggle against “liquidationism,” nationalism and federalism. If the Latvian Bolsheviks were not able to follow his advice, Lenin considered it “better to postpone” bringing the two parties closer.⁶⁵

Although the Latvian Bolsheviks did not follow Lenin in every respect, they began to use all means to take over the Menshevik-dominated district organizations of the Latvian party. Augulis, the police agent in the Central Committee, helped them a great deal. The Menshevik leaders, including V. Rikveilis and V. Caune, were denounced and arrested a few weeks after the Brussels Congress. Moreover, the legal as well as the illegal party press and the whole party apparatus were now in the hands of the Bolsheviks. Thus it is not surprising that among the delegates to the Riga SDL Conference in June, 1914, there were 13 Bolsheviks and only 3 Mensheviks. The Mensheviks now congregated in the legal cultural association “Ungus” (Fire). In December, 1914, the Riga Bolshevik Committee declared a boycott of this association and in March, 1915, it expelled from the party all those active in the association’s affairs. At the same time, many Mensheviks themselves withdrew from the party. By now, the Bolsheviks were free to act as they wished and in November, 1914, they sent an SDL delegate to the All-Russian Conference of Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg. In so doing, they willfully ignored the decision of the Brussels Congress on the neutrality of the SDL. Thus the breakup of the Latvian Party started within a year after the Brussels Congress.

However, in 1914 the Bolsheviks did not have a majority among the workers of Riga. This can be seen in the election of workers’ representatives to the provincial commission on workers’ insurance held in the spring of 1915. These representatives were elected by the delegates of the Health Insurance Funds which had been established by the Workers’ Insurance Act of 1912. Associated in these funds were 88,000 industrial workers; when their delegates voted in March, 1915, the Mensheviks obtained a majority (40 to 31), and as a result, only Mensheviks were elected members of the commission.

Further development of the SDL was interrupted by World War I. In 1915, the German Army occupied Kurland (Southern Latvia) and tsarist authorities evacuated almost all Riga factories, their machines, and their workers to various cities in Russia. In 1916 only 3,400 of the city’s 87,000 industrial workers remained in Riga. In 1914, the SDL had 3,500 members; in 1916 only 360 members remained. Latvian Social Democrats who had been evacuated to Russia either joined the Russian Mensheviks or Bolsheviks, or else remained outside the party since in many Russian cities there were no party organizations at all.

After the February, 1917 Revolution the SDL became legal in Riga and in Latvian territory that had not been occupied by Germans. The final split was delayed for a year, because the Menshevik-Internationalists and the Bolsheviks followed a common, anti-war line.⁶⁶

THE PERIOD OF AN INDEPENDENT LATVIA

The final split occurred in Latvia as late as May, 1918. At that time, an illegal SDL conference expelled all the Mensheviks who declared themselves to be against the Bolshevik dictatorship in Russia and who demanded the foundation of an independent and democratic Latvia. On June 17, 1918, the Mensheviks convened a conference and founded their own party under the old name (dating from 1904) “Latvijās Sociāldemokratiska Strādnieku Partija” (the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party or LSDSP). It was actually a Menshevik party. P. Kalniņš and F. Menders were elected to its Central Committee as was the present author, who was elected Secretary.

The LSDSP played a decisive role in the creation of the Latvian Republic, which came into existence on November 18, 1918. From 1919 to 1920 the LSDSP also took an active part in Latvia’s war of liberation against German militarists and against the Red Army.⁶⁷

During the period of Latvia’s independence, the LSDSP was the strongest political party in the country. In 1932, it had 12,089 members and was the political leader of all branches of the labor movement. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1920, the LSDSP obtained 38.9 percent of the vote, and in the ranks of the army as much as 65 percent. In the four democratic parliamentary elections (1922-34), the LSDSP obtained 20.7 to 32.1 percent of the vote. It was always the strongest fraction in the Latvian Parliament and twice its representatives became members of the Latvian Government (1923 and 1926-28). Dr. Pauls Kalniņš headed the Parliament and was Vice-President of the Republic. Dr. F. Menders, an old Menshevik, was the last president of the LSDSP. The party was a member of the Socialist International and took part in all its congresses.⁶⁸ During the democratic period of independent Latvia (1918-34) and under the influence of the LSDSP, a democratic constitution was adopted and a radical agrarian reform was carried out. Also due to LSDSP’s influence, Latvia’s social legislation in the 1920s ranked among the most advanced in Europe.

During these years, the LSDSP remained on friendly terms with the Russian Mensheviks, whose center had been in Berlin since 1920. Menshevik representatives were invited to take part in the LSDSP’s congresses in Riga. In 1922, F. Dan, B. Nicolaevsky and a group of other leaders of the Menshevik Party crossed Latvia on their way abroad and were received in a friendly manner. With the help of the LSDSP, G. Kuchin and other Menshevik activists were able to cross the Soviet-Latvian border illegally and continue to Berlin. The LSDSP also helped Kuchin and Eva Broido return to Russia in order to work there illegally for the Mensheviks. In the twenties, several hundred copies of each issue of the Sotsialisticheskii vestnik were sent by Latvian diplomatic mail to the Latvian Embassy in Moscow, again with the help of the LSDSP. There, J. Vigrabbe, who was Secretary to the Embassy at that time, distributed the Menshevik journal to representatives of the Menshevik organization (still existing at that time in the Soviet Union).

The LSDSP’s free activities were interrupted by a fascist coup and by the introduction of the dictatorship of K. Ulmanis in May, 1934. The LSDSP was banned and all its leaders were arrested.⁶⁹

In 1942, the party illegally resumed its activities and played a leading role in the democratic resistance. During the period of the first Soviet occupation (1940-41) and during the Nazi occupation (1941-45), many members of the LSDSP were arrested by the NKVD and the Gestapo and were sent to concentration camps, where they perished. During the period of Stalinist terror which followed the second Soviet occupation in 1945, many workers were again sent to concentration camps. Those who survived, among them F. Menders,⁷⁰ were set free by the amnesty of 1955.

Some of the LSDSP’s members fled Latvia in 1944-45, and formed a party organization abroad. Since 1948 a Foreign Committee of the LSDSP has been working in Stockholm where a party organ, Brīvīa (Freedom), is issued monthly. As far as is possible, contact is maintained with Soviet Latvia. Democracy and freedom for all nations, the traditional slogans of Menshevism, have until now remained the demands of the Latvian Social Democrats in exile.

____________

All dates in this chapter are new style.