The Ghastly Year - In The Beginning

In the beginning...

On June 15 and 16 of 1940, Latvians came together for the song festival in Daugavpils. This was the last song festival of the Latvian people: the invasion of the Bolsheviks on the night of June 14 of that same year into Latvia started its road of anguish.

A carnival of blood began. That night "the Great Eastern Neighbor", after a terrible silence of twenty-three years, took the first step in a dance of death on Latvian soil. These are the visiting-cards with which the Bolsheviks were announcing themselves to ensure the fulfillment of the USSR - Latvian Mutual Assistance Pact signed in 1939.

Fatal incident in frontier area

Lta. Riga, June 15. In the dawn of Saturday morning, the quarters of our border guards in Masļenki (Abrene6 district along the Latvian - Soviet Union border) was found burned. At the same place were found the dead bodies of two border guards and one woman, as well as another seriously injured woman and similarly injured 14 year-old boy. 11 border guards and several residents of this area have disappeared. A special investigation commission under the management of the commander of the Border Guards Brigade, General Bošteins, went to the place of the incident in order to investigate this fatal occurrence.

- The burned quarters of border guards in Masļenki Augšpils rural distric.t

- Scorched corpse of border guard Macītis.

- Corpse of Hermine, the wife of the border guard Puriņš.

- Corpse of the border guard Beizaks.

There was no escape from death for the son of border guard Puriņš, who died from serious injuries at the hospital, and border guard Cīmoško, who fell simultaneously with Beizaks. Bolsheviks drove back across the border those forty-three border guards and residents of the vicinity who were trying to extinguish the burning border guard quarters...

This happened at exactly the same time as the Bolshevik press was reporting that...
	"...THE SOVIET UNION HAS BEEN CONDUCTING AND IS CONTINUING TO CONDUCT DEFINITE PRO-LATVIAN POLICIES FAVORABLE IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE..."

		The cynicism and atrociousness with which the Soviet Authority demonstrated itself seemed unbelievable. The hypocrisy and falsifications of the truth seemed incomprehensible. Yet for all that, it was the truth. The explanations and answers of the official institutions of Latvia were not able to change anything. Moscow was doing as it had decided. An it had decided much. On morning of June 17, Latvia was quickly flooded by immense hordes of armed Asians.

Bolsheviks entering Riga over the Iron Bridge. Afternoon of June 17, the scene at the Central Market.


Disorders staged by a crowd at the Prefecture of Riga.

	...But from the secret underground, feeling they had friends in the Bolsheviks, the "Oppressed People" - a few dozen hooligans, recidivists and tramps, and the Yids9 - "the Chosen People" as a community, were rising in order to attack the Latvian police which were attempting to maintain order on streets flooded by the arriving Soviet armed forces. The Red Army, which had arrived "to ensure the implementation of the USSR - Latvian Mutual Assistance Pact", took the mob under its protection (center). By that act the Soviet Authorities indicated to whom it wished to provide "mutual assistance": it was certainly not to the Latvian people. Grimly keeping silent, the Latvians were watching the drama from the sides of the streets, the final scene of which they could not even guess.
	The scene at the Main Post Office on the day of the Bolsheviks' entry into Riga.


	A t t a c k s upon the police, soldiers and officers of the Latvian army were happening all through the capital and throughout the entire country. Stones were hurled at the police.
After the mob was dispersed the entire square at the station and the Prefecture of Riga was littered with stones.
		Latvian institutions, not knowing the morals of the Bolsheviks, still were trying to act according to the existing laws and being certain that the instigators of the disorders would surely be punished. This was a bitter delusion. The Soviet embassy explained that it was more or less satisfied with the welcoming of these units of the Red Army into Riga. The surnames of those punished indicate to which nationality the major number of brawlers belonged.