Soviet Aggression Against The Baltic Statesby Augusts Rumpēters

Preface

The scholar of history, who studies the distressing events of the first two years of World War II, will recognize the paramount significance of two developments that affected the Western World for several decades to come.

First, in 1939 two quasi-allied dictatorships — Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union — occupied and divided Poland. And second, in June 1940, while victorious Hitler's troops invaded France, the successors to Russian tsars, the government of Joseph V. Stalin ordered its troops to occupy the Baltic States. The occupation forces soon enforced a genocidal policy of extermination, deportation and russification of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, followed by a massive influx of Russian nationals into the Baltic States. This was the beginning of the thrust by the Soviet Union into the Western World.

The tractate by Mr. A. Rumpeters, LL.M. analyzes how the Soviet Union, by breaking existing international treaties and by the use of force, committed its aggression against the Baltic States.

The World Federation
of Free Latvians

Augusts Rumpēters (1899-1978) was one of the preeminent jurists of Latvia’s first independence, serving in the Supreme Court Senate of the Republic of Latvia. His cogent and superbly annotated dissertation on Stalin’s aggression against the Baltics is more pertinent today than ever: the Soviet Union has passed into history, yet the false dogma that the Baltics joined the U.S.S.R. legally and willingly survives.

Our sincere thanks to the World Federation of Free Latvians for their permission to reproduce this work.

S. & P. Vecrumba
June, 2007