GalleryPreface
The duty and obligation of historians and scholars of political and sociological sciences is to search for truth. To serve this purpose they must gather correct, unbiased facts to explain the actions of heads of states, who formulated treaties in conferences, that determined the fate of other nations, even those, who were not invited to those conferences. Many important decisions have been made behind closed doors. There have been tragic dealings with the life and death of many nations and well known national leaders have committed monumental abuse of democratic and ethical principles, based on lack of knowledge, false admiration, selfish politics or plain ignorance. Now that communism as a form of government is proved to be unworkable and bankrupt, it is tragic indeed to look back in the sequence of decisive decision making, which committed all Eastern Europe, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to communist terror and filled the death mills of Gulags with peoples, who did not believe in their fake ideology, wanted to till their native soil and live in their national heritage and were not interested in the absorption by another peoples.
I wish to extend my gratitude to the Professor of Political Science and Sociology of the Jersey City State College Dr. Vilnis V. Šveics for this distinguished fact-finding work and presentation in East Orange, N.J. on November 18, 1989, the 71. anniversary of the proclamation of an independent Latvia.
Arvids Blodnieks,
Director of the Latvian Institute,
Montclair, N.J.
