What Latvia Wishes From This War?Dr. Alfreds Bīlmanis, 1944

Prologue to war of independence

During the 22 years of independent life of the Baltic States such questions were never raised, nor was the question of the Baltic States being an artificial creation of Versailles ever raised, as the "united and indivisible Russia" protagonists now insist, with the calculation that if the Versailles treaty falls then also the Baltic States, deprived of their "legal base," fall . . . As a matter of fact, the Baltic States are a creation of the powerful young spirit of the freedom loving Baltic peoples, who during the second half of the XIX century, like many other European nations, became self-conscious national entities, proud of their language, folklore, history, and Protestant and Catholic religion.

 8 In 1904-1905 revolutions broke out in the Baltic countries against the German-Balt squirearchy and the Russian Czarist gendarmes and police subservient to the German-Balts. The demands of the Baltic peoples were not separatistic. They asked for political equality, self-government, and schools and procedure in courts in their own language—all reasonable demands from the point of view of to-day's democratic ideals.

During the revolution also a strong political ideology arose among the Baltic peoples. A purely Latvian so-called Federative Committee functioned in Riga during December 1905, when this Committee was practically the supreme power in Latvia, the Russian administration and police having capitulated. Also a Latvian militia was organized. Order and discipline reigned. The Latvian nation had achieved its statehood.

In the same way the Estonian and Lithuanian nations became entities and also ready for self-governments.

There were enough educated and patriotic men in the Baltic countries fit for the various duties of the local administration and the judicial system.

But the oligarchic German-Balt squirearchy was once more reinstated by the Russian Czar, who ordered his army to crush the Baltic autonomous movement. In a bloody way the Baltic peoples, were suppressed, and German-Balts, as Russian honorary police officers, helped and guided the Rusian execution squads.

However, the Baltic peoples continued their fight for freedom in the Russian Imperial Duma, which emerged from the Russian political movement in 1905. Not a single German deputy or representative was elected to the Duma by the Baltic peoples . . .

As a concession to the pressure of Western European democracy, a committee for reforms was set up in 1907 in Riga, presided over by the Russian Governor, but the majority consisting of German-Balt big landowners, members of the German-Balt Diet or Landtag. This committee had to work out a rule by which also representatives of Latvian farmers might become eligible to the Landtag. The first World War interrupted the work of the Committee, which was practically slowed down in its activity when a political court reaction again became predominant in Russia and a new wave of russification of Finland and the Baltic peoples started. Only the first World War preserved Russia proper from a new revolution, which was in preparation by the Russian political movement. The Russian radical party of socialist-revolutionaries, which worked among the Russian peasants and advocated an agrarian reform (by which the collectively owned area of the Russian village—the "mir"—was to be aggrandized with expropriated State lands and lands of the adjacent big landowners), and the Russian Social-Democratic party, which was organizing the Russian working class, also were very active among the Russian students and in the Russian army. The Russian Maximalists, later known as Bolsheviks, who advocated a revolutionary overthrow and dictatorship of the proletariat, were, however, in the minority. The nationalist Russian Constitutional-Democratic Party, which proposed a moderate program of reforms, had the biggest success among the Russian intellectuals. It was opposed by a conservative Russian tory party of the so-called Octobrists, who were for the status quo and agreed only to a Duma as a consultative body.

The general demand of all progressive minded Russians was for a Constituent Assembly, elected by general and free vote, a responsible Government, and reforms to be carried out in a parliamentary way. This sound political ideology, supported by a vigorous press and progressive Zemstvo  9  (district and country) and municipal self-governments, was wide spread in Russia, and the Baltic peoples put all their hopes in this constructive political movement. The progressive Russian intellectuals, except for a small chauvinistic Slavophile group, were in favor of large local Baltic autonomies. During the first World War the Latvians and the other Balts did not take advantage of the difficult Russian home situation. The autonomy promised to the Poles by the supreme commander of the Russian armed forces, Grand Duke Nicholas, in the beginning of the war was a sign of better treatment to be expected also by the Baltic States after the war. The Latvian members of the Russian Duma organized Latvian rifle regiments on a voluntary basis to join in the Russian war effort. The Poles did the same—and these two nations were then the sole nations to take this action. The Russian Government gave its consent to these Latvian and Polish national military formations. This promised a certain political autonomy after the victorious war. From a contingent of 180,000 the Latvian regiments lost about 32,000. Their shining bravery was often meritoriously mentioned in the war-communiqués of the Russian high command. For two years the Latvian Rifles, together with the gallant Russian Siberian Rifles, withstood the best Hindenburg forces on the Dvina front. Even Hindenburg himself admitted that the Latvian Rifles were the "shining stars" on the Eastern front . . . Then, in March 1917, came the Russian revolution—"the Great Bloodless Revolution"—Czar Nicholas II abdicated for himself and his infant heir; so did his brother Grand Duke Michail, who made the issue dependent upon the decision of a Constituent Assembly. Hopes arose that Russia would become a great federation of freedom loving, economically interdependent, self-governing nations. On July 5, 1917, the Russian Provisional Government of Prince Lvov granted by Decree the Latvian districts of Kurland and Livonia the Zemstvo self-government, which the Russians themselves enjoyed already under the czarist regime. This "gift" came too late. Kurland was already in German hands, and so was Lithuania. Soon Riga was taken and Livonia. In Kurland and Lithuania the Germans were busy building up a union with Germany. A welcome move for the Germans was the Bolshevik coup d’état in Russia on November 7, 1917, which resulted in the Brest-Litovsk separate peace treaty of March 3, 1918, by which the Bolsheviks ceded all the Baltic Provinces, White-Russia and the Ukraine to the German sphere of influence. Already in November, 1917, after the Bolshevik overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government, the Latvian and Estonian National Committees and the Finnish Diet decided for unlimited self-determination: bolshevism was unacceptable for the Baltic peoples. Similarly unacceptable was incorporation into Germany as prepared by the German-Balt nobles.

The Latvian Provisional National Council, as established on November 17-18, 1917, in Walka, on free Latvian ground, by an impressive Latvian National Assembly, protested also against the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, and officially declared to the Russian Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, just before its disbandment by the Bolsheviks, that the L.P.N.C. has decided to establish its own independent state.*

It was clear that a heavy struggle awaited the Latvian nation against two enemies—the Germans and the Bolsheviks. And it came.

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*

Malbone W. Graham, The Diplomatic Recognition of the Border States, Part III, Latvia, pp. 401-408.

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