December 17, 1918 – Latvian War of Independence: Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic is formed
Under the patronage of Soviet Russia, on December 17, 1918, the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic led by Latvian communist Pēteris Stučka, was set up as a regime to rival the Latvian nationalist provisional government of Kārlis Ulmanis that had been formed one month earlier. Two Latvian governments now vied for legitimacy during the Latvian War of Independence.
Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania form the Baltic States.(Taken from Latvian War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)
Background By themid-19th century, as a result of the French Revolution (1789-1799), a wave ofnationalism swept across Europe, a phenomenon that touched into Latviaas well. The Latvian nationalistmovement was led by the “Young Latvians”, a nationalist movement of the 1850sto 1880s that promoted Latvian identity and consciousness (as opposed to theprevailing Germanic viewpoint that predominated society) expressed in Latvianart, culture, language, and writing. TheBaltic German nobility used its political and economic domination of society tosuppress this emerging Latvian nationalistic sentiment. The Russian government’s attempt at“Russification” (cultural and linguistic assimilation into the Russian state)was rejected by Latvians. The Latviannational identity also was accelerated by other factors: the abolition ofserfdom in Courland in 1817 and Livoniain 1819, the growth of industrialization and workers’ organizations, increasingprosperity among Latvians who had acquired lands, and the formation of Latvianpolitical movements.
The Russian Empire opposed these nationalist sentiments andenforced measures to suppress them. Thenin January 1905, the social and political unrest that gripped Russia (the Russian Revolution of 1905) producedmajor reverberations in Latvia,starting in January 1905, when mass protests in Riga were met with Russian soldiers openingfire on the demonstrators, killing and wounding scores of people. Local subversive elements took advantage ofthe revolutionary atmosphere to carry out a reign of terror in the countryside,particularly targeting the Baltic German nobility, torching houses and lootingproperties, and inciting peasants to rise up against the ethnic Germanlandowners. In November 1905, Russianauthorities declared martial law and brought in security forces that violentlyquelled the uprising, executing over 1,000 dissidents and sending thousands ofothers into exile in Siberia.
Then in July 1914, World War I broke out in Europe, with Russia allied with other major powers Britain and Franceas the Triple Entente, against Germany,Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire that comprised the major CentralPowers. In 1915, the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary made military gainsin the northern sector of the Eastern Front; by May of that year, German unitshad seized sections of Latvian Courland and Livonian Governorates. A tenacious defense put up by the newlyformed Latvian Riflemen of the Imperial Russian Army held off the Germanadvance into Rigafor two years, but the capital finally fell in September 1917.
The Bolsheviks, on coming to power in the OctoberRevolution, issued the “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia” (onNovember 15, 1917), which granted all non-Russian peoples of the former RussianEmpire the right to secede from Russia and establish their own separate states.Eventually, the Bolsheviks would renege on this edict and suppress secessionfrom the Russian state (now known as Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,or RSFSR). The Bolshevik revolution alsohad succeeded partly on the communists promising a war-weary citizenry that Russia wouldwithdraw from World War I; thereafter, the Russian government declared itspacifist intentions to the Central Powers. A ceasefire agreement was signed on December 15, 1917 and peace talksbegan a few days later in Brest-Litovsk (present-day Brest,in Belarus).
However, the Central Powers imposed territorial demands thatthe Russian government deemed excessive. On February 17, 1918, the Central Powers repudiated the ceasefireagreement, and the following day, Germanyand Austria-Hungaryrestarted hostilities, launching a massive offensive with one million troops in53 divisions along three fronts that swept through western Russia and captured Ukraine Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia,and Estonia. German forces also entered Finland,assisting the non-socialist paramilitary group known as the “White Guards” indefeating the socialist militia known as “Red Guards” in the Finnish CivilWar. Eleven days into the offensive, thenorthern front of the German advance was some 85 miles from the Russian capitalof Petrograd.
On February 23, 1918, or five days into the offensive, peacetalks were restarted at Brest-Litovsk, with the Central Powers demanding evengreater territorial and military concessions on Russia than in the December1917 negotiations. After heated debatesamong members of the Council of People’s Commissars (the highest Russiangovernmental body) who were undecided whether to continue or end the war, atthe urging of its Chairman, Vladimir Lenin, the Russian government acquiescedto the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On March3, 1918, Russian and Central Powers representatives signed the treaty, whosemajor stipulations included the following: peace was restored between Russiaand the Central Powers; Russia relinquished possession of Finland (which wasengaged in a civil war), Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic territories ofEstonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – Germany and Austria-Hungary were to determinethe future of these territories; and Russia also agreed on some territorialconcessions to the Ottoman Empire.
German forces occupied Estonia,Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus,Ukraine, and Poland,establishing semi-autonomous governments in these territories that weresubordinate to the authority of the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II. The German occupation of the region allowedthe realization of the Germanic vision of “Mitteleuropa”, an expansionistambition aimed at unifying all Germanic and non-Germanic peoples of Central Europe into a greatly enlarged and powerfulGerman Empire. In support ofMitteleuropa, in the Baltic region, the Baltic German nobility proposed to setup the United Baltic Duchy, a semi-autonomous political entity consisting ofpresent-day Latvia and Estonia thatwould be voluntarily integrated into the German Empire. The proposal was not implemented, but Germanmilitary authorities set up local civil governments under the authority of theBaltic German nobility or ethnic Germans.
Although the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 ended Russia’sparticipation in World War I, the war was still ongoing in other fronts – mostnotably on the Western Front, where for four years, German forces were boggeddown in inconclusive warfare against the British, French and other AlliedArmies. After transferring substantialnumbers of now freed troops from the Russian front to the Western Front, inMarch 1918, Germany launchedthe Spring Offensive, a major attack into Franceand Belgiumin an effort to bring the war to an end. After four months of fighting, by July 1918, despite achieving someterritorial gains, the German offensive had ground to a halt.
The Allied Powers then counterattacked with newly developedbattle tactics and weapons and gradually pushed back the now spent anddemoralized German Army all across the line into German territory. The entry of the United States into the war on the Allied side was decisive, asincreasing numbers of arriving American troops with the backing of the U.S.weapons-producing industrial power contrasted sharply with the greatly depletedwar resources of both the Entente and Central Powers. The imminent collapse of the German Army wasgreatly exacerbated by the outbreak of political and social unrest at the homefront (the German Revolution of 1918-1919), leading to the sudden end of theGerman monarchy with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918and the establishment of an interim government (under moderate socialistFriedrich Ebert), which quickly signed an armistice with the Allied Powers onNovember 11, 1918 that ended the combat phase of World War I.
As the armistice agreement required that Germany demobilizethe bulk of its armed forces as well as withdraw the same to the confines ofthe German borders within 30 days, the German government ordered its forces toabandon the occupied territories that had been won in the Eastern Front. After Germany’scapitulation, Russiarepudiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and made plans to seize back theEuropean territories it previously had lost to the Central Powers. An even far more reaching objective was forthe Bolshevik government to spread the communist revolution to Europe, first bylinking up with German communists who were at the forefront of the unrest thatcurrently was gripping Germany. Russian military planners intended the offensiveto merely follow in the heels of the German withdrawal from Eastern Europe (i.e. to not directly engage the Germans in combat) andthen seize as much territory before the various local ethnic nationalist groupsin these territories could establish a civilian government.
Germany’sdefeat in World War I and the subsequent withdrawal of German forces from theBaltic region produced a political void that local nationalist leaders rapidlyfilled. In Latvia, on November 17, 1918,independence-seeking political leaders established a “People’s Council”(Latvian: Tautas padome), an interim legislative assembly, which in turn formeda provisional government under Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis. The next day, November 18, the Latviangovernment declared independence as the Republic of Latvia.
Starting on November 28, 1918, in the action known as theSoviet westward offensive of 1918-1919, Soviet forces consisting of hundreds ofthousands of troops advanced in a multi-pronged offensive with the objective ofrecapturing the Baltic region, Belarus,Poland, and Ukraine.
The northern front of the Soviet offensive was directed at Latvia and Estonia. In Latvia, the Red Army, as Soviet forceswere called and which included the Red Latvian Riflemen (formerly the LatvianRiflemen of the Imperial Russian Army who had shifted their allegiance toBolshevik Russia), made rapid progress and easily gained control of most ofLatvian territory, including Valka, Valmiera, Rēzekne, Daugavpils, and thecapital Riga, which was taken in April 1919. The newly formed Latvian Army and pro-Latvia German militias retreatedin disarray. Under the sponsorship ofSoviet Russia, on December 17, 1918, the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republicled by Latvian communist Pēteris Stučka, was set up as a regime to rival theUlmanis Latvian nationalist provisional government that had been formed onemonth earlier.
