The Communist Party of Latvia (, LKP) was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

History

Latvian Social-Democracy prior to 1919

The party was founded at a congress in June 1904.Lenin: An Appeal to the Party by Delegates to the Unity Congress Who Belonged to the Former ’Bolshevik’ Group
/ref> Initially the party was known as the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (LSDSP). During its second party congress in 1905 it adopted the programme of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

(RSDLP) as its own. At the Fourth Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, the LSDSP entered the RSDLP as a territorial organisation, and after the congress its name was changed to Social-Democracy of the Latvian Territory. The party held its fourth congress in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

from 26 January to 8 February 1914. In May 1918

Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party The Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (, LSDSP) is a Social democracy, social-democratic list of political parties in Latvia, political party in Latvia and the second oldest existing Latvian political party after the Latvian Farmers' Uni ...

was founded by the

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

elements who had been expelled from the LSD.

Rule in Soviet Latvia, 1919–1920

First Congress of the Communist Party of Latvia

The party briefly governed the

Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic The Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (, LSPR) was a short-lived socialist republic formed during the Latvian War of Independence. It was proclaimed on 17 December 1918 with the political, economic, and military backing of Vladimir Lenin and ...

in 1919; and changed its name to the Communist Party of Latvia in March 1919; 7,500 members in 1919. The youth wing of the party was the Young Communist League of Latvia (LKJS). The LKP was a member of the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

(Third International) from 1919.

Underground and exile, 1920–1940

In the aftermath of the

Latvian War of Independence The Latvian War of Independence (), sometimes called Latvia's freedom battles () or the Latvian War of Liberation (), was a series of military conflicts in Latvia between 5 December 1918, after the newly proclaimed Republic of Latvia was invade ...

, the LKP was banned in Latvia. Its leadership resided in exile in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, while the organisation in Latvia operated clandestinely, either through underground

cells Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life * Cellphone, a phone connected to a cellular network * Clandestine cell, a penetration-resistant form of a secret or outlawed organization * Electrochemical cell, a d ...

, or via proxy organisations, such as "Red" leftist trades unions. In 1928 the party started operating more openly, and contested the 1928 Saeima elections through a proxy list known as the "Left Trade Unions". The list won five seats, but was banned in 1930. They reformed the following year to contest the next elections as the "Trade Union Workers and Peasants Group", winning six seats. However, in 1933 the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the party, and its MPs were arrested and charged with treason.Vincent E McHale (1983) ''Political parties of Europe'', Greenwood Press, p450 In 1936, a youth organization parallel to the LKJS, Workers' Youth League of Latvia (LDJS), was formed as a cooperative effort by the LKP and their former rivals, the erstwhile

, outlawed following the Ulmanis coup d'état in 1934.

In power in the Latvian SSR, 1940–1990

After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in June 1940 and the ousting of the Ulmanis government, the LKP and LDJS were legalised again and could operate openly.Latvijas Valsts arhīvs
/ref> It was the only party ''de facto'' allowed to contest in the Soviet staged 1940 elections, which it did under the aegis of the "Latvian Working People's Bloc" () installed by the Communists themselves. The party later merged into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks). As the Latvian branch of CPSU(b) it was renamed as Communist Party of Latvia (Bolshevik) (, (LK(b)P). When the CPSU(b) was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952, the Latvian branch was reconstituted under the old name LKP. Article 6 of the

Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation of the Bal ...

Constitution (1978) made the LKP's monopoly on political power in Soviet Latvia explicit. In 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia (formerly the Latvian SSR

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...

, now dominated by the Latvian Popular Front) voted to remove Article 6 from the Constitution. On 14 April 1990, a pro-independence faction under Ivars Ķezbers split off from the LKP to form the Independent Communist Party of Latvia (). The main body of the LKP, under the chairmanship of

Alfrēds Rubiks Alfrēds Rubiks (, ''Alfred Petrovich Rubiks''; born 24 September 1935), is a Latvian communist politician and a former leader of the Communist Party of Latvia. He was a Member of the European Parliament for Latvia from 2009 until 2014. In the ...

, remained loyal to Moscow and the CPSU leadership. Later that same year, on 14 September, Ķezbers's party was officially renamed the Democratic Labour Party of Latvia (, LDDP) and adopted nominally

social-democratic Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, socia ...

platform.

Post-independence, 1990–1993

Following Latvia's renewed independence from the Soviet Union, the LKP was banned by a decision of the

Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia The Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republikas Augstākā Padome) was the transitional parliament of Latvia from 1990 to 1993, after the restoration of independence. The Supreme Council was elected on 1990 as the S ...

on 10 September 1991 as an organisation deemed hostile to Latvia's independence. In October of that year, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Latvia ''Cīņa'', was shut down and banned. Later, an organization by the name of the League of Communists of Latvia was created by Albert Lebedev. However, registration to this organization was denied. In 1993, it was indicated that the League of Communists of Latvia became affiliated to the

Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP–CPSU) is a federation of communist parties in the post-Soviet states founded in 1993. Gennady Zyuganov has been the organisation's chairman since 2001. He replaced ...

. Since then the party has operated underground and under "certain conditions". In 1994, the Socialist Party of Latvia was founded as the successor to the LKP.

Press

'' Cīņa'' (Struggle) was a newspaper founded in March 1904 as the Central Organ of the Latvian Social-Democrats. It was published periodically in Riga, Brussels and Petrograd. From 1919 it was the organ of the Communist Party of Latvia.Lenin: The Jubilee Number of Zihna
/ref> While the LKP leadership was in exile in the USSR during the interwar years and the Nazi occupation in World War II, ''Cīņa'' was published in the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. From 1940 onwards it was published in Riga. In the Latvian SSR, ''Cīņa'' was one of the main Latvian-language dailies. In 1990, when the Ķezbers faction split from the main LKP to form the Independent Communists, they changed the name of the newspaper to ''Neatkarīgā Cīņa'' (The Independent Struggle), which after privatisation in the 1990s later became '' Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze''. The Russian-language sister publication to ''Cīņa'' published by the LKP was the daily '' Sovetskaya Latviya'' (Soviet Latvia); while the daily ''Padomju Jaunatne'' (Soviet Youth) was the newspaper of the Latvian Young Communist League. In the Latvian SSR, the LKP also published a monthly political journal '' Padomju Latvijas Komunists'' (Communist of Soviet Latvia, ; in the 1940s and '50s: ''Padomju Latvijas Boļševiks''), with a parallel edition in Russian (''Kommunist Sovetskoi Latvii'', ). The journal ceased publication in 1990.

First Secretaries of the Communist Party of Latvia

Second Secretaries of the Communist Party of Latvia

References

{{Authority control Organizations of the Revolutions of 1989

Communist parties in the Soviet Union Banned communist parties Collaborators with the Soviet Union

Communist parties in Latvia Parties of one-party systems Political parties established in 1904 Political parties disestablished in 1991 Defunct political parties in Latvia Political parties in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic Singing Revolution 1904 establishments in the Russian Empire 1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union