Slavonic and East European Review

Abstract:

Between 1959 and 1963, an alliance of Latvian Stalinists and Kremlin conservatives purged the Latvian Communist Party, ousting its so-called ‘national communist’ reformist wing. This article seeks to inform our understanding of the Latvian purge by comparing its processes with two previous Soviet political purges, Khrushchev's 1957 ‘Anti-Party Group’ purge and Stalin's 1937 Great Purge. Through two-step demotions, exiles, an attempt to organize a show trial, the purge of the purgers and an ideological cleansing campaign, the Latvian purge straddled two eras, borrowing from both its predecessors. Finally, this article asks how the purge's architect, arch-Stalinist Arvīds Pelše, emerged victorious from the internecine Party struggle.