“The Enemies Next Door”: Stalinist Repression in the Postwar Latvian Countryside

This dissertation explores postwar Stalinist repression in the Latvian countryside, and especially in Vidzeme province, focusing on the March 1949 Soviet mass deportation, and on the broader repression of the so-called “kulaks,” “bandits” and “convicted nationalists” and their families. It is a work of social history “from below” and is concerned with the survival strategies of ordinary rural Latvians. It seeks to explore peasant mood, mentality and public opinion in the face of postwar repression and asks how and why rural Latvians felt compelled to participate in – or resist – repression. It explores how repression impacted family life and neighbourly relations. The dissertation examines the images of the “kulak,” “bandit” and “convicted nationalist,” finding that in both official sources and those presenting the voices of ordinary peasants, there was a great preoccupation with unmasking and destroying “enemies.” It presents case studies of two regions (pagasti), showing how land reforms, kulak-branding, mass deportations, and arrests of political criminals combined to create conditions where some families clearly benefited at the expense of others. It examines the criminal files of arrested “bandit supporters,” revealing the morally complicated situations many rural people faced, and the ways they were often compelled to turn against their neighbours. This dissertation finds that violence had a significant presence in everyday life is the postwar Latvian countryside; shoot-outs, revenge killings, armed robberies, kidnappings, beatings and other violent acts were all commonplace. Although the Soviet war against the Latvian peasantry was without question ignited from above, and directed from above, it was nevertheless fought from below, with Latvian peasants participating in the postwar struggle in a very real way. For various reasons, rural Latvians took part on both the Soviet and anti-Soviet sides – and it was virtually impossible to remain neutral. Thus, Latvians were deeply mistrustful of their neighbours. Betrayal, revenge, denunciation, secrecy, “unmasking,” and living under a false identity were key survival strategies of the postwar Latvian peasantry. Although division among the peasantry is not always emphasized in the Baltic historiography, the sources – both human and archival – of the postwar era tell a more complex story about the enemies next door.

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