The Barricades - Background

Background

During World War II Latvia had been occupied by USSR. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and perestroika policies, hoping to salvage the failing Soviet economy. The reforms also lessened restrictions on political freedom in the Soviet Union. This led to unintended consequences as problems within the Soviet Union and crimes of the Soviet regime, previously kept secret and denied by the government, were exposed, causing public dissatisfaction, further deepened by the war in Afghanistan and the Chernobyl disaster.

Massive demonstrations against the Soviet regime began. In Latvia an independence movement started. The supporters of independence - the Popular Front of Latvia, the Latvian Green Party and the Latvian National Independence Movement - won elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR, on 18 March 1990 and formed the Popular Front of Latvia faction, leaving the pro-Soviet Equal Rights faction in opposition.

On 4 May 1990, the Supreme Soviet, which afterwards became known as the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia, declared the restoration of independence of Latvia and began secession from the Soviet Union. The USSR did not recognize these actions and considered them contrary to the Soviet federal and republican constitutions. Consequently tension in relations between Latvia and the Soviet Union and between the independence movement and pro-Soviet forces, such as the International Front of the Working People of Latvia (Interfront) and the Communist Party of Latvia, along with its All-Latvian Public Rescue Committee, grew.