page_title: Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940
section_title: Conflicting versions of history
hierarchical_section_title: Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 / Conflicting versions of history
caption_attribution_description: English: Welles Declaration condemned the USSR’s forcible incorporation of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in 1940 and proclaimed US refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Soviet control of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
context_page_description: The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and its Secret Additional Protocol signed in August 1939. The occupation took place according to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the United States Department of State, and the European Union. In 1989, the USSR also condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and herself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, including Latvia.
  In July 1989, the country stepped on the road of the restoration of its independence, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Latvia's sovereignty was fully restored in 1991. On August 22, 1996, the Latvian parliament adopted a declaration which stated that the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 was a military occupation and an illegal incorporation.
context_section_description: The issue of the Soviet occupation, its motives and consequences, remains a bone of contention between the Baltic states and Russia. At the core lie different versions of the historical events during World War II and after: the Latvian (shared also by Estonia and Lithuania and widely espoused by Western historical scholarship) and the Soviet one, which continues to be supported and defended by the government of Russia.
  According to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the  United States, and the European Union, the occupation of Latvia by the USSR in 1940, and its subsequent re-incorporation in the Soviet Union in 1944, was illegal. According to this account, the lawful government of Latvia  was overthrown in 1940 and Soviet rule was imposed by force. Subsequently, the Soviet Union conducted large-scale and systematic actions including murder and mass deportations against the Latvian population. Rigged elections were organized in which only Soviet-supported candidates were permitted to run; results were accidentally released to the Western press in London before the elections were even complete. As reported by Time in 1940, those who had failed to have their passports stamped for voting Latvia into the USSR were allowed to be shot in the back of the head by Soviet NKVD, The country remained occupied by the Soviet Union until restoration of its independence in 1991. The 48 years of Soviet occupation and annexation of the Baltic States was never recognized as legal by the Western democracies. The United States especially applied the earlier-adopted Stimson Doctrine to the issue of the Baltic states, leading to its becoming an established precedent in International Law.
  While the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union condemned the annexation of Latvia and the other Baltic states prior to the dissolution of the USSR, the Russian Federation, the legal successor state of the USSR, does not recognize the forcible occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union. Specifically in reference to Latvia, the Russian Duma passed a resolution to "remind the deputies of the Latvian Saeima that Latvia's being a part of the Soviet Union was grounded by fact and by law from the international juridical point of view." The government of Russia further maintains that the Soviet Union liberated Latvia from the Germans in 1944.
caption: Welles Declaration, condemning the 1940 occupation by the Soviet Union of Latvia and the two other Baltic states, and refusing to recognize their annexation as Soviet Republics
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