Talk:List of military occupations of Latvia/Archive 1

Pre-Arbitration

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Recognition

"Latvia, its neighbours, most Western European countries as well as the USA never recognized the regime put in place after 1945" This is evidently not true. Major powers recognized existing USSR borders after WW2. The source is: Yalta Conference. Murmillo 23:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

De facto -- but not de jure. For more on the United States policy, see Stimson Doctrine. For more detail, see section VI in this article at Lituanus, for example.

(This entry continues below.)

Read this one attentively, please: [2]. Since i don't have internet access to all of documents of Yalta Conference, I can't provide you with the text. As for Council of Europe and Europarlament. Their resolutions do not matter as CE and Europarlament are international organizations (or their parts), but not governments. They were not given right to speak for any european government. I think at least Helsinki Final Act(signed by presidents, prime ministers or at least ministers of foreign affairs) expects modifying the statement in the article. Murmillo 00:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact is that not a few embassies continued to function, and relations were restored rather than established anew. The restoration of relations with European countries is explicit. Membership in bodies like the Olympics was renewed. Helsinki did not affect the actual legal status, and the sentence as it is written is true. If you want to try to modify it, go ahead -- but the fact is that most countries did not recognize the incorporation/annexation. I do not understand what Irpen is trying to say, and I won't bother with this. Occupation is a fact, any decent history will show that, other encyclopedias present it as such, and that is good enough for me. --Pēteris Cedriņš 11:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that the terms "occupation" and "annexation" are controversial regarding the status of Baltic States in the Soviet Union (independent of any viewpoints on the events of 1939-1940). The territories of modern Baltic States belonged to Russian Empire for hundreds of years (and the only Baltic country, which statehood has formed before 1917, was Lithuania that can be associated with Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The independence of Baltic States for a total of about 20 years (1920-1940) was related to the Brest Treaty and the so-called Peace Treaties with the so-called Baltic States (actually, former regions of Russian Empire). In fact, all these Treaties should be considered as Treaties between Soviet Government and German Empire (or Entente) on the other side, because Baltic regions were occupied by Germany (and Entente) during those events. According to the logic of modern nationalists those Treaties should be considered void ab initio, because 1) they were established during WW1 under military force of Germany and Entente intervention 2) they were concluded by the Soviet Government which was not the legal government of Russian Republic (according to results of the elections of the Constituent Assembly of Russian Republic Bolshevik Party took only about 22% of seats, at the same time Socialist-Revolutioners Party took about 40% of seats; also Bolshevik Soviets could not be considered as effective government during Civil War; also Bolsheviks were not formally recognized by the most of the states of the world until 1930s). As for diplomatic relations with Latvia you're not quite right just the same. USSR was not a unitary state, it was a federal state. According to the Constition of USSR its members could establish international relations and act as subjects of international law. We know, for instance, that Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR were United Nations members and concluded a lot of international treaties. Law has not restricted USSR Republics to establish diplomatic relations with other states. Evidently, every Republic could have its embassies. Latvia (later renamed to Latvian SSR) was not an exception to the rule. It is legally incorrect to oppose Soviet Republics to USSR as it is incorrect to oppose EU states to EU. The Helsinki Final Act was not the only legal document which recognized borders in Europe. Another example is the Treaty between USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany (Art. 3) signed on August 12, 1970 in Moscow (here you can see the text in Russian: http://www.portalus.ru/modules/history/rus_readme.php?subaction=showfull&id=1142027784&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&category=2). Murmillo 23:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Murmillo wrote: "...the so-called Peace Treaties with the so-called Baltic States (actually, former regions of Russian Empire). In fact, all these Treaties should be considered as Treaties between Soviet Government and German Empire (or Entente) on the other side, because Baltic regions were occupied by Germany (and Entente) during those events..." No, that is factually incorrect; Latvia was no longer occupied by German troops when the Treaty of Riga was signed; Bermondt-Avalov (the German-Russian "West Russian Volunteer Army") was defeated in 1919, and Latvian and Polish troops, as well as those units of the Landeswehr loyal to the Republic of Latvia, had driven the Bolsheviks from Latgale. The Treaty was concluded after free elections to the Constituent Assembly had been held, when the Republic of Latvia was fully in control of its territory. From the text of the Treaty: "Russia recognizes without objection the independence and sovereignty of the Latvian State and forever renounces all sovereign rights held by Russia in relation to the Latvian nation and land [...] The Latvian nation and land shall have no obligations arising from their previous possession by Russia." The contention that the so-called "republics" of the Soviet Union could conduct their own foreign affairs is too ridiculous to comment upon -- the embassies and legations to which I refer represented the legal government of the Republic of Latvia, not the Latvian SSR (with regard to Belarus and Ukraine and their puppet UN seats -- Stalin is said to have suggested that Texas and California be given seats as well... note, too, that the Soviet seat passed to the Russian Federation). It is rather disingenuous to claim that the Soviet government was not the legal government of Russia, and then go on to claim that the forcible incorporation of Latvia was somehow legal; Latvia was a member of the League of Nations, and the Soviet government was recognized by nearly all countries prior to the occupation. The USSR reiterated its recognition of Latvian sovereignty repeatedly, even unto 1939/40. Today's Russian Federation is the legal successor to the USSR. --Pēteris Cedriņš 05:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me about the Peace Treaties. I admit I could be wrong in some details. Anyway, the so-called independence of Latvia was _declared_ during German Occupation and was established during Civil War in Russia and foreign military intervention into Russia. The overall understanding of the situation in Russia and the other world during that period shows that those events happened by force rather by some legal procedure and good will. The text of the Treaty has only a small meaning because it was illegal and forced. The so-called secret ammendment to the Treaty of non-agression (also known as Pact of Molotov-Ribbentrop) between USSR and Germany only underlines the fact that occupied and annexed territories of Russian Bessarabia, Western Belorussia, Western Ukraine and Baltic territories are considered by Germany (due to the acts of which they were in fact occupied and annexed in 1914-1922) as territories of corresponding Soviet Republics (as the successors of former Russian Empire), nothing more. Regardless your understanding of the political processes in USSR, in terms of law regions of some federal states can establish international relations. For example, Art. 32 (3) of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Germany allows the regions (lands) to conclude international treaties (like Concordate between Bavaria and the Holy See of 1965), so to act as subjects of international law. A lot of other examples do exist. As for your claims that the embassies belonged to so-called Republic of Latvia, I must say that during 1940-1990 there existed no state with such name. Three essential attributes of state are territory, population and government. On the territory of Latvian SSR the only effective government was the government of Latvian SSR. The population voluntarily acquired soviet citizenship through getting soviet passports and participating in political life (I mean elections). You wrote:"It is rather disingenuous to claim that the Soviet government was not the legal government of Russia, and then go on to claim that the forcible incorporation of Latvia was somehow legal". It is quite unclear what you mean by "forcible incorporation" because Baltic territories never ceased to belong to Russia. The acts of the local authorities in 1939-1940 only brought local legislation in accordance with the legislation of USSR.

The statement:"Today's Russian Federation is the legal successor to the USSR" is a little bit confusing. Russian Federation is one of 12 legal successors (CIS Treaty members) of Soviet Union (Baltic republics terminated their membership a little before and are not recognized as USSR successors). RF has declared its sovereignity (from USSR) on June 12, 1990. Legal succession in international law is understood as transition of international rights and obligations from one subject of international law to another subject(s) (12 CIS members in our case). Only several things are related to what is called "RF continuity" (the only significant is UN Security Council membership). Apart from that modern RF should not be associated with USSR because it is highly incompatible with the political structure of USSR, its goals, etc. If someone is looking someone to accuse for local events of 1917-1990 then it is more correct to concentrate on Georgia (for Stalin), Israel (for 99% of Bolshevik Party leaders), Latvia (for more than 40000 of professional Latvian strikers that provided significant help to Bolsheviks during Civil War). Sorry for my broken English. 83.217.193.29 00:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of points in your assessment which, while appearing plausible, do not stand up to closer scrutiny.

I. Your postulation that Latvia's declaration of independence and subsequent peace treaty with the Soviet Union was "forced" upon the Soviet Union and therefore meaningless (in terms of recognition of a break by Latvia and the rest of the Baltics from Soviet Russian territory). This is, alas, the Greek chorus bemoaning the death knell of Russian empire and Russian greatness with the victory of Germany on the Eastern Front and what has widely been characterized by Russophiles as the "humiliation" of Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It's far too much for a discussion here, but, in truth, Brest-Litovsk preserved Bolshevism and allowed Lenin not only the latitude and time he needed to consolidate the Revolution against internal adversaries, but the opportunity to launch Communist agitation in Germany which hastened its downfall.

II. Your wishful postulation that the Latvian Soviet Republic as member of a federation could negotiate its own foreign policy is unrealistic at best. Article 18a (enacted February 1944) of the Soviet Constitution does state, "Each Union Republic has the right to enter into direct relations with foreign states and to conclude agreements and exchange diplomatic and consular representatives with them." This was the basis for the Ukraine and Byelorussia (Belarus) joining the United Nations. This had everything to do with central Soviet policy aims and very little to do with republic's rights. When the Latvian S.S.R. dared to begin to exercise its constitutional rights in the 50's the government was summarily purged.

III. Your declaration that the Latvian state did not exist from 1940-1990 is patently false. The Baltic Republics each took steps to insure their continuation in exile. Power of State was transferred by the Latvian government to Zarins, head of the Latvian Legation in England. The affairs of the sovereign state of Latvia continued to be conducted in exile until such time that continuity was restored with Power of State returned to a sovereign Latvian government on Latvian territory.

IV. Your characterization of "the only government in Latvia was the Soviet one" and that people voluntarily signed up for Soviet citizenship makes it sound like people queuing up for a happy day in Disneyland. Please! People also signed up to be party members in order to keep their jobs and not be shipped to the gulags to die there.

V. Your contention that by its very existence, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact grants de jure continuity to Russian Soviet sovereignty over the Baltics is a leap of galactic proportions. Most notably, the "local authorities" you speak of were fraudulently installed and petitioned for membership to the Soviet Union in a manner illegal according to the Latvian Constitution. Only Soviet era encyclopedias speak of the "restoration" of Soviet power in the Baltics (ostensibly in continuity with the 1905 Revolution and its aftermath). Frankly, you also imply that Latvia's "membership" in the Russian empire was somehow a benign or natural state of affairs when, in fact, Peter the Great annihilated nearly every Latvian. Contemporary accounts indicate that one could travel mile upon mile without meeting a single person--there are estimates that as few as 17,000 Latvians were left alive after Peter the Great got through with joining Latvia to the glorious Russian empire.

VI. Your admonition that one should not associate the Russian Federation with the USSR because of fundamental incompatibilities is directed at whom, exactly? Perhaps the Russian Duma--which years after Latvia's (re-)independence saw fit to pass a resolution in November 1999 to "remind" Latvia it had been a voluntary and legal member of the Soviet State? The Russian Federation has gone out of its way to associate itself with the Soviet past and to rehabilitate and glorify that past. Even the bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the dreaded and murderous Cheka, now stands restored (in 2005) in Moscow's police headquarters. You are obviously confused about who is associating Russia with the Soviet Union.

VII. Last but not least, heap the blame on the Georgians (Stalin), the Israelis (Jews in the Bolshevik leadership), and the Latvians (who guarded the Kremlin and saved Lenin, a bit of an overstatement but there is basis in fact--they were promised Latvian sovereignty, actually, and for their troubles Stalin later ordered all Latvians in the Soviet Union to be shot). Excuse me, but has anyone here said anything bad about the Russian people? Pride in Russian heritage is possible without parroting Soviet and now Russian Federation propaganda. What's the real problem here? That Russians feel worthless without Soviet glory to bask in? "Ahhh... we were once an EMPIRE!" Lithuania once stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. I don't see any Lithuanian angst over loss of empire. Get a grip! Have some pride! Stop regurgitating Soviet pablum! Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

With regard to Europe, see Renaud Dehousse, Department of Law, European University Institute, Florence, "The International Practice of the European Communities: Current Survey": "Although the Member States of the Community, along with the majority of Western states, have always refused to recognize the annexation of the Baltic states..."

From the Resolution regarding the Baltic States adopted by the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, September 29, 1960: "The Assembly, On the twentieth anniversary of the military occupation of the three European states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and their forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, Recognises that this illegal annexation was accomplished without the free voluntary expression of the Baltic peoples, [...] Acknowledges that the great majority of governments of nations of the world still recognises the de jure independent existence of the Baltic states..."

From the press release of the EC, 27 August 1991: "The Community and its Member States warmly welcome the restoration of the sovereignty and independence of the Baltic States which they lost in 1940. They have consistently regarded the democratically elected parliaments and governments of these states as the legitimate representatives of the Baltic peoples."

Many other relevant documents may be found here. --Pēteris Cedriņš 00:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Best yet, would be to produce a cold war time document, with the official statement of the western government claiming that it does consider Latvia as being part of the USSR. Or, if such documents were never issued, say that the non-recognition fact, is an opinion of certain historians.

I read the article in Lituanus with interest. It does say that the US refused to recognize the act of incorporation. There is no doubt that annexation was illegal from the POV of the international law. However, not considering Latvia as part of USSR in 60s-70s is not the same as to acknowledge the illegality of annexation in 1940.

Actions of US courts is interesting but marginally relevant. The gov in US does not order the courts what to do. The annexation itself was clearly illegal and courts recognized it as such, no wonder. We should make it clear when speaking of "non-recognition" that it was an illegal annexation that was non-recognized and not the Soviet border. --Irpen 06:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

5 Occupation Years?

It strikes me as curious that the first five years of the Occupation of Latvia are segregated from the next 45. While I will not attempt to expand the article to include the post-1945 occupation, the reader should certainly be given a clear indication this article only covers a small, if important and unique, part of the occupation years.

This article is bluntly POV. Worst of all is the "recent misrepresentations" section, which I'm tempted to delete outright. Everyking 04:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I did a rewrite to make it less POV, though it probably still is very POV - problem is, the POV which I tried to remove mostly corresponds with my POV, someone with less of an oppinion on what happened in Latvia in the early days of the second world war would probably do a better job. I do think that the existance of this article in principle is very important though, though it should at the moment either be expanded or renamed. Expanded in the sense that having an article called occupation of Latvia not mentioning the German occupation (and the eventual reannexiation of Latvia in 1944 which happened after the withdrawal of Nazi troops and after the reestablishment of an independent Latvian government) just isn't right. I'd either have someone add a paragraph on the German occupation at least or move it to "Soviet Annexation of Latvia". I do think the words annexation and occupation can be used though, being neutral shouldn't stop us from calling things by their name. Especially since even the Russian wikipedia does this. ChiLlBeserker 09:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

This article must be renamed. There is no single mention of the word "occupation" in the description of historical events within the article. There is no universal agreement on the term. My believe is that "annexation" is the proper term for this, at least, this view has equal right to exist. Such opinionated article doesn't belong here. Iļja 217.198.238.155 02:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

"Occupation" and "annexation" are very different; the Baltic States were occupied prior to their annexation (Latvia was occupied on 17 June, but was not annexed until 5 August). I agree that the article needs substantial expansion and revision, but I strongly disagree with the proposal to rename it. If I steal your car and six weeks later I forge the title to your car, an article on the theft of your car should probably be called "the theft of X's car," not "the change of title to X's car" (whether you tried to hit me when I pointed the gun at you is of course immaterial) unless confined to the forgery of the title. I agree with much of what ChiLlBeserker writes above, but his comment conveniently illustrates a serious difficulty with the term "annexation" as a replacement for "occupation": Latvia was not re-annexed in 1944 -- according to the Soviets, Latvia was occupied Soviet territory during the German occupation (this had bearing on how the population was to be treated [though this was often not the case in practice and the population was treated as under occupation], on how the Latvians who had served in the Legion were viewed, etc.). The government of the Latvian SSR continued to function, formally, in Russia. Most of the world had never recognized the original annexation, and this is quite different from not recognizing the occupation; the profound difference between de jure and de facto is central to the subject of the article. For example, in the period between the invasion and the annexation in 1940, many persons (including the presidents of Estonia and Latvia) were subject to repression by the Soviets and deported or shot (a violation of international law because the Baltics were still technically independent). There is another article entitled Occupation of Baltic Republics. In my opinion, both articles should be expanded to cover the German occupation 1941-1944 and the re-occupation by the Soviets. --Pēteris Cedriņš 09:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Occupation is defined in 1907 IV Hague Convention, Article 42. There was no Soviet military administration (and no war between Latvia and USSR) in Latvia in 1940, so we can't speak about occupation. 217.198.224.13 23:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If you read the articles under what an occupying power's army is prohibited from doing according to the afore-mentioned articles, the Soviet army violated all the terms. Both the Soviets and Nazis conscripted Latvians into their armies. The Soviets deported Latvians off Latvian territory while Latvia was sovreign, an act of war. By any legal definition, the Soviet presence in Latvia during their first (one year) and second (~fifty year) was an occupation. The Hague Convention is also not the only definer of "occupation." From the www.unhcr.org site (begin quote) "Occupation is defined by an even clearer humanitarian law standard. The earliest definition of occupation is found in Article 42 of the Annex to the 1899 Hague Convention No. IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land. It states that “a territory is occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”98 A second definition is found in Paragraph 2 of Article 2 of the Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: “The Convention […] shall apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.” Of these two definitions, the Hague definition is possessed of much stricter requirements and would be more relevant to conditions of formal war. The Geneva Convention definition is more germane to refugee problems in Africa because it focuses on de facto control of territory, whether occupation is “partial or total occupation”, and “even if a state of war is not recognized.” (end quote)

What makes an occupation an occupation, according to international courts, (Human Rights Watch site) includes: "the occupying power must be in a position to substitute its own authority for that of the occupied authorities, which must have been rendered incapable of functioning publicly". Whether it's administered by the army or by another authority of the occupying power does not matter. It's still an occupation. Pēters 07:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I request the recognition of the alternative point of view in the article, at least in the terminology. The article is not neutral without it. 217.198.224.13 22:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC) Iļja

Iļja, I fail to see how the article lacks neutrality because it refers to the Soviet presence throughout its term in Latvia as an occupation. For an article about the Earth's moon to be neutral, would it need to hold equally valid the views that the the moon is made of cheese and that astronauts never landed there? Quoting from the REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE COMMUNIST AGGRESSION AND THE FORCED INCORPORATION OF THE BALTIC STATES INTO THE U. S. S. R., THIRD INTERIM REPORT, 1954 (U. S. Congress): "CONCLUSIONS - (I) The evidence is overwhelming and conclusive that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were forcibly occupied and illegally annexed by the U. S. S. R. Any claims by the U. S. S. R. that the elections conducted by them in July 1940 were free and voluntary or that the resolutions adopted by the resulting parliaments petitioning for recognition as a Soviet Republic were legal are false and without foundation in fact. (II) That the continued military and political occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia by the U. S. S. R. is a major cause of the dangerous world tensions which now beset mankind and therefore constitutes a serious threat to the peace." Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Iļja, a question for you... is it about whether or not the Soviet Union was an occupying power or is it about whether or not you as a Russian Latvian (I'm admittedly taking a leap here) are to be considered an "occupier?" What makes "good" and "bad" Latvians these days (as in residents/citizens of the state of Latvia) has little, if anything, to do with one's ethnicity. Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It is about Soviet Union, and, therefore, about my status. If an illicit occupation took place, then I, as a part of it, should be "undone" somehow, to restore justice and pre-occupation status quo. If you say that occupation is one thing, but because of impracticality of deporting hundreds of thousands of people you agree that their status is legal now, you are showing inconsequence, and someone will necessarily point it out sooner or later, and will be right. You quote a document by U.S. Congress, why should I give it more weight than any other. Most of the countries didn't have problems with post-war division of Europe, the U.S. was one (if not the only one) of very few. I deny that the United States Congress has more authority in this subject than any other body. 80.81.38.158 08:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC) Iļja

No - international justice, if there is such a thing at all, certainly isn't about pursuing hundreds of thousands of little personal vendettas - such as "undoing" the presence of former Soviet citizens who resettled to Latvia during occupation and their descendants. Restitution can take various forms and obviously is subject to law and common sense. Where nothing else is practicable, a simple acknowledgement that injustice took place as well as promise of non-repetition by the legal successor of Soviet state - Russian federation - should be the only remedy and just satisfaction Baltic states can hope for. Doc15071969 14:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, the term "occupation" is by now widely accepted and used when referring to the events in question (see for example Britannica http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=occupation+baltic+states+britannica). Nevertheless, the accusations of lack of NPOV keep resurfacing from time to time. Perhaps we should take this throug some kind of formal NPOV dispute resulution process, that later can be used for reference? What forms is the basis of your claim of lack of NPOV - the view of what I would call" minority" certainly IS represented in the article by stating that: "The Russian Federation has repeatedly and vocally denied the occupation of Latvia, maintaining instead that Latvia joined the Soviet Union voluntarily and legally (statement by the Russian Duma, to "remind deputies of the Latvian Saeima that Latvia's being a part of the Soviet Union was grounded by fact and by law," November 19, 1999.)" Doc15071969 15:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

In Talk:Lithuania, someone espousing that there was no occupation insisted the question be put to the "Village Pump" -- that those maintaining it was an occupation "should have nothing to fear" if they are right. And so that was done. I responded in detail in Talk:Lithuania and that person has not been heard from since. I made the invitation there: if anyone can actually produce anything supporting the Soviet/now Russian position, let's hear it. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 04:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Basis for occupation

My response to Iļja— I will be removing your "POV title" flag. "Occupation" is not about your status. For example, I was able to reclaim family propery (land) from before the war, but the dwellings and surrounding area which were at that time "legally" acquired within the context of the Soviet Union were claimed by the inhabitants--with no recourse on my part to change it.
    Polemics aside, the government of Latvia obviously realizes that the influx of Russians as the result of the Soviet occupation is not going disappear--let's be realistic. And a majority of ethnic Russians are now citizens. Perhaps you have an ultra-nationalist Latvian neighbor who despises Russians, if so, for that I am truly sorry. As I have said before, there are Latvians and Russians who make wonderful Latvians, and Latvians and Russians who care nothing about the betterment of Latvia and only care to line their own pockets. And there are those Russians who still believe and live in the propagandist glories of the Soviet past--a situation far from unique to Latvia.
    "Neutral" does not mean because Russia maintains the Soviet Union did not occupy Latvia that the title changes. Since the term "occupation" appears to be an issue again I will be adding a "Basis for Occupation" section. The only thing that is "POV" here is that you are interpreting "occupation" as a personal attack on you.
    Finally, if you are truly concerned about the Soviet occupation, the way to "undo" the occupation is (for Russia) to admit it happened and to move on. Every time Russia denies the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, it revives and perpetuates that occupation. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Potential expansion

(detached from the section above) It would be a lot of work, but I propose expanding the article to encompass the entire occupation period, from 1940 to 1991. Otherwise, subsequent mass deportations, the attempted liberalization of the Latvian S.S.R. (and subsequent purge of its leadership), etc. is not captured. People who managed to survive the first deportations of 1940 did not get to see home for 15 to 20 years. To artificially cut off at the end of World War II doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of historical events. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The article on Baigais gads substantially duplicates this article, and it bears a title that is (1) almost unknown in English and (2) extremely objectionable to many, the term having been popularized by a work of Nazi propaganda with that title. The Occupation of Latvia article already duplicates much of the material in Occupation of Baltic Republics -- I think there is a definite need for this separate article, but it should focus especially on what was specific to Latvia, and incorporating some of the material from the Baigais gads article here would be appropriate. The other major change that needs to be made is the inclusion of material on the Nazi occupation in this article, as ChiLlBeserker pointed out above, and on the Soviet re-occupation in 1944-45. The difficulty, then, is where to end the article; there could be some overlap between this and Latvian SSR, though, with the last section of this article devoted to issues of international (non-) recognition, etc. At this point, both of the articles I propose merging require considerable work, and neither is at all "encyclopedic." --Pēteris Cedriņš 01:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Baigais Gads is a definition of POV. Also, consider remaning to include "1940" or "First Soviet" in the title. Or expand to include Nazi occupation and Soviet re-occupation. Renata 02:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"Baigais Gads" can certainly re-appear here, covering the first Soviet occupation. That would need to be followed by another section covering the Nazi occupation, then finally, the Soviet re-occupation, probably with some mention of Baltic partisans (haven't checked to see if there's an article on that). Perhaps retitling as "Occupation of Latvia in World War II" or "Occupation of Latvia in the Second World War" would be a proper title and scope. It's in large part because of the experience of the first Soviet occupation that as many Latvians fled as did with the retreating Nazi army, winding up in DP camps all over Germany after the war (or, alternately, fleeing across the Baltic to Sweden)—so it's important with respect to Latvian history and diaspora to connect the two Soviet occupations book-ending the Nazi. The occupations also need to be discussed together in how they worked together to destroy centuries-old positive Latvian-Jewish relations. (Really a pan-Eastern-European phenomenon, but Latvia has always been the lightning rod going back to my personally hearing then Congresswoman Liz Holtzman declare "all Latvians are Nazis.") In writing "Baigais Gads" originally, I also sought to lay to rest what was and wasn't legal, to document Soviet intent through mention of specific artifacts (Latvian and Lithuanian SSR maps) and incidents (Stalin telling Munters he could occupy Latvia "now"), and to provide a more detailed chronology. I would like to see that preserved or expanded, as I found the current "Occupation of Latvia" article lacking in that regard. I should mention that from my perspective, at least, "Baigais Gads" is how the first Soviet occupation has always and only been referred to by every Latvian I've known (in exile, that lived through it)—that Nazi propaganda goes by the same title or that "year of terror" may now seem somehow a subjective judgement is unfortunate but not a reason to label the term POV. —Pēters 06:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, but I would suggest "Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945" rather than "World War II" because the war did not begin here until the German invasion, and it is important to make that clear even in the title -- it is very common disinformation to try to suggest that the USSR needed to occupy the Baltics for its security, that Latvia was pro-German, etc. The process began before 1940, as already noted, and that can be included -- just as ending the article with the reoccupation and dating it will not imply that the occupation ended with the "integration" of Latvia into the USSR, which should be made clear.

Regarding the term "Baigais gads" -- it was referred to that way by many Latvians here and in exile primarily because of the Nazi propaganda that popularized the term, even if we take Virza's 1939 poem "Baigā vasara" as one of its roots. I am not trying to suggest that Nazi ideology was popularized together with the term -- it wasn't -- but the term is intimately and irrevocably connected to that text (if you Google it, the first hits are for the anti-Semitic propaganda, for example). Dribins notes that the Central Council of Latvia referred to the Nazi occupation by that term, by the way, and suggests that it could better be used in the plural ("Years of Horror") -- "Antisemītiskās ideoloģijas histērija vācu nacistu okupētajā Latvijā 1941.–1942. gadā.". The Latvian term is in any case rare in English -- and when it is used at English language links, it is often by the extreme right in defense of the Nazi work and its point of view.

"Merge" at Wiki means making one article of two, with one title -- I am proposing the incorporation of material from the "Baigais gads" article here and eliminating that article, not merely suggesting that the material re-appear here. Pēteris Cedriņš 16:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree on 1940-1945 for the title—Latvia did try and maintain neutrality when the war started and was not immediately affected. I do think "Baigais Gads" should be still mentioned as a term by which the first Soviet occupation is often referred to, with the note that propagandists have used the term for their own purposes. I do apologize for one lack of clarity on my part, which is, by "re-appear" I meant the Baigais Gads article contents being carried over to here and that article becoming a redirect.

I believe it is important to identify which Soviet actions were legal under international and Latvian constitutional law and which, whether by the Soviet Union and/or the Soviet installed Saeima, were not. The "Soviet presence was legal" and "annexation was legal and voluntary" and "occupation" is a POV term discussion needs to be laid to rest, or at least all the facts laid out: the deportation of Latvian citizens including government officials to the Soviet Union while Latvia was independent was an unprovoked act of aggression, the petition to join the Soviet Union was unequivocally illegal under the Latvian constitution which was still in effect at the time (aside from being requested by officials installed through an election which was both rigged and then completely falsified), etc.

My knowledge of the Nazi occupation is more familial than academic. Nevertheless, there are some topics there which I would like to see explored. There is the reality of the Nazis being lesser of two evils for most Latvians—obviously not for my father-in-law's family's Jewish best friend who was decapitated. More importantly, there is Stalin's widespread exploitation of Jews, using them to replace Latvians who were shot or deported—as at my mother's post/phone office in Talsi. It is because of Stalin that Jews became synonymous as Stalin's "collaborators." When the Nazis and their atrocities came, Latvians who participated did not do so out of alleged widespread Latvian sympathy to German anti-Semitism, they did it out of pure revenge. (Lunch time conversation my mother overheard in Talsi: "After what they [the Jews] did to my sister, I could kill them all.") My parents were saved by one such Jew, someone who was working for my mother at the post office who told her "don't go home" when the mass deportations came—the real point is that both Latvians and Jews were Stalin's victims. I find the notion that Latvians greeted the Nazis with enthusiasm and gleefully joined in their atrocities as an expression of centuries-old anti-Semitism (I have seen it described as such more than once) utterly repugnant. There are other issues to deal with as well, such as the Waffen SS—largely illegally conscripted but nevertheless eager for the opportunity to bear arms against the Red Army, knowing it for what it was because of the first Soviet occupation.

Not a simple topic to deal with, but an important one. —Pēters 17:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The topic is indeed an exceedingly complex one; I can't, however, agree that there is a "reality of the Nazis being lesser of two evils for most Latvians"; you mean ethnic Latvians, of course, not Latvian citizens -- but even so, as many as 30 000 ethnic Latvian civilians were killed during the Nazi occupation. The contention about Stalin's "using [Jews] to replace Latvians who were shot or deported" is also questionable; one should note that more Jews as a percentage of their share of the population were deported in 1941 than persons of any other ethnic group, ethnic Latvians included. As to a possible motivation of revenge -- to quote Rudīte Vīksne, from the 2001 Progress Report of Latvia's History Commission: "The first findings indicate that there is no connection whatsoever between the events of the first Soviet occupation of 1940-41 and the participation of Latvian groups in the murder of the Jews. The motives for their participation are to be sought elsewhere." Three of the four main people ordering deportations in the security apparatus in 1941 were indeed Jews: Semyon Shustin, who ordered the deportation of 6636 persons and the shooting of at least a few dozen; Zyama Krivitsky, who ordered the deportation of 1915 persons; and Aleksandr Brezgin, 1138 (an ethnic Latvian, Jānis Cinis, deported 2479 persons), and this certainly helped establish the myth that "the Chekists were Jews" (Sources: Zālīte, Dimanta; Stranga). At the same time, there was almost no Jewish presence in the régime itself -- Dribins notes that in the "People's Saeima" of 1940, only 2 of 100 members were Jews; in the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 1 of 35 members was a Jew; in the Soviet of People's Commissars, there were no Jews at all. The Nazis used propaganda like Baigais gads to exploit anti-Semitism, but they definitely didn't invent it -- whilst Latvia had an excellent record for the treatment of minorities, including the Jews, by comparison to most of Eastern Europe prior to the war, a perusal of the regional press in the early 1930s would disabuse anybody of the notion that anti-Semitism was absent in Latvia; it was quite prevalent and often quite virulent. Among the things I think need to be stressed in any appraisal of the period is (1) that one must avoid the generalization that "Latvians [...] gleefully joined in [the Nazis'] atrocities," as you say -- because we are talking about actual criminals, not "the Latvians," and the criminals were actually not so very numerous; to quote Andrew Ezergailis: "The criminally guilty, using the criteria of the war crimes trials in the West, would involve about 500 to 600 men, 1,000 at the most. That would include four dozen journalists who wrote, edited, and published Nazi propaganda about the Jews." [3] (2) The level of "collaboration" should be kept clear -- Latvia as a state had been destroyed by the Soviets prior to the Nazi invasion, and Latvia was never in any position to collaborate with the Nazis; as Ezergailis has pointed out, Denmark did collaborate, and was thus able to save its Jews. Latvian nationalism, and that includes the ultra-nationalism of the extremely anti-Semitic Pērkonkrusts, was fundamentally incompatible with Nazism; the pērkonkrustietis Gustavs Celmiņš ended up in the Resistance, was captured by the Gestapo, and was sent to Flossenbürg, a concentration camp that held many prominent figures from the Eastern European far right. --Pēteris Cedriņš 18:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding... Rudīte Vīksne, from the 2001 Progress Report of Latvia's History Commission: "The first findings indicate that there is no connection whatsoever between the events of the first Soviet occupation of 1940-41 and the participation of Latvian groups in the murder of the Jews. The motives for their participation are to be sought elsewhere." I can only speak to my mother's personal experiences in a government office, where the exploitation of Jews replacing Latvians was complete—as assistant postmaster, she was the only Latvian left, working with Red Army soldiers with machine guns at her back while replacement workers eavesdropped and informed on every conversation. She lived simply because the Soviets needed her, as they had installed a grossly incompetent apparatchik as postmaster to replace the one who "disappeared." Frankly, for Latvia to legitimately and necessarily attone for its participation in the Holocaust, the findings of the history commission could not be otherwise and still be politically acceptable--any other response would indicate there was some "excuse" for the Holocaust in Latvia, and the Holocaust is morally inexcusable regardless of the circumstances. (One American Jewish leader withdrew in protest from that very commission, I believe, as soon as there was a sniff of linkage. I'll try and track down that bit of information again. And I'll be reading the report, obviously.) The Latvians who disappeared in Talsi to be replaced by Jews in those government jobs—which could not have been a unique situation, that is not how the Soviets operated—testify that Viksne's statement is as much a choice as it is a conclusion.

In the meantime, if we are agreed, I would suggest we go ahead and move this article to "Occupation of Latvia, 1940-1945" or is it more "Wiki" to say "Occupation of Latvia (1940-1945)", and insert stubs for the sections needing to be added. I would be glad to take the extra detail in "Baigais Gads" and incorporate it in a merged section dealing with the first Soviet occupation (and then eliminate that article and redirect here). And we'll see how it develops from there. —Pēters 00:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed re the merger, and there doesn't seem to be any opposition. Regarding the History Commission -- those sentences by Vīksne are very specific and refer only to the motivation of those who participated in the murder of the Jews. I have not known the History Commission to be politically correct or to change its findings because of outside pressure -- a summary of its activities related to the Holocaust can be found here. The context of a Jewish presence in the middle and lower occupation administration is also important; as Aivars Stranga describes it in Ebreji un diktatūras Baltijā 1920-1940 (Rīga: Latvijas Universitātes Jūdaikas Studiju Centrs, 2002 [second, expanded edition], p. 245) (my crude translation), "a national consensus among ethnic Latvians had been reached in one question, and possibly in one question only: that the rôle of the minorities in the economy and especially in the administration needed to be reduced as much as possible -- in the civil service this had already been accomplished completely; in the economy, it would be done; and the behavior of minorities was to be inconspicuous." After the Soviet invasion, "there was a conspicuous 'reaction' -- the Jews 'returned,' and dislike for this is to be found in any and all Latvian memoirs, including those of [Fricis] Menders and [Voldemārs] Bastjānis, who were on the whole friendly to the Jews." There were, for instance, week-long riots in Liepāja after 17 June 1940, and though they were facilitated by the Red Army and Jews were not a majority of the rioters, Jewish participation was emphasized; the visibility of Jews by comparison to the Ulmanis dictatorship led to a distortion of their rôle (similarly, the one Jew in the Cheka basement in "the House on the Corner" became a prominent figure because many had contact with him). The Jewish minority was far from monolithic -- it was actually very divided, and it is worth bearing in mind that the structure of the community was completely destroyed by the Soviets; 12,4% of the 14 June 1941 deportees were Jewish, and the deportees included the community's (communities') leaders. It is quite common for the far right to point to Shustin, for example -- but he was utterly déraciné and a Russian not a Latvian Jew; to link the slaughter of one's neighbors in a Latgalian village to the presence of some Jews in the security apparatus and civil service is more than dubious, and rabid anti-Semitism among thugs (including not a few students, especially in the fraternities) was not at all rare prior to the occupation. --Pēteris Cedriņš 10:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a hand at the merger—my time's a bit limited the next few days, but I'm well motivated. I agree totally on Shustin et al.—far too much propaganda about Jews running the Cheka (a more atheistic group, frankly, could not be found!). I still have to make the observation. My mother, who speaks of her relationships with Jews with only fondness (and carried forward, all my best friends growing up were Jewish), was genuinely puzzled by the later Soviet oppression of Jews... "I don't understand why they would oppress their collaborators." Much has been written—and well—on the role played by propaganda on all sides. Still, my mother puts professional skeptics to shame, accepting nothing at face value. For her to be geniunely puzzled, still, 65 years later, speaks to a dynamic of personal experience influencing the beliefs of the "average person" at a grass roots level outside the propaganda machines which I am completely convinced has not been captured in current scholarship: a successful anti-Semitic propaganda campaign is not the source of my mother's puzzlement. BTW, I've written the Latvian Historical Institute and hope to correspond with Ms. Vīksne about seeking a scholarly context for my mother's experiences. I understand that her personal research has been focused on the Holocaust in more rural areas (which I'm hoping would include Talsi). —Pēters 19:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge completed

I took a first cut at merging in the Baigais Gads article, I'll be going back and redirecting that article here. The Nazi and second Soviet occupation (for the period through to the end of the war) need to be done. Rather than merciless editing, perhaps we can discuss here first for some consensus. --Pēters 07:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the old "Western Views" and "Claims and Historical Reassessment" sections. Non-recognition of annexation will be dealt with at end of second Soviet occupation and, in any event, is also well known. The "Claims and Historical Reassessment" was a rehash of various POV claims and counter-claims. Where appropriate, details of events in these two sections have been already incorporated in the rewrite done so far. --Pēters 05:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That grey box does not belong to the article. It belongs to wikisource at best. There is a policy that says you should not include original texts in the articles. Renata 05:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not have the complete article and it is only partially quoted from and not reproduced in full, which presents a problem insofar as making a copy available on Wikisource. I can of course paraphrase the whole thing but I don't see that adding value. If there's consensus on "Wikisourcing" it nevertheless, I'll do it. Pēters 03:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

At least you could do this: select the most important parts of that order and rephrase them. Or you could leave some reaaaaly significant section (like 2-4 sentences). Renata 04:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The occupation of Latvia ended in 1991. Or at the very earliest, when stable, non-Soviet bloc governments first recognized the Latvian SSR. I don't think that happened until at least a few years after 1945. Some would say the occupation ended in 1994 when the last Russian troops left. heqs 13:06, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

As I just mentioned above, occupation involves the invading power substituting itself for the indigenous and previously sovreign authority. Under those terms, and the fact that the Baltic legations continued to function in exile, I believe it's fair and objective to say that the Baltics were occupied for the full term of the Soviet presence. Pēters 07:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Earlier on this page you mentioned that there might be an article on the Baltic partisans. I began expanding the Forest Brothers article a few weeks ago, but it still has a long way to go... (I know the 'see also' is kind of bloated right now, am actually planning on incorporating almost all of those into the text at some point). heqs 09:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, do you have a link or source for that NKVD order? It should go in the article and it would be very useful to me. heqs 13:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been away from Wiki for a bit... in the article you can click on the Order 001223 reference in "Serov's deportation Order № 001223 applied to all the Baltics." which takes you to the Wiki article, where there is a link to the full text in the commons. Pēters J. Vecrumba 05:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Legal definition

There has not been war between the USSR and Latvia, therefore, according to international law, the Soviet presence could not be called "occupation". I propose that the article's title be changed as "Soviet domination of Latvia". 212.116.151.110 13:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The premise that "there was no war" and therefore, according international law, Latvia could not have been "occupied" is completely false. As noted earlier, the earliest definition of occupation is found in Article 42 of the Annex to the 1899 Hague Convention No. IV: Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land. It states that “a territory is occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army." A formally declared state of war is not required. If the hostile army controls the territory—meaning, the sovereign institutions of the occupied territory are no longer in control, then this criterion for "occupation" has been met.

Furthermore, as the Soviet, then Russian, military did not depart Latvia until well after continuity of Latvian sovereignty was re-established within the territory of Latvia, that qualifies the entire period of Soviet presence in Latvia as an occupation.

Finally, with regard to "war," the Soviet Union deported Latvian citizens to Soviet territory while Latvia was still a sovereign country even by the account of the Soviet Union, constituting a blatant act of war. Both deportation from occupied territory of its civilian population and the transfer of the occupying power's civilian population into occupied territory have been specifically clarified as grave breeches of the Geneva Convention.

Whatever your reasons for wishing to believe that the Soviet Union only "dominated" Latvia, they are not supported by the objective and incontrovertible facts. Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for citing the Hague Convention. As it strictly states out: placed under the authority of the hostile army. Latvia was under the authority of a pro-Soviet, pro-Communist, but officialy Latvian government. There was not an occupation commission, made up of Red Army officers.

Subsequent to the invasion (as opposed to the initial stationing of Soviet troops on Latvian territory in accordance with the terms of the mutual assistance pact), the government was NOT an officially Latvian government, as it was (a) "elected" before the ballots were even counted (corroborated by Soviet documents), and (b) the fraudulently installed government petitioned to join, then joined, the Soviet Union under terms which were completely illegal under the terms of the Latvian constitution which was allegedly still in effect in an allegedly sovereign Latvia. There does not need to be an official military occupation commission, though it could be said that was essentially the role of the NKVD. (Just as there does not need to be a formal declaration of war.) Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If a deportation is to be considered an act of war, then the deportation of Jews in Tsarist Russia is by no doubt a Russo-Jewish war! DamianOFF 08:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately not quite, though I would completely agree on a moral basis. The "act of war" part is the deportation of the citizen of one sovereign state from the territory of that state and into the territory of the other (aggresor) state. That is legally different from the deportation of a citizen of a sovereign state to another territory still within that same state. Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

There was no state of war between Germany and Denmark, but there is an article on the occupation of Denmark. There was no state of war between Czechoslovakia and Germany, yet there is an article on the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Maybe the persons trying to argue against historical fact, but lacking a factual leg to stand on, could hop on over and try to change the titles of those and other articles, instead of wasting our time with these sinister and senseless polemics? I mean, informed argument is a lovely thing -- but perhaps one could read at the very least a wikipage or two of what has been written anent these issues, before wading in? See other encyclopedias (the sort with serious editors). See the works cited. See, heh, the Pravda of the day, re Czechoslovakia! --Pēteris Cedriņš 22:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I answered this one on the Lithuania talk. DamianOFF 08:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Boris Meissner, Die russische Politik gegenüber der baltischen Region als Prüfstein für das Verhältnis Russlands zu Europa -- in Die Aussenpolitik der baltischen Staaten und die internationalen Beziehungen im Ostseeraum, Hamburg:Bibliotheka Baltica, 1994, S.466-504 clearly defines the SU as aggressor and its seizure of the Baltic States as 'occupation'. Even Russian historians nowadays admit that “Soviet leadership, having thus broken all its treaties with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, entered its troops and began systematic Sovietization of the region.”[4]. Constanz - Talk 17:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this was the de facto situation, not denied by anyone. But the de jure situation was one of allied troops entering in accordance with an alliance treaty. DamianOFF 08:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

You fail to comprehend that the 1940 events de facto meant that the USSR broke the friendship treaties, so it was not one of allied troops entering in accordance with an alliance treaty. Compare Meissner, who analyzed it carefully.Constanz - Talk 11:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it will become clearer with some coffee in the morning, but what de facto and de jure situation are you talking about? How is this discussion related to the Allied forces and their post-war occupation of Germany? Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I can repost here if need be, but because the issue had been raised in "Village Pump" relative to Lithuania I have dealt with the occupation Yes/No debate on the Talk:Lithuania page, section entitled "Whether or not the Baltics were 'occupied' is not a popularity contest.'" --Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

"Occupation" now fully documented

A separate section has been added to substantiate the objective use of the term "occupation" regarding the Soviet presence in the Baltics, with specific detail as regards Latvia. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Soviet "pretenses" re: Poland

Please do not change pretense to protection. Stalin's "method" was to pursue geopolitical aim "X" while claiming "Y." I agree that Stalin invaded Poland, in part, to protect the U.S.S.R., however, unless you can cite a source which says purely protect, I will revert. My source specifically uses the word "pretense." I'll be glad to go back and annotate when I have some time; everything stated is directly from sources, I have not added my own POV (as in "pretense" versus "protect"). I'll be back to visit in a few days. Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not get your point at all here. Pretence was not changed for protection. Here is my edit. Staling invaded Poland to pursue his geopolitical aim indeed. But he needed a pretence to do that and such was a claim that the reason of the invasion is the need to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians also noting that Poland, whose territory the invasion violated "ceized to exist" in the wake of German successes and the Polish gov's evacuation. --Irpen 09:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Do note that Poland gov evacuated AFTER the Soviet invasion - it was the Soviet invasion which ensured the Poland ceased to exist, not the other way around.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we're pretty much all on the same page here. My pretence/protection reference was an earlier edit where someone changed it to say that Stalin invaded specifically to protect Poland, changing the meaning from the prior (and which we agree on) Stalin used the pretence (excuse) of protecting Ukranians and Belarussians to invade Poland. (Also, spelling... seized (taken) versus ceased (ended).) My reading of the sequence of events is: (1) Hitler launches Eastern offensive, (2) Stalin pre-emptively invades Poland. Do we have a date (or range of dates) for when the Polish government actually evacuated? —Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to see a dateline, several officials were evacuating at different times. Who and when left. But the fact is that they ran away from the capital in the very first days of the war. Anyway, this is immaterial. Soviet claimed that their action is taken to "protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians in view of the Polands' imminent collapse". The geopolitically, the goal was to provide the country a dedree of strategic deapth in view of the imminent German invasion and ensure lesser strenghtening of Germany which was a threat. I am not trying to say defend the Soviet action and I take no position on the issue here. I am simply explaining facts. --Irpen 22:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

What about quoting any source about imminent German invasion if Stalin regarded German as a friendly power?Xx236 16:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

General criticism

Generally this article is in a dire shape. First of all, it arbitrary pastes together three different periods: Fist Soviet Occupation, German Occupation and Second Soviet occupation. This is simply unacceptable. Each occupation is an event of its own and the article about such events may exist but not the article of their arbitrary sum. It is like writing a single article with the material from Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878 and Russo-Japanese war pasted together. Or combining Battle of Khalkhin Gol with Winter War AND Great Patriotic War all in one article].

If you meant to have an article about the period in general, the text belongs then to the History of Latvia or, if you intend to develop the History of Latvia series articles, such as History of Poland or History of Russia series, this would be History of Latvia (1940 - 1945). You cannot have the coexistance of the History article and a fork devoted to a specific period where three separate events (which could have their own articles) are arbitrary pasted together. On top of that you have a third fork (!) about the German occupation. This is simply a mess.

Further, the entire article conveniently ignores the fate of Jews in the hands of the German friends in Latvia. I wonder why.

Finally, such lengthy articles on such controversial issues have to use inline references.

I really do not know how to recommend you to proceed with this because I have no idea whether you plan to write a History of Latvia series (then the article could be coverted to one article of a series.)

Stuff like "a British tourism brochure published a decade after Baltic independence repeated this fiction as fact, demonstrating the influence Soviet propaganda continues to exercise in the post-Soviet era." is simply ridiculous. What brochure? Published by who? How is some WP editor qualified to judge the external publication, connect the events on the whim and make powerful conclusions on the meaning of such connection (occupation->liberation->brochure->propaganda)?

For now, due to the problems with forking, arbitrariness of presentation and referencing, I will tag the article as {{noncompliant}}. "I'll be back to visit in a few days" and will check up on further developments. --Irpen 09:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The article is incomplete, not arbitrary. There's certainly no bias to exclude Jews/Nazis. Considering my father-in-law, sent to check on a (Jewish) family friend, found her (Nazi) decapitated body, there's no Soviet=bad, Nazi=good bias building here, at least not on my part.

I do agree that the article is getting long, there should probably be a summary occupation page then details on the separate occupations (and which could then also be multiple articles in a larger "History of Latvia" series). I would be glad to undertake that reorganization.

As to the "brochure" in question was published by the British government tourism agency. Its publication sparked an international incident where the government of Great Britian had to formally apologize to Latvia. It was acknowledged/characterized as an example of the pervasiveness and longevity of Soviet propaganda in the post-Soviet era. This was a very specific and highly publicized event. I'm not taking an event and constructing original research or (my personal) conclusions about Soviet propaganda based on a "whim."

Likewise, while I have my own POV regarding Russia's non-acknowledgement of the Soviet occupation, that's not appropriate for an article. If you believe there should be something more substantive with specific references on the Russian position on why the Soviet presence in Latvia was not an occupation (that had not been addressed, i.e., entered under terms of mutual assistance pact, Latvia freely and willingly petitioned to join the USSR) please point me to it and I will be glad to add it.

There is nothing in the article that did not come from the references already listed at the bottom of the page. I will update the reference section to indicate that, and will look for an appropriate reference for the the brochure incident.

If I've left out any of your objections, please let me know. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Peters, perhaps inadvertendly, but the article looks like an axe grinding exersize one has against the USSR and Russia. As I explained, there is no justification to paste together three separate events, except if your goal is to write a History of the Period article. If so, it should be called so: History of Latvia (XXXX- YYYY).

I am not saying on whose part there is any bias. I am saying that there is a lot of bias as the article goes at length on Soviet atrocities while you did not find time and place in it to elaborate on German and Latvian own atrocities. BTW, just curious, did Latvia finally tried Kalejs? There are no recent news on that.

Now, the O-word (occupation) issue. This word, depending on the context, may or may not be neutral. Let's start from the meaning. Occupation may mean one of the two things (see 3a and 3b here):

1. an act of occupation (the act or process of taking possession of a place or area : SEIZURE), like the Soviet occupation that took place in 1940 or the German one taking place in 1941)
2. the "occupation" in a sense of a political regime (the holding and control of an area by a foreign military force), that is the coutry's being ruled by the military force of the foreign government. Let's not confuse these two meanings and study them one at a time.

In connection with 1940 events, the usage of the term seems justifable by the word's very definition. So it is for 1941. Coming to the next occupation, we have a POV dispute. Could be that Soviet action of evicting Nazis from Latvia is also called "occupation" from the Latvia's point of view. However note, for the Soviets, this was an act of evicting an invader from the Soviet territory (they annexed it in 1940 de-facto). So, from Soviet POV this was liberation (and again, note that this term in the military sense does not imply bringing the liberty to people, see liberation 1b: to free (as a country) from domination by a foreign power). I do realize that liberation in case of Latvia is not neutral either and by no means I want to suggest naming the article on the 1944 events a Liberation of Latvia (1944). However, the neutral term in this sense (neither Soviet nor Latvian POV) is "regained", "recaptured", "retakook control" etc.

And an outright POV is calling the following 50 years "the time of Soviet occupation". Again, I do realize that this is a Latvian POV, but encyclopedia should be based on the neutral POV. Soviet system was authoritarian and undemocratic, true, but Latvia was not a territory under the miltary occupation of the USSR (like, say, Afganistan (end-70s), Kuwait (1991), West Bank or Iraq (now)) but the territory integrated in the USSR rather than under its occupation. Its residents were Soviet citizens its economy was "expoited" no more and no less than that of other Soviet republics, and so on. Formally, Latvia was a constituent republic of the USSR making the USSR not a foreign power there. Now, we can talk length about "recognition/non-recognition". But no doubt that the term is POV because the condition of Latvia within the USSR was dramatically different of the condition of the territories commonly considered under occupation, such as Iraqi occupied Kuwait, Soviet occupied Afganistan, Israeli occupied West Bank, etc. In all those cases, we have a clear Metropolia vs Occupied Terriotry relationship, that is treatment of residents as foreigners, economic exploitation, etc. In none of this cases any effort is made to integrate the territory into the mainland. Latvia was integrated and it makes the case different. Again, I am not arguing "justice" here. I am arguing facts and neutrality. You can present the referenced Latvian POV in WP articles but not without balancing it and not under any circumstances you can use POV terminology in the titles of the articles.

The English brochure incident is presented improperly. It looks now as unreferenced, poorely phrased and, basically the Original research, that is Wikipedian's own conclusion about the Soviet Propaganda affecting the British Government. Even if this were to be addressed (and this article is not the place for such), the right way to do would have been: 'According to the statement of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (or whoever), "this shameful incident" (quotes mandatory) "... is a typical manifestation of the UK government being infested by the Soviet propaganda legacy and a brutal interference into the Latvian internal matters" (or whatever else and whoever else chose to say, I am just hypothesizing here).

I believe you that most fo the article comes from the refs. But the current condition is totally unacceptable. --Irpen 23:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, as I have already explained the article is incomplete. There is no intent not to deal with the Nazis as I already said. I'll be glad to add a note at the top the article is "in progress."

In terms of the occupation and the Soviet "POV" was they were "liberating Soviet territory," I fail to see how the result is an occupation the first time but not an occupation the second time when none of the circumstances regarding illegality, the disbanding and deportation of the rightful Latvian government, etc. have changed. Are you saying that the painting of Soviet propaganda of Latvia joining the Soviet Union willingly and legally is a POV equally worthy of the "Latvian POV" that Latvia was occupied? And to be NPOV both views must be reflected equally? That would appear to be the end result of where you are going with this.

As I have indicated, "occupation" does not require military control. Occupation requires that the rightful government can no longer function. You quoted a dictionary, I quoted international law. As the rightful government continued to function de jure in exile, the term occupation applies. Or are you saying that "at some point" the Soviet authorities became the "rightful government" and therefore the occupation ceased? There is no such thing as a de facto rightful government.

The "balance" is that Russia maintains the Soviet Union never occupied Latvia and purely and solely liberated it from the Nazis. Because the question has come up, I took the pains to clearly spell out all the details under which the Soviet takeover of Latvia was an illegal act of occupation--the details of which most are not aware, and which are essential to understanding the Latvian position (indeed that of the vast majority of countries). I did not POV rant about Soviet or Russian lies. From the very start I indicated Russia's objection to the term occupation right at the top. Irpen, if you have more information on why Russia says it was not an occupation, please present it as counterpoint, or if you have a list of countries besides Russia that have issued statements in continued support of Russia's position (and why), please add it. But for you to personally simply say Latvia was not under military jurisdiction or occupations simply don't last 50 years and that is sufficient cause to label the article POV is, frankly, your personal opinion; meanwhile, because you don't approve of the word "occupation", I am somehow a Latvian POV partisan even though absolutely everything stated is based on verifiable facts. Or are you doubting the Soviet Union's own documentation that it manufactured the results of the Latvian election?

As for the brochure incident, again, I'll be rewording once I track down good references.

I am sorry, but you have to present a far more compelling argument why the term "occupation" is incorrect than you think it's an awfully POV kind of word to be using. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 07:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I am curious as to what Irpen would suggest for a title -- could we compromise upon "Occupation and annexation of Latvia," or? Could there be an article on the "re-occupation of Latvia, 1944-45"? These arguments have spilled into various articles, and I suspect that you've seen many of them, Irpen -- the fact is that only Russia and "the Socialist countries," and a few "neutrals" subject to their pressure, ever acknowledged the incorporation as legal. Should an article then detail the re-occupation? I think that the term, as accepted outside of Russia (or, more specifically, by pretty much anybody other than Russian government and Soviet apologists), is quite clear -- Latvia was occupied by the USSR, forcibly incorporated into the USSR, occupied by Germany, and re-occupied by the USSR -- which occupation ended in 1991 and was followed by the complete withdrawal of Russian troops in 1994. Most Western governments never recognized the annexation/incorporation. Irpen, you seem to acknowledge the fact that the occupation in 1940 was forcible and illegal. What had changed by 1944? Nothing at all -- in fact, the LSSR government functioned throughout the war, complete with soldiers named after the Riflemen. It re-occupied Latvia piecemeal and by plan, and started to function both practically and formally even before the capital was recaptured (for instance, the illegal grant of the eastern parishes of the Abrene district was made when the seat of government was in Daugavpils, when Rīga was still under Nazi occupation, by polling members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soveiet, no meeting required, though the law required a vote of the entire Supreme Soviet and not merely the Presidium). To boil this down, Irpen, I would ask a very simple question -- when exactly did the occupation end, to your mind? --Pēteris Cedriņš 19:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Peteris, I am confused, are you talking of legality, usability of terminology the optimizing of the content (whether to keep in in one article or not) or a proper title? To the latter question the answer is History of Latvia (1940-1945) because there is no justifiable reason to paste three separate events arbitrary into one article. February Revolution is a separate article from the October Revolution. January Uprising is a separate article from November Uprising and Kościuszko Uprising is yet a third article while Polish Uprisings redirects to the List of Polish uprisings. If you want to write List of Latvian Occupations article, you can stack them up all together. There is no other place to rant about three different events in one article unless the article is called History of Latvia (XXXX-YYYY). --Irpen 20:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

What exactly are you confused about, Irpen? I asked you what you thought a proper title might be, and I suggested that you distill your objections -- finally, I asked you to define an end to the occupation, which would mean that you would have to separate these events in a certain way. The way you wish to separate these events is morally and intellectually unacceptable -- Latvia was occupied in 1940, and restored its independence in 1991. The Occupation Museum, for instance, treats every phase of the occupation, 1940-1991. That is indeed the most commonly accepted definition of the occupation. --Pēteris Cedriņš 22:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

No it is a POV definition. And giving a Latvian museum website as reference... well, is contrary to WP:RS. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Peteris, I answered your question on the title. Either the combination of several events in the History article, or separate articles on separate events, not arbitrary events pasted together to make a convenient place to rant about certain grievances of a Wikipedia user against certain country. Each Russian revolution (1905, Februaru, October) is a separate article. Each Polish Uprising against the Russian Empire is a separate article, and so on.

Next, during the occupation the country is not ruled by the civil authorities and it is not integrated into a state that occupies it but rather remains a separate occupied territory, such as Soviet occupied Afganistan or US occupied Iraq. "Occupation of Latvia" ended when Latvia was annexed into the USSR becoming its part. As such, there was only one occupation, that is the action of 1940. And then there was also a German occupation in 1941, an entirely separate event which is underalted to the 1940 occupation (unless this is the History of Latvia arfticle or a Latvia in the Second World War article). The Battle of the Baltic (1944) was not an "occupation" but a military operation whose result was driving the axis forces and the restoration of the Soviet authority over the territory the USSR annexed earlier. This has nothing to do with whether such past annexation was fair and just. The annexation took place before the German invasion. Then Germany conquered part of the Soviet territory, then the Red Army drove the Germans out.

Considering the period until 1991 as "Latvia under the Russian occupation" is outright unacceptable for the NPOV encyclopedia. Latvia was not occupied by RSFSR. Considering it Soviet occupation is similar nonsense. Latvia was not occupied by the USSR but was part of the USSR no more and no less than Ukraine, Georgia or Kazakhstan. It was ran by the civil authorities, its economy was getting an equal share of the Soviet investments and there was no resemblence whatsoever with the Soviet military control of Afganistan, US military control of Iraq or Israeli military control of the West Bank where the locals were never treated as equal citizens of the occupying authority and no attempt was made to integrate the area into the country.

Your POV is tantamount to saying that Texas is now under the US occupation because US won it in the war with Mexico and installed its sovereignty over the state in an illegal way. Try starting Occupation of Texas (1845 - present). I wish you good luck.

Last but not least, the entire lengthy analysis and discussion of the term occupation is the original research by Vercumba. This is unacceptable.

So, to condence by objections:

1. The article arbitrary pastes different events together under one entry. This is acceptable only for the History of the country articles.
2. The article uses the POV terminology calling the entire period until 1991 as "occupation". Besides, the article even dares to include this POV in the title (I am marking it {{POV-title}} as such)
3. The article contains lengthy speculation that belongs only to a Wikipedia user. Such speculations belong to talk page if anywahere at Wikipedia. --Irpen 23:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

These events are not "different" (much less arbitrarily different) in that the Republic of Latvia, proclaimed in 1918 and still the same state today, not only essentially but also legally, soon to be hosting the NATO summit, is an entity with a continuity both formal and practical, one most countries recognize de jure -- continuity having been de facto interrupted by an occupation. That is part of the subject of this article. A few nations (foremost among them the nation that occupied Latvia, under different guises, and her former vassal states) dispute this -- they can compose a minority view. This is precisely why Latvia (and Lithuania, and Estonia) were not like Belarus, Ukraine, the Uzbek SSR, etc. An encyclopedia should reflect this. The Republic of Latvia exists today, and it exists on the basis of the Republic proclaimed 18 November 1918, with the same citizens and their descendants, plus those naturalized. The first elections held in the restored Republic were the fifth parliamentary elections -- in name, in letter, and in spirit (specifically discounting the previous "fifth" elections, which took place under occupation). This is the country that is a member of the EU, NATO, UN, CoE, etc. The Russian view can and should be placed in the article, but it is a minority view. --Pēteris Cedriņš 19:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Grafikm_fr, by your standard, the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is POV about the death of millions of Jews. And citing anything they publish or otherwise issue to describe the Holocaust is contrary to WP:RS. Or am I missing something?

"POV" would be terming the entire Soviet presence in Latvia an occupation. Please note that I took pains to indicate that the initial stationing of Soviet troops in Latvia (and the other Baltic States) was legal according to international law, regardless that the pacts of mutual assistance were signed under duress.

Latvia was occupied continuously from 1940-1991, during which time the de jure government of Latvia functioned in exile. Again, I invite those who insist that Soviet "occupation" and subsequent Soviet "reoccupation" are "POV" and "ranting"--the opposite of that "POV" being that the entire Soviet presence was legitimate, as Russia maintains--to offer a verifiable basis for their contention, one that has something to do with Latvia and the Soviet Union. I've extended such invitations covering all three Baltic states. Please, let's hear it. If all the verifiable facts support the term "occupation," then who is being POV here?

Irpen, whether territory was annexed or not does not change the fact that it is occupied. There was no rule by the de jure Latvian civil authorities during the annexation. You insist occupations must be military and under military jurisdiction. You are wrong, plain and simple, according to international law. Finally, I have not done any original research--you give me too much credit as a scholar. It's all taken from published sources. It has been necessary to present the detail in order that it is clear what part of the Soviet presence in Latvia was legal under international law, and what part wasn't, and why. I wasn't aware that there is some restriction on a thorough explanation of anything. It is YOU that are doing original research by using dictionary definitions and your personal opinion to argue against statutes of international law and by insisting that occupations can "only be military." — Pēters J. Vecrumba active talk 00:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Vecrumba wrote: whether territory was annexed or not does not change the fact that it is occupied. Just as an example of this, consider this document on the case of Austria. Extract: International lawyers and historians have debated whether - from a legal perspective - Austria’s "Anschluss" to the German Reich should be considered an annexation or rather an occupation. If regarded as a case of annexation, Austria ceased to exist in 1938 and was re-established in 1945. If regarded as a case of occupation, Austria continued to exist as a subject of international law between 1938 and 1945, but was incapable of acting as a sovereign State. There has been debate on this subject on several talk pages, and yet we keep returning to the same arguments as though a multitude of sources hadn't already been cited and linked. The predominant view is that Latvia was forcibly annexed. Countries restored diplomatic relations with Latvia, which had remained de jure a sovereign state. That a few countries, notably Russia, dispute this, should be, can be, and is noted in the article. --Pēteris Cedriņš 06:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Irpen "Considering the period until 1991 as "Latvia under the Russian occupation" is outright unacceptable for the NPOV encyclopedia" -- no it is not, as the legal status of territory of Republic of Latvia under international law indeed remained - occupied.

Re: Irpen: "during the occupation the country is not ruled by the civil authorities and it is not integrated into a state that occupies it" -- not necessarily so. East Jerusalem, even though annexed into Israel, under international law still remains occupied territory. Actions that are illegal under international law do not create right, installing a civilian administration does not end occupation and does not confer legitimacy to rule over the acquired territory. Every State is under obligation not to recognize territorial acquisitions made in contravention of international law. It is not bias to say that the territories of Baltic states remained occupied until 1991, it is plain statement of legal fact: see, for instance, resolution of European Parliament of 1983: "condemning the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral States by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 following the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact, and continues". I'm sorry, but statement does not become non-NPOV just because someone does not like what it says.

Re: Irpen: "there is no justifiable reason to paste three separate events arbitrary into one article" -- if you look back, this "confusion" started out after someone - also in search of "balance" and "NPOV", I guess - wrote stuff about Nazi occupation, and added some of it into this article. I thought that time that it is not a good idea, but kept quiet because it was brief and inserted to link in with the other article. Now you added pics... and are claiming that article is "no good" - several topics are conflated. C'mon, at least remove the stuff you added, first... :) Doc15071969 22:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

For once and for all

• Britannica: Soviet occupation [5]
• EU suggests that Russia accepts finally occupation: [6]

Considering that most of the world, exept of course for the Soviets, regarded it as occupation even in 1940s, that the events are still described as occupation by sources, which ought to be neutral and/or represent the majority opinion (e.g. Verheugen), it is clear that the aim of this dispute campaign by certain users can be descibed as POV pushing; promoting an opinion rejected by the majority. Compare: Flat Earth Society.Constanz - Talk 11:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The latter link is some political stuff, that can by no means be considered POV, academic and RS. For what it's worth, "Occupation after WWII" does not even make sense, since Baltic States joined USSR in 1940, whatever you define the process as.

Second, "Occupation" is too POV and awkward. There are pictures of people marching in cities in favor of the USSR, so presenting these events as a totally evil "occupation" is about the nastiest POV you can get, because the situation was, well, not so binary as you might like. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

People marching? As far as my homeland is concerned, people were forced to march, and the crowds consisted to a large amount of Soviet soldiers in civil cloths. Or have you read more about the Baltic history than the Balts themselves?Constanz - Talk 13:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, people marching. You might not believe it, but Communist were not aliens, they were living and breathing people, often of the same nationality as you are. And as incredible as it may sound to your ears, they really believed what they said. And Baltic states are not an exception. As for "Soviet soldiers in civil cloths", do you think women were soldiers too? :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 13:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Second link is not an acceptable source. EB is but EB speaks about the occupation as an act that took place in 1940. I think it is OK to call it so. What is not OK is to use "occupation" as the sense for the regime, not a military action, for all the years after the 1940. After the military occupation, Latvia was integrated into the USSR and become one of its republics similar to other republics. It is simlar to how Texas and Hawaii are the US states, regardless of whether their incorporation were just. Those were not ruled like occupied territories, unlike, say Namibia or West Bank. --Irpen 00:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

an acceptable source? Which sources are then acceptable? Comrade Stalin's and mr Putin's official statements? I've already referred to Boris Meissner's study. The author is lawyer and made perfectly clear, that the events of 1940 and so on meant occupation. As most of the world has ackonowledged. You are deliberately pursuing minority POV advanced only by the heir to the occupants, i.e official Russia.Constanz - Talk 13:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that of POV. Basically, what you do in this way is singling out a particular even. Why not an article about Occupation of Brittany (1532-2006). Why, it was annexed by force by the French king. Why not an article about Occupation of Hungary (17XX-1914)? Or Occupation of Texas? Or Occupation of Basque Country or Occupation of Corsica ? Any country expands its territory by any means it has at its disposal. Defining a control of a country by another as occupation is at best POV and narrow-minded, and at worst is a downright attempt at bending history the way you would like to. Only it does not work. Especially given the fact that Baltic states were full members of the USSR, and had the same load of advantages and problems as all other Soviet republics. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 13:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

They were never legally members of the USSR, but occupied. As the Western world also maintained: Whereas the Soviet annexation of the three Baltic states has still not been formally recognised by most European states and the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Vatican still adhere to the concept of Baltic states [7]. Constanz - Talk 13:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Answer my question. Why, in your opinion, is there no article about Occupation of Texas or Occupation of Corsica articles? We can't single out an event as "occupation" among hundreds of others, just because you fancy to. It's common sense. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, scrap that: Answer to the question about Texas is simple - it was ceded by Mexico as per legally made Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo. Republic of Texas seceded from Mexico, and having retained its independence, legally applied to be annexed into USA. Doc15071969 20:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Corsica was sold to France, what was "international law" at the time differed considerably from what it was in the run-up to WWII. An article arguing the Baltic States' case, outlining the legal principles involved, why Soviet actions were contrary to international law, and why did de facto occupation of Baltic States did not lead to legal extinction of them as subjects of international law can be found here [8] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doc15071969 (talk • contribs) 19:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

As to Occupation of Texas[9] or Baque country [10] - you might google a bit to see the poor side of your argument.Constanz - Talk 14:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

LMAO. Occupation of basque country --> 2 Ghits from "People's Daily Online English Edition".

As for "Occupation of Texas", I was talking about an article, not a link? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To remind you the Wikipedia policies

According to NPOV:

All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source.

1. If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
2. If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents.

Majority of Western researchers and public describe the events as Soviet military occupation. So far you have failed to present whatever reliable source claiming the opposite (it would remain minority POV anyway). Your original research over the occupation definitions doesn't prove anything, as authors cited above have already covered the important points. You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people. is smth that suggests WP:TE, as well as assigning undue weight to a single aspect of a subject. (i.e Soviet/Russian Fed official statements and arguments; long ago rejected by the West).Constanz - Talk 13:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm familiar with WP policies, thank you. However, a point of view among two (basically Eastern and Western) hardly qualifies as undue weight. In addition, one should beware of grande political statements (both during and after Cold War), for they're definitely not NPOV. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Proof, that the events are regarded as occupation

Proof, that the events are regarded as occupation by third countries, including the overwhelming majority of the West:

• 1960 On the twentieth anniversary of the military occupation of the three European states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and their forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union [11]
• 1983 Condemning the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral states by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 pursuant to the Molotov / Ribbentrop Pact, and continues [12]
• 2005 On May 21, the United States Senate passed a concurrent resolution, urging, "The government of the Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement, admitting to and condemning the illegal occupation and annexation" until 1991 of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. [13]

Constanz - Talk 14:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As a general rule of thumb, political sites, are not WP:RS because politics are, well, politics and POV. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Meissner was a scientist, not a politician. Unfortunately you haven't provided any other respectable opinions as a counter.Constanz - Talk 14:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

1. You fail to understand that we have two POVs here: either 1.Baltic states were occupied or 2. Baltic states were not occupied. As sources prove, the first POV is shared by overwhelming majority in the West. It is a POV of the overwhelming majority, and POV of the non-participants. The second assumption has only been advanced by Soviet/Russian officials. It is a minority POV. We must not give prominence to the occupant's own justifications, or to draw a parallel, Flat Earth Society thesis here.Stop POV pushing, or trolling.

2. You haven't given any sources supporting your complaints. Thus your POV stuff remains original research. Constanz - Talk 14:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You provided three links to political sites. Neither of them qualify as reliable sources... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Now you broke all your arguments yourself: the thesis, that the Baltic states were not occupied relies indeed fully on political arguments by USSR/Russia, i.e participant of the conflict. None of your arguments, guys, even if you gave links, hold water, as per your own logic. I've referred to third party opinions as well, plus independent legal analysis (see mr Meissner's book, it's not available online).Constanz - Talk 14:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

And what you fail to understand is that you get a wrong number of POVs. "Occupation" has a special meaning, which is not respected here. Baltic states were all three members of the USSR, were SSRs on their own rights, their representants sieged in the Supreme Soviet, they had the same rights and obligations as Russians, Kazakhs or any other ethnicity in the USSR. For instance, there were Estonian officers and even generals, in the Army. All this hardly qualifies as "occupation". -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Legally it was qualified as occupation, for the umpteenth time (the sources prove)[14]. According to majority POV Baltic states were legally never USSR members. Independent Western countries, majority of the world subscribed to this logic. Only Soviets followed the ludicrous they had the same rights and obligations as Russians, Kazakhs or any other ethnicity in the USSR. idea, which here qualifies as WP:OR. As Estonian-American politologist Rein Taagepera has put it: Estonian SSR had as much legal basis as Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia. You do not have any legal basis for your suggestion, except of course Soviet self-justifications. Constanz - Talk 14:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If legally means "recognized by a US resolution", than this "law" has no basis outside the US. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As for your comparison with Bohemia-Moravia, it is totally false? Did representants from Bohemia and Moravia siege in the Reichstag? No, but Estonian representants did siege in the Supreme Soviet? Did the USSR close Estonian universities as Germans did? No. And so on, so forth. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Another blow to your own logic: Nazi-occupied Norway had its own puppet government, did this do away with the occupation? Puppet representatives of Latvian SSR's puppet government didn't help the fact that Latvia was occupied, as admitted by the whole world, except for the Soviets. Regarding your second argument (still WP:OR!), Soviets killed about 30 times more Estonia's inhabitants [15] than the Nazis did (so exactly the opposite to your assumtion, regarding universities) - according to your view this means that there was no German occupation?Constanz - Talk 15:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Another blow to your own logic: Nazi-occupied Norway had its own puppet government, did this do away with the occupation? Puppet representatives of Latvian SSR's puppet government didn't help the fact that Latvia was occupied, as admitted by the whole world, except for the Soviets.

That is an extremely dubious statement. It is dubious that Moscow's allies India, Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, etc considered the presence of Latvia in the USSR to be an occupation. It is also dubious that China felt the same way. After the thug Ulmanis fled, the legislature of Latvia chose to become a member of the USSR. While you can dispute the fairness of the election, the fact remains that Latvia's legislature voted to become part of the USSR.

Heroization of Fascism

Just today, the Russian Minister of Defense urged the Baltic Republics to stop their heroization of fascism. There is much material on the subject in Yandex News. Is not it time to add some of this stuff to the article? --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please keep to WP:POINT. Well, if you want to compare the influence of Barkashovites, Russian National Bolsheviks etc with the small skinhead groups in Estonia and Latvia... But not here.--Constanz - Talk 15:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Latvians fighting against Soviets = "anti-" "anti-fascists" = ergo, "fascists." The only thing being heroicized by Latvia is fighting against the Soviets to try to maintain Latvia's freedom.

Unfortunately, the Soviet Union was very close to officially denouncing the full term of the occupation of the Baltics before the USSR fell apart. This would have been on the heels of the denunciation, which did occur, of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. (Sadly, original research from folks directly involved.) —Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion

I'm here in response a request for a third opinion on this discussion. It appears to me that Grafikm_fr ought to provide citations to reliable sources; otherwise his complaint cannot be sustained. Constanz, you should add your citations to the article and not just list them in the talk page. I think you are both arguing too much here. Making comparisons, analogies, and your own analysis is inadmissible original research, so there is no point in either of you continuing doing so. It is only necessary to supply sources that engage in this sort of analysis. Also, please stop edit warring. It does not help. Grouse 15:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of POV tags without any consensus is vandalism, as per Wikipedia:Vandalism, hence, one can restore any removal of tags without question. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that it can be restored without question. It should probably be on there for now. Nonetheless, edit warring is harmful, so please stop. Grouse 17:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As you see, I have cited many Western sources, both regarding official policies as well as legal estimations: the other side hasn't found anything apart from the occupant's self-justifications... and the propaganda stuff above.Constanz - Talk 15:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Calling those sources NPOV is especially funny today, when we can cite same sources calling predecessors of Taliban "freedomfighters". Sources from 1940-1991 can't be taken at face value as they had been heavily affected by Cold War.

(response to undated unsigned above) You are mixing two different situations and pretending they are the same. So we should discount the hundreds of thousands deported, conscripted, and killed by the Soviets as Cold War spin doctoring? The illegal annexation of three formerly independent republics to the USSR as a gesture of Baltic friendship wishing to join the benevolent Soviet family? The invasion and subjugation of the Baltics long before the "liberation" of Europe from Hitler? Now my deported family members (some sent to Siberia twice) are akin to the Taliban? Study some history first before making such sweeping and uninformed "funny" generalizations.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We have two POVs here: either 1.Baltic states were occupied or 2. Baltic states were not occupied. As sources prove, the first POV is shared by overwhelming majority in the West. It is a POV of the overwhelming majority, and POV of the non-participants. The second assumption has without exception been advanced by Soviet/Russian officials. It is a minority POV. We must not give prominence to the occupant's own justifications, or to draw a parallel, Flat Earth Society thesis here. Pushing the Soviet-Russian POV is trolling, if I'm not mistaken?Constanz - Talk 16:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC) (note: copied from User_talk:Grouse)

It is not necessary to characterize the idea that Baltic states were not occupied as trolling. It is necessary for those who believe that idea should be in this article to provide reliable sources in support. Claiming that the alternative is POV is not enough to sustain this dispute. Grouse 17:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, to sum up, I'd return to Flat earth theory comparison: in case we omit the number of 'believers', we can really say that “occupation-deniars”' work here is roughly equal to an hypothetical situation, when Flat Earth Society supporters would start adding POV-tags to Earth article. Constanz - Talk 17:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps eventually, but I don't think that the time is ripe to make that determination yet. Grouse 17:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I am also here as a user not involved in this discussion before: it seems to me that the 'occupation' in title is quite justified, but I completly agree with Grouse that more inline citations are needed in the article.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll be glad to delete the "why it's an occupation" and transfer that to a discussion archive, unfortunately, people keep insisting "occupation" is "POV" when it's not. I have invited anyone who wishes to post information that corroborates the Russian position that is verifiable in fact (that it was not an "occupation") on all three Baltic states talk pages. No on has accepted that invitation except to parrot pronouncements of the Russian foreign ministry. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Your efforts to keep talking, to keep trying to explain are valiant but the unfortunate side effect of them is - it creates an impression that the topic is, at the least, not settled, and that is not so. There are variety of sources that refer to military occupation of Baltic states:

- '"Ultimatums of June 15, 16, 1940, charged hostile activities; Russia had occupied the Baltics militarily and had arranged for pro-Soviet administrations to request admittance to the Soviet Union."' --Encyclopedia of World History

- '"Nazi-Soviet Pact of Aug., 1939, placed the Baltic countries under Soviet control, and the following month the USSR secured military bases in Estonia. Complete Soviet military occupation came in June, 1940."' Estonia, The Columbia Encyclopedia

- '"Soviet troops occupied Latvia in 1940, and subsequent elections held under Soviet auspices resulted in the absorption of Latvia into the USSR as a constituent republic."' --Latvia, The Columbia Encyclopedia

- Encarta uses it.

- multitude of results on google book search just for for "Soviet occupation" Estonia OR Latvia OR Lithuania

Continued discussions and persuasion are ok, provided there is an argument based on something that can be falsified. Leaving aside the question about the content of the article, in this case we are faced with recurring charge: the very use - both legal and colloquial - of a term widely used to refer to the events in question, allegedly constitutes violation of NPOV. All the untenable arguments why the legal term isn't applicable put aside, the remaining basis for that allegation is - 'I say so'. For example here: "(w)ords like liberation/occupation/invasion do have such [POVish] flavor (..)". That one cannot argue against rationally, nor does one need to, I believe. Same goes for asking for "references" for "two-three" paragraph articles, that merely summarily recite widely (or relatively widely) known historical facts. This "I say it's non NPOV" bottomline also suggests that, provided even you create otherwise impeccable article, provided even alternative POV is presented as it was in this case, nothing short of deleting certain words or replacing them with certain other words will satisfy those advancing such claims. I have never bothered to find out how, but there ought to be ways and venues in Wikipedia to solve such cases without engaging in seemingly endless discussions where no reasonable basis for having one--and no ground for agreement--can be seen. And by that I mean, unfortunately, having top spend time complaining to some "authority"; who knows where/how/what our options are? Doc15071969 21:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd go further and suggest that an article itself is a mess, and it is a mess precisely because people still feel obliged to try to go out of their ways to attempt to "prove" something that by now can be called widely accepted: that Soviet Union occupied three independent and internationally recognized States, and illegally annexed them. The legal arguments have been made in detail (for instance, by late Dietrich Loeber, Dr. iur.); in all likelihood, the arguments will never be heard by a competent international court, and Russia is anyway not obliged to accept any such judgement even if they would be; this article can not possibly restate legal arguments; by now one should simply relay on sources like Britannica. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doc15071969 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

people still feel obliged to try to go out of their ways to attempt to "prove" something that by now can be called widely accepted is correct, but who's to be blamed? That we wanted to ensure neutrality of the article and get rid of those tags? - All in all, every neutral opinion here seems to agree with our basic assumptions. Thus, adding the POV-tags is unmotivated, unless we regard Soviet propaganda as 'motivation'. But we don't, do we?Constanz - Talk 07:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't really intended as a blame, although, on rereading it, I see it may appear that way. What I mean is that we need to work towards some conclusive and lasting resolution and these discussions obviously don't lead to it, quite the contrary. Also, we need to improve the article, but it's very de-motivating to realise that, as long as the "issues" remain "under discussion", pseudo-legal and "PVOish words" challenges will be mounted. Doc15071969 09:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It was quite tidy after I merged the original two articles.

All the materials are taken from the references at the bottom, I do realize that proper footnoting would be helpful. There is an article on the Nazi occupation, perhaps the best alternative currently is to point to that for that time period and have this be related only to the "Soviet Occupation of Latvia (1940-1941, 1944-1991)."

As mentioned elsewhere, my 5 hour commute limits my time, but I do commit to going back and insert the appropriate references. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• This would also separate the Nazi and Soviet occupations for general clarity. —Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking in the same direction - we could create an intro that suits both articles (links to other article) and then say: this article concerns this occupation, the other one concerns that occupation, and move them to "Soviet Occupation of Latvia"/"Nazi Occupation of Latvia" respectively.

Inline references would be great, but the lack of them cannot, IMO, justify both tags currently attached. Title is not POV - it's the one that accurately reflects the legalities involved, and there is nothing being discussed - at least not by those who initiated the discussions. Doc15071969 16:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you please remove the tag, then? As per consensus, support by each neutral observer and the majority POV as a whole.--Constanz - Talk 16:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is not or is not only in "occupation" per se

The problem is that the term has multiple meanings. The sources cited above use the term "occupation" to describe the Soviet takeover in 1940. Some here want to use the term to describe the political settlement that followed, that is the regime. The political regime in Latvia was Soviet Republic just like any other one and not that of the Occupied territory. Being part of the country and integrated in it differs much from being run by occupational authority, whose residents are never treated the same way as the citizens of metropolia. Further unacceptable is arbotrary pasting of several separate events into one article: Soviet takeover, Nazi takeover, Second Soviet takeover. American revolution and US Civil War each have their own articles. The only article where they belong together one after another is the History of the United States. There is a History of Latvia article for that. This is made to be a POV fork.

As such, the article has a POV title (as explained here) and also is non-compliant in its current form with several policies and guidelines. --Irpen 08:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You fail to understand that all the sources I added use occupation to describe the Soviet rule from 1940/1944 on, i.e describe the political settlement that followed, that is the regime, which was generally regarded as illegal. You don't have any sources for an alternative opinion, when we exclude Soviet/Russian propaganda statements. Please stop WP:Trolling and littering the talk page with your own interpretations/'legal' analysis (WP:NOR. Otherwise I will report it on incidents page as disruption due to personal POV-pushing.Constanz - Talk 08:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You may report this all you want. However, the sources describe the act and not the regime. And you did not say anything about article's being an arbotrary pasting of separate events together making it a fork. --Irpen 08:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It has been explained over and over again that, even if the sources allegedly describe an act - a takeover of territory, rather than the regime, it is utterly immaterial what puppet administration occupational power installs. See, for instance ICRC's Q&A on Occupation and international humanitarian law on some of the conditions when occupation ends [my emphasis]:

'"5. When does occupation come to an end?

The normal way for an occupation to end is for the occupying power to withdraw from the occupied territory or be driven out of it. However, the continued presence of foreign troops does not necessarily mean that occupation continues.

A transfer of authority to a local government re-establishing the full and free exercise of sovereignty will normally end the state of occupation, if the government agrees to the continued presence of foreign troops on its territory."'

None of those conditions was fullfilled up until the USSR "crumbled" and Baltic states could fully re-assert their sovereignity.

As for multiple topics - Soviet occupation and Nazi occupation in one article - I agree. However, please keep in mind that, before you yourself started expanding it by adding the pics, the info on Nazi occupation was brief and intended to link in to another article. One could have simply deleted the part of the opening sentence saying that the article intends to inform about Nazi occupation and it would have been fine. So a good step forward IMO would be if you'd move pics you added to an article about Nazi occupation of Latvia and get rid of the section, leaving perhaps one-two sentences linking in with the other article.

Also, I'm trying to collect references and your input on which specific events, facts and paragraphs would need referencing would be helpful. Doc15071969 09:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sophistry

Is defined as: "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning" [16] Just passing by and realized that I really enjoyed the definition of occupation v Latvia (see above) "The political regime in Latvia was Soviet Republic just like any other one and not that of the Occupied territory. Being part of the country and integrated in it differs much from being run by occupational authority, whose residents are never treated the same way as the citizens of metropolia. " Of course one wonders how many executions were carried out under that guise. Well one supposes that it is OK since Russians were treated the same horrible way.... (:>) El Jigue 12-9-06 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.65.188.149 (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

What on earth "horrible way" are you talking about? If you're here to push Reaganistic propaganda about the good and the bad, you've came to the wrong place. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

But your own Stalinist propaganda is completely suitable here, eh?--Constanz - Talk 08:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Since the beginning of the 'dispute' you have not succeeded in finding a single argument which would satisfy Wikipedia neutrality rules. You and your comrades have only produced own 'thesis', all arguments actually being derived from the agressor's, i.e Soviet propaganda. This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Wikipedia is not a place to reflect mere Soviet vision of the events. Constanz - Talk 09:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Russian SVR confirm occupation of Baltics

Seems that this ongoing POV debate is now obsolete. See:

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061123/55932837.html

MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - The Soviet Union was justified in annexing the Baltic states in WWII, as their governments supported Nazi Germany, Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR) said Thursday. "These materials show that German-oriented policies conducted by governments in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia threatened to turn these states into a staging ground for a German invasion of the Soviet Union," Ivanov said. Ivanov said, "The archives contain special reports to the [Soviet] political leadership on secret talks between Latvian leaders and the Germans, about the inevitability of a future occupation of Estonia by German troops, and the readiness of the Lithuanian army to surrender to the Germans." In June 1940, Russia accused Estonia of forming a conspiracy together with Latvia and Lithuania against it, and issued an ultimatum, demanding among other concessions that more Soviet troops be allowed to enter the three countries. In the following month, local communists loyal to the Soviet Union won parliamentary "elections" in all three countries, and in August these parliaments asked the Soviet government for accession to the Soviet Union. As a result, the three states were formally annexed.

I would note that all three Baltic states were strictly neutral in the war. The only problem with the Russian position (they "had to protect themselves") is the maps the Soviet Union printed already in 1939 showing the Baltics as "Name-your-Baltic-state S.S.R." And there was the attempted coup in Estonia between the wars, too.

The whole thing about supporting Nazi Germany is, of course, a total lie. Let's not forget that there were plenty of talks with Hitler on the repatriation of Germans--that being necessary since Hitler didn't want Germans to fall under the Soviet Union as the result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. So...

1. Stalin makes a deal with Hitler
2. Hitler talks with Baltics to repatriate Germans
3. Hitler's talks with Baltics "signal invasion"
4. Stalin takes over Baltics (as originally agreed with Hitler)

Very neat and tidy indeed. It would appear the Russians are now blaming contacts that are the result of Stalin's deal to take over the Baltics as the reason to take over the Baltics. Talk about your circular reasoning!

(5 hour daily commute has been keeping me occupied, sorry I've been away...) Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Atleast Russia can no longer claim the Baltics voluntarily joined the Soviet Union.... 58.169.75.98 11:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The funny side of 'USSR being threatened by a possible German takeover of Baltics' is that commies had already stationed there troops there in 1939 (that's why from that point on many Western diplomats didn't consider the Baltic states independent any more (were regarded as protectorates). And in Spring-Summer 1940 Germany was busy fighting at the Western front. And that Germany had previously rejected any discussion over German support for Baltics in case of Soviet invasion etc etc. So that it is quite obvious, that this Russian official statement is rubbish. Constanz - Talk 13:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The course of action

I'd suggest the following: Re: Constanz: Remove POV-title tag
1a) initiate WP:RM to move the article to "Soviet Occupation of Latvia";
OR
1b) just move it to "Soviet Occupation of Latvia";
followed by
2) removal of POV-title tag.

I prefer 1a) → 2), because: a) there are varying opinions on the time period and they can be best addressed in footnotes to article; b) the title is "controversial" among some of our Russian colleagues – and it would still be after the move, I suspect, – but we would have had (or not had) some formal consensus as a kind of anchor point for future.

Re: Irpen: "article (..) is non-compliant in its current form with several policies and guidelines
1) "Nazi stuff" from mid article is moved to Talk:Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, pending action to incorporate it into that article;
2) "Classification of the Soviet presence as an occupation" comes to talk - perhaps we could turn it into some sort of FAQ;
3) Irpen (and others claiming noncompliance) is invited to make a detailed case with reasonable specificity outlining what in the remaining content constitutes noncompliance, so we can best address those concerns – general and wide reaching statements are virtually impossible to address;
4) after specific concerns are discussed and/or addressed (or absent case form Irpen/others) noncompliance tag goes.
--Doc15071969 18:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not object to the article entitled Soviet occupation of Latvia devoted to the Soviet takeover in June 1940. The article should focus on the event but can naturally, as required by context, mention the aftermath. The longer review of the consequences and Soviet brutalities belong to the History of Latvia or its subarticles, perhaps Latnian SSR among them. If this is done, I would support removal of POV-title tag.

I do not object to moving an entire period under the Nazis into a separate article. I still find it strange that the issue of Latvian Jews and the collaboration of the significant portion of the Latvian population in their fate is given so little prominence there but this we can discuss at the other article's talk.

No way the Soviet expulsion of the Nazis from Latvia in 1944-1945 cannot be in the article titled as the occupation. The article for that is Battle of the Baltic (1944). One troll calls called the Battle of the Dnieper as "Soviet Occupation of Ukraine" and another one called 1944-1989 as the "Occupation of Poland". Such cliches and points of view can be discussed in the article's text with refs but not be thrown over the articles by POVish titles. I suggest to the interested Latvian editors to start History of Latvia (1944-1991) article for what followed after that. --Irpen 05:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate to to include the 1940 Soviet occupation, the 1941 Nazi Occupation and the 1944 Soviet re-occupation in a single article because it correctly characterises, as Churchill described it in 1950, the deadly comb ran back and forth, and back again over Latvia. To split the article as you suggest would obscure the full picture. Martintg 11:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

by POVish titles typical communist logic! 90% is against your idea - this is subjective view! This is POVish in Wikipedia standards! 10% supports your idea - this is objective! This is neutral! This is NPOV!!
Leave aside Britannica, leave aside the Western democracies, leave aside the International law and lawyers - a communist tyrant and current Russian rulers disagree with this - ergo, we have to echo their opinion! Constanz - Talk 11:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Tag removed by Constanz again

1. only 3 well-known Russian Derzhava promoters - namely Irpen, Grafikm_fr and Ghirlandajo claim that something is not NPOV (consensus has called everything OK)
2. the trio fails to bring any facts to support their claim (we can't base a dispute on someone's own sentiments)
3. the intro itself shows, who are the occupion deniers (I think Wikipedia is not a place where to give prominence to Russian state propaganda)
4. sources - e.g encyclopedias like Britannica etc - use the title for the period 1941 to 1991. (official statements by Russia - an undemocratic regime anyway - have no significance whatsoever for the third parties and Western encyclopedias. These fall under POV category.)

Thus, I've removed it again, since title is perfectly NPOV and no-one has explained what is non-compliant here.Constanz - Talk 10:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, those who still claim Latvia wasn't occupied may formally request a move to Liberation of Latvia for example. Let's see if they will get more support there than they got here.Constanz - Talk 10:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Constanz, please stop your trolling and your ramblings about "propaganda". So far, you've been the only one to push your own POV, so talking about "consensus" from your side is a bit rich. A number of concerns has been raised about this page, both about the name and about content, and until these are fixed, the tag remains in place per the Wikipedia official policy. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

perhaps we could rather move the article to Occupation and incorporation of Latvia, similarily to Britannica [[17]]. How miserable, Grafikmfr, that much of the world, including Britain's cyclopedia makers, is so very much 'POV' and 'biased'... Advocatus diaboli 09:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

What you seem to miss is that encyclopedias do not create words or usages, they simply document them. And when such terms are created by politicians, one has to use gloves when putting them in a NPOV encyclopedia. One do not propose, for instance, to move USSR to Empire of the Evil just because of Reagan's speech. The situation here is similar: the term was crafted during the Cold War, when the two powers systematically considered the actions of the other side as "bad" and "evil" while performing the same actions themselves (various local military conflicts for instance). Consequently, a more accurate version is necessary.

You miss again that Empire of the Evil is a subjective statement, occupation is a legal term, here used in total accordance with Wikipedia citing policies as well as the NPOV. Advocatus diaboli 14:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

As for "incorporation" (but just that word) I could personally go with it. Unfortunately that does not resolve the naming problem, which just slaps three different periods together. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Claiming that the term was crafted during the cold war is your POV. You are commiting tag abuse by repeatedly tagging of this article, which amounts to vandalism, in order to push your own POV. The article already mentions the minority Russian viewpoint that occupation did not occur, therefore this article is compliant with NPOV policy. Martintg 17:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

My POV? The term was crafted after 1945, which fits the Cold War timeframe perfectly. It's a fact, POV has nothing to do with it. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can provide evidence that the term was crafted to serve Cold War interests, and not factually describing the situation on the ground, then it is your POV. It would be sufficient to find a pre-1945 reference to the term to refute your claim that it was crafted after 1945. Martintg 21:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Occupation is a legal term, thus objective, or NPOV. Cold war has nothing to do with it. That Russia still doesn't accept international war can be no reason to demand us to echoe their propaganda shit. As the late Alexander I put it: International law? What's this? I've never heard about such a thing!Advocatus diaboli 14:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Grafikm fr: As for "incorporation" (but just that word) I could personally go with it. nobody cares about your personal feelings here. Reputable sources make the day in an encyclopedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Advocatus diaboli (talk • contribs) 14:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

Occupation is a legal term, that's for sure. However, it can only be used in very specific contexts. As I said above, that's why we don't have pages like "Occupation of Brittany (1532-2006)", "Occupation of Corsica", and so on. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Occupation of Brittany argument again? Haven't we already heard of smth of the kind? I.e Hawai above? Your idea doesn't matter here, since occupation wasn't defined at the time of US or French conquests in 19th century or before. As our article clearly shows, occupation' was defined by international law at the time of Soviet aggression against the Baltic states. So read the article you are disputing! Your attempts to oppose international law or majority POV are unacceptable! Constanz - Talk 11:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

In other words you give two historical events a different interpretation and a different weight based on your own personal convictions. In other words, that's called POV, and you just recognized it yourself. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 01:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

We do have pages on "Occupation of ....". See Occupation of Czechoslovakia, Occupation of the Ruhr, Occupation of Denmark, Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Occupation of Luxembourg (1940-1945), Occupation of the Channel Islands, Occupation of Japan, Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt. You have not provided any evidence that the term was crafted during the Cold War. unless you have some new issue, please stop your tag abuse and vandalism to push your POV, all previous issues have been addressed in the article. Martintg 17:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust Denial?

Basicly, what this article tries to do, is equate the actions of the Soviet Union (and Soviet citizens in the Baltic Republics) with those of Nazi Germany. This can be seen as a modern form of Holocaust Denial. -- Petri Krohn 11:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear!! To point out that Soviet mass murders and international law violation might be equally bad as deeds by their Nazi counterpart is indeed a serious crime! Petri, please join a Commiepedia.org, if you dislike Britannica, Encarta or Wikipedia. Constanz - Talk 11:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, you have just proved my point. It is the intent of this article to point out that Soviet mass murders and international law violation are (or may be) as bad as deeds of Nazi Germany. -- Petri Krohn 12:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

But how does admitting Soviet crimes connect with Holocaust denial? You are the one who denies smth here, i.e you oppose every serious Western source and support Stalin's official line. Constanz - Talk 13:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, you've only proven your own partisanship regarding modern history. According to your thesis, it was probably Finland] who invadaded the USSR in 1939 and to claim otherwise would be 'Holocaust denial'... --Constanz - Talk 13:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. That's why, Constanz, I would strongly advise you to stop this historical revisionnism. (especially given the fact that Baltic states collaborated quite willingly with Nazi Germany)... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this article, it's certainly not me, but you, who are 'revising' history, i.e replacing the version accepted by Encyclopedias cited... with your own ideas. I'll report Arbitration, which will do away with your Soviet minority POV pushing. Constanz - Talk 14:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You use these words ("Soviet minority POV pushing") so often it becomes annoying. If your goal is consensus on this very talk page, let's seek it. If your goal is to push an agenda, sorry but Wikipedia is not a soapbox. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Petri, Grafikm, are you going to POV-label every article that does not represent Nazi or Soviet point of view ? Wake up, Stalin is long dead. --Lysy^talk 15:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What in earth Stalin is doing here? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. --Lysy^talk 01:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Petri disputes the term occupation because he thinks it equates the actions of the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany. Grafikm disputes the term occupation because he thinks that is was a term crafted during the Cold War. They don't offer any evidence, references or cites to back their claims, only opinion. Mere personal opinion is insufficient to label the title as POV. If claims cannot be verified and sources cited, it is considered original research. See Wikipedia's policy of verifiability, no original research and citing sources. Martintg 02:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Grafikm, consider the following sequence:

1. Soviets arrive, deport your entire family, you happen not to be home at the time and escape. This is after the Soviets have been in your home town for a year and countless people have already "disappeared." BTW, you never see nor hear of them again.
2. A week later the Nazis invade. They are, arguably, even "more evil" (the Holocaust comes to town and all the Jewish merchants disappear and you find your Jewish family friend beheaded), but at least you're not their target. (And, please, I am not attempting to compare evils, evil is evil regardless.)
3. Now, the Soviets are coming back. You pick up a German rifle and fight against the invading "liberators."
4. You are not a "willing" Nazi collaborator, you are someone fighting against Soviet (re-)invasion for your own reason--keeping your country free--having absolutely nothing to do with why the Germans are there. You are hoping that the Nazis retreat, that you defeat the Soviets, and that you reclaim your homeland. Latvians fought against whoever was invading using the arms of whoever was there (hoping to get rid of them too)--there were Latvians who fought on both sides and were arrested by both the Nazis and Soviets as being "collaborators" of the other. (This is one of the items that will require more attention with the suggested separation of the two occupations into their own articles.)  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, now replace step 2 by "You pick a rifle and go execute Jews together with the Nazis". Only a handful of Jews survived in the Baltic states. Actually, the percentage of Jews dead in Baltic states outstands even Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. Why? Well, because Baltic people (in average, again) gladly collaborated with Nazis. Something they quite willingly "forget", I wonder why... So, they were willing Nazi collaborators. And dispense me with stuff like "you're not their target"... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, those were the Nazis. The Holocaust struck through all of Eastern Europe. "Because the Latvians gladly collaborated" is as POV a statement as one could possibly make. Perhaps you might consider reading up on what the nature of Jewish-Latvian relations were in the independent Latvia: Frank Gordon.

• Were there collaborators? Yes.
• Were there people who fell victim to anti-Semitic propaganda: that the Cheka were Jewish, that Jews "welcomed" the Soviets (many did, seeing them as insurance against Hitler), that Jews replaced state workers in occupied facilities such as the post office/phone/telegraph and were thus perceived as collaborators of the Soviets and therefore the "enemy"? Yes.
• That Latvia was a state full of anti-Semitic super-ethno-nationalists just waiting for an excuse to exterminate the Jews? As you paint it? Absolutely not.

You might consider that the Jewish population in Latvia was far more concentrated in the areas it inhabited and far less dispersed than in the countries you mention, tragically making it far easier to wall them in (e.g., the Riga ghetto being a prime example) and then exterminate them.

On average, again, the Baltic people were only looking to survive. Your statement, which is that majority of Latvians would line up gleefully to shoot Jews, is reprehensible, beyond just uninformed.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, Jāni, you can't argue with a propagandist, can you? because Baltic people (in average, again) gladly collaborated with Nazis. Something they quite willingly "forget", -- I'm afraid even Grafik can't help that Baltic contributions to Nazi 'war effort' were tiny, compared with the help by Hitler's Soviet buddies: Soviet-German cooperation#1939-1941. Will this one become 'POV-title', vol.4 ? Constanz - Talk 09:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

RfC(2)

I am responding to the second RFC on the subject. To be honest, I am not absolutely certain what this new debate is specifically about. From what I can understand, the main points of the debate are: 1)whether the term occupation should be used and if so for what periods and 2)what periods this article should cover. First of all, I would like to say that this article is need of a massive clean-up and reorganization. POV concerns aside, it is very difficult to follow the text, due to its numerous asides and flashbacks. My suggestion would be to have an introduction, then discuss the historical context of the initial occupation, events immediately subsequent to the occupation (after 1940, and after the resumption of Soviet power), legal considerations, and contrasting views of the period. I believe that the article Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, though not perfect, provides a better model on which to organize such a topic. Now for the main points of this debate: 1) I believe that the term occupation can be used both in the title and in reference to the entire period of Soviet rule of the Baltics. I admit that I am now expert on international law, but providing my own judgment on the matter would constitute original research anyway. Nevertheless, most independent (especially Western) sources call this period an occupation, and we should reflect common usage. 2) This article should not cover all of Latvia's history in the given time frame, but rather one aspect of its history from 1940 until shortly after WWII. What I mean is that it should mainly discuss Latvia's occupation by the Soviet Union in 1940 and only provide other information that helps explain the event and its immediate consequences. Latvia's history while under German occupation should not be included here, beyond a mention that a disruption of Soviet rule occurred until the return of the Red Army. Then a a brief mention of the immediate events after the resumption of Soviet rule should close the history section. The rest is discussed in History of Latvia. Then all the legal arguments and other viewpoints that I mentioned should be stated. TSO1D 17:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I basically agree with you, just like most of the commentators here on talk. I'd also note that: the massive amount of different sources in the article, proving the occupation fact (tantamount to proving that the earth is not flat), is due to a group of users who denied (and still deny) the fact of occupation. This amount of proof can be freely removed from the article, when the threat of minority POV pushing is removed. Perhaps forming a different article as to legal questions. Constanz - Talk 12:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the article are listed. It s an arbitrary pasting of several events, it uses POV terminology and is filled with original research by Vercumba. Please do not remove the tags. --Irpen 17:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

There is not a single word that I have written in the article that is my own conclusion regarding any event. The issue is that even when citing (in discussions) the documented findings of U.S. congressional committees, those are declared irrelevant. The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (whose documentation of the occupation is primarily based on ORIGINAL SOVIET DOCUMENTS), is labelled POV and void. "Filled with original research?" Not one iota.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

In response to the RfC notice, I think that there are two possible changes which might help. One would be to simply change the title to "History of Latvia, 1940-45". The other, a more long-term project is two articles: one on the Soviet annexation and one on the Nazi occupation. Grant65 | Talk 01:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

No objection. I was proposing this all along. --Irpen 01:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. To change title to "History of Latvia, 1940-45" is to push the POV that Latvia was not occupied by the Soviets, a POV that has little currency in the West, where this english language wikipedia is read, thus it is given undue weight. Irpen, please list the open issues, POV terminology and original research by Vercumba. Martintg 11:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. How does that name suggest that Latvia was not occupied by the Soviets? Grant | Talk 14:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is the title "Occupation of Latvia 1940-45" considered POV where there are verifiable references that Latvia was indeed occupied during that period? Where are the verifiable references that Latvia was not occupied during 1940-1945? "History of Latvia, 1940-45" is to general a title and does not adequately describe the content. Otherwise why not then merge it into "History of Europe, 1940-1945". There are many titles in Wikipedia called "Occupation of...", for example Occupation of Czechoslovakia, Occupation of the Ruhr, Occupation of Denmark, Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Occupation of Luxembourg (1940-1945), Occupation of the Channel Islands, Occupation of Japan, Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt. 202.12.144.21 22:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

We have many articles about the history of a particular country in a particular period, usually in the format "History of _____ (19xx-xx)". To take one example: History of Canada (1945-1960). The name does not imply anything about Canada's political status. Also, Latvia was occupied by two different powers in 1940-45, so "Occupations" would be more accurate, but I like the concision of History of Latvia, 1940-45.

Anyway, as I have already alluded, I think a better long term solution is to split the article into e.g. First Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940-41) and Nazi occupation of Latvia (1941-44). Grant | Talk 01:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid some people will find numerous 'POV-titles' then... Constanz - Talk 18:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate to to include the 1940 Soviet occupation, the 1941 Nazi Occupation and the 1944 Soviet re-occupation in a single article because it correctly characterises, as Churchill described it in 1950, the deadly comb ran back and forth, and back again over Latvia. To split the article as you suggest would obscure the full context and interrelationship of the subsequent occupations, and its relation to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the division of that region into "spheres of influence" between the Nazis and the Soviets. Martintg 20:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want an article about a certain period of History of Latvia, the proper name is History of Latvia (Year1 - Year2). --Irpen 20:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If so, then European Theatre of World War II should be renamed European History (1939-1945) and American Civil War renamed American History (1861–1865). Irpen, please re-iterate the issues that led you to tag the title and content POV. Martintg 01:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Except that European Theatre of World War II is a military history article. This article is not military history. The article is general/political history that is preoccupied by the Soviet and Nazi incursions because those were the dominant events in Latvia at the time -- I can't imagine any "History of Latvia (1940-45)" which did not deal with those events in great detail.

For that matter, we do have a general history article called History of Europe. There is as yet no subsidiary article called History of Europe (1939-45), but I'm sure there will be one day. Grant | Talk 12:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

reiteration per request:

1. Not only the Soviet act of taking control of Latvia (an act of occupation) but also the Soviet rule is called "the occupation". I have no objection to the former. However, occupation as a form of control, not a military action, implies military rule and treatment of the territory as an occupied land. The Soviet rule of Latvia was no different than of any other Soviet republic. It was integrated into the USSR fully and was run by the same type of administration as any other territory. Latvia's regime was no more "occupational" then that of Belarus, Ukraine or Russia itself.
2. The article is the arbitrary pasting of several events that belong to their own article. US civil war and American revolution do not belong to the same period.
3. The article is tendentious, emphasizing the Soviet atrocities and saying nothing about the German ones.
4. The article totally the complicity of Latvians in elimination of the mass murder of the Jewish population
5. The article contains Vercumba's lengthy speculations about the "occupation" term. --Irpen 01:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, i will address the issues in order-

1. The Hague Convention states that quite explictly in section 42: "Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army." The article spans 1940-1945, the title indicates this. In 1945 a part of Latvia was still occupied by Germans, the other part by the Soviets, active fighting was still occuring on Latvian soil up until May 8th. Even after 1945, an insurgency continued in Latvia, but the article does not cover the post-1945 period, so your placement of the POV-title tag is questionable on this count.
2. Is this a POV issue? This is not arbitrary pasting of several events any more than World War 2 is an arbitrary pasting of several events. This article is about occupations of Latvia that occurred in the same period of conflict known as WW2. It is logical that the three occupations are grouped together because it concerns the same period of a wider conflict in Europe. Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany should be merged into this article in my opinion.
3. This is not a POV-title issue, but an article incomplete issue, and the section has already been tagged as such.
4. This is not a POV-title issue. This related to above, section already tagged incomplete. There are already many articles about Latvian complicity in the holocaust. I suppose reference to these articles could be made in the appropriate section when completed.
5. This is not a POV issue, but potentially an OR issue. The POV-title tag you placed is inappropriate, but a section OR tag may be.

You have not provided any compelling reason why this article should be tagged POV-title. POV-title should be applied in dispute over the neutrality of viewpoints implied by the title, or the subject matter within its scope, rather than the actual facts stated. You have not provided cites to published sources that support you claim that the title implies a certain viewpoint, just your opinion, which is considered OR. Many have provided verifiable cites to references that prove Latvia was occupied between 1940-1945 as fact. If you have some verifiable published source that proves that Latvia was not occupied during that period, then please post it. It is more constructive to make an effort to apply more appropriate section level tags, we all want to make progress with this article, rather than engage in tagging as a means of pushing a particular POV. I've removed the inappropriate POV-title tag and applied the section-OR to address point 5, section-incomplete tags already applied for points 3 and 4. I note you have applied a section tag concerning "Non-recognition of the occupation", please discuss how this section could be improved. Martintg 04:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The article covers the span of occupation of Latvia is between 1940 and 1945, While accepting Latvia was occupied in 1940, Irpen rejects that Latvia was occupied in 1944-45, claiming that Latvia was integrated fully into the USSR like any other Soviet republic, and hence there was no military rule. I pointed out that Latvia could not have been fully integrated into the USSR, since there were active combat operations on Latvian territory up until mid-1945 and a continuing insurgency beyond 1945. Therefore Latvia was necessarily under military rule during the 1944-45 period, which forfils Irpen's own definition of occupation.

However Irpen has chosen to re-applied the POV-title without further argument or rebuttal of of the above points. I don't think POV-title tag is now justified, article has had many revisions to deal with these issues. The other issues raised by Irpen above are not POV-title issues and section level tags are more appropriate and constructive. Suspicion of vandalism via tag abuse to push POV, therefore revert. Martintg 08:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

On point one: one can speak of the "hostile army" when the USSR was taking control. However, once the control was established and the republic was incorporated, the Soviet military could not have been called a foreign hostile army. It was the military force of the country of which the territory was a part.

On two: yes this is a POV issue. The article's content is cherry-picked tendentiously to fit the inflammatory title. If you want to write about occupations, write separate occupation articles. If you want to write about all the WW2 events, call the article Latvia in the Second World War

3,4,5 are all "non-compliant issues. --Irpen 15:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh... The article's content is cherry-picked tendentiously to fit the inflammatory title FAQ again! If Putin says there was no occupation, then Britannica and Boris Meissner are wrong and inflammatory, aren't they?Constanz - Talk 09:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 has been added by me. Constanz - Talk 10:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Editprotected

Could someone add the title to bibliography (bottom of the references section):

Boris Meissner Die Sowjetunion, die baltischen Staaten und das Völkerrecht - Köln: Verl. für Politik u. Wirtschaft, 1956. XI, 377 S..

I agree that not everybody can get this book, but it's worth mentioning.

Constanz - Talk 09:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Please leave a message on my talk page if this turns out to be controversial. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This could be added to the external links section. It seems to be the official view of the Latvian government, as it is posted on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia:

• Inesis Feldmanis The Occupation of Latvia: Aspects of History and International Law - Latvian Foreign Ministry —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petri Krohn (talk • contribs)

Suggestion

I am quite disheartened by those participating here who while seeming to want to contribute have in fact labeled the entire article Holocaust denial (see accusation by Petri Krohn on request for arbitration page). I would suggest the following to address the "occupation" and "mixing of occupation" issues:

1. Separate the Soviet and Nazi occupations. While there are important things to note from the sequence of events, the Soviet occupation being the first and setting certain precedents, these can be dealt with more easily than the mixing of the Soviet and Nazi occupations which has apparently led people to incorrectly label this whole article as Holocaust denial because they (totally incorrectly, I will assume good faith here) interpret it as myself and and others equating what Stalin did to the Latvians with what Hitler did to the Jews. No such comparison is made, either explicitly or implicitly.
2. The Nazi Occupation of Latvia continues on its own (it too requires more attention)
3. This article becomes the Soviet Occupation of Latvia, also standing on its own [ans as recently suggested as a possible alternative], and now that I've got a bit of Wikitime available, I can work on its contents as opposed to having to express to accusors my revulsion at being labeled a Holocaust denier when my own (then teen-aged) father-in-law went to warn their closest family friend of the Nazis only to find her beheaded corpse)
4. We create a short "Occupation of Latvia" article which clarifies the sequence of occupations and points to the two separate articles.

Would people find this more informative/logical/less "confusing"?  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

1. and 3. - I tend to agree. As soon as the threat of 'occupation denial' is removed, we can start editing. Constanz - Talk 11:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

All very sensible suggestions, I think. Grant | Talk 11:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, fine by me. I propose:

1) to initiate a request to move article (is it possible while it remains protected/under arbitration?);

2) to try to agree on precisely which content to structure how (I don't believe content attempting to "justify" use of occupation needs to be included in the article itself, only few references, perhaps);

3) to try to get help and involvement from more editors familiar with the issue;

4) start tagging articles of interest to our Russian colleagues (just kidding) :) --Doc15071969 17:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia

An Arbitration case involving the article has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia/Workshop. Constanz - Talk 11:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

European Court of Human Rights and the Soviet occupation (1940/1944-1991)

From a recent legal case, as it is reported by an Estonian victim of Soviet regime, grounds are found, that “after the decisions of the highest court of Europe the occupation of the Republic of Estonia by the Soviet Union in the years 1940-1991 has become an undeniable legal fact, negation of which would mean negating the legal order valid in the European Union.” (in Estonian)

“After the German occupation in 1941-44, Estonia remained occupied by the Soviet Union until the restoration of its independence in 1991.” - in: Full text of European Court of Human Rights Decision on the case Kolk and Kislyiy v. Estonia: Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to Crimes against Humanity. [18]

Now Grafikm fr may start arguing that Estonia is not Latvia, or that European Court of Human Rights is an agent of Baltic-Western imperialism. Constanz - Talk 16:38, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a great ref - I hadn't seen this decision before. I'll add two additional refs, in conjunction with Russia and its international obligations.

Opinion 193(1996) adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, which contains commitments which Russian Federation agreed to comply with upon joining this international organization, refers to Baltic states:

"xii. the Russian Federation will assist persons formerly deported from the occupied Baltic states or the descendants of deportees to return home according to special repatriation and compensation programmes which must be worked out." [19]

Russia has not honored this commitment, and it was reaffirmed by the Assembly in 2005, when reviewing Russia's compliance:

iv. as regards the compensation for those persons deported from the occupied Baltic states and the descendants of deportees, as stated in Opinion No. 193 (1996), paragraph 7.xii, to settle these issues as quickly as possible;" [20] --Doc15071969 18:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia article on Latvia

Machine translation...

The Occupation

In Latvia by many nationalistic politicians adapts the term "occupation", when deals the discussion with a stay of Latvia in the composition OF THE USSR. This term adapts actually as instrument of policy, morally basing, why some inhabitants of the country must have political rights, but others no, and in the radical version - also why noncitizens they are obligated to leave the territory of Latvia.

However, opponents indicate that the term "occupation" has another value. Occupation - this temporary occupation by the armed forces of the territory of enemy, in this case the countries must find in the state of war (independently of that, designed this properly or not). To entire other in the relation time of the presence of Latvia in the composition OF THE USSR the term "occupation" is not applied for the following reasons:

1. During the connection of Latvia to THE USSR, the country they not find in the state of war.
2. The introduction of Soviet troops was realized at the invitation of the state structures of Latvia, but not as a result of military actions.
3. All juridical procedures for the connection of Latvia to THE USSR were formally observed.
4. The supporters of occupation frequently use substitution of concepts, referring to Hague convention. Actually, according to this international normative- lawful report, the occupation can be produced, also, without the proper formulation of declaration of war by the protivooborstvuyushchimi sides, and so and without conducting of military actions; however, in this case side, whose territory occupies, it must express to other side its disagreement with the data by actions. What not it was from the side of Latvia in 1940.
5. inhabitants of the "occupied" territory obtained the citizenship OF THE USSR, all social, political and economic rights were given on the level with other inhabitants OF THE USSR, in this case the persons reached the specific age could serve in the Soviet Army.
6. The borders OF THE USSR after 1940 were acknowledged as many countries of peace.
7. In 1991 in Latvia it was accepted declaration about the restoration of independence, but not about the removal of occupational regime. Thus as Latvian public bodies it was acknowledged the fact of aneksii and the entry of Latvia into the composition OF THE USSR.

The assertion is advanced on the basis of these data, that in 1940 in the history occurred the annexation of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the pressure BY THE USSR, also, from the taciturn agreement of West European partners.

...end of machine translation

So, here we have the "opposing" viewpoint. The article is tagged as non-compliant, by the way.

1. During the connection of Latvia to THE USSR, the country they not find in the state of war. War is not a prerequisite for occupation.
2. The introduction of Soviet troops was realized at the invitation of the state structures of Latvia, but not as a result of military actions. False, and Soviet accusations that the Baltics broke their obligations under the terms of the mutual assistance pacts were lies.
3. All juridical procedures for the connection of Latvia to THE USSR were formally observed. Perhaps those of the USSR, but the terms of the Latvian constitution were violated, not to mention the petition to join was made by a government fraudulently elected even by the proof of Soviet documents--and results announced in Moscow 12 hours before the polls in Latvia closed.
4. The supporters of occupation frequently use substitution of concepts, referring to Hague convention. Actually, according to this international normative- lawful report, the occupation can be produced, also, without the proper formulation of declaration of war by the protivooborstvuyushchimi sides, and so and without conducting of military actions; however, in this case side, whose territory occupies, it must express to other side its disagreement with the data by actions. What not it was from the side of Latvia in 1940. Apparently, since Latvia petitioned to join the Soviet Union instead of complaining--BTW, Stalin ignored pleas sent from Latvia by the occupied government subsequently disbanded--this means it's not an occupation but an invitation. It is, in fact, the disputers of occupation that quote the Hague convention as indicating no occupation, their argument being that since Latvia was under civilian authority following the war, it could not be occupied. (Occupation occurs when the governing sovereign de jure authority is prevented from functioning. Whether the invading authority substituted/replaced is military or civilian has no bearing.)
5. Inhabitants of the "occupied" territory obtained the citizenship OF THE USSR, all social, political and economic rights were given on the level with other inhabitants OF THE USSR, in this case the persons reached the specific age could serve in the Soviet Army. According to Soviet law, I, as a descendent of someone from a territory under Soviet jurisdiction, was also a Soviet citizen for the duration of the occupation. The Soviets illegally conscripted Latvians during the war and after the war. Doing something illegal does not make it legal. And, speaking of citizenship, Latvia continued to issue passports to its citizens decades after WWII ended, which were internationally recognized as valid. (Yes, I have that in a published reputable source.)
6. The borders OF THE USSR after 1940 were acknowledged as many countries of peace. The observation of borders is not related to de jure recognition of authority within those borders.
7. In 1991 in Latvia it was accepted declaration about the restoration of independence, but not about the removal of occupational regime. Thus as Latvian public bodies it was acknowledged the fact of annexation and the entry of Latvia into the composition OF THE USSR. It is precisely the restoration of independence and the de jure continuity of the Latvian Republic with the first republic that makes it an occupation for the entire term of the Soviet presence. Restoration of independence does not confer recognition of annexation as valid.

So, some facts which are true (Latvians served in the Soviet military and had Soviet citizenship). Peace-time observation of borders. Plus a mix of outright lies (the Soviets were invited in). And then the leap that these facts prove "no occupation."  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Notice of arbitration decision

An arbitration case concerning this article has closed and the final decision is available at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Occupation of Latvia. The parties identified in the decision as having acted poorly in the dispute regarding this article are admonished to avoid such behavior in the future. The article is placed on probation, and any editor may be banned from it, or from other reasonably related pages, by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, inciviilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and the right to review the situation in one year, if appropriate. The parties are strongly encouraged to enter into a mediation arrangement regarding any article-content issues that may still be outstanding. If the article is not substantially improved by continued editing, the Arbitration Committee may impose editing restrictions on users whose editing is counterproductive or disruptive. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 00:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Archive this discussion?

I would suggest we archive this discussion and with disruptive behavior ostensibly banned, we start up a new discussion page (leaving the arbitration decision announcement). Yes?  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't bother to hide things and look like nothing ever happened. Hiding a dispute won't solve it. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree to archiving the page. We need a clean page for a fresh start, but obviously some wish to maintain old grudges. I would remind them that this article is now under probation and their behaviour will be subject to close scutiny. Martintg 08:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Martin and Pēters, I have to disagree here. Until the article remains protected, until the tags are in place, the talk must be here as well - for everyone to see, for everyone to be warned! I don't see anything I'd wish to be to hidden here. Constanz - Talk 09:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've submitted a formal "unprotect" request. we will see what happens. Martintg 10:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Grafikm_fr, please stop imputing motives on the part of others. The discussion here is so long that I simply thought it simply might make sense for ease of use to discuss edits going forward. Perhaps after you read up on your history and what the Soviets did in the Baltics, invading without provocation with the sole purpose of incorporating the Baltics in accordance with long-standing plans (they did try to overthrown the Estonian government decades before the "Cold War"), you can contribute (far) more positively than you have to this point.

Since there is a wish from all sides to not lose continuity with prior discussions, I'll add a "post-arbitration" section below and then check on how to archive the discussion above within the page (no further changes)--which should function equally well in giving us a fresh starting point.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Pre-arbitration talk section headers cleaned up for a better table of contents and boxed off, which pretty much is what appears to get done in such "preservations."  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

---

Post-Arbitration

Please discuss (proposed) changes below.

5 years?

It strikes me as curious that the first five years of the Occupation of Latvia are segregated from the next 45. While I will not attempt to expand the article to include the post-1945 occupation, the reader should certainly be given a clear indication this article only covers a small, if important and unique, part of the occupation years."

(...) Everyking 04:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Still 5 years. Xx236 16:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Such a separation is not entirely unreasonable, given that the nature of occupation during the time of World War II can be considered as significantly different from the postwar 'peacetime' occupation. Digwuren 20:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Original research in the article unsourced by any sources

It is evident that the 2/3 of the article are original research without any references to international conventions and documents. Arguments in summary are evidently composed and couldn't be even sourced. Serov order text is completely different from the order, the original text of which is published in Wikipedia source. There is no indication of the source from where such text was taken. I placed

tag, because original research couldn't sourced by definition. No one explained why petitions to join Soviet Union are false, and why puppet governments established by Germans are considered as genuine representations of Latvians. The author just writes "petitions are false", "forgeries" and so on. This is ridiculous unsourced half-baked propaganda. Vlad fedorov 19:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

    The original sources of materials are all listed in the references. I will be going back and footnoting. There is no indication outside any Soviet sources (and Russian pronouncements, as indicated) that the joinings of the Baltics to the Soviet Union were in any way legal. Please feel free to cite reputable sources supporting your contention.
    Please provide detail on what you believe is incorrect regarding Serov. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

About Serov order - I agree that it's a little bit confusing, because text in grey box in the middle of the article isn't order itself (but it references order in a text). It should be clarified from where it comes from, because I can't identify it's source at the moment.
In fact, would be also nice to know from where this Order as document actually comes from - from which archives, etc. So people could stop to attack it's "orginality".
About "propaganda" argument - you can call it how much you like, but it doesn't change fact that lot of historians agree with Mr. Vecrumba sources (in fact, most of neutral ones). Yes, article could have better design and structure, also some sentences would need some clarification, but in overall, it cites sources which are very respected in the world on topic about what happened in 1939 - 1949 in Eastern Europe. So if you have solid sources who could bring some facts to oppose those who already are in this artice, or you have more constructive criticism or additions, you are welcome. If you tagging it "disputed" and call it "half-baked propaganda" just because you emotionally disagree with sources, well, then not I, nor Mr. Vecrumba can help you with that. Pecisk 22:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems obvious that the {{POV|date=March 2008}} tag is still there just to express some editors' personal dislike of the events in question. I'll remove it. If readding is in order, please detail specific complaints. Digwuren 06:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What you "seem to be obvious" is totally irrelevant tothe discussion. A number of perfectly valid concerns were raised by a number of editors, and not answered. The whole thing was taken into Arbcom, in case you did not notice.

Please note that this article was placed on probation by the ArbCom, so disruptive edits (such as unilateral removal of POV tags without any further argument other than "it seems obvious that...") can end in blocks and page bans. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What *are* these "perfectly valid concerns"? And your attempts at scaring away contributors are strongly disapproved of. Digwuren 15:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Digwuren, please add internationally published sources to any disputed facts instead of just removing POV tags. By just removing POV tags you're making favors to editors that have managed to challenge this article so that it has ended up in Arbcom. I've read through the article, there is no independent research. Everything "seems to be obvious" indeed. That means, someone has been that lazy, never bothered to support the facts with internationally published sources and that has made it so easy for the opponents to further their political agenda here by ending up getting this article into Arbcom. Get to work and find reliable sources to every claim here instead of looking for an easy way out by just removing tags!! I'm going to help you guys as I can find time..

PS, in case any POV tags are removed by you, please have those restored ASAP so it would be easier to find from the article, rephrase if necessary and add the sources. Please also note that sources published in the Baltic countries only in native languages are not going to do it this time. Because it's going to be too easy to challenge these by calling it POV as well. Internationally published sources are all available in libraries, Amazon etc. So lets get to work!

Thanks!--Termer 19:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You may be misunderstanding. The tags I removed were useless per-section {{POV|date=March 2008}} tags. I did not remove {{Fact|date=March 2008}} tags -- the ones looking like -- and, indeed, I have been replacing those with sources, as you can see in the article's history. Unfortunately, I have been forced to do a lot of cleanup work on other articles recently, which kind of restricts my productive wikitime. :-(

in case this npov tag discussion here was about the POV-title added by Ghirlandajo on 6 June 2007, then I can't see how adding additional tags to the article's title other than noncompliant is in any way relevant and helps to solve the issues! Therefore reverting the addition of POV-title tag by Digwuren was correct in my opinion.--Termer 20:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed additional tags as not relevant since the article has tagged appropriately already. I find these kind of additions not helping to solve the issues during the time of meditation here. In case anybody likes to push the Soviet/Russian POV regarding the issues, feel free to add your opinions with clear separate citations. The people that have written this article will take care for it's compliance. At the same time provoking here with additional tags, is not going to help to solve anything. I personally take it as attempt to occupy the History of Latvia in wikipedia by Russian imperialists, like Latvia itself was occupied by USSR in 1940.--Termer 09:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Your ignorance dear fellow editor Vlad fedorov is starting to amaze me. You have promoted your personal POV by attacking the page of Occupation of Baltic states. And thats not enough, you need to question the common understanding of the Western countries regarding the Soviet Occupation in the Baltic cstates yet again over here.

Here goes the discussion yet you insist by promoting your personal political agenda that for some reason matches the statements of the current Russian government that denies the occupation. You provoke the situation further by completely ignoring even the hidden note left at the header, "please see the discussion", an still you insist without any acknowledgment -unilateral reverts without any previous discussion. Please explain yourself. Is your attention really to provoke yet another edit war?--Termer 06:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Cultural and historical context

Added historical Latvian and Russian views of the Baltics as a area finding itself at the center of geopolitical struggles and intrigue. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Finland and the winter war in this text.

First of all the Finns did not refuse negotiation before the winterwar, and the Finns was willing to comprimise in all but one point, to give away Hanko as a Soviet navelbase. The Soviets was not willing to compromisie in the talks.

Second. Its a false statment saying that giving away karelia to the Soviet gave security as Soviet presure towards Finland never been worse than during the interim peace period of 1940-1941.

• Soviet shotdown onf Finnish passenger airline plane.
• Molotov asked Hitler in Berlin if the Soviet could start a new war.
• Soviet subversive action and spying in Finland was massive.--Posse72 23:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Name of the First Year of Terror

It may be of interest that the relevant Estonian publications termed the first year of Bolshevik Terror as Year of Troubles (Estonian: Kannatuste aasta) and Year of Red Plague (Estonian: Punase katku aasta). The latter fits well together with the name for the following German occupation: Years of Brown Plague (Estonian: Pruuni katku aastad). Obviously, the obvious names were also used. Digwuren 11:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Unexplained removal of tags/POV

Please don't remove the necessary tags until the dispute is resolved. Such removals are not expected to bring about an easy solution. Thanks, Ghirla^-трёп- 14:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Where is that fabled "dispute" I keep hearing about so much but never manage to meet? Digwuren 15:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe this. The Occupation of the Baltic states page has all the necessary sources available, including Russian, and the page is also linked to this one so what is this dispute here all about? The only one that disputes the fact of occupation is the current Russian government. Perhaps the Northern Korea as well. Therefore disputing the history of Latvia here by anybody is yet another occupation. This time someone tries to occupy the history of Latvia on Wikipedia. Therefore I'd suggest that the dispute tag should be removed.

--76.170.4.1 06:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that North Korea's foreign politics ignores everybody but PRC and perceived immediate threats such as USA, in following the Juche practice, and thus does not have an official position on such geographically and timewise distant event. Thus, it is likely that Russia is alone in this -- well, perhaps with a company of a few of its current puppets.

In any case, we have a source for Russia being the only power in Europe to deny the occupation. Digwuren 06:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I was just kidding about the Korea of course.

found another source here, hope it's useful and doesn't violate any copyrights

Soviet forces occupied Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania in June 1940. The World Book Encyclopedia ISBN-10: 0716601079

--Termer 08:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo, your addition, the POV-title tag is not necessary since the article is already carrying the -noncompliant tag. Also, the POV of the Russian government is clearly stated in the article saying that Russia denies occupying Latvia by the USSR.--Termer 21:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The title has been proved correct and non-disputed by several sources. Also the article seems correct for me by stating both facts and POV from both sides. So please, stop putting the POV-title back without sourced explanations or I will start treating it as vandalism. Suva 15:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

1. First of all your threat about "I will start treating it as vandalism" do I regard as an uncivil approach. It is obvious that there is no consensus about deleting the tag. You are pushing your view.
2. Secondly the article is biased in selectively quoting a relatively small number of states (US, European Community members) who had reservations about the joining of the Baltic states with the Soviet-Union. There were a lot more countries who did recognize it and which are not mentioned: all former Warsaw pact member states and the former members of the USSR including the Baltic states themselves. About the great number of non-aligned countries I don't know, but I don't think they cared a lot about the Stimson doctrine. Otto 19:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess I see your point, so I'll respond in kind.

Here's a list of some of the states that cared a lot about the Stimson doctrine: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming. Furthermore, the Alaska Territory and the Hawaii Territory also had opinions. These opinions, expressed through the government at Washington, D.C., were every bit as independent and separately deliberated as the opinions of the SSRs. However, because there were thrice as many of these states as there were SSRs, their opinion must be thrice as weighty.

Do you see my point? Digwuren 10:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I really fail to see how saying the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union, and oh by the way the Soviet Union, recognized the joining of the Baltics with the Soviet Union as legitimate: Warsaw Pact = countries whose fledgling democratic movements were crushed by the Soviet Union; former members of the Soviet Union = are you saying that all the "CIS" countries still recognize the Soviet invasion of the Baltics as legitimate?; and the Baltic SSRs recognizing themselves as legitimately joining the Soviet Union?

    You can't be serious in claiming a cabal of Soviet puppet states comprise a legitimate block of independent international entities that did not recognize the occupation.

     Let's see some legitimate scholarly resources discussing the Soviet Union, Latvia/the Baltics, and occupation, not WP:OR. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have seen and read to much rhetoric from Digwuren and do not take him serious. For other editors I want to emphasize that:

1. the lemma Stimson Doctrine correctly describes it as a foreign policy from the USA which doesn't bind other states. In some articles it is incorrectly presented as a precedent suggesting that is would be part of (international) customary law. Customary law does not originate from precedents, in contrary a state can escape from the action of customary law by consistently denying the opinio iuris;
2. many editors make the mistake to incorrectly apply principles from western democracies to international law. The world is not a democracy and there is no subject of international law with exclusive jurisdiction. Otto 14:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay Otto, hop to it, please find us these alternative verifiable reliable sources you claim exist. Post them here so we can examine them. Martintg 10:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately for your argument, Otto, the Soviet Union went out of its way to approve all "western" type democracy treaties and agreements. The burden is to you to prove through legitimate scholarly sources, not your personal opinion of sources you deem apply to the Baltics and the Soviet Union, that the joining of Latvia to the Soviet Union was legal according to (prevailing) international law, as described by the Soviet Union and as affirmed by a declaration of the Russian Duma.

     Or are you saying there's no occupation because the Soviet Union can break every treaty it signs with no consequences because the law doesn't apply in international law? In which case, more WP:OR. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

OK guys, lets clean this thing up!

...and get it released from probation. I suggest removing any questionable and sloppy entries by the people that have posted those first. Like for example: Finland refused...just needs clarifying. Finland refused the terms proposed by the USSR. etc. Also I think the whole thing could be much more clear and organized better. For starters I think the opening is very messy...in general I think this thing is all over the place, you guys have made it very easy to attack it! How about starting all over? Organizing everything according to the chronology etc.? Now everything is messed up and feels more like someones notes about events rather than a serious page from an encyclopedia. So how about staring all over by keeping it clean and tight? Sometimes less is more you know and that feels what's needed the most over here. The main thing is to get it released from probation after all...--Termer 04:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

tags/POV/edit war during probation

Please note that posting additional POV tags to this article is going to be considered as a promotion of a political agenda of the current Russian government or/and former Soviet Union, the primary 2 sources in the World that deny the fact of the occupation. The facts of this article are in compliance with encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica , World Book Encyclopedia etc. Therefore there are no basis whatsoever for anybody to POV tag this article based on personal political agendas. Thanks--Termer 15:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Please scroll up and notice this article is on probation, meaning it is highly advisable to not engage in such serious edits before being sure of reaching a certain form of consensus. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Grafikm! Thats exactly what was said to you! Please feel free to help cleaning up this article by adding 'citation needed' tags to any facts you might find questionable in this article and I'm sure, a form of consensus is going to be reached. Also, instead of promoting the POV of the current Russian government and/or the former Soviet Union by adding additional POV tags to the header, please feel free to work with the section that cites the related sources. Thanks! --Termer 16:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
PS. the edit 15:02, 28 June 2007 you had referred to was done by Termer

The POV-title tag reflects the opinion of some editors and has nothing to do with the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. The POV tag was part of the article when it became protected at January 27th and was still there when it came under probation. The edit war started by some editors to remove this tag is disruptive and in my opinion a violation of the ruling of the arbitration committee in this case. Otto 18:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Otto for clarifying the intentions of certain editors for them. In case you're right and their motivations have been based on personal opinions like you claim rather than published sources such as the denial of the Soviet occupation in Latvia by the current Russian government, that makes things simple since any edits based on personal opinions, not on reliable sources should not be tolerated in any encyclopedia and have been the reasons for the probation of this article in the first place. Therefore posting anything out there that's based on personal opinions is disruptive indeed.--Termer 02:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

PS. I call for all responsible editors once again to a constructive approach and help cleaning up this article by adding citation tags anywhere in the text if necessary and referencing all the facts laid out here by relevant internationally published sources. It's all available out there including previously mentioned encyclopedias so it's just a matter of getting it done. Some editors including myself have been working on it and continue to it by sourcing all required citation tags. The moment I've seen a politically motivated POV tag on the header, I have removed it and going to remove it in the future since there is a place in the article to cite the sources of the alternative origin. Thank you!--Termer 02:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV Compliance

I have reformated the article according to WP NPOV policies regarding conflicting verifiable perspectives.

• The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources.

• As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints

• NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all.

Even though both viewpoints were there even earlier, I think it's important to have a clear split there to be able to organize the article better. And I still think the Western&Latvian section needs a lot of cleanup. Please let me know, I can do that in case the original authors give me go ahead. Thanks!--Termer 03:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm essentially Wiki-off-line for the next week. As the primary author of the work still in progress (suffering because all my Baltic time has gone to mediations, etc.), please feel free--the clear separation I think is a good start. (Many thanks for your attention here!) Also, the section ref'ed as unrefed (why classified an occupation) has as its sources primarily those already listed in the bibliography, some of which are online, I should be able to work on that in a week or so if the Baltic occupation mediation cabal dies down. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

In topics like this it is essential to have all major points referred directly, if you don't want endless debates. `'Miikka 22:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Miikka for pointing it out. even though this section is more like common knowledge for some editors, it might not be the same for others that are not so familiar with the subject. Therefore having all major points referred directly is a very good idea. regarding this section in general, I think it's a bit too long and lingering anyway, some points are repeated. The section shouldgo straight to the point with relevant sources and thats it I think. Since Pēters J. Vecrumba has given me go ahead, I'll clean it up ASAP.--Termer 22:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

They say elsewhere that splitting up articles in cases like we have here and calling alternative sources 'Russian' is not such a good idea since there are plenty of Russian sources that can be referred to while talikng about the fact of the Soviet occupation. For example I came across of a book published by Russians , there are documents from Russian State archives, orders given to the soviet military to blockade the Baltic countries. Regarding Estonia for ex. it went in to effect on June 14, the day the Finnish airliner that was leaving the country with diplomatic mail was shot down by soviet planes. That was 3 days before the actual ultimatum from Moscow and following invasion. So nowadays it's actually the current Russian government and it's supporters only that can be referred to as a source, someone denying it all together. So all suggestions welcome. It's clear that according to the former soviet sources occupation never happened but how to point out the alternative source that is only the Russian government currently at office? In case the politics in Russia change, then what? So what to call the section for now that speaks for "there was never occupation" ?--Termer 10:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps "Soviet historiography of the occupation"? This could then also include Soviet historiography of the Nazi occupation. There could also be a section on Nazi historiography of the Soviet (1940-41) occupation.

    As mentioned in the mediation cabal on the occupation of the Baltic states, 15 years have gone by since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian Duma passed a resolution that Latvia (and by extension the Baltics), joined the Soviet Union legally according to international law--so, treaties and laws in effect at that time: Latvian law, Soviet law, treaties between the two parties, and "general" international law and treaties; in other words, the position promulgated by Soviet historiography: on a basis in law, "no occupation."

    We can then decide the best place to insert the current Russian position--just mention at the top or have a small section with quotes, etc., since we do not yet have reputable scholarly sources supporting the basis for the Duma resolution (which is different from documenting the Soviet version of history). —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

hi Pēters J. Vecrumba I took a closer look to this Classification of the Soviet presence as an occupation. I would through it out all together. Most of it repeats whats said already anyway and it feels like someone is having an argument over the fact of occupation. I'd say, lets have the facts speak for themselves. I mean, nobody needs to prove over and over again the facts here I think. And the facts are as simple. there are only 3 international treaties that both Latvia and USSR had signed that define occupation. August 27, 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy , that made it impossible for Latvia to use a war as an instrument against USSR. and the second one Non-aggression treaties and the third The Convention for the Definition of Aggression. point 2—invasion by armed forces of the territory of another State even without a declaration of war and point 4— a naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State. The naval blockade is also a published fact by Russian Historians, an order from Russian State archive to Soviet Navy to blockade the Baltic states issued on June 12 1940. The firs source referring to the book is in Finnish though...There you have it. The fact that Russian Duma thinks everything is on a basis in law is their opinion. So I don't think anybody should make a big deal out of it as it is just a viewpoint, not a fact like a decision of any international courts. And since the US and EU have once again confirmed that USSR occupied the Baltic countries, we should leave this debate out there and just refer to the facts here I think. So I'd suggests get rid of the to Classification...' section. Mostly Because It's not saying anything new really thats already said in the article. Also, I'd get rid of the NKVD order of November 28, 1940, since WP has the Order № 001223 from January 21, 1941 and it's already listed as well. Please let me know.--Termer 04:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It is an argument, necessary because all the fights on this page back in the spring. Unfortunately, throwing it just out is a bad idea, as then, some new idiot will promptly come along and claim that the classification is wrong. But now that the article has better organisation than back then, it may be feasible to merge data from this section into the main structure. Digwuren 09:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

An encyclopedia can be a place for opinions or arguments in case clearly cited, “who said so”. Otherwise it doesn't have any factual value and it doesn't belong to any encyclopedia. keeping something for a sake of some fights is not very rational I think. but since you insist and seem to think that something still needs to be underlined from over there, please point it out what is it exactly. and lets have it merged since it looks messy as things are repeated over and over again. So i think there is no need for spoon feeding the facts to readers again and again, it is going to work much better if it goes straight to the point and keeps "an eye on the ball" so to speak. The good old K.I.S.S. Rule is definitely not gonna hurt here! Please don't be offended by the last anybody, no harm meant. As I keep forgetting the rule all the time by myself anyway. thanks!--Termer 07:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies suggest anticipating questions on the order of "Hmm. That's surprising. Can you explain it in more detail?" from reasonable readers meeting surprising statements. Unfortunately, some unreasonable people like to abuse this principle, and in doing so, at times, force Wikipedia editors on "controversial" topics to even attempt to overcome unreasonable doubt, as though it was actually reasonable. Indeed, it is regrettable; most other encyclopedias wouldn't be hampered like that, but that's the way Wikipedia is.

Consequently, keeping this in the article for now is essential for Wikipedia's integrity. If you took it out, some of these idiots I mentioned above will see it as a great pretext for disruptive editing, and if the attending administrator won't take time to understand the issue (as most won't, *very* regrettably), there's a chance too high he won't see the disruptiveness for what it really is. Digwuren 10:31, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I might tentatively agree with gathering this into another article, but this would need extensive discussion first. Wanna bet Ghirlandajo will slap an WP:AFD onto the article as soon as it's created, claiming it's a "povfork"? Digwuren 10:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm making a pass on the article and going to put all the facts according to the chronological order as I go. In case there are duplicate chapters, like there are, I'm going to gather the facts under one and delete the dub headers. Thats the plan for now. Feel free to point out in case I miss anything that you might think is important and you notice that has been removed.--Termer 22:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Russian Sources

Since there are conflicts between Russian sources and the former Soviet Sources + the political opinions of the Russian government, therefor general "Russian Sources" in the article can't be further used for supporting the political viewpoints of the current Russian government. There is a Russian source that confirms military blockade prior to actual ultimatum, invasion and occupation of baltic countries. According to the director of the Russian State Archive of the Naval Department Pavel Petrov (C.Phil.) according to the records in the archive the order for total military blockade of Estonia to the Soviet Baltic Fleet was given on June 12, 1940. Thats 4 days before the actual ultimatum and the Soviet invasion on June 16. Also, Russian scholars have published their works on Soviet Occupation in Baltic countries. For example Dmitrii Smirnov: Sovietization, Terror and Repression in the Baltic States in the 1940s and 1950s: The Perspective of contemporary Russian Society. The Sovietization of the Baltic States, 1940-1956 ISBN-13 9789985930410. etc

Therefore, splitting up the article according to Russian/Soviet sources is not accurate according to the facts. The only minority viewpoint that is relevant really would be the position of the current Russian government. And a brief historic Soviet take on things would be also interesting to keep here for ref I think. So, I'm going to format the article accordingly ASAP. Any suggestions welcome meanwhile--Termer 05:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Classification of the Soviet presence as an occupation

After taking another closer look at this section, I'm most positive that it should be removed from the article. Mostly because it reads like a collection of arguments supporting the idea of the curved spherical Earth against a minority view: the Flat Earth theory. As the parallel, the sources published in English and in western democracies in general, as it is also referenced in the article, speak of the invasion, the Occupation of Latvia by the USSR, the soviet terror etc. at the time when the current Russian government denies the facts. As this minority viewpoint is also present, the article is in compliance with NPOV policies.

But since articles in encyclopedias are not places for such unnecessary debates like "the Classification of..." section reads, please have it removed ASAP and in the future list ref-d facts and statements only to maintain the compliance with the content policies of WP. The rest of the article still needs some clean up work though. And the second Soviet occupation from 1944 on would need an expansion. After those tasks are completed, the article should be in a general good condition and the decision of the arbitration could be presented for reconsideration. Thanks.--Termer 09:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

PS. Since the title: Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 has been contentiously questioned and disputed for whatever reasons. (And BTW is also in conflict with relevant sources that state: the second soviet occupation lasted from 1944-1991) I'd suggest renaming the article Latvia in WWII, that would cover the history of Latvia for the given period (1940-1945).'--Termer 09:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The 1940-1945 was added by someone who also one of the questioners, I would advocate taking the years off. Latvia in WWII is not accurate as Latvia was strictly neutral and not involved, and the Soviet invasion was preemptive.

     I'll go back and tuck away the argument against flat-earthers elsewhere for now, I'm considering a more detailed analysis of Soviet historiography around the invasion and occupation. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Pēters J. Vecrumba, please let me point out that "Latvia in WWII is not accurate as Latvia was strictly neutral and not involved, and the Soviet invasion was preemptiv" is an opinion, not a fact. The facts are as follows. The WWII was started by Germany and USSR according to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and its Secret Additional Protocol of August 1939. According to that pact Invasion of Poland started on Sept 01. 1939 by Germany and by USSR on September 17. Now, the Republic of Latvia was invaded also according to this pact by USSR on June 16 1940. On June 17, the day France surrendered to Germany, Latvia accepted the Soviet ultimatum and the statehood of Latvia de facto ceased to exist . Therefore either Latvia was "strictly neutral" is absolutely not relevant like for example neutrality of Denmark is not relevant as the country was occupied by Germany during WWII, on April 9 1940. Like Latvia surrendered and accepted the Soviet Ultimatum. So did the Danish government accept the German ultimatum and surrendered. Also, war was not declared by either sides, not by Germany or by Denmark exactly like it happened in the case of the Soviet invasion of Latvia. The only difference really, Germany didn't replace the Danish government since it cooperated with the German occupying forces until 1943. Unlike USSR did in Latvia's case, orchestrated rigged elections and under threat of terror forced people to vote for annexation of Latvia into USSR. As the bottom line. Since the Republic of Latvia lost it's independence during WWII, the title Latvia in WWII would be as accurate as it could get. Without wanting to get into debates here by myself, I'll leave it up to you. As this is a matter of preferences really. For example the story of Denmark during the WWII is also called Occupation of Denmark like the article here: Occupation of Latvia.--Termer 20:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

PS. Please don't add any personal "analysis of Soviet historiography" to the article as it would classify as original research. Please use published sources only. Like for example already mentioned one by a Russian scholar Dmitrii Smirnov: Sovietization, Terror and Repression in the Baltic States in the 1940s and 1950s would be one of many available.--Termer 20:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

My point was that Stalin's desire to subjugate the Baltics dates back to his beginnings, and Molotov-Ribbentrop predates the invasion--WWII merely gave Stalin the opportunity he needed. That premeditative aspect is key. Moreover, "in WWII" would completely eliminate that the purpose of the article is to inform about a period which began with the premeditated and unprovoked invasion of the Baltics by the Soviet Union and ended only when they reclaimed independence. The curent "time boundary" of the article is totally artificial, "(1940-1945)" having been inserted by someone who insisted the Baltics could not be "occupied" after WWII; it has not been worth changing the title before having more materials ready about the continued Soviet occupation in the aftermath of WWII, so the title is not a matter of preference.

     I should reemphasized that the "why an occupation" section was written in response to one of the many raging "debate" article talks across all three Baltic states articles (long before your arrival) then transplanted into the article here because I tired of repeating myself. My "historiography" (when/if) re-inserted or done as a separate article would be basically to go back and put in all the references--while that section is not referenced now, it is, as everything else I have written, 100% based on published sources. (Alas, I was once a naive article-writing newbie at a time when I didn't realize that Soviet historiography had such a vociferous following!)

     Maybe I'm just cranky today because I never had my morning cup of coffee, but I don't get the point of your (comes across as) lecturing me on events, I'm quite well aware of them. The real issue is that "(1940-1945)" needs to be removed from the title and the article properly expanded to include the final time period, not that the article title is an artificial choice based on opinion or that I or anyone else (who maintain that the Soviet Union occupied the Baltics) has injected WP:OR. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Pēters J. Vecrumba if anything came through as lecturing. just wanted to make sure that everybody is on the same page. Removing 1940-1945 is the solution then, since the "1945" doesn't refer to anything in the article and is completely meaningless. --Termer 22:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, and it's far more effort than it's worth (none) for you to expend energy to catch up on past article editing history. Just know it's been going on for a long time, the current Mediation Cabal on the "Occupation of Baltic states" being just one in a long string of such "disputes" where the "occupation" side has copious reputable sources and the other has yet to produce anything to support the Russian Duma declaration regarding the legality of Latvian (and Baltic) annexation, hence non-occupation. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I must admit that I have no idea what is there to meditate about since the articles clearly state and list all viewpoints separately and therefore everything is according to WP content policies including NPOV.--Termer 01:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move from Occupation of Latvia 1940-1945 to Occupations of Latvia, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 06:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

---

since "1940–1945" has no relevance according to the facts and refs in the article. The year 1945 is completely out of range since no source provides the year as a starting or an ending point of any occupations in Latvia and therefore can be looked at as original research. or lets spell it out, the year 1945 in the title is factually incorrect. Therefore the removal of "1940–1945" is necessary to maintain compliance with the content policies of WP and would help to bring the article in a status so that the decision of the Arbitration Committee could be reconsidered. It is suggested that the article should be renamed Occupation of Latvia. Other suggestions for a new name have included Latvia in WWII. --Termer 23:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Occupation of Latvia. Intent of the article has always been to cover the complete period of occupation (as defined by the Baltics and all sources produced to date except the official current Russian position), that is, until restoration of independence. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
• Concur, on both relevance grounds and because the parenthetical disambiguation wouldn't be necessary anyway unless there were two articles on occupations of Latvia. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support, and offer a more precise alternative: Occupations of Latvia. Digwuren 14:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment the year 1945 seems to be significant because of the end of WWII. As Latvia and other Baltic countries were absorbed by the Soviet Union through its deal with Nazi Germany, the end of the war ends one phase of occupation, and progresses to the next... 132.205.44.5 22:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment One would assume that the end of WWII represented some demarcation in Soviet occupation of the Baltics, but from any sort of empirical standpoint, there was a complete continuity in policy, methods, and "leadership." Kalnbērziņš, for example, was "first secretary" from late 1940, a few months after the start of the first Soviet occupation, to 1959. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The article covers the time period until 1939–91 or so. Note that the original article was apparently about the period 1940–45. Go back several pages in the editing history to see early versions of the article. But the present title is no longer appropriate. ●DanMS • Talk 04:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

peer review

Its time to move forward with getting this article back on track--Termer 07:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

remove the tag -noncompliant?

So, is it about time to remove the tag since the article has been completely rewrapped? it is in compliance with WP:NPOV, there shouldn't be any unverifiable or unsuitable materials, or WP:NOR. The article has been through the peer review with no major comments etc. So to hear the thoughts and see what the consensus says, please let everybody know of your position including the arguments and reasons for saying either "yes" or "no". Thanks--Termer 09:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

• Based on the arguments above I'd say the tag is no longer appropriate. Yes, it should be removed.--Termer 09:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
• Yes, the tag should be removed. It seems quite correct and NPOV right now. Suva 09:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

None of the problems described at the time the tag was placed are addressed. The tag should stay. --Irpen 09:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, tags removals are not decided by such kind of poll or vote, as it runs contrary to WP:VOTE. Second, this rewrapping has not solved the fundamental problems raised at the talk for several months now, and the tag should remain here as a warning. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 10:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The article has been been extensively revised since the issues raised in talk several months ago and has been peer reviewed here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Occupations of Latvia/archive1. There was no fundamental problem uncovered in that review. Therefore those particular issues you speak of are no longer applicable. It is incumbent upon you to articulate what the remaining issues are if you want the tag to remain. Martintg 11:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Only problem is that Russia doesn't see it as occupation? Well, boo hoo. Majority of reliable sources say it was occupation. Russian/Soviet POV is also presented. So the article in it's current state is NPOV. Russian historical denialism is well known fact, it should be argued in some other article and winked here. Oh wait, I forgot this can't be done, because Russia doesn't deny anything and such articles get deleted right away, even from userspace. Oh well...

The template refers to original research and unferifiable claims. The article seems to be correctly sourced. Maybe even oversourced.

If there are some problems, please represent a list of short, one sentence, explanations of the problems. And we can try to fix them. But if noone presents such a list, we can safely assume there are no more problems and template shall be removed. Suva 11:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

There was the time to add any suggestions during the peer review but like it seems, not everybody got their chance...

what exactly are the remaining problems, please be more specific Irpen. As far as I've looked into the case, the main problem addressed by the ArbCom was bad behavior by some editors. I haven't seen this happening again so please explain the reasons for your vote. Thanks!--Termer 09:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Read the talk page above. Problems have been exhaustively listed many times and nothing is done to address them. --Irpen 09:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

After your thorough whine regarding "refusal to answer reasonable questions" at WP:AN#User:ProhibitOnions vs. anti-Fascist editors (redux), I guess there's only one conclusion: you're a hypocrite. Digwuren 15:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. all the problems have been solved. Please point out exactly how the article could be improved. Thanks--Termer 09:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The consensus is clear. I'm going to remove the tag. Digwuren 15:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Google up the definition of consensus and see why there is none. Restoring the tag. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I asked for concrete list of things which are wrong with this article. If noone can provide it in, let's say, three days, the consensus is more than clear. Hurry up, first day is almost over. Suva 17:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) for making it clear that your suggestion to improve the article is tagging it. Please respect the History of Latvia and suggest more constructive changes to the article. Thanks--Termer 17:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

• Just a friendly reminder This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Occupations of Latvia article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. Please do not attempt to share personal political views or opinions on this talk page. thanks!--Termer 17:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

---

It is really that simple

• Large group of editors find this article to be good, and think this template is not apropriate.
• Other group of editors doesn't think the article is ready.
• Other group presents neatly formed list of things which need improvement.
• The things are fixed.
• The template is removed.

If the group cannot present the list in reasonable time frame (which three days is) then:

• New consensus is, that there is nothing wrong with the article and template is removed.
• The consensus stays that until, opposing editors have presented their evidence of this article being wrong and this is agreed on.

My requirement of that time frame is justified. Ít seems that some editors amongst us have started abusing wikipedia rules and doing malicious stalling. I don't know a way how to list solid proof on the fact that the article is good, but providing solid proof that article is not good is simple.

I am not even asking you to put out the whole list at once. Start with even 3 concrete places where something is wrong and put them here. Later you can add more if you find anything else.

Oh, and as final conclusion, I give you an example how you should write the list:

• The dude on second picture has too big mustache, picture of him with smaller moustace would be required.
• Statement "Foo is better than Bar" is unsourced.
• Statement that "Bleh is mightyer than Blah" contains weasel words.

Thanks for your cooperation. :) Suva 18:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

---

• Suva's suggestion is a good one. In any case the tag, in my view, is no longer necessary, Irpen should place inline tags in the text where he has an issue, that would be more constructive than a blanket tag. If after three days, if tagging continues without identification of the specific issues, it should be construed as disruption and reported immediately, since this article is still under probation. Martintg 18:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC

I agree in general. Although I don't see any reasons to rush things. The occupations of Latvia is not going to disappear from the documents of the European Court of Human Rights, Government of Latvia, USA , EU, from Encyclopedia Britannica etc. As the government of Russia maintaining that the Soviet Union liberated, not occupied, Latvia in 1944 is most likely not going to change any time soon. So therefore I'd take it easy, give it at last 2 weeks, not only 3 days to sort things out. so that everybody who wants to improve the article could have their chance.--Termer 19:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The default state of any Wikipedia article is untagged. Tagging is supposed to invite other editors to improve the article, not as an expression of displeasure with the topic in general. I would say that both 3 days and 2 weeks are far too generous; the reasonable option, since there is obviously no reason to keep the tag now, is to remove it, and have new tags, as appropriate, added when reasons arise to add them. It doesn't have to be today, or in two weeks; it may just as well be in three years.

By the way, the "grace period" between tagging and explaining the issue, as being currently discussed in Talk:Vandalism, is supposed to be brief, within the timeframe of 'simultaneous editing'. 30 minutes and one hour are examples of suitable ΔT.

Grafikm_fr is reminded that this article is still under probation. Baseless addition of doubt-inducing tags that constitutes tag abuse, a form of vandalism and disruption, is grounds for administrative sanctions via the arbitration enforcement process. Digwuren 19:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Accordingly reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Occupations of Latvia. Digwuren 20:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Please DO NOT edit war on the article. I said 3 days to provide ANY points, where the article is not compliant. I don't put any deadlines to sort things out. I put a deadline to provide the points where the article is non compliant.

3 days remains to be the deadline. If noone presents any solid evidence in that time, the tag is removed. Until then, the tag remains. Please cooperate! Suva 20:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Suva, objections to the article at this very talk page have been raised ad naseum and none of them are addressed. If you are not interested in reading the past discussion, forcing your opponents to repeat themselves is basically forcing them to waste time unproductively. Please read the talk page above with care. To start, I give you some specific points already raised. None of them addressed:

• #General_criticism
• #The problem is not or is not only in .22occupation.22 per se
• #reiteration_per_request:

--Irpen 20:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Not enough information to be useful or constructive. The past discussion concerned the past article. The article has been extensively revised. Please address specific concerns with the current article as it stands, preferrably with inline tags. Martintg 20:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The old problem with the title got only worse. The old problem with arbotrary scope remains unchanged. The old problem with tendentious presentation is still there. Read the links above. I went through a very extensive detail. Please honestly address the article's problems outlined. --Irpen 21:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The article is well referenced. As for your concerns, the European Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States, after weighing all the historical sources, concluded that the Baltics were occupied until 1991, and they juxaposed and paralleled the Nazi and Soviet occupations. Since the article is a reflection of verifable reliable sources, your issue is really with these sources. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which reflects these sources, not a venue for original reasearch. Thus if you have an issue, go publish a paper in a refereed journal or take it up with with European Court of Human Rights. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is insufficient grounds for tagging an article. Irpen, nominate this article for deletion if you believe it is unencyclopedic. Martintg 23:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Response to enforcement request

It appears that the one of the main concerns originally identified by the Arbitrators, namely whether the Soviet presence in Latvia was an occupation, and whether—regardless of the answer to the first question—the article's current title and scope are appropriately chosen has not been addressed by the recent re-write. The question of whether to identify the Soviet presence in Latvia as an "occupation" or something else is a problem that is not confined to this article, see obviously Occupation of Baltic states among others. I am not pursuaded by the alleged peer review, to whom the only contributor seems to have been javascript that analyzes grammatical and style issues. Therefore I am not convinced that Grafikm_fr and Irpen are creating an artificial controversy. I suggest that the editors engage Irpen and Grafikm_fr in a discussion to determine whether, as a matter of editorial judgement, it is acceptable to refer to the Soviet presence as an occupation, and whether, as a matter of editorial judgement, the three phases of occupation should be described in 3, 2 or one article. I also suggest that comments be solicited in a neutrally-worded way from the RFC process, the admins' noticeboard, and even the Village Pumps, to obtain a significant outside comments on these issues and a more meaningful peer review than a grammar bot. I ask Grafikm_fr and Irpen to provide meaningful feedback and suggestions on how the article might be split and especially on how to refer to the 1945-1991 period. If after one week significant progress is not being made on these issues please make a new report to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement. Thatcher131 23:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The "tenditious" argument is that combining Nazi and Soviet occupations denigrates Soviet liberation, equates the Soviet occupation with the Holocaust, et al. All WP:OR arguments. We have spent so much time deflecting personal, not source-based, objections that, aside from referencing, further development of the article has been in a permanent stall. There is no controversy, all reputable sources that deal with the state of occupation of the Baltics over the historical period in question cover both parties, Soviets and Nazis, and include consideration of how each occupation affected the other, and now each occupying power exploited the prior party's occupation for propaganda benefit. This is not a simple matter of, as you put it, "editorial judgement" simply about how to best organize/partition a story. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I wonder whether it is really a matter of editorial judgement and whether your suggestion is compliant with WP:OR. Ideally we should look for published sources rather than Grafiqm_fr and Irpen's opinion. Quite a number of articles in peer-reviewed academic journals on history and international law do refer to the period as occupation, as has already been shown in a similar article, so evidently it is acceptable to their reviewers and editors. Is Wikipedians' opinion more truthworthy? I don't know and, frankly, don't care much about the tag, as such tags has long been devalued due to abuse. Colchicum 00:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

ReThatcher131: First of all there is no such a period in the relevant history like 1945-1991, that is simply factually incorrect. However there is 1944-1991 and this could be covered by Latvian SSR. The second The question of whether to identify the Soviet presence in Latvia as an "occupation" or something else is not up to us here to decide but it is something that the relevant sources are either confirming or opposing. Since both opposing viewpoints have been represented in the article, there shouldn't be any questions regarding the tag. Now, should this be made more clear right in the beginning that the European court of human rights, The US, The EU consider the period in Latvian History , 1944-1991 as Soviet occupation and that the current Russian government doesn’t share this view? That’s cool I think. However, since the first sources clearly speak of Occupation of Latvia by the USSR 1944-1991, please anybody let me know of any suggestions how to call the article then. Thanks!--Termer 00:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Quite a number of articles in peer-reviewed academic journals on history and international law do refer to the period as occupation In that case it is up to you to point out the references (presumably they are already cited in the article) and it is up to Grafikm_fr and Irpen to identify alternative sources of equal reliability that say otherwise. There are a number of options. To leave the article as it is. To make three articles on the three different occupation periods. To move the content dealing with 1944-1991 to Latvian SSR. Possibly many other solutions. Since Grafikm_fr and Irpen object to the current state of the article it is up to them to offer solutions. Those solutions should then be discussed. Thatcher131 00:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this great, well documented and referenced article should be moved to Latvian SSR. It is dealing with more than a half of century in the history of Latvia, a rather specific period, and would be lost in Latvian SSR. I bet my right hand, someone would object the scale of it in the Latvian SSR article and reduce it to a couple of lines. Following similar logic, we should delete History of the English language, English phonology, English grammar, and all the other articles about the English language and move it all to English language. Afterwards, we should delete English language and move everything to Germanic languages, and when it had all been moved to Indo-European languages and Language delete the tiny Wikipedia altogether since it would not live up to the name of an encyclopedia. Mjbjosh 17:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats cool, thats exactly what, as far as I'm concerned , the editors currently opposing Grafikm_fr and Irpen are after. Regarding it is up to Grafikm_fr and Irpen to identify alternative sources of equal reliability that say otherwise then this job has been done by me and other editors who have been working with the article since this June or so. There are opposing views of the Russian government at Occupations_of_Latvia#Controversies and more to it at Occupations_of_Latvia#Historical.2C_Pre-Perestroika_Soviet_sources.--Termer 00:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Referencing and neutral presentation are not one and the same. It has been explained ad naseum. Thatcher's proposal makes perfect sense. We are talking about several different things here.

1. Soviet takeover in 1940 and its immediate aftermath.
2. German takeover in 1941 and the 4 year period that followed.
3. Soviet kicking the Germans out in the course of the WW2
4. Post-war years until Latvian declaration of independence.

These are all separate events/periods and rightfully belong to separate articles such as (names suggestion):

• Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940)
• German occupation of Latvia (1941-1945)
• Baltic Operation (1944-1945)
• Latvian SSSR

Now, we don't have to split the entire country history into small-event articles. Small event articles are legit in their own write, but so are the historic articles. It is OK to discuss what happened to the country in the course of some historic period. The name for such articles is "History of Country (Year1-Year2).

Finally, the view that the entire period of Soviet control over Latvia qualifies to be called "occupation" is legitimate but this should be discussed in the article not about the historic period but about the term and its applicability. The ideal name for such article would be "Soviet occupation of Latvia (term)". I see no fundamental difference with other Baltic states and this all can be discussed there. References to the bodies and sources that consider it such would belong to that article.

This here, however, is merely an arbitrary set of events pasted together for the tendentious presentation vigorously guarded by the article's watchers. The proposal along the lines above have been given several times and there was no action. The article is in no more compliant condition than it was at the time of the ill-considered ArbCom that resulted in no action precisely because Arbitrators did not find any of the party to be acting imnporperly in terms of conduct. The content problems, however, remain unaddressed. Hence, the tag is valid. --Irpen 02:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Everything seems cool to me other than Baltic Operation (1944-1945) that is a chapter from Soviet and/or Russian history perhaps. For the Baltic countries things were simple. A liberator liberated from a liberator but in the end it didn't make any difference for these countries and the people. Therefore the article is called Occupations of Latvia. It is clearly a viewpoint that is supported by relevant sources and opposed by the viewpoint of the Russian government and perhaps or for fact it is the viewpoint of the many Russian people as well: that USSR liberated the Eastern Europe from the Nazis. So thats what we have here and how exactly are we going to make these viewpoints more neutral in any other way than just representing those in the article one by one? I have suggesting renaming the article Latvia in WWII, since in the Baltic countries it is often referred to that the WWII -according to the Baltic POV ended only in 1991. At the same time it would remove the occupation from the title so I'd hope that it would make everybody happy. But it was opposed before so I don't know if it's worth to take it up again?--Termer 02:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral presentation means presenting all published POVs, this article does that with a section on the Soviet view.
• Separating the events into separate articles would constitute WP:OR, since there are no sources that argues that the Nazi and Soviet occupations should be considered separately.
• Occupation is a historical fact, affirmed by the various rulings of the European Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States. A separate article describing the term would be WP:OR, since there are no sources that discusses "occupation" in such a fashion.
• These events are not an arbitary set of events, but are intimately linked by Soviet-Nazi collaboration via the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It must be noted that the only nation to recognise the occupation and annexation of the Baltics in 1940 as legitimate was Nazi Germany. Martintg 02:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Termer, Latvia in World War Two is a fine and dandy title as far as I am concerned to cover the events from the Soviet takeover in 1940 to the Soviet return in 1945. The article would be about the period of the history of the country and is entirely legitimate way to present the events. This article may well have an aftermath section that would state that the main consequences of the war as far as Latvia is concerned was its loss of independence for 50 years along with a near complete elimination of the Latvian Jewish community and an increase of non-Latvian (primarily Russian and Ukrainian) population in the war's aftermath.

But a detailed account of the post-war years belong to the Latvian SSR or to a new History of Latvia (1945-1991) which Vecrumba may want to create once he is up for some content writing.

The essence of the objections to this article was its being an arbitrary combination of different events pasted together under this title to advance the political agenda. If we agree on the scope and preliminary titles of new articles, this would be a good first step in the right direction. Digwuren's approach that is edit-warring for removal the tag without addressing the problems, and block-shopping at the admin-board to "win" would lead us nowhere. --Irpen 02:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems that we've found some common ground here Irpen... and since there never was a good war, or a bad peace, and if thats what it takes to end the edit war here I'm suggesting for the second time, this article should be renamed: --Termer 03:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree that this article be renamed or is an arbitary combination of different events to suit some kind of political agenda. It could just as easily be said that splitting the article also suits some political agenda. The fact is that Wikipedia must reflect published sources, not someone personal view. Here is a list of a few published sources after a quick Google book search that combines both occupations together:

• Experiencing Totalitarianism: The Invasion and Occupation of Latvia by the USSR and Nazi Germany by Andrejs Plakans, AuthorHouse 2007, ISBN 1434315738
• Occupation of Latvia: Three Occupations 1940-1991 : Soviet and Nazi Take-overs By Valters Nollendorfs, Occupation Museum Foundation 2004, ISBN 9984961338
• The Baltic Countries Under Occupation: Soviet and Nazi Rule 1939-1991 By Anu Mai Kõll, Almqvist & Wiksell 2003, ISBN 9122020497
• Nazi-Soviet Conspiracy and the Baltic States: Diplomatic Documents and Other Evidence By August Rei, Boreas 1948, [21]

In light of these published sources, splitting the article as suggested would be WP:OR. Martintg 03:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think the mentioning of "...to advance the political agenda" was worth a response since it should be self explanatory: the only reason the tag is up there is a political agenda by itself. At the same time I don't see anything wrong with calling the article Latvia in WWII in case it helps to get over with this boooring debate. And I wouldn't be concerned about that the scope extends beyond WWII. As said, even though the WWII officially ended on May 8. 1945 for Europe, on May 9. 1945 for USSR and Russia. the impact and consequences of World War II did not end for the Baltic countries until 1991.[22].Therefore an adjustment of the scope would not be necessary in case the article is going to be renamed Latvia in World War II. --Termer 05:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The cited references clearly state the span of the occupation, and that Nazi and Soviet periods are clearly treated together. Are you attempting to advance the position that a resolution of some obscure emigre group carries more weight than 4 published books? Sorry, there can be no compromise on WP:RS. --Martintg 06:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Martintg, I have no idea what exactly are you talking about since both sources: the books and the "obscure emigre group" are saying the same thing. Since wars and occupations go hand by hand I don't see any difference in how exactly the article should be called. --Termer 06:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"The consequences of the war" did not end in 1945. They also did not end in 1991. The entire European arrangement, including all the borders, are the consequences of the war. Please do not bring up the irrelevant stuff. --Irpen 06:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Again Irpen, I have to admit I have no idea what exactly are you talking about? All the borders, the consequences of the war were changed after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. So, I'm sorry what are you referring to?--Termer 06:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Termer, if you can find a published book called something like "World War Two 1939-1991", then I will agree with you. Until then, we must continue to confine ourselves to what is published in reliable sources. Martintg 06:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Martintg you're welcome. here is a book called Latvia in World War II By Valdis O. Lumans;Fordham Univ Press; ISBN 0823226271 [23] covers "Latvia in World War II" up to the year 1991.--Termer 06:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice try, but the book only covers up to 1945. Martintg 11:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Martintg, please read the book before making such claims! The most of it is available online! Page 399: ...Still others conclude the war years with the death of Stalin in March 1953, which terminated a cruel and bloody personal tyranny not only for Latvians
Page 12: With the recovery of Latvian national independence in 1991, the loss of which for the majority of Latvians...
Page 211: In November 1991 at ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the mass slaughters of tens of thousands of Latvian Jews...
Page 400: It was Sovietized Latvia... which asserted its independence in 1991' etc. etc.

However, since it's obvious the name Latvia in World War II is not going to help building a consensus here, there is no point for me to go on with this and therefore I've chosen to withdraw the proposal. Thanks! --Termer 18:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Marting I believe you are misinterpreting the reliable source policy here. The fact is that Wikipedia must reflect published sources, not someone personal view. Here is a list of a few published sources after a quick Google book search that combines both occupations together. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and is not limited in the ways that traditional book publishers are. It may very well be that the authors of the books you cite describe 3 separate events but group them together in one book because their publishers decided it would not be economically viable to publish 3 separate books. (Have you checked the chapter divisions of the books in question?) It is purely an editorial decision whether to break a topic into multiple articles or not. Abraham Lincoln is broken into many article forks despite the fact that most biographies cover his entire life, not isolated segments. Questions such as, is there a more neutral title for this article? and, how should this material be organized for presentation to the reader? are almost always matters of editorial judgement through the collaborative editing process. Thatcher131 16:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Even considering such a possibility, for an argument's sake, such combination is only viable for reasonably connected events. Have you ever seen a published book that, in interests of cost maintenance, would combine, say, the topics of baking and ancient Egyptian necropolis architecture?

As for limitations, it is indeed true that Wikipedia is not limited in the ways paper, as a medium, limits traditional publishers. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is limited by its policies such as WP:NOR. If it's commonplace among historians to discuss the occupations together, then it doesn't really make much sense for Wikipedia to split the discussion up. (In fact, the Wikipedia policy of WP:POVFORK explicitly forbids it.) Digwuren 16:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it would be a POV fork to create two articles, Soviet occupation of Latvia and Latvian SSR for example, that covered the same events but from different points of view. It would not be a POV fork to create History of Latvia 1939-1940, History of Latvia 1940-1944 and History of Latvia 1944-1991, or even Soviet occupation of Latvia (1939-1940), German occupation of Latvia (1940-1944) and Latvian SSR. The question of whether or not to do so depends on editorial judgement and there really is no policy objection to it if editors agree this is an appropriate way to organize the content. See for example how the American Civil War is subdivided into Battle of Fort Sumter, Naval battles of the American Civil War, Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, Western Theater of the American Civil War, Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War, and more. Thatcher131 16:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be misunderstanding my point. Accordingly, I will appear to explain it in further details.

If the authoritative sources predominantly deal with related events as belonging to a bigger, coherent topic, then, it is not feasible for Wikipedia to separate these events into distinct articles or fields without resorting to WP:OR. Any such attempt will inevitably lead to each partial article necessarily explaining large amount of context nominally belonging to the related articles, lest the partial article be utterly confusing to a reader who does not yet have that context. This necessary explanation will then, inevitably, mean that the partial articles contain, to a significant degree, content on the same pivotal background and events. This is what the Wikipedia policy of WP:FORK is designed to avoid.

Furthermore, if this article were split into subarticles centered on Nazi and Soviet occupation, WP:POVFORK would rapidly become violated through the severe unbalance of follower counts of these genocidal regimes. Digwuren 19:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Baloney. Find me the authoritative sources that require the topic of the American Civil War to be divided into multiple articles as it has been. Context is provided with links like {{main article}} and See also and often with navigation templates such as {{History of Russia}}. There is no policy reason why the Soviet occupation of 1939, the Nazi occupation of 1941, and the Sovietization could not be in 3 articles. If you disagree, I suggest you make a properly formatted request for comment to attract outside views.

Furthermore, I just checked one of the sources that Marting cited, Occupation of Latvia: Three Occupations 1940-1991. Interestingly, it is published by the Occupation Museum Foundation in Riga. (I wonder if they have a neutral point of view?) And copies are only held by 3 academic libraries WorldWide (or at least, only 3 libraries that belong to WorldCat. Finally, WorldCat has classifed the book under the following subject headings:

• Latvia -- History -- 1940-1991.
• Latvia -- History -- Soviet occupation, 1940-1941.
• Latvia -- History -- German occupation, 1941-1944.

Declaring that if one book discusses a historical period, that Wikipedia may not divide the period into subdivisions for convenience or editorial discretion is not only not supported by policy, it is contradicted by thousands of articles. Make your case, if you can, on other grounds. Thatcher131 20:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually I cited four books, not one. On the other hand, there is no Wikipedia policy that excludes combining periods into one article either, particuluarly when such a combination is supported by reliable sources. Neutrality of particular sources is really immaterial, acheiving NPOV is about representing all significant POVs according to weight. You point about structuring a series of articles with templates like {{main article}} and {{see also}} is a good one. A series of articles could be structured in any number of way, chronologically in series, by increasing levels of detail or by some other particular aspect for example. Martintg 01:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

ONCE AGAIN... The wartime occupation of the Baltic states by the Soviets, the Nazis, and the Soviets, followed by half a century more of occupation after WWII created a dynamic that can only be discussed in an article which covers the entire period. Aspects of the occupation which require closer scrutiny and detail can go into sub-articles, whether by occupier and/or timeframe. However, this article must remain in its entirety, for the entire period in question. Bluntly, the story of the Baltics is how they fell prey to two cooperating genocidal maniacs in partnership (later dissolved), not one or the other. More to the point of scholarship, the exploitation by the Nazis of Soviet atrocities for their propaganda and the exploitation by the Soviets of Nazi atrocities for their propaganda--and the historical consequences through to continued misrepresentation (e.g,. "Daugavas Vanagi, Who Are They? = Soviet propaganda still cited as a reputable source in some circles) of Latvian participation in the Holocaust--ONLY MAKES SENSE IF THE ENTIRE PERIOD IS DISCUSSED END TO END, INTACT.
     As for impuning the veracity of the Occupation Museum Foundation in Riga, there's nothing they publish that isn't based on original Soviet and Nazi documents. (I wonder if they were just motivated to collect all the evidence possible to prove Soviet and Nazi atrocities since the official Russian position is still one of glorious liberation of the Baltics and Eastern Europe?) —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

“ The wartime occupation of the Baltic states by the Soviets, the Nazis, and the Soviets, followed by half a century more of occupation after WWII created a dynamic that can only be discussed in an article which covers the entire period ”

That is a perfectly acceptable editorial view. You should be prepared to discuss that view with other editors who have different views, and attempt to reach a consensus or compromise. What is unacceptable is the argument that splitting the article is forbidden by the No original research policy. Thatcher131 00:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well. It seems like a crash course needs to be given here on what exactly are we dealing with. Even though it should be spelled out in the article already, or is it not? OK, just in case:

There are (I'm referring to WP:NPOV) exactly 2 conflicting verifiable perspectives on the topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The first is backed up by the European Court of Human Rights, Government of Latvia, the US , the EU. Australia, New Zealand etc. +all the books etc. listed here and in the article. (Please see the refs out there), the sources that state: The republic of Latvia was occupied by USSR in 1940-41&1944-1991. Now the conflicting reliable source belongs to the Government of Russia, they do not recognize the legal continuity of the Republic of Latvia throughout the period unlike the first sources and the Soviet Occupations never happened according to them. Now, taking it from here, the editors who support the first viewpoint can't see the reason to split up the article that speaks of series of Occupations at the times when the country was dominated by foreign powers. It is a chapter in the history of this country, therefore there is no reason to split it up. Now, the supporters of the conflicting reliable source meaning the Russian government, since it doesn’t recognize the Soviet occupation between 1944-1991, from there the wish to split up the article so that the periods could be dealt according to their point of view. Meaning, the mentioning of Soviet occupation should be avoided at all cost. So, as you Thatcher131 can see I hope, there is no way to reach a consensus here regarding the split. The only way forward is to list all the viewpoints in the article, the majority and minority according to WP:NPOV and actually, it has been done already. So any suggestions how to go on with the situation are welcome. Thanks!--Termer 04:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

PS.It would be also important to point out that the case here is not isolated in any way. The situation concerns or has concerned articles on WP such as Talk:Soviet_Invasion_of_Poland/Archive_1 , Talk:Soviet_occupation_of_Romania, Talk:Occupation_of_Baltic_states.--Termer 04:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Latvia in World War II

*I support the renaming in connection with the removal of the tag--Termer 03:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• I support the renaming along with the adjustment of the scope as the first step. All the rest does not have to be deleted but needs moved to other articles. --Irpen 03:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• No. Scope extends beyound WWII. Also WP:VOTE Martintg 03:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
• I don't support moving. The scope and purpose of this article are clearly what they should be, and as such, notable. You should finally realize, that this article is meant to study latvian position during the foreign power of Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. You should also realize that small countries, like Estonia and Latvia, see that period as single chain of events. They didn't care about the Greater Cause of neither soviet union nor germany, they just wanted to live in peace. And so, for Latvians, the occupation and oppression began on 1939 when they lost their freedom and ended in 1994 when last soviet forces withdrew. It should be better noted that the article reflects the latvian position during the events rather than Soviet, or Even, American one. But as such it is not a POV Fork (you should see the article about pov fork and specially the section what is not pov fork). Suva 07:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Rename ideas: Occupied Latvia, Latvia under occupations. As the article mainly discusses the Latvia being under occupation, rather than events of getting occupied. Suva 07:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Where are we so far

1. I asked to present well formed list of the problems with the article in three days.
2. Noone has not yet provided such a list.
3. Irpen brought up a few links to the old flamefar which didn't help much.
4. Someone from arbitration enforcement started a new thread which quickly grew into a new extensive discussion which possibly turns into new flamewar aswell...
5. Someone proposed renaming the article to "Latvia in WWII".

Now, Irpens main concern seems to be that the article is a POV Fork of axe grinding against USSR/Russia. He sees that the events discussed in this event are separate:

1. First soviet occupation.
2. German occupation.
3. Second soviet occupation
4. Life under soviet rule.

That is true. They are separate events. But they are also tightly connected, as:

1. Latvia was free country.
2. Latvia was under occupation. (soviet occupation)
3. Latvia was under occupation. (german occupation)
4. Latvia was under occupation. (second soviet occupation)
5. Latvia was under occupation. (time under soviet rule)
6. Latvia was free country. (Fall of soviet union and withdrewal of soviet forces)

Now, am I the only person who sees the pattern and continuity here? Of course those events demand more lenghty articles on their own aswell! And as of matter of fact, they already have them. And they are correctly linked from the article.

You should note that, my analysis held Latvia in center position. Because this article is about LATVIA. This article is NOT about USSR and this article is not about Germany. For soviets, they lost latvia, and reaquired it. For germany, they aquired Latvia and lost it. For latvians it was just a period in which several countries held Latvia under their power. A period in which the Latvia was Occupied and not a free country. Suva 07:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Suva, you're not the only one. This is exactly as I see the things even though I might express myself a little differently from time to time. Therefore: to avoid any confusion, this is exactly what the article is about and any other viewpoints should be and in fact are listed in the article according to WP:NPOV. My suggestion to rename the article as Latvia in WWII was a good faith gesture, aimed at finding some common ground with the opposition here, the editors that insist tagging the article according to their own political POV --Termer 08:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I have never doubted your faith in the rename proposal. But I do disagree with the name. Because the occupations played VERY important role for Latvian history, and thus are notable alone. This article should not be spread to cover all events of WWII on Latvian grounds, and shouldn't be narrowed to only events during the WWII. Also, see my other ideas for the rename. They should clarify the point of this article much better. Suva 08:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's only "axe-grinding" if facts are not presented in a straight-forward fashion. That the Soviet presence (i.e., occupation for the duration) in the Baltics was not glorious is, frankly, not Wikipedia's "problem" to solve. That Russia chooses to ignore history and embarks on (well-documented) aggrandizement of its Soviet past is, frankly, not Wikipedia's "problem" to solve. Wikipedia does not exist to further the minority-of-one contention that the Soviet Union was the Great Liberator pertaining to the Baltics and all Eastern Europe. I can't even call it a viewpoint, since to date no one has produced a single fact--from any source, reputable or not--to support the Duma's specific declaration that the Soviet presence in and annexation of Latvia was "legal according to international law." Even viewpoints require some basis in fact.

     As long as Russia insists you "can't occupy what's yours," anything in this article or any other Baltic or Eastern European article contrary to the official Russian position (by definition, pretty much everything) is merely informative, and certainly not axe-grinding.

     I do think "Occupied Latvia" is a very fair proposal, the current plural has been cumbersome since the rename and leaves the title open to the interpretation that it could refer to some collection of occupations separated by periods of non-occupation. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. The POV tags can stay as long as the "opposition" likes. As long as any specific {{Fact|date=March 2008}} tag inserted in good faith is addressed, that is all that can/should be reasonably expected.

     Just tag it, call it "POV" because the Russian so-called "viewpoint" isn't equally represented (those arguments are a gem!) and go on to harass the next Baltic/Eastern European article? While citing not a single fact in the act of tagging? That's "contributing" to articles? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

P.P.S. To Termer, the scope of the article has always been intended to be the entire period of occupation. "Latvia in WWII" is, unfortunately, exactly the title that has been pushed in the past by those insisting Latvia could not possible have been occupied after the war, and that Latvia was never invaded, occupied, or annexed illegally by the Soviet Union in the first place. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Note too the pattern that Irpen never actually particpates in the discussion beyond stating his objections. I presented four sources that treat all the occupations together, disproving his contention that the article tendatiously presents the events together:

• Experiencing Totalitarianism: The Invasion and Occupation of Latvia by the USSR and Nazi Germany by Andrejs Plakans, AuthorHouse 2007, ISBN 1434315738
• Occupation of Latvia: Three Occupations 1940-1991 : Soviet and Nazi Take-overs By Valters Nollendorfs, Occupation Museum Foundation 2004, ISBN 9984961338
• The Baltic Countries Under Occupation: Soviet and Nazi Rule 1939-1991 By Anu Mai Kõll, Almqvist & Wiksell 2003, ISBN 9122020497
• Nazi-Soviet Conspiracy and the Baltic States: Diplomatic Documents and Other Evidence By August Rei, Boreas 1948

However this was entirely ignored, unsurpisingly. Martintg 19:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Pēters! The problem in this is not actually the occupation concept, but other editors see the point of the article to be unencyclopedic itself.

Also my point remains. I will remove the tag in two days if noone presents of list of problems with article. WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a list of problems. Neither is "Read the talk page, there are 10 000 lines of flamewar of which three or four lines could be problems with the page". I addressed the main concern of Irpen. He has right to accept it or not accept it. Suva 19:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree (much) more work is needed to render the article encyclopedic. The intent is not for it to be an instrument of disparagement, the intent is to present a thorough (not there yet) and informative narrative. I've only recently picked up Ezergailis' book and some other sources dealing with the Nazi occupation. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

---

Status after two days.

• Noone has yet provided the list of flaws.
• Irpen does not elaborate.
• Marting has again provided a list of reliable sources which all treat the occupations together.
• I have put up new suggestion for rename: "Occupied Latvia". -- "Occupied latvia refers to a time period where Latvia lost it's freedom in year 1940 with soviet occupation, and finally regained it on 1991 with the gradual collapse of the Soviet Union."

My opinion right now is:

• Irpen is only one who is against the removal of the template, or actually against the article itself.
• He says that none of the articles problems are addressed.
• Careful investigation shows, that all of his concerns are addressed -- Explained the reasons why things are like that, and backed the consensus up with reliable sources.
• Article is sourced, notable and also doesn't contain original research.

I still expect the list of things which need to be improved. I will wait it until tomorrow. The current consensus seems quite clear though.

Also any other kind of suggestions how to improve the article are welcome, but avoid starting a new flamewar. Thanks! :) Suva 07:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

---

While you argue, look at overall condtion of the topic

Just had a look around, ideally this article should be a fork of History of Latvia and linked to in that article by {{main}}. Looking at the various articles,

• History of Latvia
• Latvian SSR
• Occupations of Latvia
• Latvian independence movement
• January 1991 events in Latvia

This field is a mess--there is no structure or coherence to the thing. Have you actually accomplished anything since the Arbitration case in March? This whole topic needs a good fix-up. Thatcher131 17:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, obstructionism -- like the one referred in the arbitration enforcement request -- has severely hampered any accomplishment. What little progress we've made is largely thanks to Termer, but even he's already showing signs of growing weary of the needless and meaningless battles on the way. Digwuren 19:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There was no "obstructionnism" on History of Latvia article, which is IMHO very nice and rather NPOV. There were however numerous attempts to turn this article into a POV fork of the former.. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to edit anything constructive in months. See my response on the endless attempts to hatchet this article into pieces. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. History of Latvia appears to push the POV in places that the Soviets somehow improved Latvia. On the to-do list, thanks for pointing it out. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing Thatcher131 but I'm afraid there is nothing new to it for anybody who has been watching this thing closely. Regarding has anything been accomplished since the Arbitration case, althogh it should be all out there in the history of the article and up here on the talk page. But shortly: yes. What has been accomplished?

• The article has been reformatted and rewritten according to WP:NPOV, meaning The neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. I believe it has been done so...

• It's been followed that the article is in compliance with WP:Verifiability and WP:What Wikipedia is not

• Everything that could be interpreted as WP:NOR has been removed from the article.

Therefore, please consider removing the tag from the article since it's no longer relevant!

Thanks!--Termer 04:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

IRT Thatcher131: The "mess" is actually wanted and maintained by just several editors that want to use WP as a political platform. The article History of Latvia was created and maintained by rather neutral editors, and no major edit wars resulted (at least none that I know of). OTOH, this article was created from the start as a POV fork, meaning the only way to sort this mess out is to deal with people using WP to push their political agenda. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 13:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

New consensus?

After my conduct, discussion by editors and work done by Termer we can conclude that:

• Article is written from neutral point of view.
• Article is well sourced with reliable sources.
• Article does not contain original research.
• Topic is notable as proved by several sources.

My request to describe the reasons why this article is not compliant remained without reasonable answer.

New consensus is that the template is removed.

If you agree or oppose the decision then sign your name below with either oppose or agree and explanation why you think so, to see if any further discussion is required.

Thanks to everyone for cooperating! Suva 08:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Per my and several other editors' objections, none of them addressed, reiterated by the entries of uninvolved Thatcher, there is no consensus whatsoever. The article is non-compliant due to a tendentious combination of title and scope, refusal to take into account the well-founded objections opposed by mere repetition of same arguments which just do not get stronger from being repeated. I am restoring the tag. Unilateral removal of the article that is left on probation per ArbCom is a sign of even deeper disrespect to the normal dispute resolution process. --Irpen 08:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How can you continue to claim it is a tendatious combination of title and scope, when there are published sources that use the very same combination? Your issue must then be with these sources. Wikipedia is meant to be a reflection of published sources, not a reflection of your personal opinion. Martintg 11:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Such sources exits for the sole purpose of denying citizenship and other rights of Latvia's ethnic minorities. Hate speech is not a point-of-view and does not even merit inclusion in Wikipedia. -- Petri Krohn 01:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you also believe that the European Court of Human Rights was also created for the sole purpose of denying citizenship to Latvia's ethnic minorities? The European Court of Human Rights concurs that Latvia was indeed occupied until 1991, so you must believe this court is also engaging in hate speech too. Martintg 02:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This would be a good argument to use in an article that would discuss the applicability of the term, such as Occupation of Latvia (term) but in no way justifies an article about the history of the country for an extended period of time to be called like this. Good title such as [[History of ... ]] would not imply that Latvia was not occupy. This will be left to the text where such explanation could be provided. --Irpen 02:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to point it out Irpen, so far the several other editors have been, has been Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) only who has shared your opinion at this time. As far as you claim that the article is non-compliant due to a tendentious combination of title and scope, perhaps this claim should be addressed to relevant sources cited in the article, such as the European Court of Human Rights, Government of Latvia, the US, the EU? And please let me know, from where exactly such claims are coming from, that putting all continues foreign military occupations together into one article is such a content violation on WP? -in the article that includes according to WP:NPOV the opposing viewpoints of the current Russian government, the source that does not recognize the legal continuity and occupation of the republic of Latvia by USSR. Therefore, please consider undoing your last edit and improve the article according to the viewpoint you think might need more attention. Thanks--Termer 09:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

In any case, even if Irpens claims have any proof on them, the template doesn't describe the problem correctly. The template says, that "To be compliant, it must be written from a neutral point of view and must not include unverifiable or unsuitable material, or original research." As said. It is written from neutral point of view, it doesn't include unferifiable or unsuitable materia nor original research. I don't see any suggested axe grinding either.

I think new template Template:Notpropaganda might be used instead: This article may be written from neutral point of view and as such may not be compatible with one or several historic propaganda campaigns. Suva 10:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Having read the article and most of the comments I have to agree that the tag is unneeded. The question of whether it was occupation or not has been raised multiple times and has been described ad nauseum. Obviously, some people prefer that the term not be used at all, and I believe that's their main motivation in continually tagging the article. As far as I can see, both views — the Soviet (that it was liberation) and Latvian and the rest of the World (that it was occupation) are reflected in the article, in fact even in the lead. The title of the article is supported by numerous academic publications and cannot be termed as OR. As to the requirement that the Holocaust is not adequately reflected in the article, mentioning of that tragic event is not an absolute requirement. In fact, if that should be so, the suffering of the Jewish people should be accompanied by evidence of the same treatment of the Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals and others that Nazi treated as subhumans. This article is hardly the place for it. Insisting on particularly Holocaust and not other abuses of people to be mentioned is but another attempt to sabotage the article with multiple complaints. Whereas Irpen's point that Latvian SSR cannot be viewed as an occupational regime indeed merits attention, the prevailing perception in the western sources, however, is that it indeed was an occupation and the authors present both points of view adequately. In its present state the article does make an effort to present both points of view, tilting it to "liberation" instead of occupation will tilt it to another bias. --Hillock65 10:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Per the arguments by Suva and Termer, I support removal of the tag, and propose that the article be nominated as a WP:GA candidate. Digwuren 12:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I thoroughly support any action that would bring this article to the attention of the wider audience. GA-nomination is fine by me. You can try to fast-track this straight to FAC, skipping all the intermediate steps. --Irpen 02:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In all fairness, we've made great progress on referencing, but there's more that needs to be added and organized content-wise before it's fully WP:GA-ready. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Since Irpen has engaged in disruptive editing [24] [25] and the username is listed at the decision of the ArbCom : Irpen …have engaged in a revert war over the presence of the ...{{noncompliant}} tags on the article. Any editor may be banned from it, or from other reasonably related pages, by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, incivilty, and original research. I’d also like to apply for Enforcement Continuing jurisdiction regarding the case here.[26] 1) If the article is not substantially improved by continued editing the Arbitration Committee may impose editing restrictions on users whose editing is counterproductive or disruptive.

Also, I'd suggest the disruptive and counterproductive editing behavior of Irpen should be included as evidence in the ArbCom case Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren/Evidence thanks!--Termer 16:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I welcome the ArbCom's scrutinizing the editor's behavior in relation to this page. This mat be done within the Digwuren case. You may find it easier, however, to proceed from within the old case as was done already at the enforcement board. The objections to the article are repeated multiple times. Several uninvolved observers agreed with their merit.

With the dispute still in place, the editors' and ArbCom's concerns still not addressed the taking turn in revert warring aimed at the tag removal may be considered by ArbCom. If you say that it is the tag's restoration that requires the ArbCom's scrutiny, you are free to inform the ArbCom of this position too. --Irpen 02:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, how can you continue to claim the article is a tendatious combination of title and scope, when there are several published sources that use the very same combination? Is your issue really with this article, or is it with these sources? They are hardly obscure, you can even order a copy from Amazon, gift wrapped if you like: [http://www.amazon.com/EXPERIENCING-TOTALITARIANISM-INVASION-OCCUPATION-1939-1991/dp/1434315738],[http://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Countries-Under-Occupation-Stockholmiensia/dp/9122020497/ref=sr_1_1/104-2897889-2928746?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189057260&sr=1-1] Martintg 02:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

--Irpen With the dispute still in place? I'm sorry, what I can't see is a dispute here. What is going on in my eyes, a group of editors (3 at the moment) consider their opinion, not backed up by anything other than more opinions, to be more valid argument than the decisions of the European court of Human rights, the position of the government of Latvia, governments of US since 1940, The parliament of the EU etc. the facts the article content is base on. Therefore please consider backing up the tag with any facts, not with unsourced opinions. And sure, once the procedure requires going to ArbCom, it's the only alternative way to go unfortunately! Thanks!--Termer 04:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What is going on in my eyes, is 3 editors that use WP to push a nationalist agenda, and also attempt to unilaterally remove a tag without reaching consensus on the talk page. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 08:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In my eyes it is sad that opinions have the same strenght as facts in wikipedia, contrary to wikipedia guidelines. There is a fact thar Latvia was occupied for 50 years, and there is opinion that this period under occupation should not be treated as single event. Suva 09:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Since no reputable sources have been added by those opposed to the current Soviet characterization and all we have gotten is renewed allegations of Nazi hate speech, etc., perhaps those editors whose only contribution has been to tag with no reputable evidence to support their tagging can go away for a while and let people work on developing the article instead of arguing here. I would support taking this whole sordid talk mess (including the section I boxed up top from the first unconstructive contentiousness here), archiving it, and starting a fresh talk page where edits to the existing article can be discussed constructively and the article can move forward. And sticking to what needs development or references, not accusations over Nazism where we just keep denouncing each other. Since article-level tagging is the best the opponents of occupation can do, the tag can stay there as far as I care as long as we get some work done on the article. We've already seen that attempts to remove the tag only pulls certain editors out of the woodwork to yet again spout their tired and still unsubstantiated polemics. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The boxed section of this talk page ought to be archived, it's way to long and taking ages for my browser to load it. If anything good came out of it, we have uncovered several new references. Martintg 03:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, let me be an oracle: it's not going to work. Lets face it, either parties are not going to just leave. Therefore: the only thing that is going to work perhaps would be to include the current article to any ArbCom case and get it over with once and for all. A third party collective decision is needed, a question should be raised: what would be a neutral way of naming the articles on WP concerning the liberations-occupations happening during and after the WWII? Would it be OK to cite the sources or is there another approach to solve the issues needed? Since this also includes articles on WP such as Occupied Japan, Allied Occupation Zones in Germany, Soviet occupation of Romania and perhaps some more. It would be a good idea I think to get a NPOV standard for those issues for good. Thanks--Termer 04:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for these links you found. I would support renaming the article to Occupied Latvia, similar to Occupied Japan. ArbCom does not decide on content issues. I think Vecrumba's approach is best. Martintg 04:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Haha, may I bee an oracle aswell, If it get's to arbcom case, the case will take 3 months longer and final non-enforceable decisions are: "Assume good faith", "No personal attacks", "Add content instead of discussion". That's pointless.

But I do support the rename to Occupied Latvia. I think I was the one who originally (or atleast lately) proposed the name. Suva 04:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Occupied Latvia sounds good, much better than clumsy occupations of Latvia. And I must agree with Suva been better oracle than me.--Termer 05:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone oppose the rename? Or does anyone find that the rename doesn't make any difference. Please let us know, or we will rename it to Occupied Latvia. Suva 09:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I non-exclusively support the rename. Digwuren 10:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we rename, archive the entire discussion above (leaving the yet-again-more-RfC's below), and get back to work on improving the article, especially now that Irpen, Petri, and Ghirla have all had a chance to "restore" the non-compliance tag.

     Personally, I'm going to try and boycott this round, although if Petri pulls out the Nazi hate speech card again, that will weaken my resolve. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, perhaps it would be better in the end—as I believe was suggested already somewhere, sometime before—if the whole article were divvied up between History of Latvia, Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, and Latvian SSR (maybe also a separate Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940), describing the transition to the LPSR). Additionally, these separate articles could include a brief section on "Historical controversies", where the differing views regarding to what extent the populace of Latvia (obviously fickle people!) greeted the Soviets in 1940, the Nazis in 1941, and the Soviets again in 1944/45 can be discussed, as appropriate. — Zalktis 14:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC) On second thought, best not get involved here ... — Zalktis 15:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You are an editor wise beyond your years. I completely support more detailed articles covering even 5 or 6 periods of occupation... 1st Soviet, Nazi, 2nd Soviet to end of war, Soviet through to first awakening and purge, post-purge to height of Cold War, then glasnost/perestroika/reawakening. This still needs to be the summary article. As it grows into what it is supposed to be, some of what is here may well be moved into sub-articles with a summarization here. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)