Program of the Latvian People's
THE TEXT of the Program of Latvia's People's excellent conditions for agriculture and
Front published below has been translated husbandry, similar to those of Denmark, and from No. 8/9, 1988 of Briviba, a Latvian exile the Soviet state's attempts to build heavy journal published in Stockholm. There are industry there have been of dubious benefit to some obvious errors in the original, for the established population. The rural example the section on the national question population remains essentially Latvian, while appears twice as section IV and section IX. large numbers of Russians and other Slavs have been brought in to work in the new
With regard to the emphasis on agriculture, it industries. We have had to cut the text by should be remembered that Latvia has about 30 percent for space reasons.
S OVIET POWER was created
and developed in order to realize the aspirations of all people -workers, peasants and intellectuals — for freedom, well being, social justice and equal rights of nations. However, Stalinist despotism and the ensuing years of stagnation led to substantial deformations in public-political, economic, social and cultural life. A profound gulf arose between the bureaucratic apparatus and the people; the society was impelled toward a crisis.
Today, a historic opportunity has been created to free ourselves from the heavy burden of the past, to revive the Leninist principles of socialism, and to mould the society in accordance with the interests, needs and wishes of the people. Restructuring began from above. But it can be made irreversible only by energetic popular participation - by the guarantee of democracy and justice from below.... I. General principles
The People's Front of Latvia [Latvijas
### Front political mass organization and grouping of co-thinkers formed as the result of the patriotic and political activity of the people. It consistently supports and actively pursues a radical restructuring of Latvia and the principles of democratic socialism and humanism; it participates in the achievement of the people's wishes through the Soviets of Deputies and the establishment of a government of laws in accordance with the sovereignty of the republic. The LTF struggles against any monopoly of power or views.
2. The LTF strives to advance and reinforce the aspirations of all Latvia's inhabitants for democratization and moral renewal of the society, regardless of their social outlook, language, or of their party, religious or national affiliation.
The LT's activity is incompatible with the expression of Stalinist, fascist or other authoritarian outlooks, with support for bureaucratic and commandist methods of administration, with the propagation of racist, nationalist, religious or other forms of hatred and intolerance and with any
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3. The LT works for the development of constructive national relations in accordance with the Leninist principles of self-determination and equal rights for peoples....
4. In accomplishing the tasks projected in its statutes and program, the LTF collaborates with the Soviets of People's Deputies and other state institutions, as well as with social organizations. The LTF does not strive to take over the functions of any state organ or replace other social organizations....
The LTF's activity is based on the principles expressed in the resolutions of the Nineteenth All-Union Conference of the CPSU, and the main proposals of the republic's Communists and working people to the Nineteenth Conference, as well as the resolution of the June 1988 expanded plenum of the Board of the Writers' Union of the Latvian SSR. Il. Democratization of the state and the society
1. The LTF supports the radical reform
Tautas
Fronte - LTF] is a social and
ANDSO, ON THIS GLOBALLY POSITIVE BALANCE-SHEET....
LONG LIMELES VCRATIC SOCIAL condoning of force....
PLANTi proclaimed by the Nineteenth All-Union Conference of the CPSU aimed at bringing Soviet government genuinely into line with the concept of a state of the entire people proclaimed in the constitution, instead of a political system that operates only formally in the name of the people, but which is in reality alienated from it. Genuine people's power and administration must be established. All elected organs from work collectives to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR must be made up of representatives who reflect the thinking of the workers and defend their interests.
A new electoral law must be adopted so that the People's Deputies on all levels are elected by a system of universal, equal, direct and open suffrage, assuring a 1. The Latvian terms for perestroika and glasnost'— Parl as dataturi and openlated directly into 15 English as "restructuring" and "openness."
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Ai
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USSR choice of candidates for every position, guaranteeing a free competition of views, and providing appropriate rules for the close monitoring of election results..... 2. The LTF seeks a state of laws.
DISUNION OF SOVIET The state is responsible to the citizens, but the citizens are responsible to laws properly established by SOCIALIST
REPUBLICS the state. The people must participate in legislation, through public practice of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet altering the laws must be changed. The LTF recommends that the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR form a commission to monitor legal functioning of the organs for upholding the law, the armed forces, the state security forces and the internal
3. The LTF fights for the dismantling of the Stalinist and Stalinist bureaucratic administrative system, the transformation of the USSR from a centralized federal state into a union of sovereign states, for the establishment of the republic's sovereignty proclaimed in the constitution of the Latvian SSR and for the renewal of the Leninist principle of federalism....
The relationship among the republics, as well as the division of authority between the federated republics and the USSR must be determined on the basis of law. The republics have to be given a right of veto in questions affecting their interests, as well as the right to independently establish direct relations with other states and international organizations...It is necessary to establish a citizenship status in Latvia's constitution and to adopt a law on citizenship of the Latvian SSR.
4. The LTF opposes all expressions of the administrative-commandist style and bureaucratization of the state apparatus. Every work collective must decide questions concerning its internal functioning independently. The LTF demands the subordination of all state officials to the Soviets of People's Deputies and real supervision by the population, as well as a thoroughgoing de-Stalinization decentralization. Any selection for, or appointment to, a responsible post in the state apparatus must involve consultation with the People's Deputies and an independent commission....
The LTF does not recognize as democratic any exclusive right to lead the state and social life.
5. The People's Front demands the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers and a distinction between the functions of the party and the state in order to prevent a concentration of power in the hands of any person or group. Convance of the norms established for the state and social organizations, as well as the conformity of the actions of the highest state officials with the constitution and
6. The LTF demands the full implementation of the principle of openness in the functioning of the state and the life of the
The jamming of foreign radio and TV
7.....Possibilities must be guaranteed for all mass organizations, including the People's Front, to use the mass media to present and defend their ideology....
8. The political climate in the republic must be improved; insecurity, fear and an atmosphere of intimidation have to be avoided in the political and other spheres of social action. The most complicated questions have to be resolved by proper discussion and through argument. The LTF opposes all political smearing of opponents or victimization of persons for their political and religious III. Human and civil rights
1. The LTF considers that the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights should serve as the basis for civil rights in the Latvian SSR, as well as the documents accepted by the USSR— the international pact on human and political rights, the international pact on economic, social and cultural rights, as well as the Final Act on and Cooperation signed in Helsinki. There must be mass printings of these documents, and their substance must be reflected in the constitution of the Latvian SSR.
2. The LTF demands full respect for the constitutional guarantees of the inviolability of persons, their lives and dwellings; privacy of correspondence, of telephone conversations, as well as of other constitutional rights. Citizens must be given rights to bring complaints in court against illegal actions by collective bodies. The principle that persons are innocent until proven guilty must be consistently observed. The laws governing detention and arrest of citizens have to be improved, since in practice these means have been exploited to put unlawful pressure on citizens. It is necessary to ensure that persons have the opportunity to call a lawyer from the moment of their arrest. Defense of the dignity of citizens must be assured by increasing responsibility for any violation
3. The LTF demands that all citizens have access to information them in any state institution and that they have the right to challenge the accuracy of
4. The LTF demands that the Stalinist regime's crimes against Latvian refugees in the USSR in the 1930s and the inhabitants of Latvia in the 1940s and 1950s be declared crimes against humanity, and that the names of the organizers of these crimes and of other Stalinist repression be published, as well as those of the persons who carried them out. These people must be stripped of their privileges and state decorations and made to answer for their actions. All restrictions on the rights of the victims of repression must be removed, and they must be given moral satisfaction and material compensation and guaran-
5. The LTF considers it essential that all citizens of Latvia sentenced for crimes
September 18, 1989 • #169 International Viewpoint serve their terms in their own republic, and that persons sentenced in other republics not be brought into the republic, and that they not be moved to the republic after serving their sentences.
6. The LTF stands for the right of citizens of the republic to have free contact with citizens of other states. Restrictions on going abroad and returning should be determined only by law. Refusal to grant a passport must be challengeable in the courts....
7. The LTF demands a revival of the rights recognized in the constitution of the Latvian SSR regarding military training in the republic, with citizens of the Latvian SSR, regardless of nationality, being able to serve their obligatory military service
To permit persons whose religious or pacifist convictions do not allow them to serve in the armed forces to serve an equivalent time in the social sector.
8. The LFT.... fights for peace and consistently stands for disarmament and the demilitarization of society; it supports declaring the Baltic and Scandinavian region a nuclear-free zone. The LTF stands for the removal of weapons of mass destruction from the territory of the Latvian SSR and for the reduction of convenIV. The national question
1. The National Front considers necessary a radical revision of the national policy that has been followed until now, which was based primarily on Stalinist dogmas and doctrines. Any nation, including the Latvian one, has the right to survive for an undetermined historic period. The LTF does not support a national policy based on the premise that social progress is inevitably linked to the withering away of national specificity....
2. The LTF considers that national questions must be solved by respecting the democratic rights of all the nationalities living in the republic and the principles of social justice....It categorically rejects any incitement to national hatred, or any violation or denigration of the national dignity of any inhabitants of Latvia. The defense of the native language and culture of all its inhabitants, regardless of their nationality, must be an obligation for every republic.
3. The LTF notes that the Latvian people have a fundamental status in the republic, because Latvia is the historic territory of Latvians, the only place in the world in which the nation, language and culture of Latvians have been preserved and developed. Therefore, the LTF considers it essential as a guarantee of the national self-determination of the Latvian people that the Latvian SSR introduce the principle for Soviets and other elections that at every level in the republic, regardless of the demographic situation, it is essential to reserve a stable and irreducible majority mandate for representatives
4. The LTF demands that the Latvian language be established as the state language in the constitution of the Latvian SSR. Latvian must be the working language of the state bodies and institutions of the Latvian SSR, while Russian is to be used as the language of federal relations. In citizens' dealings with the state organs of the Latvian SSR, it should be possible to use either Latvian or Russian, and they should be able to receive official documents in either Russian or Latvian, according to their choice. In the sphere of social services, citizens must be guaranteed the right to use either Latvian or Rus-
The LTF calls on the Latvian SSR to collaborate with the governments of other republics, on the basis of the principle of free choice, to return the victims of the Stalinist national policy to their native places and establish them there.
The LTF calls on the Latvian government to see to it that Latvian minorities outside Latvia and other national minorities inside Latvia are assured the necessary conditions for safeguarding national identities.
6. As a result of excessive immigration, for the first time in their history, the Latvian people are becoming a minority on their ethnic territory, and this threatens
The LTF stands for an immediate halt to immigration but opposes the expulsion of inhabitants of any
7. The LTF considers that the main source of the problems in national relations is the policy of national nihilism practiced in the Stalinist and neo-Stalinist period, and in the interests of improving national relations it calls for analyzing the causes of national deformations and conflicts, for recognizing the deportations in Latvia's twentieth century history, for exposing Stalinist despotism's crimes against the Latvian people and other peoples....
8....It must be officially recognized that the incorporation of the Latvian republic into the USSR was accomplished by force and in disregard of what the Latvian people thought.
9. The LTF calls on all the inhabitants of the republic, regardless of their nationality, to unite in the struggle against the consequences of bureaucracy, Stalinism and authoritarianism, and to take an active part in discussion of political, social, economic and ecological questions in Latvian and Russian....
The LTF calls for recognizing that Latvia's sovereignty depends on insuring the national identity of every people established on the territory of the republic.
V. Ethics
2. The LTF is for giving priority to universal human values, for the subordination of politics to moral principles, in which people are not means but ends.
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5. The People's Front recognizes the importance of religious organizations in the moral renewal of the society and the reinforcement of universal human values. In the process of the establishment of a state of laws, it becomes more important to establish and guarantee the legal rights of believers and religious organizations.
In the educational system, the LTF calls for a rejection of compulsory instruction in atheism and for the possibility, on a voluntary basis, of getting religious instruction. VI. Culture, education, science
1.... The LTF rejects a simple division of culture into progressive and reactionary and opposes the imposition of crude ideological and political criteria on culture....
2.... The LTF defends the rights of the Latvian nation, on its ethnic territory, to safeguard its historically formed way of life and culture, to defend the survival of its nationality and language and the development of its distinctive national life....
3. The LTF stands for all cultural matters in Latvia being in the hands of the
4. The LTF recognizes and seeks to strengthen the rights and possibilities of all inhabitants of the Latvian SSR to maintain ties with the peoples of other repubforeign countries restrictions, binding them in a single cultural process both on the social level and on that of state institutions.
The LTF considers that the cultural work of Latvians living abroad is part of the Latvian national culture. The LTF demands that persons and organizations abroad be guaranteed the possibility to participate in the preservation, restoration and development of Latvia's cultural heri-
6. The LTF supports cultural autonomy for the peoples living in Latvia, and their efforts to obtain education in their native exchange of information and a varied cultural life corresponding to the interests of
7. The LTF considers that the society must be given the possibility to familiarize itself with the cultural values created in Latvia, both in the older and more recent past. The LTF stands for a rounded study of Baltic culture in Latvia and abroad. The LTF calls for studying, preserving and popularizing the Latgalian and Livonian cultural heritage,? and for assuring the full development of the culture of ethnic groups in Latvia. The LTF considers it essential to rehabilitate the heritage of Baltic German culture and scholarship....
9. The LTF demands that the broad public be well informed. It recommends the formation of permanent teams of radio 2. The Latgalians are a distinctive part of the Latvian people and largely Catholic in religion. The Livonians Ked tiny Fine gic people bir or the hand de 17 Kurland peninsula. They number only a few hundred.
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USSR and TV correspondents in the centers of international political and cultural life....
10. The LTF opposes incompetent and bureaucratic administration of culture, education and art, primitive concepts of the ideological purposes of culture, well as financing of culture and education according to the principle of alloting left over resources to them. The LFT does not accept the commercialization of art, its subordination to market principles....
12. ...At the center of the teaching process is the personality of the child. The exaggerated imposition of ideology in preschool and primary school education must be ended....Regardless of the language of instruction, the Latvian SSR's educational system must be run in accordance with unified plans worked out in Latvia and programs involving equal periods of instruction in the high schools. The LTF is for university autonomy and an independent academic press.
The LTF demands the rejection of military training in the high schools, as well as exempting students from the draft and a fundamental reform of military instruction in the universities....
14. The LTF calls for changing the names of neighborhoods, economic and other organizations, streets, parks and other objects and territories that were arbitrarily imposed in the period of Stalinism, voluntarism and stagnation and for reviving old names and giving new ones that correspond to the values of Latvian history and culture....
15. Opposing the over-centralization of information and culture, the LTF calls for an end to the dubbing of central TV and radio broadcasts in Latvia's programs.
16. ...We cannot allow an incompetent voluntarist economic policy to prevail in the name of scientific and technical progress. Priority must be given in the relevant branches of science to developing agriculture.
17. The LTF is for the introduction of the principles of democracy and openness into science, and for the rights of scientists to freely express their points of view. It is for the independence of scientific expertise and judgment from manifestations of administrative and departmental self-interest. VIl. Social justice and humanization of the social environment
1. The LTF stands for the right of all citizens of the Latvian SSR to realize their maximum potential in freely chosen areas of work and to be paid in accordance with the quantity and quality of their work.
2. The LTF demands that all persons living in the republic be guaranteed a decent minimum living standard, taking into consideration the rise in the cost of living. Priority for satisfaction of human needs must be observed not just in words 18 but in practice..
4. The LTF categorically opposes the continuation of the caste of nomenklatura officials and considers that any privileges in the distribution of material benefits in the sphere of social services, and especially in medical care as well as recreation and social insurance, are incompatible with universal human morality and at variance with the fundamental principles of
5. The LTF proposes the task of achieving social justice in all regional development plans of the Latvian SSR as regards meeting social and cultural needs and in the distribution of agricultural and indus-
6. The LTF considers normalization of the demographic situation as one of the main tasks in solving the social problems and the national question. A system of effective juridical and economic measures must be introduced that will end the mechanical flooding of the population. VIII. The economy
The LTF considers that the economy must be a means for achieving social objectives, that the economy must be fundamentally humanized, subordinated to the needs of the people and every person, through a radical transformation of the theoretical bases of economic life.
2. The LTF supports the pursuit of a course of radical economic reforms in the republic that will liquidate all factors and mechanisms obstructing the development of the people's economy - voluntarism, the monopoly of departments, arbitrary regulation of the work of cooperatives and individuals, etc. The LTF opposes the tendencies of the bureaucratic and departmental apparatus to delay implementation of the economic reform and to a mutilate its revolutionary character.
3. The LTF actively struggles for the republic's economic sovereignty, that is, full independence with respect to the administration of production, development and distribution of what is produced. It is essential to increase the role of the Soviets of People's Deputies in the administration of the economy, in the development and maintenance of the productive and social infrastructure and in the defense of nature....
5. The LTF is for a radical and consislent restructuring of the system of administering the people's economy, giving the organization and direction of all social labor fully to the enterprises, which will exercise this authority in accordance with the law "On State Enterprises." [The central piece in Gorbachev's economic legislation]....
The LTF is for basing the development of the Latvian SSR solely on local labor....
8. The LTF supports recognizing agriculture as the main branch of the people's economy....
A long-term economic and juridical basis (99-year leases with guarantees of rights of use) must be assured for the work of cooperatives and lease-holders. The LT is for maintaining farms as national wealth in the system of social management.
9. The LTF demands that all economic programs and projects of major social importance be subjected first to thoroughgoing discussion in the written and electronic press....
All economic and building projects should be ratified by the relevant Soviet of People's Deputies.... IX. Ecology
1. The LTF considers that cleaning up the environment must be a major concern in preserving the moral and physical health of the people. To this end, it is essential to devote scientific study and concrete work to solving the complex of ecological questions, with a perspective of collaboration with other republics of the USSR and other states of the Baltic
2. The LTF maintains that no public economic project should be undertaken, expanded or operated unless the resources are assured for cleaning the facilities.
The LTF considers it necessary to introduce effective financial sanctions against those guilty of polluting the environment, including from personal means. Effective inspection must be established over the generation of waste in the productive process, and data must be regularly published on pollution of the environment and those responsible for it. The people's economy must be oriented towards the forms of production least dangerous to the environment and relatively harmless use of energy resources, including wind power and small-river hydroelectric resources. Inspection must be established over the introduction into the republic of substances harmful to health (toxic compounds, chemical fertilizers, radioactive sub stances, including substances in transit through the republic.
3. The LTF is for an ecological cleanup of agricultural production and an ecologically sound and rational forestry. It is for creating new, and reviving old nature reserves on Latvian territory. Defense of the environment and biosphere must be extended also to the territories that are under the control of the army and the border guards.
4. The LTF is for the definition of industrial, residential and recreational zones corresponding to Latvia's geographical environment, for rational use of land in agriculture in accordance with the contour and climatic features of the region and with soil types, for the construction of improvements and roads corresponding to the territory's geographical and culturalhistorical features. The LTF demands an ecologically sound use of the land in the extraction of useful minerals and in the building of power projects, with an obligation to restore the land to cultivation afterward... *