The TERRIBLE Crimes of the Bolsheviks in Latvia (1918-20)

The Latvian Red Terror (1918–1920) took place under the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (LSPR), led by Pēteris Stučka and supported by the Red Army. After the Bolsheviks seized much of Latvia in early 1919, Stučka’s regime introduced sweeping communist reforms—nationalizing land, confiscating bourgeois property, and suppressing religion. When rural support collapsed and food shortages grew severe, the government turned to mass repression. Revolutionary Tribunals and armed militias carried out arrests, executions, and confiscations against so-called “counterrevolutionaries,” including peasants, clergy, and former officials. In Riga and other cities, famine and terror combined to devastate the population. Thousands were imprisoned or executed without trial. The Red Terror aimed to eliminate class enemies and preserve Bolshevik rule but instead deepened public hostility. When German and Latvian national forces reconquered Riga in May 1919, they answered with their own brutal reprisals, inaugurating the White Terror that followed. SUPPORT ME ON PATREON ►   / historyhustler   SUPPORT ME ON PAYPAL ► https://www.paypal.me/HistoryHustle BUY ME A COFFEE ► https://buymeacoffee.com/historyhustle SUBSCRIBE ►    / @historyhustle   SUBSCRIBE to ACTUAL HISTORY ►    / @actualhistoryeducator   SOURCES – War, Revolution and Terror in the Baltic States and Finland after the Great War (Tomas Balkelis). – Russia in Flames. War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914 – 1921 (Laura Engelstein). – The Vanquished, Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 (Robert Gerwarth). – A People's Tragedy. A History of the Russian Revolution 1891-1924 (Orlando Figes). – Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. The Age of Social Catastrophe (Robert Gellately). – https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/hi... (08-10-2025). IMAGES Images from commons.wikimedia.org. MUSIC "Dark Times" "The Descent" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... SOUNDS Freesound.org. E-MAIL historyhustle[at]gmail.com