A steadfast defender of Latvia's Communist Party at the Soviet Union's end
After the August 1991 coup attempt, he was arrested, becoming a jailed defendant after trying to preserve the Soviet union-wide order.
Alfrēds Rubiks was a Latvian communist politician formed by work in Riga's municipal administration and the Communist Party of Latvia. In the conflict between the Soviet system and Latvian independence, he sought to preserve the party's union-wide order, and his support for the August 1991 coup attempt brought arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. After his release, he continued that political line as leader of the Socialist Party of Latvia and later as a Member of the European Parliament.
Career timeline
1954–1957Served in the Soviet Army
1957–1961Process engineer at the Riga Electromachine-Building Plant
1982–1984Minister of Local Industry of the Latvian SSR
1984–1990Chairman of the Riga City Executive Committee
1990–1991First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia and member of the CPSU Politburo
1991–1997Imprisoned over the 1991 coup attempt, sentenced to eight years in 1995
1999–2015Chairman of the Socialist Party of Latvia
From Latvian KGB chief to USSR interior minister, a guardian of order shattered in the coup he backed
He took his own life with a pistol in his apartment on 22 August 1991, with an arrest warrant issued. The order of the shots is disputed: prosecutors held he fired first, while Yavlinsky's account and the later investigation concluded his wife fired last.
Born into a family of Latvian communists and a graduate of the Riga Polytechnical Institute, he rose through Komsomol and party work to chair the Latvian KGB in 1980–1984 and lead the Communist Party of Latvia in 1984–1989. As USSR interior minister from December 1990 he pursued a hard line on law and order, and in August 1991 joined the State Emergency Committee (GKChP), mobilizing the interior apparatus behind it. When the coup collapsed he took his own life with a pistol in his Moscow apartment on 22 August 1991.
Career timeline
1960Engineer, Riga Electromechanical Plant
1961–1969Secretary then First Secretary, Proletarsky District Komsomol, Riga; First Secretary, Latvian Komsomol CC
1970–1974Secretary, All-Union Komsomol CC; Inspector, CPSU CC
1974–1976Head of Organizational-Party Work, Latvian CP CC; First Secretary, Riga City Committee
1976–1980Department head, KGB Inspectorate; First Deputy Chairman, Latvian KGB
1980–1984Chairman, KGB of the Latvian SSR (Major-General)
1984–1988First Secretary, CC of the Communist Party of Latvia
1988–1990Chairman, CPSU Party Control Committee; Candidate Politburo member (Sep 1989–Jul 1990)
1990–1991Minister of Internal Affairs, USSR; Security Council member (from Mar 1991)
The Communist Party secretary who led Latvia's Supreme Council through the restoration of independence
On 14 January 1991, General Kuzmin's ultimatum to the chairman of the Supreme Council was simple: repeal the laws Latvia had adopted, or the army would act. Gorbunovs did not repeal them, and a week later flew to Moscow to face Gorbachev.
A farmer's son from Pilda in eastern Latvia, he graduated from construction college, Riga Polytechnical Institute, and the Moscow Academy of Social Sciences, then rose through the Latvian Communist Party apparatus to become Central Committee secretary for ideology. He broke with the party's hard line in 1988 by backing the Latvian Popular Front, and as Chairman of the Supreme Council presided over the 4 May 1990 session that declared the Soviet Union an occupying power and began the transition to restored independence. During the January 1991 Barricades he stood firm against General Kuzmin's ultimatum, then flew to Moscow on 21 January to confront Gorbachev directly.
Career timeline
1959–1965Technician at Nīkrāce state farm, employee at Riga Agricultural Engineering Institute, Soviet Army service
1970–1974Senior lecturer at Riga Polytechnical Institute, Kirov district Komsomol first secretary
1974–1988Various posts in the Latvian Communist Party Central Committee, rising to secretary for ideology
1988–1990Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR
1990–1993Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia, acting head of state after independence
1993–1995Speaker of the 5th Saeima
1995–2002Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development, Minister for Transport
A documentary filmmaker who recorded Latvia's independence struggle from the ground
On the evening of 20 January 1991 he carried his camera to the barricades to show the world OMON's assault on the Interior Ministry, and was shot dead while filming at Bastejkalns.
Andris Slapiņš was a Latvian documentary filmmaker and cinematographer who worked at Riga Film Studio. His films explored Livonian culture as well as Latvian history and social life, showing how documentary could connect suppressed memory with present struggle. He was killed in Riga on 20 January 1991 while filming the attack on the Interior Ministry, and the footage he helped create became part of the international memory of Latvia's independence movement.
Career timeline
1971–1976Cameraman, Riga Film Studio
1976Graduated from VGIK, cameramen department
1978Cinematographer, Riga
1983Documentary director, Riga Film Studio
1988Director and cinematographer, The Field of Hopes
1989Director, Letters from Latvia
1990Cinematographer, Homeland, directed by Juris Podnieks
1991Killed while filming the attack on Riga's Interior Ministry
Leader of the Soyuz faction who nearly turned a parliamentary session into a constitutional coup
On 17 June 1991, as the concluding speaker of the session, Alksnis told the Supreme Soviet that the Union Treaty was unconstitutional and that deputies must back Pavlov's Cabinet because it 'works for the USSR, for the preservation of this state.'
A Soviet Air Force colonel of Latvian descent who became the most visible hardliner in the USSR Congress of People's Deputies. As co-chairman of the Soyuz faction, he demanded martial law, called for Gorbachev's ouster, and on 17 June 1991 urged an immediate vote on Pavlov's emergency-powers resolution, drawing the accusation that he was staging a constitutional coup. After the Soviet collapse he served two terms in the Russian Duma, was beaten by riot police defending the anti-Yeltsin parliament in 1993, and spent his last decades as an unreconstructed Soviet patriot.
Career timeline
1973–1992Soviet Air Force service (senior engineer-inspector, Baltic MD Air Force HQ)
1989–1991People's Deputy of the USSR (Riga district No. 294)
1990–1991Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR
1990–1991Co-chairman of the Soyuz faction
2000–2007Deputy, Russian State Duma (3rd and 4th convocations)
2013–2015Head of Tuchkovo urban settlement, Moscow Oblast
The physicist who walked Latvia out of the USSR and commanded the nights of the barricades
On the night of 20 January 1991, after Soviet special forces stormed Latvia's Interior Ministry, killing five, Godmanis telephoned Soviet interior minister Boris Pugo, who told him: 'I was not involved.'
A Latvian physicist turned politician, Godmanis earned his doctorate in solid-state physics and taught at the University of Latvia before joining the Latvian Popular Front in 1987. After the Front's victory in the 1990 Supreme Council elections, he became the first prime minister of a Latvia that had declared the restoration of its independence, and during the January 1991 barricades he coordinated the defense of strategic sites and personally telephoned Soviet interior minister Boris Pugo, who denied any involvement in the OMON attack. He returned as prime minister in 2007, steering Latvia through the global financial crisis until his resignation in 2009.
Career timeline
1973–1988Lecturer at University of Latvia, researcher at Institute of Solid State Physics
The journalist who saved the Daugava River and led the Latvian Popular Front
'Standing up for the Daugava meant the same thing as standing up for an independent Latvia. The fight against the Daugavpils HPP was the start of our revolution.'
A Latvian journalist and politician. In 1986, his article in Literatūra un Māksla, co-written with Arturs Snips, sparked public opposition to the Daugavpils hydroelectric dam; the campaign gathered 30,000 signatures and forced the Soviet Council of Ministers to halt construction in 1987. At the founding congress of the Latvian Popular Front in October 1988 he was elected its first chairman, turning a mass movement born of environmental protest toward the political goal of restoring independence. He served as deputy speaker of the Supreme Council after the Front's 1990 electoral victory, resigned in 1992 and returned to journalism, later leading the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party and serving on the Riga City Council.
Career timeline
1979Began journalism, theatre and literary criticism
1986Published 'Thinking about the fate of the Daugava,' sparking anti-dam campaign. Named Most Popular Journalist
1988–1990Chairman of the Latvian Popular Front
1990–1992Deputy Speaker of the Supreme Council of Latvia
1992–1998Commentator and culture editor at Neatkarīgā Cīņa and other papers
2002–2005Chairman of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party
