Helsinki-86

How three workers started it

On 10 July 1986, three workers in the Latvian port city of Liepāja: jeweller Linards Grantiņš, driver Raimonds Bitenieks, and power-grid dispatcher Mārtiņš Bariss, founded a human rights monitoring group. They cited Articles 49 and 50 of the Constitution of the Latvian SSR, which guaranteed the right to form public organisations and freedom of conscience. The name referenced the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the founding year.

What they demanded

The group's first public statement declared its purpose was 'to monitor how the economic, cultural and individual rights of our people are being respected.' They wrote open letters to Soviet authorities and international bodies, openly criticising the Russification of Latvia, linguistic and economic discrimination, and political repression. In an appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev they asked, 'Is that not enough for the Russian people? Do you really need 1.5 million Latvians and a tiny corner of land by the Baltic Sea?' They also demanded implementation of Article 69 of the Latvian SSR Constitution, the republic's right to secede from the USSR.

1987: taking to the streets

On 14 June 1987 they organised a flower-laying at Riga's Freedom Monument to commemorate victims of the 1941 Soviet mass deportations. Authorities tried to block the event by sending draft notices to the founders, yet about 5,000 people gathered, sparking a spontaneous two-day rally. On 23 August they held a demonstration condemning the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, met with violent militia intervention and arrests. On 18 November they publicly celebrated Latvian Independence Day for the first time since 1940. On 14 June 1988, member Konstantins Pupurs openly carried the Latvian national flag through Riga from the Freedom Monument to the Cemetery of Fallen Soldiers, the first such act in the postwar era.

Spread of the movement and aftermath

Helsinki-86's activity was the detonator. Once the group had cracked the wall of fear, environmental, religious and discussion groups proliferated, and by 1988 the mass organising that produced the Popular Front of Latvia was underway. The group was also involved in publishing the independent magazine Auseklis. At the same time, members and their families endured media vilification, beatings and forced emigration; between 1987 and 1988 many leading activists were expelled to the West. In 1997 some members founded a political party of the same name, officially registered in 1998, but it gained no seats in that year's parliamentary election or in the 2001 municipal elections. Several founding members and activists later received Latvia's highest honour, the Order of the Three Stars.