The KGB-Files in Latvia: The Skeleton and Its Ghosts
The KGB-Files in Latvia: The Skeleton and Its Ghosts

Summary/Abstract: Most of the KGB files in Latvia were preserved when full independence was declared on 21 August 1991 and are now available in the Latvian State Archive. They were the basis for publications about the deportations and political trials during the Soviet occupation in 1940/41 and 1944-1991, as well as trials of perpetrators of communist crimes. KGB operative and agency files kept in the “Centre for the Documentation of the Consequences of Totalitarianism”, however, were not made public for objective and political reasons. Most of them are actually missing, and the reliability on the remnants is questionable. The reluctance to deal with the files has partly to do with the fact that the Communist Party of Latvia and the KGB were dominated by non-Latvians, and many Latvian communists split in 1990, integrating into the political and social life of post-communist Latvia. The missing files, however, allow public suspicions of the KGB's continued presence to persist.

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