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EPISODE 3: POSTED 03 JUNE 2010

An end to the carefree life as the Soviets bare their teeth

7 November 1940 ... Arnold Rozentals (circled) joins the march at the Ventspils Trades School to celebrate the Soviet Union's celebration of the October Revolution.

As the Latvian summer of 1940 came to an end, so did my carefree life. School started in September and there were many changes. We had to learn Russian and, somewhat surprisingly, English was dropped from the syllabus. I say surprisingly because English was recognised as the international language for seamen and the course we were doing was, after all, marine engineering.

All sorts of organisations and committees were formed. There were lectures on politics, the finer points of Bolshevik history and Stalin almost every second evening. But if everything else failed we would organise chess-playing evenings. There was never a dull moment, if you exclude the suppressed yawning during the political lectures.

It was an unwritten law that you had to belong to at least one of the strange new organisations. There were the Pioneers, the Ossoaviahims, Mopra, etc. As it turned out, not all of the organisations were benign. When the Germans returned a year later they shot all those that belonged to Mopra. To this day I’m still not sure exactly what Mopra meant, but I am mighty glad that I wasn’t forced into it.

There was a bit of competition from the leaders of the various organisations to get me to join their groups. I had established myself as one of the top students, I was physically strong and I think I was well respected by my peers. The most active pursuit came from the local Mopra leader, who pleaded with me, then resorted to threats. If I didn’t join Mopra, he said, I would be looked upon as unreliable and my career could be affected. As I said, I’m glad I resisted the pressure. He is long since dead and I am still alive.

I did become a member of the rather odd-sounding Ossoaviahim, which I considered the least harmful. Its aim was to prepare civilians to react the right way after air raids. Of course, there was no war in this part of the woods, but you never know. We marched long distances with gas masks on, dug trenches and learned how to rescue injured people and to give them first aid. Our leader was a nice Jewish boy called Haim Moshe — or was it Moshe Haim? — though it was strictly forbidden to use the term “Jew”. They had all become “Hebrews”.

Our curriculum placed great emphasis on studying Leninism and Stalinism. The lectures on Bolshevik history were always a source of amusement. We knew the basic facts from our previous history lessons, while the new version ran just about opposite to those established facts. The heroic deeds of the present leadership, especially those of Stalin, were always in the forefront.

From time to time we also had to perform duties that required normal schoolwork to be suspended for a day or two or three. On one occasion the whole secondary school population was engaged to investigate and appraise the housing situation in Ventspils. Groups of three — one from each of the High School, the Commerce School and the Trades School — were given the names of certain streets in Ventspils and asked to measure up each house in the street, count the number of rooms and prepare a report on them. Small, single-family dwellings were to be ignored.

As it turned out, the information we had gathered was used to confiscate buildings the authorities might want for themselves. The owners were declared “kulaks” (enemies of the people) and tossed out on to the street. It was all just so simple. There were no problems with compensation. All furniture, appliances, radios, etc, had to be left where they were. The owners often walked away with just a bundle of clothes, or at best were allowed to stay in one room.

On another occasion we were transported to a nearby forest, given tools and asked to cut down trees. It was as ridiculous as it sounded. I could do the job safely because of my experience and age, but most of the boys were from the city and had no idea how to use tools provided. It was only by luck that nobody was killed, and the exercise proved far from successful. Another time we had to evacuate farmhouses about 15 kilometres outside Ventspils, in an area designated for a military aerodrome. Again, the unfortunate people had been thrown out on to the road at short notice, with no compensation of any kind.

Similar “progressive” changes were also occurring throughout Latvia. Following the pattern established in the USSR in the early 1930s, all landowners with holdings of more than 32 hectares and employing hired hands were declared “kulaks” — enemies of the people. They were thrown out on to the road. Those who hadn’t employed hired hands often escaped the evacuation but any land over 32 hectares was given to landless agricultural workers.

That sounded fair enough, but rumours were circulating that this was only the beginning and that soon all people living in the country would be forced into the dreaded kolkhozes — the Soviet version of collective farms. These rumours were strenuously denied by the authorities, but we had already learned from our short experience with the Bolsheviks that rumours were deliberately circulated by the authorities, then denied by them, and their subject finally introduced on the “request by the people concerned”.

Fresh in our memories was the trickery involving wages and prices soon after the occupation. Everyone was given a 10 per cent wage increase, with the former administration accused of exploiting the working class and keeping them in poverty. This “generous” increase in wages was applauded in all our newspapers. The fact that prices had often increased by 300 per cent wasn’t mentioned.

When people complained, the blame was laid at the feet of the Prices Control Commissioner who had been appointed by the Latvian National Government and was one of the few officials from the former regime to retain his portfolio. He had increased prices on “his own initiative”. He was condemned for this act but the prices remained the same. He was called a traitor and “a mongrel and capitalist lackey, the enemy of the people”. “Popular outcry” demanded the death penalty. We didn’t hear what happened to that unfortunate man.

Similarly, there was the question of including the Baltic States in the Soviet Union. Rumours were circulated that this was to happen, then the rumours were strenuously denied by the Soviet authorities, then the inclusion was implemented due to the “demands of the local population”.

The issue of the kolkhozes was particularly serious. It was known from the experience in Ukraine in the 1930s that as many as 3,500,000 peasants had died of starvation after the introduction of this evil system — a system which eventually became one of the major reasons for the collapse of the Soviet empire.

One positive development was the abolition of school fees, something that was a great relief for my father. Under the new regime, school life was very busy indeed, especially because of the demand to do “voluntary” work in addition to attending classes. But that “voluntary” work provided me with the opportunity to witness the reality of ordinary people being forced out of their homes. There was no need for any consultation or compensation. There was no longer any such thing as private property. Everything belonged to the state — or rather to the ruling Communist elite. The Government could take whatever they chose to and there was no recourse for the real owner.

The anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution was drawing near and all schools and factories were busy preparing for the festivities. I clearly remember the date ... 7 November 1940. The weather was cold and overcast. We were all in heavy overcoats, for we had been told beforehand that the ceremonies would last several hours. We marched in columns of four to the parade ground. From all directions other columns also converged to the same place. The very large parade ground was filled with many thousands of people, all in disciplined columns. This human mass, 12 rows deep, formed a large circle, leaving the centre free.

In the very centre of the ground was a tribune for the high officials, most of whom wore military uniforms with square shoulders — and just-as-square faces. The fierce-looking general made a speech which we thought would never end. At precise points of his speech, a signal was given at one spot of the massive column of people and they started to yell “hurray” at the top of their voices. This was spread along the line of the column, forming a wave of “hurray” a bit like a Mexican wave at the cricket or football. Perhaps it should be called a “Latvian wave”.

After the parade we had to march through the streets of Ventspils and sing revolutionary songs which we had been taught beforehand. The aim was to show the world the population’s “spontaneous” love for Bolshevism. In the speeches and the revolutionary songs, Stalin’s name was mentioned many, many times, and whenever that happened we had to yell “long live Stalin”. The charade was given good press in the West, where many believed it to be a true expression of the locals’ gratitude towards to their new “beloved” leaders.

My financial position had improved somewhat. The easy life and reasonably good food had filled me out into a fairly solid six footer of nearly 80 kilos and I was happy to take advantage of that. There was a widespread labour shortage, so during the term holidays I tried my hand on the waterfront, where the work was probably the heaviest but the pay was also exceptionally good.

This was the “honeymoon” of the friendship between Stalin and Hitler. Stalin was supplying Hitler’s war machine with massive consignments of food and raw materials. These goods came from Russia to Ventspils by train and were loaded on to ships for Germany. The loading facilities were primitive, almost non-existent. We worked in groups of six or seven, picking up 100-kilogram bags of soy beans from the rail truck and carrying them to the ship, some 30 metres away. You would pick up a bag of beans and run to the ship, placed the bag on a sling to be winched up on to the ship. Then you’d walk back to the rail truck and start all over again. This lasted the whole eight-hour day, with only a short break for lunch. It took a great effort, but I’m pleased that I managed to stand up to it.

When the next ship came in, I decided to try my luck inside the hold, thinking that it could not be any harder than I had experienced outside. The slings of 12 or so bags were winched into the hold and we had to pick them up from the floor, carry them to the end of the hold and stack them up to the ceiling. As the stacks grew higher we made steplike fixtures with the bags and then had to climb with the bags on our backs up to the highest part of the stack. This work really broke my back. When the ship was loaded, I said goodbye to the waterside workers. The term holidays were over, thank goodness. It took me several weeks to recover from the ordeal but in less than two weeks I had earned a neat sum of money.

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