The 1959 purge of the Latvian national communists has long been cast in black-and-white terms:
Russification and resistance victimizers and victims. Conventional wisdom holds that Nikita
Khrushchev was behind the purge. After all he was the Soviet premier he stopped in Riga just
a few weeks before even the leading victim of the purge Eduards Berklavs labeled Khrushchev
the culprit. For the first time William D. Prigge's penetrating analysis challenges this view
and untangles the intricacies of Soviet center-periphery relations like a political thriller.
With each new chapter a truer understanding of events comes into sharper focus - more complex
and fascinating than could ever be imagined. Ultimately the reverberations are felt all the
way to the Kremlin and weaken what Khrushchev thought was his own firm footing. For the student
of Soviet and Latvian history alike this volume provides more than just the story of a purge -
it is a unique snapshot into the political machinations of the Soviet Union and one of its
republics.
