Template:Short description Template:About Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox political party Template:Fascism sidebar
Pērkonkrusts ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}, "Thunder Cross") was a Latvian ultranationalist, anti-German, anti-Slavic, and antisemitic political party founded in 1933 by Gustavs Celmiņš, borrowing elements of German nationalism—but being unsympathetic to Nazism at the time—and Italian Fascism.<ref name=Sulcs>Uģis Šulcs. Pērkonkrusts Template:Webarchive. historia.lv. 2002. Retrieved 11 February 2014.</ref> It was outlawed in 1934, its leadership arrested, and Celmiņš eventually exiled in 1937. Still-imprisoned members were persecuted under the first Soviet occupation; some collaborated with subsequently invading Nazi Germany forces in perpetrating the Holocaust. Pērkonkrusts continued to exist in some form until 1944, when Celmiņš, who had initially returned to work in the occupying German administration, was imprisoned.
Following the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, a new radical nationalist movement, also called Pērkonkrusts, was formed in 1995. The organization espouses many of the same values as its predecessor. Members have participated in efforts to bomb the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders several times, leading to the arrest, trial and imprisonment of many of its members. Since around 2000, the group has become almost inactive.
Principles and ideologyEdit
Pērkonkrusts has been categorised by scholars as either representing the radical right<ref name="Kasekamp"/> or fascism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Griffin">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Lazda"/> Fascism researcher Roger Griffin describes Pērkonkrusts as having been a "small but genuine fascist opposition" which "pursued a revolutionary solution to the [economic] crisis and which would turn Latvia into an authoritarian state based on a new élite with a new corporatist economy", with its politics defined by "integralist nationalism".<ref name="Griffin"/> Building on Griffin's definition of generic fascism, a categorisation of Pērkonkrusts as "anti-German national socialism" has also been proposed in an article from 2015.<ref name="Kott">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Aside from the party's newspaper, Pērkonkrusts (1933–34), the main source of information on the political platform of Pērkonkrusts can be found in the 1933 brochure, Pērkonkrusts: What Is It? What Does It Want? How Does It Work? (Template:Langx). This publication not only outlined the movement's political programme, but also included the complete party statutes.
With its slogan "Latvia for Latvians! Work and bread for Latvians!" (Template:Langx), Pērkonkrusts wished to place all political and economic control of their country exclusively in the hands of ethnic Latvians. As a result, the party rejected the existing legislation that gave national minorities cultural autonomy. Pērkonkrusts aimed its propaganda against minorities who supposedly had taken over the Latvian economy (i.e. Baltic Germans, Jews) and the contemporary parliamentary politicians, whom it accused of corruption.
Pērkonkrusts rejected Christianity as a foreign influence and suggested instead adopting Dievturība, which was an attempt to revive an assumed pre-Christian Latvian religion.<ref>Template:Cite journal </ref>
Despite its rural ideals, Pērkonkrusts gained most of its support in the urban areas like Riga, Cēsis, Valmiera, Jelgava, more specifically among students at the University of Latvia.
Party symbolsEdit
Template:See also "Thunder Cross" is one of the names for the swastika in Latvian, which was used as a symbol of the organization.
The group used a variation of the Roman or Hitler salute, and greeted with the Latvian phrase "Cīņai sveiks" ("Ready for battle"<ref name="Lazda">Template:Cite book</ref> or "Hail the struggle").
According to Latvian historian Template:Interlanguage link, although the party used both the swastika and the Roman salute, it was neither affiliated with, nor a copycat of German Nazism— as was the case with the Template:Interlanguage link headed by Template:Interlanguage link.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The uniform of Pērkonkrusts was a grey shirt and black beret.
HistoryEdit
Before World War IIEdit
The fascist group Template:Interlanguage link (Fire Cross), one of the Latvian ethnic symbols as well as a sign which is a mirrored image of a swastika, was founded in Latvia in 1932 by Gustavs Celmiņš, but was soon outlawed by the government of Latvia. The former Ugunskrusts organisation reemerged immediately under the new name of Pērkonkrusts. By 1934, Pērkonkrusts is estimated to have had between 5,000 and 6,000 members, although the organization maintained that it had more.
Kārlis Ulmanis, leader of the conservative nationalist Peasants' Union Party and then Prime Minister of Latvia, proposed constitutional reforms in October 1933, which socialists feared would target the left more than the right. In November of the same year, seven communist deputies were arrested, while Pērkonkrusts officials were left alone. Because of political unrest, stemming partially from the growing power of the right, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup d'état in May 1934, banning not only the Communist Party and Pērkonkrusts, but all parties and the Saeima (Parliament). Following the coup, Pērkonkrusts leader Celmiņš was imprisoned for three years and then banished from Latvia.
Although Pērkonkrusts did not exist officially after 1934, many former leaders and members acted with a degree of unity in subsequent years.
In the late 1930s, Celmiņš set up a 'foreign liaison office' of Pērkonkrusts in Helsinki, Finland. During his peripatetic exile, Celmiņš had established personal contacts with the representatives of other fascist groupings in Europe, most notably Romania's Corneliu Codreanu.<ref name="Kasekamp">Template:Cite book</ref>
During World War IIEdit
Not long after the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact in 1939, Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union. Whereas the Soviet regime released the Communists imprisoned by Ulmanis with great ceremony, political prisoners from Pērkonkrusts were not freed. Instead, more members of Pērkonkrusts were arrested by the Soviet authorities during 1940–1941, some of them being deported to Siberia.<ref name="Paeglis">Template:Cite book</ref>
When the Germans invaded Latvia in late June 1941, Celmiņš, who had moved to Germany following Latvia's occupation in 1940, returned to Latvia as a Sonderführer in the service of the German Wehrmacht.<ref name="Lumans">Template:Cite book</ref>
In early July, Pērkonkrusts was briefly permitted to operate openly again. Former Pērkonkrusts members were actively sought by the German authorities as volunteers for the Arajs Commando. According to research by historian Rudīte Vīksne, however, there were only a handful of members of Pērkonkrusts who played a role in the Holocaust in Latvia,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> their activities focused more on propaganda.
During the early phases of the Holocaust in Latvia, Mārtiņš Vagulāns, whom historian Valdis Lumans describes as a member of Pērkonkrusts, led a killing squad attached to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in the town of Jelgava.<ref name="Lumans"/>Template:Rp Historian Andrievs Ezergailis has countered that Vagulāns was not in fact a member of Pērkonkrusts, between whom and the Nazis existed "a wall of suspicion."<ref name=Ez11>Template:Cite book</ref> Ezergailis has also argued, "I do not think that among the killers of the Jews there were more than ten Pērkonkrusts members, if that. They played a more significant role as purveyors of anti-Semitism in Nazi press."<ref name=Ez11 />
The German authorities decisively banned the organization for good in August 1941. Some former Pērkonkrusts members collaborated with the Germans, while others maintained an anti-German sentiment and joined those groups subversively opposed to German occupation.<ref name="Lumans"/>
Celmiņš continued his outward collaboration with the Germans in the hopes that sizable Latvian military formations would be created. From February 1942, he headed the Committee for Organising Latvian Volunteers (Template:Langx), the main function of which was the recruitment of Latvian men for the Latvian Auxiliary Police Battalions, known in German as Schutzmannschaften or simply Schuma.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Aside from front-line combat duties, these battalions also participated in so-called anti-partisan operations in Latvia and Belarus that included the massacres of rural Jews and other civilians.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Pērkonkrusts members working within the SD apparatus in occupied Latvia would feed Celmiņš information, some of which he would include in his underground, anti-German publication Brīvā Latvija. This eventually led to Celmiņš and his associates being arrested, with Celmiņš ending up imprisoned in Flossenbürg concentration camp.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In modern LatviaEdit
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A radical group claiming Pērkonkrusts's name emerged in the 1990s as an organization whose stated goal was the overthrow of the current unsatisfactory government and the establishment of a "Latvian Latvia".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1995, three former members of the group "Rība's Defenders" - Valdis Raups, Aivars Vīksniņš and then-68-year-old Vilis Liniņš - joined up with martial artist Juris Rečs to reconstitute Pērkonkrusts.<ref name=nils>Template:Cite book</ref> "Rība's Defenders" was an unregistered splinter group from the self-proclaimed successor organization of the pre-WWII Aizsargi, led by Jānis Rība.<ref name=nils /> Members of the group were assigned code names, swore loyalty oaths, and senior members wore masks to initiate recruits.<ref name=nils /> The organization was explicitly militaristic and considered itself a "Latvian fighting unit" pursuing a "holy liberation struggle."<ref name=nils />
The ideology of the group was primarily characterized by ethnic and racial nationalism, anti-semitism, anti-communism, anti-liberalism and opposed to free markets.<ref name=nils /> Among the goals of Pērkonkrusts were a Latvia where the "Latvian would be the lord and master in his Fatherland... not in those of Latvian-speaking cosmopolitan bastards," and "racial purity of the Latvian people." Pērkonkrusts has opposed "Jew neo-Communists... half-Jews and their allies... enemy number one of the Latvian people."<ref name=nils />
Members of the reconstituted Pērkonkrusts tried three times to bomb the Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders. In one of the most serious incidents on the night of 5 June 1997, two of the members, Valdis Raups and Aivars Vīksniņš, were killed in the explosion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web
}}</ref> Another nine members were prosecuted for the bombing and received sentences ranging from a year and a half of probation to three years in prison. In 2000, most of the leaders of the current Pērkonkrusts were arrested and tried.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The group ceased organised activities or was banned around 2006.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
One of the previous leaders of the organization Igors Šiškins has tried to re-activate Pērkonkrusts again. He has claimed to represent Pērkonkrusts at various events, such as the marking of Remembrance day of the Latvian legionnaires<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Soviet Victory Day (9 May) in Riga. On 9 May 2007, Šiškins was arrested for wearing forbidden symbols in public.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Šiškins was similarly detained for displaying forbidden symbols on 9 May 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Šiškins with Pērkonkrusts symbol, 9 May 2009, from Twitter.</ref> In 2006 a similar organization, the Gustavs Celmiņš' Center (Gustava Celmiņa centrs), which used the same symbols as Pērkonkrusts and also claimed to promote Dievturība, was registered with Šiškins becoming one of its leaders until the organization was dissolved by the Riga Regional Court in 2014.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In its relations with Latvia, the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation at times brings up the history of the Pērkonkrusts movement as evidence of present-day Latvia's "fascist" heritage.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2016, blogger Jānis Polis reported that the owner of the former GCC website is linked to purported fake news websites.<ref name=":0" />
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
External linksEdit
- Pērkonkrusts poster from 1930s, from the collections of the National Library of Latvia.
- Story of Pērkonkrusts Template:In lang