The Economic Program of the Latvian National Communists – Myth or Reality?

Khrushchev’s attempts from the mid-1950s to make the Soviet state and economic administration system more efficient created some optimism among a part of the Latvian Soviet elite that republican autonomy would be gradually expanded in order to solve problems created by Stalinist overcentralization and negligence of republican interests. People who later were ca lled “national com munists” undertook activities aimed at solving a very different set of problems—from the promotion of the Latvian language in official use to the reorientation of the economy of the republic to serve the needs of its population. Although similar activities at that time.