For most North Americans demography is an esoteric subject more often tied to marketing than to social and political changes. In Latvia, as in most of Eastern Europe and the USSR, demography has long been placed on the forefront of public attention. This wave of attention in the case of Latvia is not a fad of short duration which will be readily displaced by other popular topics. On the contrary, demography has had, is having and will have a tremendous impact on a very broad range of policies and on the long term survival of the Latvian nation. Thus, in order to understand the social and ethnic tensions, the labour squeeze, and the welfare burden of Latvia, it is necessary to understand the multifaceted demographic processes: the real matrix of the political and social environment. This paper reviews the pivotal demographic role of the First and Second World Wars and analyzes population size, sex balance, age structure, urban-rural residence, nuptiality, birth and death rates, migration patterns and ethnic balance.

The genesis of “National Communism” is often traced to the Yugoslav dictator Tito, but in reality the only novel aspect about Titoism is that it has succeeded. The ideology of National Communism was manifested in Ukraine in the early 1920's and its pre-eminent leader was Mykola O. Skrypnyk. It was a reaction to the strong centrist policies of the Bolshevik Party, which had many leaders who were committed to a belief in Russian superiority, a belief which was carried over from the Tsarist regime. At the Eighth Party Congress in 1919, Lenin remarked: “Scratch many a Communist and you will find a Great Russian chauvinist.” The traditionalist utterances made by several highly placed Bolsheviks during the first years of the Revolution were certainly indiscrete. Thus did George Piatakov, a Russian Communist, tell a meeting of the Party held in Kyiv on June 17, 1917:

The Soviet Union's decision to force Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to accept its mutual assistance proposals in the fall of 1939 was one of the most dramatic events in modern Baltic history. The new Soviet-Baltic relationship signalled the return of this region to Russia's sphere-of-influence and ended with the total absorption of the Baltic states into the U.S.S.R. the following year. A great deal has been written about the political-diplomatic discussions that led to the Soviet-Baltic mutual assistance pacts. Scholars, however, have paid far less attention to the impact of these new relationships on the various political institutions in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Particularly efforts of these systems to adapt to their new status vis á vis Moscow.

Reaction and revolution, so much a part of the reign of Nicholas II, became even more prevalent in the opening years of the twentieth century. The foundation of the Russian Empire had begun its erosion process which would topple the autocracy by 1917. Nicholas and his ministers had to act decisively and aggressively if they hoped to stem the process. To fight the wave of revolution and popular discontent in April of 1902, Nicholas appointed Viacheslav Pleve as Minister of the Interior. Pleve was a careerist who was devoutly loyal to the autocracy. In contemporary terms he might be described as an ‘aparatchick,‘ a party man who towed, and at times shaped, the party line. V. I. Gurko, a colleague, characterized him as “a legal clerk … a very superior clerk it is true, but a clerk nevertheless.” Pleve had also earned the dubious honor of being the autocracy's “most famous policeman,” a reflection of fourteen years of service as Director of the Police Department and Assistant Minister of the Interior.

As we pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch the news, the information we get stands out in our minds and brings the sensitive soul a step closer to despair. Although on rare occasions we learn that someone has been kind, unselfish, and even heroic, much reporting vividly projects violence, war, hate, greed, avarice, etc. In this current age of spiritual bankruptcy, loss of community, instant gratification, individual entitlements, “I want-it-all-now,” “me generations,” the possibility of nuclear catastrophy, the rise of neo-nazism, and dozens of hate groups, racial and ethnic polarization, there is an urgent need for efforts to stop this road to social, cultural, spiritual, moral and physical suicide. One possible approach might be to focus on the decent people: those who loved, those who cared, those who gave so much selflessly, those who risked much, including their lives, to save their fellow human beings. With this in mind my purpose here is to describe briefly a few heroic acts in Europe during the Nazi occupation, to suggest some reasons that motivated the rescuers (altruists) who risked so much to help victims, and to draw a profile of the altruist. Altruism, for our purposes is defined as aid given to others who are in great need and which entails very high risk for which the altruist rescuer does not expect any external reward.