Saeima of the Republic of Latvia

Interviewer.

After 4 May, after the Barricades [of January 1991], were there any premonitions that there would be a recurrence or backlash of the regime?

A. Ulme.

I kept thinking all the time, as I said, that reforms in Russia usually turn into repressions and that the actual situation or the balance of power that we had – the seeming international support which was rather tenuous, and the actual situation was such that it made us... did not allow us to bask in euphoria and assume that everything would be fine. We were basically living in uncertainty all the time.

Interviewer.

Did the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia consider possible scenarios before the Putsch?

A. Ulme.

It’s interesting that it actually didn’t because in all possible, well… not during plenary sittings but in my other addresses I constantly appealed for, let’s say, not taking up arms, but developing, as they called it, a plan for an emergency situation. That is… Well, what was it that I wanted? I got several boxes with those passports, with those as well, as they call them... further underground activities and so on. One had to think logically, too.

Interviewer.

Was the plan for action in emergency situations drafted before the Barricades? Or during the Barricades, on 13 January... even before...

A. Ulme.

Yes, it was. But it wasn’t feasible or adequate because... well, it was feasible but not adequate because, basically, they could simply come and take away this entire group at any moment, any hour. We didn’t have any... Well, what did we have? Some policemen from Bauska, but those 100 OMON guys were powerless as well... But, maybe it was the opposite, maybe there was this decision – and maybe it really was like that – not to provoke them, that is... not to give them a reason to come with machine guns and take everyone away.

Interviewer.

Where were you when you first heard about the Putsch?

A. Ulme.

I went to... there was the MPs’ house [apartment building for members of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia]. It was in Pļavnieki area of Riga. I had a small flat there. And I went there and noticed that I was the only one in the building. And then Emsis [member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia] arrived and picked me up together with my family and took us to his place to… he had a house by the sea near Saulkrasti. So we slept there and during the first night Diāna bolted up and started shouting: “The tanks are coming! The tanks are coming!” Everyone got up. What on earth are tanks doing by the sea? Well, we thought that they were probably coming from that direction… It turned out that the sea was roaring – it was just a storm and the roar of the sea. Well, it was psychological… and Madara had just been born; she was only a few months old.

Interviewer.

What was the atmosphere at the Supreme Council?

A. Ulme.

Well, during the Putsch, when… to a certain extent, we felt doomed. There wasn’t any, well, how to put it… no one gave us machine guns, nothing like that… Well, we were the front, so we had to be the front… Literally… But basically we had a diplomatic mission, one that expressed the people’s will, and to a certain extent a mission… I suppose, all the people who voted for independence, they… well, of all the votes, this one was the riskiest. And no matter what a person had been previously – first or fifth secretary or what have you – those who voted for independence at that moment on that day knew that with this action they had… well, their families and themselves were placed in the hands of fate because it was really like that; there were no other options, noting like a positive outcome or something like that… It was really… At that point with a vote one risked everything he/she had. And therefore, at that point, the people honoured us so much. I don’t remember any other votes like that.

Interviewer.

So you think that the safety of your colleagues, your family or yourself was considerably threatened?

A. Ulme.

Yes, threats were absolutely real and logical. Absolutely logical! At that time the entire International Front of the Working People of the Latvian SSR – they were all still there. They were all right there! We somehow… it was a mystery. To a certain extent, all actions of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia were quite a mystery because the use of all real force, including repressive force, could be triggered literally by one phone call from Moscow.

Interviewer.

What was the Putsch politically? Because within the context of all those forces, those actions… To me it looked like an obvious incapability, indecision about… They had named themselves the Committee for Emergency Situations or something like that – and then they didn’t take any action! They couldn’t even make their subordinates follow their orders; they performed a farce with Gorbachev, a sickly, seemingly sick person… But they couldn’t carry out any of their actions to completion. Not even in Moscow!

What was the Putsch politically?

A. Ulme.

Yes, I absolutely support… because, basically, the Putsch was undermined by a single incident in Moscow in which the commandos took Yeltsin’s side; just a few of them did so. But politically, I believe, it was very… Well, how did it go… Everyone, when they showed up – who was there? The commanders-in-chief, KGB – top brass! So it was useless for us to contemplate whether those were puppets and whether they were or were not capable of doing something… That totally…

Interviewer.

They were the top brass, but they were acting like…

A. Ulme.

Yes, but they were acting… I say, it was a mystery because it cannot be logically explained, how they… why it didn’t actually work out… Given all those resources and military force at their disposal, they couldn’t carry it out because, apparently, the spirit of the Awakening or another breath of the new era was in the air; it had spread across the borders to Russia and among its people, soldiers and commanders like the fragrance of jasmine… Well, something like that because otherwise… we weren’t some… even during the entire process, including the elections… or the Latvian Popular Front… or activities of those radical… the Latvian Environment Protection Club, which captured various air fields and other… they didn’t hate us exactly; they were more like surprised… Afterwards in that army and among officers, there wasn’t any hatred. But as for me… there was no hatred either; before those campaigns and afterwards, at the KGB interrogations, when they warned me… They didn’t shock me with electricity or pull off my fingernails. They simply warned me, made me sign, and that’s it. So there was an overall spirit of the Awakening… not only in the Baltic States or in Latvia but also, I believe, among all the inhabitants of the region under the regime.

Interviewer.

What, in your opinion, was Gorbachev’s role during the Putsch?

A. Ulme.

Gorbachev… I personally thought that Gorbachev’s arrest… It’s a good thing that he was alive at all. At the beginning we didn’t quite understand whether he had been arrested, only later… Well, Gorbachev was extremely powerful, and the hope that Gorbachev… Well, I believe that the spirit of the Awakening or the perestroika [restructuring] was brought by Gorbachev.

Interviewer.

Was it possible during the Putsch… If the Putsch had taken, let’s say, another turn, could a different scenario be possible in Riga, not like the outcome in Moscow? If Gorbachev hadn’t lost to Yeltsin in Moscow, so to say, would the outcome in Riga have been as it actually was?

A. Ulme.

I think it wouldn’t. If Yeltsin hadn’t won, then it would have been a completely different situation in Riga. That, I believe, is for sure.

Interviewer.

If the Putsch had succeeded, what would you have done? Would you have emigrated?

A. Ulme.

No, I was doing extraordinarily well. I’m telling you, I had these divisions… well, I had these people all over Latvia – 60 divisions – and they weren’t simply… they had been well-known for many years, so what would I… No, we would conduct some underground operations, I suppose. We had passports, as well as weapons. Thus, we would go on, naturally.

No, no emigration! Under no circumstances! It was like… The situation was basically such that… well, why did we… Basically, everyone was so fed up with it that they didn’t care – whatever, if there’s nothing then so be it! But there wasn’t… Why did we take the path of the Awakening? We’d just had enough of the existing situation; there wasn’t any real fear or desire to hide somewhere. Like that… It’s just that nobody wanted to get arrested so easily. We wanted to put up resistance.