Assessment of INSIDE THE LEAGUE — conspiracy theorists par excellence

Focusing on the Andersons' portrayal of the émigré Latvian community and its leadership, particularly those who served in the Latvian Legion, there is nothing to recommend their work.

At best, the Andersons' contentions regarding alleged Latvian Nazis1 cobbles together a cud-chewing re-mastication of contemporaneous accusations, including the preposterous contention that Latvians managed the "Final Solution" in Latvia.

The Andersons' narrative is rife with not just misinformation but glaring mistakes. They erroneously label the assertion Nazis imprisoned a prominent Latvian in a concentration camp a lie because they confuse identities. They denounce the Latvian Legion post-war veterans' organization, Daugavas Vanagi as a den of "war criminals" with no source for their contention. Moreover, in an otherwise copiously annotated work, there is not a single citation for the accusations they levy against Latvians.

If they had given the same care to exposing anti-Communists as Jon Lee Anderson devoted to his subsequent biography of Che Guevara2, extensively interviewing relatives and compatriots, they might have produced an informed work. Ironically, the Andersons might have discovered that Latvian ideological commonality lay with Guevara, not Hitler. At the turn of the last century, Latvians were inclined toward Marxist ideals and voted for Bolshevism every time until Latvia's first post-independence election.3

Cold War "anti-Communism" was an amalgam of individuals and organizations opposing Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe4 and Soviet-supported expansionism elsewhere. Rather than examine the dynamic which at times united former oppressors and oppressed in a common cause, the Andersons have simply declared anti-Communists—Latvians included—a menace to society.

Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea and continuing aggression in eastern Ukraine (2016) have validated the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations' Ukrainian founders' worst fears. Lies, murder, and territorial aggression have survived beyond the Soviet era, proving that whatever the Russian regime — tsarist, Soviet, or "democratic" — Russia's geopolitical intent regarding its neighbors remains immutable. — Ed.

The Andersons' exposé of Latvian "Nazi" anti-Communists fails fact checking catastrophically, from misspelled names to unattributed false accusations of war crimes, to mistaken identities — wrongfully labeling a Latvian's incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp a lie.
Zero starsIgnorance is an improvement.

1No Latvian was ever a member of the Nazi party.
2Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997)
3By then, the Latvians had learned that "Bolshevism" was Russian totalitarianism in a new wrapper.
4"Eastern Europe" and the three "Baltic States" are post-WWII artifacts. The historical configuration of Europe has been western (Germans and westward), central (peoples and their territories between the Germans and Russians), with eastern being "European Russia" aka "Russia in Europe," i.e., Russia west of the Urals continental divide from Asia. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became a unified entity as the "Baltic States" during occupation; prior, as the former Russian Baltic provinces, that term had included Finland. Although the Lithuanians and Latvians are sister peoples, historical identities and experiences diverge: Lithuania following Poland, Estonia and Latvia following Germany and Sweden prior to Russia.
Latvia in the middle of historical Europe, highlight centered on its capital, Rīga. From A general descriptive Atlas of the Earth, containing separate maps of the various countries and states ... with a short account of each country, by William Mullinger Higgins, 1836.
Updated: September, 2023
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