when did latvia become part of the soviet union
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic Following the Welles Declaration of July 23, 1940, the annexation of Latvia into the Soviet Union (USSR) on 5 August 1940 was not recognized as legitimate by the United States, the European Community, and recognition of it as the nominal fifteenth constituent republic of the USSR was withheld for five decades.[2] Its territory was subsequently conquered by Nazi Germany in June–July 1941, before being retaken by the Soviets in 1944–1945. Nevertheless, Latvia continued to exist as a de jure independent country with a number of countries continued to recognize Latvian diplomats and consuls who still functioned in the name of their former governments.
Soviet Union During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии, Soyuz Sovetskikh Respublik Yevropy i Azii).[18] Stalin initially resisted the proposal, but ultimately accepted it, although – with Lenin's agreement – he changed the name of the newly proposed state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, although all the republics began as Socialist Soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the national languages of several republics the word "Council/Conciliar" in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian "Soviet" – and never in others, e.g., Ukraine.
Paris Peace Accords
World War II In September 1944, Soviet troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off.[256] By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and engaged in delaying efforts against German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[257] Unlike impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to a Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[258][259] although Finland was forced to fight their former allies.