In the April of 1917 a new local authority institution was elected – Latgale’s Land Council or the Provisional Land Council of Latgale (Latgolas Pagaidu Zemes Padūme), which fought for the separation of Latgale from the Vitebsk Province and adding it to the rest of Latvia. The Provisional Land Council of Latgale was formed after the February revolution in the 27th April of 1917 in the First Latgalian Latvian congress in Rezekne, and in it there were 60 positions. Francis Trasuns was elected as the chairman of the council.
The Bolsheviks after the October’s revolution in the 3rd – 4th December of 1917 organized a Vitebsk Province Latgalian district council congress (Съезд Советов латгальских уездов Витебской губернии), which is also called as the Second congress of Latgale. There the Provisional Latgale executive committee was elected in the composition of 36 members, after its initiative the Russian PSFR National commissary council in the 14th December of 1917 issued the decree No. 93 for the separation of Daugavpils, Ludza and Rezekne districts from the Vitebsk Province and adding them to the Vidzeme Province.
When in the January of 1918 Latgale was occupied by the German Kaiser army, Daugavpils, Ludza and Rezekne district assembly elected the Latgale Central Land Council which consisted of 15 people in the 18th May of 1918. The only council’s session happened in the 4th – 5th October in 1918 in Daugavpils.
The Latvian National Council decided to include the 18 Latgale Central Land Council members in the National Council in the 17th November of 1918. On the celebratory session of the proclamation of the Latvian Republic in November 1918 the Latgalian Land Council was represented by Stanislavs Kambala.
In the December of 1918 the Bolshevik Red Army entered the Latvian territory. Even though in words the Bolsheviks acknowledged a nation’s self-determination rights, in their actions they tried to save the inseparability of the Russian territory with military force. The Latvian Rifleman units also returned as a part of the Red Army. Detached from their homeland they did not understand the changes that were happening in Latvia and thought that they will fight the Germans. Alongside the army came also the Latvian Bolshevik government which was organized in Moscow with Lenin’s confrere Peteris Stucka. The Bolsheviks got control over most of the Latvian territory. The other political and military power, against which the new country had to fight, was the German army led by Rudiger fon der Goltz, who at first fought the Bolsheviks together with the Latvian army units, but their long-term goals differed – they wanted to see Germany as a German land.
Fierce battles were happening, and after the victory over the colonel Pavel Bermondt – Avalov’s army in November 1919 the biggest part of the Latvian territory was liberated. In the hands of the enemy – in particular, the Bolshevik, only Latgale had remained. The line Livani – Lubana lake – Kuprava – Kaceni was guarded by an officially created Eastern or Latgale’s front created in the 12th July in 1919. The territory of Latgale was liberated from the Bolsheviks in the 21st January of 1920 when Rezekne and the whole Latgale were occupied.
The consumption of alcoholic drinks (1918. – 1940.)
A serious research is dedicated to the consumption of alcoholic drinks in Latvia by the historian Ph.D. Hist. Ineta Lipsa “The social morality in Latvia: the consumption of alcoholic drinks, 1918 - 1940”.
The author points out that “the legislator of the new country in the 17th August 1920 decided about that what should be considered as a norm in the Latvian Republic – abstinence (prohibition) as in the United States of America, where it lasted from 1919 till 1933 or moderate drinking. What to implement in Latvia was asked by part of the Constitutional assembly members. The majority of the deputies acknowledged that it is impossible to eradicate alcohol with the police resources (“We cannot turn our democratic republic into a police state”), and emphasized that the country should not be left in the role of a fool by witnessing how the speculators take the money which should go in the country’s budget”. The monopoly of the country on making spirit was an important budget source, therefore in the 17th August of 1920 the deputies implemented a law that regulated the making of alcoholic drinks within the country. It meant that moderate drinking was acceptable, but dipsomania was considered as combatable.
On the same day, the deputies assigned the government to develop a law that fights against dipsomania and some even emphasized that the law should guarantee that “these liquor stores should be open only then when people are at work, but at the time when they would come home from work and when they would have some free time, the shops would be closed,” also it was suggested to implement “drastic conditions for appearing without the necessary balance in a mellow condition,” educate about the harm of alcohol and to ensure “that people cannot get it”, invite the church to assist in this fight against dipsomania, without mercy take away all the belongings of the kandza brewer and in the span of 12 hours “put him on the streets with his whole family”, because then “nobody will ever make kandza”.
However, being drunk in a public space and making kandza were such an urgent problem that the parliament did not expect the dipsomania law to pass, but in the 18th October of 1920 the fine for being drunk in a public place was increased a thousand times (from 10 to 10 000 rubles), from the September of 1921 – 1000 gold francs, but the fine for the kandza makers was 100 000 rubles (5000 gold francs).
(..) There is no data on how much the inhabitants of Latvia drank. There are statistics for the sold alcohol – the legal amount of alcohol, starting only from 1927, which states, that in 1928 the amount of alcohol sold for drinking to one adult (6.25 liters) was exceeded only in 1936 (6.55 liters) after which it continued to increase – 8.45 liters in 1938. (..) Statisticians acknowledge that it is impossible to determinate the total amount of the consumed alcohol because the countryside house and the hamlet (but not the city and small village) inhabitants were allowed to make beer for their own needs, therefore in the countryside it was bought rarely. Especially homemade beer brewing increased in Latgale, which was backed by tobacco, marsh teas, denatured spirit soap grass dilution which were sold illegally. That is why in 1929 the Deputy of Internal Affairs forbid to brew beer at home without a permit (it had to be acquired every time) in the districts of Madona, Ilukste, Ludza, Rezekne and Jaunlatgale. The “Latgolas Vōrds” said that there will be farmers who will not like the fact that they cannot drink once in a while “for their own sweat”, and there will be farmers who will say that the city dwellers drink more, yet nobody admonish them about it. However, already from 1930 the Deputy of Internal Affairs removed some specific houses from the prohibition area. Despite the prohibition, the distilling of kandza was so popular that in Latgale, which was not considered as one of the most modest regions when it comes to the consumption of alcohol, the consumption of liquor for an adult in 1929 was only 2.58 liters as opposed to 5.25 liters in other regions.
(..) The law against dipsomania forbid to open establishments that sell strong drinks in cities and small villages closer than 100 meters, but in the countryside no closer than one kilometer from city, small village and local community council boards, court houses, schools, prisons, barracks, industrial enterprises, in which there are no less than 50 workers, hospitals, graveyards, prayer houses, in which public worships happen. Therefore, the distance in cities was increased by 15 about meters, in the countryside – for about 915 meters.
(..) The innkeepers had ingeniously thought out how, in the words of the “Latgales Vōrds” protect “sovus zalta teļus – krugus no lykuma borgos reikstes” (their own golden calfs – taverns from the strict dowsing-rod of the law). The district and small village local government of Vilani closed the local tavern and the pub of the hunter society, because they were located too close to a church, the district’s local community board and a school. However, a month had not passed when the closed taverns were already open in their previous rooms – the innkeeper made an entry to the tavern from the other side, but the hunter society lengthened the road to their company making a fence on the side of the street so that the drinkers would go alongside it, then would turn into the fence and come back to the pub’s door, with the calculation, so that with the winding path they would have the required distance from the local community board and the school.
(..) Susceptible people who planned to sell alcohol illegally, already before the law against dipsomania came into force, ordered some glass-work factory 10 thousand hunter flat bottles, which can be easily stored in pockets. The shops that sell food sold the biggest amount of illegal alcohol. The owners kept this illegal product not in the store, where in case they got busted it would get confiscated, but they kept it at their relatives or somewhere else, some even used a coffin shop for this intention.
The people quickly adapted to the law and drank in the taverns whenever they wanted. They added alcohol to the seltzer from the flat bottles which they brought themselves or ordered it to the waiter (so the “cheerful seltzer” or the “tea that is too strong” were created). The more timid ones went to drink a sip in the restaurants bathroom or used chocolate candy with about a half glass of liqueur filling, but other used pills that contained alcohol in dry form. With one was enough for the seltzer in the glass to become “very cheerful” (..). It was discussed already in May of 1925 that the improved chocolate candies should be forbidden, because there was no shortage of buyers, especially on Saturdays, when the innkeepers worked only till 12 in the day, and on Sundays, when they were closed. Previously these candies were filled with various drops of liqueur, rum and cognac, but now the stock company “Unions” filled them with spirit. The candy costed 10 santims and five or six candies were enough for the eater to feel an already “considerable dizziness”. However, all the methods, at least in the spring of 1925, were surpassed by the “ingenious bottle with a rubber hose”, which was placed in the chest pocket of the drinker of alcohol. When a person wanted to quench their thirst he put the hose in his mouth hiding the motion by putting a handkerchief in front of his nose, making it look like he is about to blow his nose, but the sucked the alcohol as much as he wanted. In the spring of 1926 the flat bottles and the chocolate candies filled with liqueur were a trend.
(..) After the revolution in 1934, the Deputy of Internal Affairs Vilis Gulbis forbid to sell strong drinks on the 16th and 17th May and also ordered that the first-rate taverns and clubs in Riga, Liepaja, Daugavpils and Rezekne till the 23rd May can only be open till 23 o’clock (not until 2 at night), but all the other establishments that sell food and beverages for the use on the spot – till 21 o’clock (not till 22 o’clock).
The consumption of homemade alcohol increases
In the newspaper “Latgales Ziņas” published in 1932 some alarming material was published about the fact that in Latgale the homemade strong drinks were respected more than the strong drink production available in stores (republished using the writing style of the respective period).
* ”When our legislation establishments issued many and different legal norms about limiting dipsomania, then they wanted to decrease the amount of consumed alcohol with it by not allowing to sell it on specific days when a massive flow of people can be witnessed, when drunkenness can cause various disorders and, finally, to not allow to sell alcohol near specific public establishments, like, schools and churches. Oh, how much have we achieved with it, that is the question. Let us look at the life in Latgale. Here almost nothing has been achieved with the restrictions. People drink as much as much as they used to, but not the country’s spirit, but the homemade one. The more the sale for the country’s spirit is being restricted, the more it increases the price, the more homemade spirit is being made and consumed. The homemade drinks are available anytime and in many places, like, next to schools, in the market days, in the yards of churches, in the church lord outhouses where pretty often the secret makers of strong drinks reside. Currently a huge amount of making strong drinks can be seen in Ludza district’s Istra, Rundeni and Pasiena local communities. There are days when the justice of the peace in Ludza judges 20 spirit cases a day. Usually the distillers and consumers of spirit cannot or do not want to pay the severe excise tax and therefore get imprisoned. Because of it prisons, like the Ludza prison, are overcrowded. It is meant to hold 60 people, but during winter 120 – 130 are imprisoned. The rules about the distance of taverns from schools and churches are completely ignored by many country spirit stores in populated spaces. But in some populated places, for example, Rundeni, Vecsloboda, there are no stores that sell spirit. The distance from Zilupe to Polescina is 45 km, but there are stores that sell spirits along the way. The sellers of the country spirit have no profit to set up a shop in small populated places, because they have a lot of competition against the homemade spirits because they are available there on the spot. On market days, holidays and Sundays, when a lot of people gather in public places, the trade of homemade spirits flourishes. Both men and women were selling spirit from carts, bushes and outhouses. For the sale to not look so blatant, the spirit was usually put in milk-cans or bottles with homemade spirit are submerged in them or put the bottles in their pockets or in horse feed etc., so that the police would not see. For example, in markets such a phenomenon can be seen: the closest country spirit shop has sold only about ½ of a dozen of their spirits, but the market is full of drunk people. Where did they get drunk? From the homemade drinks. It is right under their arms, there is no need to go a whole kilometer to the nearest spirit shop. The current price of homemade spirit is 70 santims till 1 lat for a bottle. In some investigations it has been established that the alcoholic strength is 70 – 75% in volume. If we calculate that a pood of rye-flour costs 4 lats, it is possible to distill 20 bottles. So the profit is about 14 – 16 lats from a pood. There are people, both men and women, that have this as their main source of income. It is hard to catch these makers, because they make most of the spirit in forests, but hide the distilled spirit very carefully. They travel in the pockets of others. But there are other harms. The homemade spirits damage the health incomparably more than the legal spirits. This year in the local communities, where the homemade spirits are made the most, for example, in Istra, an unusually high percentage of people have heart problems. Together with it a big increase of worsening eyesight for the elders has been observed alongside other illnesses. There, where the homebrewing is highly developed, there is a high rate of crime. Because of it, for example, Istra and Rundeni local communities are the ones who hand in the most cases to the local courts and investigation establishments. To sum up what has been said, we have to come to a conclusion that in Latgale’s case some law restrictions should be revoked, because with them there is no decrease in drinking and there is no decrease obscene sights in known places, but drinking still flourishes on the country’s account and is the cause for the bad health within the country, by the way, we seriously have to consider about decreasing the current distance and limit the authority of the local government when it comes to handing out permits, because there are known cases where the makers of homemade spirit try and succeed at making it so that legal country spirit cannot be acquired anywhere near. Also the making of homebrewed beer has increased drastically, which is made really strong by adding various garnishes. It is known by many names but the prohibition in these areas do not do much, because the makers of homemade drinks are making their drinks in secrecy.”
The fight against the “underground” brewers
It is understandable that buying a cheap drink was way more tempting and in many ways more affordable than buying spirit in the shop. The shopkeepers expressed concern about this fact, because in their shop shelves the bottles of alcohol were staying for a long time because nobody was buying them. To fight the “underground” brewers the defenders of law stepped in. An example from the Rezekne district (republished using the writing style of the respective period).
“In the Rezekne district’s tax inspection house, in Mazpulku Street, a collection of confiscated spirit distillery devices has accumulated. The tax inspector’s assistant J. Cakuls and the inspector Bulis introduced our colleague with these devices, how they are used in practice and told us where were they found. The more known “kings” of homemade spirit makers are F. Potasovs from the district of Andrupene in the Skabri house and N. Borodulins with his sons in the district of Pilda in the Zabelje house, near Brodaizi. Borodulins made his secret spirit brewery in the Pilda district forest – in the snow and moss. There here took the pot for making “kanda” alongside other tools. When the officers of tax inspection together with the police went to his house in Zabelje they only found spirit inside the house. A search began. Finally they found black spots in the forest and near them the “factory”. The devices were confiscated from the forest and taken to Rezekne. The most famous “king” of homemade spirit is Janis Rublevskis in the district of Kaunata, Batnu house. He owns 30 hectares of land and a forest, but he is not satisfied with the income from the farm. “Spirit manufacturing” earns a way bigger profit than growing sugar-beets and flax breaking. – Rubleviskis has been severely punished many times. One time with 200 lat fine or a 6 week arrest. He served a sentence of 2 weeks in prison. The spirit “factory” that belonged to Rublevskis was set up in a sauna about 20 meters from the living-house. The device was fully set up. 3 barrels of homemade spirit were found. Other known “spirit manufacturers” are K. Feodisijs and M. Krusnikovs in the district of Andrupene, Maloksta house. Krusnikovs is an older man, Russian nationality, the father of 4 kids. He in the neighborhood is known as the maker of devices for making spirit. In the district of Ozolmuiza in the Russian village Sloboda brothers Lukerijs, Leons, Featists and Janis Terentjevs are known. They had a goal to “outrival” the spirit distillery of Rezekne. They have not achieved this goal yet. Well known “brewery centers” are located in the Bukmuiza district’s Patmalnieki and Pontagi villages. Homemade spirits are sold for various celebrations – weddings, baptisms, social gatherings and Russian celebrations. The spirit brewing centers of the Rezekne city are paralyzed. Such centers are open only in distant districts like Bukmuiza, Kaunata, Andrupene, Pilda and other places. The number of illegal “spirit manufacturers” and distributers is rated as 100 in the Rezekne district by the 1st inspection department.”
Harsh in his observations was the author who signed as “Chivlis” and he was warning everyone about the threats of drinking in Latgale. An article has been written called “The alcohol threatened Latgale” on how dipsomania is being fought. (republished using the writing style of the respective period).
“The cities and land of Latgale are filled with a sort of refined spider web with the creation of various surrogate alcoholic drinks. Both homemade spirits and “kumuska” or homemade beer are being made, about which us the Balts do not have the smallest understanding. “Kumuska” is made from sugar, yeast, raisins and rye-flour, one “taste” or five bottles cost only 30 – 40 santims and is enough to get two people drunk, because, without exception, when making “kumuska” many well-known poisons as marsh tea, henbane, mullein leaf tobacco etc. are added into the mix. In the best-case scenario, dry debased spirit is added, but it costs too much for the makers. Even though the taste “kumuska” are being sold for 1 – 1.20 lats.”
Every average sized village has their own kandza and “kumuska” brewer. There are even such specialists that make the drink for small villages and cities. With this the low consumption of the country’s spirit and beer can be explained, as well as the many murders and other incomprehensible violations of law. Because the person is not drunk, but has lost his mind for some time.
Workers, especially as of late, when the machines earn and unemployment increases, use the dry debased spirit in high amounts by smearing it instead of butter on bread, by mixing it with water, filtering it through cloth and diluting it with various fruit extracts. For example, in the R. village’s fair 260 cans of dry debased spirit were sold, in the fair of the G. district over 300 cans. In the P. city’s fair over 200 cans etc.
It is no secret that in every district it is possible to find whole families that indulge only in making “kumuska” and kandza and acquired wealth with them, bought farmhouses and even open various shops. It has also been established that the sellers of “kumuska” on church Sundays, market days and holidays, of which there are plenty in Latgale, earn 30 – 50 lats or more in one day. You do not have to be a big mathematician to calculate how much money the country’s budget loses from such trade, but the damage that is being brought to the health, development and the material prosperity by drinking surrogate alcohol cannot be calculated in money.
There are two country establishments that fight against the making and distributing of homemade alcohol, they are the police and the excise control. Regretfully it has to be said that neither of them is able to bring successful news and get some what decent accomplishments towards the poisoning of people.
You can usually see unskillfulness and superficiality with the police struggles, as well as the lack of good will which can be explained with that almost all of the liable police officers are dependent from the local societies and political cliques. Most of them are locals and therefore are connected with bonds of friendship and family with the “kumuska” brewers and if someone from them starts a serious fight with the poisoners of people then they inevitably run into a close person of a deputy from a party, the only thing left to do is to keep silent because he will lose his job if he continues this fight, because the Latgalian political fighting strategies differ from the ones in the Baltics. It could really be seen the end of 1927 when the social democrats or progressists, as they called themselves, came into power for a brief period of time. Biased people were put into important positions, without education, without the slightest clue how to do his job and the responsibilities that come with it, and, if we take into consideration that the social democrats instinctively with their certainty and their party program cannot acknowledge searches, arrests, protocols etc., then, understandably, how quickly fruitful soil of Latgale was prepared for the smugglers and makers of “kumuska”.
The other establishment that is leading the fight against the poisoners of society is the tax control, but it is almost impossible for this establishment to achieve something. The amount of control officers is very limited, the districts are big, but the means that the ministry allocates to perform this control is very small. Economy is good and it is necessary for our small country, but it is out of place here and brings only loss to our small country and they are quite significant. If the tax control would be set on a different basis, give it adequate means, it would fully pay for itself and bring double or even triple profit. Still at the current limited amount of control these controls have given the country a considerable amount of money from the fines which they have given to the smugglers and the brewers of “kumuska” and exceeds those sums which have been used by the officers for tracking the poisoners of society and the breakers of the country’s economic basis.”
The excessive drinking worried the local inhabitants also. Signatures were collected and request was sent to the government to something about it. Here is one of the examples – an article “Latgale in the enslavement of “kandza” and “kumuska” (republished using the writing style of the respective period).
“The flood damage of homemade “kandza”, “smakolkti”, “kumuska” and other strong drinks exceeds the damage of flood water in Latgale. In one single district there are 25 “corner taverns”, in which people drink away all their poorness. It is hard for the police to fight against these “name day celebrations” and parties. The inhabitants are asking to implement harsher punishments against the drunks by changing the law. A 218 person signed petition was sent to the Cabinet of Ministers by the inhabitants of the district of Tilza requesting help from the very high amounts of alcohol in Latgale. It is mentioned in the petition that just within the district of Tilza 25 “corner taverns” are open because the police and other establishments cannot fight these taverns simply because no alcoholic confesses that he had bought the drinks from the “tavern” for money, but they always testify that a name day or a birthday is being celebrated. And, if the police are able to eliminate one tavern, then the court establishments fine the innkeepers for a very small amount of money. The signers of the petition show the consequences of the high amount of homemade alcohol in Latgale and ask the Cabinet of Ministers to amend the dipsomania law by forbidding to make and sell alcoholic drinks in the populated areas of Latgale. The members of the board from the district of Jaunlatgale, by traveling over the districts, have also observed that in spite of the previous poor harvest years the damage done by drinking has increased rapidly. This bad habit is so widespread in Latgale that in almost every house various “smakovka,” “kumuska”, “kandza” and other alcoholic drinks are being made. The board members of the district think that the damage of alcohol could be mitigated by increasing police supervision and by increasing the fines for making various beers, kandza, kumuska and smakovka, making it that when a secret innkeeper is caught for the second time, the fine becomes a prison sentence.”