Latvians Seek More Independence : New Front Making Unprecedented Demands on Kremlin

Thousands of Soviet Latvians, angered that they have become a minority in their own republic, launched a mass movement here Sunday to press Moscow for a degree of independence unheard of in the Soviet Union.

At a large rally, during a church service and in a two-day congress of the newly formed Popular Front of Latvia, people here in the republic’s capital of Riga made a series of extraordinary demands on the Soviet leadership, including economic self-determination, the right to veto mandates from the Kremlin and an end to atheist education in the schools.

Popular front movements seeking greater democracy and defending local language and culture have arisen recently in all three Baltic republics--Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia--reflecting a revival of nationalist feelings.

The Estonian Popular Front held its founding congress the previous weekend, and a sister movement in Lithuania is scheduled to hold its inaugural congress this month.

Outgrowth of Reforms

With their emphasis on change and increased local responsibility, the new movements would appear to be an outgrowth of the kind of reforms espoused by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The Latvian Communist Party has acceded to some of the most pressing demands of activists here.

Sunday morning, thousands attended a moving service at the Lutheran Cathedral, the first in three decades at the medieval church, which the Soviets had turned into a concert hall. At the service, broadcast throughout the republic on television and radio, people sang an old independence hymn, “God Bless Latvia.”

Just before the conference began, 150,000 people met at the city’s stadium to support the popular front. For two days, people here carried portable radios to follow the congress proceedings.

The conference had the raucous feel of an American town meeting. The congress was frenzied, full of shouting matches on everything from procedural questions to the emotional issue of secession from the Soviet Union.

The front’s program includes an independent legal system and mass media, the elimination of privileges for the party elite, Latvian representation at such activities as the United Nations and the Olympic Games and a separate currency.

Many of the demands echoed those adopted by the Estonian Popular Front the previous weekend and the proposed platform of the Lithuanian popular front, called the Lithuanian Movement for Restructuring. But in Latvia, the issue of national identity is particularly sensitive because, unlike either Estonia or Lithuania, the indigenous population has become a minority.

Many speakers were especially adamant that the migration of Russians into the republic be halted and that Latvians no longer be subjugated to a Soviet culture. “And if discrimination against us is not eliminated, then we have to think about separating from the Soviet Union,” said one of the more radical speakers, musician Imants Kalnins.

‘The Leninist Ideal’

Janis Peters, leader of the Latvian writers union, explained that the front wants Latvia to be a part of the Soviet Union only insofar as it shares a common foreign policy and military. “That was the Leninist ideal,” he said, “and we will try to draw as close to that ideal as we can.”

Latvia, with a population of 2.2 million, has one of the highest standards of living in the Soviet Union. In Riga, people appear better dressed and the buildings in better repair than in Moscow, the showcase of the Russian Republic. Ever since Latvia became part of the Soviet Union in 1940, Russians have come here in search of jobs, especially in industry.

The most popular politician here is Anatoly Gorbunov. Latvians had hoped last week that he would be made the republic’s first secretary of the Communist Party, the most powerful position in Latvia.

Instead, the republic’s Central Committee voted, 106 to 13, to elect--by Latvian standards--a more conservative candidate, Janis Vagris. At the mass rally here Friday night, the crowd barely applauded Vagris, who is not a member of the Popular Front, while giving a long, standing ovation to Gorbunov, who is.

The party did make Gorbunov president of the republic’s legislature, an action some described as an attempt to satisfy everyone.