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Socialist Party of Latvia

political party

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ733925 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Socialist Party of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Sociālistiskā partija, abbr. LSP; Russian: Социалистическая партия Латвии) is a Marxist-Leninist party in Latvia. It is positioned on the far-left on the political spectrum.

It was formed in 1994 as a successor party to the Communist Party of Latvia, which was banned in 1991. According to the "programme of the party", the LSP was founded as an organization upholding socialist ideas after the 1991 events that the party describes as a "counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist coup".

Overview

The current CEOs of the party are Fridijs Bokišs, Ingars Burlaks and Vladimirs Frolovs. Between 1999 and 2015, the position was held by Alfrēds Rubiks, once mayor of Riga and later, leader of the unionist movement and head of the Latvian Communist Party (CPSU platform). He was imprisoned for six years in 1991, on charges of participating in a coup d'état against the Latvian authorities in August 1991. He is not one of the party's members in the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) since he is not allowed to contest elections. However, his sons Artūrs Rubiks and Raimonds Rubiks are members of the Saeima representing the Socialist Party, elected on a joint list with Harmony.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Socialist Party of Latvia” as political party. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Socialist, Party and Latvia.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1991, 1999, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1994-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Socialist, Party and Latvia providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Socialist Party of Latvia”, the useful work is to connect “political party” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q733925. VIAF identifies the subject as 305082901. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1991, 1999 and 2015.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Socialist Party of Latvia primary sources, Socialist Party of Latvia archive and Socialist research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Socialist Party of Latvia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.