The newly-elected People's Parliament convened on 21 July to declare the creation of the Latvian SSR and request admission to the Soviet Union on the same day. All Soviet army personnel present in the country were allowed to vote. The election results themselves were fabricated the Soviet press service released them so early that they appeared in a London newspaper a full 24 hours before the polls had closed. Its office was closed, election leaflets confiscated and its leaders arrested. It was the only permitted participant in the election, after an attempt by other politicians to include the Democratic Bloc (an alliance of all banned Latvian parties, except the Social Democratic Workers' Party) on the ballot was prevented by the government. Soon after the occupation, the Communist Party of Latvia was legalised as the only legal party and presented the " Latvian Working People's Bloc" for the elections. Up until the election of the People's Parliament on 14-15 July 1940 there were no public statements about governmental plans to introduce a Soviet political order or to join the Soviet Union. Ulmanis' government resigned and was replaced by a left-wing government created under instructions from the USSR embassy. The Latvian army did not fire a shot and was quickly decimated by purges and included in the Red Army. The Ulmanis government decided that, in conditions of international isolation and the overwhelming Soviet force both on the borders and inside the country, it was better to avoid bloodshed and unwinnable war. These additional Soviet military forces far outnumbered the armies of each country. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov accused Latvia and the other Baltic states of forming a military conspiracy against the Soviet Union, and so Moscow presented ultimatums, demanding new concessions, which included the replacement of governments with new ones, "determined to fulfill the treaties of friendship sincerely" and allowing an unlimited number of troops to enter the three countries. On 16 June 1940, after the USSR had already invaded Lithuania, it issued an ultimatum to Latvia which was followed by the Soviet occupation of Latvia on June 17. The authoritarian government of Kārlis Ulmanis accepted the ultimatum, signing the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty on 5 October 1939. Latvia was next in line, as the USSR demanded the signing of a similar treaty. On September 25, Moscow demanded that Estonia sign a Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty that would allow the USSR to establish military bases and station troops on its soil. On 24 September 1939, the USSR entered the airspace of Estonia, flying numerous intelligence-gathering operations. Soviet instability and the dissolution of the Soviet Union provided the impetus for Latvia to regain independence. The territory changed hands during World War II with Nazi Germany occupying a large portion of Latvian territory from 1941 to 1944. In 1939 Latvia was forced to grant military bases on its soil to the Soviet Union, and in 1940 the Soviet Red Army moved into Latvia, which was effectively incorporated into the Soviet Union. The Soviet annexation of Latvia took place in August of 1939, according to the agreed terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact). The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic was in existence for 51 years, from August 5, 1940, to September 6, 1991. The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic ( Latvian SSR), also known as Soviet Latvia or simply Latvia, was a federated republic within the Soviet Union, and formally one of its 16 (later 15) constituent republics.
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