You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Latvian. (February 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Latvian Wikipedia article at [[:lv:17 latviešu komunistu vēstule]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|lv|17 latviešu komunistu vēstule}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Letter of 17 Latvian communists (Russian: Письмо 17 латышских коммунистов, Latvian: 17 latviešu komunistu vēstule) was an anonymous protest letter written in Russian from 1968 to 1971 by the former deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of Latvian SSR Eduards Berklavs and distributed with the permission of 16 of his supporters from the Communist Party of Latvia. The same year it was smuggled outside the Soviet Union and published in the Western media in 1972.^[1]

The letter accused the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of "Great Russian chauvinism" and the "forced assimilation" of Latvians and other non-Russian people of the Soviet Union. It describes the Soviet effort to settle as many Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians into Latvian SSR and other Baltic republics as possible and the resulting skewed ethnic composition and low Latvian language proficiency among certain professions such as industrial workers, engineers, technicians, directors of industrial enterprises, officials and doctors among other things.^[2]

• Translation of the letter into English

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