the number of non-Russians considering Russian their mother tongue increased by 78%. A highly developed infrastructure was developed in Latvia on the basis of the Russian language: a broad system of secondary and higher education, science and mass media. National consciousness During the whole Soviet period, the Russian (as did the Latvian) mass media of Latvia played the part of active bearers of the communist ideology, influencing the consciousness of the Russians of Latvia. For the whole Soviet period, there was no agreed-upon formula at the official level to express the national-cultural identity of this large group of Latvian residents. The ideology of the Communist Party rejected the tradition of the Latvian Republic which identified the Russians of Latvia as one of its national minorities. In the USSR there existed a form of national-territorial autonomy of nations, though not for all nations, which made their social representation in the state bodies unequal. As a result, their influence on the social consciousness was unequal as well. A nation could only be considered "fully-fledged" if it possessed a state system in the form of a union republic. Therefore, there was only one recognized nation in Latvia – Latvians. The Russians of Latvia, both those who had deep historical roots there and those who chose it as a place of permanent residence after World War II, having no territorial autonomy, were not considered as an individual cultural and national community in the Latvian Republic but rather as part of the larger Russian community of the Soviet Union. At the end of the 1980s, the first marked democratic changes in the USSR brought about a national awakening of peoples. New democratic tendencies gave equal chances to the national revival of both Latvians and Russians. Some Russians, both as individuals and organized groups, actively supported the Latvian national awakening, the "Atmoda". In July 1988, A. Maltsev was one of the 17 prominent figures of Latvian culture who signed an open letter to the Broadened Assembly of the Latvian Writers League with the initiative of establishing a democratic People's Front. The idea of establishing a Popular Front of Latvia was supported by Russian writers of the Republic such as , , and , the journalists , A. Kazakov, the translator and bibliographer , and many others. In 1989 L. Gladkov, V. Dozortsev, V. Zhdanov, V. Kononov and Kostenetskaya were elected to the Council of the Popular