In 1949, the Soviet authorities targeted 120,000 Latvian inhabitants, deemed disloyal, for imprisonment or deportation to Gulag labor camps. Many of those who managed to escape arrest joined the Forest Brothers' resistance movement.
The most devastating action occurred on March 25, 1949, with Operation Priboi, a mass deportation conducted across all three Baltic states. In Latvia, 43,000 rural residents, primarily "kulaks" (wealthier peasants), were forcibly deported to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. The operation had been approved in Moscow on January 29, 1949. Entire families were arrested, with nearly 30% of those deported being children under 16.
These deportations were part of the Soviet effort to eliminate resistance and suppress potential opposition in rural areas by dismantling the traditional Latvian farming community.