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The Iskolat was the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers, Soldiers, and the Landless in Latvia, established in Valmiera on July 29-30, 1917, O.S. (August 11- 12, 1917, N.S.), at the initiative of the Central Committee of the Latvian Social Democratic Party, then controlled by the Bolsheviks. Soviet historiographers considered the Iskolat to have been the government of a sovereign Soviet Latvia between November 1917 and February 1918, but the autonomy or independence of the so-called "Iskolat Republic" is considered fictitious by most Latvian historians. Iskolat fled to Moscow after German forces occupied Latvia in February 1918, but Soviet power was re-established from December 17, 1918 under Pēteris Stučka. De facto duration of Soviet rule was approximately five months in the capital, Riga, and until early 1920 in the eastern region of Latgale, when the Bolsheviks were driven from Latvia by Polish, Latvian, and German forces in the course of Latvian War of Independence.
