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EEducation policies are always directly dependent on ruling ideologies as state policy determines the respective education policies. Soviet ideology changed Latvian system of education after World War II when the second Soviet occupation started in Latvia. This ideology was reflected both in every school curriculum and in every course book. The aim of this paper is to describe the influence of Soviet ideology on the contents of the Latvian language course books in the period from the second half of 1940s up to 1953, when the ideological pressure on Latvian system of education reached its peak. The education policy of every country is based on certain ideological settings. After World War II the ruling ideology and its principles in Latvia were determined and implemented by the Communist Party; these principles were broadly applied to every area of life, and schools were no exception. The Latvian language school curriculums included statements and references to congresses of the Communist Party and its leaders; the course books included direct appraisal of the Soviet regime. The ideological pressure in the Latvian language curriculums and course books reached its highest level in the period of 1949-1953, when all study material and curricula mentioned the name of Joseph Stalin. After 1953 Soviet ideology certainly remained present both in course books and curricula, but the intensity of the ideological pressure was lower. Course books were selected for publication and use at schools not according to their quality and methodological value but only according to the ideological criterion. This explains the urgent necessity to publish new Latvian language course books for primary schools in early 1950s. As the first edition was prepared in a great hurry, the corrected and complemented edition included changes in those assignment texts, which previously insufficiently described the achievements of the Soviet regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]