Ethnic Groups Ussr

Ending nearly five decades of silence, the Soviet Union acknowledged Tuesday that thousands of people had been unjustly deported from Latvia, one of three Baltic nations it occupied during World War II, and pledged that a monument, the country's first to the victims of the late dictator Josef Stalin, will be built there to honor them.

New ethnic disturbances broke out in Baku, capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, according to reports reaching Moscow. But an employee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party newspaper Bakinsky Rabochy, in a telephone call from Baku, could not immediately confirm reports from Moscow-based human rights monitors of killings as Azerbaijanis armed with knives hunted Armenians. A wave of violence swept Azerbaijan in February, when rioters in Sumgait north of Baku killed at least 32 Armenians.

Soviet troops patrolled the streets of Stepanakert, the capital of the troubled province of Nagorno-Karabakh, a local party official said Monday. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in a telephone interview that troops arrived Monday after citizens resumed strikes that began in March following a Kremlin refusal to incorporate the province of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is in the republic of Azerbaijan, into neighboring Armenia.

The recent series of extraordinary mass demonstrations in Soviet Armenia has delivered a stiff challenge to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev: How can he reshape Soviet society without letting historic ethnic grievances spin out of control?

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda accused Western radio stations on Monday of inciting recent ethnic unrest in and around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In an article under the heading "Instigators," Pravda attacked the British Broadcasting Corp., the Voice of America, U.S.-sponsored Radio Liberty and West Germany's Deutsche Welle over their coverage of events in Azerbaijan and Armenia. "Instigation.