The Kremlin operation in Lithuania is arrogant: the Lithuanians did not understand their role in this performance

Exactly 80 years ago, Lithuania suffered one of the greatest tragedies in its country’s history: the country that attempted to maintain neutrality at the start of World War II received an ultimatum from Moscow on the night of June 14, and the following morning the Soviet army crossed the Lithuanian border and began the occupation. days.

What and why happened at decisive moments in June 1940, when, in the face of aggression, Lithuania simply froze and did not formally resist military aggression? Could it really have been different? What does this date really mean in the current context and how will future generations react to historical events?

The fact of non-resistance does not erase aggression.

The interlocutors who discussed this at Delphi 11 first recognized one thing: no matter how the last meeting of the Lithuanian government was evaluated and the decisions made on it on June 15, 1940, the essence does not change: Lithuania, like other Baltic countries , suffered aggression.

“We were in the midst of two totalitarian regimes. The European security system after World War I was not sustainable, stable, had no guarantees of collective security, there was no leader like the United States to guarantee commitments, there was no NATO, and the small nations became objects of geopolitical exchange. After the agreement between the two forces laid the foundations for the abolition of our independence, “member of the Seimas Laurynas Kasčiūnas answered the question of why Lithuania was occupied in the 1940s no resistance and how it should be evaluated today.

President of the Constitutional Court Prof. Dainius Žalimas, who has written and defended his dissertation
„Restoring the independence of the Republic of Lithuania in 1990 March 11 international bases and legal implications” was even more direct.

“What has been done against the Baltic States is the demolition of modern civilization and the legal bases. From the legal point of view, there was aggression against Lithuania, it did not matter if Lithuania opposed it or not,” he said. According to him, history has put everything in place from a legal point of view: the Nuremberg court, citing Austria’s view that the victim’s consent to the assault means nothing, refutes the arguments in Russia that no shots were fired at the Baltic States.

“From the point of view of international law, the consent obtained by force is not legal, null, does not change the fact of the aggression,” said D. Žalimas. Furthermore, even the very argument that no shot was fired is a myth: on the day of the occupation, the first victim of the occupation fell: the head of the border police Uta Guard Aleksandras Barauskas, who was killed by the Soviet invaders. Even more blood was spilled in the early days of the occupation in Latvia, where a group of Latvian border guards were shot, and in the Estonian capital Tallinn, soldiers from the Communications Battalion resisted the Soviet occupiers for several hours.

Furthermore, according to the show’s interlocutors, it is more important not to emphasize that Lithuania and other Baltic countries at least formally encountered the occupation army without war: in Lithuania, Red Army soldiers were ordered to be received amicably, but not they will forget the essence.

“It is the totalitarian regimes and their leaders that are responsible, not some lingering ideas in the air. June 15 was an aggression against the Baltic countries.

By the way, it occurred to him, it surprised even the Nazis, who tended to agree with many. How do you do this? Unlike Poland or Finland, here the Soviets showed ingenuity, staged a one-sided performance in which people were forced to play various roles and did not know how it would end. This is a special, bold and secret operation of state destruction, “said historian Doc. Dr. Nerijus Šepetys.

No strange clues

It is true that the three interlocutors agreed that in recent years there has been an increase in initiatives in Russia not only to deny aggression, the occupation of the Baltic States, but also to justify the foundations of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which Russia has already want to ban.

“Hostile propaganda is directed at historical memory, because it is related to identity, the history of the state, legitimacy. Russia’s problem is the dilemma of insecurity, when the state does not know where its borders begin and end. When You are in that state, you say you have more than you have, “warned L. Kasčiūnas, recalling that an amendment is currently being prepared in Russia to punish the crimes of Nazism and Communism, for the removal of monuments outside of Russia.

This is not a new language, because in 2005 Vladimir Putin was furious when an Estonian journalist asked him at the Russia-EU summit why the Kremlin could not apologize for the occupation of the Baltic states.

Putin put on a real show: At first he stated that everything was written in the 1989 Congress of People’s Deputies, which condemned the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided the Baltic states in Berlin and Moscow, and then assured that it was It was just a personal pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, which supposedly affected small countries, and even later, already confusing the dates, Putin denied the fact of the occupation of the Baltic states.

By the way, in the same press conference, V. Putin seemed to mention, among other things, the territorial claims to Ukraine and Lithuania: he mentioned that Russia, like Klaipeda, is not going to “recover” Crimea. This was in 2005, 9 years before the occupation of Crimea. So, even now, the speeches and actions of the Putin and Kremlin regimes are important when such indications are made.

“On the one hand, in legal terms, I do not see any particular threat from the point of view of international law: the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact are null and void, the aggression against the Baltic States, no one but Russia questions.” .

From Putin’s observations, it can be concluded that he drank not only beer but also stronger drinks. From the point of view of international law, unilateral steps will not change the legal reality, but there is another reality: what these current declarations and initiatives reflect, when for about 30 years it is remembered that Russia, the USSR continues to question the dependence on Russia of the annexed territories. You will have to defend your historical truth that the pact was good.

It reminds me of 2017, when I attended an event in Baku where we questioned the ruling of the Russian Constitutional Court in Crimea, it was more or less the same: a lot has changed on the borders of Russia in the last 120 years, so Russia cannot recover what once belonged? Let us have no illusions, this also applies to us. In that mindset, the Baltic states are not real, legitimate states. Of course, this is a threat. Is it fun to have a neighbor who doubts your legitimacy? ”, Considered the President of the Constitutional Court.

Such a doubt that Lithuania, like other Baltic countries, was just a misunderstanding, the temporary structures and lost territories in interwar Lithuania were not fully understood. And although the country had been preparing for possible aggression by opponents for two decades, in the first place, the Polish, German, Soviet threat and real intentions were understood too late. There are now studies examining the consequences of the Soviet era on society, which was simply not the case in the 1940s.

“In 2016, RESC conducted a study that showed that the main phenomenon that makes the Lithuanian state frustrated and gravitating eastward is Soviet nostalgia; that part of Soviet nostalgia justifies Putin’s actions in Ukraine, frustrated democracy. in Lithuania, “emphasized L. Kasčiūnas.

Fear, shame, or tragedy?

And then there were many frustrated from the government of A. Smetona, in addition, Lithuania was isolated and, according to L. Kasčiūnas, chose a defective neutrality policy, although without it the security architecture in Europe at that time was not sustainable: the attack by Poland did not help Britain and France. .

However, according to N. Šepetis, the first days of the occupation showed that there was no shortage of passive resistance in Lithuania: many officials did not follow the instructions of the puppet government, tried to save themselves, destroyed documents and transmitted information.

On the other hand, according to N. Šepetis, there is another part of Lithuania, which perceives the events of the 1940s, especially in June, not as a tragedy, but only as a disgrace due to the resistance itself, much less a symbolic fact. According to the historian, two things worked in the last meeting: Antanas Smetona, no matter how he considered him, president or authoritarian leader, was weak, even members of the opposition were admitted to the meeting, and the meeting itself was democratic: the simple fact that the Kremlin propaganda hitherto called the dictator, offered to oppose it, but this was not accepted: eloquent.

“No one imagined what happened in Lithuania or other countries. It was thought that there would be one option or another, as in Finland: the government would leave and the remnants of an independent state would remain,” N. Šepetys recalled the ambitions of the participants, noting that in the end no decisions were even made about the government’s deportation or other action plan. Smetona managed to escape the fate of the Estonian and Latvian leaders, who were exploited, then arrested and died in exile in the USSR. A. Smetona withdrew from the country. Thus another pro-Kremlin story was established that Smetona fled the country after crossing the stream.

However, the real shame at the time, greater than the adoption of the ultimatum of June 15, according to D. Žalimas, was the decision of the Lithuanian government to extradite two of its own peoples: the Interior Minister, Kazys Skučas, and the head of the Department of State Security, Augustinas Povilaitis: they were accused by the Kremlin of alleged kidnapping. under the pretext of presenting an ultimatum, to introduce, among other requirements, additional units of an unlimited contingent to Lithuania.

“This decision showed a certain degradation of the Lithuanian political elite, we must learn from it so that there are no such shameful decisions, they are more shameful than the decision not to resist,” said D. Žalimas. And if we talk about reconciliation with the ultimatum, then, according to the interlocutor, it is worth talking first about the German ultimatum of March 1939 to deliver Klaipeda to Lithuania. With this ultimatum, Lithuania, as well as another, accepted Poland’s demand to establish diplomatic relations without major reservations.

“In my opinion, you never have to agree with the ultimatums of the aggressors: you don’t have to agree with the 1939. gifting Klaipėda, when one after another accepts ultimatums, is the third not so terrible,” he recalled, adding that today it is not in vain that those who bought the shame of the occupation are remembered: the participants in the 1941 uprising, the postwar supporters. But the very fact that there are few members of the interwar elite in the ranks of partisans, from officer lieutenants to lieutenant-only commanders, shows that a stronger attitude from state securities officials and politicians is needed.

Do you need to learn, what and how?

The three interlocutors, when asked what to do with the date of the occupation, how it will be remembered in future generations, either with traditional Lithuanian sadness or with angry reactions to Russian provocations, responded differently. According to D. Žalimas, the most important thing is to learn painful history lessons.

“And we need to have a strong civil society, let’s not forget what the Kremlin was repressing, what could be called civil society,” said the CC president. According to L. Kasčiūnas, it is now important to emphasize not only the historical lessons, to remember those who ultimately died for the freedom of Lithuania, but also to strengthen their role in NATO: Lithuania did not have that instrument at that time or generally at all times. of its history. At that time, N. Brush’s recipe is much simpler, but at the same time requires more independent effort.

“It just came to our attention then. What is it like in other countries? There are stories of people: these are the best examples of situations and solutions. These are things that we can understand what it means for a person when a foreign power arrives and Try to protect the family: You can make stupid and shameful decisions, and totalitarian regimes have managed to take advantage of the cowardice of the middle class, so that little story at school is very useful when you can understand what a person and a person mean. powerful system, “said the historian.