During the assault on the television center in Vilnius using tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, 14 civilians were killed and approximately 150 people were injured
On the night of January 13, 1991, bloody clashes inspired by the Kremlin authorities took place in the capital of the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius.. Having broken the resistance of a small, practically unarmed guard, the special unit “Alpha” of the KGB of the USSR seized the building of the Vilnius Radio and Television. And the fighters of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division, already dishonored during the Russian-Ukrainian war, together with the Alfovites, took control of the Press House, the television broadcast center and the premises of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Republic.
The live broadcast on national television was interrupted. The announcers, cameramen and technical workers were roughly taken out of the studios and control rooms by armed military personnel, and the television cameras were turned off.. During the assault using tanks and infantry fighting vehicles in the city, 14 civilians were killed and approximately 150 people were injured; One Alpha officer was also killed.
The Kremlin's attempt to prevent Lithuania's secession from the USSR by force accelerated the collapse of the Soviet state
The degree of tension between Moscow and Vilnius rose to its maximum in the first days of 1991. The speech of the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR Vytautas Landsbergis on January 7 mobilized supporters of independence throughout the republic. Tens of thousands of people came to the defense of democracy and freedom, heading to the capital, where tragic events were already unfolding. People built a “living wall” near the parliament building (which was called the “restorative” Diet in memory of the parliament of the republic before World War II) to protect the representatives of the supreme power of the republic.
In response, Soviet troops during January 11-12, 1991 captured strategic objects both in Vilnius and in other cities – Kaunas, Panevezys, Alytus, Klaipeda. After this, tragic events unfolded in the capital.
After many years of confrontation with the national democratic movement “Sąjūdis” (a similar movement was in force in Ukraine – Rukh for Perestroika), the Moscow government attempted to suppress the opposition in Lithuania and prevent the final secession of the Baltic republic from the USSR. The attempt was unsuccessful: it only accelerated the general collapse of the Soviet state.
The authorities retreated and gradually withdrew military contingents from the republic during 1991. The Kremlin leadership pretended that it had nothing to do with the events in Vilnius. The United States, the Scandinavian countries and the neighboring Baltic republics of the USSR protested against military intervention in the situation.
It was Lithuania that became the locomotive of centrifugal processes and the first republic to announce its secession from the Soviet Union. After the new Secretary General of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed at the April plenum (1985) of the CPSU Central Committee the course of perestroika in Lithuania and almost simultaneously in Latvia and Estonia, democratization processes began. Residents of the Baltic republics, many of whom remembered the times of independence before the Second World War, literally threw themselves into a whirlpool of confrontation with the communist System.
By 1988, the unlimited power of the Kremlin authorities began to literally crumble like dominoes.. In August, a grandiose anti-Soviet and anti-communist rally in Vilnius attracted about 250 thousand people. In November of this year, the Supreme Council of the Republic adopted an addition to the Constitution granting Lithuanian language status as a state language; At the same time, the supremacy of republican laws over all-Union laws was consolidated.
The culmination of these processes was the Baltic Way action.. More than two million Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians carried out an action of non-violent resistance on August 23, 1989, connecting the capitals of the still Soviet republics – Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn – with a single “human chain” stretching almost 700 kilometers.
Bargaining coin of cannibalistic regimes
The “Baltic Way” became a protest against the occupation of the independent Baltic states in 1940, the inevitability of which was recorded in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Two misanthropic regimes – Nazi and communist – distributed (according to the Secret Protocol to the Pact) spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.
Interestingly, according to this document, Lithuania was still in the sphere of influence of Nazi Germany. However, after the defeat of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on September 28, 1939, the occupying allies made changes to the secret Protocol and “exchanged” territories: Lithuania went to the USSR, and central Poland with Warsaw went to Germany.
Thus, the fate of states and nations became the bargaining chip of cannibalistic regimes. By the way, the communist authorities in the USSR stubbornly did not even recognize the very fact of the existence of the Secret Protocols to the Pact, calling them a fake. And only in December 1989, at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, an official resolution was adopted recognizing the existence of the Protocols and even condemning the Pact of two dictators – Stalin and Hitler.
Energy blockade as a way to suppress independence
On December 7, 1989, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR, still controlled by the Communist Party of Lithuania, completely unexpectedly for the Kremlin, abolished Article 6 of the Constitution on the leading role of the CPSU on the territory of the republic. Thus, Pandora's box was opened, and multi-party system became a reality.
On this wave, on February 24, 1990, elections to the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR took place. Candidates for deputies supported by the anti-communist movement “Sąjūdis” took the absolute majority of seats in the meeting hall – 91 out of 135. Supporters of unity with the Kremlin and promoters of the CPSU relied mainly on military families, part of the Russian-speaking population and the Polish ethnic minority of Lithuania. However, they suffered a crushing defeat in the elections.. People's Deputy of the USSR and at the same time the head of the Sąjūdis council, Vytautas Landsbergis, a famous musicologist professor and publicist, was elected head of the republic's parliament.
The next step of the parliament during its first meeting was the adoption of the Act of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania, which marked the legal continuity of the Republic of Lithuania during the interwar period (1918-1940). From that time on, the Constitution of 1938 was in force on the territory of Lithuania, and the Constitution of the USSR of 1977 was automatically terminated. The first secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Algirdas Brazauskas, together with the absolute majority of Lithuanian communists, actually supported the movement towards independence. He left the ranks of the all-Union Communist Party, creating an independent Communist Party, which in December 1990 transformed into the Democratic Party of Labor of Lithuania. In terms of ideological foundations, the party was close to Social Democrats like the Swedish ones.
All these steps of the new republican government came as a complete surprise to Moscow.. But already on March 15, 1990, at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, the communist majority adopted a resolution declaring the decisions of the Lithuanian Parliament illegal. Within two days, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR had to cancel its act on restoring independence.
However, the majority of Lithuanian parliamentarians came into conflict with the center. The Kremlin, feeling that the precedent would be continued and could accelerate the “parade of sovereignties” in the USSR, decided to crush the tiny republic economically, announcing in April 1990 its energy blockade. The central government stopped supplies of gas and oil, industrial enterprises were on the verge of bankruptcy due to a lack of materials, and the impoverishment of the majority of the population increased (this trend had by that time spread to all republics of the Soviet state).
The new government of Lithuania, headed by Kazimira Prunskienė, finds itself in a very difficult situation.. Pro-Soviet rallies and even strikes with political slogans took place at enterprises, blaming Lithuanian “nationalists” for all the troubles.. The movement for the independence of Lithuania was counteracted by the Unity movement created by the CPSU and the KGB, which was especially active in Vilnius and areas where the Polish minority was densely populated (the south-eastern regions of the country).
Soviet security forces (KGB and Ministry of Internal Affairs) were the instigators of these processes and, with their destructive actions, kept the population of the republic in suspense. The Lithuanian government began forming parallel security forces to protect the gains of the revolution. Due to the difficult political and economic situation, Parliament was forced on June 20, 1990 to postpone the date of entry into force of the “Act of Restoration of Independence”. In fact, parallel authorities continued to operate on the territory of Lithuania – Lithuanian and all-Union…
However, already on February 9, 1991, a referendum on independence from the USSR was held in Lithuania. 90.24% of citizens (just over two million people) voted “for”, 6.54% (147 thousand) voted “against”; invalid votes – almost 79 thousand. And it was the referendum that became the point of no return of the Lithuanian nation under the Soviet yoke.
On August 26, 1991, Ukraine and Poland simultaneously recognized the independence of Lithuania, and on September 6, the Soviet Union took this step, which suffered a final collapse less than four months later, on December 25, 1991.