Petitions to the regime. (Rhetorical) strategies in communication with the Communist bureaucracy in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic 1953-89

ENAs part of fragmented Soviet publicity, petitions were tolerated by the state and became an established way for citizens to exert influence. The system of petitions, complaints and statements by the people addressed to various institutions of state and party can be considered a field of communication between the state and society. The politically and ideologically organized state regime felt a responsibility to conduct communication with the citizens in order to gain insights into their concerns and needs (control function) and to keep control of the “socialist democracy” (valve function). The investigation of the petitions will help track the boundaries of (dis)loyalty with the state regime due to the fact that the petitions demonstrate the extent to which an absolute claim to control pushed “the voice of the people” to (non)conformity and contributed to the regime’s destabilization. In fact, it became a false reality: for the Communist Party, citizens played an active, creative role in building the socialist ideal, while for the authors, such attempts to write about their needs were often a last cry for help. Keywords: East European History, LSSR History, petitions.