Proces sowietyzacji Litwy w drugiej połowie 1940 r.: aspekty wybrane

ENAlready in the middle of June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania by resorting to political blackmail and military pressure. Since in accordance with the tactic applied by Soviet diplomacy the subjugation of occupied states was disguised by assorted "people’s-democratic revolutions" the same method was employed in the case of Lithuania. Under the cover of Soviet troops and special services stationing in Lithuania, Vytauttas Merkys, the Prime Minister of independent Lithuania, announced the composition of a so-called people's government dictated by Vladimir Dekanozov (Deputy People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs) and Nikolai Pozdniakov, the Soviet legate in Kaunas; the new government was to pave the path towards an open Sovietisation of all domains of social life in Lithuania. In accordance with plans devised in Moscow the puppet government headed by Justas Paleckis disoriented the local political circles, and took first anti-democratic steps towards toppling the statehood of independent Lithuania. Upon the basis of archival material and pertinent literature the author of the presented article disclosed the mechanisms of personnel changes conducted in the central organs of-the administration and management. Further reflections concern the tactic used by Moscow for exploiting certain local interests within the Communist Party of Lithuania (bolshevik) in order to assume the part of an intermediary and to reinforce the position of Russian plenipotentiaries in Kaunas. The presented material provides a basis for the conclusion that the Soviet authorities did not eschew benefiting from the national aspect of the personnel policy of the CPL(b) or, more widely, in relation to Lithuanian society in general.A characteristic example of such an approach was the construction of the national composition of lists of candidates to the co-called people’s parliament, when the national configuration of the lists was clearly controlled from the viewpoint of the percentage composition of the electors according to official national statistics. In case of any deviations, the lists were corrected. At that time, the principals from Moscow were interested in maintaining the thesis that it was the Lithuanian nation (not the people or the minorities) which voluntarily and independently decided to change the political system and, as a consequence, to join the Soviet Union. Purges within the central and local state apparatus became accelerated after the passage of the resolutions of the so-called people’s parliament, which opened up a veritable "Pandora’s box" in the Sovietisation of Lithuania. The most intense purges took place in November and December 1940. Up to the end of that year, central offices of the state administration lost more than 1 500 highly skilled and experienced functionaries, replaced by an extremely inept and frequently untrained staff recruited from new members of the CPL(b) and the so-called specialist cadre from the Soviet Union. The absence of professional criteria for the personnel exchange (apart from obviously ideological ones) caused considerable social dissatisfaction and a quiet albeit externalised cadre struggle conducted within the CPL(b) for influence among the municipal committee of Kaunas, people’s commissariats and town and county committees. Moscow closely followed the situation in Lithuania, and cleverly profited from the existing animosities and controversies in order to render Sovietisation even deeper.