From resistance movement to civil war: why violence escalated in Lithuania but not in Moldova during Soviet annexation (1944-1952)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Antrasis pasaulinis karas, 1939-1945 (World War II); Partizanų pasipriešinimas Lietuvoje; Partizanų pasipriešinimas Moldovoje; Pasipriešinimo judėjimas; Sovietinė Lietuva; Sovietinė Moldova; Sovietų Sąjungos vakarinis pakraštys; Sovietų aneksija; Lithuanian partisans; Post-World War II resistance movement on Moldova; Resistance movement; Resistance movements; Soviet Lithuania; Soviet Moldova; Soviet annexation; Western borderlands of the Soviet Union; World War II.

ENThis article compares resistance movements along the western borderlands of the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1952. Despite similar levels of state repression and local grievances, Moldova’s opposition movement did not escalate to the level of civil war, whereas civil wars emerged across the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. Through theory development and testing, the article compares Lithuania and Moldova, identifying the role of previous regime behaviour, the speed of Soviet takeover, and the availability of safe havens within Moldova and Lithuania as the key causal factors explaining the difference. [From the publication]

• On political terror during the soviet expansion into Lithuania, 1918–1919 / Česlovas Laurinavičius. Journal of Baltic studies. 2015, vol. 46, no. 1, p. 65-76.
• War, revolution, and nation-making in Lithuania, 1914-1923 / Tomas Balkelis. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2018. vi, 186 p.