Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as Lithuanian SSR (Lithuanian: Lietuvos tarybu socialistine respublika) It was one of the fifteen constituent republics of the former Soviet Union, from 1940 to 1991 (see Sung Revolution). After 1946, its territory and borders reflected those of today's Republic of Lithuania, with the exception of minor adjustments to the border with Belarus.

During World War II, the formerly independent Republic of Lithuania was occupied by the Red Army on June 16, 1940, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, and established as a republic. Soviet Union on July 21. Between 1941 and 1944, the German invasion of the Soviet Union caused its dissolution. However, with the withdrawal of the Germans in 1944-1945, Soviet hegemony was reestablished and continued for forty-five years. As a result, many Western countries continued to recognize Lithuania as an independent, de jure sovereign state subject to international law, represented by legations designated by the pre-1940 Baltic States, which operated in various locations throughout of the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service.

On May 18, 1989, the Lithuanian SSR declared itself a sovereign state, although it was still part of the USSR. On March 11, 1990, the Republic of Lithuania was restored as an independent state, the first Soviet republic to leave Moscow and lead other states to do so. Considered illegal by Soviet authorities, the country was recognized by Western powers immediately before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union itself recognized the independence of Lithuania on September 6, 1991.

History

During the First World War, between 1914 and 1918, Lithuania was occupied by Germany, declaring its independence again on February 16, 1918. Between 1918 and 1921 it fought a war against the newly proclaimed Republic of Poland, which had attempted annex the Lithuanian State. The war resulted in the loss of 20% of Lithuanian territory, including the capital Vilnius, so the capital was temporarily moved to Kaunas.

Justifying itself in the German-Soviet pacts, and after a referendum, in June 1940 the troops of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) occupied the country, and in August of that year Lithuania was annexed, becoming the Republic Lithuanian Soviet Socialist; But from 1941 to 1944, Nazi Germany expelled the Red Army, so a part of Lithuanian society perceived the Germans as their liberators from Bolshevik imperialism, many of its young people joining the SS to help. to the Nazis in the persecution and extermination of Lithuanian and Polish Jews, with some 100,000 Jews being murdered throughout Lithuania, 70,000 in Vilnius alone. However, it did not last long because, with the military victory of the Red Army, and later the rest of the Allied troops, over the Nazi army, Lithuania became part of the Soviet Union, after having agreed in the Treaty of Potsdam of 1945..

Faced with this, Lithuanian patriotic groups continued the war against the Soviet Union, through guerrillas who fought until 1956 when they were finally defeated. Western countries considered this annexation an illegal act (following the Stimson Doctrine), so they continued to maintain diplomatic relations with representatives of the Lithuanian government in exile, and did not recognize the Lithuanian SSR as part of the Soviet Union.

In 1988 the Lithuanian Movement for the Sąjūdis was formed, which triumphed in the 1989 elections in the Lithuanian Seima, while Lithuania still belonged to the Soviet Union. In 1990 Vytautas Landsbergis was elected president, proclaiming the independence of Lithuania on March 11, 1990, supported by the so-called Song Revolution. There was a harsh Soviet response with the military occupation of Vilnius and the death of 13 people in January 1991, which forced the suspension of the measure in May 1990. However, in 2000, the Lithuanian politician Audrius Butkevičius, one of The leaders of the Sąjūdis, the movement that led the mobilizations for the independence of Lithuania, recognized that it was not the Soviet forces that caused those deaths, but rather the Lithuanian independence movement itself, its own paramilitary forces, pro-independence forces and paid people, with the use of hunting rifles from a series of rooftops. After the failed August 1991 coup d'état in Moscow, the country's independence was internationally recognized.

Politics

The political system of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was a socialist republic under a single-party system, which was the Communist Party of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (a regional branch of the CPSU) and which had as its state ideology Marxism-Leninism.

Economy

Collectivization in the Lithuanian SSR took place between 1947 and 1952. The 1990 GDP per capita of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was $8,591, which was above the average for the rest of the Soviet Union of $6,871. This was half or less of the GDP per capita of adjacent countries. Norway ($18,470), Sweden ($17,680) and Finland ($16,868).

Lithuania represented 0.3% of the Soviet Union's territory and 1.3 percent of its population, but generated a significant amount of the Soviet Union's industrial and agricultural output: 22 percent of its apparatus of electric welding, 11.1 percent of its metal cutting lathes, 2.3 percent of its mineral fertilizers, 4.8 percent of its alternating current electric motors, 2.0 percent of its paper, 2.4 percent of your furniture, 5.2 percent of your socks, 3.5 percent of underwear and knitwear, 1.4 percent of leather footwear, 5.3 percent of household items household refrigerators, 6.5 percent of televisions, 3.7 percent of meat, 4.7 percent of butter, 1.8 percent of canned goods and 1.9 percent of sugar.

Lithuania was also a net donor to the USSR budget. It was estimated in 1995 that the occupation resulted in 80 billion LTL (over 23 billion euros) in losses, including losses of population, military and church properties and economic destruction. among other things. Lithuania suffered mainly until 1958 when more than half of the annual national budgets were sent to the budgets of the USSR, then this number decreased but still remained high at around 25% of the annual national budgets until 1973 (In total, Lithuania sent about a third of all money from its annual national budgets to the budgets of the USSR during the entire occupation period.)

Oblasts

Science

A planetoid, (2577) Litva, discovered in 1975 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.