#Lithuanian Resistance to Soviet Occupation 1944-1952 by TTG

This is a research paper I wrote in July 1981 while going through the Special Forces Officer Course. I offer it as an example of a resistance movement or insurgency with which many SST readers may not be familiar (except for my occasional rantings). The main point to grasp is the insane lengths to which a people will go to free themselves from an oppressive regime and obtain their freedom. This will to freedom cannot be understood by a cost-benefit analysis. It can be deeply emotional and amazingly strong. Does this offer any lessons for the Arab Spring? The Palestinians? How about Iraq and Afghanistan? Is this what enabled the Confederate soldiers to fight on in the face of incredible hardship and terrible odds?

Note: I retyped this without editing. It’s fairly obvious that I was a true believer in the cause of my forefathers. I still am. I was also pathetically reliant on the passive voice. Remember I was just trying to get an assignment done, not write the great American research paper. 

 

LITHUANIAN RESISTANCE TO SOVIET OCCUPATION  1944-1952

PART I.  LITHUANIA PRIOR TO 1944

The Lithuanians have an ancient and rich history as an independent nation. King Mindaugas united the separate Lithuanian tribes on the Baltic coast between the Vistula and Daugava rivers in the early 13th century. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Grand Principality of Lithuania extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In 1399 Vytautas the Great checked the Tartar invasion of the West for all time. In 1410 he stopped the German eastward expansion at the battle of Grunwald where the Teutonic Knights were nearly destroyed.

Lithuania’s power began to diminish steadily in the 16th century culminating in her subjugation by Czarist Russia in 1792. Nationalism remained strong in occupied Lithuania manifesting itself in uprisings against the Czarist regime in 1794, 1812, 1883, 1864 and 1904-1905.

In the closing years of WW I, Lithuania began its rise to independence. In February 1918, while still under German occupation, the Lithuanian Council declared the restoration of the independent state of Lithuania. A provisional government was formed in November of that year.

For the next two years, Lithuania resisted repeated attempts by her neighbors to conquer the newly independent nation. Bolshevik forces invaded Lithuania in 1919 on the heels of the retreating Germans. The Lithuanian Army, aided by a partisan movement, expelled the Russians by the end of August. A renewed German attempt to annex Lithuania was defeated in November 1919. A second Russian invasion and an attack by Poland were also checked in 1920.

Lithuania reestablished her hard won independence largely through her own efforts. Western support was nonexistent. Lithuania became a member of the League of Nations on September 21, 1921. The next 18 years were characterized by remarkable economic and cultural growth. Agricultural production more than doubled. Education flourished with the establishment of two universities, five other colleges and a military academy. the national budget was always balanced.

Lithuania’s growth was abruptly halted on June 15, 1940 when the Soviet Army invaded Lithuania. this occupation, though short, was brutal. The political and economic life of the nation was destroyed. Many political and intellectual leaders were arrested. Tortures and executions were a common occurrence as well as mass deportations. Over 65,000 Lithuanians were sent to Siberia from June 1940 to June 1941.

On June 23, 1941, the day after the German invasion of Russia began, a general spontaneous revolt against the Soviets was triggered by a Kaunas radio broadcast proclaiming the revolt against thew Soviets, the restoration of Lithuanian independence, and the formation of a provisional government. Lithuanian partisans had taken over the radio station as well as the police stations and several arsenals in the city of Kaunas. Within two days Lithuanian partisans controlled the entire country. An estimated 125,000 men took part in the insurrection with over 12,000 casualties. The revolt was organized by an underground representing all political parties and patriotic movements. The underground has representatives in Berlin who knew of the impending German invasion and planned the revolt accordingly.

On June 25, 1941 the German Army entered Kaunas and was greeted by a free Lithuania. An independent Lithuania, however, did not fit into Nazi plans. The Germans first attempted to pressure the new government into submission. When this failed, they tried to install a Lithuanian Nazi government which also failed. The Lithuanian leaders were arrested and deported. German officials were installed in the government because of Lithuanian refusal to participate in a puppet regime.

Lithuanian resistance to German occupation became widespread and well organized. German attempts to mobilize Lithuanian men into the army and construction battalions failed miserably due to the underground press’s call for general boycotts of these mobilizations. In the Spring of 1944, the Nazis called for the formation of a Lithuanian Home Guard. The underground leadership responded favorably due to the Russian advances. 30,000 volunteers responded to this underground backed mobilization. 14 battalions under Lithuanian leadership were organized and armed by the Germans. When the Home Guard refused to become part of the SS, the Nazis arrested many officers and attempted to disband the units. Most of the Home Guard retreated to the forests with their arms and equipment.

In July 1944 the Red Army crossed the Lithuanian frontier and by October of that year all of Lithuania was, once again, occupied by Russian armies.

 

PART II. ORGANIZATION OF THE RESISTANCE

By October 1944 the Lithuanian people were well prepared to wage an active resistance to Soviet domination. The accomplishments and grandeur of ancient Lithuania and her growth as an independent nation after WW I were sources of tremendous national pride. The cruelty of the Czarist occupation and Lithuanian resistance to it were never forgotten. The suffering endured under the Russians in 1940 and 1941 was much worse than under the Nazis. Lithuania knew that the second occupation would be no better. Lithuania’s defeat of the Red Army after WW I and the rebellion of 1941 exerted a lasting and intoxicating effect on all Lithuanians. It proved that then Red Regime was not invincible. 

By the end of 1943, all elements of the Lithuanian resistance were united under the Supreme committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. The leadership consisted of most of the remaining political and intellectual leaders of Lithuania. It was their belief that the second Soviet occupation would be a temporary condition. Surely the Western powers, who were so enraged by the excesses of Nazi Germany, would not allow a regime as brutal as the Soviet Union to enslave Eastern Europe. The resistance leadership assumed that the Western powers would soon rally against the Red menace and come to the aid of Eastern Europe and Lithuania.

This misreading of the world situation proved to be a serious mistake for the Lithuanian resistance. Thinking of the need for political and intellectual leadership in a future independent Lithuania and of the terrible toll that past resistance had taken on Lithuanian leadership, most of the resistance leadership temporarily withdrew to the West, planning to return when the Western armies marched on the Kremlin. This exodus of resistance leadership caused the collapse of the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. Centralized leadership was not established again until January 1947.

In 1944 the leadership of Lithuanian resistance fell primarily to the younger officers and noncommissioned officers of the former Lithuanian Army. These officers were experienced in military matters, including guerrilla warfare, but were largely ignorant of the political aspects of resistance. Thus the resistance movement was characterized by overt military actions which extracted a heavy toll from the Lithuanian people.

The partisans were never short of volunteers. This was due to the widespread nationalism of the Lithuanian people. However, the most important factor in the abundance of partisan volunteers was the repression and terror of the Red regime. Many joined the partisans to escape the terror they experienced in 1940 and 1941. Others joined because of renewed arrests, tortures and executions after 1944 or to avoid conscription into the Red Army. In 1947 mass deportations and the beginning of collectivization swelled the ranks of the partisans. Losses suffered in the first two years of fighting necessitated the training of new leaders. Two leadership courses were held in 1947 and 1948, each producing some 70 trained partisan leaders.

Unlike most resistance movements, the Lithuanians sustained themselves without support and supplies from abroad. Vast quantities of arms, ammunition and other equipment were obtained when the Home Guard retreated to the forests in 1944. Additionally, much equipment was acquired from retreating German and advancing Red Army units. The partisans sustained themselves in the later years of the resistance through combat with the NKVD units. Initially food was easily obtained from the many small farms throughout the country. When collectivization became widespread, raids on government warehouses became the primary food source.

Although the resistance was not unified at first, the individual partisan bands were well organized and disciplined. The Lithuanian Army uniform was worn by all partisans. The Army rank structure and award system were used. As early as 1945, there was a trend toward unification of all partisan units. By the summer of that year, most resistance units in northern Lithuania merged within the Lithuanian Freedom Army (LFA) and operated under a joint command. Shortly after that, guerrilla units in southern Lithuania merged into a single district. After great efforts, all resistance elements were united under the LFA in January 1947. A constitution and strict security and discipline codes were established. The country was divided into 9 districts, each with 4 or 5 regimental or battalion sized partisan detachments. The number of partisans at any one time varied between 25,000 and 40,000.

 

PART III. OPERATIONS OF THE RESISTANCE

The LFA conducted aggressive guerrilla warfare from 1944 to 1952. The immediate aim of the resistance was not to expel the Red Army from Lithuania. The LFA command realized that Western help would be needed for the final liberation. The LFA fought to prevent the sovietization of Lithuania by directing its operations against the administrative apparatus, the Moscow manipulated Lithuanian Communist Party and the NKVD secret police and border guard units.

The fiercest and most brutal engagements took lace against the NKVD troops. The aim of the LFA was to weaken the fighting capacity of the security forces and to demoralize the NKVD soldiers in every way possible. Losses suffered by the NKVD between 1945 and 1949 have been estimated at 80,000 killed. The majority of these losses occurred in NKVD attacks against LFA units. However, the LFA lost few opportunities to attack NKVD troops. A number of large scale raids on NKVD garrisons in towns were carried out. In larger cities, small partisan groups raided NKVD headquarters and ambushed security patrols. Some NKVD units became so demoralized that they would take no offensive action for several months.

Other less costly targets of the LFA were communist officials and local communist activists. From 1945 to 1952 the LFA executed over 4,000 Russian and Lithuanian communist activists. Even officials under constant NKVD protection were not immune to liquidation. Those who were especially efficient in carrying out Soviet orders or were known for their ruthlessness were priority targets of the resistance. The execution of these hardliners dampened the enthusiasm of other communists.

Moscow attempted to legitimize the subjugation of Lithuania through elections in which only communists were on the ballot. The LFA did its utmost to sabotage these elections by destroying bridges and cutting telephone lines to isolate the communists from their headquarters and prevent them from visiting outlying farms with their ballot boxes. The LFA also attacked NKVD garrisons to prevent their participation in the vote gathering. The efforts of the LFA were effective. Despite all communist threats and coercion, seldom more than a quarter of the electorate voted in any election from 1946 to 1948.

Another major target of the LFA was the collectivization of Lithuanian agriculture. Communist activists and Russian colonists attempting to establish collectives were executed or intimidated into leaving the country. Soviet efforts to tax the independent farmers out of existence were hampered by the killing of tax collectors, the destruction of tax records and frequent raids on government warehouses. One effective LFA tactic was the mining of farms of deported Lithuanians to prevent Soviet use of these lands.

In 1944 the Kremlin embarked on a ruthless campaign to break the back of Lithuanian resistance. Stalin placed Mikhail A. Suslov, a dedicated and efficient wartime partisan leader, in charge of the pacification of Lithuania. Suslov had only limited success in setting up the rudiments of a communist government, but had no success in bringing the partisans under control. In September 1944 the Kremlin dispatched General Sergei N. Kruglov to liquidate the Lithuanian armed resistance. Kruglov, the deputy commander of the NKVD under Beria, had already proved himself a cruel and merciless executioner in mopping up operations in areas recaptured by the Red Army. In Kruglov’s 1945 to 1949 offensive, he used an estimated 100,000 security troops sometimes supported by Red Army and Air Force units to combat the LFA. Between 30,000 and 50,000 partisans died during this period. Attempts to infiltrate the resistance were largely ineffective due to LFA security measures. Yearly offers of amnesty were issued to the partisans. The LFA leadership did not discourage those who wanted to take advantage of the amnesty since the supply of willing volunteers for partisan duty always exceeded the need. In addition to the usual Soviet mass arrests, tortures and executions, Kruglov’s men carried out eight mass deportations of possible partisan sympathizers and supporters between 1945 and 1950. Approximately 320,000 people were deported from Lithuania during those years.

In 1952 the LFA high command made the decision to demobilize the armed resistance and continue the fight for freedom by other methods. Two factors were crucial to the decision to end armed resistance. First, the resistance realized they misinterpreted international developments and the intentions of the West. They wrongly counted on support from Great Britain and the United States. It was impossible for an armed struggle to continue without outside support. Second, the Kremlin’s efforts to liquidate the resistance had taken its toll on the LFA. The resistance suffered well over 30,000 casualties including 90 percent of the LFA cadres. The once plentiful supply of arms and equipment was becoming depleted. Most importantly, the forced collectivization of farms removed most of the supply and intelligence base of the resistance.

The demobilization was done gradually and was completed by 1955. However, isolated cases of partisan attacks have occurred as late as 1965. Although the resistance failed to establish an independent Lithuania, its example serves as a rallying point for patriotic resistance to this day. The Lithuanian people are now waging a cultural and social struggle for national existence.  

TTG

Comments

[TamBram]

Very interesting.
I am Indian, but my son-in-law here in Virginia is Polish-American. He talks a lot about Poland and Lithuania being allied during the middle ages/early modern times. Thoughts on that?

I don't think the Lithuanians have much particular to teach the Palestinians or Libyans. Lithuania's fights were all intra-Euro. Once you get to Israel, it's just a European-style country whacking non-Euro's, same as the French or the British before them! The only troops that did decently against the Israelis were the Jordanians, back when they still had British officers.

Today you have a slow emulation of Western fighting power by non-western nations. I am obviously biased but I think India has some good quasi-Western air-assault and armored divisions. But most of the Indian army, like most 3rd world armies, is still crap/undersupplied.

[Ramojus]

Col. Lang,

Is this your paper or was it written by TTG?

[TamBram]

My daughter just read my comment and said--notice how critical you are of your own forces (India), so too are the Western forces always self-critical. That's *why* they win. Muslim forces always blame *others* for their defeats, that's why they have recent histories of defeats!

She is a medical doctor, not a historian, but it's kind of an interesting point!

Happy Easter to all.

[The Twisted Genius]

Ramjous, this is mine. Colonel Lang went through SFOC long before I did... and he's a much better writer than I'll ever be.

[Patrick Lang]

TTG

I don't know about the writing part. This is a fine paper. Bank and Simon would be proud as I am. I went through SFOC in 1964. pl

[Medicine Man]

TamBram --

Poland and Lithuania were allied for a long time; a commonwealth sustained through royal union. I don't have the specific dates on hand, but I recall this union persisted from the beginning of the 15th century to the later portions of the 18th.

[kao_hsien_chih]

Lithuanian history vis-a-vis both Poland and Russia/Soviet Union is a complicated one, especially in comparison to Estonia and Latvia. The others had no beef other than with Russia, but the Lithuanian relationship with Poland, especially the nationalistic state that emerged after WW1 was a rocky one, if not downright hostile (reminiscent in many ways of the relationship between Korea and Japan, from my perspective). In fact, in comparison with Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania was much more accommodating of Russia. Would like to post a more extended comment, but that won't be within the limit. Will the colonel permit an extended post?

[Yolk county]

Recent Indian military wins? Please elaborate. I'll wait.

[rkka]

"The Lithuanian people are now waging a cultural and social struggle for national existence. "

They still are. And they're losing. There were almost 3.7 million people in Lithuania in 1991. There are now ~3.3 million, and deaths exceed births by about 1.3:1.

[Byron Raum]

Interesting point by Yolk. It started me thinking of some recent Muslim defeats. I cannot wonder who the various ragtag armies in Afghanistan blame for their crushing defeat at the hands of the Soviets. Or the defeat of Hizbollah at the hands of the Israelis a few years ago.

Sarcasm aside, I don't think we can reasonably clam that we have won in Afghanistan or Iraq. I don't know about anyone else's assumptions, but Muslims are, militarily speaking, a far more formidable people than I had originally thought. I had shared the almost subconscious assumption that the US is the preeminent military power in the world and can do whatever it pleases.

[Ramojus]

The Twisted Genius,

My apologies, I have been a consumer of this blog for several years but did not make the connection of the initials “TTG” to you.

I read this post with great interest. I am of Lithuanian descent. My parents were displaced persons (DP) from Lithuania and resided in the U.S. from 1949 until their deaths.

My father was a known Lithuanian journalist among the Lithuanian Diaspora in America and had written several books about the Lithuanian resistance movement to the Soviet occupation. He was a partisan, for a short time and was conscripted to the German Luftwaffe as forced labor ending the war in a DP camp in Germany. His sister was deported to Siberia for refusing to reveal the location of his local partisan unit. Dad’s nom de plume was Ramojus and I use the same moniker, when I comment on various blogs, to honor his legacy and memory.

Your paper is accurate and detailed and an interesting read. I’m curious to find out about your sources that you used for your research. While there are a significant amount of detailed history of the resistance in Lithuanian I’m wondering about the English sources. Incidentally, there was also a resistance movement, organized by the Lithuanian communists against the Nazi occupation, as well.

Regarding relations with Poland; it was complicated after 1918, Lithuanians fought with Poland over one third of Lithuanian territory which included the capital of Vilnius (called Wilno in Polish). I believe that his was one of the first international disputes brought to the League of Nations for resolution. Lithuania was also one of the last pagan cultures to become Roman Catholic through Polish influence and the Partitions of Poland also included Lithuanian territory being ceded to czarist Russia.

[The Twisted Genius]

rkka,

Yes Lithuania is suffering the same fate as other newly independent states in Eastern Europe and most of the industrialized world. Add the burden having to switch from a central planning to a market system and recent global economic problems, you could say Lithuania had a tough row to hoe. Emigration has actually lessened its unemployment problem. They're a tough and tenacious people. I'm sure they'll survive.

[The Twisted Genius]

Byron Raum,

You grasped the point of what I was trying to say. Never underestimate the spirit, resilience and tenacity of a people who decided they want to be free or just left along. We may have COIN, shock and awe, and full spectrum dominance; but all that is no guarantee of prevailing in a multigenerational war of liberation.

[The Twisted Genius]

Ramojus, labas!

All my sources were English language and available in the library of the JFK Special Warfare Center. A few of the main sources were:

Gerutis, Dr. Albertas, ed. Lithuania 700 Years, trans. Algirdas Budreckis, New York: Manyland Books, 1969

Harrison, E.J. Lithuania's Fight for Freedom. New York: Lithuanian American Information Center, 1952.
 
Tauras, K.V. Guerilla Warfare on the Amber Coast. New York Lithuanian Research Institute, 1962.
 
Vardys, V. Stanley, ed. Lithuania Under the Soviets: Portrait of a Nation, 1940-1965. 

I also used a number of articles that appeared in the 1962 issues of "Lituanus." Unfortunately, those issues are not available on their website (lituanus.org). I would love to read some of your father's accounts of those time if you could point me in the right direction.

[The Twisted Genius]

Here's a famous painting (at least to Lithuanians and Poles) illustrating the Battle of Grunwald. The author provides a very informative analysis of the painting and the events it depicts.

http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/JM/GT.html

[Ramojus]

The Twisted Genius,

Aciu uz atsakyma !

Dad's two books about the Lithuanian resistance are in Lithuanian,and are out of print. I am looking into having them digitized. I would be willing to communicate with you "off blog" with more detail.

On another matter....

Did I recently read an interview with you in a Lithuanian language daily published in Chicago? If that was you, it would certainly be an interesting blog post that you could write! If that wasn't you, my mistake.

[David]

TTG,

Very interesting post. Has the opening of the Soviet archives in the 90's reveal anything of note ? Thank you.

[rjj]

Ramojus, digitizing books is easy: flatbed scanners are cheap and Omnipage is a very good OCR program. Once the software is trained you can produce at least 20 pages an hour - after the user is trained, even more. For the latter beer can sometimes be a useful adjuvant.

[VietnamVet]

TTG,

You’ve got it exactly right. “Never underestimate the spirit, resilience and tenacity of a people who decided they want to be free or just left alone.” Apologies to Colonel Lang, but this is why the Virginians resisted the Yankee Invasion.

David Halberstan wrote about Vietnam. “One reason the principals were always surprised by this, and irritated by the failure of their programs, was that the truth of the war never entered the upper-level American calculations; that this was a revolutionary war, and that the other side held title to the revolution because of the colonial war which had just ended. This most simple fact ... entered into the estimates of the American intelligence community and made them quite accurate. But it never entered into the calculations of the principals, for a variety of reasons; among other things to see the other side in terms of nationalism or as revolutionaries might mean a re-evaluation of whether the United States was even fighting on the right side. In contrast, the question of Communism and anti-Communism as opposed to revolution and anti-revolution was far more convenient for American policy makers.”

We are flooded with Spin from the Media Masters not unlike Germany when the Glorious Victories on the Eastern Front kept moving west. Libya is the latest example. SF and FACs could have overthrown Gaddafi but it would have been in support of the Rebels who would have won the right to establish their own government. American Policy Makers want to be Kings. From Afghanistan to Libya, they must establish puppet governments. So they blow bombs up in the desert and never recognize they are fighting a Holy War on the installment plan to be paid by us and our grandchildren. Three fronts in an unwinnable war as long as there are Muslims who want to rule themselves and be free from oppression.

[Brother of the Forest]

Ramojus:

My oldest uncle, on my father's side, died with the Lithuanian anti-soviet partisans in late 1945 and was buried in great secrecy so the soviet troops could not find the body and make it disappear. Such was the fear of retribution, that only in 1991, as the Red Army tanks were finally leaving Lithuania, did people who knew the burial location reveal it to his surviving family (with whom they were old acquaintances) so he could be reburied in the family plot.

[The Twisted Genius]

Ramojus,

I never learned to speak or read Lithuanian, only a small collection of phrases and a substantial collection of curses. I learned the curses on my neighbor's farm as a youngster. My father still speaks the old tongue and has used it to make new friends at the Franciscan Monastary in Kennebunk. That definitely wasn't me in the Chicago interview. I haven't accomplished anything interesting enough for an interview that I can speak of.

If you haven't already contacted the Balzekas Museum in Chicago about digitizing your father's books, you may want to look into that. As rjj described, it's not too difficult a process.

[The Twisted Genius]

David,

I know the opening up of Soviet archives did reveal a lot of information. I am not a scholar of the period so I don't know how significant the information was... except to those trying to determine the fate of their loved ones at the hands of the Soviets.

[William R. Cumming]

A brave nation-state and major contributor to the growth and history of the City of Chicago in the last century. Thanks TTG and PL for the post. Some amazing life stories of Lithuanian Americans including one I met a prominent Chicago neuro surgeon that had served in four different Armies and when I met him was a full Colonel in the USA medical corps. Where do we get such men? Easy! Many in Lithuania then and now.

[Ramojus]

As an IT professional, I understand digitizing technology. Doing it at home with a PC and a flat bed scanner is a bit too labor intensive for me, even with a beer!

I am just beginning to look through my father's materials, notes etc. I plan to contribute them to an archive, in Lithuania, specializing in the works and history of Lithuanian exiles post WWII. I have been given a lead to a Lithuanian organization in Vilnius that has a digitizing project similar to Google books (though not on such a grand scale). I feel that it's important to preserve these materials. My father's generation, who were post WWII exiles, is dying out. Their cultural contributions were unique.

Their offspring, my generation, is "melting in the pot", though more slowly than previous ones; because we were forced to go to Saturday School and to belong to Lithuanian organizations.

TTG, apologies for my "What's My Line" moment regarding the newspaper interview. This was a great post! Col. Lang many thanks for posting it!

[Sidney O. Smith III]

The Lithuanian Resistance Movement: perhaps this explains why TTG has such a great natural talent for understanding the tactics of Mosby.

And perhaps TTG’s deep familiarity with the Lithuanian Resistance movement -- it’s in his blood -- explains why TTG is so far ahead of the American curve when it comes to seeing the dangers of a neoconservative-driven foreign policy that relies on a centralized national government.

Neoconservatives want the USG to treat the Muslim world in the same manner as the Soviets treated the Lithuanians. And, not coincidentally, many neoconservatives have their ideological roots in Trotsky’s idea of world revolution, that is, occupying a nation and then “reconstructing” the culture so its people will never “get out line” again.

Conclusion: we need more people with Lithuanian descent in the US. The heroic spirit underlying the Lithuanian Resistance movement captures the essence of what the America character was suppose to be about but now has become corrupted.