XIX

CONCLUSION

THE SURRENDER of Klaipėda to Germany and the imposition of the Kremlin’s will upon the People’s Diet underscore the extent of outside influence upon Lithuania. The immediate consequence for domestic politics of the German intrusion in March 1939 was the formation of a coalition government under Jonas Černius. The Russian thrust in July 1940 brought to a climax the transitional stage, known as the People’s Democracy, which had been the result of Lithuanian submission to the Soviet ultimatum in mid-June 1940. Hence, only the Merkys administration, from November 1939 to June 1940, was relatively free from external pressure. In this context of Great Power diplomacy, the Lithuanians endeavored to administer their internal affairs and to work out their problems.

In Lithuania in 1939, as in most of continental Europe, authoritarianism was in the ascendant. Its adherents, the Nationalists, showed confidence. Since the turn of the decade at the close of the 1920’s, they had become convinced that the form of government which they espoused answered best the requirements of the time, just as other modes of political organization had met the needs of other times. Liberal democracy, to them, was a fossil, and a return to it was an unthinkable anachronism. Gradually authoritarianism spread over large areas of the nation’s life, crystallizing its basic tenets and, at least in theory, approaching certain Fascistic psychological and political assumptions.

Authoritarian government in Lithuania resulted from developments which were both domestic and foreign. Existing systems frequently prepare the way for systems that succeed them. The defects of Lithuanian democracy from 1918 to 1926 facilitated the spread of authoritarianism from 1927 to 1939. The constitution-makers of 1920 were relatively young men: 26 per cent of them were under thirty, and only 7 per cent were over fifty. They had little familiarity with constitution-making and virtually none with the ways of representative government. Lithuania’s past was too distant to be of any practical use either to them or to the politicians of the democratic period.

Problems related to inexperience were aggravated by a pronounced ideological propensity. Dogmatic thinking tended to sharpen party differences and to lessen the chances of compromise. An experienced leadership might have succeeded in moderating the unduly rigid party attitudes, and greater practical-mindedness might have blunted the problems stemming from inexperience. But inexperience combined with dogmatism generated political instability and party strife which exceeded conventional bounds.

Politics of both the democratic and the authoritarian period was attended with a measure of inevitability, a feeling that things could not have happened any other way. Many leaders sensed that their freedom of action was limited by events beyond their control. Thus, parliamentary democracy was adopted in Lithuania because it was the vogue at the time. Postwar radicalism demanded a land reform program and political parties felt that they must promise one. The tendency to view political issues from an ideological point of view was symptomatic of continental politics in general and Lithuania could not hope to resist it. Lastly, the sweeping changes in politics and economics which distinguished the democratic period were bound to awaken a conservative opposition. The democratic leadership was disinclined to moderate the intensity of change, while the conservatives were disinclined to tolerate it. The combination of a determined radical drive and an equally determined conservative opposition to it ended democracy in Lithuania.

The fortunes of authoritarianism in Lithuania were to some extent contingent upon the course of events elsewhere on the continent. Its prestige rose and declined inversely with that of parliamentary democracy and directly with that of dictatorial experiments in the major European powers. Lithuania in this respect was a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Evidence suggests that the Nationalists had not initially intended to destroy democracy in Lithuania. To be sure, the Nationalists insisted that there could be no return to the form of government which Lithuania had before the coup d’etat of 1926, but they were not at all certain about its substitute. The Nationalist takeover, then, did not ipso facto foreclose the possibility of a democratic government. Had the continental powers succeeded in devising a form of government with a strong executive authority but one which retained its democratic character, it is possible that the Kaunas Nationalists would have considered its adaptation for Lithuania. As it turned out, increase in executive power meant a decline of democracy. The growing prestige of the dictatorial states in the 1930’s, together with a lack of concern for democracy on the part of the Lithuanian Nationalists, resulted in an authoritarianism whose psychological basis was akin to that of Fascism.

Over the years, the Nationalists succeeded in staining the image of Lithuanian democracy, but they failed to eradicate the democratic political elements. The proximity of foreign threats, the sense of practical moderation which the senior Nationalists were ruled by, the ethical standards by which they were guided, despite their rhetorical bombast and verbal violence, and the intimacy which characterized the small world of politics in Kaunas, all suggest why opposition to the will of the Nationalists and their leader had not in fact been eradicated. In this manner authoritarianism, dominant but not absolute, encountered an anomaly. The democratic forces continued to exist and, by virtue of the combined Catholic-Populist strength, to display their independent initiative in a political environment which in theory explicitly precluded such a possibility. Thus, the political community was pregnant with contradictions implying domestic political strife.

This inconsistency was brought into sharper focus with the institution of a coalition government in March 1939. Only a severe setback, such as the Klaipėda debacle, could have forced such a retreat on the Nationalists, and only the domestic repercussions of Germany’s action deterred them from their efforts to recover the ground. As soon as the crisis period passed, political controversy reemerged. Subsequent developments, namely, the politics of both the Černius and the Merkys administration, must be considered in the light of this contradiction and the intent to resolve it. Thus, the coalition government was imperiled from the day of its inception.

Initially, the Catholic and Populist ministers had the upper hand and were on the offensive. The measures to which they resorted constituted a remedy for the faults which they attributed to the Nationalists. The opposition channeled its criticism in two directions. Politically, it blamed the Nationalists for the chasm between the leaders of the state and the general public, and maintained that the Nationalists had forfeited the consent of the governed. In economic matters, the opposition censured the regime’s failure to deal forcefully with the economic hardships which had become increasingly severe. Consequently, once in office, the Catholics and the Populists strove to unite in action with the public at large and adopted a number of measures to that end. In drafting their economic policies, they directed their efforts to the achievement of a higher rate of economic growth and to the improvement of the living conditions of Lithuania’s fringe population. They proposed to do this by rationalizing the nation’s economic life and by introducing a radical land reform, the “second land reform.” In politics, the new course tended to make the regime more representative; in economics, it subordinated free enterprise to a greater direction from above.

Political disagreement came to a head in November of 1939. The ensuing cabinet crisis forced the Catholics and Populists under the strong urging of commander Raštikis to resubmit to the authoritarian Nationalists. The trend toward a more liberal regime was arrested, and the possibility of a radical solution of the nation’s social and economic ills aborted. Though the rejection of the radical proposals demonstrated Presidents Smetona’s power over his subordinates, it could not obscure the fact that many of his Nationalist associates were agreeable to the opposition’s plans. For the time being the younger Nationalists acquiesced in the decision of their Leader, but their inclination to a bolder course made the future of economic conservatism insecure.

The domestic developments of the Merkys government were already implicit in the crisis which led to its formation. Having gained a measure of success, the Nationalists rallied to strengthen the regime and tried to solve economic problems by means short of radical changes. The culmination of their economic legislation was the law of May 1940, which delegated extraordinary powers to the Minister of Finance. This law was intended to give greater direction to an economy which in essence preserved its free-market pluralism.

The experiment in coalition government calls attention to three developments. First, during the Nationalist administration the average citizen had frequently been reproached for his alleged indifference to public affairs. Popular response to the change in the government in the spring of 1939 refuted this charge; the citizens displayed their interest in civic life when the occasion called for it and when the authorities granted them liberty of action. Second, the social and economic policies of the Catholics and the Populists attested to the presence of political forces ready to grapple with the mounting discontent by resorting to drastic measures, such as the envisaged second land reform, without shattering the fabric of society. The opposition’s recommendations were an alternative to the policies of the Nationalists as well as to those of the Communists. Third, political developments during the Černius administration offer sufficient evidence for deducing that the Nationalists were disinclined to liberalize the regime. Some observers perceived a trend in the last years of the interwar decades to a more representative government. Such a trend proved to be a delusion. The Nationalists bowed only to superior pressure, as after the loss of Klaipeda. When the pressures on them lessened, they resumed their progress toward a more definite form of authoritarianism, emancipating themselves from the coalition’s restraints as soon as it became feasible.

The last days of independent Lithuania witnessed a climactic escalation of political strife. The Catholics and the Populists realized that their hopes for a more democratic government had been dashed. Therefore, they prepared for an eventual showdown, the collapse of the Merkys cabinet. However, in June 1940, a new factor appeared. The Kremlin commenced its diplomatic offensive against the Baltic republics. The fact that internal friction continued unabated in Lithuania testifies to the partial success of Moscow’s strategy, which was to annex the Baltic states gradually and with the seeming consent of their peoples. The Soviet Union never gained the Lithuanians’ consent, but it did palliate the stroke inflicted in June. Hours before the ultimatum, the majority of government leaders in Kaunas concluded that the deterioration of relations with the USSR would not be disastrous for Lithuania. Consequently, domestic rivalries continued to ripen. And when the ultimatum did come, the Lithuanians still counted on the presumed continuation of limited self-government. This expectation affected their decision to comply with Soviet demands. If Russian aggression had been undisguised, it is quite probable that internal disputes would have been suspended and it is quite possible that the Lithuanians would have offered at least token resistance to the Red Army.

Events in Lithuania subsequent to the People’s Diet, which opened its sessions on July 21, 1940, are a chapter in the history of the USSR. To a Russian chronicler that chapter might well have started with the actual occupation of the southernmost Baltic republic in the middle of June, for the compulsory collaboration traced in this book can justly be interpreted as a strategy of incorporation. The principal feature of this Soviet strategy was the adroit exploitation of the deep-seated domestic discord rife in Lithuania, whereby the Soviets sought to minimize the chances of open resistance to their gradually unfolding designs. Certainly, the controlling influence which the Soviet troops and the Soviet officials possessed and used over every important phase of the country’s public life after the occupation gives ample ground for appending the transient chapter of the People’s Democracy to a book on Soviet Russian history. But then, analyzing the rapid progress of events in June and July from the point of view of the vanquished Lithuanian population, there emerges, too, a continuity of crisis in which the policies and aspirations of the People’s Government form an integral part of earlier developments. The link is provided by the hopes of the “revolution,” essentially understood as a reversal of Nationalist policies, but not as sovietization. It was founded in the lingering expectation that Lithuania would be conceded a semblance of independent existence. The revealing sessions of the People’s Diet and the ensuing merger with the USSR bring this period of history to an end. Lithuania’s demise, formalized on August 3, 1940, in the decision of the Supreme Soviet to admit its Baltic dependency into the USSR, ended the June-July transition and, with it, the remote possibility of the semi-independent survival of Lithuania.

In the weeks after the annexation the new Union Republic hastened to bring into concrete existence the resolutions which the people’s deputies had acclaimed in the Diet, a legislature which according to an exuberant plaudit “has done in three days what no parliament in the world had done in hundreds of years.”¹ The Communist policy makers brought forward an appropriate constitution, which was founded on Soviet basic law, and proceeded to adjust governmental institutions accordingly. They carried out a radical land reform which left the farmer a maximum of 30 hectares for his permanent use. They nationalized banking, heavy industry, and ultimately commerce. The process of sovietization, accompanied by a reign of terror and deportations, reduced internal friction and united the nation for eventual insurrection against the relentless foe. That uprising took place in the following year, when, in June 1941, German armies commenced their assault upon Soviet Russia.