Putin’s Problematic Perspective on Contemporary Post-Totalitarian Russia

September 12, 2020 Topic: Security Region: Europe Tags: Vladimir PutinRussiaNATOEuropean UnionWorld War II

Putin’s Problematic Perspective on Contemporary Post-Totalitarian Russia

The truth is that the geopolitical stability/security situation in the world and Europe are moving away from the ideal but from the normal.

In addition to bilateral agreements, both parties were the subjects of several multilateral international agreements prohibiting aggression. Thus, the rules of international law in force at the time are very specifically and clearly bound. Lithuania and the Soviet Union belonged to the League of Nations, a pacifist global international organization that strictly prohibited any offensive war and declared collective security. On Aug. 27, 1928, another multilateral pacifist agreement was signed in Paris, the so-called Kellogg-Briand Pact, which, in principle, “renounced war as an instrument of national policy.” The Soviets joined the Kellogg-Briand Pact on Feb. 9, 1929, and Lithuania joined the pact on April 5.  

Furthermore, Lithuania and the USSR signed the Convention for the Definition of Aggression on July 5, 1933, in London. Article 2 of the document made it very clear that “the aggressor [...] shall [...] be considered to be State which is the first to commit any of the following actions: (1) Declaration of war upon another State; (2) Invasion by its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State.” Article 3 of the Convention stated that “No political, military, economic or other considerations may serve as an excuse or justification for the aggression referred to in Article 2.” This includes Putin’s openly expressed aspiration of the Stalinist Soviet Union to secure “its strategic military and defensive goals” on the eve of the upcoming war with Germany.  

The historical documents contradict, in principle and indiscriminately, Putin’s conclusions that the “process of the incorporation” of Lithuania to the Soviet Union, which began in autumn 1939, were “implemented on a contractual basis, with the consent of the elected authorities” and “in line with international and state law of that time.” The documents testify to the contrary.  

But to err is to be human. It is notable that even despite the fact that such a position is obviously dissonant with the historiography of Western countries and the positions and assessments of Russian professional historians-researchers. In 2006–2012, researchers from the Lithuanian Institute of History and the Institute of World History at the Russian Academy of Sciences collegiately prepared and published the two volumes of books that contained copies of close to six hundred original documents from Lithuanian and Russian archives. These two books reflect in a rather detailed and precise manner the situation in Europe in 1939–1940. They also show the USSR’s political-military preparedness for the occupation/annexation of Lithuania and the mechanisms of its realization. For example, when trying to cover the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, which began in the summer of 1940 with “elections” to the so-called “People’s Seimas,” which would take the necessary decisions for the Kremlin, Moscow carefully selected nearly all the members of the future “People’s Seimas” and decided on the political, social and national composition of the “parliament.” With one week left until the future Seimas’ “elections,” on July 7 the USSR emissaries in Kaunas, Vladimir Dekanozov and Nikolaj Pozdniakov, reported to Stalin that the “new Seimas” would be made up of seventy-nine deputies. From a political point of view, forty communists and five Komsomol members were to be “elected,” with the restnon-partisan. By nationality, there were sixty-five Lithuanians, five Jews, two Russians, five Poles, and two Latvians. Thus, assessing in historical terms this report by Dekanozov and Pozdniakov to Stalin, it would probably be possible to only ironically discuss that the processes begun after the start of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania were in line with the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, the treaties with the USSR, and the existing international law of the time.  

Not to mention the fact that Lithuania, which was occupied/annexed in later years, “preserved its government bodies, language, and had representation in the higher state structures of the Soviet Union.” The supposedly Lithuanian “government” and its representation in “[Soviet] state structures” were basically a legal fiction, which collapsed as soon as the Soviet president reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, loosened the bindings of Soviet totalitarianism and allowed free elections in Lithuania in February 1990. This ended with the restoration of Lithuanian national statehood. On the other hand, as shown in Putin’s essay, in which the fundamental right and identity of each nationto speak their own language, is essentially aligned to a much more rapidly changing form of policy/political government. This shows that Putin looked from up high at the issues and noticed little. He even forgot that the government of Tsarist Russia could not take the Lithuanian language away from Lithuanians for almost half a century. Which, between 1864 and 1904, was attempted not only through propaganda, but even by repression. For example, printing, distributing and reading of Lithuanian books was punished by prison or exile to Siberia. 

In general terms, the reference is made to the two-volume books “ССCР и Литва в годы Второй мировой войны” (SSSR i Litva v gody vtoroi mirovoi voiny) is important in at least several aspects:  

– It shows that although in the summer of 1939 Berlin was the initiator of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which entered the final stage of preparation for the war with Poland, thus seeking to isolate its future victim, the idea and initiative of the Secret Protocols, contrary to international law, came in from Moscow;  

– It shows that, on June 15, 1940, the political-military leadership of the USSR planned and organized the invasion of Lithuania (and the other Baltic States) as a typical offensive military operation. On the eve of the operation, several thousand places for the wounded were prepared in the USSR’s military hospitals, and around fifty to seventy thousand places for future prisoners of war were prepared in the GULAG system. In early June, the demobilization of the Red Army’s soldiers was suspended by order of the commissar of defense and a large combination of the Red Army’s live forces and equipment was mobilized at the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia: 435,000 soldiers; about 8,000 cannons and mortars; over 3,000 tanks; more than 500 armored vehicles; 2,601 warplanes. In mid-June 1940, the USSR used in its campaign of the occupation of the Baltic States three armies, seven infantry and three cavalry corps, twenty rifles, two motorized rifles, and four cavalry divisions, nine tanks and one parachutist brigade. If we add to all of these forces the groups of the Soviet military bases based in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in November 1939 and the Baltic States blockade launched by the Soviet Navy in the Baltic Sea on the morning of June 14, 1940, we have over half a million troops with a huge armament of military equipment. This means that on June 15–17 1940, the Soviet Union sent a larger military armada than Great Britain did through the English Channel in Spring 1940 to help France save Europe from Nazi Germany, against the three small Baltic States, whose armies did not exceed seventy thousand fighters. 

– It shows that, from June 15, 1940, until Aug. 3, 1940, i.e. from the beginning of the occupation of the Republic of Lithuania to its annexation, the representatives of the USSR occupying power in KaunasDekanozov and Pozdniakovnewly appointed or selected Lithuanian officials (to act as president, the new prime minister, ministers of the “People’s Government” and members of the “People’s Seimas”, etc.) implemented constitutional reforms of a political-economic-legal nature of the Republic of Lithuania under the dictatorship of the USSR. These reforms were incompatible with the 1938 Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, the international law in force at the time, and the Lithuanian-Soviet political treaties concluded in 1920–1939.  

Lithuania and Russia have lived as neighbors for more than a thousand years. History and historical memory are fundamental elements of the identity of each nation and state. History can unite nations but it can also divide them. It is therefore important that common history and historical memory are based on facts, arguments, respectful dialogue, and consensus-building. This should be without lies, defaults, distortions. This is the only way to create a safe and comfortable future for ourselves and future generations without meaningless “memory wars.”

Dr.  Algimantas Kasparavičius is a historian, author, publicist, and a senior researcher at the Institute of History of Lithuania. He is also a member of the Lithuania-Russia Commission of Historians.

Image: Reuters.