- July 6, 2013
- 517
Did Antanas Sniečkus demur the Lithuanization of the Lithuanian Poles?
Was Vilnius a present to Lithuania given by Stalin or rather an element of his geopolitical Soviet game? Why were the Poles treated in a completely different way, when compared to our compatriots living in other Soviet republics? Two lectures entirely devoted to these questions were presented at the conference “The Stalinism in Lithuania 1944-1953 – the regime and the society”, which was organised by the Lithuanian Institute of History.
1950 the first Secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Antanas Sniečkus, in a brochure “The Great Friend of the Lithuanian Nation” extended his gratitude to Stalin, whom Lithuania owed the incorporation of its capital – Vilnius. In view of the historian, Arūnasa Vyšniauskas, this opinion is still alive. “This conviction continues to be popular in the Polish historiography, but it should be assessed more critically. It was rather a political calculation of Stalin” – remarked during the conference.
Vyšniauskas adduced examples that the leaders of the Bolshevik Party in their articles voiced approval of the affiliation of Vilnius to Lithuania even before the World War I. Nonetheless, they certainly did not mention the independence of Lithuania, but its autonomy. “The Bolsheviks classified to Lithuania only the regions inhabited mainly by the Lithuanian communities. As a matter of fact, Vilnius and its nearby outskirts, located within reach of 40km, were inhabited by merely several percentage of the Lithuanians. And yet, from the bird’s-eye view, Vilnius appeared to have been surrounded by the Lithuanian communities” – explained the logics of the view of the Bolsheviks.
Furthermore, Arūnas Vyšniauskas emphasised that the Soviet propaganda attempted to prove by every conceivable means that Vilnius belonged to Lithuania. “In July 1944, when the Red Army liberated Vilnius, the propaganda made a documentary film, which was then screened all over the world. It is widely known that the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) took an active part in the liberation of Vilnius. However, in this film it was deliberately omitted, whereas the troops of the Lithuanian guerrillas encountering Sniečkus were shown” – stated the historian.
The Polish national minority versus the Soviet authorities
The lecture delivered by Vitaliji Stravinskienė concerned the question of the policy of the Soviet authorities towards the Polish national minority. “The condition of the Polish national minority was extraordinary in comparison to the other Soviet republics” – emphasised Stravinskienė.
Soon after the World War II, an attitude towards the Poles was equal in the whole USSR. Yet, in 1947-48 the assimilation tendencies in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania began to burgeon. 1948 the authorities of the Soviet Lithuania announced that education in the Polish language would be impossible due to the fact that they did not have a proper educational team at their disposal, as nearly 2.000 teachers had left Lithuania and emigrated to Poland immediately after the war. In the early 50s the situation began to undergo a change. In opinion of the historian, there was a number of reasons for this situation. “The Polish community used to live in compact groups, which were also conservative ones. The Poles were reluctant to trust the new authorities. It stemmed from the lack of their representatives in the governmental structure. In the administration of the Vilnius County worked almost 550 people, merely 15 of whom were Poles. The new authorities were not capable of finding a proper contact with the local communities” – explained Stravinskienė.
She continued her speech, adding that in spite of the fact that it was the time of a harsh Stalinist terror, the Polish community managed to get organized and demand their rights. Antanas Sniečkus, who acted against the national faction of the Communist Party of Lithuania, had his share in this process, as he expressed his disagreement with the Lithuanization enforced on the Poles. The Soviet authorities were willing to sovietize, not to lithuanise them. “This is how a new stereotype emerged – only Moscow was able to defend us against the bad Lithuanians” – remarked the historian. Owing to this policy, Vilnius became a centre of the Polish culture in the USSR. It was the city, to which arrived the Poles living in various Soviet republics in order to get educated and study at the universities.
Tłumaczenie by Joanna Mirek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Joanna Mirek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
