Antanas Sniečkus

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Antanas Sniečkus (born December 25, 1902 July / January 7,  1903 greg. In Bubleliai near Šakiai ; † January 22, 1974 in Druskininkai ) was the leader of the Communist Party (KP) of Lithuania and from August 1940 until his death its first Secretary.

Prewar years

Sniečkus' family fled to Russia during the First World War , where they witnessed the October Revolution in 1917 . In 1919 she returned to Lithuania and at the age of 17 Sniečkus was a member of the communist party. He was arrested for anti-government activity. Released on bail, he fled to Moscow and became a member of the Comintern . He gained the trust of Zigmas Angarietis and Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas and became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania. In 1926 the Comintern sent him to Lithuania to replace the executed Karolis Požėla as chairman of the banned and underground CP. He was involved in subversive activities until 1930, when he was arrested again and exchanged for political prisoners in the Soviet Union in 1933 . Returned to Lithuania in 1936, he was arrested in 1939 and sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Occupation of Lithuania

After the Army of the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania in June 1940, Sniečkus was released from prison on June 18, 1940 and appointed Chief of National Security. The external commissioner, Vladimir Dekanotsov, appeared in Lithuania on June 15 to organize the country's integration into the Soviet Union. As party secretary, Sniečkus carried out Dekanozow's instructions on behalf of the party. In the run-up to the elections for the so-called People's Parliament on July 14, 1940, he helped create an atmosphere of terror . Sniečkus was the initiator of the first mass deportation of Lithuanians between June 14 and 19, 1940. He himself deported his brother and his family to Siberia , where he died. Only the CP and related groups could nominate candidates for the elections. The population was forced to vote in various ways, but the results were falsified. On July 21st, the People's Parliament declared that the “Lithuanian people wanted to join the Soviet Union”. The process of annexation was formally terminated and the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania was created. From August 15, 1940 until his death in 1974 Sniečkus was 1st Secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party.

Second World War

Sniečkus left for Moscow in 1941 with the Red Army . On November 26, 1942, the Lithuanian partisan movement (Lietuvos partizaninio judejimo štabas) was founded there under his command . The existence of the command was intended to conceal the use of Soviet partisans as the Lithuanian partisans; In fact, the various partisan groups deployed from Moscow transmitted their messages to the “Central Partisan Command” and not directly to the command of the Lithuanian Partisan Movement. It is believed that 5,000 people were involved in Soviet underground activities in Lithuania. Since the groups, unlike the SOE commandos in France, were mostly dependent on self-sufficiency with food, there were also attacks on the population, as in the Koniuchy massacre .

During the advance of the Red Army in 1944, Sniečkus' mother fled Lithuania to the west, as did two of his brothers and three of his sisters. He himself returned to his homeland with other members of the CP Central Committee. Again he organized mass deportations of Lithuanians.

Soviet republic

From 1948 Sniečkus began to promote forced collectivization in agriculture. With the usual means - murder, terror, deportation and propaganda - by 1952 he achieved the almost complete disappearance of an independent peasantry. Agricultural production fell dramatically to the level of production in the rest of the Soviet Union.

1949-50 Sniečkus successfully defended old Communist militants from the time of illegality who were to be subjected to Stalinist show trials in Moscow. As a result, Lithuania was the only Soviet republic that did not lose a single old CP cadre. Sniečkus now shaped his politics on a national basis, occasionally sabotaging instructions from the Soviet government and defending the privileges of the autonomous republic. With Nikita Khrushchev 's amnesty after Stalin's death, many political prisoners from the Gulag and deportees from labor camps were released; Sniečkus refused to return the released Lithuanians.

Sniečkus was married to Mira Bordonaite, a communist who had spent many years in prisons. They both had two children.

Post mortem

In 1975 the place Sniečkus on the lake Visaginas was founded, in which the Ignalina nuclear power plant was built. In 1992 the place was renamed after the lake and three years later it was granted city rights. Sniečkus, mythologized for decades, lost all reputation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but has occasionally been rehabilitated in recent years.

Web links

Commons : Antanas Sniečkus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Audrone Urbonaite. Antano Snieckaus mitas (Myths about Antanas Sniečkus), Ekstra, January 6, 2002, No.1 (213) ( Memento from May 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Audrone Janaviciene Soviet Saboteurs in Lithuania (1941–1944) , 2004
  3. ↑ Kazys Blaževicius. Antanas Sniečkus. Kas jis? (Who was Antanas Sniečkus?). XXI amžius, No. 7 (1111), 2003
  4. ↑ a b Audronė URBONAITĖ: Antano Sniečkaus mitas ( Memento of May 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) 2002, accessed May 12, 2008
  5. ↑ Kazys BLAŽEVIČIUS: Antanas Sniečkus. Kas jis? 2003, accessed May 12, 2008

See also

personal data
SURNAME Sniečkus, Antanas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lithuanian politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Bubleliai near Šakiai
DATE OF DEATH 22nd January 1974
Place of death Druskininkai