Vytautas Landsbergis is the example of a politician who received no professional “party school” training, never climbed the bureaucratic ladder, but played a key role in his country. A music expert, a professor at the Vilnius conservatoire, he was elected in June 1988 to the pressure group of Sajudis (at first the Lithuanian Movement for Perestroika), a broad-based consolidating civic platform which spearheaded Lithuania’s withdrawal from the USSR.
Like Solidarity in Poland, the Popular Front in Latvia, Estonia, and Belarus, and the Popular Movement (Rukh) in Ukraine, Sajudis played a key historic role in the period of transition. In March 1989 Landsbergis was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR, and, a year later, the Supreme Council adopted, with his active participation, a declaration on restoration of Lithuania’s independence. On the same day, he was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of Lithuania.
“We are all afraid of the revanche of those who mourn over the prison. They are not just ‘mourners’ – they are ready to act aggressively,” he said resolutely on December 1 at the forum of Baltic-Black Sea ex-presidents, “Through Dialogue to Trust and Peace,” in Kyiv.
The Day continues a cycle of interviews with the leaders of the states that emerged after the collapse of the USSR. It will be recalled that we have already interviewed Arnold Ruutel, the former president of Estonia, during whose term that country joined the EU and NATO.
“WE SET OURSELVES A GOAL TO CREATE A SOCIETY OF FREE AND DIGNIFIED PEOPLE”
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Belavezha Accords. Lithuania was the second, after Estonia, country to begin to restore its independence via the so-called “parade of sovereignties.” What can you say about the situation in your country 25 years on?
“Naturally, all the ex-USSR countries came under the influence of the Soviet system and this type of thinking – twisted, semi-slavish, dependent, and timeserving. We were to think the way we were told to. The consequences of this are still felt. The very sensation of slavishness has a dual meaning – on the one hand, the individual is not free and has no possibility to be the arbiter of his or her own destiny. But, depending on the type of an individual and the culture of his or her upbringing, he or she may even agree to this. There are those who like to have a ‘master.’ It was like under feudalism: a serf was not free and eked out at the mercy of the noble who owned them. We must admit the existence of this type of being which is historically temporary and harmful and leads to degeneration. On the other hand, the individual tends to rise up against this, for he or she wants to be a free master of his or her destiny – like the American black slaves who, knowing that there was no slavery in some states, were no longer content with a ‘mess of pottage in Uncle Tom’s cabin’ and were doing their best to run to freedom, sometimes at the cost of their own life.”
Has Lithuania managed to get rid of the dependence syndrome?
“It is difficult to get rid of it. We feel that there is a stratum or a type of people who have not adapted to a free society, where initiative and energy is needed. And if some people do not have this, they continue to look back in search of a ‘master.’”
This means there really is a mentality problem. How can we carry out a “vaccination” against the “colonial disease”?
“No external efforts will help – only internal treatment will do. First of all, we must create the conditions that will make people value freedom. If their life is unsuccessful and hopeless, they won’t talk of freedom. They will think of a ‘mess of pottage.’ We must achieve a level, when a mess of pottage is not a problem. One must see much more inviting prospects. Only then will one value a free country that offers major advantages – he or she will not only struggle with difficulties, but also be glad about achievements and feel the value of life. We set ourselves a goal to create a society of free and dignified people. We declared no reforms ‘in everything and on the whole’ but carried out rather specific transformations in the socioeconomic field. We introduced liability for illegally acquired property long ago, while Ukraine did so very recently [“e-declarations.” – Ed.], and replaced the ‘old’ functionaries.”
“THE INFORMATION FRONT IS NOW PIVOTAL IN MANY SPHERES OF SOCIETAL AND NATIONAL LIFE”
Do you feel that Russia is trying to draw Lithuania into its area of influence?
“The imperial syndrome can be felt on various spheres of life. But I’d like to point out that one can get rid of this oppression and stagnation by establishing a new type of relations – in both ‘individual-individual’ and ‘individual-state’ systems. Paradoxically enough, the state can be a parasite on the body of its own people and ‘drink their blood,’ and this will suit people. Officials should change their attitude to time – what matters is not what you have achieved in a short while but your attitude to time as a thing that gives you a chance to create something and leave a fundamental trace in history. This is a ‘watershed’ by which you can distinguish between people: some say ‘I am on my own and don’t care a fig about others’ – it is a baneful type, – while others feel their dignity and the sense of life in creating something better, not only for their own selves.
“An Athens court condemned philosopher Socrates to death for corrupting young people. He said to justify himself: ‘You are accusing me of teaching young people to think critically. You are blaming me for abnormal activity, but I just do not want to have worse people around. If the people are better, I am better, too – this is my motivation.’”
The new presidents of Moldova and Bulgaria are pro-Russian politicians. Do you think pro-Russian forces can come to power in Lithuania?
“For this to occur, there should be special circumstances, disappointment about freedom and the European choice, as well as complaisance and never-ending claims that it was or will be better under Moscow’s rule – ‘let them rule, for we are stupid and incapable of ruling our own country.’ This rhetoric can lure some people.
“But the countries you named had concrete circumstances, such as, for example, enormous embezzlement in Moldova by the people who called for going in the European direction. They thus compromised themselves, and what really matters is not that they stole but that they shook the people’s confidence and pushed them to ‘political serfdom.’ We don’t need this ‘family of free peoples,’ let us get back to the boss, the master.
“No one can say what may happen in Lithuania, what moral and economic disasters may affect the thinking of people. Besides, the enemy propaganda is trying to compromise independence and democracy. Democracy is being equated with stealing, although there can be much more theft under dictatorship. But the enemy continues to spread propaganda and does not want people to think independently. The information front is now pivotal in many spheres of societal and national life. It is a test of your strength, of what you are really worth of.”
“NATO MEMBERSHIP GUARANTEES THAT WHOEVER HAS ATTACKED YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS AND CONSEQUENCES”
You said Lithuania is still aware of a threat from Russia. How are you counteracting it? What preventive measures are you taking?
“First of all, we must help people not to be misled and made fool of. The media must not be an instrument of mass-scale fooling. I even suggested the expression ‘media of mass fooling.’ This kind of media flourishes in Russia now. I don’t know about Ukraine.”
Fifty-fifty.
“OK, please value these 50 percent of the ‘healthy’ who function like blood vessels not clogged with impurities.”
Are you sure NATO will be able to defend Lithuania in case of a sudden armed attack?
“Yes, NATO membership guarantees that whoever has attacked you will have problems and consequences. This is a right thing – otherwise, we will be unable to do anything if somebody begins to go mad. Unfortunately, Ukraine failed to join the Alliance in good time because the progress of your social, moral, national, and spiritual changes was not sufficient, great, or rapid. I hope it will be just the reverse in the course of time.”
“RUSSIA STILL THINKS IN THE CATEGORY OF TERRITORIES”
As a USSR people’s deputy, you and some of your colleagues successfully moved a resolution that pronounced the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact illegal. Would you tell us in detail about this story, for this was unprecedented at the time, wasn’t it?
“Yes, and this was very important not only to us. We wanted the Stalin-Hitler deal, under which the USSR annexed Lithuania, to be pronounced criminal. It was a case of card cheating, a deal of marauders, and a game of bandits on the corpse of a hanged person. So we decided to raise this point at the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies as a matter of moral and legal condemnation. Our question was put on the agenda, and we saw to it that the draft resolution was read out. At first the vote was thwarted and the deputies were outraged: ‘Don’t vote! The Balts will go.’ But what is bad in this? It was bad for them – the territory will shrink. They still think in the category of territories. They live as they please, spit upon people, and are bent on holding the territory in their claws. And Ukraine wants now to move away in a civilized way!”
A provocative question: was there a chance to re-launch the USSR and reorient it to normal development – without what we call “the can”?
“The Soviet Union ‘outstayed its welcome.’ First of all, it was not normal from the very beginning because it was a violence-laden structure. In Solzhenitsyn’s terminology, it was ‘living by lies.’ What was called Union was not a union at all. The stronger ones came and said: ‘You will be under our power, and we’ll call it Union.’ That was a lasting lie, and people were forced to believe in it. I even proposed at the Congress of People’s Deputies that we drop this word and call this structure ‘Soviet Under-Union,’ for it had subjugated everybody.
“There is a consensus now in society that there is no alternative to the European Union. There may be some skeptical and critical attitudes to the EU because there is also corruption there and one-sidedness in relationships and in the choice of advantages. But this is a real side of life against which you can fight democratically. And they will send no tanks to crush you – they can tell you that you are mistaken, but you can defend your position and follow your own line. It is a field of work, an encouragement for maturity and self-assertion. And it is important that we are not veering off this path.”
Do you think the proposed Baltic-Black Sea coalition and security belt are promising and viable?
“It is not a draft decision, it is a proposal. We are calling on the people, society, and even, if possible, the government to express a clear, crystallized, opinion. If society has clear intentions, the government cannot do something to the contrary, for they will then lose the elections. This is in fact the mechanism of democracy.”
