Justas Paleckis ( – 26 January 1980) was a
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
n author, journalist and politician. He was nominal acting
president of Lithuania
The President of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Prezidentas) is the head of state of Lithuania. The officeholder has been Gitanas Nausėda since 12 July 2019.
Powers
The president has somewhat more executive authority tha ...
after the
Soviet invasion while Lithuania was still ostensibly independent, in office from 17 June to 3 August 1940. He then remained as the nominal
head of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...
of the
Lithuanian SSR
The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...
until 1967.
Life and career
Paleckis was born in
Telšiai
Telšiai (; Samogitian: ''Telšē'') is a city in Lithuania with about 21,499 inhabitants. It is the capital of Telšiai County and Samogitia region, and it is located on the shores of Lake Mastis.
Telšiai is one of the oldest cities in Lithua ...
in 1899 in to the family of a blacksmith of noble origin. In 1926–1927, he was a director of the Lithuanian official news agency,
ELTA ELTA may mean one of the following:
Broadcasting
* ELTA 1 HD, the first commercial HD cable television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* ELTA 2, a commercial music television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* , a television channel in Taiwan
O ...
. He later voiced opposition to the ruling elite in Lithuania; in this way, he became a suitable candidate for the Lithuanian communists (subordinate to Soviet envoy
Vladimir Dekanozov
Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov (russian: Влади́мир Гео́ргиевич Декано́зов; born Ivan Vasilyevich Protopopov; June 1898 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet senior state security operative and diplomat.
Biography Early ...
) to become the puppet leader of Lithuania in the Soviets' planned takeover of the country in 1940. Paleckis had connections to the
Lithuanian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos komunistų partija; russian: Коммунистическая партия Литвы) is a banned communist party in Lithuania. The party was established in early October 1918 and operated cla ...
from the early 1930s.
After President
Antanas Smetona
Antanas Smetona (; 10 August 1874 – 9 January 1944) was a Lithuanian intellectual and journalist and the first President of Lithuania from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1926 to 1940, before its occupation by the Soviet Union. He was one of the m ...
fled to the US when the Soviet Union occupied the country, Prime Minister
Antanas Merkys
Antanas Merkys (; 1 February 1887 – 5 March 1955) was the last Prime Minister of independent Lithuania, serving from November 1939 to June 1940. When the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding that it accept a Soviet g ...
became acting president. A day after Smetona left the country, Merkys announced he had formally ousted Smetona and taken over the presidency himself. He then appointed Paleckis prime minister. Merkys himself resigned, making Paleckis acting president as well. These moves are now considered illegal and unconstitutional, since Smetona never resigned. As such, Lithuanian government records do not recognize Paleckis as a legitimate president.
By this time, Lithuania had been occupied by
Soviet troops. Paleckis' appointment as Prime Minister was made under orders form the Soviet embassy in
Kaunas
Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...
. Aided by specialists sent in from Moscow, Soviet deputy foreign minister
Vladimir Dekanozov
Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov (russian: Влади́мир Гео́ргиевич Декано́зов; born Ivan Vasilyevich Protopopov; June 1898 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet senior state security operative and diplomat.
Biography Early ...
worked through the Lithuanian Communist Party, while the cabinet of ministers, headed by Paleckis, served an administrative function. Dekanozov and Paleckis brought a number of non-Communists into the first "People's government", but in historical retrospect it is clear that they constituted window dressing for the Soviet takeover.
In order to save face, the Soviet Union attempted to cover its
annexation of the Baltic States with a cloak of legality. Therefore, Moscow ordered the Paleckis government to carry out
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...
for a "
People's Seimas
The People's Seimas ( lt, Liaudies Seimas) was a puppet legislature organized in order to give legal sanction the occupation and annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union. After the Soviet ultimatum in June 1940, a new pro-Soviet government wa ...
" on 14–15 July. Voters were presented with a single list of candidates containing only Communists and their allies. When the People's Seimas met on 21 July, it had only one order of business—a resolution declaring Lithuania a Soviet republic and requesting admission to the Soviet Union, which was unanimously carried. A few days later, Moscow "accepted" the request—thus giving credence to the official line that Lithuania had carried out a socialist revolution independent of Moscow's influence and requested admission to the Soviet Union. Lithuania's official position since 1990 has been that since Smetona never resigned, all acts leading up to the Soviet annexation were ''ipso facto'' void.
Paleckis remained as head of state, a post which was named Chairman of the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR
The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR ( lt, Lietuvos TSR Aukščiausioji Taryba; russian: Верховный Совет Литовской ССР, ''Verkhovnyy Sovet Litovskoy SSR'') was the supreme soviet (main legislative institution) of the ...
, until 1967. As such, he personally signed orders authorizing the
mass deportation
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...
of several figures from independent Lithuania. With his agreement, Merkys and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Juozas Urbšys
Juozas Urbšys (29 February 1896 – 30 April 1991) was a prominent interwar Lithuanian diplomat, the last head of foreign affairs in independent interwar Lithuania,Gerhard L. Weinberg. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. 1994 p.94 ...
were deported to the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
. The intelligentsia and Lithuania's elite were considered as enemies and were among the first sentenced to deportation or death. He worked closely with
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
residents in Lithuania (M. Gedvilas, M. Mickis). Paleckis signed documents and, as a representative of Soviet Russia, took responsibility for the deportations.
During 1940–1953, some 132,000
Lithuanians were deported to remote areas of the USSR:
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
, the
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle.
The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at w ...
zone and Central Asia. More than 70% of the deportees were women and children. During the same period, another 200,000 people were thrown into prisons. Some 150,000 of them were sent to the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
(Soviet labor camps), situated mostly in Siberia.
He served as
Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities from 1966 to 1970.
His son
Justas Vincas Paleckis
Justas Vincas Paleckis (born 1 January 1942 in Kuybyshev, current Samara) is a Lithuanian ex- communist and politician, signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, and Member of the European Parliament for the Soc ...
is a politician and
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
and an active politician.
Paleckis was also awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour of the Soviet Union.
[https://media2.nekropole.info/2013/12/Justas-Paleckis.jpg ]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paleckis, Justas
1899 births
1980 deaths
Burials at Antakalnis Cemetery
People from Telšiai
People from Telshevsky Uyezd
Prime Ministers of Lithuania
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members
Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
Chairmen of the Soviet of Nationalities
Communist Party of Lithuania politicians
Heads of state of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
Lithuanian people of World War II
World War II political leaders
Lithuanian collaborators with the Soviet Union (1940–41)
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
Heroes of Socialist Labour