Lithuania

Front matter

ACEN Publication No. 54 1964

ASSEMBLY OF CAPTIVE EUROPEAN NATIONS 29 West 57th Street, New York 19, N.Y. PLaza 1-3850

This is volume 5 in a series of nine booklets. The Assembly of Captive European Nations undertook the publication of the series in response to numerous demands. Also, since much of the existing literature on East-Central Europe has been written from the outsider's point of view, there seems to be a need for informative material bearing the stamp of authenticity and first hand experience. Each booklet has been prepared by experts of the respective National Committee.

Chapter 1

. Lithuania is situated between 53° 54′ and 56° 27′ north latitude and 20° 56′ and 26° 51′ east longitude. It covers 25,167 square miles (65,200 square killometers) and is somewhat larger than Switzerland, Belgium, or Denmark. It is bounded by Latvia on the north, by Byelorussia on the east, by Poland on the south, and by the so-called „Kaliningrad Region“ (prewar East Prussia) on the west. Lithuania's Baltic coastline extends for 61 miles.

. Lithuania lies along the boundary between the continental and maritime climatic zones. The annual mean temperature is 43° Fahrenheit, or about that of southern Sweden, Denmark, or northern Japan. The January climate in Lithuania is similar to Oslo's, while the hottest month, July, resembles that of England. The moist winds from the Atlantic sweep over Lithuania, bringing rain and thunderstorms in summer, rain and snow in the winter. Average rainfall ranges between 20 and 40 inches.

. Lithuania is located in the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea. The most important river is the Nemunas (582 miles). The basin area of the Nemunas and its tributaries covers most of Lithuania's territory. Other major rivers are the Neris, the Nevėžis, the Venta, the Dubysa, and the Šešupė.

A project to build a power plant on the Nemunas was initiated during the period of Lithuania's independence; it was completed, only in 1959. The capacity of this plant is 40,000 kwh.

Lithuania is dotted with some 3,000 lakes of more than two acres in size. The largest is Drūkšiai (11,050 acres), the longest, Dubingiai (18 miles), and the deepest, Tauragnas (197 feet). Many lakes are interconnected, and a kayak can travel hundreds of miles without making an overland portage.

. The topography of Lithuania is almost exclusively glacial. Lithuania is a flat country, and none of its hills rises to more than 1,050 feet above sea level.

Typical of the Lithuanian landscape are the many castle-hills and grave-mounds. They were built by ancient Lithuanians for defense purposes or as memorials for great leaders and warriors. The most famous of these castle-hills is Pūnia on the bank of the Nemunas river, where the castle of Duke Margeris stood more than six centuries ago. The story of Pūnia castle-hill has been summarized by a German chronicler in words which reveal much of the Lithuanian spirit and show the imprint of history upon the Lithuanian landscape:

There came in 1336 a large number of crusading German princes and nobles to Prussia for whom the Grand Master was anxious to arrange a "hunting party" into Lithuania. German troops besieged the Lithuanian castle Pilene, where about 4,000 Lithuanians with their wives and children had taken refuge. As all attempts to take the castle, defended by a Lithuanian chief called Margers, proved futile, the Germans set fire to the castle by kindling its wooden walls. The Lithuanians, unable to hold the burning castle any longer and refusing the humilation of being at the mercy of the brutal enemy, killed their own wives and children and then put themselves to the sword. When the Germans renewed the attack upon the defenseless castle and ascertained what had happened, the strong German army was so much struck with horror by the greatness of the pagan mind that it did not venture to proceed further and, with many casualties and without booty, returned in low spirits to Prussia.

The Užmaris (Kurland Spit) in Western Lithuania is the land of the highest sand dunes in Europe. There some dunes reach a height of 230 feet. They constantly change their shapes in thn wind. If one visits the dunes on two consecutive days in dry windy weather, one will not recognize the landscape—valleys lie where hills stood before and hills rise where there were formerly declivities.

. Lithuanian forests cover an area of 3,852,500 acres, or 23.87 per cent of the country's present territory. About 61 per cent of the forest area is covered with conifers. Spruce, fir, and pine forests are scattered amidst oak, aspen, and birch. There are also islands of hornbeam. The tallest fir tree, 138 feet, grows in the Pūnia forest. Lithuanian oak is of a very high quality, matched only by the oaks of Germany and Yugoslavia.

The oldest tree in Lithuania grows near the village of Stelmužė. The circumference of this giant oak-tree is 42.6 feet, and its diameter, 13.5 feet. Another famous Lithuanian oak, Baublys, inspired these lines in the epic poem Pan Tadeusz by the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz:

And the Baublys oak? Within its hollow trunk, In that great cave, they said, a dozen knights Together came to hold their merry feasts.

In 1961, however, only 5.1 per cent of the Lithuanian forest area was covered with full-grown trees; on 10.1 per cent grew trees nearing maturity; on 81.2 per cent, middle-aged trees; and on 55.6 per cent, saplings and seedlings.

In the Lithuanian forests can be found some 200 different varieties of mushrooms. Many kinds of berries are abundant.

. Lithuanian wildlife, in general, resembles that of the rest of Central Europe. Moose are the largest of the wild animals. Hares, deer, foxes, badgers, wolves, and wild boars are the most common, but one can also encounter elk, roe-deer, wild goats, and martens. Canada minks, beavers, and muskrats have been introduced since World War II.

About 270 different birds spend the summer, or the whole year, in Lithuania. The lake Žuvintas, since 1937 a wildlife refuge, is a favorite nesting ground for migrating birds. Its dense growths and endless labyrinth of narrow streams made it an invaluable shelter for Lithuanian freedom fighters battling Soviet intruders in the wake of World War II.

. The boundaries of Lithuania proper are historically among the most stable borders in Europe. Lithuania's frontier with Latvia was stabilized in the 13th century and slightly altered in 1921 by mutual agreement. Lithuania's boundary with the Teutonic Knights, and later with the Kingdom of Prussia, did not change between 1422 and 1819. This boundary, however, was never an ethnographic frontier, since it cut through Lithuanian lands, separating Lithuania Minor (Prussian Lithuania) from Lithuania Major. At Versailles (1919) the Allies detached from Germany a small part of Lithuania Minor, (1,088 square miles) to provide Lithuania with an outlet to the Baltic See, including the Klaipėda harbor. The Potsdam Line, traced by President Truman, and Stalin and Attlee in 1945, closely resembles the Caspar Hennenberger Line of 1595—then the southern limit of the Lithuanian language in Prussia. It was the Potsdam Line that separated Lithuania Minor and the vicinity of Königsberg from Germany and assigned the region to Soviet administration. Initially, the Kremlin intended to turn over the region to Lithuania, but in 1947 decided to convert it instead into a typical Russian colony. Members of the local population were expelled, exterminated, or deported to slave labor camps in Russia; some 500,000 Russian colonists were settled In their place. Lithuanian and German place names were Russianized overnight.

Lithuania's boundary with the Soviet Union was established in 1920, by the Peace Treaty of Moscow, on the basis of ethnographic, religious, and cultural factors. Because of Lithuania's unsettled territorial conflict with Poland, however, that boundary remained a theoretical one. When the Soviet Union ocuppied eastern Poland in 1939, including the region of Vilnius, it returned to Lithuania only about one third of the territory ceded to Lithuania by the Peace Treaty of 1920.

. According to the Soviet census of January 15, 1959, Lithuania had a population of 2,711,000, of which as many as 211,000 were Soviet colonists. Yet before World War II, the autochthonous population in this same area was 3,200,000. Since the average annual birth rate of Lithuania's population has been 11 per 1,000, under normal conditions the population of Lithuania should have grown to at least 3,900,000 by 1959. The shocking decline in Lithuania’s population between 1989 and 1969 is mainly the result of Soviet and Nazi genocide. Demographers in the West calculate Lithuania’s population losses as follows:

First Soviet occupation, 1940–1941 | | 60,000

German occupation, 1941–1944 | | 250,000

Second Soviet occupation, 1944 | | 570,000

Expatriates and refugees | | 280,000

| 1,160,000

The population density in Lithuania declined from 122 (1939) to 106 (1969) per square mile.

The principal cities of Lithuania are:

Vilnius (264,000), capital city of Lithuania since 1223, and for its monuments of Baroque and Renaissance architecture. Through out history it has been a cultural and religious shrine not only for Lithuanians, but for Poles and Jews as well. An important railway junction, it is also noted for its many industries.

Kaunas (247,000), founded in the 11th century. Temporary capital of Lithuania from 1921 to 1989, it is an important industrial and commercial center.

Klaipėda (105,000), Lithuania's only seaport, which dates back to the 13th century.

Šiauliai (63,000), a transport and commercial center,

. The first census in independent Lithuania, in 1923, established the following religious distribution: Roman Catholic -85.7 per cent; Jews—7.7 per cent; Protestant—8.8 per cent; Greek Orthodox—2.7 per cent. The present regime, bent on exterminating religion in Lithuania, does not publish data on the religious affiliations of the population.

. The Lithuanian language differs as completely from the Slavonic or Germanic tongues as, for instance, English differs from Greek. Professor Benjamin B. Dwight wrote in his Modern Philology: „Lithuanian is a language of great value to the philologist. It is most antique in its forms of all living languages of the world, and most akin in its substance and spirit to the primeval Sanskrit.“ In the opinion of another noted linguist, Dr. Alfred Senn, the Lithuanian language, „despite its conservative character, is as modern as our modern world. You can express and discuss in the Lithuanian language anything that our civilization requires you to say.“ Lithuanian is now spoken as the mother tongue by some 4,000,000 people throughout the world.

Chapter 2

T belong to the same Indo-European group of peoples as those of most European nations. They are survivors of a separate and distinct branch of the Aryan family, and are not members of the Slavonic or Germanic lineage. Of all living European peoples, only the Latvians are related to them. The forefathers of both the Lithuanians and the Latvians—the so-called Balts—once populated the whole shore of the Baltic Sea and occupied the region from the Vistula River to far beyond the Daugava River.

Lithuanians lived on the Baltic shores long before the Christian era. The first recorded reference to them contained in the book Germania by the Roman historian Tacitus, in the 2nd century A.D. A clearer picture of Lithuania, however, emerged in the 9th and 10th centuries. The name Lithuania first entered the annals of history in 1009, with a mention in the Annales Quedlinburgenses. The beginnings of written Lithuanian history are to be found in the early 13th century.

Isolated by the Baltic Sea, impenetrable forests, and the great Pripet marshlands, the ancient Lithuanians did not take part in the great migrations of nations. They were peacefull hunters and cultivators of the soil, who carried on friendly trade with visiting merchants.

The peaceful life of Lithuanians was first disturbed by the Slavs and Vikings. But the most dangerous neighbor emerged in the 13th century, when the Order of the Teutonic Knights, a monastic and military organisation, launched its eastern drive. The professed aim of the Order was the conversion of heathens to Christianity. In response to the Christian slogans of the Teutonic Knights, the Popes proclaimed the crusades against the Lithuanians, under the Order's banners. The reality behind the slogans was quite different: it was simply a design to enslave the Baltic peoples and to seize their lands. Although they claimed officially to be servants of the Church, the Knights did not even allow missionaries to enter Lithuania.

The scattered forces of Prussian princes, enmeshed in local rivalries, were unable to halt the powerful military machine of the Order. In the course of 50 years the Order conquered the western Prussian principalities in the region now known as East Prussia. The Teutonic Knights then turned on Lithuania proper; a life-and-death struggle began that was to last 150 years.

The fate of their Prussian kinsmen—subjugation and extermination—threatened to engulf all the Lithuanian principalities. Lithuanians soon recognized the value of a single command over the many military formations of individual families, and a few princes gradually came to occupy dominant positions. Then, in 1286, Prince Mindaugas rose above all other ruling families as the sole leader of the new unified State. Thus was created a bulwark against the onslaught of the Teutonic Order.

Other important events were taking place during that time in Eastern Europe. In 1240 the Mongols seized Kiev and marched on Poland and Kungary. Russia was engulfed by the Mongol deluge. Taking advantage of the weakening of the Russian principalities, the Lithuanians began to expand eastward and southward. In 1241 they defeated the Tatars and temporarily stopped their drive toward the West.

In 1251 Prince Mindaugas was converted to Christianity. Pope Innocent IV, the highest spiritual authority of that time, issued an edict crowning Mindaugas as King of Lithuania. The coronation took place in 1253. When King Mindaugas and his sons were murdered by conspirators in 1263, however, Lithuania reverted to its ancient religion. A civil war for supreme power ensued.

The most important ruler to emerge after several pagan princes was King Gediminas (1316-1241). With him began three generations of rulers endowed with a degree of statesmanship rarely equalled in history. Gediminas, who titled himself Rex Lituanorum et multorum Ruthenorum, incorporated vast areas of the Ukraine and Byelorussia into Lithuania. At the same time he successfuly resisted the Teutonic Order in the west. He was the first Lithuanian ruler to enter into an alliance with Poland. Pope John XXII held King Gediminas in great esteem.

After Gediminas, his sons Algirdas and Kestutis ruled Lithuania for 32 years (1345-1377). The brothers closely coordinated their actions. Algirdas exercised control over eastern affairs, while Kestutis supervised relations with the West and especially with Teutonic Order. In 1262 Algirdas defeated a powerful Tatar army and thus saved the West from Tatar domination, which had already been imposed on Russia. The French historians Lavisse and Rambaud state in their Histoire Générale that it was of considerable importance in the history of European civilisation that these Lithuanian princes were able to block the Tatar drive against Europe; that they protected the shores of the Black Sea against Asiatic invasion and that they stopped the further advance of the Teutonic Order.

Algirdas was succeeded by his son Jogaila, who was to become King of Poland. In 1387 the Lithuanians accepted Christianity-not from the hated Teutonic Knights, but from the Poles.

When he ascended the Polish throne, Jogaila remained Grand Duke of Lithuania. From this fact the danger arose that Lithuania would become an integral part of Poland. The opposition of the Lithuanian people to such an integration compelled Jogaila to hand the helm of the Lithuanian State to his cousin Vytautas (139-1430), son of Kestutis.

It was during Vytautas’ rule that the Teutonic Order received a mortal blow. Through his marriage with the Polish Queen Jadwiga of Anjou, in 1386, Grand Duke Jogaila won an ally against Teutonic Order and established contact between Lithuania and Western Europe. As a result, less than 25 years later, the allied Lithuanian and Polish forces inflicted a crushing defeat on Teutonic Knights in 1410, at Gruenvald (Zhalgiris). The Teutonic Order, which never recovered from this blow, was finally dissolved in 1525.

Under Vytautas, Lithuania’s political importance reached its climax. The country’s borders extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the vicinity of Moscow to the Bug and Dniester rivers, Vytautas is the most outstanding personality in Lithuania's history and alone among its rulers has earned the sumname “the Great.” A man of vision and wisdom, industrialist, builder of roads, promoter of commerce, and protector of racial and religious tolerance, Vytautas the Great elevated his nation to first rank among the European powers of his time.

The 15th century saw a sudden growth of Russia’s power. That nation expanded rapidly and began to lay claim to principalities under Lithuania's sovereignty. The struggle for these territories went on during almost the entire 16th century.

The growing threat of Moscow led to the establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1609. A common king was to be elected by the nobility of both nations, which pledged to maintain a common foreign policy. In every other respect the two nations were to remain separate and sovereign political entities. In entering the Commonwealth, Lithuania ceded to Poland the Ukrainian provinces and limited its territory to the ethnically Lithuanian and Byelorussian lands.

Yet even the establishment of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth did not halt Moscow's expansionism. As Zygmunt-August, King of the Commonwealth, wrote in his letter to Queen Elizabeth of England: “As Moscow's power grows, the greater the danger not only to us but to all Christianity.”

Moscow's expansionism was not the only cause of the decline of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth. The wars with Sweden, as well as internal strife, weakened the Commonwealth to such a degree that in the 18th century it was partitioned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria (1772-1795), The greater part of Lithuania was taken by Russia.

Lithuania's subjection to Russia lasted 120 years, from 1796 to 1915, when the German armies occupied the country. Yet Lithuanians never lost hope of regaining their independence. When in 1812 Napoleon passed through Lithuania on his way to Russia, nine regiments of Lithuanian volunteers joined him to fight against Moscow. With the defeat of Napoleon, however, Russia's grip grew even tighter. Open rebellions erupted again in 1831 and 1865—both were ruthlessly put down, In 1832 the University of Vilnius closed, and in 1840 the Lithuanian Statute was abolished replaced by Russian law. More oppressive measures followed: Lithuanian language was banned in the schools; Russian officials swarmed into the country; a special decree even forbade the name of "Lithuania" replacing it with the Russian term "North-West Province". In 1864 the Russian government outlawed the printing of Lithuanian books and newspapers in Latin characters.

Some of the harshest tsarist measures were directed against Roman Catholic Church. Bishops were forbidden to appoint or transfer priests without governmental permission; priests needed police permits to travel beyond the boundaries of their parishes; the choice of sermons was restricted to government-approved collections only. To enter a seminary for priests, a young man had to obtain a permit from the Russian authorities. Many Roman Catholic churches were transferred outright to the Russian Orthodox religious communities. An attempt by the Lithuanian faithful in Kražiai prevent such a transfer by holding an uninterrupted vigil of prayers in the church, has led to the notorious Massacre of Kražiai, which reverberated through all Europe.

But the Lithunians did not surrender. The nationa law was heralded by the publication of the newspaper, Aušra ("The Dawn”) in 1888, in East Prussia, immediately beyond the border of Russian-occupied Lithuania. Despite all their efforts, the Russians were unable to stop the widespread smuggling of Lithuanian literature printed abroad into the country. Lithuania's hopes of regaining freedom were kindled during the Russo-Japanese war, when a revolutionary movement enveloped Russia itself. The Grand National Congress, which met in Vilnius on December 4-6, 1905, summed up the Lithuanian demands: Home Rule for ethnic Lithuania, with a parliament to be elected by universal ballot.

In the wake of the 1905 revolution, Russia regained full control in Lithuania; yet it was compelled to grant some concessions to the Lithuanian people. The ban on the Latin alphabet was revoked; publication of books and newspapers, although under censorship, was permitted; private Lithuanian schools and organisations were allowed to operate under police surveilance. The Roman Catholic Church gained some liberty of action. The struggle for freedom in Lithuania received the full-fledged support of Lithuanians who had emigrated to the United States. Organized into some 2,000 societies and over 100 Roman Catholic parishes, they collected funds and sought to influence public opinion to help their native land liberate itself trom foreign domination.

Chapter 3

W provided the Lithuanians with a long-awaited unity to press their demands for the restoration of national independence. Committees organized for this purpose brought the case of Lithuania before the forum of world opinion by issuing special publications in the major Western languages.

In September, 1917, 214 Lithuanian representatives gathered in Vilnius and clected a Lithuanian National Council of 20 prominent leaders representing all political trends. On February 16, 1918, the National Council unanimously proclaimed the restoration of Lithuania's independence. The reply of the German authorities was the immediate confiscation of this Declaration of Independence. But the Kaiser's Germany and tsarist Russia soon fell apart under the blows of the War and in the turmoll of internal revolutions. On November 11, 1918, the National Council formed the first cabinet of the Independent Republic of Lithuania.

The provisional government of Lithuania called volunteers to arms to defend the country's independence. The Germans were slowly retreating from Russia. The Red Army was following on their heels toward Lithuania, together with a Moscow-created "Lithuanian Soviet Government" under the leadership of Vincas Kapsukas-Mickevicius, head of the Lithuanian office of the Russian Communist Party in Moscow.

On December 22, 1918, Soviet Russia recognized Kapsukas' puppet regime and tried to intervene in support of a so-called genuine government. But in reality no revolutionary movement existed in Lithuania, as was openly admitted by the deputy chairman of the Kapsukas' government, Angarietis:

"The Soviet rule in Lithuania was not won through an internal struggle, nor it was a workers' revolt...; it was the Red Army that brought Soviet rule to Lithuania."

In May, 1919, the Lithuanian National Army launched a offensive against the Soviet Russian invaders. By August, 1919 not a single Russian soldier remained on Lithuanian soil. A peace treaty between Lithuania and Soviet Russia was signed on July 12, 1820, in Moscow. According to this treaty the Soviet Russia recognized Lithuania as a sovereign and independent State and renounced all claims to Lithuanian territory, Article 1 of the reads:

In conformity with the right, declared by the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, of all peoples to free self-determination, including the right of a full secession from the state which they have been a part, Russia recognizes without any reserve the sovereignty and independence of the State of Lithuania, with all juridical consequences resulting from recognition, and voluntarily and forever renounces all sovereign rights, possessed by Russia over the Lithuanian people and territory. The fact that Lithuania was ever under Russian sovereignty does not place the Lithuanian people and territory under any obligation to Russia.

But the struggle for independence was not yet over. In the summer of 1919, remnants of the German army under General von der Golts and Russian monarchist formations under Bermondt-Avaloff invaded northern Lithuania. The invaders were defeated on November 21-22, 1919, and were permitted to retreat to East Prussia.

A more difficult problem, however, arose from the south. On October 7, 1820, under the auspices of the League of Nations, Lithuania and Poland signed an armistice agreement, demarcating the border between the two countries. But two days later, Polish divisions under General Żeligowski crossed the armistice line and invaided the region of Vilnius. In a fierce six-week struggle, Lithuanian army checked the advance of the Polish divisions some 25 miles northwest of Vilnius. A special commission of the of the League of Nations then imposed an armistice and a neutral zone. Lithuania lost, its capital, Vilnius, and almost one third of its territory. In protest, Lithuania severed relations with its southern neighbor. For 18 years (1920-1938) no mail or trains crossed the border between Lithuania and Poland; no diplomatic or consular representatives exchanged.

Another change of Lithuania's borders came in 1923. The Lithuanian population of the Klaipeda (Memel) territory rebelled against the temporary French administration and, with the help of volunteers from the mainland, achieved the desired union with Lithuania.

The great powers extended de jure recognition to Lithuania during 1918-1922. In 1921 Lithuania was admitted to the League of Nations. In 1920, the Lithuanian Constituent Assembly was elected. A permanent democratic constitution was adopted on August 1, 1922. It provided for freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly full equality for all religious and ethnic minority groups; direct and roportional elections of representatives to parliament; and election of the President of the Republic for a three-year term by the parliament.

The period of parliamentary democracy in Lithuania came to an end with a coup d'état by Lithuanian army officers in 1926. Antanas Smetona was elected President and inaugurated a period of semi-authoritarian rule. Opposition had little, if any, opportunity for expression. All political parties, with the exception of Smetona's own small Nationalist party, were banned. Yet Smetona, a former professor of Greek philosophy and humanistic conservative, did not have the making of a genuine totalitarian dictator. Although the opposition press was censored, it was not abolished. Cultural, professional, and economic organizations functioned under close police surveillance, but were not forbidden. Also, Smetona was held in great esteem by the Orthodox Jewry and by a sizeable part of the Polish minority.

When Hitler, using the threat of force, seized Klaipeda (Memel) in 1939, Lithuania lost much of its economic independence and some 25 per cent of its industries. The shock to the government and the nation was so great that President Smetona asked a non-party man, General Jonas Černius, to form a new cabinet. Members of the Christian Democrat and Peasant Populist opposition were included in the new cabinet—a step toward the restoration of democracy.

Before World War I, about 450 families in Lithuania owned 3,500,000 acres, or 22 per cent of the country’s land. A sweeping land reform law in 1922 created more than 45,000 new farms by 1939. Before the Soviet Russian invasion of 1940, Lithuania had 287,000 farms, and 70 per cent of the country’s population was engaged in agriculture.

Scientific methods were introduced into farming, and industries closely related to agriculture were established. The Center of Agricultural Research in Dotnuva developed new varieties of grain and fodder crops. During the 10-year period preceding World War II, grain production increased by almost 100 per cent. In 1938, the grain yield was 1,800,000 tons. Imported pedigree stock from Holland and Denmark considerably increased the milk yield. Butter production rose from 7,600 metric tons in 1928 to 19,900 ton in 1939. Butter export increased from 2,051 tons in 1927 to 17,413 in 1939. The number of cattle rose from 604,000 in 1920 to 1,230,890 in 1999.

As for independent Lithuania's achievements in pork and bacon production, Soviet propaganda itself has acknowledged that “at one time Lithuanian bacon became a kind of a national dish in Great Britain—so much of it was sold on the British market”. By 1938, pork livestock in Lithuania numbered 1,249,470.

In 1913, Lithuania had only 151 industrial establishments, with 6,600 employees. During the independence period, the former idnex increased more than ninefold, and the later, more than fivefold. By 1924 Lithuania had managed to restore its prewar production, disrupted by the impact of the war. From that time on, industry grew by leaps and bounds. By 1939, the number of industrial enterprises had grown to 16,131 and total production reached the value 405,800,000 litas (5.99 litas equalled $1.00).

Among the many new enterprises launched for the first time in Lithuania were three modern sugar refineries, which, fully suppllied the local market. The factories of the great meatpacking combine Maistas were pronounced by foreign experts to be among the most modern and the best planned and equipped in Europe. The Central Union of Dairy Cooperative Societies, Pienocentras, included 91,000 members, 176 dairies and 159 skimming stations. Textile metallurgic and machine building industries came after the dominant food processing industry in importance. Lumber, wood processing, paper and building material industries were also highly developed.

| (in litas)

| Food processing | — above 200,000,000

| Textile manufacture | — above 40,000,000

| Metallurgy and machinery building | — above 24,000,000

The total production value was 405,749,000 litas.

The Great Depression had no appreciable effect on Lithuania's industrial growth. While in 1931 world production declined to 78.4 per cent of that of 1929, Lithuania’s industry expanded by 140.7 percent. By 1939, unimpaired by the depression, Lithuania’s industry had exceeded the 1929 level by 354.2 per cent.

The Lithuanian Republic inherited from the Russian Empire 600 miles of neglected standard-gauge railroads track and 466 miles of wholly inadequate narrow-gauge track. Rolling stock virtually did not exist. By 1937, Lithuania had built up 1,041 miles of standard gauge and 372 miles of narrow-gauge track. The country’s railing stock consisted of 192 locomotives, 438 passenger cars, and 4,323 freight cars.

First-class highways covered 1,242 miles in 1938, while good quality local roads stretched for 18,693 miles. In that year a 10-year highway construction program was in progress.

Exports | Imports

(in litas)

1923 | 146,800,000 | | 156,600,000

1930 | 337,700,000 | | 312,400,000

1939 | 209,194,000 | | 169,362,000

In 1939, food products amounted to 53.04 per cent, and raw materials and semi-manufactured goods to 29.8 per cent of total exports. Over 66 per cent of Lithuanian exports went to Great Britain and Germany, while over 53 per cent of its imports came from these countries. Other trade partners were Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Holland, Latvia, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, and the U.S. Lithuanian exports in 1938 amounted to $13.30, and imports to $11.00 per capita.