Decisive Years. Issues of Activities of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union on the Eve of the Soviet Occupation, and its Liquidation.

Abstract

Annotation. Te article, based on unpublished archival documents from the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union and the Lithuanian armed forces repositories, and recent historiographic publications, deals with the challenges faced by Lithuania and the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, and their military plans on the eve of the Second World War. Te Soviet authorities in Lithuania were concerned with disarming the riflemen as quickly as possible, seeing them as a force capable of putting up politically undesirable resistance Te article analyses the liquidation of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union afer the Soviet occupation in 1940, discusses the issues of seizure of property of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union and seizure of armaments from the Riflemen’s units.