Why didn't the USSR stop Lithuania from leaving? (Short Animated Documentary)

This was super interesting: I always assumed that after Lithuania declared independence, the USSR just kinda went "welp, nothing we can do about it now" and then collapsed.

The Soviets did use force against Lithuanian civilians when they drove over them with tanks on January 13, 1991. 14 killed and over 140 injured.

Because every soviet republic has right to leave if it wants.

Nice

Surely Kelly moneymaker could have used her financial influence to help the Lithuanian economy!!!

Because like the Ukraine, it was full of neo-Nazis?

Lithuania also had to declare independence 1918, Feb 16th . It had been subjugated by Tzarist Russia. We experienced six assaults and occupations from Monarchistc or Communist Orcs. And we have been nifty enough to join NATO.Ukraine wasn't. Faster than Finland, Sweden.

They didn't impose the socialist paradise because they couldn't.
As always, you are not authorized to leave but maybe if you try they wouldn't be able to impede it. Jump that fence!

Putin tries to undo all of this, because USSR wasn't really about communism, but about Russian supremacy.

I always wonder why US is so eager to save fkn soviet union. They was saving them in 1920-ies. They literaly saved them in 1941-1945. In 1990-ies famous "bush chicken" was suplied on that suport moder russian oligarch growed up. What US getting back? If they would listen to russian tv all they dream is to destroy US. most people in russia realy want to US be destroyed. Im not even mention US part in knowing and not caring about soviet genocide on national minorities and ussr ocupied countries. They still care to russia not fall apart.

And you have people saying Russia just allowed these countries to be independent. No. They wanted to maintain them under their sphere of influence until they couldn't, which is largely a result of their own actions.

You have libertarians (being the anti-patriotic dumbasses that they are) who blame the U.S. for starting the war. Something they are all in an agreement without much thought which is something I discover also almost immediately.

Why are you so certain America is at fault?

"America is at fault for invading?"

Hold it, invading is a good thing if it leads to unification. The Problem with Russia is they are against Human Unification, therefore any effort of unification that they make is bad. Until Russia is part of the West, the will undermine it and therefore undermine human survival. Do understand that as being bad?

What America is at fault for is not doing enough to cement long term Western control out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And it makes sense. It has the most stupid border with Mexico. Should had just expanded to the Darien Gap and should had dealt with Mexico's problems as part of our own. If the Mexicans are fellow Americans, what do they have to be upset about? Not speaking Spanish anymore even though more likely we'll be a bilingual people of Espanol and Inglis? Dumbass Humans. Most Mexicans would welcome it so long as they are regarded as equals. Being bilingual will help and Spanish is a very easy language to learn. So we don't have much to complain about. We'll be speaking Spanish as much as English and uniting the entirety of North America under a single system with unity and common brotherhood/sisterhood for all. We will all benefit as America become America. The land of the Free from Panama City to Anchorage with everything in between from Sea to Shining Sea.

"But we have to avoid colonization?"

Why? Again something that can be good that was done poorly is targeted as a bad thing.

First, you cannot colonize any part of the world because the entire human world is the human world. You colonizing Zulu land is just the cousins of the Zulus setting up shop next door. That is what colonization actually is. It is a good thing, what was bad was the apartheid that came with it. Mistreating your neighbors is bad. Living next to them is not bad. Having them become part of your country is not bad.

"But they will lose their cultural identity."

Which may be necessary. Survival of the fittest in ideas leads to all humans enjoying the fruits for the victorious. Remember, as long as we are all part of the same nation, we all benefit in whatever is triumphant. Dumbass humans.

"But then we'll lose our cultural identity."

Again, whatever is triumphant we will all enjoy so long as we are all members of the same nation. If you allow another nation to exist, then you allow those spoils of victory to be taken from you. You have yourself to blame not the unity of humanity itself. Treat them as your fellow cousins which is what they are and they in turn will do the same. Do not justify your own downfall.

I saw the German flag 🇩🇪 at the baltics in the Viedeo

You clearly TOTALLY MISSED the part that the Estonian Commission in the USSR found out the Secret protocols of the Molotov Ribbentrop, which later lead to the Baltic Chain, and afterwards, pushed to these events, AKA why the Baltic were the first 3 countries leaving USSR.

A reminder that Lithuanian State was dubbed as "fascist"*, sent troops and killed a lot of people, and than gave up on the thing.

* The Kremlin did the same shit with Ukraine and dubbing a 44 mln people country as "to be denazified" in 2022. Same old shit rhetoric, just repeated

Because Lithuania has had a different and superior history especially through the Polish Lithuania commonwealth

They tried...

I'm interested in the regions of Russia you included on the map that ultimately did not become independent. Namely the white region near Finland and the dark brown enclave north of Kazakhstan

Because they could leave according to the USSR Constitution.

Even soviets understood that keeping country like this is a suicide anchor to whole USSR

woow. another purely informative channel without annoying music!

We bought our covid masks from Lithuania in the first weeks of lockdown. Got 2 Fernez full face respirators new in box from 1998.

Well atleast they signaled to Latvia, and Estonia to make Barricades just incase.

The answer is very simple: no one at the time among people thought that the Baltic states quickly become very hostile states to Russia. Regretfully, lessons of history have a tendency to be forgotten. Few remembered very hostile attitude to Soviet Russia of the nascent Baltic states in the pre WW2 period. And if they remembered they tended to believe that was because of the Communism. But the Baltic states happened to be simply Rusophobes - Communism or not. And again the nowadays Russian leadership face the same problem as Stalin faced: the Baltic states as possible bridgeheads for foreign intervention.

Talk too fast, hard to follow.

Finally, someone remembers that my country exists and has another purpose than being swallowed by the Soviet Union or being the weaker, less populated half of Poland-Lithuania.

As Lithuanian, I would like to recognize Moldova, Iceland and Denmark as GOATS for being first to recognize our independence.

Free Palestine

What a tragedy.

Why didn´t the USSR stop any Soviet republic from leaving? Why did they allow Ukraine to take Crimea+Sevastopol, Luhansk and Donetsk (they even gave up a few kms of main railway Moscow - Rostov!!!)? Why did they allow Kazakhstan to take even Petropavlovsk and large part of the southern branch of Transsib? Why didn´t they stop Georgia from taking Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Why didn´t they at least stop Estonia - ultra small, territory belonging to Russia, basically next to Leningrad/St. Petersburg? Because Gorbachev was a traitor listening to US orders, and Yeltsin was more or less the same (not to mention you can count with your fingers the moments during his presidency when he was sober - naturally one of these few moments was when he chose Putin as his successor).

Multiple mistakes, imho, but more or less good enough for the YT generation.

The singing revolution was another important part of Lithuanian independence if I remember correctly.

You forgot the tanks at the tv tower in Vilnius, the singing protests, the battle for the parlament building, the forest brothers and basically 95% of the lore. Please, please don’t just treat us as a sidenote, we quite literally killed the USSR.

this is so inaccurate

I personally believe giving independence to the Baltic states was a bad decision on the side of the corrupt Russian government. That's why Putin never went to his funeral a good move on the side of Putin.

I hate everything, and anything Lithuanian.

They literally TRIED, the russians shot people. Killed protesters. They just LOST, like russia akways does.

They said “Pretty Please” when asking Uncle Vlad if they could leave.

We basically kicked them out by carrying books in secret

The decisive factors for the successful liberation of Lithuania from Russian slavery: 1. Soviet Russia did not have sufficient resources to wage war with all the rebel countries at the same time. 2. Russia had a vile but cowardly leader. Gorabachev about the war against Ukraine: “If I were Vladimir Putin, I would do the same.”
But there were attempts to punish Lithuania. Read Wiki - "Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts"

Labai įdomu

The video's length shows a significantly zoomed in perspective, starting the timeline around the 90s. There was quite a bit of history going on in the latter half of the 80s and not just in Lithuania. The title also seems misleading. It wasn't a simple "Oh, OK." message from the USSR.

As a lithuanian, I say ty

The three Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) shouldn't have been in the USSR in the first place. USSR invaded them around the time Hitler invaded Poland, but since the USSR was on the winning side in WW2 they didn't have to give up any of the land they invaded.

That's why a strong center is important. They could have had a federal structure...giving autonomy to the republics but making sure that they are a part of one union.

Every Russian war of aggression uses the protecting russian speakers excuse doesnt it