Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The Riflemen’s Union (Związek Strzelecki) was a paramilitary organisation in the Second Polish Republic which oversaw the military training of young pre-military age people. Simultaneously, it was a civic education movement. The activities of the organisation covered all of Poland, and it also had structural subdivisions in Polish communities outside the country. The article discusses the circumstances of the foundation of the organisation, its relationship with the Polish army, the main features of its activities, organisational structure and principles of management, the staff, the composition of members, and the dynamics of their numbers.

The beginning of the war in 1939 changed the geopolitical situation in the Baltic region. After Poland had lost its sovereignty and the Soviet Union approached the borders of Lithuania, the country’s defence concept also changed. Reforms of the army that had started in Lithuania as early as 1935 fundamentally changed the approach to the defence of the country. The vision was declared that every citizen was a defender of his country. After the reinforcement of border control, mobilisation plans were drawn up, and the Riflemen’s Union was included in Lithuania’s defence plans. In 1939, after the Mutual Assistance Treaty had been signed with the Soviet Union, 20,000 Soviet soldiers entered Lithuania. Given the new geopolitical circumstances, a detailed restructuring of the concept of national defence was undertaken. This paper looks into the directives for mobilisation drawn up in the spring of 1940, the mobilisation plan for the Riflemen’s Union, and the plans for the use of the riflemen for national defence.

This article discusses the process of the integration of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU) into the state’s defence system in the 1920s and 1930s. The key features and boundaries of the process are outlined, on the basis of archival materials and research literature. An analysis of relations between the military authorities and the LRU reveals individual characteristics of the relationship between the riflemen and the army. The regional context of the process is evaluated within the limitations of the sources available, by presenting the situations of similar paramilitary organisations in Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland during the period in question.

The paper analyses the relations between the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU) and the diaspora in the USA, established at the very beginning of the LRU’s activity. It aims to show the plans for collaboration with Lithuanian Americans, the specifics of fundraising, and the aim of the riflemen to improve their material status by means of financial support from Lithuanian Americans. The controversial fundraising mission to America by the painter Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, the LRU’s representative, in 1922 and 1923, is investigated. On the basis of unpublished archive documents, the paper addresses the circumstances of the organisation and implementation of Žmuidzinavičius’ mission, the suspicions about its transparency, and the investigation into it.

For the first time in Lithuanian historiography, this paper examines the theories of guerrilla warfare formulated by Polish military theorists, such as Karol Bogumił Stolzman, Piotr Wysocki, Henryk Kamieński and Ludwik Adam Mierosławski, and analyses the links between Polish paramilitarism and the origins of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, and the formation of the ideological views of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, given the experience of similar organisations in East-Central Europe (Sokol, Suojeuskunta), and the links between the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union and the paramilitary movements formed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.