Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

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.

The article explores various linkages between the violence of the Great War and the postwar conflict in independent Lithuania. The author focuses on several key Lithuanian paramilitary groups that emerged as a result of the collapse of the German occupying regime, the Bolshevik advance, and the ensuing power struggle in 1918 and 1919. It explores their grassroots origins, their motivation to fight, and their role in processes of forming a community, and state and nation-building. The author argues that these armed paramilitary formations contributed to the militarisation of the country’s civilian life. Having emerged in the contested peripheral regions of Lithuania, they were led by veterans of the Great War acting as independent warlords. Besides providing security for local people, these formations occasionally engaged in terror against civilians who were perceived as harmful elements that had to be purged from local communities. These paramilitary formations also showed a degree of operational freedom, by controlling certain peripheral regions for considerable periods of time. But the state was able to share its monopoly on legal violence with them only for as long as its own survival required the mobilisation of all economic and human resources for the war.

On the basis of documents in the Latvian State Archives, this paper discusses the armed struggle against the Soviet authorities in Vidzeme, in northern Latgala, and Sela, which took place during the Latvian Wars of Independence, and was joined voluntarily by the local population in an organised way. The discussion tells about the armed guerrilla groups that operated in Vidzeme and northern Latgala in 1919, and formed a serious obstacle to the establishment of Soviet power, the participation of ethnic minorities in guerrilla groups, and the features of the guerrilla fighting. The collaboration between Latvian guerrillas and Lithuanian troops, and their role in the expulsion of Soviet Latvian troops from the country, is analysed.

During the struggle for Lithuania’s independence, defence and guerrilla units started forming in the countryside, and fought against the Bermontian and Soviet forces and gangs of marauders. In 1919, intellectuals and public servants from Kaunas formed a sports-military guerrilla organisation, and called it the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU). The organisation accepted not only new members, but also people who had already fought with guerrilla units in northeast Lithuania. Therefore, the ranks of the LRU grew rapidly, and the new paramilitary organisation played an important role in the struggle for Lithuania’s statehood. The LRU was active throughout the interwar period, until 11 July 1940, when, after the Soviet occupation, it was officially disbanded. This paper deals with issues of the scope and structure of the LRU, which until now have hardly been dealt with in historiography. The paper has three objectives: 1) it tries to establish changes in the numbers of riflemen in the interwar period, as well as the numbers of people who belonged to the LRU in different periods, and their total number throughout the interwar period; 2) the ethnic, religious and social composition of the Riflemen’s Union is analysed, with the aim of developing ‘a social portrait of a rifleman’; and 3) the internal structure of the Union is addressed: the numbers of reserve and combatant riflemen.

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.

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 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.