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Abstract
The article looks at Soviet territorial planning from the perspective of Lithuania, Latvia and Belorussia, the western frontier republics of the USSR. It explores why the impact of Soviet long-term territorial planning on economic and social development and ethnic composition was more significant in Soviet Lithuania than in neighbouring Latvia and suggests two reasons for this. First, the purge of Latvian leaders in 1959 stopped the preparation of strategies oriented to the republic’s interests. Second, the ‘bourgeois’ intellectual legacy developed back in the 1930s was brought into play at the end of the 1950s and used in support of national communist ideas in Soviet Lithuania.
Notes
1 Author’s interview with Nikolai Belukha’s son Andrei, Rīga, 17 April 2012.
2 Latvijas Valsts arhīvs-Partija arhīvs (hereafter LVA-PA), f. 101, ap. 29, l. 79, lp. 392–442.
3 My use of the term ‘national communism’ is based on Sirutavičius’s description: the ‘politics of national communism was distinguished by autonomy and sovereignty as regards the Kremlin. In other words, a national communist was first of all inclined to satisfy various economic, socio-political, and cultural interests of his compatriots, and to do so in certain instances at the expense of the “centre”’ (Sirutavičius Citation2019, p. 86).
4 For more on this policy, see Martin (Citation2001).
5 See, for example, Brazauskas (Citation2007).
6 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki (hereafter RGAE), f. 399, op. 1, d. 1621, ll. 1–3.
7 RGAE, f. 399, op. 1, d. 1621, ll. 1–3.
8 ‘Generalnaya skhema razmeshcheniya proizvoditelnykh sil, оbespechivayushchaya naibolee effektivnoe ispolzovanie prirodnykh i trudovykh resursov, vsestoronnee razvitie khozyaistva i kul’tury soyuznykh respublik i ekonomicheskikh raionov’, RGAE, f. 7, op. 4, d. 2.
9 RGAE, f. 7, op. 4, d. 2.
10 Research of SOPS, ‘A short analysis of the distribution of industry in economic districts of the USSR and inside economic districts (in large, medium and small cities and towns)’ [‘Kratkii analiz razmeshcheniya promyshlennosti po ekonomicheskim raionam SSSR i vnutri ekonomicheskikh raionov (po krupnym, srednim i malym gorodam i poselkam gorodskogo tipa)’], RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 156.
11 RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 156, l. 23.
12 LVA-PA, f. 101, apr. 12, l. 2, lp. 85.
13 RGAE, f. 4372, op. 57, d. 507, l. 114.
14 LVA-PA, f. 101, apr. 29, l. 79, lp. 441.
15 LVA-PA, f. 101, apr. 29, l. 79, lp. 442. Tashkent was the capital of Uzbekistan. There was in fact no statistical data to indicate the migration of Uzbeks into Belorussia. These words are more likely a reflection of the general perception at the time about the sudden growth in population in the Central Asian republics.
16 LVA-PA, f. 101, apr. 29, l. 79, lp. 451.
17 RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 669, l. 239.
18 Natsionalnyi arkhiv respubliki Belorus (hereafter NARB), f. 30, op. 9, d. 2977, ll. 109, 113.
19 The term ‘employed in the household’ (zanyaty v domashnem khozyaistve) was the Soviet formulation for ‘unemployed’ because the Soviet ideology did not officially recognise unemployment. The State Plan Committee and Central Statistical Bureau conducted surveys to ascertain how many from this ‘household’ stratum were ready and willing to work and stated that not everyone was actually employable. One should note that such surveys were usually conducted when the Gosplan doubted local authorities’ claims about high unemployment. See, for example, Grybkauskas (Citation2011, p. 151).
20 RGAE, f. 7, op. 4, d. 63, l. 5. This recommendation formed part of the resolution of the Council of Ministries of the Soviet Union dated 3 December 1962.
21 NARB, f. 4, op. 20, d. 436, l. 48.
22 Pastavy is a town in western Belarus, some 20km from the border with Lithuania.
23 NARB, f. 4, op. 20, d. 436, l. 48.
24 NARB, f. 4, op. 20, d. 436, l. 62.
25 NARB, f. 4, op. 20, d. 436, l. 108.
26 NARB, f. 4, op. 20, d. 436, l. 122.
27 NARB, f. 30, op. 9, d. 2976, l. 7.
28 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (hereafter RGANI), f. 5, op. 31, d. 100, ll. 1–10.
29 The influence wielded by Stanislav Pilotovich is evident in his subsequent career. Following his tenure as the secretary of the Belarusian CP CC from 1966 to 1971, he was appointed the ambassador of the Soviet Union in Poland and became a member of the CPSU CC.
30 It is worth noting here that in terms of the population, Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic republics.
31 Kapitalnoe stroitelstvo v Litovskoi SSR. Statisticheskii sbornik (Vilnius, tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie pri Sovete Ministrov Litovskoi SSR, 1973, p. 50).
32 Eduards Berklavs’ public call (Berklavs Citation1959) for Latvians to join the ranks of the Latvian Communist Party annoyed Moscow and undoubtedly contributed to the decision of the Khrushchev leadership to remove the Latvian national communists. The CPSU CC apparatus viewed this as an attempt to ethnicise the party organisation in the republic, which would have contradicted the principles of communist internationalism. The majority of Latvian Communist Party members were actually Russians (or Sovietised Latvians imported from the pre-war USSR) during the early postwar period and it was only gradually that local Latvians began to sign up to the Party.
33 See, for example, Stulginskis (Citation1940).
34 Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas (hereafter LCVA), f. R-754, ap. 4, b. 4204, l. 4.
35 LCVA, f. R-754, ap. 4, b. 4204, l. 26.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Saulius Grybkauskas
Saulius Grybkauskas, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius, Lithuania. Email: [email protected]