Tarp konspiracijos ir viešos rezistencinės organizacijos
Between Conspiracy and Public Resistance Organization

Summary/Abstract: After the II World War a huge wave of refugees from Lithuania (over 60,000 people) retreated to the West. Their development and growth in the Western world was separated from Lithuanian roots. While Catholic political wing transferred its traditional strict organization forms, the liberals remained split. At first, the liberals joined the United Democratic Resistance Movement Foreign Mission, founded in 1947. It was a secret organization, founded to maintain relations with resistance forces in occupied Lithuania and foreign secret services. At that time there was no public organization in emigration's political life to meet the views of the younger liberal resistance generation. The liberals announced the idea that it is necessary to create a strong organized group on party-free basis as a background of secret resistance activity and a presenter of the liberals' thought in the emigration society. After the UDRM Foreign Mission was closed, the Resistance Union of Lithuania (RUL), a liberal, political and cultural organization, was founded in England in 1950. The RUL leaders were two outstanding personalities of liberal wing - Stasys Žymantas and the chief of Lithuanian diplomacy Stasys Lozoraitis. The main objectives of the newly founded organization were: to maintain the resistance movement in Lithuania, to support its liberation in every possible way. The Resistance Union of Lithuania recognized the Lithuanian Diplomatic Corps, led by S. Lozoraitis, as a legitimate state organ authorised to represent Lithuania's interests abroad. The organization maintained secret contacts with armed resistance in Lithuania (through Jonas Deksnys, recruited by the MGB) and intelligence services of different countries. The RUL relations with the VLIK (The Supreme Committee for Liberation of Lithuania) claiming to represent Lithuania's Government in exile were rather strained. The establishment of RUL was a very important step while forming the liberal wing as an institution. It was the first step aside from individual action to the creation of organization, without which it was impossible to act in a more active and effective way in the public political life of Lithuanian emigration.

• Details
• Contents