Central Committee. Report from Committee officials in Lithuania about the attempted takeover by the “Committee for National Salvation”. [R 11 Jan 91], 4 pp.

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[page one of four]

To the CPSU Central Committee

About the events in Lithuania

Senior staff of the [CPSU] Central Committee (Comrades Kazyulin and Udovichenko) who are in Lithuania, report that the House of the Press and DOSAAF (where the regional defence department is located) in Vilnius and the officers’ mess in Kaunas have been brought under control of the paratroopers. This operation was carried out, overall, without major clashes. At the same time it must be noted that the information issued on the Mayak radio station about these events was not objective. In particular, it was reported that the military had committed outrages and, supposedly, that there are victims and casualties.

At 5 pm local time there was a press conference at the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party at which the head of the Ideological Department, Comrade Yermolavicius, reported that a Committee for the National Salvation of Lithuania had been set up in the republic. This committee declares that it is taking full control. It is based at the radio-measuring instruments factory (director, O. Burdenko). The committee has adopted an appeal to the people of Lithuania, and also sent an ultimatum to the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR, in which it demands an immediate reaction to the appeal by the USSR President [Gorbachev].

The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR has rejected this ultimatum, calling the Committee “impostors” without the legal right to speak on behalf of the people of Lithuania.

For your information

Head of the CPSU Central Committee Department
for national [inter-ethnic] relations

[signed] V. Mikhailov

11 January 1991

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[pages two to four indicate that nine Secretaries of the Central Committee read this report.]

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NOTES

General

1. Notes by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. text written by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been added
to a previously typed document this is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation, John Crowfoot