Beginning of the end: Lithuanians on the bloodbath 30 years ago that precipitated the collapse of the USSR

Thirty years ago, in the frosty early winter of 1991, a moment when the self-declared independence of Lithuania wobbled under heavy pressure from Moscow, factory worker Vytautas Peciukonis tuned in to the radio to hear news of Soviet tanks rolling in his native Vilnius.

A few hours later, he was pulling bodies from under the bellies of those tanks.

The tragic events of the night of January 12-13 cascaded rapidly, Peciukonis tells The Independent. At Vilnius’ TV tower, the epicentre of clashes between Soviet troops and pro-independence protesters, mere minutes separated happy protest songs from the  bloodshed after midnight.

“First the tanks opened fire with blank rounds, but the shockwaves caused windows to fall out on the protesters who were defending the tower down below,” he recalls. “After that, panic, and all hell broke loose.”

Amid the pitch black chaos, Soviet tanks and commandos ploughed forward through the crowds to take the TV building. A total of 14 people died, either crushed under the tracks or killed by live bullets. Seven hundred were injured.

Some of the deaths may have been accidental, but their impact could not have been more consequential. For Lithuania, they focussed minds on a future outside of Russia’s orbit. For the Soviet Union, it hypercharged a process leading to its termination within the year.

Three decades on, the January massacre remains the most delicate topic in Lithuanian-Russian relations, with Moscow still denying any responsibility. It is also the most ignominious chapter of Mikhail Gorbachev’s rule, with several unanswered questions as to what he really knew about the operation.

Egle Bucelyte, the veteran face of Lithuanian news broadcasting, says journalists were fearful even before they appeared to work the overnight shift on that fateful date. Tensions between Lithuania and the Soviet centre had been steadily mounting in the 10 months since local lawmakers declared independence. Before January, the pressure had been mostly economic. But at the start of 1991, things took an uglier turn, with Soviet paratrooper units unexpectedly appearing in town under an unlikely pretext of searching for draft dodgers.

On 10 January, President Gorbachev appeared to align himself with Soviet hardliners pushing for Lithuania to be brought back firmly under Moscow’s heel. Couching his language in “concerns from Lithuanian workers,” he issued an ultimatum to the recalcitrant national leadership, threatening to “restore order” if necessary. A day later, Soviet army units began operations to take Lithuanian government buildings.

“We had little time to think, but it seemed here we were again, about to head back into the dark old ages,” Bucelyte tells The Independent. She was just about to go on air that night when she received the news that still has the power to scare: that a second column of tanks was heading towards her studios, which were located in another part of town from the TV tower.

Bucelyte and her team resolved to stay put and broadcast as long as possible. They locked themselves in the studio, though not before leaving a camera out in the hallway. “We got calls from colleagues to tell us what was happening outside,” the journalist says. “But at one point, the calls stopped and all we had to go on was the vibration of the building we were in, and the deafening noise around us.“

Shortly after 2am, special forces took over the second television centre and pulled the news programme. All the while, the soldiers’ movements were being broadcast live on air to Lithuanians via the camera that had been left out in the hallway.

The exact chain of command from Moscow to army commanders on the ground has never been properly established. Mikhail Gorbachev claims not to have been aware of the operation. Vytautas Landsbergis, head of the independent Lithuania state at the time, claims to have called the Soviet leader’s office three times as soon as tanks appeared on the streets – only to be told he was unable to take the call.

In the days following the shootings, Gorbachev’s behaviour was equivocal. He claimed the situation was unclear but he also refused to condemn Communist hardliners.

Pavel Palazhchenko, the Soviet leader’s longtime aide and interpreter, told The Independent he was certain that Gorbachev could not have known about the “idiotic” operation, let alone order it. Yes, his boss’s behaviour at the time was “unusual". He had been struck by that himself, but he came to understand that was because Gorbachev was in a state of shock. A few days before, he had expressed hope that the situation would be resolved politically.

Many Lithuanians are much less charitable about Gorbachev’s role. Robert Povilatis, who was just 14 when his father died in the TV tower clashes, says the last Soviet leader had blood on his hands.

“On January 10, Gorbachev signed an ultimatum asking Lithuania to withdraw independence claims, and the next day military action began. Western countries see him as a kind of holy person, excusing him for all evil, but I see otherwise.”

In the weeks after the January events, Gorbachev saw his reputation take a heavy punch. In Moscow, between 100,000 and 500,000 people turned out to protest in what was likely the largest demonstration the city had seen in modern times. Crowds filled streets from the Kremlin to Arbat square, more than half a mile away. The Soviet press, after a two-day pause, wrote headlines so withering that the architect of Glasnost even suggested suspending press freedoms.

Abroad, previously close international allies began to distance themselves from the Perestroika poster boy. The European Union introduced sanctions of sorts by stopping trade treaties. US President George H.W. Bush meanwhile expressed disappointment.

Other events certainly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, finalised when Gorbachev penned a resignation letter in December 1991. But none could be considered quite the turning point as the January events in Vilnius.  In time, it would come to be seen as the moment the last Soviet leader lost the initiative with both liberals and hardliners alike, the latter who would go on to stage a coup against him in August.

For those who witnessed the events first hand – and then watched how post-Soviet Lithuania evolved in an almost perpendicular direction to the rest of the USSR – January 1991 leaves a particularly bittersweet legacy.

“Looking back, fate was largely kind to us,” Bucelyte  says. “I look at what is going on in Ukraine, and Belarus, and I just thank God we got out in time.”