Word: lithuania
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There came a burst of euphoria when the reactionaries' coup failed. Then the headlong dismantling. Here was the famous domino effect in reverse, whole peoples going uncommunist by chain reaction: Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia. The future, sunny a moment earlier, suddenly looked problematic and dangerous. What of the 27,000 nuclear warheads deployed on missiles, bombers, submarines and at ammunition dumps across the old Union? Would the world see a medieval fragmentation, reversion to the old city-states of Kievan Rus and Muscovy, and feudal warlords with nukes? What of the 25 million ethnic...
...three days last week, the answer seemed to be no. By the beginning of this year, it was clear that if Gorbachev's policies continued, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would eventually leave the U.S.S.R. and re-establish their independence. Gorbachev repeatedly said he accepted "in principle" the Baltics' right to independence. He was always quick to add his insistence that the leaders in those republics pursue their goal by "constitutional means." Everyone knew what that phrase meant: a slow process during which the central government would try to control both the throttle and the brake...
...Gorbachev believed all nationalities in the U.S.S.R. should be united by Soviet patriotism. In his conversations with Gorbachev he evoked this sentiment repeatedly, in effect offering himself as an example of a good Balt as opposed to ungrateful, unreasonable troublemakers like Vytautas Landsbergis, the brave but reckless president of Lithuania...
...something called the "National Salvation Committee of Lithuania" announced its existence, presumably to replace the government of President Landsbergis with quislings. Soviet troops advanced on the republic's ^ main television station. People poured into the streets and surrounded both that building and the parliament. Outside, citizens kept vigil into the night...
Some kind of union treaty will be signed, creating a new country in place of the old Soviet Union, and at least six republics -- Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine, Moldavia and Georgia -- may remain outside it. All three Baltic states have formally declared their independence. On Saturday, the Ukraine's parliament did the same, though it also called for a referendum on the question in December. Gorbachev had been trying to prevent Baltic secession by winking at the use of force and insisting on drawn-out legal procedures. Now he can hardly order the discredited army or Interior Ministry...