THE BALTIC TRIANGLE 459living in the non-Russian republics. American interference could
damage relations with Moscow. Bush remarked: ‘I’ve understood you,
Mr President.’^35
A Party Central Committee plenum was devoted to the Lithuanian
question towards the end of the month after the Communist Party of
Lithuania unequivocally advocated national independence. Gorbachëv
spoke out angrily. The KGB’s Kryuchkov declared that he ‘subscribed
to every word of Mikhail Sergeevich’s report and the comments [sub-
sequently] made by him’. He charged Brazauskas with having opened
a ‘second front’ against the USSR by allowing the creation of rival
political parties; he said that Lithuania would probably become the
precedent for other Soviet republics to try to secede. This would not
simply be a matter of territorial and constitutional disintegration.
Socialism itself would come under attack, as was already happening in
Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. He lamented
that ‘we’ – the Soviet leadership – had a habit of putting up a struggle
only when victory was beyond reach.^36
On 11 January 1990 Gorbachëv visited Vilnius in a desperate
attempt to appeal to Lithuanian popular opinion. Brazauskas, fearing
to appear as a Moscow placeman, was less than cooperative – it was no
longer in his interest to show deference. Gorbachëv lamented the years
wasted under Brezhnev, when the Western powers reformed their
economies. He pointed to the political and cultural changes he himself
had introduced.^37 Lithuanian public affairs were reaching boiling
point. Brazauskas announced the intention of the Communist Party
of Lithuania to break away from the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. The situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan was moving in the
same direction. The USSR was disintegrating before everybody’s
eyes, and Shevardnadze agreed with Yakovlev about the prospect
of a ‘domino effect’.^38 Lithuania was on the point of asserting its total
in dependence.^39 Gorbachëv dismissed all pessimism. The Communist
Party of the Soviet Union would hold together while he was leader,
and he would refuse Baltic secessionist demands. He told the Politburo
that Estonia had gained independence in 1920 only because Russia
was weakened by civil war.^40
This was accurate as military history but did nothing to answer
Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians who asked why he should now
have any right to determine their fate. Sąjūdis had done handsomely
in the national elections and on 11 March walked into the Lithuanian
Supreme Soviet as victors. Landsbergis was chosen as head of state