The only Lithuanian to sit in the CPSU Politburo and the last pro-Moscow party leader, imprisoned for the January Events
In 2000, President Adamkus offered him a pardon; he refused: 'I am not guilty before the motherland.'
Born in Alytus, Lithuania, he worked as a labourer from 1942 before rising through the Communist Party apparatus to become, after the CPL split in 1989, the first secretary of the pro-Moscow Lithuanian Communist Party (CPSU platform). In opposition to the March 1990 declaration of independence, he appealed to Gorbachev for military intervention and led the National Salvation Committee, which provided the political cover for the Soviet assault on the Vilnius television tower in January 1991. Fourteen civilians died in the operation; he was arrested in Minsk in 1994 and sentenced in 1999 to twelve years for anti-state organization and complicity in murder. He refused a presidential pardon, declaring himself not guilty before his homeland, and was released on 13 January 2006.
Career Timeline
- 1942–1944Carpenter and machinist in Udmurtia
- 1944–1955Komsomol and party work; graduated Vilnius Pedagogical Institute
- 1963–1976Senior researcher, Institute of Party History; professor, Vilnius Engineering-Building Institute
- 1976–1990Professor of scientific communism, Vilnius Pedagogical Institute
- 1990–1991First Secretary, CC, CPL (CPSU platform)
- 1990–1991Member, Politburo, CPSU Central Committee
- 1991–1994Fled to Belarus
- 1994–2006Arrested, sentenced to 12 years; released January 2006
Related historical events
- 1988–1991The Nationalities Crisis and the Collapse of Central AuthorityFirst Secretary of the pro-Moscow Lithuanian Communist PartyHe was the first secretary of the pro-Moscow Lithuanian Communist Party (CPSU platform) and a key figure in the National Salvation Committee, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison by Lithuania in 1999 for his role in the January events.
- 1987–1991The Baltic Independence Movement and the Baltic WayFirst Secretary, CPL (CPSU platform)All six deputies of his pro-Moscow faction abstained in the 11 March 1990 independence vote. He later led the National Salvation Committee, giving political cover to the January 1991 Soviet military crackdown.
From Scholar of Scientific Communism to Leader of the Split
Burokevičius was a leading scholar of scientific communism in Lithuania. After graduating from the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute in 1955 and the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee in 1963, he worked as a senior researcher at the Institute of Party History, taught at the Vilnius Engineering-Building Institute, and from 1976 served as professor of scientific communism at the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute. In 1975 he defended his doctoral dissertation, 'The Ideological Work of the Communist Party of Lithuania Among the Intelligentsia, 1940–1965.' His major publications include Lithuania in the Fraternal Family of Peoples (1967), The Ideological Work of the CPL Among the Intelligentsia, 1940–1965 (1972), and the co-authored Theory and Practice of Ideological Work (1985). His academic trajectory exemplified Soviet Lithuania's intelligentsia. But when the 20th Congress of the CPL, led by Algirdas Brazauskas, voted in December 1989 to separate from the CPSU, Burokevičius emerged as the leader of the minority faction that rejected the split and remained on the Moscow platform. His political commitment to preserving Lithuania within the Soviet Union was the practical conclusion of a scholarly life devoted to the ideology of Soviet federalism. The pro-Moscow CPL he led never matched Brazauskas's independent party in numbers, yet during 1990–1991 it functioned as a real political force resisting the dismantling of Soviet Lithuania. In later years Burokevičius recalled that he had been among the few who did not betray the 'Soviet fatherland'; in the circles of the Lithuanian Socialist Party he came to be known as 'the man who didn't sell out.'