The destruction of law had now been complete. The Soviets had shown themselves for what they are. a state whose ideological and power goals were and continue to be the expansion of communism until at long last communism dominates the world. One of the most cruel devices the Soviets had used in order to assert their will over the Lithuanian people and their neighbors in Latvia and Estonia was the mass deportation of peoples. This is a device that the Soviets were to apply not only in the Baltic States but throughout other parts of the Soviet Union. Whole nations. as in the case of the Volga Germans and Chechen and Ingush. were uprooted from their historic lands and dispersed through Soviet Central Asia and Siberia. During the period 194041 the Soviets had imprisoned and deported to Siberian concentration camps approximately 40.000 Lithuanians. This figure has been documented by the Select Committee on Communist Aggression of the House of Representatives. This was the Soviet solution to the nationality problem. and what a diabolical solution it was. The suffering that had been wrought upon Lithuanians and others deported is incalculable. Even Khrushchev was appalled by the barbarity of deportation and in a display of extraordinary ridicule said that Stalin would have deported the entire Ukrainian nation if there were not so many Ukrainians. On this anniversary commemorating the Soviet seizure of Lithuania and the deportation of Lithuanians we pay tribute to a great and courageous people. The hope of all free men is what they and their Baltic neighbors. the Latvians and Estonians. will one day know the joys of liberty that they all had shared during the golden years of their national independence in the interwar period.
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deported deportation