Democracy in America
LITHUANIA'S experience of Soviet rule was a bit different to that of its Baltic neighbours. A big reason for that was the country's distinctive communist leadership, first under Antanas Snieckus, and then under Algirdas Brazauskas, who died on June 26th. Under Snieckus, the authorities fought a ruthless battle against the "forest brothers" (anti-communist partisans). In return for total loyalty to the Kremlin on that, the leadership in Vilnius had more freedom for manoeuvre on other domestic issues, including preserving the language and culture, and preventing the russification experienced in Estonia and Latvia.
Under Algirdas Brazauskas, the Lithuanian communist leadership became a potent force in the other direction: loosening the ties that bound Lithuania to the Soviet Union and preparing it for a triumphant return to the world map. Yet when Mr Brazauskas became secretary of the central committee of Lithuania's communist party in 1977, the cold war was still icy. In the Helsinki agreements, the West had just accepted the post-war frontiers in Europe, which seemed to doom the Baltic states stay inside the Soviet Union forever. The idea that just 10 years later Mr Brazauskas would be piloting his country to a break with Moscow would have seemed inconceivable. That he would as prime minister pilot it into NATO, in 2004, would have seemed like the ravings of a madman.
Mr Brazauskas's biggest moment came in the months before Lithuania's dramatic and unilateral declaration of restored independence in March 1990. He masterminded the split in the Lithuania communist party in December 1989 between a hardline pro-Kremlin rump, and a majority faction that worked with the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement. That was later to evolve into the country's main centre-left party and put Mr Brazauskas back in power first as president (from 1993-98), then as prime minister (from 2001-2006).
His career showed extraordinary longevity. Whereas his Soviet-era counterparts in Estonia and Latvia disappeared amid obloquy into obscurity, Mr Brazauskas was a serene survivor: the first Soviet leader he dealt with was Brezhnev. After that came Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. By the end he was dealing with Vladimir Putin.
Mr Brazauskas's greatest asset was political cunning, usually well-disguised by his naturally genial manner. Unlike most other politicians, he did not seem obsessed by the details of politics: he usually gave the impression he would much rather be tucking into a decent meal with plenty to drink and some pretty women for company (his first wife complained about his "fooling around" in a newspaper interview: few Lithuanians seemed to mind).
But he was no buffoon. For a communist born and bred, to break publicly and acrimoniously with Moscow required real steel. In retrospect, the independence of the Baltic states seems all but fore-ordained. At the time, it was was a colossal risk. Had either of two attempted hardline coups in 1991 (one in Lithuania in January, one in Moscow in August) succeeded, Mr Brazauskas and his comrades would have been on trial as traitors.
As leader of independent Lithuania Mr Brazauskas proved no slouch in world politics. He visited Israel and made a well-received speech in the Knesset, apologising for Lithuanian murders of Jews before and during the Nazi occupation of 1941-44. He learned a creditable amount of English for someone in late middle age: he was particularly proud that he delivered a speech in English in the European Parliament.
His big weaknesses were in domestic politics, in particular failing to stem corruption and to trim bureaucracy. While Estonia was introducing flat taxes, e-government and a liberal economic model, Lithuania tarried. Mr Brazauskas's instincts were of benevolent interference, rather than laissez-faire or radical reform.
Those who wanted a radical break with the communist past found Mr Brazauskas frustrating. The feeling was mutual. He saw his job as uniting the country: showing all but the most hardline nationalist that ex-communists could be patriots, and showing his party colleagues that they could find a place in a different system. That approach, like its protagonist, was imperfect. But it could have been a lot worse.