The World : Lithuanians Protest Pact
About 50,000 people in Vilnius freely protested the Hitler-Stalin pact, which led to Soviet annexation of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, activists reported from the Lithuanian capital. Twenty speakers demanded Lithuanian independence and withdrawal of “the Soviet occupation army,” calling the 1939 pact a “shameful lie,” journalist Valdas Analauskas said in a telephone call to Moscow. The Baltic nations were independent from the end of World War I until Soviet annexation in 1940. In September, paramilitary forces attacked a similar demonstration in Vilnius, but this two-hour rally had government approval, and authorities even publicized it with a brief newspaper announcement, Analauskas said.
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