It was the period when Lithuania, having declared independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990, struggled to survive and build a new democratic state. Even though the 20-year-old events are still part of the living memory, the period is not without its fair share of controversy, secrets, and mythologizing. In an interview to 15min, Skučas, 51, hints: Not all secrets are out yet. He should now, being in the centre of events of 13 January 1991 while defending the parliament building as Soviet tanks were threatening to crush Lithuania's aspirations to statehood.
- People write books when they can no longer bear silence. “Notes of an Infantryman” contains memoirs of more people besides yourself. What did you want to say with this book?
- I cared to show the life of the Security Section during those years. It is something that hadn't been talked about before. There are books about border guards, the police, but they cover longer periods, while my intention was to discuss only those crucial years between 1990 and 1993. I put together an outline of main events as well as personal interpretations, attitudes towards them.
- You have publicly expressed regret that during the events of January 1991 (when Moscow ordered tanks to take over control of key institutions in Vilnius), there was only one day during which you were taking notes. Otherwise, “there was no time for diaries and now only obscure memories remain.” And yet, you managed to overcome the obscurity – it is a thick book you wrote.
- I wanted to publish the book on the 20-year anniversary of the Security Section, but I failed to finish it in time. I had to cut some things, too. There were notes, meeting minutes, copies. Flipping through them, I could reconstruct the events. And rather accurately at that – down to minutes. Some aspects were brought back to me by my colleagues. A man's memory can seem chaotic at times, but in fact one recollection brings out another and so on until you reconstruct crucial events that shocked you.
I called my book a documentary novel, because it contains some very powerful documentary facts as well as reflections and digressions. It is not an easy read. It builds tension while people of my generation might even shed a tear.
- Even before publishing the book, you wrote in one on-line forum: “Perhaps, after my writing the book and making it public, there will be an answer to certain questions?” What was the reaction to the publication?
- Not all secrets are revealed here. Perhaps outing them might cause too much controversy, perhaps it would be wise to wait – or perhaps not, I don't know. Perhaps my book will provoke someone into writing about what was left out, intentionally or not. These are subtle things – one cannot always point fingers or give an unambiguous account of situations, as there are no documents. There is memory, someone else's recollections; others yet do not know how things were but write about them in a way convenient to them. History thus becomes distorted.
- Pawn is the weakest figure in the game of chess (in Lithuanian, the same word stands for the infantry and pawn in chess). You were chief of security. Is it not a little too self-effacing to give such a title to the book?
- I was but a pawn if we look at the state as a whole. I did not pursue my own policies – I merely implemented orders and did what was needed by the state. A general is the one who leads, while I did not lead the state.
- Then tell me about the security section during the darkest hours of January 1991.
- The situation was very complicated. There were very few of us working there (security of the Supreme Council) at first. A staff of 100 seemed big on the scale of the then Supreme Council. Back in June 1990, I had been at pains to explain why we needed at least hundred people. And when things started heating up on 8 January 1991 and the hundred of us went out to stop the approaching crowd, we looked like a couple of trees in a meadow. During those crucial days, our courage, resolve, and self-sacrifice far exceeded our real power.
- How did you make decisions? How did you know what to do and how to defend parliament without even the basic means?
- They say that an ear for music is an innate thing. And so my family tree had many various branches. A distant relative of mine was Kazimieras Skučas (minister of the interior in inter-war Lithuania. He was arrested by Soviets in summer 1940 and executed in Moscow the following year). My grandfather served in the Lithuanian army, he was injured several times and awarded a Vytis Cross. All these things are passed on – some sort of perceptions. And there were other people around who knew things, gave advise. The crucial thing was to listen to them and be able to use what they said.
- It must have been something more than just a job.
- It was a time when there was a lot of patriotism in the society. People ready for sacrifice joined the service. The security section became a guard of sorts. At the time, it must have been the only institution which, by its sheer existence, declared its service for Lithuania's independence. For a state. I do not wish to downplay the role of the homeland defence structures, but we were a very visible service and our patriotism inspired others. At the time, working for the security section was a matter of pride.
- You yourself have a colourful biography. You were educated as an architect – how did you end up in politics and, later, the battlefields of independence?
- I wished for Lithuania to be independent since my adolescence, I knew what it meant and what we were subjected to otherwise. So I was a co-founder and one of the central players in the Sąjūdis movement, I thought it my duty to build an independent Lithuania. But I wasn't making a career in the Sąjūdis – I was an executor, an organizer. My education as an architect came in handy, too, I could organize things, put them into a structure, see the totality as well as details.
- Over the last two decades, stories from various sources presented a rather colourful picture of defence during those days in 1991. Vytautas Landsbergis (leader of the Sąjūdis) had a double, you made weapons out of handrails, electric current ran across the roof of the parliament building, among other things. What else stuck in your memory from those days?
- The details you mention might be a little played up, but that was indeed what happened. I would spend most of the time in my office, living there, making breakfast, sleeping – it was the centre of communication. I did have a communication device I could carry with me, but I could not leave for longer periods and wander about – for management purposes.
After the January events, I went down to the ground floor (of the Supreme Council building). All stairs on that floor were wired, mines attached and ready to blow up the stairways should a need arise. I was shocked by the spectacle. I inspected it: Will we not blow up ourselves if someone accidentally touches the thing? I was assured that it was all safe.
There were instances of negligence, too. As I left the office, I saw a box of Molotov cocktails laying about, with no one nearby. It is impermissible to leave a thing like that unattended – someone might walk and trip over, bottles will fall and we're done – an explosion. I was in terror. We thus introduced curfew.
There were many people in the building, all sorts of people who came after the night of 13 January. We would admit everyone who came with the best of intentions and their own ideas about how to defend (parliament). After several days of enthusiastic chaos, however, people were weary and exhausted. Then the service started patrolling. It would take several hours for a team to go through all the floors. Then another team would go. And each successive team would find something dangerous left over. Finally, everyone realized that they were just a collection of volunteer defenders – so we introduced stricter command. We had to learn to do things in several days.
- What was the role of – as you once called it – amateur radio contact in defending the state?
- There was one situation that I did not include in my book. During the 1991 putsch in Russia, Boris Yeltsin delivered a speech in order to stop the advance of the army in Moscow. We got hold of a recording of that speech. And when there was a stir in Šiaurės miestelis (military quarters in Vilnius) and Soviet troops were issued commands to do something, we aired Yeltsin's speech on the military frequency range. The soldiers were perplexed and everything calmed down.
Our radio connection and the army of Lithuanian radiotechnology amateurs managed to inform the US State Department about the situation in Lithuania. The American president was duly notified – and his phone call was something that the president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had to respond. He would ignore Landsbergis' calls, pretending he was asleep, etc. This was crucial in stopping the tanks before they could attack the Supreme Council.
- You practically lived in your office from Christmas 1990 to spring 1991. Like any other person, you had a family and there was a good chance that you might not survive Soviet aggression. Has it ever crossed your mind that your wife might be left widowed and your kids orphans for something that might not have even been possible?
- I suppose the state stood above everything else for me. Certainly, I was worried about my family. They were ready for evacuation should the situation went wrong. I put fear out of my mind, I simply knew I had to be there and do everything I could. I believe even my family knew it.
- You worked as security chief until 1993. What happened to you afterwards?
- These were difficult times. I was offered a job in Genadi Konoplyov's bank (amid fraud suspicions, Konoplyov committed suicide in 1997), but I left three months later because I did not like what was going on there.
There were periods when I would go to warehouses in Kaunas, load my car with liquor bottles, sweets, chocolate from Germany, and take them to Vilnius cafés. I could make some money like that.
Later, together with some friends, I set up a small business that did not do very well. We wrapped up and I spent a year unemployed. Upon discovering that, the Ministry of Defence proposed I established a department there and ran it. That's what I'm doing until now.
