Volume 38, Number 6 · March 28, 1991
The Baltic Revolt
By Jeri Laber
A chilling photograph in the morning papers of January 14 showed a group of Lithuanians pushing against a Soviet tank in a desperate effort to stop its advance; under the tank one could see the limp legs of a woman wearing black leather boots. This photograph, which stayed in my mind during a recent visit to the Soviet Union's Baltic republics, quickly faded from world attention after war broke out in the Middle East. Yet the two events—the Soviet crackdown in Lithuania and the conflict in the Persian Gulf—are not unrelated: there is good reason to believe that Mikhail Gorbachev chose to move against the independence movement of Lithuania at a time when most people would be distracted by events in the Middle East and when the US government, eager for Soviet support against Iraq, would mute its criticism of Soviet repression.
Feature, 5794 words
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