Kaliningrad is incorporated into Lithuania SSR in the 1950s

In the 1950s, the government of the Soviet Union (I think it was Khruschev) offered the Kaliningrad Oblast to the government of the Lithuanian SSR. At the time, it was seen by the Soviets as a useless piece of land, an enclave with nothing of value.

However, the LSSR government refused.

So what would've happened if they accepted, then?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
In the 1950s, the government of the Soviet Union (I think it was Khruschev) offered the Kaliningrad Oblast to the government of the Lithuanian SSR. At the time, it was seen by the Soviets as a useless piece of land, an enclave with nothing of value.

However, the LSSR government refused.

So what would've happened if they accepted, then?
For one, Prussia's Baltic heritage is returned to it after several centuries of Germanization. :)
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Also, in this TL, NATO wouldn't have to worry about the Suwalki Gap (if the Soviet Union still eventually collapses in this TL, that is):

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa.../images/belarus-kaliningrad.jpg?itok=00RxHvnl

belarus-kaliningrad.jpg
 

CaliGuy

Banned
If Kaliningrad will be put into the Lithuanian SSR, then a lot of Lithuanians will move there afterwards.
Especially if the Lithuanian Communist leadership is still hostile to large-scale Russian migration into Lithuania.
 
Technically, it is of value to the Moscow government - it's an ice-free port. They just didn't really care too much who owned it, as long as it's still a constituent republic of the USSR. Lithuania refused since it'll seriously skew the demographics. IOTL, the Russian minority is insignificant enough for Lithuanians to ignore the issue. With Kaliningrad, that might change. It might end up with post-Soviet Lithuania adopting the same discriminatory measures Latvia and Estonia did to deny Russian speakers citizenship, what with fears of a fifth column.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Technically, it is of value to the Moscow government - it's an ice-free port. They just didn't really care too much who owned it, as long as it's still a constituent republic of the USSR. Lithuania refused since it'll seriously skew the demographics. IOTL, the Russian minority is insignificant enough for Lithuanians to ignore the issue. With Kaliningrad, that might change. It might end up with post-Soviet Lithuania adopting the same discriminatory measures Latvia and Estonia did to deny Russian speakers citizenship, what with fears of a fifth column.
Could Lithuania acquire Kaliningrad and then settle it with Lithuanians, though?
 
Could Lithuania acquire Kaliningrad and then settle it with Lithuanians, though?

Possibly, but by the 1950s, Kaliningrad was firmly Russian population. You're going to need a lot more Lithuanians to offset that, or as I've done similarly in my TL, stuff other minorities that may be more sympathetic to Lithuania than they are to Russia.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Possibly, but by the 1950s, Kaliningrad was firmly Russian population. You're going to need a lot more Lithuanians to offset that, or as I've done similarly in my TL, stuff other minorities that may be more sympathetic to Lithuania than they are to Russia.
What about having Stalin put Kaliningrad into Lithuania in 1945 or 1946, though?
 
What about having Stalin put Kaliningrad into Lithuania in 1945 or 1946, though?

Possible, but Stalin being a Russophilic Georgian, would have thought twice about such a hasty decision, and would have tried to wait and see how the post-war situation turn out.
 
In the 1950s, the government of the Soviet Union (I think it was Khruschev) offered the Kaliningrad Oblast to the government of the Lithuanian SSR. At the time, it was seen by the Soviets as a useless piece of land, an enclave with nothing of value.

However, the LSSR government refused.

So what would've happened if they accepted, then?

I had a soc.history.what-if post about this some time ago https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/Mng2mbFotzs/JtrJ3-wDd9YJ where I expressed suspicion that Lithuanian First Secretary Snieckus might have encouraged this story to boost his popularity among nationally-minded Lithuanians:
***

Interestingly, there were rumors that *Stalin* had offered Snieckus the same thing and met with the same refusal:

"In the 1960s and '70s, rumor circulated in Lithuania that in 1945 Stalin had offered the region to Lithuania but that the then First Secretary, Antanas Snieckus, had adroitly managed to refuse. Lithuania possessed neither the manpower nor the resources to absorb and reconstruct the territory, and if it had been incorporated into the LiSSR, the latter's population would have been less than 60 percent Lithuanian rather than around 80 percent, which it has remained since the early 1960s. Cynics have interpreted such rumors as a clever move to defuse a potentially troublesome question while simultaneously raising the stature of the long-serving First Secretary in the eyes of nationally-inclined Lithuanians. Whether there is any factual basis for such conjectures cannot be ascertained, but their currency underscores the significance of the question in Lithuania. Romuald J. Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, *The Baltic States, Years of Dependence, 1940-1990*, p. 347.
http://books.google.com/books?id=vrrBLJtDXb4C&pg=PA347

The reports with regard to Khrushchev seem a bit more plausible. First of all, it's a bit hard seeing the party secretary of a Union Republic saying No to Stalin. As I note at http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/a5dd5f01f53ebd4d "Of course, Snieckus would never dare to openly object to an influx of ethnic Russians into Lithuania. What he *might* conceivably have said is something like 'Comrade Stalin, the Lithuanian working people are deeply honored by your offer of northern East Prussia, but we believe that since the great Russian people have more than any other borne the brunt of this war, they should be the ones to get this territory.' But I doubt that he even said that." It's at least a little more plausible seeing Snieckus say No to Khrushchev, at least if Khrushchev only offered it as a suggestion. Second, as Misiunas and Taagepera note, it did seem plausible that the Khrushchev reorganizations (*sovnarkhozy* or regional economic councils) would lead to the oblast being attached to Lithuania. "In the spring of 1957, a suggestion appeared that the Couronian Bay should entirely be incorporated into Lithuania, and in 1963, the management of its industry was turned over to Lithuania; its railroads and inland waterways had been under Lithuanian administration for many years. Agriculture, however, was not at that time attached to the Lithuanian sovnarkhoz, and it remains unclear whether any of these arrangements with Lithuania would have survived the abolition of the sovnarkhozy in 1965 and if so in what form..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=vrrBLJtDXb4C&pg=PA347
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Possible, but Stalin being a Russophilic Georgian, would have thought twice about such a hasty decision, and would have tried to wait and see how the post-war situation turn out.
How could the post-war situation have turned out negatively for the Soviet Union, though?

Also, was Stalin actually as Russophilic as he is portrayed to be? After all, in addition to his ode to the (Great) Russian people, he also said an ode to the Tajik people in 1941.
 
How could the post-war situation have turned out negatively for the Soviet Union, though?

Also, was Stalin actually as Russophilic as he is portrayed to be? After all, in addition to his ode to the (Great) Russian people, he also said an ode to the Tajik people in 1941.

Well, he tended to be cautious, and despite gaining what he was promised in Postdam, he was paranoid that the Western Powers might take the chance to hit him, just like his perception of everyone else.

Also, not really sure. He was certainly a self-hating Georgian. As far as I can tell, he was partial towards Russian as a means to consolidate the union under his rule. Other than that, he pretty much oppresses everyone equally.
 
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