In giving a rebuff to the Polish gentry, the Red forces helped the Lithuanian people to free themselves from the Polish yoke. The forces of the Western front were ordered in due time to leave Lithuanian territory within a period fixed by agreement with the Lithuanian authorities. The units of the Red Army were at the same time ordered to treat the Lithuanian forces as a friendly army – and this order remains fully in force today. The Soviet Government has made a peace treaty with the government in Lithuania which obliges army units, commanders and commissars to seek peaceful and amicable agreements with the relevant Lithuanian authorities where all problems arising from the military situation are concerned.
At the present time the armies of the Polish gentry, which we drove out of Lithuania, are again invading its territory, threatening the independence of the Lithuanian people. For this reason the Red forces are compelled to administer a rebuff to the Polish gentry even within the frontiers of Lithuania. In this situation, every Red Army man must firmly keep in mind that bourgeois-gentry Poland is the common enemy of ourselves and of the Lithuanian people. After that enemy has been defeated, all our forces will at once leave the territory of Lithuania, into which they entered as liberators and from which they will depart as friends.
Last updated on: 26.12.2006