Abstract

The paper aims at revealing the key legal and political factors that determined the organization and holding of the referendum on unconditional and urgent withdrawal of the former USSR army from the territory of the Republic of Lithuania and restitution of damage to Lithuania. It is established that the main factor was that the Supreme Council-Reconstituent Seimas of the Lithuanian Republic adopted provisions on the status of the occupation army and was constant in seeking to ensure the sovereignty of the state of Lithuania throughout its territory. The position of the nations, parliaments and governments of the Republics of Estonia and Latvia was yet another circumstance that the organizers of the referendum relied upon. Their position was aimed at ensuring that as a result of negotiations, the foreign military forces return to dislocation places in its own territory. Retrospective view on the phenomena and facts of the state’s internal and foreign politics in 1991-1992 makes it impossible not to notice that negotiations with the USSR and later, with the Russian Federation, took place in a complicated political arena. While Lithuania was seeking dynamism in negotiations, the other party was finding various excuses to impede dynamic actions and thus to delay positive agreements. Taking due regard to the situation, it was believed that a decision adopted by the Nation would speed up the negotiations on foreign state’s armed forces