page_title: Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic / Economy
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Марка СССР
context_page_description: The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Lithuania or Lithuania, was one of the constituent republics of the USSR between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990. After 1946, its territory and borders mirrored those of today's Republic of Lithuania, with the exception of minor adjustments of the border with Belarus.
  During World War II, the previously independent Republic of Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet army on 16 June 1940, in conformity with the terms of the 23 August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and established as a puppet state on 21 July. Between 1941 and 1944, the German invasion of the Soviet Union caused its de facto dissolution. However, with the retreat of the Germans in 1944–1945, Soviet hegemony was re-established and continued for forty-five years. As a result, many western countries continued to recognize Lithuania as an independent, sovereign de jure state subject to international law, represented by the legations appointed by the pre-1940 Baltic states, which functioned in various places through the Lithuanian Diplomatic Service.
  On 18 May 1989, the Lithuanian SSR declared itself to be a sovereign state, though still part of the USSR.
context_section_description: Collectivization in the Lithuanian SSR took place between 1947 and 1952.
  The 1990 per capita GDP of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was $8,591, which was above the average for the rest of the Soviet Union of $6,871. This was half or less of the per capita GDPs of adjacent countries Norway ($18,470), Sweden ($17,680) and Finland ($16,868). Overall, in the Eastern Bloc, systems without competition or market-clearing prices became costly and unsustainable, especially with the increasing complexity of world economics. Such systems, which required party-state planning at all levels, collapsed under the weight of accumulated economic inefficiencies, with various attempts at reform merely contributing to the acceleration of crisis-generating tendencies.
  Lithuania accounted for 0.3 percent of the Soviet Union's territory and 1.3 percent of its population, but it generated a significant amount of the Soviet Union's industrial and agricultural output: 22 percent of its electric welding apparatus, 11.1 percent of its metal-cutting lathes, 2.3 percent of its mineral fertilizers, 4.8 percent of its alternating current electric motors, 2.0 percent of its paper, 2.4 percent of its furniture, 5.2 percent of its socks, 3.5 percent of underwear and knitwear, 1.4 percent of leather footwear, 5.3 percent of household refrigerators, 6.5 percent of television sets, 3.7 percent of meat, 4.7 percent of butter, 1.8 percent of canned products, and 1.9 percent of sugar.
  Lithuania was also a net donor to the USSR budget. It was calculated in 1995 that the occupation resulted in 80 billion LTL (more than 23 billion euros) worth of losses, including population, military, and church property losses and economic destruction among other things. Lithuania mostly suffered until 1958 when more than a half of the annual national budgets was sent to the USSR budgets, later this number decreased but still remained high at around 25% of the annual national budgets until 1973 (totally, Lithuania sent about one third of all its annual national budgets money to the USSR budgets during the whole occupation period).
caption: Lithuanian SSR postage stamp, showing workers of a kolkhoz
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