page_title: Antanas Smetona
section_title: Authoritarian president
hierarchical_section_title: Antanas Smetona / Politics / Authoritarian president
caption_attribution_description: 10 Litas (Aversum). The President of Lithuania Antanas Smetona. Lithuania. Year: 1938. Silver (750). Diameter: 32.2 (mm). Weight: 18.00 (g). Gurt: 2.5 (mm), text: TAUTOS JĖGA VIENYBĖJE.
context_page_description: Antanas Smetona was one of the most important Lithuanian political figures between World War I and World War II. He served as the first President of Lithuania from 4 April 1919 to 19 June 1920. He again served as the last President of the country from 19 December 1926 to 15 June 1940, before its occupation by the Soviet Union. He was also one of the most prominent ideologists of nationalism in Lithuania.
context_section_description: Smetona was one of the leaders of the coup d'état of 1926, which deposed President Kazys Grinius. He once again became President on 19 December of that year (two others briefly held the office during the coup, which began on 17 December, before Smetona was formally restored to the Presidency). He designated Augustinas Voldemaras as Prime Minister. One year later, he suppressed the parliament and, on 15 May 1928, with the approval of the government, he promulgated a new constitution with more extensive presidential powers. In 1929, he removed Voldemaras and assumed dictatorial powers.
  For the next nine years, Smetona ruled by decree, without a parliament; his new constitution vested him with both executive and legislative powers when the Seimas was not in session. He was re-elected President in 1931 and 1938, both times as the only candidate. The Seimas was not reconvened until 1936; even then, it was composed entirely of Smetona's adherents. In 1938, a third constitution was enacted that retained the general authoritarian character of the 1928 document, and declared that political power in the state was "indivisible." He remained in office until 15 June 1940.
  As a nationalist, Smetona's regime closed many Polish-language schools upon coming to power. The regime repeatedly arrested and imprisoned members of the already-banned Communist Party – as with almost all interwar European dictatorships, the threat of Communism was the source of its legitimacy and the regime executed the original leadership five days after coming to power. However, despite propaganda that Communists were a “non-Lithuanian force invading the country’, they continued to operate underground with growing membership and it is known today that their leaders were ethnically Lithuanian.
  In 1935, Smetona suffered a blow when farmers in south-east Lithuania organised a strike and refused to sell their products. Reprisals led to five deaths and 456 farmers being arrested. This exacerbated long-standing tensions within his regime between hardliners arguing for more rigid authoritarian control over Lithuanian life, and moderates who wanted liberalisation. These difficulties, however, were already becoming overshadowed by the threat of Nazi Germany. Smetona’s regime was the first in Europe to put Nazis on trial: as early as 8 February 1934, action had begun against Nazis in the Memel region, which was autonomous within Lithuania. The Smetona regime’s trial of Ernst Neumann and Freiherr von Sass (July 1934 to March 1935) was the first attempt anywhere to bring Nazis to justice, and saw 76 Hitlerites imprisoned and four sentenced to death – though this was commuted to life imprisonment. By 1938, however, Memel was becoming a difficult issue for a regime spending a quarter of its budget on defence and expensive army modernisation, and the Nazis were able to win 26 of 29 seats in elections. The following year, Smetona surrendered Memel to Hitler and declared a state of emergency – he never lost his distaste for Hitler and Nazism, having been so discredited by the loss of Memel that members of the Lithuanian political opposition were appointed to his cabinet to try recovering credibility and domestic stability.
  Smetona’s government was cautious about industrialisation, as its support base lay in the dominant rural population. As dictator, Smetona did nothing to encourage direct foreign investment, which remained extremely limited throughout his rule. Nonetheless, during Smetona‘s dictatorship, Lithuania did advance economically: industrial output – mainly directed to domestic demand – when he was overthrown by the Soviet invasion was twice what it had been before the coup that brought him to power, and the country’s transport network had been greatly improved by the construction of railways from Šiauliai to Klaipėda and from Kaunas to the south and north-east. In contrast, Smetona was more generous in support for the agricultural sector, which at the time provided almost all of Lithuania’s exports despite occasionally protesting against the regime.
caption: Interwar 10 litas coin featuring President Smetona by pre-war sculptor Juozas Zikaras
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