Abstract Book of the 9th World Conference on Social Sciences
Year: 2025
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Militarized Voluntarism and Soviet “Soft Power”: Paramilitary Organizations in Soviet Lithuania, 1944–1951
Paulius Japertas
ABSTRACT:
Between 1944 and 1951, the Soviet regime in the Lithuanian SSR aimed to establish political control and suppress both armed and nonviolent resistance. One of the instruments employed was the creation of paramilitary organizations to militarize society. In 1944 a local branch of OSOAVIACHIM—the All-Union Society for the Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defense—which was later reorganized into DOSAV, DOSARM, and DOSFLOT, was established in the Lithuanian SSR.
These “voluntary” patriotic societies prepared civilians, especially youth, for military service while simultaneously conducting ideological indoctrination. Active in schools, factories, and collective farms, they trained military specialists and cultivated political loyalty. In the context of postwar armed resistance, these organizations served as a form of coercive soft power, aiming to channel the population into state-controlled structures and reduce support for anti-Soviet movements.
Although formally voluntary, their ideological orientation and the regime’s active efforts to expand their reach demonstrate how authoritarian states use militarized civic structures to legitimize power and reinforce social control. This research sheds light on militarization as a method of political social engineering under totalitarian regimes.
This historical case, grounded in archival materials and propaganda sources, offers insights into how militarized participation contributed to Soviet regime consolidation in occupied Lithuania. It remains highly relevant today, providing crucial lessons as authoritarian regimes—particularly Russia—revive militarized patriotic education and civic mobilization as tools for advancing imperial ambitions under the guise of voluntarism and national unity.
Keywords: Paramilitary Organizations, Sovietization, Soft Power, Militarization of Society, Authoritarian Control