Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

Although the KGB in Lithuania officially stopped existing on I October 1991, the assessment of the secret service legacy of the communist regime is constantly being revisited. Public researchers point out those aspects of the past that in one way or another continue into the present from peoples past recollections. They also explore those moments that are related to the unaddressed past problems, such as wrongs, a sense of guilt and responsibility, which end up persisting the longest. The article aims at surveying the attitude of the KGB legacy, the relationship to society and politicians, and to one more recent aspect of the KGB legacy that has lately emerged - the so-called "KGB reserve." With respect to the past legacy and memory, with the prevalence of unconstructive standpoints based on partial amnesia and relativism in political circles of the country, attempts to choose more effective action strategies concerning officials who got into the "KGB reserve" scandal and the heads of institutions responsible for national security of Lithuania. These are all analyzed. Reconsideration of the relations-hip to the KGB has been turned towards parliamentary research and improvement of legal acts. And though from the legal point of view no traces of any "conscious" cooperation2 have been detected in the publicized past of high state officials or KGB reservists, a considerable part of society does not justify the fact that the past of one or another person was connected with the activity of the KGB, an organization of repressions and terror.