Weeks after Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence, the USSR's Congress of People's Deputies formally rejected the move as unconstitutional. Moscow imposed an economic blockade and eventually sent troops, but Lithuania held firm. The confrontation became a bellwether for the unraveling Soviet Union, which dissolved entirely within twenty months.
Lithuania's parliament, dominated by the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement, had declared restoration of the country's pre-1940 independence on March 11, 1990 — the first Soviet republic to do so. Moscow's response, delivered around March 15, was blunt refusal: the Congress of People's Deputies declared the declaration void and demanded Lithuania rescind it.
Mikhail Gorbachev, already juggling reform and rebellion across the USSR, could not afford to let Lithuania simply walk away; other republics were watching closely. Soviet authorities cut off energy supplies to Lithuania that spring and eventually deployed troops and tanks, culminating in the deadly January 1991 storming of the Vilnius TV tower that killed fourteen civilians.
Lithuanians did not back down. Human chains, underground radio broadcasts, and sheer stubbornness kept the independence movement alive through the blockade. The international community was slow to recognize Lithuania formally, wary of provoking Gorbachev, but the die was cast. By September 1991, following the failed August coup against Gorbachev, the Soviet Union itself recognized Lithuanian independence — a small Baltic nation had cracked open the door through which the entire USSR would soon collapse.