You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Lithuanian. (November 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Lithuanian Wikipedia article at [[:lt:Lietuvos komunistų partija]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|lt|Lietuvos komunistų partija}} to the talk page.
The party was working illegally from 1920 until 1940. Although the party was illegal, some of its members took part in the 1922 Lithuanian parliamentary election under title "Workers Groups". It managed to gather 5.0 per cent of vote (or around 40,000 votes) and elect five members. Due to political instability, Seimas was dissolved and new elections took place in 1923. In these elections, the party lost half of its support.
In 1940 the party amalgamated with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) (CPSU). By the time of the formation of the Lithuanian SSR, the Communist Party of Lithuania (LKP) was headed by Antanas Sniečkus. In 1940, the LKP merged into the CPSU(b). The territorial organisation of the party in Lithuania was called Communist Party of Lithuania (bolshevik) (LKP (b)). In the Lithuanian territorial organisation, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the party (always a Lithuanian) was de facto ruler of the country. The second secretary for the most of Soviet era was a Moscow-appointed Russian. In 1952 the name of the old Lithuanian party, LKP, was re-adopted.
A small portion of the party remained loyal to the CPSU, and reorganized as the Communist Party of Lithuania ('on platform of Communist Party of the Soviet Union') under the leadership of Mykolas Burokevičius after the "traditional" party declared independence from its Soviet Union counterpart. The party played a major role in the January 1991 Events in Lithuania.
The Communist Party of Lithuania was eventually banned on 23 August 1991.[2]