The Russian city of Kaliningrad used to be the German city of Konigsberg, the capital of East Prussia. At the end of WWII, Stalin drove all ethnic Germans in territory he controlled west of the Oder. OK, I can see how that might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but why did he then make Kaliningrad part of the RSFSR, even though it is geographically separated from the rest of Russia? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to give it to Poland or Lithuania?
Stalin wanted a port on the Baltic that didn’t have the nasty habit of freezing over in the winter, which was the problem with Leningrad/St. Petersburg.
That’s why he wanted the city, but why make it a Russian city? Stalin did not expect the USSR or the Warsaw Pact ever to break up, did he? If it were a Lithuanian or Polish city, Soviet ships still could use it.
This is a bit of a WAG, but from Stalin’s perspective:
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Lithuania and Poland were newly acquired “territories.” He probably didn’t think it was wise to put a strategic asset (like a port) under control of newly acquired territory.
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The Poles (and Eastern Europeans generally) had a nasty habit of doing things like demanding independence and all around being a thorn in Russian rule. Remember, the Empire had ruled both Lithuanian and Polish-speaking territories prior to WWI, and – well, I’m not too sure about Lithuania, but the Polish had least had a history of complicating things for the Russians by not behaving like a nice, occupied territory and starting periodic revolutions. From Stalin’s perspective, he wouldn’t want to leave a strategic asset in such potentially difficult-to-rule areas.
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Stalin may have not wanted the USSR or the Warsaw Pact to break up, but the reality was that the Russians have repeatedly lost control of the territory in question over the centuries. Faced with that reality, he probably chose to exercise maximum control.
I can’t really speak to Stalin’s motives, per-se, so I’m WAGging here, but I think it’s fairly logical from his perspective to do what he did.
After the war the German population (that hadn’t already fled) was expelled, and the city was resettled with Russians . There was a signficant Polish population, which was not deported and which has since grown, but the majority population is ethnically Russian. There was never any consideration given to resettling Lithuanians in the city; Lithuania lost a large chunk of its population during the war, and the focus on reconstructing Lithuania meant that there were no “surplus” Lithuanians in need of resettlement. Plus, the Soviet government had more trust in Russians than in Lithuanians, and Kaliningrad had strategic signficance for reasons already pointed out.
Giving Kaliningrad to Poland, in 1945-46, would have been a nonstarter. Stalin was still in the process of establishing ironclad Communist control over the satellites, including Poland, and the future was too uncertain. Stalin wanted Konigsberg for a naval base, and he wanted it for the Soviet Union, not a potential satellite.
As for Lithuania, Lithuania did get a piece of Prussia. The Memel district had been part of Prussia until World War I, then briefly independent, then annexed by Lithuania, and then taken back by Nazi Germany in 1939. Stalin restored it to Lithuania.
Nor was this Lithuania’s only recent gain, as Stalin had assigned it Vilna/Vilnius after seizing eastern Poland in 1939. Anything further would have been an awful lot of aggrandizement for a small republic.
Then, too, the planned naval base was to be more a Soviet city than anything else, populated by people imported from throughout the Soviet Union. It fit better by default in Russia, which was already a federated republic.
As BrightNShiny pointed out, you don’t give strategically important cities to potential allies, or even current allies. If you’re Stalin, you keep it all for yourself.
Besides Kalinin’s birthday was coming up and Stalin wanted to do something special for him.
This is timely, as I was wondering about that little chunk of Russia separate from the rest of the country. Almost started a thread too.
“What do you get for the President who has everything? Should I name a city after him, or release his wife from the Gulag? Hmm, think think.”