Vincas Mickevičius, known under his pen name Kapsukas ( – 17 February 1935), was a Lithuanian communist political activist, publicist, and revolutionary.
As an active member of the Lithuanian National Revival, he wrote for and edited many Lithuanian publications and joined the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party. As his views turned from nationalism to socialism, and then to communism, he became one of the founders and leaders of the Lithuanian Communist Party and headed the short-lived Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel) in 1918–1919. After the fall of these republics, Mickevičius left for Soviet Russia, where he continued to lead the Lithuanian communists and worked for the Communist International (Comintern).
Biography
Early life and education
Mickevičius was born in 1880 in the town of Vilkaviškis, Vilkaviškis district, to a family of wealthy Lithuanian farmers. Suvalkija was then in Congress Poland, part of the Russian Empire. Following the January Uprising of 1863, the tsarist government imposed the Lithuanian press ban, which outlawed materials printed in the Lithuanian language. Vincas' father Simonas and elder brother Juozas were Lithuanian patriots. His uncle Antanas Mickevičius was daraktorius, a founder of and a teacher at underground Lithuanian schools. Vincas Mickevičius was exposed to old illegal issues of Auszra monthly magazine, hidden in the family home, from an early age.
Around 1888–1892, he was tutored at home and attended a Lithuanian school run by his uncle. From 1892 to 1897, Mickevičius studied at Marijampolė Gymnasium. In 1895, he became an active participant in the Lithuanian National Revival when his brother Juozas introduced him to the secret book smuggling society Sietynas, a group that printed Lithuanian books and periodicals in East Prussia, smuggled them and disseminated them into Lithuania. After graduating from the Gymnasium in 1897, Mickevičius enrolled at the Sejny Priest Seminary, but was expelled after a year for his illegal political activities. He was a member of the secret Lithuanian Clerical Society and participated in the dissemination of illegal Lithuanian press.
In 1900, Mickevičius was admitted to Jelgava Gymnasium. In 1901, he was expelled for storing illegal Lithuanian press and belonging to yet another Lithuanian book smuggling society, Kūdikis. A secret police search at his home produced a large amount of illegal Lithuanian literature. Mickevičius was indicted in a political case for anti-tsarist activities. To avoid arrest, he escaped via East Prussia to Switzerland.
Social democrat and imprisonment
thumb|left|Kapsukas as gymnasium student
From 1901 to 1903, Mickevičius studied philosophy, sociology, and political economy at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Around the same time (1902–1903), he became a co-editor of Varpas and the editor of Ūkininkas in Tilsit. During his stay in Tilsit, Mickevičius gained access to the Printing House archives and published historic materials from the Auszra days, and materials pertaining to the founding of Varpas. To bridge the gap between the LSDP and the Varpininkai, he founded the social-patriotic organization Draugas in 1904, although he still technically remained a member of the LSDP. After prolonged negotiations, in 1905, Draugas merged with the LSDP, and Mickevičius was elected a member of the Central Committee of the LSDP. The federalists fought with the autonomist wing of the LSDP, who promoted Lithuanian autonomy within Russia.
Around the same time (1904–1906), Mickevičius founded and edited magazines Draugas and Darbininkas. From 1906 to 1907, he also contributed to and edited Naujoji Gadynė and Skardas.
During the Revolution of 1905, Mickevičius organized anti-tsarist peasant demonstrations and strikes in Suvalkija and northern Lithuania. Mickevičius was briefly detained by authorities but, with no evidence against him, he managed to talk his way out. In December 1905, he was arrested under the name of J. Jaks-Tyris and convicted of revolutionary activities, but managed to escape from a prison hospital in Suwałki in 1906. He was arrested again in May 1907 and sentenced to 3 years for anti-tsarist activities. Among his defenders in the Suwałki court were attorneys Alexander Kerensky, who, after the 1917 February revolution, was the head of Russian government, and M. F. Volkenstein, who employed V. Ulyanov (Lenin) back in 1893. He edited left wing science and literature monthly magazine Naujoji Gadynė in Philadelphia and newspaper Kova. On 8 December, the Vilnius Soviet formed the Provisional Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government of Lithuania. Mickevičius was elected the new government's chairman (Prime Minister) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 16 December, the Mickevičius government issued a manifesto, in which they dismissed German occupational administration and proclaimed the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.
German occupying forces were still stationed in Vilnius, but started leaving in late December 1918, while the Red Army attacked westward trying to seize as many of the lands lost by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On 2 January 1919, the Polish Committee forces (Self-Defence of Lithuania and Belarus) took control over Vilnius.
Later life
thumb|293x293px|Kapsukas in the 1930s
From late 1921 until the end of his life in 1935, Mickevičius lived in Moscow. He was a delegate to the Second through Sixth Congresses of the Comintern. Working on the executive committee of the Comintern from 1923 to 1935, he became a candidate member of the executive committee of the Comintern in 1924, and a member in 1928. <blockquote>Kapsukas was literally the social democratic party's and Lithuanian idea's martyr. Always breathless, hungry, without real shelter he travelled across Lithuania spreading national awareness and enlightenment. Of course, social democratic voices mattered most to him, but he also passionately loved his Lithuania. </blockquote>During his prison years (1907–1914), Mickevičius read works of Marx, Kautsky, Plekhanov and other Marxists, and his views drifted profoundly toward Marxism. Later in exile and emigration, he met Yakov Sverdlov, Vladimir Lenin, Nikolai Bukharin, and Leon Trotsky, who also influenced his views. By 1918, he considered himself a Marxist. However, until his last days, Mickevičius venerated his mentor Vincas Kudirka and retained deep respect for Povilas Višinskis. According to Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Bolsheviks knew that, for him, Lithuania mattered more than narrow party directives: