Kipras Bielinis

Kipras Bielinis (26 September 1883 – 7 December 1965) was a Lithuanian politician, one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party in interwar Lithuania.

Bielinis was a son of Jurgis Bielinis, one of the best known Lithuanian book smugglers. Bielinis attended a gymnasium in Riga, but was expelled for his social-democratic activities. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and along with Steponas Kairys was one of its leaders until his death. Bielinis was an active participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905 delivering some 30 public anti-Tsarist speeches across Lithuania. He was arrested by the police together with other members of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party in November 1907 and was sentenced to four years of hard labor and then exile to the Irkutsk Oblast. After the February Revolution, he moved to Petrograd and returned to Lithuania in summer 1918. Bielinis was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania in April 1920, Second Seimas in May 1923, and the Third Seimas in May 1926. A member of the opposition to the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party, he was one of the most active speakers during the parliamentary sessions. After the coup d'état of December 1926, Bielinis withdrew from more active political life working as a finance director at the and board member of several cooperatives. During the German occupation of Lithuania, Bielinis was a member of the resistance and organized the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (VLIK). He was an active member of various anti-Soviet Lithuanian organizations. Four volumes of his memoirs were published in 1958–2012.

Biography Russian Empire Bielinis was born in in Biržai District, then part of the Russian Empire, to a family of Jurgis Bielinis, one of the best known Lithuanian book smugglers during the Lithuanian press ban. On 30 May 1966, the ashes of Bielinis and Steponas Kairys were buried at the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Chicago, where a monument by architect was erected in 1979. Their urns were reburied at the Petrašiūnai Cemetery in Kaunas on 18 July 1996.