Sąjūdis
Sąjūdis ( Lithuanian Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis , German 'Reform Movement Lithuania') is a political organization that led the peaceful struggle to regain Lithuania's national independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s . The movement was founded on June 3, 1988 and was shaped in particular by Vytautas Landsbergis .
Historical background
Mid-1980s, hesitated Communist Party of Lithuania , the new concepts of perestroika and glasnost of the Soviet political leader Mikhail Gorbachev to take over. After the death of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Petras Griškevičius, in 1987 another rigid communist, Ringaudas Songaila , succeeded him . Encouraged by the rhetoric of Mikhail Gorbachev and by the strengthening of the opposition movement Solidarność in Poland and supported by Pope John Paul II and the government of the USA , Baltic independence fighters began to organize public protests in Riga , Tallinn and Vilnius .
Foundation of Sąjūdis
At a meeting at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences on June 3, 1988, communist and non-communist intellectuals founded the Sąjūdis Initiative Group ( Lithuanian Sąjūdžio iniciatyvinė grupė ) as a support movement for glasnost in Lithuania. The group consisted of 35 members, the majority of whom were intellectuals. Among them were 17 members of the Communist Party. The aim of the group was to found the reform movement in Lithuania , which became known as Sąjūdis .
On June 24, 1988, the first mass gathering of Sąjūdis took place. There the Lithuanian delegates of the 19th party congress of the CPSU were briefed on the goals of Sąjūdis. The delegates welcomed around 100,000 people to the Vingis Park in Vilnius when they returned in July. Another mass demonstration took place on August 23, 1988, when 250,000 people gathered to protest against the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and its secret additional protocol from almost 50 years ago, and against its consistent denial by the state authorities of the Soviet Union for over 50 years .
On June 19, 1988, the first edition of the state unauthorized newspaper Sąjūdžio žinios ('News of the Movement') was published, and from September Sąjūdis published a state-approved newspaper under the title Atgimimas ('Rebirth'). In total, around 150 explicitly Sąjūdis-friendly and supportive newspapers were published in this and the following years.
In October 1988, the organisation's official founding meeting took place in Vilnius. A 35-member management committee was elected. Most of the panel members were members of the original initiative group. Vytautas Landsbergis , professor of musicology and not a member of the Communist Party, became the chairman of the governing body.
Sąjūdis' Activity
The movement supported the politics of Mikhail Gorbachev, but also Lithuanian issues such as the reintroduction of the Lithuanian language as the only state language in Lithuania. The demands also included the publication of critical reports on the epoch of Stalinism , environmental protection, the stop of the construction of a third nuclear reactor at the Ignalina nuclear power plant and the publication of the secret additional protocols of the German - Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939.
Sąjūdis used mass gatherings to advance their goals. At first the Communist Party banned these events, but by the summer of 1988 it was so widespread that even Communist officials took part. The mass gathering of June 24, 1988 was also attended by Algirdas Brazauskas , then Secretary of the Communist Party for Industrial Affairs. In October 1988, Brazauskas was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party, replacing Songaila. In the Lithuanian elections to the People's Deputies Congress , the newly created supreme parliament of the Soviet Union in 1988 , the candidates from Sąjūdis won the majority in 36 of the 40 constituencies in Lithuania, in which they stood for election. As a result, the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was largely represented in Moscow by deputies who were very critical of the Soviet Union .
In February 1989 Sąjūdis publicly stated that Lithuania had been forcibly occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in June 1940 and that the movement's long-term goal was to regain national independence. State independence was proclaimed by the movement in May 1989 - initially without any international recognition - and the conquest of Lithuania by the Soviet Union declared illegal.
On August 23, 1989, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union , a 600-kilometer chain of two million people linked the cities of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius and drew the attention of the international public to the Aspirations of the inhabitants of the Baltic states . This demonstration and the coordinated efforts of the three Baltic nations came to be known as the Baltic Way .
In December 1989 the Communist Party of Lithuania announced its withdrawal from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and announced that it would renounce the state monopoly of power. In February 1990, representatives from Sąjūdis won an absolute majority in the elections for the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR . Vytautas Landsbergis was elected President of the Supreme Soviet. This prepared the state declaration of independence on March 11, 1990.
After the state declaration of independence
Sąjūdis is still politically active in Lithuania, but in no way has the influence of the years 1988 to 1990. The popularity of Sąjūdis declined to the extent that it was not possible to bridge the conflicting political interests of this mass movement. In addition, the government appointed by Sąjūdis could not cope with the economic crisis that followed the Russian economic boycott of the Baltic states and the very rapid economic restructuring of the states. The Lietuvos democinė darbo partija ('Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party'), the reformed former Communist Party of Lithuania , won the elections for the Seimas national parliament in November 1992 with a clear lead over the political parties and groups that emerged from Sąjūdis.
