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This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of Sąjūdis, the Reform Movement of Lithuania. Officially known as Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis, this was the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sąjūdis was established on 3 June 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis. Its goal was to seek the return of independent status for Lithuania.

In the mid-1980s, Lithuania's Communist Party leadership hesitated to embrace Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost. The death of Petras Griškevičius, first secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania in 1987 was merely followed the appointment of another rigid communist, Ringaudas Songaila. However, encouraged by the rhetoric of Mikhail Gorbachev, noting the strengthening position of Solidarity in Poland and encouraged by the Pope and the US Government, Baltic independence activists began to hold public demonstrations in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius.

At a meeting at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences on 3 June 1988, Communist and non-communist intellectuals formed the Sąjūdis Initiative Group (in Lithuanian: Sąjūdžio iniciatyvinė grupė) to organise a movement to attain independence, or at least some degree of independence, for Lithuania. Many members, including the chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, wanted nothing less than full Lithuanian independence. Some thought that this aim was too ambitious and not realistic and that under the circumstances, Lithuanians should be satisfied with a wide ranging autonomy, particularly in the culture, language, ecology and economy of their country – Lithuania.

The group was composed of 35 members, mostly artists. 17 of the group members were also Communist party members. Its goal was to organise the Sąjūdis Reform Movement, which became known subsequently simply as Sąjūdis.

One thing they were solidly in support of was that the means to achieve these aims, to whatever degree it was possible, should be entirely peaceful, using all the legal avenues open to them at the time.

One of these avenues, was the interpretation of the reforms of the so-called glasnost and perestroika, which the then leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev had started.

To defend themselves against the local Communist ideologues and zealots, they grasped fully the means of starting their activities under the guise of the support of perestroika. Hence the original name, The Movement for the Reform. In time, the name became just “The Movement”, dropping the shield of Reform or Perestroika.

On 24 June 1988 the first massive gathering organised by Sąjūdis took place. At this meeting the delegates to the 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were instructed about Sąjūdis’ goals. Some 100,000 people in Vingis Park greeted the delegates when they came back in July.

Another massive event took place on 23 August 1988 when approximately 250,000 people gathered to protest against the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its secret protocol.

On 19 June the first issue of the still secretive newspaper "Sąjūdis News" (in Lithuanian: Sąjūdžio žinios) was published. In September, Sąjūdis published a legal newspaper, "Atgimimas" (in English: rebirth). In total about 150 different newspapers were printed supporting Sąjūdis.

On 22 - 23 October 1988, Sąjūdis held its Constituent Congress at the Vilnius Sports Palace. More than 1,000 delegates took part. The Congress elected its 35-member executive council. Most of the counsellors were members of the initiative group. Vytautas Landsbergis, a Professor of Musicology who was not a member of the Communist Party, became the council's chairman. The council met each Tuesday, to map out strategy.

Sąjūdis’s demands included the revelation of truth about the Stalinist years, protection of the environment, the halt to construction on a third nuclear reactor at the Ignalina nuclear power plant, and disclosure of the secret protocols of the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact signed just before World War II, in 1939.

Sąjūdis used mass meetings to advance its goals. At first, Communist Party leaders shunned these meetings, but by mid-1988 their participation became a political necessity. A Sąjūdis rally on 24 June 1988 was attended by Algirdas Brazauskas, then the Lithuanian Communist Party’s Secretary for Industrial Affairs.

In October 1988, Brazauskas was appointed first secretary of the Lithuanian Communist party to replace Songaila. Communist leaders threatened to crack down on Sąjūdis, but backed down in the face of mass protests. Sąjūdis candidates fared well in the elections to the Congress of People's Deputies, the newly created Soviet legislative body. Their candidates won in 36 of the 40 districts in which they ran.

In February 1989, Sąjūdis declared that Lithuania had been forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union and that the group's ultimate goal was to achieve independence. The Lithuanian Communist Party leader, Algirdas Brazauskas, was recalled to Moscow. On his return to Vilnius, the Sąjūdis press was restricted and several officials sympathetic to the movement were purged. But Sąjūdis kept surging ahead. Lithuanian sovereignty was proclaimed in May 1989, and Lithuania's incorporation into the USSR was declared illegal.

On 23 August 1989, the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 600-kilometre, two million strong human chain reaching from Tallinn to Vilnius focused international attention on the aspirations of the three Baltic nations. This demonstration and the co-ordinated efforts of the three nations became known as The Baltic Way.

Economic views were divided inside Sąjūdis and within the Lithuanian Communist Party. Some were in favour of an immediate secession from the Soviet Union. Others thought that Lithuania would need perhaps ten years of economic development before it would be ready to stand on its own feet.

In December 1989, the Communist Party of Lithuania seceded from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and agreed to give up its monopoly on state power. In February 1990 Sąjūdis representatives won an absolute majority (101 seats out of 141) in the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR. Vytautas Landsbergis was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council. This led to the declaration of independence on 11 March 1990.

In 1993, Sąjūdis reorganised itself into a public association (visuomeninė organizacija) and withdrew from political activities in Lithuania. Some of its members joined other political parties. Little was heard from Sąjūdis in the following years, as it failed to maintain unity among people with different political beliefs.

Sąjūdis is still active in Lithuania now. It has 3,000 members, but it has lost most of its influence, inside or outside the country. Sąjūdis did regain some of its public attention this year, when many functions and celebrations were held, in Lithuania and abroad, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Sąjūdis’s foundation.

The functions generated many speeches, memoirs and some conflicting opinions. Regimantas Adomaitis, a founding Sąjūdis member, declared that Sąjūdis was finished, that it had fulfilled its mission. Some (like Saulius Stuoma) argued that, while the original Sąjūdis was dead, there was a new need for a second Democratic Sąjūdis. And the honorary chairman of Sąjūdis, Dr Vytautas Landsbergis, who was invited to address the 11th Congress of Sąjūdis earlier this year, urged Sąjūdis members to participate in the election of Seimas (the national parliament) on 12 October 2008.

Members of Sąjūdis Initiative Group

    Regimantas Adomaitis  Justinas Marcinkevičius

    Vytautas Bubnys  Alvydas Medalinskas

    Juozas Bulavas  Jokūbas Minkevičius

    Antanas Buračas  Algimantas Nasvytis

    Algimantas Čekuolis  Romualdas Ozolas

    Virgilijus Čepaitis  Romas Pakalnis

    Vaclovas Daunoras   Saulius Pečiulis 

    Sigitas Geda  Vytautas Petkevičius

    Bronius Genzelis  Kazimira Prunskienė

    Arvydas Juozaitis  Vytautas Radžvilas

    Julius Juzeliūnas  Raimundas Rajeckas

    Algirdas Kaušpėdas      Artūras Skučas 

    Česlovas Kudaba  Gintaras Songaila

    Bronius Kuzmickas  Arvydas Šaltenis  

    Vytautas Landsbergis  Vitas Tomkus

    Bronius Leonavičius  Zigmas Vaišvila

    Meilė Lukšienė  Arūnas Žebriūnas   

    Alfonsas Maldonis  

° Sąjūdis, sometimes together with other organisations, used mass meetings to advance its goals. Pictured: Some of the Lithuanian crowd who gathered in Gediminas Square, Vilnius on 29 September 1988. This peaceful meeting was initially arranged by LFL (Lithuanian Freedom League), to mark the anniversary of the secret 1939 Nazi-Soviet agreement. The meeting was later broken up by Soviet forces.

* Of the 42 delegates (pictured) who travelled to Moscow in May 1989 to represent Lithuania at the USSR Supreme Soviet’s deliberations, 36 had been supported by Sąjūdis. The Lithuanian delegates pressed for, and finally succeeded in, having the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop secret pact declared null and void.  

Photo: Kovo 11 Lietuvos valstybingumo raidoje, 2006.

° TANKS VERSUS PEOPLE: Lithuania regained its independence on March 11, 1990. Ten months later, Russian tanks tried to crush the free state of Lithuania and forcefully install their own pro-Moscow National Salvation Committee (pictured). The unarmed people of Vilnius came out and defended their Parliament and other democratic institutions, with their bare hands. 13 civilians were killed and hundreds were wounded; but Lithuania remained free. – Photo: Lithuania in 1991, published in 1992 by LSS.

By Algimantas P. Taškūnas

Reproduced with permission from Lithuanian Papers