This points to a victory of the fronts in the fall elections to the republic Supreme Soviets, which would give them formal power. The Lithuanian Front, Sajudis, won three quarters of the seats in the March 26 elections for the Congress of People's Deputies.
The Baltic fronts are mass movements that proved their capacity for mobilizing the great majority of the Baltic peoples before the election, as in the campaign against amendments to the Soviet constitution that would have eliminated the republics' formal sovereignty. It is harder, however, to get information about the Baltic fronts than the opposition in the Soviet capitals, and for that reason the following interview has a special interest.
Even in Latvia, where Latvians are only just about half of the population, the People's Front won a substantial majority of the seats. In the Latvian capital Riga, where there is a Russian-speaking majority, the candidate of a party advocating immediate independence won 34% of the vote against the republic's first secretary, who squeaked in with only 51% of the vote.
The biggest winner was Sajudis. This movement has been coming increasingly into conflict with the reform party leadership headed by Brazauskas since the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet rejected changes to the republican constitution to confirm legal sovereignty. The amendments were patterned on those adopted in Estonia but rejected by the central authorities. So, the decision of the party leaders in Lithuania was seen as a betrayal of the Estonians. Nonetheless, Sajudis finally withdrew its candidate against Brazauskas, and supported him.
It seems clear that many Russian-speaking people voted for the People's Front candidates. In fact, if there were not considerable sympathy with the Baltic democratic movements among the dominant nationality and other peoples in the Soviet Union, they could hardly have survived and grown. But the unionist "Internationalist" fronts had some successes in attracting the votes of Russians and other non-Baltic minorities. In Lithuania, there is an important Polish minority in the Vilnius area in particular. That city was seized by Poland after the first world war. In the second world war period, the Polish nationalist resistance, the Armia Krajowa (AK) tried to hold it for Poland. In its February 5 issue, the Polish Catholic paper Tygodnik Powszechny, a semi-independent institution, published an interview with Vytautas Landsbergis, the chair of Sajudis. It was censored in some places. The following is a somewhat shortened translation.
W HAT social layers make up the core of the movement that you lead? Do they include individual party members? Are you a member of the Communist Party?
I am not, and have never been a member of the party. But in the movement, and even in the initiative group, individual party members have been active. The movement was formed by groups of progressive intellectuals, mainly intellectuals and proreform circles in the party. • That reminds me of the symbolic years, 1956 and 1968 [i.e., the rise of opposition in Poland in those years].
We include mainly city people. On the other hand, the middle level of the local party bodies, the bureaucratic "new class," is against perestroika. Years ago, Gorbachev talked about this to the people of Krasnodar, calling on them to support his activity at the top with revolution from below. • How many people belong to Sajudis?
I can't say. Estimates run from 100,000 to 500,000. Up until now, we have not established formal membership. We do not want to create a new bureaucratized structure. We rely on social initiative. But we are now registering our supporters. We had to make that decision because of the threat of provocations and the attribution to us of actions contrary to our program and methods of struggle. We have to have the capacity to distance ourselves from actions conflicting with our aims.
On many questions, a definite majority
USSR of the population support us. For example, in a week we collected 1,800,000 signatures for a protest against the proposed changes in the [USSR] constitution. To take the petitions to the Kremlin, we needed to charter a whole train. • In fact, that is equal to the adult population of the Lithuanian nation. Could you summarize the most important planks of your program.
Our highest aim is to achieve sovereignty for Lithuania, which need not at all automatically mean leaving the Soviet Union. The Western European countries are tending to become more and more closely integrated. It is possible that the USSR can be transformed into the sort of community that we would voluntarily accept. In the introduction to our program, we said explicitly that Stalin's deals with Hitler in 1939 were unjust. In the same way, we analyze all the consequences of these deals.
We consider that the foundation of Lithuanian sovereignty is having our own economy. Our economy must be an organism completely separate from the center and able to stand on its own feet. Exchange must be fair, regulated by agreements freely entered into in accordance with market mechanisms. • Is that possible?
It has to be. The economic machine is already in a morass, and only a radical restructuring can get it out of that. These reforms will not weaken the Soviet Union but give it dynamism. Only the power of the central bureaucracy will be weakened.
We place a high value on defending the environment. It is in a catastrophic situa-
Lithuanian nationalists In Kaunas on their first legal Independence Day (DR) tion. "Lithuania, you were like health," we should say. We are also concerned with increasing the prestige of the Lithuanian language and culture in our republic. • In the November issue of Atgimimas ["Rebirth," the central publication of Sajudis], however, 1 read that the introduction of the Lithuanian language as the state language in Lithuania and of the traditional flag lost its luster because of the rejection by the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania of the proposed amendments to the republic constitution, which would have guaranteed greater sovereignty.
Of course, a precondition for real sovereignty is legal and economic independence; everything else is just gestures. We also demand that the Catholic Church take its proper place in social life, that it regain its property and internal autonomy. • Is there also a coalition of opposition centers grouped around the 1. This is a paraphrase of the famous introduction to the long poem Pan Tadeusz by the Polish national poet, Adam Mickiewicz, who wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century: "Lithuania, my fatherland, you are like health, only one who has lost you can truly appre ciate you." Mickiewicz was born in Lithuania, and in this case used its name as a code word for Poland, to make the Czarist censors think that he was celebrating what at the time was considered only a region. Lithuanian nationalism, as distinct from Polish, arose only in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Lithuania was part of the medieval Polish commonwealth, and 5 the upper classes were Polish or "Polonized."
USSR
Church, as there is in Poland?
The Church is an important moral and national force. In the 1940s and 1950s, as at the beginning of the century, it was the sole bulwark of Lithuanian dignity. But we cannot speak of a coalition around the Church. The Church goes along with us, and we with it. Our roots, however, are distinct.
Sajudis is a lay and liberal movement. We look to the the tradition of Varpasu, a liberal journal published at the end of the nineteenth century. In the traditional Lithuanian anthem, there is no concept of God, because it is an anthem for everyone. In the inter-war period, clericalists tried on several occasions to introduce the word "God" into the anthem, but they never succeeded.
We defend and will continue to defend the demands of believers. They are a considerable majority of the nation, and their right to religious freedom is an essential element in the democratic syndrome. I am thinking of human and civil rights. We are fighting for the full realization of these rights, and also for the right of associations of citizens to free educational and cultural activity.
We protest against the state pushing atheistic propaganda down the throats of people. We have the moral support and sympathy of Cardinal Sladkevicius, who once said: "We thought that we were the last [Lithuanians], and it has become clear that the nation lives!" • Speaking of Lithuanian sovereignty, are you thinking of a separate citizenship, currency, army?
At present, we are not thinking about a separate currency, although we foresee such a possibility in our program. A separate citizenship has already been introduced. We also see the need for the republic authorities to take control of the influx of immigrant labor to work in factories located on Lithuanian territory.
We demand that all citizens of Lithuania - Lithuanians as well as Russians and Poles — have the opportunity to do their military service in their own country, if, of course, they do not themselves express a desire to go outside, for example to special units, schools and services.
Has this demand been influenced by the blood shed by your boys in Afghanistan?
Yes, but not only that. We were Yes. but not only that We were also afraid of the moral degradation to which Lithuanian youth were exposed. [Censored.] • Listening to your program, I wondered about the means of achieving it.
We reject rebellions, force and mass disobedience. We operate offi-
• Can you exclude the possibility of a police attack on your legal meetings? A Byelorussian demonstration was broken up in October. Earlier, all the official press and personalities condemned the Stalinist crimes revealed after the discovery of the mass graves at Kuropaty. Young Byelorussians only wanted to pay homage to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of victims in their traditional Forefathers' Eve processions.
"We are trying to realize Gorbachev's idea...we are not anti-party"
Nothing like that has happened here yet. The course of events will depend on the relations between our movement and the authorities and on the general situation in the USSR. The new constitution gives the government the right to declare a state of emergency. The fact that they can do this does not mean that they will. • You said that you look to liberal thought. But within the framework of this current, you can find the concept of "civil disobedience."
Of course, it has to be acknowledged that sometimes we resort to such means. At a mass meeting on July 9, we called for a boycott of Tiesa (the Lithuanian Pravda). People generally stopped buying the paper. Even newspaper sellers warned customers "you shouldn't buy this paper." After a few weeks, the editor-in-chief was removed. His successor stopped publishing tendentious letters from "shocked readers."
The Greens have called for a boycott of milk and dairy products as well as of polluted fruit. More than half of the milking herds should be slaughtered, because they are diseased and infect consumers. • That is incredible in a Lithuania
Tallinn ESTONIA Tartu• LATVIA • Riga Daugar pris LITHUANIA Maunas Vilnius •
6
• cially and openly. That is the basis of
POLAND our strength.
International Viewpoint #161 • April 17, 1989 famous for its agriculture.
Recently, especially after the demonstration against deputies to the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet for rejecting the proposed amendments to the republic constitution, the official press has started to accuse the movement of trying to hide behind the slogan of perestroika. But we are trying to realize Gorbachev's idea. It is not we who are anti-party, but rather the egotistical group of conservatives in the bureaucratic structures. • Do you see your movement as a continuation of the dissidents?
No! That was a totally different stage and different political sectors. The idea of restructuring was formulated officially, at the top. We are supporters of it. We represent the aspirations of the great majority of the nation. The dissidents were individual protestors. That is the fundamental difference. • You operate through mass actions and a mass press. Could you describe how you do that.
We are still using the TV. We have two hours a week, usually broadcast live. Our congress was also broadcast over two days, without any cuts. (It is true that after the outbreak of the conflict over the proposed changes in the republic constitution, our air time was taken away.) Our press is legal, but not censored. Now they are beginning to talk about this.
The central organ of Sajudis is Atgimimas. We have started with a press run of 100,000 copies. Today, the Lithuanian edition is 100,000 and the Russian one, 20,000. Local councils of Sajudis put out their own publications, for example, Kauno Aidas ["Kaunas Echo"] and Sajudzio Zinios ("Sajudis News"). Of course, we have printing problems, but up until now we have overcome them. • You say you are a self-limiting revolution. What are the limits?
We are accused of wanting too much too soon. That is untrue. We only want more and faster. The limits are the following: no acts of violence, watching out for provocateurs, always operating openly and in accordance with the law. We believe that constant mass pressure and the will of the society will prove effective. • Do you think that the Lithuanians betrayed the Estonians? The Lithuanians, on the whole, fully support the Estonians and their Supreme Soviet. We issued such statements on our own account, and published them in our press. Only the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania did not accept the constitutional amendments. Violating the formal procedures, it did not submit them to a vote. We were for accepting the principle that all-Union laws would only
be binding if they were in agreement with the Lithuanian constitution. The crowd that gathered in front of the Supreme
Soviet building denounced the deputies for betrayal. As a protest, the Sajudis delegation left the Supreme Soviet chamber early. We were accused of agitating people
[Censored.]
• You mentioned a boycott of agricultural products. Tell us about the situation in the countryside.
We see a need for restructuring relations in the countryside. The local authorities have total power over the collective farmers.
Local functionaries can reject products necessary for husbandry, even refuse to agree to the sale of pigs raised on the collective farms.
• I did not believe it when a professor at a Soviet institute told me that the chair of a kolkhoz [collective farm] in Byelorussia fined people caught speaking Lithuanian.
You have to remember that the country people are still marked by the bitterest sort of experience of the collectivization and the guerrilla war
[which continued against
Soviet forces until the end of the 1940s at least]. The Lithuanian countryside is in a deeply depressed social state, which is expressed by general alcoholism. Every day, farmers see the futility of their labor and the hopelessness of their existence.
-Co
They see the constant degradation of the soil. This is an unbearable experience. Intellectuals can always find some useful occupation. Peasants cannot.
• The Polish October [1956] brought massive dissolution of the collective farms and at the same time rehabilitation of some members of the AK. Is there a new view of the guerrillas in Lithuania?
In the discussions on drawing up the
Sajudis' program, we posed the demand for characterizing the guerrillas as a national-liberation formation. This idea is just starting to catch on. It would be wrong, however, not to recognize that over time the forest units often turned into ordinary bandit groups. The war was transformed into a civil war and then into vendettas, vengeance on families.
Today, when the whole truth is beginning to be written, it is becoming clear that the view that the pro-Soviet side had a monopoly on nobility and heroism does not stand up. Symptomatically, songs are being sung only about "the forest brothers," and not about those who fell defend-
USSR ing the Soviet regime. • Let us talk about PolishLithuanian relations. There are more and more reports about antiPolish incidents. Your countrymen are supposed to have thrown eggs at the Mickiewicz monument. The slogan "Send the Jews to Israel, the Russians to Russia and the Poles to the crematorium" is supposed to have been written on Vilnius Cathedral.
I don't know anything about the Mickiewicz monument. That damaging slogan did in fact appear, not on the walls of the cathedral but on a sign at a rally. The people themselves ripped it up, when they saw what it was. In our press, we protested against this provocation. We have no doubt that it was a provocation.
"National mythologies still condition relations with Poles"
I am astonished that Poles don't see that. Your press jumps on that sort of thing. It is a shame that it does not look for those who are really responsible. Lithuanians have been very much aggrieved by a series of such unjust accusations. Prejudices created by such reports make it hard for you to see what is really happening in Lithuania. • What is Sajudis' attitude to the national minorities in Lithuania?
Our program devotes a lot of attention to the minorities. We recognize the right of minorities to their own languages and their own national identity. We would like to help the minorities, especially the Poles, practice their own culture. We consider that the minorities should have their own schools or classes in their own language, associations and so on. We think the possibility should be created for members of national minorities to study the Lithuanian language, in order to facilitate their full participation in the social life of the republic and access to higher studies.
The minority circles should recognize the territorial integrity of the Lithuanian republic.
Today, Lithuanian Poles do not even want to read the Lithuanian press.
• Is it true that Poles generally sympathize with
Edinstvo ["Unity"], the organization of the local
141,
Russians?
The Poles have a lot of problems. Edinstvo is an artificial creation. Most of its slogans
- have been taken from Sajudis. I think that the Polish workers support Edinstvo not so much out of internationalist sympa thies but out of a hereditary fear of Lithuanians.
If the majority of Vilnius
Poles go into Edinstvo, that would be a big political mistake. It would revive the
Polish-Lithuanian conflict, and the final result would be to speed up the Russification of the Polish community.
• How do your countrymen see us Poles?
National mythology still conditions this, on both sides. In general, we are suspicious.
We wonder what you are thinking of in the cult of Lithuania [as part of the golden age of medieval Poland]. What do these images of the Ostrobrama Madonna the patron saint of Vilnius] in Polish homes mean?
What menace lurks in these memorials to the Vilnius AK in Warsaw churches? Do you realize that the partisans you so honor have a bad reputation among Lithuanians?
• Does Poland have a special meaning for Lithuanians?
Of course, Poland is our only neighbor
[outside the USSR]. From the historical standpoint also, you have a special meaning for us, even if it is a bit ambiguous.
For myself and my colleagues, Poland has been and is a window on the world. In
Poland, we find books from which we can find out about Europe. We can see art exhibitions, hear concerts, see foreign newspapers. Poles can also inform Europe about us and our problems. You could write about and analyze our problems. *
YUGOSLAVIA
NANA
HE SERBIAN authorities struck a highpitched note, accusing the Albanians of wanting to carry out a "counterrevolutionary secession" and "genocide" against the Slavic minorities in Kosovo. But neither of these accusations can be taken seriously. If the Albanians really wanted to secede, that would be their right. But they have never wanted that up until now.
Quite simply, Albania is not attractive for them, neither economically, nor politically nor even culturally (in particular since religious rights are denied in Albania but not in Yugoslavia). But it is clear that if this anti-Albanian repression continues, that attitude could change, with every justification.
As for the use of the term "genocide," this is a scandalous device for camouflaging the real reason for the exodus of Slavic families from Kosovo. They are leaving mainly for economic reasons. For example, Kosovo has 40% unem-