This poster was commissioned by the Communist Party during the election campaign to the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990.

In 1989 the Communist Party of Lithuania broke away from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This step raised the Party’s authority among the population and it became a serious competitor to Sajudis in the elections – the first elections for the legislature in which opposition parties were allowed to participate. At that time the Communist Party of Lithuania had around 200,000 members (6% of the population) of Lithuania. Most of them supported the idea of Lithuanian independence, but were inclined to reach it gradually or ‘step by step’.

The party nominated its own candidates for the elections who were mostly party leaders and intellectuals. Although the Communist Party did not have the same mass support that Sajudis enjoyed, it remained a power in politics, controlling material resources, the media and the printing houses. Its propaganda publications were prepared by the state publisher Mintis and printed by a special printing house at the Communist Party Central Committee. Communist Party posters avoided radical slogans. They were dominated by exhortations to unite and work together, for the good of Lithuania, to gain ‘sovereignty’ – although the concept of sovereignty was never defined. Some understood it as complete independence, other as autonomy within the framework of the USSR.

When Lithuania was annexed by Russia at the end of the 18th century the Tsar’s administration attempted to russify the country. The Lithuanian language was strictly prohibited in public life and printing in Lithuanian was banned. At the end of the 19th century Vincas Kudirka (the author of the Lithuanian anthem), started publishing the anti-Russian newspaper Varpas (The Bell) in East Prussia. The newspaper was secretly smuggled across the German-Russian border by people called ‘book smugglers’ (knygnešys) and illegally distributed in Lithuania. For such activities thousands of Lithuanians were deported to Siberia and perished there. The image of the bell became a call to fight for freedom and a symbol of national revival. During the struggle for independence against communist rule in Lithuania, the symbol of the bell was very popular and was used in many posters.

Romas Dubonis photographed a specific bell for the poster which had been presented to Lithuania by expatriates when the country gained independence after World War I. Since then the bell has hung in the tower of the Vytautas the Great War Museum in Kaunas. In the interwar period it was rung during state celebrations. The rhyming text that decorates the bell, “Oh ring to the children of Lithuania for ever that those who don’t defend freedom don’t deserve it,” (written by S. Balutis, a Lithuanian activist in USA) was used as the text for the poster.

The poster design was composed as a collage with re-photographed letters assembled on a black and white photograph. The artist instructed the printers to print the poster in black and sepia to achieve a more attractive image and to evoke a sense of history.

At the time he designed this poster, Romas Dubonis (b. 1954) was working for a public publishing house as an artistic editor of posters. He graduated from the Graphic Arts Department of the State Art Institute in 1980 with a specialisation in poster design. He has participated in poster exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. He still works for the same publishing house as a book cover designer.