This is a Communist Party election poster for the elections to the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet in February 1990. These were the first elections for the Lithuanian legislature in which opposition candidates were allowed to participate.

At the end of 1988, Sajudis activists within the Lithuanian Communist Party orchestrated the removal of party leader Ringaudas Songaila and replaced him with Algirdas Brazauskas. Songaila had been obedient to Moscow. Under the leadership of Brazauskas, the party broke away from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This step raised its authority among the population and it became a serious competitor to Sajudis in the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the LSSR.

The Communist Party of Lithuania had around 200,000 members at this time (about 6% of the population). Most supported the idea of Lithuanian independence, but were inclined to reach it gradually, ‘step by step’. Although the Communist Party did not have the same mass support that Sajudis attracted, 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.

This poster features a photograph taken by Zinas Kazenas of the ceremonial meeting of Lithuanian delegates returning from the 19th conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in the summer of 1988. The poster’s slogan, “Democracy – yes, demagogy – no”, counters a slogan used by Sajudis, “First independence, democracy later”, suggesting that the opposition’s stance amounts to demagogy.

The poster is a reproduction of Kazenas’s colour photograph with the addition of text assembled from re-photographed letters. It was designed by photographer Zinas Kazenas and artist Dainius Paškevicius.

Photographer Zinas Kazenas (b. 1936) graduated from the Higher School of Military Aviation Photography while serving in the Soviet Army. After his army service he worked as a photojournalist in Lithuania. From 1988 he was actively involved with Sajudis as a member of its Publishing Group and a photographer for its Information Agency.

Artist Dainius Paškevicius (b. 1958) graduated from the Graphic Arts Department at the State Art Institute in 1983. During the years of national revival he worked for the state publisher Mintis as an editor and contributed significantly to the design of posters published during that period. He now works primarily as a book designer.