Bret Stephens has many very interesting points to make in "The Case Against John Lennon," in today's Wall Street Journal article. But I was most appreciative of his reminder about the Sajudis movement and I'm sure you'll appreciate it as well.This month is the 20th anniversary of the founding of Sajudis, one of the most consequential national liberation movements of the 20th century. Here's betting that you've either never heard of it or, if you have, that you've long since forgotten what it was about.
Sajudis was the Reform Movement of Lithuania, organized by the Baltic state's leading intellectuals just days after Ronald Reagan met publicly with Soviet religious figures and dissidents in Moscow. In a speech to Russian university students that May, Reagan spoke of the moment "when the accumulated spiritual energies of a long silence yearn to break free."
Within weeks, 100,000 Sajudis activists took to the streets to demand greater liberalization. Within months, a quarter-million poured out in protest of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which secretly consigned the Baltic states to Stalinist rule. A year later, two million linked hands in a human chain 300 miles long. In March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare (or affirm) its independence. Fourteen other "republics" soon followed, bringing the evil empire to an abrupt end...
Wondering what this has to do with Jon Lennon? Read the rest of Mr. Stephens insightful, provocative column right here.
