Singing Revolution

Vilnius, 7 December 1989

The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR voted on 7 December 1989 to delete Article 6 of the republic’s constitution, the clause guaranteeing the Communist Party’s leading political role: 243 in favour of deletion, one to keep it, 39 abstentions.

It then adopted replacement wording permitting political parties, public organizations and movements to form and operate under Lithuanian law, by 259 to nothing with 19 abstentions.

First inside the Union

Lithuania became the first constituent republic of the Soviet Union to remove the party’s constitutional monopoly and authorize a multiparty system. Several Soviet-bloc states in Eastern Europe had already removed comparable privileges, so the claim holds only inside the USSR — and the all-Union constitution was untouched by the vote.

Mikhail Gorbachev opposed a rapid abandonment of the guaranteed role at all-Union level. The amendment cleared the legal barrier to new parties competing in Lithuania’s election of 24 February 1990.

A parliamentary act, not a song

The listing files this under the Singing Revolution. The event was a constitutional vote in a legislature, not a festival or a street demonstration.

It ended the party’s legal monopoly, not the Communist Party of Lithuania, which took a separate decision on 19–20 December to break with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Nor did it declare independence: Lithuania restored that on 11 March 1990.