The World - News from July 13, 1988

Activists in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, shouting “Freedom” and the name of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, held a 90-minute rally to mark the 68th anniversary of V.I. Lenin’s recognition of Lithuania as an independent state. Vytautas Bogusis, editor of an independent Lithuanian newspaper, said about 1,000 people demonstrated in the city’s Gediminas Square. Lithuania, formerly ruled by czarist Russia, declared its independence in 1918. Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, recognized Lithuania’s sovereignty on July 12, 1920, and renounced Soviet claims to it for all time. But in 1940, Soviet troops occupied the country and it later became one of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics.