Word: lithuanian
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...touched down in Vilnius the dignified statesman, expecting to rely on his charm and diplomatic skills to work out a compromise. But when the first cry of Samostoyatelnost! -- independence -- sounded from the Lithuanian crowd, Mikhail Gorbachev rapidly abandoned the strategies of genteel diplomacy and adopted the tactics of a ward politician bent on maintaining his lock on a balking constituency. "Independence?" he shouted above the insistent cries. "Let's have it. At the workplace. In cities. Republics. But together...
...Vilnius fuel-machinery plant, he spied a sign in Russian reading not more rights but full independence. "Who gave you that?" Gorbachev challenged a Lithuanian welder. When the worker replied that he had made the sign, Gorbachev switched to a softer approach, commending the man on his grasp of Russian. But the worker would have none of Gorbachev's compliments. "You don't think we know how to write in Russian?" he challenged. "We can read and speak Russian too, while there are lots of Russians who can't speak a word of Lithuanian...
Although he has granted Lithuanians and their neighbors in Latvia and Estonia a large measure of economic and political power, Gorbachev has consistently and sharply criticized Lithuanian Communist Party leaders for pressing for complete independence...
Gorbachev is in Lithuania for three days of meetings to try to reverse the Lithuanian party's break with the national party, decided in December...
Gorbachev was not explicit about what such a tragedy might be, but one of his closest political allies, fellow Politburo member Alexander N. Yakovlev, was quoted Monday as saying the Lithuanian party's move might cause a "domino effect," encouraging Communists in the country's other 14 republics to break off from Moscow...