Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania rather than political demands. As Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to revive the economy of the Soviet Union, he introduced glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring"). Gorbachev's political agenda went for great and deep changes within the Soviet government, as such, Gorbachev invited the soviet public into open and public discussions unseen before. For the soviet Lithuanian dissidents, and activists, it was a golden opportunity not to be missed, to bring their movements from underground into the public life. On August 23, 1987 (48th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), the Lithuanian Liberty League organized the first public protest rally that did not result
The Age of Openness international perspective." While Dikötter does not deny the devastation caused by the Chinese Civil War or the Japanese invasion, he nonetheless argues that the Republican period was a "golden age of openness" in which the country was making substantial progress toward modernity, boldly experimenting with ideas and market reforms, and building vast infrastructure projects. Historian Jonathan Spence wrote that "The Age of Openness" ""presents a cornucopia of graphic examples to show that China in the first half of the twentieth century, far from being in a state of decay that called for revolutionary action, was in fact a vibrant and