This article aims to reveal the story of collaboration between Algirdas Julius Greimas (1917–1992) and the Lithuanian-American Social Democratic journal Darbas (published from 1947 to 1960 by the Lithuanian Labor Association in the USA). Although this periodical had been published since 1947 it was in 1956 when Greimas wrote his first article for Darbas. He was probably encouraged by the Demokratinio Darbo Talka, an organization established in 1954 by a younger generation of left-wing intellectuals who had formerly belonged to the liberal Šviesa movement. Greimas agreed with their goals, their values, and their attitudes towards relations between the Lithuanian diaspora and Soviet-occupied Lithuania. Gradually he became one of the most important writers and had his own column. He was not only writing for the journal, but he was also putting a lot of effort into shaping the ideological stance of this periodical while not being afraid to criticize the editorial board or other writers for their lack of confidence in Socialism and for their inability to analyze the world from the Socialist point of view. While writing his own texts on history and other issues Greimas was trying to set a proper example of doing that. It sometimes even looks as if he was using a kind of soft mind-engineering instead of expressing his real opinion.

This article analyzes an attempt of the Lithuanian social democrats to create a sport movement, which would be separated from the “bourgeois” sport – the history of the Lithuanian Sport Society Viltis. Established in 1928, the society began to participate in Lithuanian sport life. In 1930, the society became more active and began to search for international relations, which developed mostly with the Latvian Workers’ Sport Organization. In 1931, one representative of Viltis travelled to Austria to participate in the Workers’ Olympiad organized by the Socialist Workers’ Sport International. Sport was not the only field of activity of the society: it had a chorus, members were taught languages, including Esperanto, various lectures were organized, etc. According to the members’ list of Viltis, the club consisted of more than 300 members, predominantly workers. However, it also comprised students, famous writers, painters, and actors. Many of them were leftist, belonged to the Party of Lithuanian Social Democrats and participated in the activity of social democratic youth organizations, such as Žiežirba and Žaizdras. Communists did not have a possibility to legally establish a political party in Lithuania, so they tried to attend the activity of other organizations, infiltrate into them and take over their leadership. In the spring of 1931, the Lithuanian communists decided to begin their “work” in Viltis. According to them, social democrats distracted youth from class warfare and were even bigger enemies than the bourgeois. Some social democrats (later they were excluded from the party) and the writers of Trečias frontas (the Third Front) inclined (or contributed) to communism lead the club to the split in the autumn of 1931, when social democrats left the general meeting of members and created a sport section of Žiežirba in Kaunas. [...]