During the last decades, analysts of contentious politics are increasingly interested in the network perspective to the study of collective action. Networks are proved to be important mobilizing structures that facilitate the formation of social movements in democratic as well as undemocratic settings. Network analysis is used to explore recruitment mechanisms, dynamics of mobilization and even cultural identity of social movements. The paper analyses the emergence of anti-communist movement “Sajudis” in Soviet Lithuania during the late 1980-ies using social network analysis. The development of mass oppositional movement in Lithuania in 1988 is an interesting case of mass protest mobilization in an undemocratic setting. Our research is focused on the structural characteristics of the inter-organizational civic network on the eve of ‘singing revolution’ in Lithuania and on the networking capacities of the central actors of the founding story of Sajudis. The purpose of the paper is to explore the relationship between the network position and the mobilisation potential of the actors on individual and micro - network level. Different measures of network centrality are used to test the hypothesis that centrality of an actor in an inter-organizational network is the essential factor explaining his role in the initiation of a social movement.
