 Along with several other Soviet republics, from 1988 onwards, Moldova started to move towards independence.On 27 August 1989, the FPM organized a mass demonstration in Chișinău that became known as the Grand National Assembly.The assembly pressured the authorities of the Moldavian SSR to adopt a language law on 31 August 1989 that proclaimed the Moldovan language written in the Latin script to be the state language of the MSSR.