Red Square Demonstration

Chronicle of Current Events, Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Red Square Demonstration. 1968

Original Source: Chronicle of Current Events (Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt, 1970), pp. 495-97.

Since the Siniavskii-Daniel trial, since 1966, not a single arbitrary or violent act by the authorities has passed without a public protest, without censure. This is a valuable tradition, the start of people's self-liberation from the humiliation of fear, from connivance in evil ... If Herzen a century ago, by speaking out in defense of Poland's freedom and against its great power suppressors, alone saved the honor of Russia's democrats, then the seven demonstrators on Red Square have undoubtedly saved the honor of the Soviet people. The significance of the demonstration of August 25th cannot be overestimated.'

Anatolii Iakobson, September 1968

The dramatic Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on the night of August 20th-21st, 1968, introduced a new dimension into the Soviet civil rights movement. Previously the movement had been little if at all concerned with criticizing Soviet foreign policy, so preoccupied was it with its own problems vis-a-vis the authorities. But this particular aggressive act at once aroused many of its members to outraged protest. First, the Soviet government's action was so blatant, so crushing and so universally condemned that few liberally minded people could fall to be indignant, however passive or even approving many other Soviet citizens might be. More important still was the fascination which the democratization in Czechoslovakia had naturally held for Soviet liberals, giving them the hope that the same process might one day occur in the USSR These hopes, as some had foreseen would happen, were now dashed.

The demonstration of August 25th and other acts of protest by Soviet citizens form the core of this chapter. Further such acts feature, for various reasons, in different chapters, while Chapter 5 records the trial of the demonstrators and the circumstances surrounding it. All this material gives a vivid preview of Nataliia Gorbanevskaia's remarkable book Midday: the Case of the Demonstration of August 25th, 1968, on Red Square, which covers the same historic events in greater detail.

No. 3 of the Chronicle came out only ten days after the invasion an reported thus:

On August 21, 1968, the forces of five member-countries of the Warsaw Pact carried out a treacherous and unprovoked attack on Czechoslovakia.

The aggressive actions of the USSR and her allies met with a sharp rebuff from world public opinion.

This issue of the Chronicle will deal with the events in our country which in one way or another are connected with the question of Czechoslovakia.

The facts show clearly that even in conditions which practically preclude the possibility of resistance, the struggle for the realization in practice of the principles of humanism and justice has not ceased ...

On July 29th a letter was handed in to the Czechoslovak embassy, signed by five Soviet Communists. It approved the new course of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and condemned Soviet pressure on Czechoslovakia.

On July 30th, Valerii Pavlinchuk died. A young physicist from Obninsk, one of the most active and public-spirited people and communists of the city, a talented scientist and teacher, he was expelled from the party and dismissed from his work for circulating samizdat. Shortly before his death he sent an open letter to Alexander Dubcek, in which he directly expressed his solidarity with the new political course in Czechoslovakia, seeing it as an example of real socialist construction, free from dogmatism and excessive police control.

Even before the invasion, Czech newspapers had disappeared from the book-stalls, and with the invasion L'Humanité, L'Unita, the Morning Star, Borba, Rinascita and other publications ceased to arrive. Regular jamming of broadcasts from foreign radio stations began. The press and the ether were monopolized by our own propaganda.

On August 24th, in Moscow's October Square, a certain citizen shouted out a slogan against the invasion of Czechoslovakia and was roughly beaten up by some strangers in plain clothes. Two of them hustled him into a car and drove off; the third remained beside a second car. Indignant onlookers began to demand that the police should detain this participant in the assault. But the police only examined his papers.

Many incidents are known of non-attendance on principle at meetings held with the aim of achieving unanimous approval for the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia. There have also been cases where people have found the courage either to refrain from voting or to vote against giving such approval. This happened at the Institute of the International Workers' Movement, at the Institute of the Russian Language, in one of the departments of Moscow State University, at the Institute of World Economics and International Affairs, at the Institute of Philosophy and at the Institute of Radio Technology and Electronics.

Pamphlets containing protests against the occupation of Czechoslovakia have come to circulate widely in Moscow. The text of one of these documents is printed below.

LET US THINK FOR OURSELVES

The Central Committee and the majority of members of the Communist Party of China, also of the Communist Parties of Albania, Indonesia, North Korea and the so-called 'parallel Communist Parties' of Japan, India and Australia declare that 'bourgeois revisionism' and open counter-revolution are triumphant in the USSR, that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having unmasked the cult of Stalin and his crimes and not having recognized the genius of Mao, 'has betrayed the ideals of proletarian dictatorship', that 'the Soviet press slanders China', and so on.

But supposing a few of our ardent successors of Stalin or Beria suddenly decided to call on our Chinese, Albanian and other brothers to come to their aid?

What if the tanks and parachutists of these brothers suddenly appeared during the night in the streets of our towns? And if their soldiers, in the name of rescuing and defending the ideals of communism - as they understand them - began to arrest the leaders of our party and state, to close the newspapers, shut down the radio stations, and shoot those who dared to resist, the crowd which had gathered, ones who had expressed their sympathy with us, were arrested along with us, and released only late in the evening. During the night searches were made of all those held, on the charge of 'group activities flagrantly violating public order'. One of us, Vadim Delone, had already been conditionally sentenced under this article earlier, for his part in the demonstration of January 22nd, 1967, on Pushkin Square. After the search I was released, probably because I had two children to look after. I am continually being summoned to give evidence. I refuse to give evidence on the organization and conduct of the demonstration, since it was a peaceful demonstration which did not disturb public order. But I did give evidence about the rough and illegal actions of the people who detained us: I am ready to testify to this before world public opinion.

My comrades and I are happy that we were able to take part in this demonstration, that we were able, if only for a moment, to interrupt the torrent of barefaced lies and the cowardly silence, to show that not all the citizens of our country are in agreement with the violence which is being used in the name of the Soviet people. We hope that the people of Czechoslovakia have learned, or will learn about this. And the belief that the Czechs and the Slovaks, when thinking about the Soviet people, will think not only of the occupiers, but also of us, gives us strength and courage.

NATALIIA GORBANEVSKAIA

A team of investigators of the Moscow City Procuracy is conducting the investigation into the demonstration. They are Akimova, Gnevkovskaia, Lopushenkov, Galakhov and Soloviev. Three of them worked on the investigation into the Pushkin Square demonstration of January 22nd, 1967. General supervision of the progress of the investigation is in the hands of the Moscow Procurator's assistant, Fedorov. The participants in the demonstration have been charged under article 190-3, which specifies a sentence of up to three years for obstructing the flow of transport and the work of state institutions. It has been learned for certain that-as part of the pre-trial investigation -material of a purely personal nature is being collected and that untrue versions of events are being concocted, which provide opportunities for false and misleading interpretations.

Meanwhile the people who committed sadistic and hooligan acts in the square, in particular the beating up of Fainberg and Litvinov, have had no measures taken against them.

Reports have come in of incidents in other towns of the country. In Leningrad and the Baltic Republics leaflets condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia have come to circulate widely.

In Tartu a student has been arrested for writing a protest on a cinema wall. The name of the student is not known.

In Leningrad on August 1st and 2nd four people were arrested: a legal adviser, Iurii Gendler; a chemist, Lev Kvachevskii; an engineer, Evgenii Shashenkov; and a jurist, Nikolai Danilov. They were searched on an absurd pretext, and literature of allegedly anti-Soviet content was confiscated.

The real reason for their arrest was an attempt to write a letter about Czechoslovakia. The majority of those arrested had previously been subjected to repression.

More detailed information about pending trials in Moscow and Leningrad will be known later.

Subsequent issues reported more detail on the Tartu student, then further immediate protests:

The Estonian student who wrote CZECHS, WE ARE YOUR BROTHERS on a cinema wall in Tartu on the night of August 21st-22nd was savagely beaten up while in detention. His kidneys were damaged and he is still in hospital. Now he has been removed from hospital by KGB men, and so far nothing is known about his fate.

LENINGRAD. On the night of August 21st-22nd, 1968, a 4 20-year-old Leningrader, Boguslavskii, wrote on the sculpture of three horses by Klodt: BREZHNEV - GET OUT OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA. He was arrested immediately on Anichkov Bridge and two weeks later was sentenced under article 70 to five years in a strict-regime labor camp. In October the Russian Supreme Court, considering his appeal, reclassified his action under article 1901 and consequently altered his sentence to three years in an ordinary-regime camp (the maximum penalty under this article).

MOSCOW. On one of the first days after the Czechoslovak invasion, Vladimir Karasev, a graduate of the Physics Faculty at Moscow University, hung a placard up in the hall of the main Moscow University building, and began collecting signatures in protest against the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia. When not long afterwards some university security men came up, he had managed to collect no more than four signatures. As Karasev refused to go with the security men of his own accord, they threw him to the ground and dragged him off by his arms and legs. One of the postmen from post office V-234, who appeared at this point, hit Karasev in the face a few times, shouting abusive political slogans at him: 'Fascist, Bandera-ite' and so on. At the Police headquarters they demanded that Karasev write an explanation of the motives for his action, and then sent him off to a mental hospital, where he then spent about three months. On his discharge from the hospital, Karasev fixed himself up with a job as a stoker in a factory near Moscow.

NOVOSIBIRSK. On the night of August 25th, 1968, slogans condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia appeared on several public buildings in the Akademgorodok suburb of Novosibirsk. One of them read: BARBARIANS-GET OUT OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Dogs were used in the search for those who had written the slogans, but no one was found. From previous experience it was known that the slogans would not wash off easily and so they were covered with newspapers.

MOSCOW Bopolov, a student of the Institute of Foreign Languages, wrote a letter to the 'Voice of America' condemning the invasion of Czechoslovakia; he did not send the letter and lost it, but it was later found by somebody in the Institute; a meeting of his fellow students voted his expulsion from the Komsomol and recommended to the Rector that he be expelled from the Institute. Three hours later Bopolov threw himself into the Moscow river, but was saved and put into a mental hospital.

Marina Melikyan, a lecturer in the Department of Russian for Foreigners at Moscow University, voted against a resolution expressing approval of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and was dismissed 'at her own request'.

Aronov, a member of the Institute of Organic Element Compounds, abstained at a meeting where Czechoslovakia was discussed. The Institute did not apply for an extension to his Moscow residence permit and he was dismissed from work when his permit expired.

But the colleagues of protesters were not always without a spirit of solidarity, as the next item (of 1969) - about the same institute as Aronov's -shows:

MOSCOW. In May of this year Rokhlin, a Master of Chemical Sciences at the Institute of Organic Element Compounds, was considered along with other candidates for competitive reelection, at a meeting of the Academic Council. The Director of the Institute, Academician Nesmeianov, called upon the members of the Academic Council to vote against the re-election of Rokhlin. 'I am a man who remembers certain sorts of things,' said this former President of the Academy of Sciences. 'Last year Rokhlin was one of those who spoke at a meeting in the Institute against the sending of Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia.' In spite of expectations to the contrary, this speech did not affect the result of the voting. Rokhlin was elected Senior Research Officer, with an average ratio of votes for and against.

Thus the critical spirit did not disappear with the passage of time. Moreover, the distorted Soviet press reporting from Czechoslovakia also came in for attack.

LENINGRAD. In February 1969 V. M. Lavrov, Doctor of Geology and Head of the Coal Department at the All-Union Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI), sent an unsigned letter to the offices of the paper Pravda, addressed to the journalist Sergei Borzenko. The letter contained sharp criticism of Borzenko's articles on the situation in Czechoslovakia, and the writer expressed the hope that 'all honorable Leningraders would subscribe' to his opinion. The letter was posted in a different district of the city from that of the Institute, but within three days Lavrov was faced with the charge of having written an anonymous political letter. Several closed party meetings were held in the Institute, with KGB participation. Lavrov was demoted to rank-and-file geological work, and the Coal Department was purged.

Not surprisingly, the suicide of the Czech student Ian Palach in Prague on January 16th 1969, struck a chord in the willingness for self-sacrifice of the Soviet civil rights activists, as shown in the attempt to imitate him by Il'ia Rips of Riga (see pp. 243-4) and in the next two items. The second one-an appeal by Grigorenko and Takhimovich6 was a logical follow-up to their visit to the Czechoslovak embassy on July 29th, 1968.

Moscow. On January 25th, 1969, the day of Jan Palach's funeral, two girl students of Moscow University appeared on Maiakovskii Square with a placard on which were written two slogans: ETERNAL MEMORY TO JAN PALACH and FREEDOM FOR CZECHOSLOVAKIA. They stood in the square behind the statue of Maiakovskii for about twelve minutes. A silent crowd gradually began to gather round them. Then a group of young people, calling themselves volunteer police but without any armbands, came up to the girls. They took away the placard and tore it up, but, after a consultation, let the students go.

TO THE CITIZENS OF THE SOVIET UNION:

The series of self-immolations begun on January 16th, 1969, by the Prague student Jan Palach in protest against the interference in the internal affairs of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic continues. Yet another (for the time being, the last) human torch burst into flames in Wenceslas Square in Prague on February 21st.

This protest, taking such a terrible form, is aimed above all at US, THE SOVIET PEOPLE. It is the unasked-for and in no way justified presence Of 0 U R armies which causes such anger and despair among the Czechoslovak people. It is not for nothing that the death of Jan Palach has stirred the entire working population of Czechoslovakia.

We all carry our share of the blame for his loss, as for that of our other Czechoslovak brothers who have committed suicide. By our approval of the intervention of our armies, by our justification of it, or simply by our silence, we are helping to ensure that human torches will continue to burn in the squares of Prague and other cities.

The Czechs and Slovaks have always considered us their brothers. Can we really allow the word 'Soviet' to become for them a synonym for the word 'enemy'?!

Citizens of our great country!

The greatness of a country lies not in the might of its armies brought down upon a small freedom-loving people but in its MORAL strength.

Can we really go on watching in silence as our brothers perish?!

By now it is already clear to all that the presence of our armies on the territory of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic is serving neither the defense interests of our motherland nor the interests of the countries of the socialist commonwealth.

Do we really not have the courage to admit that we have made a tragic mistake and to do everything in our power to correct it?

That is our right and our duty!

We call upon all Soviet people who do not approve of this rash and hasty act to use all legal means to achieve the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia and a renunciation of interference in that country's internal affairs! Only in this way can the friendship between our peoples be renewed.

Long live the heroic Czechoslovak people!

Long live Soviet-Czechoslovak friendship!

February 28th, 1969 PETR GRIGORENKO, IVAN IAKHMOVICH

A year after the invasion, No. 9 produced for the occasion the following evidence, revealing that opposition and protest had far exceeded what was known to the outside world and even - so spontaneous had it been - some of the best informed people in Moscow:

Recently yet more expressions of protest against the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia have become known. There are grounds for supposing that the number of such incidents is far greater than it has been possible to discover. For instance, in October 1968 it was reported to Leningrad district party committees that there had by that time been seventeen acts of protest in Leningrad. The Chronicle has reported only one of them-the inscriptions made by the 20-year-old Boguslavskii. One more incident has become known: a car drove at high speed across Palace Square, and two packets of leaflets were thrown out of the windows. One of the packets burst, scattering leaflets in all directions; the second fell to the ground without coming open. The car managed to get away. Next day, this request was made in a Leningrad radio program of announcements: if anyone had noticed the number of a car out of which Ca parcel of valuable documents' fell on to Palace Square, would he please inform the authorities of that number.

In the town of Roshal, in Moscow Region, the 23-year-old Valerii Lukanin displayed a poster in his window this spring protesting against the continuing presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. He was dispatched to a psychiatric hospital, and, without being informed of the fact, was declared insane, with the diagnosis 'a serious form of schizophrenia'. The fact that his case was being investigated was concealed from him: Lukanin's actions were classified under article 70 of the Russian Criminal Code. 7 Nor was he informed that on June 23rd there had been a trial at which compulsory treatment in a special psychiatric hospital was ordered. Lukanin's mother was threatened that if she told her son about the trial when she visited him, she would in future not be allowed visits. On July 18th Valerii Lukanin was sent to the special psychiatric hospital in Kazan.

At the beginning of July, a Doctor of Biological Sciences, Sher, was brought to trial in Rostov-on-Don. He was charged under articles 65 (espionage) and 70 of the Russian Criminal Code. In practical terms the charge related to a letter Sher had written to the Central Committee of the party, in which he protested at the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia, and at the revival of Stalinism: Sher demanded in particular that all those who had worked with Stalin-and especially A. N. Kosygin -should resign their posts. On the grounds that Sher was charged with 'industrial espionage', the trial was declared a closed one at the request of the Procurator. The judicial investigation failed to confirm the charges and the defense demanded a verdict of not guilty. The court reclassified Sher's actions under article 190-1 of the Russian Criminal Code, and sentenced him to two years in an ordinary-regime camp.

In one of his articles Anatolii Kuznetsov has reported that soon after the demonstration of August 25th, 1968, he found a letter in his Tula letterbox supporting the demonstrators' action.

One ironical comment on the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia was made by students of the Estonian Agricultural Academy at the traditional student carnival last autumn in Tartu. The students held up placards with slogans, the following of which are known: LONG LIVE THE WISE AND FLEXIBLE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SOVIET UNION; WELCOME, TOURISTS IN YOUR TANKS; YANKEES, GET BACK BEHIND LAKE CHUDSKOE; WELCOME TO THAT UNSWERVING LENINIST, COMRADE LENTSMAN.

The Chronicle also carried these items under the heading:

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

On August 20th, 1969, a group of Soviet citizens issued the following declaration:

On August 21st last year a tragic event took place: Czechoslovakia, a friendly country, was invaded by Warsaw Pact troops. The aim of this action was to put a stop to the process of democratization which had begun in that country. The whole world had been following the post-January developments in Czechoslovakia with hope. It seemed that the idea of socialism, which had been discredited during the Stalin period, would now be rehabilitated. The Warsaw Pact tanks destroyed this hope. On this sad anniversary we declare that we disagree, as before, with the decision to invade, which has endangered the future of socialism.

We declare our solidarity with the Czechoslovak people, who wanted to prove that socialism with a human face was possible.

These lines are prompted by the pain we feel for our homeland, which we wish to see truly great, free and happy.

And we are firmly convinced that a people which oppresses other peoples cannot be free or happy.

T. BAEVA, I. VISHNEVSKAIA, I. GABAT, N. GORBANEVSKAIA, Z. M. GRIGORENKO, M. DZHEMILEV, N. EMELKINA, V. KRASIN, S. KOVALEV, A. LEVITIN-KRASNOV, L. PETROVSKII, L. PLIUSHCH, G. PODIAPOLSKII, L. TERNOVSKII, I. IAKIR, P. IAKIR, A. IAKOBSON.

On August 21, leaflets appeared in the housing-blocks where Moscow writers live, near the 'Airport' underground station and at Ziuzino, and also in the Moscow University hostel on the Lenin Hills, protesting at the continued presence of allied troops in Czechoslovakia. One of the three texts of these leaflets is signed 'Union of Communards'.

On the anniversary of the sending of troops into Czechoslovakia, the mathematician Aleksandr Volpin, well known for his regular writings in defense of human rights, sent the following proposals to the USSR Supreme Soviet:

1. To withdraw the Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia immediately.

2. To implement this withdrawal in such a way as to restore to the Czechoslovak people in the greatest possible degree their national rights, and to liquidate all the undesirable consequences of the presence of foreign troops on Czechoslovak territory.

3. In memory of the sacrifices made by the Czechoslovak people, the most famous of which is the life of Jan Palach, one of the Moscow streets or squares to be renamed after him, for example Istoricheskii Passage. The choice of a suitable street or square for renaming to be agreed with representatives of the Czechoslovak people.

4. Czechoslovakia to receive compensation for all material losses incurred due to the presence of Soviet troops on its territory.

Hardly expecting his proposals to be speedily accepted, Volpin nevertheless reminds the Supreme Soviet that 'any measures it may take to implement these proposals would be in accordance with the principles of international law, which the Soviet Union has many times supported, and would help to restore its reputation as a country which faithfully follows these principles'.

A few months later, on Soviet Constitution Day, another incident took place in Moscow: the arrest of a girl who tried to distribute copies of a poem she had written. The girl concerned was later sentenced to indefinite detention in the prison psychiatric hospital in Kazan, the Procurator comparing her act to the attempt on the cosmonauts' lives of January 1969. The Chronicle printed her poem.' This was its first report:

On December 5th, 1969, Valeria Novodvorskaia was arrested in the Palace of Congresses, where she was scattering and handing out leaflets before the start of a performance of the opera October. Novodvorskaia made no attempt to escape, and continued to hand out leaflets until she was approached by KGB men. The leaflets were written in verse form, and the theme was our tanks in Czechoslovakia. There was probably also something in them about the constitution. After Novodvorskaia's arrest, several copies of three manuscript booklets of her own poetry were removed from her flat.

Valeria Novodvorskaia is nineteen. She finished school in 1968 with a medal, and gained a place with honors in the French Department of the Foreign Languages Institute. At the time of her arrest she was in her second year there.

The Chronicle's regular samizdat section has carried two categories of material on Czechoslovakia. That devoted to the county's 'experiment' and the course of events there is-since it would interrupt the narrative here-presented in Chapter M. The second category is summarized in No. 5 under the heading:

OPEN LETTERS AND ARTICLES BY SOVIET AUTHORS ON THE QUESTION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, at the end of July 1968, when the Soviet press was conducting a particularly violent campaign against the democratization in Czechoslovakia and when the threat of intervention seemed more real than at any time before or after, there had already appeared two documents expressing sympathy for Czechoslovakia and indignation at the propaganda campaign: a letter to all members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and the whole Czechoslovak people signed by five communists, P. Grigorenko, A. Kosterin, V. Pavlinchuk, S. Pisarev and I. Iakhmovich; and an open letter by Anatolii Marchenko.

The sending of Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia under the guise of 'fraternal help', unanimously approved in the pages of the Soviet press,"' met with various forms of protest from individual Soviet citizens. Among the samizdat reactions to these tragic events may be mentioned: the letter of Ivan Yakhimovich;12 'September 1969' by Valentin Komarov;13 'The Logic of Tanks', an article by an anonymous author; 'An appeal to Communists' signed 'Communist'; a letter by P. Grigorenko and A. Kosterin;14 and also a letter to the Party's Central Committee 15 from A. Kosterin, resigning from the party 'which has become the gendarme of Europe'.

All these documents, though differing in style and form, make the same points: (a) the intervention in Czechoslovakia is the result of a revival of Stalinism; (b) the real reason for it was a wish to suppress democratization, freedom and the rule of law, and to destroy a dangerous experiment in combining socialism with democracy; (c) the invasion was a moral defeat for the occupiers; (d) our people and intelligentsia are collectively responsible for what has happened, and all honest, thinking people in our country must unite.

Source: Peter Reddaway, comp., Uncensored Russia: protest and dissent in the Soviet Union (New York: American Heritage Press, 1972), pp. 95-112.