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From International Socialism, No.66, February 1974, pp.29-30.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Red Square at Noon
Natalia Gorbanevskaya
Penguin, 50p.
1968 WAS Human Rights Year in the Soviet Union. On the night of 21 August troops invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the liberal reforms being pushed through by the Dubcek regime.
On the 25th a group of young Russian intellectuals staged a peaceful sit-down protest in Red Square against the occupation. This is a right supposedly guaranteed under article 125 of the Soviet constitution. They were set upon immediately by ‘citizens’, who later turned out to be plain-clothes secret police, arrested, one of them getting his teeth knocked out in the process, and charged with a ‘violation of public order.’
Red Square at Noon is compiled by the only one of those arrested to be released. She has done a valuable service to all those who want to use detailed information when trying to convince others that the so-called ‘socialist camp’ has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism. It contains an account of the demonstration, the arrests, the police investigation, the trial, and the immediate aftermath, with a frightening chapter on Soviet special psychiatric hospitals. At each stage meticulous documentation is provided which shows just how worthless is the piece of paper the Soviet constitution is written on.
During the trial (the whole proceedings of which are transcribed in the book) it is clear that the Prosecutor feels little compulsion to provide any proof of guilt, and that the judge wouldn’t be interested in listening to it anyway! The impartiality of the judge can be gathered from this extract from the trial:
Witness ... ‘I wish to inform the court that my friend Panova, who was with me in Red Square, yesterday recognised among the plain clothes agents surrounding the court building the man who beat up Feinberg. When he came up to him he quickly made off’ ... The judge silenced the witness.
Or again:
Defendant to witness for the prosecution: ‘Why did you decide that the slogan “Freedom for Dubcek” was a provocation and think it necessary to snatch it away?’ Judge: ‘The court strikes out this question.’
The Prosecutor’s knowledge of the constitution itself turns out to be fairly shaky. According to his version of it a demonstration is ‘an organised procession in the workers’ interests and to strengthen the social order’ whereas Article 125 actually does say it is that
‘... in the interests of the workers and with the object of strengthening the socialist system citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, meetings and demonstrations’.
With the cards stacked against the defendants like this it is hardly surprising that the Prosecutor got the judgment and sentences he requested—including a three year prison sentence.
The fate of one of those arrested was, however, probably much worse. This was Victor Feinburg, the man whose teeth were knocked out. He was pronounced insane. The high standards of Soviet psychiatry are revealed by the expert’s report on Feinberg which gives ‘delusions about reforms’ as one of the grounds for a diagnosis of schizophrenia! Apparently, his insanity was eventually diagnosed as ‘schizo-dissensions’!
What is frightening about this is that ruling classes throughout the world are beginning to see the usefulness of this method of dealing with political dissenters. It’s much easier than trying to prove someone guilty. (In Germany, they’ve already gone further, by proposing to carry out brain surgery on one of the Baadher-Meinhoff group to discover whether there is a connection between a particular brain-structure and ‘terroristic tendencies’.)
There is a chapter in the book on the special psychiatric hospitals written by Grigorenko – who soon after became a victim of one of these delightful institutions. And the author of the book has herself since been committed to one of these ‘special category’ hospitals.
The idea that these institutions have anything to do with science is quickly dispelled by Grigorenko when he describes the ‘Professor Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry’:
’The institute is nominally subordinate to the Ministry of Health, USSR, but I have often seen Professor Hunts, the head of the department, in which I underwent examination, come in to work in a KGB colonel’s uniform ... I also saw other doctors belonging to this institute in KGB uniform, but never succeeded in discovering the connection between these KGB men and the Ministry of Health’.
Whether or not you are pronounced insane seems to depend on whether they think they’ve got enough evidence to convict you in court. So if you go on a demonstration in Russia make sure there are plenty of KGB men around, you’ll need them!!
The whole book shows up a repressive and increasingly barbaric social system. What it fails to do is offer any analysis of that system and how it might be possible to fight to change it, rather than merely go on demonstrations which the participants themselves recognise have little political effect. Their courageousness must be admired, their hopelessness is tragic. They show the disaffected intellectual’s contempt for ‘the masses’, which is why neither in their attitudes nor in their methods have they challenged the fundamentals of the Russian system. Most of them seem to accept the system – or have illusions of a better life in the West What they want are a few amendments to allow freedom of literary expression, and an end to political trials and the arbitrary powers of the police.
But with the problems facing the Soviet economy becoming more intransigent, the wave of repression of the growing number of dissidents has been gathering impetus over the past five years. The latest show trial of Yakir and Krasin would seem to indicate that the methods of ‘interrogating’ witnesses must be getting even tougher than they were in 1968. In a press conference reported in Pravda recently Yakir and Krasin agreed that letters about psychiatric hospitals for political prisoners were fabrications. Yet it seems very likely that one of these ‘fabrications’ is in fact the document by Grigorenko reproduced here.
But it will only be when this group of disaffected intellectuals link themselves to the more important but unpublicised growth of discontent and revolt from some sections of the Russian working class that their protests will become more than brave gestures.
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