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Author and presenter Vladimir Tolts

Mass riots in the USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

Vladimir Tolts:

I don't often do programs about books. Because authors are always offended: why did they say about such and such, but not about me...

Today's program about the book is a special case. What is it about?

Vladimir Kozlov:

In short, the book is about what is written on the title - about riots.

“In the midst of the political storms of the last decade, it was quite difficult for researchers to get carried away by the history of events that were very poorly “ennobled” by political demands and often extremely dubious from a moral point of view. Mass riots, as a form of social protest, simply fell out of the main stream of “rethinking the past” and did not look respectable enough.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Mass unrest in the USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev and a new book about them.

Recently, the Novosibirsk publishing house "Siberian Chronograph" published a book by Moscow historian Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozlov, "MASS UNLOCK IN THE USSR UNDER KHRUSHCHEV AND BREZHNEV (1953 - EARLY 80'S." The title speaks for itself. And yet, I ask the author, in short: what is your book about?

Vladimir Kozlov:

The book is about the specific Russian phenomenon of symbiosis between government and people, in which mass unrest is not an attack on the system, but is a signal from the authorities that the system needs to be improved and improved. From this point of view, I am trying to understand the phenomenon of Brezhnev, who almost put an end to mass unrest in the Soviet Union and created this famous situation of stagnation.

Secondly, the book is about how gradually, along with the disappearance of faith in the “correct” communism, which was opposed to the “wrong” communism embodied in the leaders, along with the disappearance of this faith, the ground, paradoxically, for mass unrest disappeared. For people found individual ways to adapt to reality and lost all incentives to rebel in the crowd. In order to rebel in the crowd, they needed faith in the possibility of changing something, when this faith disappeared along with faith in communism, mass unrest under Brezhnev disappeared, with the exception of ethnic conflicts.

Finally, a book about the behavioral patterns of the Russian crowd, which, as it turns out, has some universal properties and in some sense can be compared with the riots in Los Angeles or some other major Western city.

But in fact, this book is dedicated to the actual declassification of post-war Soviet history . Because the formal opening of documents and declaring them unclassified does not mean that historians, sociologists, politicians and anyone else have already included them in scientific circulation, comprehended, understood and realized.

Vladimir Tolts:

Already acquaintance with the table of contents of Vladimir Kozlov’s book demonstrates to the reader both the scale of the work done by the author and the breadth of the phenomenon he studied. Here are the unrest in the virgin lands of the 50-60s, and soldier unrest of the same time, and violent ethnic conflicts in the places of exile of the “punished peoples” and where they returned after Stalin’s death.

Separate chapters: “Political unrest in Georgia after the 20th Congress of the CPSU”, “Unrest of political marginals”, “Unrest of believers”. A significant part of the book is devoted to urban uprisings and riots in the last years of Khrushchev's rule, many of which were either not known to the general public or were known only to rumors. These are, for example, the Krasnodar events of 1961, the Murom “funeral” riot, the unrest in Aleksandrov, the events in Biysk (this is still the same year of 1961). A separate chapter is devoted to the Novocherkassk unrest of 1962, which is somewhat more famous today. And also - Krivoy Rog and the Sumgait riot of '63 and the final chapter about the mass unrest in the second half of the 60s - early 80s. In general, the canvas is quite epic in scale.

I ask the author - Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozlov:

- What place, in your opinion, do the “mass riots” of 1950-80 have in the history of Soviet society of this period, and what are they for us at the end of the century?

Vladimir Kozlov:

- Well, I would say that maybe this is our past, and maybe our future. This depends on the extent to which the modern Russian regime will be able to create new regulators of mass behavior. (Well, I mean that this is how the term “democracy” is described.) Democracy excludes, in principle, the possibility of mass unrest, since the feedback channels between the authorities and the people, in general, are open, and the functions of expressing discontent are assumed by political parties, journalists, and so on, and so on. But judging by my feelings today, I cannot say that these regulators are working to their full potential today. This means that the “ Russian revolt ”, as a regulator of politics, may return. And from this point of view, I, in fact, was interested in studying the 50-70s, and someone, perhaps in the middle of the next century, will be interested in comparing one with the other, as I compared the 50-70s of the 20th century with the period of symbiosis of people and power after the Pugachev uprising and up to the revolution of 1905-1907.

Vladimir Tolts:

From the chapter “Soldier unrest and unrest”:

“Soldier unrest and unrest can confidently be classified as traditional. They are possible in any army and under any regime.. /.../ The social significance of the soldier unrest of 1953-59 was determined by the fact that during this period military personnel constituted one of the most conflict-ridden groups of the population of the USSR. Of the 94 violent conflicts (cases of mass hooliganism, group fights, unrest and riots), which became known to the highest Soviet leaders in In the 53-60s, through the channels of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office, in 44 episodes /.../ such conflicts had a clear tendency to develop into clashes with the authorities /.../ Attacks on police officers, fights and mass hooliganism were often accompanied by pogroms of residential and administrative premises, shops and stores /.../ From a political point of view, these events looked almost “sterile”. In one case (Kemerovo, 1955), mass unrest among those mobilized to work in construction in the coal industry acquired a distinctly political meaning./.../ They were directed against the order of the government, which postponed the announced demobilization for certain categories of military builders..."

Vladimir Tolts:

From the recording of the Kemerovo KGB Directorate given in the book by Vladimir Kozlov of the testimony of the construction trust manager Stepanenko:

“Everyone rushed to me, started swearing: “So you disband.” One pushed, the second pushed, and then they surrounded me and said that blood was needed. Then they pushed me, I stood up, they hit me on the head, then on the side, then on the legs. Then they searched me. They thought that I had the government’s decision. I had a party card, looked at it and put it in my coat pocket. Then they said: “Where is the decision?” trust." And they took me to the trust. When they led me, I remember that one black man stood next to me and protected. He said: “There is no need to kill.” And then this little one with a knife climbed towards me, and the one who defended me hit him too. They took me to the trust, I turned gray and felt like I was losing consciousness. There they shouted: “Give an order!” I said: “This order will not have force. I can’t cancel the orders of the government.” They brought a lot of pieces of paper, I wanted to take these pieces of paper. Then they all piled up, I feel that it’s all over. I say: “The military registration and enlistment office won’t let you go.” - “Well, then we’ll cut open the general’s fat belly.” When I signed the order, they said: “Well, the boss is good, bring wine, we’ll give you something to drink.”

Question: Who held your shoulders when the table was brought?

Answer: Some two guys.

Then I remember I needed to lie down and started to lie down, and then I became completely ill and was taken to the hospital. A lot of them were drunk.

Question: What shouts and statements do you remember from the crowd at your address and in general?

Answer: From the crowd I heard shouts and cries that this demonstration would be known in America, that there is no force that is armed with one idea to resist. The police were not allowed to approach. Someone came up to me in civilian clothes. They say: "This is a spy, drive away all these spies." They pushed him out. Basically they demanded that they needed blood, then a decision would come quickly from Moscow. In any case, they demanded to kill."

Vladimir Tolts:

“America,” whose attention the participants in the Kemerovo strike of 1955 so hoped for, never learned anything about them... Just as they knew nothing in the USA (and most people in the USSR too) about the “pro-American,” so to speak, coloring of many, it turns out, hooligan and other criminal actions and riots of the Khrushchev era. Moreover, under their “pro-American” form, their purely Soviet content is always easily visible. For example, I simply read with delight in Kozlov’s book the oath of a member of the hooligan group “Pureblood Americans” (this is Leningrad in 1954), examples of which are undoubtedly the “oath of the young pioneer” and the legend of the Young Guards:

"I, a member of the gangster gang "Pureblood Americans", in front of our gang, swear that I will carry out all the orders of the gang; keep all our affairs secret; carry out our motto; kill those who encroach on the honor of our gang. If I cheat, then you will kill me like the last dog or arrange a lynching."

Further, as the author of the book about the riots reports, there were signatures of six people.

“Most of them turned out to be, as they say, the children of “decent parents” - a colonel of the Soviet army, the head of a department of a large plant, an institute mechanic, a store director. All “purebred Americans” were members of the Komsomol, had a good reputation at school and studied well. The police did not see anything particularly dangerous in the actions of the young people. Only one of the entire group was prosecuted for hooliganism and possession of bladed weapons. Perhaps fortunately for the young people (we do not know their further fate), they were stopped at the very beginning of their "thieves'" career, after the first serious criminal episode - an attack on police officers.

It turns out there were many more such “pro-Americans” than we had previously imagined. But this is not at all connected with their knowledge of American democracy and sympathy for it, but with their attitude towards their own “authorities” and the organic inclusion in the Soviet mass consciousness of elements of the Soviet criminal myth:

“In the criminal mythology of the early 50s, which interpreted reality according to the principle - the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in general an important place was occupied by a certain distant and hostile America to the Soviet authorities with its wonderful president Truman, who would one day start a war against the USSR and then release criminals from prison. This semi-folklore character Truman the liberator, then Eisenhower the liberator, enjoyed exceptional popularity among convicted criminals and thieves popularity. The K. brothers, convicted of robbery in 1955, began talking directly in court about the inevitability of war with America, saying that “Eisenhower will come soon and free them, and then they will fight against Soviet power and kill small and large workers of the party and government.” Long live Eisenhower!" In the cell he said that "if they had given him a machine gun, he would have shot all the communists and, first of all, Khrushchev and Bulganin."

In his book, Vladimir Kozlov gives a lot of examples of this kind. He also talks about a 19-year-old convict who repeatedly wrote slogans in the prison corridor: “The end will soon be of Soviet power, the capitalist system will flourish in America!” “Down with Bulganin and Khrushchev, long live Eisenhower and Chiang Kai-shek!”, “Down with Soviet power and its government, hello with the USA.” He talks about another prisoner who scattered leaflets "Down with the power of the Soviets. Long live Eisenhower, Dulles and the United States of America!"

“In the place of mythical America or next to it, the mythical Hitler or any other yesterday or today’s enemy of power could well have been. Twice convicted, escaped from exile J., with no fixed place of residence and occupation, got drunk and went to the cinema. During the screening of the film “History Lesson” about the Leipzig trial of Georgiy Dimitrov, and then in the police, he not only cursed the party of Lenin, Stalin and Dimitrov, but also shouted: “Long live Hitler! Long live fascism! Long live America!"

It is clear that this kind of information and the documents containing it were a terrible secret of the authorities. Another group of my questions to Vladimir Kozlov, the author of a study on mass unrest in the USSR, is partly related to this.

- Vladimir Aleksandrovich, the documentary base of your monograph was partially declassified materials from the Department for Supervision of Investigations in the State Security Bodies of the USSR Prosecutor's Office. Tell me, how big is this documentary array? What types of documents are presented in it? What has not been declassified and remains “behind the scenes” of the research? How large and significant is this unclassified part for the overall picture? And finally, what documentary materials on the topic were inaccessible to you?

Vladimir Kozlov:

The total array, which covers documents from the late 30s until Gorbachev left power, contains more than one hundred thousand cases. The main thing that interested me was the documents of supervisory proceedings, since they provide information about specific individuals, describe specific episodes, etc., etc. In addition, these are various kinds of analytical materials from the USSR Prosecutor's Office, sometimes prepared together with the KGB, sometimes prepared together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which give this fairly high state body, a high authority, an idea of ​​​​the events taking place in the country.

Since my topic was not only political, let’s say, speeches, but also sometimes purely hooligan, purely “Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless,” I was interested in materials related, for example, to the analysis of the processes of combating hooliganism and what I called in the book the “hooligan war,” which began almost immediately after the war. I was also interested in other phenomena that are not directly related to mass disorder, but characterize the social climate. Well, for example, the so-called “people's crimes”, which the public consciousness does not evaluate as a crime. By the way, hooliganism in a sense applies to them, just like petty theft.

Fortunately for me, as the author of the book, most, the vast majority of the documents I needed from the State Archive of the Russian Federation were declassified on the basis of the Presidential Decree on the declassification of documents related to mass repressions.

But I not only used these materials, in addition, I used reports from the State Security Committee of the CPSU Central Committee, which were stored in the former General Department of the CPSU Central Committee. In addition, very important, very interesting materials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs were used, which were declassified much worse than the materials from the prosecutor's office.

From the point of view of these materials, what was “left behind the scenes” is not essential for the reconstruction of events. But I did not have the opportunity to get acquainted with the materials of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, which, for example, conducted the case in Novocherkassk, I did not have the opportunity, almost no opportunity, to get acquainted with the materials of the State Security Committee. This is one of the largest gaps in the sources, which, unfortunately, I cannot fill.

Vladimir Tolts:

Today I am telling you about a recently published book by Moscow historian-archivist Vladimir Kozlov about mass unrest in the USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. The causes and nature of the unrest that Kozlov studied were diverse, and often one event (speech, riot, strike, and so on) bizarrely combined several motives at once.

I noticed this myself when several years ago I was preparing a program dedicated to the March events of 1956 in Tbilisi.

Here are excerpts from old recordings of my conversations with participants in the Tbilisi demonstrations of 1956, which ended in the shooting of demonstrators.

Ekaterina Gomilauri:

...We stood on the embankment near the monument to Stalin. And so, when they told us: “Scatter!” (then they begged), but still we stood. Then, little by little, some part dispersed, and I also left. Two guys took me because it was difficult for me, they asked and took me out. And those who remained, the next morning I learned that they had been shot.

Vladimir Tolts:

- Why didn’t the crowd disperse, do you think?

Ekaterina Gomilauri:

- By conviction. And for daring too, and for devotion to these ideas.

Vladimir Tolts:

- Ideas of loyalty to Stalin?

Ekaterina Gomilauri:

- Stalin and freedom for the Motherland.

Vladimir Tolts:

And here’s what Guram Dekanaidze told me then:

Guram Dekanaidze:

It is believed that this was a speech in defense of Stalin, who was criticized at the 20th Party Congress. Outwardly, it may have looked like this, but in fact there were deeper currents, which we will now try to understand.

Events unfolded as follows: rallies at the Stalin monument in Tbilisi began on March 5, 1956, at the beginning the protesters mainly raised slogans in defense of Stalin.

Among the protesters, the majority were young people, mainly high school students and students. The older generation, imbued with fear, was still afraid. The rallies went on day and night, the number of protesters increased more and more. Mostly there were slogans in defense of Stalin. But we must take into account the following: Stalin was and is perceived in Georgia on two levels. The first level - he was always perceived as a Georgian, and on the second - as the creator of a communist empire. If on the first level he looked like a positive hero of his people, then on the second he was perceived negatively by almost everyone, including in Georgia.

As the passions of the rally grew, new slogans changed and appeared. In particular, there were slogans about freedom, about the secession of Georgia.

Vladimir Tolts:

Based on currently available documents, Vladimir Kozlov meticulously restores the picture and sequence of unrest in Georgia in 1956 (there is simply no time to reproduce these most interesting pages of his book). However, here, as in a number of other subjects in the book, the inaccessibility of a number of documents creates some significant gaps in this picture.

Vladimir Kozlov:

In general, the lack of materials, in particular, KGB materials on the events in Grozny in 1958 and on the events in Tbilisi in 1956, affected the full reconstruction of individual, in general, episodes of these events. Moreover, they left one significant question unanswered: the bulk of the people declared to be the organizers of the unrest, I did not find any supervisory proceedings against them in the Department for Supervision of Investigations in the State Security Bodies. Why this happened is not clear to me, although I made assumptions about this in the book.

“The information available to us does not allow us to convincingly answer the questions, the main one: did the republican leadership, who did not dare to object openly, actually try to use mass unrest and protests for provocative purposes, to frighten Moscow with the possibility of similar protests throughout the country and force it to turn the political steering wheel to the right?

The second, no less important question: what is the actual role of Mzhevanadze, whose name appeared from time to time at the trial? Either some provocateurs skillfully used the name of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, or he set himself up very stupidly.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Vladimir Kozlov suggests the existence of one or more “behind-the-scenes” headquarters of the unrest, which is mentioned only indirectly or in passing in the documents available to the researcher.

“The existence of one or more organizing centers, thanks to which the events clearly went beyond standard riots, is indirectly confirmed by an attack on a bus depot to seize a large number of buses that were not on the line that day, as well as by an attempt by a group of young people to send an appeal to students in several central cities of the Union by radio, around midnight on March 9. Finally, a radio transmitter was found in the possession of one of those arrested on March 10.

In the afternoon, a certain “organizing committee” (that’s how the four handwritten leaflets discovered between 3 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon were signed) tried to organize or provoke an action of civil disobedience. “On the night of March 10th,” the leaflets said, for some reason in Russian, “our best people, including students, were shot. Tomorrow, the 11th, Sunday, a mourning meeting dedicated to these victims is being convened. The meeting place is Lenin Square and at the Stalin monument.” Similar appeals and appeals were spread orally. Around 7 pm, the troops and police received a KGB tip that pogromists were supposedly heading from the city center to the Armenian district of Avlabar via tram routes. The orientation was not confirmed, but additional security measures were taken."

Vladimir Tolts:

What did it all mean? The unavailability of some of the documentary sources on this historical episode, which Vladimir Kozlov mentioned, does not allow us to answer this question today. But this does not detract from the significance of his conclusions from the analysis of the Tbilisi tragedy of March 56th.

"The spontaneous mobilization of crowds under the banners of the defeated idol of a bygone era turned out to be short-lived and cautious. Most sensible people, drawn into the funnel of mass unrest in Tbilisi, experienced fear and a desire to step aside. Some felt that they were trying to manipulate their illusions and political passions. This was done either for narrow political purposes - to force Khrushchev to slow down in order to preserve the remnants of the communist legitimacy, or in order to switch the cult of personality to the cult of the nation. The appeal to nationalism, which itself transformed the name of Stalin from a symbol of communism into a symbol of offended national feeling, was a symptom of the future crisis of the Soviet Empire, no less than the already begun crisis of “Russian communism” .

Vladimir Tolts:

My other question to the author of the book:

- Vladimir Aleksandrovich, one of the topics of your research is ethnic conflicts associated with Stalin’s forced deportation of peoples and their post-Stalin return to their homeland (including the unrest of the Russian population in those places). How relevant, in your opinion, is knowledge of these pages of the Soviet past in the current conditions of the 2nd Chechen War and general tension in the Caucasus?

Vladimir Kozlov:

- In general, I am a professional historian and in this sense I am not an idealist. I don’t think that knowledge of Soviet history, pre-Soviet history, any kind of history, warns anyone against anything. Therefore, the question of the relevance of certain knowledge, in general, does not stand so directly and head-on.

In principle, of course, those who started the first Chechen war, those who are waging the second Chechen war, should have known about the specific features of the Chechens as an ethnic group, that, in general, they never recognized Russian, Russian power on their territory, that this was the most conflict-ridden ethnic group in the times of Shamil, and in the times of Stalin, and in the times of Khrushchev, most conflicts were between Russians and Chechens. (There is a sign in the book, you can see it.)

I don't think the lessons of the past can teach anyone anything. As for applied knowledge related, let’s say, to the actions of the military and so on, etc., this applied knowledge is already present in the organization of modern military operations on the territory of Chechnya. Politicians should know, decision-makers should know the background of events, the characteristics of the ethnic group, and much more. They are supposed to know, there are supposed to be a lot of experts. The paradox always lies in the fact that at the most crucial moments of decision-making, even close experts are not listened to, not to mention historians removed from power.

Vladimir Tolts:

Here is information about the “conflict couples” who participated in the interethnic conflicts of 53-60, which Vladimir Kozlov mentioned in a conversation with me:

- violent clashes between Russians and Chechens and Ingush -13;

- violent clashes between Russians and other ethnic groups (these are Kalmyks, Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis, Estonians, Armenians, Bulgarians combined) -7;

- violent clashes between Chechens and Ingush with other ethnic groups (not with Russians) - 3.

The places of these conflicts: first of all, virgin lands (Kazakhstan, where the “punished peoples” were exiled) and new buildings, and then the North Caucasus, where they began to return in 1957.

Let us turn, however, to the description of one of the interethnic conflicts - mass riots in Grozny in August 1958. Where did it all start?

“It all started with an international drink, three Chechens and a Russian took part in it. One of the Chechens, M., “warmed up” with alcohol, began to demand that the Russian put in another bottle of vodka. A quarrel ensued, the Russian received a slight stab wound in the stomach, ran to the hostel and went to bed. The rest continued to drink. Soon one of the Chechens, Viziev, went to the hostel to visit the wounded man, then two others came there. Seeing the wounded man, they tried to attack him with a knife. The reprisal was prevented by Viziev, who, while defending the victim, was stabbed in the arm. The disgruntled and aggressive hooligans went to a dance at the cultural center, where they met 23-year-old chemical plant worker Stepashin and his comrade and peer Ryabov, a military sailor who had come from Sevastopol on vacation to his parents. The drunken Chechens started a quarrel over the girl, beat Ryabov and left. The excited sailor was going to take revenge, but, seeing that other young Chechens were grouping around M. and S., he considered it more prudent to leave. The Chechens, having a clear numerical superiority, began to pursue the young people. They overtook him, severely beat him and stabbed him 5 times. The young worker died on the spot. Both criminals were arrested and placed in a pre-trial detention cell.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Stepashin's murder received wide publicity. Rumors spread throughout Grozny and, as V. Kozlov writes, “anti-Chechen conversations intensified,” and then speeches. Those who gathered at Stepashin’s tomb in Chernorechye (a suburb of Grozny) accepted the anti-Chechen and anti-Ingush “appeal” and decided to set off on foot to the cemetery, and on the way make a stop at the regional party committee and hold a rally there.

"By five o'clock in the evening, the funeral procession, overgrown with many random people (about 800 people were already behind the coffin), approached the regional committee. There, the organizers and participants of the funeral demanded the opening of a funeral meeting and speeches by the leaders at it. The square was crowded with people, about four thousand people gathered. One of the participants in the event, who appeared on the square a little later, spoke of 6-7 thousand. There were a lot of drunks, as well as lumpen, thieves and the hooligans who were picked up by the funeral procession at the market. Various rumors circulated in the gathered crowd. When the mother of the deceased fainted, rumors spread that she had died from the grief she suffered. Shouts and calls for reprisals against the Chechens were constantly heard."

Vladimir Tolts:

The party authorities managed to peacefully send the funeral procession to the cemetery. But, as Vladimir Kozlov writes in his monograph, “a large number of ordinary people who had nothing to do with the funeral, drunks, hooligans and lumpen people who came from the market remained in the square near the regional committee. There were also many teenagers of 15-16 years old, as well as vocational school students, known in the city for their hooligan antics.”

In general, judging by Kozlov’s research, it is quite common, flammable material of pogroms and riots. The crowd begins to "demand a strike." The slogans, as usual, are very diverse: on the one hand, “Down with the communists, false communist fascists!”, but then, “Let’s raise high the Leninist banner!” And of course, an appeal to Moscow - “only the Central Committee and Khrushchev can save them from the ‘evil Chechens’.” (The Chechens, the historian notes, did not take part in the riots.)

All this is the evening of August 26, 1958. And on the night of the 27th, the most aggressive part of the crowd stormed the regional committee. True, by 3 o'clock in the morning the building was cleared of hooligans by the KGB and the police. The tired crowd dispersed. 20 people, mostly drunk, were detained, but after “identification” they were released. The police authorities have calmed down...

“By 8 o’clock in the morning, groups of hooligans began to gather on Lenin Square again; they ignored the police’s demand to disperse. If it was only them, perhaps the police and the KGB would have been able to prevent a repetition of yesterday’s events. However, peaceful inhabitants, not hooligans at all, were again drawn into the events. In the morning, leaflets addressed to the workers appeared in the city.”

"Leaflet.

On August 26, 1958, our comrades carried the coffin with the corpse of a worker killed by the Chechens past the regional party committee. The police, instead of taking measures to punish the murderers, detained 50 of our workers. So let’s quit work at 11 o’clock and go to the regional party committee to demand their release.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Due to the fact that many documents related to the 1958 riots in Grozny are still inaccessible to researchers, there is much that is unclear in this story. Vladimir Kozlov tells me:

Vladimir Kozlov:

In Grozny, where the anti-Chechen pogrom unfolded (a strange anti-Chechen pogrom, as a result of which only one Chechen was injured, all the rest were Russians who suffered during these riots), very mysterious situations arose, for example, the appearance of trucks in which rioters drove freely to the city center, to the regional committee, where the unrest was unfolding.

Who sent these trucks, for what purpose, how did this happen? I did not find an answer to these questions in the documents available to me, but I would like...

Vladimir Tolts:

At the same time, the researcher of the mass riots in Grozny expresses in his book a number of assumptions on these issues, which are fully consistent with the spirit and events of our time:

“The assumption, not even an assumption, but a guess that comes to mind, shocks us no less than, perhaps, the reader: did one of the local Russian bosses or organ workers try to use the unrest for a provocative purpose, to push the CPSU Central Committee to a forceful solution to the Chechen problem, to revive the repressive spirit of the Stalin era and the special status of the police forces?

From other sources, for example, we know that at that time there were several former NKVD officers in the city who were guilty of illegal, even by Stalin’s standards, executions of Chechen civilians back in 1943. The ground beneath them was burning. Eyewitnesses of the massacres sought punishment for the perpetrators. There are still several dark places in the information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that has reached us.

What happened to the unknown cannery worker who traveled to the village of Chernorechye and, according to police information, played the most active role in inciting national hatred and inciting workers to riot? The KGB was in charge of this man. However, there is no evidence of the investigation and trial of him in the cases of supervision of the investigation in the State Security bodies of the USSR Prosecutor's Office. And if there was no official investigation, then why?

Why did the funeral organizers let things go so easily? Was it only because they didn’t want to irritate the population? Nothing could be found about the “nine” of the funeral organizers, who were also dealt with by the KGB. And this is despite the fact that much less significant cases, for example, the above-mentioned case of S., reached the court, but here almost a whole organization acted, printed leaflets, and nothing. The inaction of the secret police, who knew about the plan to turn the funeral into a protest rally, but did nothing, is also incomprehensible. Everything that was done, although clumsily and unsuccessfully, was done by the party authorities and the police.

Why did the crowd spend the entire day on July 27th, with amazing persistence and purposefulness, seeking communication with Moscow and doing everything to make the events known in the Center?

And lastly: why did the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Chebrikov not mention a word about the events in Grozny in the certificate about the mass unrest that took place in the country since 1957, prepared for the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Gorbachev? After all, he really couldn’t have been unaware of these unrest.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Probably, he couldn’t... Just as, it would seem, we now, after the publication of Vladimir Kozlov’s research, cannot feed on old rumors about mass unrest in the USSR. But who reads books now? And who will read this, published in Siberia in a circulation of one thousand copies?...

That's why I decided to talk about it. - It's worth reading.