The general who did not shoot

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When it comes to repressions in the USSR, by default, a conversation is expected about the thirties and five, or about the seventies and early eighties of the last century. In the first period of time, Joseph Stalin, in the second - Leonid Brezhnev. Stalin was distinguished by the fact that he built the system, without hesitation, cutting off all the “superfluous” from it: from individuals to entire classes and peoples. The second is attributed to the “herbivore” nature, although under it dissenters could only choose between emigration, prison and a closed psychiatric hospital.

Meanwhile, one of the most bloody episodes of the suppression of the Soviet people occurred under Nikita Khrushchev. Which is still, as they say, “by default” is considered a leader who “deployed” the USSR in the direction of freedom and progress. This is, of course, about the Novocherkassk execution of 1962. Tom has been written about this event and here it is hardly possible to add something new. Everyone knows that in 1961 the USSR approached economic collapse. Instead of rich yields from virgin lands, only dust storms managed to get. I had to carry out the famous monetary reform and purchase grain abroad for currency. All this slightly increased the profitability of the agro -industrial sector, but there was no more food from this. There was one way out - there is less. As a result, from June 1, 1962, prices for meat, meat products and animal fats increased by a third. The whole country stirred: unrest passed through all the large cities of the USSR, anti -government leaflets appeared and even spontaneous rallies passed.

In small cities (the single -industry towns, as we would call them today), this reform hit even more. In the same Novocherkassk, the main enterprise was an electric locomotive factory. It worked on it 12 thousand people with 140 thousand people in the city. Naturally, the number of people who, one way or another, depended on this enterprise (the wife of workers, their children, discussing the staff of the household sector), could be safely multiplied three to four times. Given the fact that even the most modest life here was not quite enough even before the prices, the workers decided to talk with the management of the enterprise. The director of the enterprise Boris Kurochkin, having heard the requirements of workers about the return of old prices, said: “There is not enough money for meat, eat pies with a life”, thereby starting the chain reaction of the response aggression. The next day, tanks appeared in the city.

And here the situation began to develop at all according to the plan, which was indicated by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev, who ordered the protesters to disperse by any methods. The tankers were led by anyone, but the Hero of the Soviet Union, the front-line soldier, Lieutenant General Matvey Shaposhnikov. When the commander of the North Caucasus District Issa Pliev handed over to his subordinate an order to disperse the demonstrators, Shaposhnikov replied: "Comrade Commander, I do not see such an enemy in front of himself, who should attack with our tanks." And turned off the radio station. Subsequently, Matvey Kuzmich estimated the possible scale of losses when fulfilling such an order in several thousand people only killed.

It is noteworthy that Shaposhnikov did not remain simply formally not subordinate to the illegal order to the military. In the future, he tried to stop the machine gunners who opened fire to defeat the crowd. And after the incident, he wrote numerous letters for which he subsequently fell on trial under the article “Treason to the Motherland”, avoiding imprisonment or even execution only thanks to the intervention of his colleague Marshal Malinovsky. Here, for example, a quote from one such letter:

“It is extremely important for us that working and production intelligentsia understand the essence of the political regime in which we live. They must understand that we are under the rule of the worst form of autocracy, based on bureaucratic and military power. ”

As the authorities did not try to forget the fact of the tragedy, the number of dead in official reports, the information still spread around the country. And the area in Novocherkassk was never completely washed from the blood - after three weeks, a new layer of asphalt was simply put on it. It is also noteworthy that this was the last massive speech of the people against the Soviet regime - the next had to wait almost thirty years - until the end of the eighties. The fact that the people fell into numbness for this period, the hero of Novocherkassk - 1962 vinyl primarily themselves.

“Personally, I am far from melting resentment or anger at carriers of unlimited arbitrariness,” wrote Matvey Kuzmich in his 1967 diary. -I only regret that I was not able to truly fight this evil. In a fight with arbitrariness and tyranny, I did not have the ability to fight a deadly battle. In the fight against the widespread and rooted in army conditions, which is the arbitrariness of tyrants, meanness and hypocrisy, I did not have enough effective weapons, except for the illusory faith in the fact that the truth, in itself, will win, and justice will triumph.

Matvey Kuzmich Shaposhnikov still managed to survive until those years when the Russian people turned to face the truth. He lived in Rostov-on-Don until 1984-and until the end of his life he enjoyed great respect and authority among the townspeople.