Russia: Defiance in Red Square

Red Square was crowded with Sunday strollers when the little band of people sat down on the Lobnoye Mesto,* just outside the Kremlin. Inside, Soviet leaders were holding meetings with Czechoslovakia’s top leaders. Suddenly, from the midst of the seated group, banners sprouted: “Hands off Czechoslovakia!” “Shame on the occupiers!” Among the seven demonstrators were Larisa Daniel, wife of Author Yuli Daniel, now serving a labor camp sentence for writing anti-Soviet material; Pavel Litvinov, grandson of Russia’s wartime Foreign Minister, Maxim Litvinov; Viktor Feinberg, an art critic; and Poet Natalya Gorbanevskaya, who had brought along her three-month-old son.

Mrs. Gorbanevskaya described what happened next in a letter to major Western newspapers. “Almost immediately, whistles were heard from all corners of the square, and plainclothes agents of the KGB [secret police] came running toward us. They shouted, ‘These are all Jews!’ and ‘Beat the anti-Soviets!’ They tore the banners from our hands and beat Viktor Feinberg in the face until the blood flowed, also breaking some of his teeth. Pavel Litvinov was beaten on the face with a heavy case. They shouted, ‘Get out of here, you scum!’ We remained seated.”

Record of Dissidence. Eventually, all seven demonstrators were arrested and detained, except for Mrs. Gorbanevskaya, who was released after a few hours in jail in order to care for her young children. Several people who expressed sympathy for the group were hauled off to the police station. The six arrested demonstrators, who were charged with “group activities in flagrant violation of public order,” face up to three years in labor camps. Litvinov, a physicist, and Mrs. Daniel have a long record of dissent, having protested such other Soviet actions as the literary trial last January at which three intellectuals were handed stiff prison sentences for unorthodoxy.

Others have also deplored the Soviet intervention. Several weeks before the invasion began, ex-General Pyotr Grigorenko, another frequent demonstrator for freedom, called at the Czechoslovak embassy in Moscow to express his approval of Dubček’s reforms and his indignation at Russia’s campaign. In late July, Author Anatoly Marchenko, a member of the Daniel-Litvinov circle, sent a letter to three Czechoslovak news papers declaring: “I am ashamed of my country. I would be ashamed of my people if I thought that they really did unanimously approve the policy of the [Soviet] Central Committee.” A week later Marchenko was arrested. He is now serving a one-year prison sentence for “passport violations.”

* Literally, Place of the Skull, Lobnoye Mesto is a large masonry platform near the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed. In czarist days,it was used as a place of supplication and as the site of royal orders. The unpleasant nameprobably dates from the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who had his enemies executed there.