Minor Events in Russia Repeatedly Trigger Protests but These are About More than their Nominal Causes, ‘Versiya’ Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 31 – Sixty-five years ago, a series of popular risings occurred across the USSR, most of which occurred following minor incidents, Igor Kiyan says. The Soviet authorities crushed them but the powers that be at that time “did not want to understand the true causes” and the result of the disaster at Novocherkassk the following year.

            The first of these was in Krasnodar at the start of 1961 when false rumors spread that the police were shooting at a soldier and 3,000 people went into the streets, resulting in the death of one protester and calls for stage “a second Hungary” in Russia, the Versiya commentator says (versia.ru/kak-buntovali-sovetskie-grazhdane).

            Similar events occurred later in the year, but the authorities concluded that they could deal with the situation by repression and court cases rather than by addressing the underlying opposition of the population. That explains their response to the Novocherkassk protests a year later when Moscow sent tanks against its own population.

            According to Kiyan, Moscow officials completely failed to understand that these protests reflected deep-seated hostility of the population to those in power rather than being only a response to the events that triggered their willingness to go into the street and demand change. These events are the occasion for protests but not the real cause.

            That pattern, with people going into the streets to protest or even stage a revolution over what seems to be a minor matter and with the authorities assuming that repression is enough, is a commonplace of Russian history. And it is one that the powers that be now should not forget, Kiyan suggests.