Massovye besporiadki v SSSR pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve (1953-nachalo 1980-kh gg.), and: Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union: Novocherkassk, 1962 (review)

On the morning of 1 June 1962, foundry workers at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Works (NEVZ), which employed 13,000 people, began a strike that soon spread to most of the industrial enterprises of this southern provincial town of 130,000. The labor protest was set off by the Soviet government's announcement of a 25-30 per cent increase in the price of meat, meat products, and butter. The workers were also angered by recent piece-rate reductions and increases in output norms, a centrally mandated policy that had significantly cut their wages. Food shortages, a chronic housing crisis, poor work conditions, as well as Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev's renewed and more forceful denunciation of Stalin at the 22nd Party Congress in October 1961, are all part of the larger background to this conflict.

The workers wanted the price rises rescinded (food prices had been stable for many years, even declining) and their wages raised. Almost from the start, they directed their demands to the political authorities and made efforts to expand the strike to other factories and cities. To this end, workers twice blocked the Saratov-Rostov rail line that ran beside the factory. Others invaded the administration building, keeping the regional party boss, among others, blockaded there into the night. Having received no satisfactory response from the plant's management or the local authorities, it was decided at a mass rally to march in the morning to the gorkom (city party headquarters) in the center of town.

Very quickly, police, KGB agents, and the military appeared on the scene. A top-level delegation was dispatched from Moscow, including four Presidium (Politburo) members (Frol Romanovich Kozlov, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoian, Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko, and Dmitrii Stepanovich Polianskii) as well as two Central Committee secretaries (Aleksandr Nikolaevich Shelepin and Leonid Fedorovich Il´ichev). The town was sealed tight to prevent the spread of information and the strike movement.

The next morning, a massive yet orderly and determined column set off, bearing red banners and portraits of Lenin. It was not deterred even by the tanks blocking the route. Having arrived at the square in front of the gorkom, the workers demanded to be heard by the Moscow leaders. But, except for Shelepin, they had already retreated to the security of a nearby military compound. Only the city's party boss tried to address the crowd but he was met by a shower of missiles. At this point, a group of demonstrators broke into the building and took it over. The balcony became a tribune for speakers from the crowd. No one called for violence. But one group headed for the police station to demand the liberation of workers arrested the night before. (In fact, most had already been freed, and the others had been taken elsewhere). They broke into the building, and in the scuffle with police, sevenwere killed. Others were shot as they fled for safety.

In the meanwhile, the gorkom had been cleared by the authorities without resistance. But the crowd refused to disperse. A little after noon, almost immediately following a warning volley, troops opened fire to kill. That day, 24 were killed and 69 seriously wounded. There were no deaths or serious injuries on the government side. Some demonstrators returned to the square the same day and the next, but the protest was essentially over. Work resumed on Monday, 4 June.

In the following weeks, 114 people were tried in judicial proceedings reminiscent of Stalin's show trials. Six were executed, and a large number were handed lengthy sentences in severe...