The uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962 was the result of a strike by workers of the local electric locomotive plant, which was joined by other townspeople. It was one of the most massive protests in the history of the USSR. Suppressed by the forces of the army and the KGB, all information about it is classified. In this article, we will talk about the causes and results of the uprising, also known as the Novocherkassk massacre.
Reasons
In the early 60s, a critical economic situation developed in the USSR, which led to the uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962.
Modern historians note that due to the strategic mistakes of the government, there were problems with food supply. Already by the spring of 1962, the shortage of bread became so palpable that the first general secretary of the party, Khrushchev, took an unprecedented step for that time - the import of grain. The monetary reform of 1961 also played a role. There is a severe food shortage.
At the endMay it was decided to increase retail prices. Meat immediately rose in price by a third, butter - by a quarter. In the newspapers, all this was cynically presented as a response to the requests of the working people. On top of that, at the electric locomotive plant (NEVZ), the output rate increased by a third, resulting in a decrease in wages.
Compared to other enterprises in the city, this plant was technically backward. Living conditions were poor, mainly heavy physical labor was used, and a high turnover of personnel remained. Therefore, everyone was hired, even released criminals. Especially a lot of ex-prisoners accumulated in the steel shop, which influenced the severity of the conflict at the initial stage.
All of the above was the reason for the uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962.
Conflict at the factory
The uprising itself began on June 1st. Around 10:00 a.m., two hundred steelworkers went on strike to demand higher wages for their work. They went to the factory office. On the way they were joined by employees of other workshops. By 11:00, about one thousand people were already on strike.
The factory director Kurochkin came out to the audience. He tried to calm the workers. Noticing a seller of pies nearby, he suggested that if there was not enough for meat pies, eat with liver. According to another version, he noticed that everyone will now eat pies.
It is believed that his remarks caused additional resentment among the workers. Insults rained down on him. Soon the entire plant was on strike. Workers from other enterprises and ordinary townspeople began to join. By 12.00 the number of protesters reached five thousand people.
During the strike in Novocherkassk, the railway was blocked. In particular, they stopped the train to Saratov. On the car they wrote: "Khrushchev - for meat!" Those who called for an end to the riots were beaten.
Actions of the authorities
The uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962 was reported to Khrushchev. He ordered to suppress it by all possible means. A delegation of members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party arrived in the city. Marshal Malinovsky ordered the use of a tank division if necessary.
By 4 pm, all the regional authorities had already gathered at the Novocherkassk NEVZ. At 16.30 they came out with loudspeakers. The first secretary of the regional committee, named Basov, instead of explaining the situation, began to retell the official statement of the party. They began to boo him and interrupt him. Kurochkin, who took the word after him, was pelted with bottles and stones. The assault on the plant management began. At that time, the KGB and the police had not yet intervened in the situation, observing and secretly filming the rioters. Basov, having closed himself in his office, began to demand that the military be brought into the city.
By 19:00, about 200 policemen were brought to the Novocherkassk NEVZ. They tried to force the protesters out of the enterprise, but failed. Three law enforcement officers were beaten.
It is known that three hours earlier, Deputy Chief of Staff of the North Caucasian Military District Nazarko reportedCommander Pliev about the request of regional officials to use troops to suppress the uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962. However, he decided not to take any action yet. At 19:00, Defense Minister Malinovsky called him, ordering to raise formations to restore order, but not to withdraw tanks.
Meanwhile, the rally continued. At the same time, the strikers did not have a single organization, many acted on their own initiative. At about 8 pm, three armored personnel carriers and five vehicles with soldiers appeared near the plant administration. They did not have live ammunition, the servicemen lined up near the cars. The crowd greeted them aggressively. The soldiers did not take any action, and soon left back. Their main task was to divert attention to themselves, while a group of KGB officers and special forces, dressed in civilian clothes, led the regional leadership out of the blocked building through an emergency exit.
The rally in Novocherkassk, Rostov region, lasted all night. It is believed that a turner named Sergei Sotnikov, who had already been very drunk in the morning, played an important role. He offered to send people to cut off the gas supply to all Novocherkassk plants. Several dozen workers with him at the head went to the gas distribution station. Under the threat of a beating, the operator was forced to comply with their demands. A significant part of Novocherkassk, Rostov region, was left without gas. After that, they went to the electronic factory, where they began to demand to stop work.
By evening, it became clear to the protesters that the authorities would not take any action. It was decided to disperse, so that the next daygather near the city committee.
June 2
Tanks and soldiers were brought into the city at night. The tanks drove the remaining protesters out of the plant. Several soldiers were wounded in the process. At night, leaflets condemning Khrushchev and the authorities began to be distributed around the city.
In the morning, Khrushchev was informed about 22 detainees. By this time, all strategic objects were heavily guarded. The appearance of soldiers in the factories angered the workers, who refused to work in such conditions. Train traffic was again blocked. A crowd moved from the Budyonny plant to the city center.
Trying to prevent the protesters from entering the city center, the military blocked the bridge on their way with tanks and armored personnel carriers. But part of the workers forded the river, and the rest climbed over the equipment, as the soldiers did not interfere with this. As we approached the city committee, many drunks and outcasts joined the crowd. General behavior has become aggressive.
The crowd reached Lenin Street, at the end of which the city executive committee and city committee of the party were located. Finding out that the military did not stop the protesters, the leaders of the city left their jobs. They moved to the military camp, where the temporary headquarters of the government was already located.
The remaining chairman of the city executive committee, Zamula, tried to address the protesters from the balcony, urging them to return to their jobs. Sticks and stones were thrown at him. Some of the protesters broke into the building. Several employees and KGB officers who were inside were beaten. Having made their way to the balcony, the participantsrallies hung a portrait of Lenin and a red banner, began to demand lower prices.
Among the speakers there were several marginal individuals who began to call for pogroms and reprisals against the military.
Suppression of the uprising in Novocherkassk
Major General Oleshko arrived at the city executive committee with fifty submachine gunners who began to push people away from the building. From the balcony, Oleshko addressed the crowd, urging them to stop the riots and disperse. After that, the military fired a warning salvo from machine guns.
The people recoiled, but someone in the crowd shouted that they were firing blanks, people again went to the military. Another volley was fired into the air, and then they began to shoot at the crowd. Thus began the Novocherkassk execution of workers.
On the square left to lie from 10 to 15 people. After the appearance of the first dead, there was a general state of panic. Some eyewitnesses claimed that children were among those shot, but there is no official confirmation of this.
Fuel was added to the fire by the previously convicted watchman Levchenko, who urged him to storm the police department. Several dozen people went there, among whom was a drunken Shuvaev, who called for hanging communists and killing soldiers.
An aggressive crowd has gathered near the police station and the KGB building. She pushed the servicemen back, trying to break into the police station in order to release the alleged detainees. Indoors, they staged a pogrom, beat several soldiers. One of the protesters pulled out a machine gun and tried to open fire onservicemen. Private Azizov identified him, killing him with several shots.
During the riots, four more protesters were killed. Many were injured. More than 30 people were detained. The demonstration run has been completed.
Victims
In total, 45 people turned to the city hospitals with gunshot wounds. At the same time, there were many more victims: 87 people, only according to official information.
Victims of the uprising in Novocherkassk were 24 people. Two more were killed on the evening of 2 June. The circumstances of their death have not been fully established. All the bodies of the dead were taken out of the city the next night, buried in different cemeteries in other people's graves. Burials were scattered throughout the Rostov region.
It wasn't until 1992 that documents related to this case were declassified. The remains of 20 dead were found at the cemetery in Novoshakhtinsk. Their bodies were identified and reburied at the Novocherkassk New Cemetery.
End of strike
Despite the execution of workers, riots still continued in the city for some time. Some protesters threw stones at soldiers and attempts were made to block traffic on the streets.
There was no clear official information about what happened. Terrible rumors spread throughout the city. They talked about hundreds of people shot from machine guns, about tanks that crushed the crowd. There were calls to kill not only leaders and government officials, but all communists.
A curfew has been set. On the radiobroadcast a recorded address by Mikoyan, which caused only additional irritation among the locals.
3 June the strike was still going on. About 500 people again gathered in front of the city committee building. They demanded the release of their comrades, since real arrests had already begun. By noon, a mass agitation began through loyal workers and vigilantes. It took place both in the crowd and in the factories.
Member of the Central Committee of the CPSU Frol Romanovich Kozlov spoke and laid the blame for the incident on marginals and hooligans. He presented the situation in such a way that shooting near the city committee began at the request of nine protesters who asked to restore order in the city. Moreover, he promised certain concessions in labor rationing and trade.
Meanwhile, arrests were taking place all over the city. A total of 240 people were detained.
Covering up the uprising
According to the decision of the Communist Party, all information about the riots in Novocherkassk was classified. The first publications in the press about the events that took place appeared only during perestroika in the late 80s.
A thorough examination of eyewitness accounts and documents was carried out. No written evidence was found, some of the documents disappeared altogether. The medical records of many victims have disappeared. All this makes it much more difficult to accurately determine the number of dead and wounded.
At the same time, a large number of documents in the KGB archives dedicated to the execution still remain unclassified. Moreover, even those papers that could be obtained disappeared. For example, whenDuring the transfer of volumes of the Novocherkassk case from the military prosecutor's office to the prosecutor's office of the Soviet Union, photographs from criminal files that were used to identify protesters disappeared. Currently, there are only photocopies of them made by the military prosecutor Alexander Tretetsky.
Court
At the same time, the trial began in Novocherkassk. The accused were identified thanks to KGB agents who photographed the indignant crowd. Those who were especially active, who were in the forefront in the pictures, were called to account. All of them were charged with organizing mass riots, banditry, and an attempt to overthrow the Soviet regime. All without exception pleaded guilty.
Seven people were sentenced to capital punishment and shot. These are Alexander Fyodorovich Zaitsev, Andrey Andreevich Korkach, Mikhail Alexandrovich Kuznetsov, Boris Nikolaevich Mokrousov, Sergey Sergeevich Sotnikov, Vladimir Dmitrievich Cherepanov, Vladimir Georgievich Shuvaev.
105 people received real terms of imprisonment - from ten to fifteen years in a strict regime colony.
After Khrushchev's resignation in 1964, many convicts were released. But officially they were rehabilitated only during perestroika. Of the seven shot, six have been fully rehabilitated. One was found guilty, but only of hooliganism. By law, he was en titled to no more than three years in prison.
During the events in Novocherkassk, General Shaposhnikov, who was in the position of the 1st deputy commander of the district, refused to obey the order to attack the crowd with tanks. Hisdismissed, and then opened a criminal case on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda. The basis was the letters confiscated from him regarding the Novocherkassk case. He tried to publicize the matter by sending it to Komsomol students in universities and to Soviet writers. Before his arrest, Shaposhnikov managed to send six letters. As a result, the criminal case was terminated due to complete repentance and in view of front-line merits. The general was a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a Hero of the Soviet Union. Fully rehabilitated and released from criminal liability during perestroika. In 1988, even reinstated in the Communist Party.
All convicts were rehabilitated in 1996 by decree of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
A few years before that, a criminal case had already been opened in the Russian Federation on the fact of the execution of workers. Its initiator was the military prosecutor's office. Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Kozlov and eight other high-ranking Soviet leaders were identified as defendants. The case was closed after some time due to the death of all the defendants.
In memory of the victims of the tragedy in Novocherkassk, a memorial sign was opened.
References in popular culture
The events in Novocherkassk are devoted to the feature films "Wanted for a Dangerous Criminal", "Lessons at the End of Spring", and many documentaries. The execution in Novocherkassk is mentioned in Friedrich Gorenstein's novel "The Place".
The first two episodes of the series "Once Upon a Time in Rostov" describe this tragedy in alldetails. This is a criminal television film by Konstantin Khudyakov, which was released in 2012. All stories in it are based on real events that took place in the USSR.
In addition to the execution of workers, the series "Once Upon a Time in Rostov" tells about the crimes of the gang of the Tolstopyatov brothers, who actually kept the whole city in fear from 1968 to 1973.
In total, one season of the series was released, consisting of twenty-four episodes. Starring Vladimir Vdovichenko, Kirill Pletnev, Sergei Zhigunov, Alena Babenko, Bogdan Stupka, Vladimir Yumatov.
Events in Novocherkassk became the most massive and bloody uprising. At the same time, in 1961, riots also occurred in Murom and Krasnodar.
