How A Peaceful Demonstration Was Attacked In The USSR And The Secret Kept For Thirty Years

When it comes to covering up a single murder, we can easily imagine it being done. But how can one possibly keep secret a shooting of dozens of people on a crowded city square? In the USSR, this went on for 30 years. 

In May 1962, workers in the industrial southern city of Novocherkassk went on strike, because food prices (centrally regulated by the government) had gone up by 25-30%. This put the poorly paid workers (most of whom could not afford to live in their own flats) on the brink of starvation and triggered protest at the two biggest factories in the city. The workers barricaded the major railway that went through the city, connecting Moscow to the Caucasus, the Black Sea and other southern cities, and demanded better pay and affordable food. Then, they went to the central square of Novocherkassk, which quickly filled with people curious to see what was going on.

The central government, intolerant of any protest, commanded the police to shoot the protesters. Joined by the army, they fired rifles into the crowd, killing 25 people and injuring 85. Most of the victims were not even protesters — they were just caught n the fire. Their bodies were driven away by trucks and buried in the graveyards of neighboring villages.  A wave of arrests followed, and six people were sent to the labor camps. The policemen, the doctors, and the witnesses were forbidden to talk about what happened under the threat of death. None of them talked about what happened until the USSR collapsed, not even to their families.

It was only in the 1990s that the "second Katyn" was revisited, its victims re-buried, and the survivors given (if meagre) compensations. After 30 years, they could have closure, and start healing.