Russian Repression

REMEMBERING REPRESSION

By Stephen Wilson

 

Russians would rather forget the revolution

 

The weather was dismal. Relentlessly and remorse

-lessly raining for 3 days without end. No reprieve

was in sight and I noticed more students coughing

and teachers taking sick leave requiring me to act

as a substitute. "When will this rotten rain cease?"'

I asked myself. Halloween was imminent and the

engulfing and encircling impenetrable darkness

rendering everything vague seemed fitting . I was

asked about Halloween but my mind was more

focused on commemorating ; 'The Day of the

Victims of Repression ' held every 30th October.

On this very day I found myself rushing off

to another student through the old First World

War Memorial park within the vicinity of a church

next to the metro station of Sokol.

 

As I cut through the park I noticed a candle-lit

ceremony where Russians were all queuing up

to take turns in reading out the details of victims

of the repression. Each person would read out the

name, profession , age and last residence of the

victim and then say a prayer for them. It reminded

me of an Orthodox Litany for the Dead. Then it

dawned on me it actually was. I noticed one young

woman read out the details of her great

grandfather. She also read out : "Mutinv Vladimir

Ivanovich , aged 42 , Director of State Bolshoi

Theatre , shot on the 26th November 1937."

This ceremony, held in pitch darkness, sounded

more chilling than any ghosts or phantoms from

Halloween. I recall a Russian joking to me :

"Ghosts would be too scared to haunt Russia ! "

My curiosity caught the attention of a kindly

woman called Margarita who explained what was

going on. " We are hear to remember the victims

of the repression so that it does not happen again

and to teach people about how terrible this was."

I asked her : " Aren't you afraid that this can

happen again? " Margarita retorted : " No we are

not afraid of anyone and we will continue to try

and make people aware of this tragedy. A lot of

Russians are unaware of their own history so our

job is to teach and remind them". She handed me

a badge from her Orthodox Brotherhood and

insisted that I too , should join in the ceremony by

reading out the names of the victims of the

ceremony. While waiting in the queue I

encountered a young woman who informed me

her husband's great grandfather had been a victim

of the repression and : "He had great difficulty

getting access to the archives which explained his

fate." The group were handing out leaflets stating:

'Millions of our innocent citizens perished in the

years of Soviet terror. This tragedy touched every

family. We ask you to light a candle in memory of

the victims of the repressed '.

According to some sources , as many as 700,000

victims were shot over the two years 1936 -1937.

However, the years of repression can't be confined

to those years and began in 1918 . According to

one historian Lucia Lyagushkina as many as

250,000 people were arrested on charges of

espionage. The absurdity of those allegations

comes across when you examine the archives

claiming this cleaner or teacher was a Japanese

spy or a Russian English teacher was working for

the British. Lucy claims that as many as 12

million people were victims of the repression.

Although a new memorial was opened in Moscow

where President Putin made a speech condemning

the repression, the recently poisoned atmosphere

suggests a return to some form of increased

repression is no longer a remote or distant

perspective. For instance, why is Memorial been

labelled : 'A Foreign Agent '? Why have directors

of the theater been put under house arrest ? Why

are opposition leaders constantly demonized and

attacked by thugs ? Why is a historian still in prison

on trumped up charges ? If the state really felt

sorrow for the victims of repression they would

release Yuri Dmitriev who has done so much to

recover and give a proper burial to the victims of

repression. Yet he still languishes in prison a year

after his arrest ! There has been almost silence

in Russia over his case.

An indication of the rising paranoiac atmosphere

in Moscow was indicated by a neighbor who

accused me of "Being an American agent" just

for speaking over the phone in English.