The Day in commemoration of the victims of political reprisals was held in Krasnoyarsk on 30 October. On this occasion the exhibition “Construction Project N° 503” was opened outside the terrirtory of the Salekhard – Igarka railroad line (which, in actual fact, is just this very “Construction Project N° 503”). It was built on the bones of political prisoners. Its construction was never finished. The exhibition is based on photos, videos and printed materials of the 1930s and 1940s available with the archives. The idea behind is obvious: there is the intention to show the weak vagueness between “yesterday” and “today”, particularly since “yesterday” has not been digested and understood down to the last detail. Judging from all the bundles of old newspapers (“Krasnoyarsk Worker”), freedom of speech was tolerated in the bloodstained year 1937. Aleksander Pushkin’s “Ode to Liberty”, printed right in the middle of the column of the February issue, can be considered as one of the manifest appearances proving this statement. High-handed villain. I hate you and your throne. You are doomed. With cruel joy I see your death, the death of your children, before my mind’s eye. You are the fright of the world, the ignomity of nature…
Many of those who, in spite of the licentiousness of the year 1937, were still in full possession of their mental faculties, would have put their signature under these lines addressed to the autocrat Nikolaus I.
By the way, the notes of the weavers, engineers and party workers, who unanimously approved the “condemnation of the gang of instigators of the arson of the Kansk milling combine” or or called “to radically unravel the tangle of Trotskyite lickspittles”, completely coincide with the view of freedom-loving Pushkin. “More blood, more blood!” – Pushkin’s suppressed descendants were shouting. And this is exactly what they got. On one of the pages of the newspaper a certain engineer Terletskiy demanded to “lead a merciless and inexorable fight against the enemies” – he himself was shot dead two months later. Public prosecutor Liubashevskiy, who did not fight by words but deeds against the “Trotskyites”, lost his life in the confusions of the year 1937.
Do we understand that the bloodstained pendulum which, during the period of thawing and perestroika swang to the opposite direction, has already started to swing back again? Did the Krasnoyarsk students who, as part of the intermediate examination in their subject assembled on the square in front of the Great Concert Hall, in order to represent the unity of the people, comprehend that they are nothing but chessmen in a false game? And what are they going to do, how will they react tomorrow, if – for the sake of good marks in the exams - they are not reached out pennants but weapons and immediately shown the targets to shoot at? Or what about the lady from the TV show whose ancestors suffered repressions, who replied to our question about whether or not we need Stalin nowadays:
“Well, yes, a little bit we do need him, after all!”… Is she really aware of the meaning of her words?”
The “Book of Memory” containing the names of victims of repressions is not published in all regions. In our Krasnoyarsk Territory we managed to work our way through till the letter “O” under great difficulties. But our society hardly succeeded to think over the years of repressions, when, all of a sudden, a new order was passed by the FSB, MVD and Ministry of Culture (2005), which now makes access to archive materials of that time impossible to social, human rights’ and research organisations, - to all, except very nearest relatives of former victims. The officials working for the state power do reply to written inquiries of those, who are actively engaged in public life, but documents are only accessible till the year 1932.
Margarita BARANOVA
“Moscovitan Komsomolets in Krasnoarsk”, 7 November 2007