[Explanatory note in the Russian internet version: In 1962, owing to problems with food supply in the USSR, the retail prices of certain food products were increased. This led to mass protests. In June 1962 a strike broke out at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory.]

1962

On the eve of the events, central radio and the press announced that from 1 June 1962 retail prices for meat and dairy products would increase. This coincided with measures taken by the management of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory named after Budenny to reduce piece rates paid to its workers. All this served to bring about the spontaneous strike on 1 June 1962 of the factory's workers, who poured out into a meeting, many thousands strong....

In the morning of 2 June... a crowd of people, many thousands strong, including women and children, marched in a column on Novocherkassk. They intended to express their demands and to free the people held at the local militia station, who had been arrested the day before in the neighbourhood of the locomotive factory. Pliev had ordered that the progress of this column be halted. In the morning of 2 June the commander of the tank division of the Novocherkassk garrison, Colonel Mikheev, had concentrated a force under his command on the bridge over the river Tuzlov. It had 9 or 10 tanks and several armed personnel carriers. When the people arrived at the bridge they ignored the demands of the military commanders to halt, and they continued further into the town...

In the morning of 2 June comrades Kirilenko, Kozlov, Mikoyan, Il'ichev, Polyansky, Shelepin and responsible staff of the central organs of the country arrived at the building of the City Party Committee and City Executive Committee... F R Kozlov informed N S Khrushchev about the situation and requested, through the Minister of Defence of the USSR, that the commander of troops I A Pliev be instructed to use troops to break up any possible pogroms in the city. On 2 June internal troops were brought from Rostov-on-Don and all were given weapons and ammunition, and by 10 o'clock all divisions of these troops were in a state of battle-readiness... The many thousand-strong crowd was now within 60 to 100 metres from the City Executive Committee building...

The Chairman of the City Executive Committee, comrade Zamula, and CPSU CC department head comrade Stepakov... attempted to address the crowd from the balcony using a microphone, calling on them to stop their march and disperse back to their places of work. Zamula, Stepakov and other persons on the balcony were met with a hail of sticks and stones in response. At the same time threats were shouted by the crowd. The most aggressive group broke into the building and started a pogrom. Windows and doors were broken, furniture and the telephone switchboard were broken, and chandeliers and paintings were thrown to the ground.

Major-General Oleshko, the commander of the Novocherkassk garrison arrived at the City Executive Committee building with fifty soldiers from the internal forces, armed with machine-guns. These pushed the people back from the building, spread out along its façade and faced them two ranks deep. Oleshko addressed the crowds from the balcony, ordering them to cease their pogrom and disperse... The crowd did not react, there was shouting and threats of reprisals, the whole square was engulfed in noise... The troops fired a warning volley from into the air from their machine-guns. This caused the people who were right up against the soldiers making a noise to drop back... Shouts were heard from the crowd: "Don't panic, they're firing blanks", at which people again surged towards the City Executive Committee building and the soldiers spread out along its façade. There followed a second warning volley, and then individual shots into the crowd, which left 10 - 15 people lying in the square. After these shots panic broke out, people began to run away, and a crush began...

At the same time... an aggressively-minded crowd had also gathered at the city headquarters of the militia and the KGB. It pushed away the internal troops of the 505th Regiment, and actively tried to break into the militia station through broken windows with the aim of releasing the citizens who were held there. Shouts were heard from the crowd to seize weapons... One of the rioters managed to grab a machine gun from Private Repkin, and he tried to open fire on the soldiers with this weapon. Serviceman Azizov was faster than this rioter, and fired several shots, killing him. Four other people among the rioters were also killed at the same time, and others received injuries. More than thirty rioters, who had broken into the corridors and the yard of the militia station, were detained and locked in the cells. Soldiers and officers of the internal forces drove rioters out of the State Bank building, which they had managed to break into for a short period...

Using their weapons in self-defence, on 2 June the troops of the internal forces killed 22 and wounded 39 participants in the disorders in the square and at the militia station. Two more people were killed in the evening of 2 June in unexplained circumstances...

First published in Pravda, 3 June 1991

Republished in A S Orlov et al., compilers, 1917 - 1940. Khrestomatiya po istorii Rossii s drevneyshikh vremen do nashykh dney, Moscow, 2000.

Available online - for a link to the Russian original text, click here.

Translated from Russian by Dr Francis King