How a 1965 Moscow protest launched the Soviet dissident movement

Sixty years ago, a small demonstration in Moscow's Pushkin Square went almost unnoticed by the Soviet press, yet it gave momentum to the human rights movement. A few dozen people called on the state to follow its own constitution. They asked for neither a change of government nor political reforms. The authorities dispersed the gathering after only a few minutes.

Why the protest happened

After Stalin's death a political thaw began, but its limits were firm. Workers in Novocherkassk learned this in 1962, when they took to the streets over higher prices and were met with gunfire, followed by closed trials.

In autumn 1965 the KGB arrested writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel. They had sent their work abroad, publishing under the pseudonyms Abram Tertz and Nikolai Arzhak. They were charged with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." The case alarmed Moscow's intelligentsia, who began writing letters, including the "letter of the 62." Foreign writers and PEN also spoke out in their defense.

Volpin's idea

Mathematician and poet Alexander Volpin, son of Sergei Yesenin, proposed demanding an open trial, as the constitution required. In his view, the more often the authorities had to hold public trials, the harder it would be to hide arbitrary decisions. Some of his allies doubted that appealing to the law made sense when the authorities ignored it. Human rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva feared that another group of arrested people would only make matters worse.

Leaflets circulated at universities carried a single slogan: "We demand an open trial." Participants were told to avoid political slogans and provocations, and to disperse if ordered, after stating the purpose of the gathering. The rally was set for December 5, the anniversary of the adoption of the first Soviet constitution in 1936.