1968 Red Square demonstration

Demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia July 2020 1968 Red Square demonstration Lobnoe place Moscow.jpg Place of the demonstrationat the Red Square in Moscow Noon yes 1968 08 25 Lobnoye Mesto, Red Square, Moscow Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Larisa Bogoraz, Konstantin Babitsky, Vadim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, Tatiana Baeva. 150px|right|thumb|"For your freedom and ours", one of the banners of the demonstrators, 1968 150px|right|thumb|Natalya Gorbanevskaya, 2005 150px|thumb|Pavel Litvinov during his exile to Siberia 150px|right|thumb|Larisa Bogoraz 150px|right|thumb|Vadim Delaunay, 1967 The 1968 Red Square demonstration (ru Демонстра́ция 25 а́вгуста 1968 го́да) took place in Moscow on 25 August 1968. It was a protest by eight demonstrators against the invasion of Czechoslovakia on the night of 20–21 August 1968 by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, crushing the Prague Spring, the challenge to centralised planning and censorship by communist leader Alexander Dubček. The protest took place at the Lobnoye Mesto (Place of Proclamation) on Red Square next to the Kremlin, to avoid any accusation of a violation of public order. It was a nonviolent, sit-down demonstration. However, all but one of the protestors were quickly and roughly arrested by police and plainclothes KGB men. The protest, 25 August The protest began at noon as eight protesters (Larisa Bogoraz, Konstantin Babitsky, Vadim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, and Tatiana Baeva) sat at the Lobnoye Mesto and held a small Czechoslovak flag and placards bearing various slogans: "We are losing our best friends" ("мы теряем лучших друзей"), "Long live free and independent Czechoslovakia" ("Ať žije svobodné a nezávislé Československo!", in Czech), "Shame to the occupiers" ("Позор оккупантам!"), "Hands off the ČSSR" ("Руки прочь от ЧССР!"), "For your freedom and ours" ("За вашу и нашу свободу!"), "Freedom for Dubček" ("Свободу Дубчеку!"). Within a few minutes, seven of the protesters were assaulted, brutally beaten and loaded into cars by KGB operatives. The Czechoslovak flag was broken, and the placards were confiscated. Since Natalya Gorbanevskaya had recently given birth, she was not made to stand trial. The other protesters convinced 21-year-old Tatiana Baeva to declare that she had been at the scene by accident, and she was released soon after. The KGB failed to find out which protester was holding which banner; therefore, all the banners were attributed to each protester, except for Tatiana Baeva, who was released. The banners were branded by the KGB as "anti-Soviet".Andropov et al. to Politburo about Red Square demonstrators (5 September 1968, 2012-A), Bukovsky Archives.Andropov to the Central Committee. The Demonstration in Red Square Against the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia. 20 September 1968, at Andrei Sakharov's archive, in Russian and translation into English, http://www.yale.edu/annals/sakharov/documents_frames/Sakharov_008.htm Archived copy 2007-06-17 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20071012132901/http://yale.edu/annals/sakharov/documents_frames/Sakharov_008.htm 12 October 2007 Trial, 9–11 October 1968 During the investigation and trial, the defence revealed several inconsistencies in the accusations."The trial of the Red Square demonstrators, 9-11 October 1968", A Chronicle of Current Events (4.1 31 October 1968). One of the eyewitnesses declared that he saw protesters leaving the GUM, a large store in the vicinity, even though this store is closed on Sundays. Additionally, all eyewitnesses happened to be from the same military division, even though they all claimed that they ended up on Red Square accidentally. However, these inconsistencies were not taken into account during the trial. None of the demonstrators pleaded guilty. Verdict and sentence Lawyers for the defense (all Communist Party of the Soviet Union members appointed and paid for by the State) demonstrated that the protestors had acted without criminal intent,See speech https://web.archive.org/web/20200925210832/http://www.memo.ru/library/books/sw/chapt49.htm 25 September 2020 in defense of V.Delaunay by his attorney S.V.Kallistratova (Речь адвоката Каллистратова, Софья Васильевна|С.В.Калистратовой в защиту Делоне, Вадим Николаевич|В.Делоне), in Russian. but the protesters on trial all received sentences of up to several years imprisonment or exile and in two cases they were sent to psychiatric prison hospitals. Vadim Delaunay and Vladimir Dremlyuga were sentenced to three years in a penal colony. Victor Fainberg, who had his teeth knocked out during the arrest, did not appear in court but was sent to a psychiatric prison. Larisa Bogoraz was sentenced to four years of exile to a remote Siberian settlement in the Irkutsk Region. Konstantin Babitsky was sentenced to three years of exile. Pavel Litvinov was sentenced to five years' exile. Natalya Gorbanevskaya was released the same day but later sent to a psychiatric prison. In his "Attorney's waltz" singer and rights activist Yuliy Kim claimed that the sentences had been decided before the trial.Yuly Kim, "The attorney's waltz" (Адвокатский вальс) (in Russian). In another song, "Ilyich", Kim mentions Yuri Andropov's and Leonid Brezhnev's anger at the demonstration, and refers to three of the protestors by name -- Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Larisa Bogoraz.Yuly Kim, "Ya sam sebe Iliich" (in Russian). The story of the August 1968 demonstration is recounted in the 2005 documentary They Chose Freedom. Belated public recognition In 1990 (following the Velvet Revolution), seven of the protesters were awarded honorary citizenship of Prague.https://www.praha.eu/jnp/cz/o_meste/primator_a_volene_organy/zastupitelstvo/cestne_obcanstvi_hlavniho_mesta_prahy/index.html Čestné občanství hlavního města Prahy od roku 1990 Portál hlavního města Prahy cs Honorary citizenship of Prague since 1990 Portal of Prague 30 December 2021 21 August 2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20210821145713/https://www.praha.eu/jnp/cz/o_meste/primator_a_volene_organy/zastupitelstvo/cestne_obcanstvi_hlavniho_mesta_prahy/index.html dead During the conflict in South Ossetia, August 2008, the former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, expressed his sympathies for the protesters of 1968.Ярошевский, Виталий На Лобном месте On the Lobnoe mesto http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/61/17.html Novaya Gazeta 61 21 August 2008 ru dead https://web.archive.org/web/20080904084029/http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/61/17.html 4 September 2008 Czech Premier Mirek Topolánek recognized the heroism of the protesters with awards.Premier Awarded Commemorative Medals to Ten Dissidents from 1968. Press Release of the government of the Czech Republic, 21 August 2008, http://www.vlada.cz/scripts/detail.php?id=40255 There was no recognition on the part of the Russian government. On 24 August 2008, the similar demonstration with the slogan For your freedom and ours was held in the same place.http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/europe/25russia.4.php Red Square protest echoes 1968 Herald Tribune Sophia Kishkovsky 25 August 2008 31 August 2008 https://web.archive.org/web/20080913165452/http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/europe/25russia.4.php 13 September 2008 live On 25 August 2013, the 45th anniversary of the demonstration, Gorbanevskaya and several of her friends recreated the original protest,Photograph from 2013 recreation of the protest, from Gorbanevskaya's Livejournal blog, again featuring the "For your freedom and ours" banner. Ten participants (among them Delaunay's son Sergey) were arrested almost immediately and taken to a police station. They were soon arraigned and released pending court appearance on charges of failing to secure prior permission for a political rally,"Police release all Red Square detainees", in Russian, "Lenta" news stream, 25 August 2013 http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/25/redsquare/ a misdemeanor under current Russian law. In 2018, three participants at another repeat demonstration were arrested.Three people were arrested on red square for remembrance of the 1968 Red Square demonstration, Novaya Gazeta, 25 August 2018 On February 5, 2025, Tatiana Baeva, who was one of the participant members of the 1968 Red Square demonstration died at the age of 77. References 30em Bibliography Holt, Rinehart and Winston 978-0-03-085990-8 Gorbanevskaya Natalya Red Square at Noon New York 1972 registration https://archive.org/details/redsquareatnoon00gorb Wesleyan University Press 0-8195-6176-2 Alexeyeva Lyudmila Carol Pearce, John Glad (trans.) Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights Middletown, Conn. 1987 Boobbyer, Philip Conscience, dissent and reform in Soviet Russia 2005 Routledge 0415331862 https://books.google.com/books?id=Hmed65SZNqgC See also Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union External links Natalia Gorbanevskaya: Red Square at Noon. What I remember of the demonstration http://www.pwf.cz/en/prague-spring/945.html Prague Writers' Festival 28 May 2008 Soviet Archives posted by V. Bukovsky. Chapter 3.1 Dissidents, 1960–1969, https://web.archive.org/web/20180720130713/http://psi.ece.jhu.edu/~kaplan/IRUSS/BUK/GBARC/pdfs/dis60/dis60-e.html Boobbyer, Philip Conscience, dissent and reform in Soviet Russia 2005 Routledge 0415331862 https://books.google.com/books?id=Hmed65SZNqgC Информация о демонстрации в бюллетене "Хроника текущих событий" https://web.archive.org/web/20120929094547/http://www.memo.ru/history/DISS/chr/chr3.htm 29 September 2012 Информация о суде над демонстрантами в бюллетене "Хроника текущих событий" https://web.archive.org/web/20170204205512/http://www.memo.ru/history/DISS/chr/chr4.htm 4 February 2017 Л. А. Кацва. История России. Cоветский период. (1917–1991) Сева Новгородцев 23 августа 2003: К 35-летию советского вторжения в Чехословакию. Category:Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Red Square demonstration Category:Czechoslovakia–Soviet Union relations Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union Category:Protests in the Soviet Union Category:Human rights in the Soviet Union Category:Anti-war protests in Russia Category:Red Square Category:1968 in Moscow Category:1968 protests Category:August 1968 in Europe Category:Protests in Russia