PIOTR SIUDA: WITNESS
By Alexander Shubin
Visitors to the Institute of Humanitarian and Political Research in Moscow were often surprised to find that on the wall alongside a portrait of human rights advocate Andrei
Sakharov, there hung tha photo of another, lesser known man. This man was Piotr Siuda.The fates of the two men were strikingly similiar, despite all the apparent differences between the two. Both were witnesses to the events of the century, thorns in the side of official history who knew its secrets well and who wouldn’t remain silent.
Piotr Petrovich Siuda was always proud of his father, an old Bolshevik who was killed in a Rostov jail in the 1930s. In 1990 he reproached us, his anarcho-syndicalist comrades, for our venomous critique of bolshevism. “There were some honest people amongst the Bolsheviks.” Of course there were. The leaders of the Bolsheviks deceived their own people. For most of his life Siuda considered himself a non-party
bolshevik and fought with the Communist Party. The beginning of his fight with the party began with the Novocherkassk tragedy which, for many years, it was a crime to even mention.
The tragedy we are speaking about occurred on June 1-3, 1962 in the south Russian city of Novocherkassk. On June 1, 1962, prices were raised throughout the Soviet Union. There was a strong reaction in many cities in response to these measures. There was an especially strong protest at the Novocherkassk electrolocomotive plant; a strike grew out of this protest. The bravest and most resolute of the workers spoke to their co-workers who had gathered on the square. One of these speakers was Piotr Siuda. It was a triumphant day for Piotr and the realization that the working class could rise from up off their knees remained with him for the rest of his life.
On the evening of June 1, Piotr Siuda and other active participants in the strike were arrested by the KGB and removed from the city; the authorities were trying to roun up the leaders of the strike. On June 2 the army opened fire on the strikers and the inhabitants of Novocherkassk who had gathered at the central square and were holding a rally. Dozens of people, including children, were killed. Then the authorities carried out a wave of arrests. They shot seven of the “instigators” of the strike and imprisoned many of its participants for many years. The eyewitnesses of the tragedy were warned that if they wanted to be released from prison they would have to shut up. Piotr Siuda’s mother saved him from the firing squad. She sent a letter to one Mikoyan, a member of the Politboro and reminded him of the tragic fate of Piotr’s father. Mikoyan knew him from the revolution. Siuda was spared and instead sentenced to 12 years in a labour camp.
In the camp and later on after he was freed, Siuda gathered information on the tragedy, checking facts and analysing the events. (The Novocherkassk prisoners were released before their sentences were up, having already been held for a number of years.) Siuda came to the conclusion that the social structure of the USSR closely resembled fascism and that the only way to overcome this was through a workers’ revolution. He wouldn’t speak his mind openly. (He first began to think this way sometime in the ’60s.) But he also couldn’t keep silent. When the Soviet army was sent into Afghanistan, Siuda wrote a letter of protest which he sent to all the main people in the government. The letter was sent back to the local party with an order to take care of Siuda. But what could they do? Banish him? Where to? Novocherkassk was even farther away from Moscow than Gorky where they sent Sakharov for a similar crime. Throw him in jail? That was senseless; it didn’t break him the last time. They decided to use simpler tactics; they waited for him one night and beat him, repeatedly kicking him in the head. This time he was saved by his wife, Emma, who found him in time, dragged him home and nursed him back to health. (She by the way had helped him gather information on the events at Novocherkassk.)
Piotr had collected an enormous amount of facts and testimony concerning the tragedy at Novocherkassk. This was done secretly as it was still the period before glasnost. When he showed up in the spring of 1988 in Moscow, his information caused a real explosion amongst the members of the “informal” movement, comprised of young people who opposed the Communist Party. Siuda wanted to make the secret known to others. It was unbearable for him that he had to keep these facts secret for so long. Many of the people who heard the story from us acted in disbelief. “It can’t be,” they would say. Even people who had been to Novocherkassk in 1962 hadn’t heard of the tragedy. The government protected its secrets well. But all the facts that Siuda had gathered were consistent and were even collaborated by court documents of the trials.
At that time Obschina, the Moscow anarcho-syndicalist journal, published the story of the Novocherkassk tragedy. The print run of that special issue of Obschina was a then unheard of (for samizdat) 200 copies. It looked like a fat wad of cigarette paper (as that was how classic samizdat looked like in those days) but it was sent all over the country and read from cover to cover by many people until the paper would fall apart. People started to reprint the story in other underground publications and soon the official press was printing it as well. After this crime committed by the party and the State was exposed, public opinion of the Communist Party took a turn for the worse. The party could not recover from the effects of the expose. Siuda had dealt it a fatal blow.
Piotr Siuda was always far from the establishment. He was a real representative of the people and he never strived for power. He could have easily become a deputy but he became an anarcho-syndicalist instead. Anarcho-syndicalism suited Piotr’s character. He was uncomprimising and fearless. He did not fight for power but for the advancement of ideas. His primary ideal was the liberation of the workers. But he did not believe in this liberation at the expense of others. When one of the many Marxist-Leninist “workers” groups proposed that he fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat, they were met with harsh words of criticism. Any dictatorship, he felt, was a new road to slavery. For Siuda anarchism was more than a passing fashion – it was the
crowning jewel of ideological development.
Piotr Siuda came alive when public political activity started up in 1988. He turned Novocherkassk into a national center of agitation. With the help of his wife Piotr printed and sent out hundreds of letters and articles. He ran sort of an information agency for the workers and the syndicalist movements. Dozens of “pilgrims” went to visit Piotr on Privokzalnaya St. where he lived and became part of his information network.
1989 was the heroic year of perestroika. The hypocrisy of the leaders was not yet evident and nobody could predict what would be the outcome of it all. Representing KAS (The Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists) at a rally commemorating Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, 1989, Siuda said that “The Novocherkassk tragedy could happen again just as long as the armed vanguard, the CPSU-KGB continued to exist.” Now the CPSU is out of power and the KGB has a new name, but it is still the armed agent of the nomenclatura. The tragedy can still be repeated.
The first months of 1990 were perhaps the most meaningful in the life of Piotr Siuda. He spoke at demos, mailed out information and started an investigation into the fates of those who were wounded in 1962. New anarcho-syndicalist groups popped up in the region. The workers of the Donbass got up off their knees.
On May 5th, 1990, Siuda was busy organizing a free trade union in Novocherkassk. In the evening he was found lying in the street. He died before an ambulance could arrive. The official cause of death is listed as hemorrage of the brain. Siuda suffered from low blood pressure which is one reason why this version is highly suspect. There were other strange facts. His family was lied to; they gave them an incorrect time of death. Everything was carried on behind closed doors in a secret manner. The doctor of course “didn’t notice” any injuries which would attest to violence. They called me to pick up Piotr’s things at the police station. The evidence showed that there were traces of “an unknown substance” on his clothes.[Translator’s note: an apparent reference to blood.] The briefcase filled with documents that he had been carrying had disappeared.
There were witnesses who saw Piotr running from some people. But the witnesses were threatened and told that they had better not say anything. People can think of many reasons why he might be killed. Siuda attacked the KGB and the local CPSU in the press and tarnished their image as reformers. He also was involved in the labour movement and the epicenter of the miners’ strikes was nearby. Suida was a threat to
many people. The people guilty of carrying out the Novocherkassk tragedy were still alive and there was still the matter of the disappeared wounded. The night before Piotr died he announced that he had found out where the victims of the tragedy had been buried.
Siuda’s funeral was attended by friends and family, anarcho- syndicalists from various cities and by local democrats. There was a commerative rally held at the factory, by the very place where the protest at Novocherkassk had began. Nearly thirty years had passed since Piotr first escaped death. This time was not spent in vain.