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tedious "prayers" about the "Great Party, " " building of Commu–
nism," "malicious American imperialists," and "West German
revenge-seekers," were delivered. This time, however, the performance
unexpectedly deviated from the usual scenario. A young activist, Artur
Nemelkov, delivered an unusually courageous speech. He called for the
end of Party control over youth organizations; moreover, he actually
called for the introduction of a multi-party system into. the country.
The audience, all young students, listened to Nemelkov with amaze–
ment. ADd the heavens did not crack above the daredevil. Then many
others, student after student, took the floor to support Nemelkov. The
representatives of foreign students, the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians,
demanded an end
to
the occupaion of their soil. For three days the
meeting went on and the embarrassed and frustrated Party apparatus
could not succeed in taking control. It was probably the first time
dissenters ever used the possibilities implied in the formal democratism
of Soviet official regulations, this time in the statqtes of the Komsomol.
Several days later the Party's organs, recovering from the initial blow,
implemented their oppressions in the usual way and the burst of
dissent fizzled out.
The circles of dissenters that emerged in
1956-57
had no press of
their own and never spoke out at open meetings. But this time the
KGB, having recovered from the shock of its loss of power over the
Party and enlarged by new "cadres " from the Party apparatus who took
control over the Cheka professionals, saw in these a pretext to justify
their existence. The situation was different from that of Stalin 's time,
when the Cheka routinely fabricated "enemies": now the youth,
discussing the events on their own initiative in an unorthodox way,
became an ideal object of persecution.
Khrushchev was a true Stalin arms-bearer and a participant in the
terror campaigns for many years. Informed now by the KGB of the rise
in dissent, Khrushchev cancelled the short "moratorium" on KGB
activity, and in
1957,
a new wave of arrests and persecutions began. The
activity of many dissenting groups at that time thus remained un–
known to the greater public.
One of the first such groups was that of Pimenov-Weil. Revolt
Pimenov, a young Leningrad mathematician of outstanding talent,
and Boris Weil, an eighteen-year-old student from Kursk, exchanged
letters in which dissenting ideas were expressed. These letters were
traced by the KGB. Soon afterwards, the KGB knew that Pimenov
headed a circle of young people in Leningrad, including his wife Irina
Verblovskaya and several students of Leningrad institutions: Danilov,
