See this film – and cherish your liberty
AFTER the Soviet authorities had massacred striking workers in the town of Novocherkassk in June 1962, they tried to obliterate all traces of the murders.
But the heat of the sun had baked the bloodstains into the surface of the main square and they could not wash them away, so they had to burn away the road surface and relay it. Then they announced that a dance would take place at the scene of the killings and expected the townspeople to attend and dance where their friends and neighbours had been gunned down a few days before.
This horrible event is the subject of a brilliant new Russian film, Dear Comrades!, which I greatly recommend. It brutally describes what happens in a society where the state claims to be completely in charge of the welfare of all its citizens – the sort of state we are now building here, I might add.
If the people do not like what is being done in their name and dare to object, then they have to be punished and frightened into changing their minds. In this case, the people could not be persuaded that pay cuts and price rises were for their own good. And, as the state is always good, any trace of such a revolt must be wiped from the record. The bodies of the murdered were even buried by the KGB in existing graves, in nearby towns and villages, to conceal their very existence.
See the film. Remember the dead. And learn that liberty, limited government, the rule of law over power, and free speech are your most precious possessions.