October Revolution Day marked by clashes (11/16/97)

October Revolution Day marked by clashes

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Nationalists and Communists clashed in Lviv on November 7 during demonstrations and rallies on the 80th anniversary of the October Revolution. Five people were injured and five others have been arrested.

The violence began when some 300 Communists and Socialists veered away from a protest route approved by city authorities, which was to take them to the Monument of Glory, and instead made their way to the Ivan Franko monument, according to Interfax-Ukraine. They were attacked there by scores of youths, members of the Social-National Party who had gathered there for their own commemoration - this one to Ukrainian cultural figures shot during the Stalin purges of the 1930s. The five injured people, who received cuts and bruises, were leftist demonstrators, including the leader of the Lviv city Communist Party, Oleksander Holub. The arrested belonged to the Social-National Party.

With more than 80,000 people taking part in various demonstrations and commemorations throughout Ukraine, some to commemorate the Bolshevik October Revolution and others the slaughter of thousands of Ukrainians during the 1930s in what is called the Fusilladed Renaissance (Rozstriliane Vidrodzhennia), the violence in Lviv was relatively minor. However, it caused an outcry from Communists in the Verkhovna Rada, who refused to register for the November 11 Parliament session and demanded an inquiry into the events by Ukraine's Procurator General's Office and dismissal of the mayor of Lviv.

National Deputy Petro Symonenko, leader of the Communist Party, told the legislature, "An anti-Communist campaign is unfolding, it is part of the election struggle." He blamed the Kuchma government for the Lviv violence and said that "the government has officially embarked on a path of dictatorship, and aids the Social-Nationalists in committing their outrages." He demanded that a special parliamentary commission be appointed to investigate the incident and others he alleges have occurred in western Ukrainian cities in the last months.

Acting Procurator General Oleh Lytvak has agreed to investigate only the specific incident in Lviv. He explained that the Verkhovna Rada has more than once attempted to draw his office into what he called "political battles" among the various political groups of the Parliament.

No disturbances were reported in other cities of Ukraine, including the nation's capital, where leftists and rightists also held separate rallies. In a sea of red flags, more than 3,000 mostly elderly people gathered in European Square to reaffirm their support for the Communist Party and the failed Soviet experiment. Less than a mile away, nearly 2,000 national democrats gathered in St. Sophia Square, where a memorial service was held in remembrance of those exterminated in the purges of the 1930s. After a procession down Volodymyrska Street, the commemoration continued in Shevchenko Park, located across the street from Shevchenko State University. There Ivan Drach, president of the Congress of Ukrainian Intellectuals, Rukh Chairman Vyacheslav Chornovil and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Slava Stetsko remembered those who perished. Mr. Chornovil said he was willing to seek peace with leftists but not with those who will not admit that the Soviet Union "committed unspeakable acts of horror."

Ukraine still officially celebrates October Revolution Day, the Soviet holiday that commemorates the overthrow of the Kerensky provisional government and the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution.

This year President Leonid Kuchma proposed that the holiday become a day of memory and reconciliation, and be reduced from two days to one. The president said restructuring the holiday would "reduce political and ideological confrontation." The president's effort backfired when the leftist forces of the Verkhovna Rada, led by Yurii Donchenko, who chairs the Committee on Social Policy and Labor, criticized the proposal for "encroaching on the right of the people to rest and recreation," and soundly defeated it.

| Home Page |