In 1961, the state began mass purchases of grain from Canada, and a year later, fat and meat became deficient, soared by about a third. A little later, as a result of an acute shortage of products, dairy products rose in price in the USSR.
Unrest began in many cities of the state, but Novocherkassk turned out to be the most active, in which the party food program accidentally coincided with a reduction in wages at the largest local electric locomotive manufacturing plant. As a result, the workers took to the streets. They demanded negotiations with the city administration.
Novocherkassk execution would not have taken place, if not for the ridiculous imprudence. The detonator was a rash phrase made by the director of the plant, who, when asked about how workers should live on, suggested they eat liver cakes instead of meat. This random cue was enough for the powder to catch fire.
The factory went on strike
During the night, all the important city facilities - the telegraph, the post office, the city committee and the city executive committee - were taken under strict guard by the authorities, all the money with valuables was hastily taken out of the bank of Novocherkassk. The garrison was put on alert.
Meanwhile, the area was gradually filled with workers and members of their families, who in front of the administration building loudly demanded that the local leadership go out to them. However, this did not happen.
The administration, panicked, asked the capital for help in suppressing the "anti-Soviet rebellion." Mikoyan flew into the city - the right hand of Secretary General Khrushchev. Troops were brought into Novocherkassk, and the crowd was gradually forced out of the factory territory. At about three in the morning, the remaining in history, as the “Novocherkassky,” shooting of demonstrators, which had not been mentioned in the press for a long time, began.
The crowd, with more than four thousand strikers, was crowded out, and gradually it began to thin. The plant was completely under the control of the military; a curfew was established in the city .
According to those who were at that time in the square, the crowd was noisy and did not want to disperse, not listening to the calls of the military. And then the soldiers gave several short bursts of machine guns and machine guns. They shot into the air, but the bullets hit several boys who, climbing the trees, watched the events with childish curiosity. After all, the bodies of the guys were never found.
Novocherkassk execution entailed significant casualties. Sixteen people were killed, more than forty were injured. The factory square was literally covered in blood, which was quickly washed away during the night, and the bodies of the victims were hastily buried on the outskirts of the city in a common grave. Relatives were not allowed to attend the funeral.
Over a hundred people were arrested. Two months later, a trial took place. Seven people who, by a court decision, provoked the execution in Novocherkassk, were sentenced to death, the other seven - to life imprisonment. And although at the court session they tried to prove that they were not going to take any action, but only tried to agree, the judges did not believe them.
The Novocherkassk execution and the whole truth about it were carefully kept silent for more than two decades, and only twenty years later, relatively objective articles about these bloody events began to appear in the press. And already in the mid-nineties of the last century, the prosecutor’s office began an investigation, but they did not find those responsible for the deaths of civilians.