On Monday, Viktor Fainberg died at age 91. He was a dissident in the Soviet Union, phenomenally brave. He was born in Kharkiv in 1931. He went to Leningrad University, studying English.
In August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, in order to put down the Prague Spring. Seven people — some say eight — went to Red Square, to protest. Can you imagine? (They could.) One of them was Fainberg. The protesters held small Czechoslovakian flags. Also placards.
One of these placards read, “Shame to the Occupiers!” Another read, “Long Live Free and Independent Czechoslovakia!” Another: “For Your Freedom and Ours!”
The protest lasted only a few minutes. KGB agents set on the group. They knocked out Viktor Fainberg’s teeth, then and there. Subsequently, the authorities locked him up in a psychiatric institution for five years. This was a typical Soviet punishment, and horrifying.
For an article about Fainberg, from Radio Prague International, go here.
I learned about the 1968 protest from Vladimir Kara-Murza: the Russian journalist, democracy activist, and politician. He is now a political prisoner. He was arrested last April, for criticizing Russia’s war on Ukraine. I wrote about Kara-Murza and his case here.
Kara-Murza had long been a participant in the Oslo Freedom Forum. Last May, from prison, he managed to get a message to his wife, Evgenia, who read the message at the forum. Vladimir wanted to recall the 1968 protesters.
Here is the roll (which I will give in alphabetical order): Konstantin Babitsky, Larisa Bogoraz, Vadim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Viktor Fainberg, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, and Pavel Litvinov.
Gorbanevskaya was a poet. In her later years, she reflected on that 1968 protest. The Kremlin had been saying that the entire nation supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia. But, said Gorbanevskaya, “a nation minus me is not an entire nation. A nation minus ten, a hundred, a thousand people is not an entire nation.” So, thanks to the Red Square protest, the government “could no longer say that there was nationwide approval for the invasion of Czechoslovakia.”
In the message read by Evgenia, Vladimir Kara-Murza quoted a Prague newspaper in ’68: “Now there are at least seven reasons for which we will never be able to hate the Russian people.”
Today, said Kara-Murza, the Kremlin has invaded yet another sovereign state. This time, not seven but many thousands of Russians have protested — “which makes me proud of my country.”
Kara-Murza served as lieutenant to Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the Russian opposition. Nemtsov was his friend and mentor. In February 2015, Nemtsov was murdered about 200 yards from the Kremlin wall. Kara-Murza himself has survived two murder attempts. Despite entreaties from friends, he refused to leave Russia.
In his Oslo message, Kara-Murza said that Nemtsov would often observe, “The cost of freedom is high.” Kara-Murza had an addendum for us: “The cost of silence and complicity is unacceptable.”
I have frequent occasion to quote José Martí, the Cuban independence hero — I quote him when thinking of the likes of Viktor Fainberg and Vladimir Kara-Murza: “When there are many men who lack honor, there are always others who have within themselves the honor of many men.”
In Red Square, on August 25, 1968, those phenomenally brave citizens of the Soviet Union waved Czechoslovakian flags. I understand why they did. Today, many Americans and others in the Free World wave or display the Ukrainian flag. This attracts condemnation from some. Has there ever been anything good that didn’t attract condemnation?
One of those placards in Red Square said, “For Your Freedom and Ours!” True then, true now. God bless the bravehearts among us. And I wish I could say to Viktor Fainberg: Thank you.