Glasnost Meeting

The Glasnost Meeting (glasnost rally, "meeting of openness", Russian: Ми́тинг гла́сности) was the first spontaneous public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. It took place in Moscow on 5 December 1965 as a response to the trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel. The demonstration is considered to mark the beginning of a movement for civil rights in the Soviet Union.

In September 1965, writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel were arrested and accused of having published anti-Soviet material in foreign editorials. The prosecution argued that the writings amounted to the criminal offense codified in Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal code, anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.

While most Russian critics of the trial emphasized issues of conscience and creative freedom, a small minority headed by mathematician Alexander Esenin-Volpin took another position. They were convinced that legitimate criticism should focus on the fact that the proceedings were not in adherence to existing law, specifically to the provisions guaranteeing an open trial.

Alexander Esenin-Volpin, together with physicist Valery Nikolsky, artist Yuri Titov and Titov's wife Elena Stroeva, began to plan a gathering in Pushkin Square, across the street from the office of the newspaper Izvestia. The date chosen was 5 December, the official holiday celebrating the ratification of the 1936 "Stalin" Constitution by the Congress of Soviets. The meeting itself was to exemplify strict obedience to the Constitution, which guaranteed freedom of assembly and meetings. The participants were to restrict themselves to the single demand for an open trial for Sinyavsky and Daniel, as per Article 111.

Responses to this proposal by their acquaintances were mostly negative. Many saw the idea as utopian and dangerous: While it was unclear whether the meeting would help Sinyavsky and Daniel, participants in any such meeting were likely to be arrested, their careers ruined. The idea of such a "glasnost meeting" did find support among small circles of high school and university students such as Irina Yakir, Yuri Galanskov, Yuliya Vishnevskaya, and Vladimir Bukovsky, who learned of the plan through the informal networks of the Moscow intelligentsia. Among them were several veterans of the unofficial Mayakovsky Square poetry readings and the literary group SMOG.

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