Konchalovsky; written by Konchalovsky and Elena Kiseleva
Dear Comrades, the Russian entry for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Academy Awards, addresses one of the most significant and least understood episodes in the history of the Soviet Union: the massacre of dozens of workers in Novocherkassk on June 2, 1962, on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
Twenty-six people are believed to have been killed in the incident (other estimates go far higher), but the real number was never established and perhaps never will be. Seven young workers were accused of “banditry” and executed, while dozens more were sent to labor camps for many years. Most were not rehabilitated until the dissolution of the USSR.