In 1956–1957, after the XX Congress, opposition elements within the institutes and universities began to wage an open battle against Komsomol leadership. They sought, first of all, to gain freedom of criticism and expression and second to introduce a degree of intra-Komsomol democracy that would make the Komsomol a truly representative organization with an honestly elected leadership. Freedom of expression was in fact gradually achieved at that period by a kind of procedure of protestation, and extraordinarily sharp critical comments were heard more and more commonly at meetings.71
On 9 August 1956 Komsomolskaya Pravda reported what had happened at a seminar on the documents of the Twentieth Congress held in Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute. Two students were expelled for asking what the teachers considered ‘improper’ questions. In August 1956 the momentum of the Congress was still strong, and the fears aroused by the ‘Polish October’ and the Hungarian Revolution were yet to come. The wave of de-Stalinization had still not abated. The expelled students were readmitted, and the newspaper defended them. True learning, said Komsomolskaya Pravda, cannot progress ‘without disputes, without thought’; it is not possible to ‘protect’ Marxism from questions and suppose that it can be studied like ‘God’s laws’.72 Such statements in newspapers merely poured oil on the fire of opposition. The first unofficial publications appeared, with ‘odd names’ like Heresy, Fresh Voices, Phoenix, Boomerang and Cocktail. In Leningrad a group of students launched a journal called Kolokol [The Bell]: it is interesting that towards the end of the Khrushchev era another attempt to establish a journal with this historic name was made in Leningrad, under the editorship of V. Ronkin and S. Khakhaev. At this time, however, the students tried to make use of legal forms of work: ‘They… made a point’, Bukovsky recalls, ‘of attending official Soviet lectures and discussions, where they would speak up, ask questions and start genuine arguments on real issues.’73
Besides unofficial samizdat there appeared what might be called ‘official’ or, more precisely, ‘institutionalized’ samizdat: ‘Wall newspapers began to print “undesirable” articles,’ writes Burg. ‘In official literary conferences literary enthusiasts began to raise subjects formerly discussed only among intimate friends — for example, the question as to whether Soviet literature was basically truthful.’74 But the students became especially agitated during the revolution in Hungary. A Komsomol meeting in Moscow University was turned into a meeting of solidarity with the government of Imre Nagy. Leaflets appeared, and groups began to be formed with organizers like Pimenov and Krasnopevtsev and theoreticians like Krylov, Cheshkov and Sheynis.
Among the activists in the student opposition there was a small group of religious youngsters and pro-Western liberals, but at that time they constituted no very important part of the movement, either in numbers or in their role in its activities. Groups of socialists also appeared, who considered that
a pluralist socialist society must be established, in which industry would be placed under the direct control of labour, and agriculture under the direction of free co-operatives, and political power would be transferred to democratically elected soviets or other representative institutions. The dispersion of power would guarantee the free play of social forces, which in turn would assure personal freedom.75
