Soviets Unveil a Memorial to Purge Victims

Several thousand people gathered opposite the Lubyanka headquarters of the KGB secret police today for the unveiling of a memorial to victims of past purges and the millions who suffered in labor camps.

The crowd, many of them elderly, gripped candles and wept silently as a chanting Orthodox priest sprinkled holy water on the simple, gray stone memorial.

Some men wore old-fashioned prison uniforms. Many women carried faded black-and-white photographs of husbands or sons who had been shot or who disappeared in camps.

“We are gathered here to unveil a memorial to the victims of terror. . . . Never before has a regime spent 70 years waging such a devastating war against its own people,” radical historian Yuri Afanasyev told the crowd.

“Blessed are those who died in the camps and were hungry and cold,” the priest declared as a light snow began to fall.

The memorial, brought from Solovietski camp--the first to be built after the 1917 revolution--was dedicated to the “millions of victims of the totalitarian regime.”

People surged forward as the priest finished and the stone, perched on a marble pedestal, was soon awash with red roses and other flowers.

Several among the crowd waved banners condemning the Communist Party and the KGB, which under Vladimir Kryuchkov has sought to put a more human face on the security apparatus.