A Speculative Silence

There is an uneasy mood in Moscow these days, caused by reverberations from the shots fired by a would-be as sassin at the cosmonauts' parade in the Kremlin last month. In a country that is purposefully fed warnings of constant plots, the official Soviet dismissal of the gunman as a schizophrenic has not put the Russians at ease. Twice in So viet history, assassination attempts have served as a pretext for savage repression. The unsuccessful attempt on Lenin in 1918 triggered the Red Terror, in which thousands of Russians fell be fore Bolshevik firing squads; the killing of Politburo Member Sergei Kirov-carried out in 1934 on secret orders from Stalin -- set off the great purges, in which millions died and millions more were sent to labor camps.

A Provocation. So far, there is no sign that the recent shooting will be used for similar purposes. But Russians are alarmed by the Tass description of the event as "a provocation." In Communist jargon, that is the term for an anti-Soviet political act that is usually the result of a conspiracy and consequently calls for severe countermeasures.

The government's silence on the attacker's motives has not helped matters. Some teachers in Moscow schools told their pupils last week that the gunman was a rejected cosmonaut who had a grudge against his successful colleagues. Other Russians say that the gunman was a member of a conspiracy and that his target was Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev. In fact, there is speculation that the gunman fired on the auto carrying Cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy because his heavy jowls and bushy eyebrows resemble those of Brezhnev. The most prevalent rumor in Moscow has it that the shooting was the result of a plot by the Soviet military chiefs to kill the civilian leaders and seize control. Another version is that the shooting was part of a KGB (secret police) plot to buttress the argument of Kremlin hawks that the country needs to be placed under sterner rule.

Soviet officials have refused even to release the name of the prisoner. One report identifies him as an army engineer lieutenant in his twenties named Ilyin, who comes from Leningrad--where Kirov was assassinated. The week after the shooting, the Kremlin leaders failed to show up at the ceremonies in Leningrad that marked the 25th anniversary of the lifting of the city's World War II siege. Many Russians feared that Leningrad might once again be punished for supposedly spawning another assassination conspiracy.

According to some reports, two days before the Kremlin incident, the young lieutenant deserted his unit, taking his pistol with him. Reaching Moscow the day before the celebration for the Soyuz4 and Soyuz5 cosmonauts, he spent the night at the home of his sister. The next morning he borrowed his brother-in-law's police uniform, explaining that, clad in that manner, he would be able to get a closer view of the parade. Some variants say that he also took his brother-in-law's pistol, which would explain reports that he fired away with a pistol in each hand.

Kremlin Precedent. Dressed as a policeman, Ilyin would have been able to station himself in the front row of spectators, just inside the Kremlin's ornate Borovitsky Gate, shooing back anyone who might have interfered with his field of fire. Another, more spectacular version maintains that the gunman was dressed as a member of the elite Kremlin Guard and lunged from a sentry box well inside the Kremlin's security cordon to fire at the motorcade.

Since a fake Kremlin guard would in all likelihood have been spotted and unmasked by a real one before the motorcade's arrival, the implication is that the attacker actually was a Kremlin guard. This assumption has a historical precedent. In an event that was kept extremely quiet, a Kremlin guard fired at Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1962, but the bullet missed him.

The truth about last month's shooting may never be known. Soviet authorities say that after the investigation is completed, the assailant will be brought to trial. Even in the unlikely event that the trial is open to the public, the accused will undoubtedly recite only the testimony that he has been instructed to give. But that, of course, would only buttress the suspicion that the facts are something quite different, thus heightening Moscow's mood of unease.

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