Communist Leader Bombarded with Unprivatized Earth

One could predict the way CPU leader Petro Symonenko would be received in Lviv from the scandal which arose during Symonenko's visit to Ternopil. Though nothing extraordinary had been expected at the beginning.

At 10 a.m. the chief communist accompanied by local Communist Party of Ukraine leaders arrived to the Lychakivske cemetery and in elegiac atmosphere laid flowers on the graves of Ivan Franko, Yaroslav Halan, Havryl Kostelnyk, and Oleksandr Kuznetsov.

The key events unfurled at the building of the local Znannya (Knowledge) society where Symonenko was to meet supporters and hold a press conference. A Lviv radical group known as Klumba (flower-bed) blocked the entrance to the building, but the Communist leader miraculously managed to get through. As soon as he entered the building, the guards closed the door and did not let anyone in for quite a while. For about two hours, while Comrade Symonenko was communing with his people behind closed doors, clashes of local significance took place outside. Radical rightists were determined to express what they had in mind right in the chief Communist's face.

Finally, zero hour came. Political opponents were held off by a thick police cordon, which however did not prevent Klumba members from bombarding with clods of earth both the adherents of Communist ideology and the Communist leader himself. The agitated mob nearly got to Symonenko before several tough guys in helmets literally pushed him into a police jeep which broke through the mob and disappeared around the nearest corner.

By the way, Symonenko said during a press conference that he had informed the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat about his reception in Lviv. Thus, when the reader get this issue of The Day, the chief communist will be telling Verkhovna Rada about this "outrage against democracy" in Galicia.

Photo by Mykhaylo Dashkovych, The Day:
Petro Symonenko With the People