Four days ago, on November 5, 1951, the 19th Congress of the CPSU began. More than four thousand delegates from all over the Soviet Union, from Bordeaux to Anadyr, from Norilsk to Dushanbe, delegations of communist parties from more than thirty countries of the world, gathered in the recently opened Palace of the Soviets. The tallest building in the world, in the main hall alone capable of housing the Empire State Building, has become the new pearl of the capital of the permanent revolution. That's what they wrote in the newspapers. Two days later, on the night of November 7, a cordon appeared around the Palace. Barbed wire, guard towers. In the towers there are people in gas masks, in black uniforms without identification marks. They opened fire on anyone who approached the cordon. They beat mercilessly, without missing a beat. The telephone lines to the Palace were dead. The newspapers did not write about this.