Monsters of Rock and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
How 1.6 million people gathered to rock n' roll in the U.S.S.R
“No one was killed, and about 500,000 people had what they might call fun.”
— Artemy Troitsky
It is September 28th, 1991 and the air is electric at Tushino airfield. Sikorsky helicopters circle just above the heads of 10,000 soldiers bracing themselves against a vast, hostile force. The military is not here to suppress a nationalist uprising, as they had done in Latvia and Lithuania this past January. Nor are they participating in a coup as they had done just over a month ago. No. They are standing head-to-head with metalheads.
This is Monsters of Rock.
1.6 million people have travelled from across the Soviet Union to hear Metallica, AC/DC, Pantera, Black Crowes, and EST (a local band) perform. During the first act, brawls break out between the soldiers and crowd. The crowd throws bottles and punches while the soldiers liberally wield their batons. Police records indicate that 49 people were hospitalized and another 51 arrested during the concert.
A man pauses the show to address the crowd: “The situation has gotten out of control. If it goes on, we'll be forced to stop the show. If you want to see the other bands perform, stop all violence, calm down and enjoy the concert. Remember why we are here: to celebrate our victory.”
Metallica prepares to take the stage, a nine story tall obelisk looming over a sea of bodies. Soldiers stand in concentric rings around the stage. Only hours before, Kirk Hammett of Metallica had complained that there were more soldiers than fans. Now, even 10,000 soldiers seem comically ineffective.
What had they gotten themselves into?
The August Putsch
Metallica had landed in the dying throws of the Soviet Union. It had been bound together for 50 years by totalitarian violence and surveillance, but now it was disintegrating. The Berlin Wall had been torn down two years earlier, reuniting East and West Berlin and now, nation after nation was fighting for independence. What was left of the Soviet Union was turning on itself: the President of the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev, had narrowly survived a coup just a month earlier.
On August 19th, communist hardliners had placed Gorbachev under house arrest while he was at his dacha in Crimea. Gorbachev had been in the process of loosening the repressive yoke of the Communist Party. He and U.S. President George H.W. Bush had signed the START treaty just that summer, committing both nations to draw down their nuclear arsenals. The Cold War was cooling, and the hardliners could see their grip on power loosening.
The arrest of Gorbachev marked the beginning of what would become known as the August Putsch. Under the command of the hardliners, a breakaway faction of the military drove tanks into Red Square with the intention of installing Vice President Yanayev as the new head of state. It looked for a moment like the Communist Party would again tighten its iron grip over the Soviet Union.
But they didn’t. Boris Yeltsin, the popularly elected president of Russia climbed atop one of the tanks and denounced the coup, urged citizens to disobey the orders given by the unlawful government, and called for a general strike. He then took refuge in the parliament building.
Tens of thousands of Muscovites took to the streets, faced down the tanks, and barricaded the parliament building. The soldiers and protesters battled late into the night. Molotov cocktails engulfed tanks in flame and at points, the soldiers opened fire on the crowd. Three people were killed and many others injured but, as the sun rose, the parliament building had withstood the assault.
Days later, the coup leaders released Gorbachev, realizing that they lacked sufficient popular support. The coup had failed.
The liberalizers were victorious.
X-Rays and Bass Lines
In the aftermath of the August Putsch, Yeltsin met with the people who had risen to the occasion and fended off a return to despotism. He wanted to reward their bravery and wanted to know what they wanted.
They wanted Rock n’ Roll.
Yeltsin set off a flurry of calls amongst organizers and promoters across the West. In just a few weeks financing was secured, sound, light, and stage equipment was driven into Russia, the site infrastructure was built, and of course, bands agreed to play. It was an absolutely heroic logistical effort.
At 6 p.m. James Hetfield begins strumming out the first notes of “Enter the Sandman”. Lars Ulrich wails on drums and Jason Newsted’s bass pulses across the airfield. 1.6 million hearts begin beating in time. From horizon to horizon, fists pump the air. Western music boils the blood of Soviet Youth, even as the sickle and hammer droops limply above the Kremlin just 20 km away.
The crowd isn’t interested in revolution. They are ecstatic. They just want to enjoy the most incredible show of their lives. Even some soldiers abandon their unit, tear off their uniforms, and join the revelry.
For half a century, people in the Soviet Union had to either hold the “correct” thoughts or pretend they did. The Party knew everything that needed to be known, even if the “truth” changed from week to week. What we in the West take for granted was actively suppressed by the Soviet Union. Stalin, fearing the pernicious, anti-revolutionary effect of Western culture, had banned Western music. Inventive people such as Ruslan Bogaslovsky devised ways to circumvent this ban such as magnitizdat. Otherwise known as “bone music”, magnitizdat were bootleg albums printed on X-rays salvaged from hospitals. The sound quality wasn’t great, but hundreds of thousands of people risked imprisonment to hide these magnitizdat in their home and listen to Western music.
For almost everybody at Tushino that day, this wasn’t only the first time they were hearing Metallica live, this was the first time they were hearing Rock n’ Roll that wasn’t off a muffled, shoddy bootleg while fearing arrest. For the first time, they could hear Metallica the way they were meant to be listened to. Free, surrounded by others who love the music, and fist-pumpingly LOUD.
The fans were truly, deeply grateful for the opportunity to listen, and Metallica reciprocated. They played hard. Artemy Troitsky, a journalist writing for Rolling Stone recalled that at the end of their 90 minute set, “they [walked] off stage like boxers after 12 rounds.”
Swords to Plowshares
Though this information was top-secret at the time, Tushino airfield played an important role in the Soviet Union’s nuclear program. The U.S.S.R first detonated a nuclear weapon in 1949, but in order to attack America, they also needed a long-range plane capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. That plane was the TU-4.
According to now declassified CIA reports, “the history of the Russian TU-4 began late in 1944 when four US B-29’s landed in the Soviet Far East and were interned. At least one of these aircraft, including its electronics equipment, was in fully operable condition.” The Soviets used this technology to create the TU-4 which was first witnessed by Western intelligence right here at Tushino on Soviet Aviation Day in 1947. This particular day, Stalin himself was in attendance to witness his nation’s military capacity expand.
Though they didn't know it at the time, this concert, held on the site of a formerly critical Soviet military base, constituted something of a death rattle for the Soviet Union. Just three months after this concert, it would formally collapse. One of the defining geopolitical conflicts of the 20th century would end, and with it, the fear of nuclear annihilation would abate.
Dec. 25, 1991, The Soviet flag is lowered over the Kremlin and replaced with the Russian tricolor.
The War Worth Fighting
The Cold War is often framed as a battle of ideologies. Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama famously declared the end of history: the most important debates in history had been settled. Liberalism and capitalism had won out. But this victory was not the delivered by academics and intellectuals. The armaments were not logic and reason.
We built something better. Our businesses developed technologies and products that improved our quality of life and brought unprecedented prosperity. Our civil society mobilized to make a more perfect union and to cash America’s promissory note. Our musicians, writers, and designers created art that people wanted to listen to, read, use, and wear. And all of us made a culture that people risked imprisonment in a Siberian gulag to participate in.
At Monsters of Rock, people could finally participate in it freely.
References
Time Warner, “For Those About to Rock - Monsters in Moscow”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFOzIetswT8
The Bureau of Lost Culture, Bone Music, https://www.x-rayaudio.com
Troitsky, Artemy, “Moscow’s Metal Melee", Rolling Stone, Nov 14, 1991. https://www.proquest.com/rsa/docview/2629608318/FD6F58444CEE49FBPQ/4?accountid=35635&sourcetype=Magazines
Yeltsin, Boris, August 19, 1991. https://web.viu.ca/davies/H102/Yelstin.speech.1991.htm
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R00890A000100050001-0.pdf
Conan interviews Lars Ulrich https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=x9VqEXbEsto
Epic. I didn't anticipate a Metallica video would have me emotional but I suppose it brought back memories of USSR and for some reason what Metallica represented here - freedom. I grew up on the border with Poland in Belarus and maybe because of that, my father had a huge collection of vinyls, including Metallica. I grew up listening to it and AC/DC and Van Halen but I never appreciated past that stage because it was my father's music, but listening to this today made me tear up. I also remembered my first visit to Moscow and having my first ever Filet o Fish, milkshake, and apple pie at the only McDonald's in USSR at that time.
How did an American flag end up in the front of the crowd? But not surprising. My dad's friend, a Jew who still lives in Belarus, who was anti-communist and pro-American had connections and was always able to obtain things that weren't quite legal (maybe that's how my dad had all these vinyls? I need to ask). I remember him having an epic leather jacket with an American flag lining.
Thank you for writing this. 🙏 A
The Metallica video is epic. Wow, what a rush it must have been to play in front of that many people. Rock on