Description of Incident: After years of censorship and bans on his plays, in the 1930's Meyerhold was finally given permission to take his theater company on tour to Germany and France. Despite being granted permission to perform, his works continued to be criticized, banned and attacked. In Paris, Meyerhold's two works about revolution - Tretiakov's "Roar, China!" and Ilia Selvinskii's "The Second Army Commander" - were banned by the French government. And, his reworking of Gogol's "The Government Inspector" provoked angry demonstrations from the Russian people. Then, when Meyerhold applied to the Soviet authorities for permission to take his company on a tour of the United States, he was rejected.

Results of Incident: By the 1930's he was hated by the Soviet country and the object of attack. In 1938, his wife and star actress, Zinaida Raikh, was stabbed to death through the eyes by unknown but probably officially approved government assailants. Then, in 1940, Meyerhold was shot and killed. Today, many claim his influence remains the invisible underpinning of western theater.