The first issue of the Chronicle (CCE 1.6) reported the trial of members of ASCULP, the “All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People” [1].
Seventeen “rank-and-file” members of ASCULP were convicted.
Four “leaders” were prosecuted separately:
- Igor Vyacheslavovich OGURTSOV (b. 1937) the “head” of the organisation;
- Mikhail Yukhanovich SADO (b. 1934) “director of the personnel section, responsible for the security of the organisation”;
- Yevgeny Alexandrovich VAGIN (b. 1938) “director of the ideological section”; and
- Boris Anatolyevich AVEROCHKIN (b. 1938) “curator of the documents of the organisation”.
They were charged with: “betrayal of the Motherland” (Article 64-a, RSFSR Criminal Code), i.e. in this case with “conspiracy to seize power”; “Anti-Soviet Agitation & Propaganda” (Article 70); and “Creation of an Anti-Soviet Organisation” (Article 72).
Altogether 18 members of ASCULP arrived in the Mordovian camps and Vladimir Prison during 1968; three (Stanislav Konstantinov, Olgerd Zobak and Oleg Shuvalov) were given sentences they had in fact already served during the pre-trial investigation.
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The following five are at present in the Mordovian camps.
Averochkin is in Camp 19 (eight-year sentence) and Vagin (same camp, same sentence). In their case Article 43 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “Imposition of a more lenient sentence than prescribed by the law”) was applied.
Nikolai Viktorovich IVANOV (b. 1937) is in Camp 17, serving a six-year sentence. Vladimir Fyodorovich IVOILOV (b. 1938) is in Camp 19, also serving a six-year sentence. Mikhail Sado (13-year sentence) was transferred from Vladimir Prison in 1969, first to Camp 17 and then to Camp 3: at present Sado is working as an orderly in the hospital zone of Camp 3.
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By sentence of the Leningrad City Court, Igor Ogurtsov is serving the first seven of his 15-year term of imprisonment in Vladimir Prison, to be followed by eight years in a camp and five years in exile.
In April 1971 the USSR Supreme Court, according to supervisory procedure, considered the case of the ASCULP leaders and found no grounds for mitigating Ogurtsov’s fate.
Leonid Ivanovich BORODIN (b. 1938) is also in Vladimir Prison, having been transferred there from Dubrovlag Camp 17 in autumn 1970 until the end of his sentence (CCE 17.12 [9]). He is due for release on 18 February 1973 [2].
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RELEASES
Ten ASCULP members (Yu. Baranov, G. Bochevarov, Yu. Buzin, V. Veretenov, A. Ivlev, M. Konosov, A. Miklashevich, V. Nagorny, A. Sudarev and S. Ustinovich) have been released at various times, beginning on 9 June 1969.
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Yury Petrovich BARANOV (b. 1938), formerly an electrical engineer at the surgery hospital-clinic of the First Leningrad Medical Institute, was released on 10 February 1970. He died suddenly a few weeks later.
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On 7 February 1971 Mikhail Konosov was released after serving four years’ imprisonment.
Konosov (b. 1937) lived in Leningrad before his arrest. He was an external student at the Moscow Literary Institute and worked as a fitter for the Leningrad Gas Board. His written work was published in newspapers and journals.
At present Konosov is registered in the town of Luga (Leningrad Region).
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NOTES
- The CCE report was translated in Michael Bourdeaux, Patriarch and Prophets, London, 1970 (pp. 341-344). On the group see also the important document in Possev 1, 1971 (pp. 38-43).
↩︎ - See Alexander Petrov-Agatov’s vivid description of Borodin and Sado in Possev 3, 1971 (pp. 20-27). ↩︎
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