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A. Sakharov: “The Human Rights Movement in the USSR and Eastern Europe: Aims, Significance, Difficulties” (8 November 1978, 12 pp.)
“The word ‘movement’ in the title of this article is not intended to bring to mind any sort of organization, or association, or, still less, party. It simply means people united by a certain common point of view and method of action …
“The socio-political ideology which puts human rights in first place, seems to me in many respects to be the most reasonable, given the limits of the relatively narrow aims which it sets itself.
“In counter-balance to the self-assertiveness of most political philosophies, the ideology of human rights is essentially pluralistic in its essence, allowing freedom and the coexistence of various forms of social organization and giving people the maximum freedom of individual choice … I am also convinced that the universal defence of human rights is an essential foundation for international trust and security …
“Recalling that the Soviet people had lived through ‘a short, stormy period of intoxication with communist maximalism’ and ‘the bloody nightmare of Stalinist fascism’, which has been followed by ‘the present stable phase of party-state totalitarianism’, the author writes: With such experience behind us, it is very natural for us to accept an ideology which has as its top priority the defence of specific people and specific laws, using unconditionally non-violent, non-destructive means, an ideology based on laws and international documents signed by governments …
“A most important stage in the development of the human rights movement in the USSR was the founding of the remarkable samizdat journal A Chronicle of Current Events. In my opinion, this journal more than anything else reflects the spirit of the movement — its impartiality and apoliticism, its pluralism, its continual effort to be accurate and reliable, its particular interest in specific violations of human rights …
“The human rights movement in the USSR and Eastern Europe on principle makes civil and political rights its first priority…”
The author discusses a number of specific violations of human rights and the standard of living in the USSR. Later he writes:
“The most insidious and difficult-to-avert danger threatening the free and progressive development of mankind is the spread of totalitarianism. It is this very danger that the struggle for human rights uncompromisingly opposes … the threat of the spread of totalitarianism has its epicentre in the USSR.
“At present, the small handful of dissenters with whom I am personally acquainted are going through a difficult period. Many fine, noble people have been arrested. A campaign of slander and provocation is gathering strength, stemming partly from deliberate action by the KGB and partly taking advantage of and reflecting the lack of unity, the ferment and disillusionment among many dissidents and groups closely associated with them. Life is complex. And in such conditions personal insults and ambitions spur people on to do and say quite dubious things. Evidently, the number of active participants in the movement, both in Moscow and in the provinces, has noticeably declined.
“Nevertheless, I still do not consider that there are any grounds for talking about the defeat of the human rights movement. This is a question where arithmetic has very little bearing on the facts. Over the past few years, the struggle for human rights in the USSR and Eastern Europe has radically altered the moral and political climate throughout the world. Not only has the world received extremely rich information – it has believed it. And this is a fact that repressions and provocations on the part of the KGB no longer have any power to change. This is a historical victory for the human rights movement. Now, as before, the movement’s only weapon is publicity, free, accurate and objective information. It is also perfectly obvious that, while conditions have not changed and the aims of the struggle for human rights have not been achieved, new people, through force of circumstances and their own spiritual needs, will pour into the places of those who have departed. Repressions by the authorities cannot prevent this either. On the contrary, the curtailment of repressions would be an important factor in improving the situation from the authorities’ point of view.”
The article examines the problem of interdependence in the talks on strategic arms limitation and in the struggle for human rights, the question of boycott (in particular, a boycott of the Moscow Olympics) and the question of the exchange of political prisoners.
The author concludes:
“The ideology of the defence of human rights is evidently the only one which is compatible with such wide-ranging ideologies as the communist, the social-democratic, the religious, the technocratic, and that of the national ‘native-roots’. It can also provide a basis for those people who do not want to involve themselves in theoretical details and dogma, who are tired of the abundance of ideologies which do not bring people simple human happiness.”
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V. K.: “The ‘Today’ and ‘Tomorrow’ of the Democratic Movement” (1978, 18 pp.)
The author indicates “more effective ways of action for the human rights movements in our country”. Claiming that today’s movement for democracy and the rule of law is more a way of thinking, a world view, the civic attitude of individual, dissociated hundreds and thousands of citizens in our country… the author proposes that the democratic movement should become organized and indicates the forms and principles of such an organization.
The author enumerates “three levels of participation in the movement for democracy and the rule of law”, differing in the “degree of avowed readiness to undergo persecution”. He proposes more precise terminology: [1] “the human rights movement”; [2] the more general “democratic movement”, encompassing a “movement to change the existing political and social system”; and [3] “the opposition movement”. The author also gives specific advice. For example: “…staging a demonstration in Red Square or Pushkin Square is much less effective than staging it, for example, near the Manege.”
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I. Shafarevich: “Interview with a Correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (May 1978, 8 pp.)
1. How would you assess the present position of dissidents in the Soviet Union? What trends can you discern among them? Do you think that the growth of the dissident movement is connected with political detente?
The word “dissident” has a very vague meaning and must be explained … It seems to me that in our country people are above all divided into two types. People of the first type are those who feel that their fate is inextricably linked to that of their country, who feel themselves personally responsible for its future. People of the second type are all the others, I do not mean that people of the first type are the dissidents… “Dissidents”, in the Western sense of the word, are simply those whose circumstances in life have brought them into open conflict with the apparatus of power. It seems to me, however, that the most important thing is not the most obvious one of being in conflict with the authorities, but the REASON behind this conflict: not the outward deed, but its inner motive. For example, if a person joins a “committee* or “commission* in order to pressurize the authorities into giving him permission to emigrate —-“it would be unreasonable to place him in this social category.
I do not in any way wish to criticize such actions, only to point out that here we have two fundamentally different phenomena which it would be unreasonable to classify together…
Among the dissidents one can point to two trends, whose most obvious divergence is on the question of their principal aims. The adherents of one trend base their arguments on the premise that all societies develop along approximately the same lines and that the West has overtaken Russia and the Soviet Union on this single path; therefore, the healthy course is development on the Western model… A similar point of view existed before the Revolution and its adherents were called “Westernizers”.
Adherents of the other trend takes as their premise the belief that each nation is individual, and that this very individuality should define its path in life. They therefore consider that the direction of our country’s development should be organically defined by its past history. For most adherents of this trend, Dostoyevsky’s views on Russian history have a fundamental part to play. Dostoyevsky destroyed himself as a “native-roots man” [Ru. pochvennik]. It seems to me that this term aptly describes this trend.
Political detente has not caused the dissident movement to grow … but it is interesting that it has not diminished it either.
2. How would you define your ideological position?
I share the views of those whom I described above as “native-roots” people. In particular, I consider that the beginning of our national history … is inextricably linked with the acceptance of Orthodoxy. It seems to me extremely improbable that any people can reject something which has been the source of its spiritual nourishment for a thousand years —and remain a spiritually-alive organism. Therefore, I am convinced that if the life of our country is not yet over, its continuation is only possible along the path of Orthodoxy and the development of Russian national tradition. [3. …]
Igor Shafarevich, 1923-2017
4. What alternative social and political system would you like to see?
What we need is a maximum spiritual change accompanied by a minimum outward change … What is needed is a return to God and to our people, a feeling of national purpose and of responsibility to the history and the future of our country. [5. …]
6. What do you think will be the government’s future attitude towards dissidents?
I am an optimist, and I am convinced that one day the only reasonable point of view will prevail: that it is necessary to contest published facts and proclaimed opinions with the publication of other facts and the refutation of opinions — not with camps and exile.
the phenomenon which [Alexander] Podrabinek is fighting (the treatment of dissent by psychiatric hospitals, Chronicle) is not due solely to misuse of power or the imperfection of the law. It is the entirely logical outcome of a deeply rooted, consistently materialistic attitude to human nature …
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V. Nekipelov, T. Osipova: “Oprichnina-78 Continues”, 2nd issue (3 pp.) and 3rd Issue (June-July 1978, 7 pp.). [Oprichnina — Ivan the Terrible’s secret police, staffed by “oprichniki”.]
The second issue has the sub-title “Political Trials the Criminal Way. The Oprichniki in God’s houses”. It is concerned with searches carried out in the homes of Seventh Day Adventists in the spring of 1978 (CCE 49.14).
“One cannot look at these photographs without shuddering. A jumble of household articles, kitchen utensils, clothes, children’s toys, torn newspapers. This Is just what is described by the short, comprehensive word pogrom.”
The third issue has as its sub-title “A Chronicle of Criminal Trials for Political Reasons in the USSR”.
“Again, the same criminal tool: absurd charges, lies, slander, physical force, blackmail.”
The authors write about the trials, the pogrom-like reprisals against Baptists and Crimean Tatars, about the events surrounding the trial of Orlov.
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V.N. Trostnikov: “On Solzhenitsyn’s “Harvard Speech” and Comments it Aroused in the USA” (20 June 1978, 5 pp.)
On 8 June A.I. Solzhenitsyn made a speech before an assembly of Harvard University graduates, at the end of which he called on the Americans to examine the “scale of widely accepted human values”.
Supporting Solzhenitsyn, the author writes that the Americans “understand … but do not feel” the threat which looms over Western society, because they have no “collective or national spirit.” The idea of the “sanctity of individual freedom and personal rights” does not serve the purpose. The author contrasts the United States with Russia, for the national idea has always existed in Russia, it is rooted in the souls of Russian people and has helped us to survive unbelievable hardship. This idea was violently shattered in Russia quite recently, so it has still not been completely extinguished in the souls of people sensitive to their history, to whom, undoubtedly, Solzhenitsyn belongs.
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The Situation in the Field of Soviet Mathematics (14 pp., translated from English)
This document is signed by 14 American mathematicians. It was compiled on the basis of information obtained from mathematicians who have emigrated from the USSR and was read at the World Mathematics Congress in Helsinki, which took place in August 1978.
The document describes official anti-Semitism in Soviet mathematical life, which affects entrance to institutes of higher education, post-graduate work and employment, the defence of dissertations, attempts to publish an article or book, travel to professional conferences and abroad.
The most zealous of those who practise and encourage anti-Semitism are named: Academician I. M. Vinogradov, Director of the Steklov Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences; Academicians L. S. Pontryagin, A. N, Tikhonov, S. M. Nikolsky, and A. A. Dorodnitsyn; Academician V. S. Vladimirov, Chairman of the Mathematical Council of the Higher Degrees Commission; Academician V. M. Millionshchikov; Academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences B. V. Gnedenko; Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. V. Yablonsky; Deputy Director of the Steklov Institute E, F. Mishchenko; the editor of the journal Mathematical Notes, S. V. Stechkin; and Professors of Moscow University B. I. Ilyn, P. L. Ulyanov, A. A. Gonchar, E. M. Nikishin, V. A. Ilyn and A. A. Karatsuba.
The authors give the following figures:
- in 1971 46% of the articles printed in Mathematical Collection were written by Jews; in 1975 the figure was only 12.5%; in 1976, 8%; in 1977, 5%;
- of 346 articles in the first volume of the Mathematical Encyclopaedia only 10 are by authors with “doubtful names”.
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G. A. Freiman: “It turns out that I am a Jew” (1978, 75 pp.)
An essay on the same theme. The author is a Professor at Kalinin University and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He describes in forceful terms the methods of failing Jews wishing to enter Moscow State University or defending their dissertations.
Besides the people named above, this policy is pursued by:
- the Dean of the Mechanical and Mathematics Faculty at Moscow University, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. I. Kostrikin,
- Professor S.I. Adyan,
- Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, N. Andrianov,
- Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences I. Shirshov, and
- Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Yu. L. Yershov.
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N. N. Meiman: “Discrimination Against Jews Over Entering University” (1978, 3 pp.)
The author is a Professor and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
He mentions the following fact: this year, 21 graduates of a certain Moscow mathematics school applied to the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Moscow University: 14 of them were Russian, seven were Jews. All 14 Russians were accepted, but only one of the Jews — he had obtained first prize at the International Mathematics Olympiad and had won first prize in the All-Union Olympiad for three years in succession. Of the six rejected Jews, one had won first prize four years running in the Moscow Olympiad, another had won this prize twice.
The number of Jews accepted by the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty this year is substantially lower than the average percentage in Tsarist times.
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Selected Questions from the Oral Examination in Mathematics (Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty, Moscow State University, 1978)
The compiler selected 13 questions given to those especially talented high school leavers whom it was necessary to ‘fail’. One of them is a complex variation of the most difficult (according to the jury) question at the 8th International Olympiad; two were posed in the final round of the Moscow Olympiad; one, in very slightly modified form, was posed at the All-Russian Olympiad in 1976 and at the US Olympiad; one is (according to the jury) the most difficult question in the final round of the All-Union Student Olympiad in 1976; one is a more refined version of one of the questions in the final round of the All-Union Student Olympiad in 1977; one was posed at the same Olympiad; one is featured in the book Collected Questions and Theorems of Planimetries by D.O. Shklyarsky, N.N. Chentsov and I. M. Yaglom (Moscow, Nauka, 1967) as a ‘starred’ question, and one is underlined in V. Serpinsky’s book 250 Problems in Elementary Number Theory (Moscow, ‘Education’, 1968).
The names of two examiners are mentioned as having given school graduates questions from this list: Instructor in Mathematical Logic A. S. Podkolzin and Instructor in Theoretical Mechanics Ya. V. Tatarinov.
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Entrance Examinations, Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty 1978 (a collection of documents)
‘Appeal’ documents (with commentary) by five Jews who were refused entry to the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University are quoted. Four of them were given questions from the above list at their oral examination (the fifth had already been given a ‘2’ in the written exam [graded 1-5 in ascending order).
The name of yet another examiner who posed questions from the above list to high school graduates is mentioned, Pereyaslavsky.
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Adam Kuznetsov: “The Poverty of the Peoples (where they have abolished the bourgeoisie)” (1978)
In a work based on material from the Soviet press, the author analyses the problems of the Soviet “anti-economy”, looks at the reasons for ineffective work in all spheres of the national economy and its management, carefully examines the difficulties encountered by people working in fields outside government control (‘shabashniks’, peasants working on their private plots, etc).
In the fourth and final section of the book, the author examines the state of independent economic thinking in the country and possible alternatives of further development.
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Sergei Cheremukhin: “Because of a Poodle” (2 pp.); “To the July Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee” (2 pp.)
Luis Corvalan was not permitted to change his flat, “despite… respect for his poodle”, since it was equipped “not only with a rubbish chute and a telephone, but also with a modern listening device”.
The second article is concerned with “run down villages” which are dying their areas of uncultivated land are growing, since the authorities do not allow people to work them.
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V. Nekipelov: “The Cemetery of the Vanquished” (October 1978, 4 pp.); “Stalin on the Windscreen” (October 1978, 4 pp.)
The cemetery of German prisoners of war near the town of Kameshkovo (Vladimir Region) has run wild and been plundered.
From the second article:
“Today Stalin is appearing on windscreens. This is not so much due to sanction from above, as to a push from below. Paradoxical as it seems, this is also a protest, a protest against today’s lack of leadership and disintegration, a sort of longing for order, for a better, meaningful and reasonable life… Each portrait of Stalin above the steering wheel is above all a ‘No!’ to the portrait of Brezhnev.”
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M. Kukobaka: “A Meeting with My Childhood” (1977, 5 pp.); “Stolen Motherland” (25 March 1978, 8 pp.)
The first article is based on autobiographical material. In Bobruisk, the author’s native town, the cathedral and the Catholic church have been demolished, the Orthodox church burnt and signs in the Belorussian language destroyed. In the second article the author discusses the concept of Motherland.
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I. Noi: “A Memorandum on the Contradictory Evidence Concerning the Appearance of Academician N. P. Dubinin in a Certain Photograph of Lenin” (10 pp.)
The author is a professor at the Kursky Institute of Law at Saratov, a Doctor of Legal Science and a member of the Communist Party since 1946. The subject of this article is a photograph of V.I. Lenin in a car on Red Square on 1 May 1919. Next to Lenin are two little boys in peaked caps. The journalist M. Ya, Leshchinsky is putting about the story that one of these boys is Kolya [N.P.] Dubinin. Academician N. P. Dubinin supports the story.
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E. Orlovsky: “An Unusual Promotion” (3 pp.)
The story of the author’s demotion from the position of Chief Engineer to that of Engineer (CCE 34) and the story of his promotion back again (CCE 46 contains an error —the word ‘restored’ is used).
E. Orlovsky: “Materials Relating to the Question of ‘Soviet Legislation and Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion’,” (August 1978, 8 pp.)
An analysis of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
PERIODICALS
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Memory [Pamyat], No. 2 (August 1977, 700 pp)
The section entitled “Memoirs” contains some of the notes by the first Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Republic, Jeronim Vatsetis, concerning the uprising in Moscow by Left SRs [Socialist Revolutionaries] in June-July 1918 and certain stages of the Civil War; “Short Memoirs of the Past” by the Christian and Tolstoyan Vasily Yanov, and a new edition of Revolt Pimenov’s autobiographical reminiscences “One Political Trial” — about public life in Leningrad in the mid-1950s and about his trial in 1957,
The chapter headed “Articles and Essays” includes Yevgeny Gnedin’s work “From the History of the USSR’s Relations with Fascist Germany” (the author was one of the closest collaborators of M. M. Litvinov, USSR Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the 1930s) and chapters from Mark Popovsky’s book The Case of Vavilov, which describes the investigation of the Academician and the latter’s death from starvation in a Saratov prison.
The chapter entitled “From the History of Culture” contains the diaries of Vladimir Korolenko from the period 1917-21, an interview with him (1919), and his post-Revolutionary letters to Maxim Gorky; material for biographies of Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak; an extract from the memoirs of Kornei Chukovsky about Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova; a witness’s account of Zhdanov’s 1946 speech at the Smolny concerning the journals Star and Leningrad.
The chapter “Religion and State Power” contains a synopsis of notes by V.Ya. Vasileyvskaya entitled “The Catacombs of the Twentieth Century”; three works by Bishop Andrei (A. A. Ukhtomsky), and a biographical essay about him by Mark Popovsky; and material for a biography of Archbishop Luka (V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky).
The chapter “Varia” contains notes and short memoirs: “To the Bright Memory of a Chekist”, “Escapes”, “Kochmes, 1937” (details of the Kashketin shootings), “Gubert in Wonderland” (the subsequent fate of the hero of a Soviet best-seller in the 1930s), extracts from notes by S. Margulis (about his painful experiences in bureaucratic institutions), D. Grinkevicius’s “Lithuanian Exiles in Yakutia, 1942-1943”, and reportage by Igor Melchuk entitled “My Meetings with the KGB” (on how they tried to recruit him).
The collection is illustrated, includes an index of names and is annotated; all the material, with rare exceptions, is accompanied by comprehensive commentary.
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Searches [Poiski] Nos. 1-2 (1978, 549 pp)
The journal is sub-titled “A Free Moscow Journal”. The editorial board consists of P. Abovin-Egides (CCEs 13.10, item 1; CCE 14.11, item 2; and CCE 17), V. Abramkin (CCEs 41-5), Raisa Lert (CCE 13.9, item 19; CCE 43, CCE 46.20 and CCE 48) and P. Pryzhov. The editorial foreword states:
“The title which would best describe our project would be too long for a journal – ‘Searches for mutual understanding’. Without cutting down the intention in any way, we have simply shortened the title and we invite all who desire mutual understanding to contribute to our journal.”
This issue contains articles by P. Tamarin, ”25 Years Without Stalin Along Stalin’s Road” (49 pp.); P. Pryzhov, ”The Third Force (symptoms of the new Constitution)” (63 pp.); M. Gefter, “Is There a Way Out?” (about the Constitution); M. Landa, ”My Open Testimony Concerning Arrested Members of the Moscow Helsinki Group”; T. Tomich, “Beware — Children! “ (about the problems of school education in the USSR) and R. Lert, ”Full Circle” (CCEs 46, 48).
There is a translation of two chapters of Santiago Carrillo’s book Eurocommunism and the State and a summary of the other chapters (the author demonstrates that socialism and democracy are compatible), and also extracts from the book by the contemporary French ‘anti-left’ philosopher Bernard Henri Levi, Barbarianism with a Human Face (in which the author defends an anti-socialist concept).
Also published are the chapter “Balthazar’s Feast” from F. Iskander’s story “Sandro from Chegem”, which has been circulating in samizdat for some time (this chapter was rejected by the censorship), poems by A. Sedov, the play “Some Sort of Mendosa” by M, Liyatov, and R. Lert’s review of A. Zinoviev’s The Yawning Heights (CCE 46.20 [review also published in Encounter, London, May 1979]).
Also included are Kirill Podrabinek’s essay “The Unfortunates” (CCE 47.18), [Anatoly] Marchenko’s letter “To the Participants of the AFL-CIO Congress” (CCE 47.15), an anonymous letter by workers from a Tolyatti dairy entitled “Appeal to Nowhere …”, an “Open Letter to Roy Medvedev” from P. Abovin-Egides, several documents by the Moscow Helsinki Group, an obituary of the writer Yury Dombrovsky, and material from the conference on “The Moral Significance of Unofficial Culture” (see CCE 49.16).
Searches No. 3 (1978, 395 pp)
The list of members of the editorial board is augmented by Vladimir Gershuni (CCE 11.6; CCE 12.9 item 7; and CCE13.1).
In his article “A Dream of Just Retribution” G. Pomerants argues against the ideas of Solzhenitsyn, as put forward in articles written over the past few years. The author’s basic thesis is:
“The devil is formed in the foam on the lips of the angel entering the battle for good, for truth, for justice… I can see in the character of Solzhenitsyn a justification for the revolutionary scoundrels of his book (the Gulag Archipelago, Chronicle), I cannot exonerate him and condemn them. They are one and the same human type.”
In his article “Pan-personalism as a Philosophy and Image of Life” P. Abovin-Egides maintains that social development will inevitably lead to a system in which “all people are individuals … in all spheres, A complete, harmonious personality is what pan-personalism, or the communism of the future, built on a genuinely democratic base, means.”
V. Sokirko (CCEs 46, 47, 49) publishes his correspondence with a sociologist professor at the Catholic University of Paris. In these letters they discuss their understanding of the nature of socialism — in which the West differs from Russia.
“Today, reading through these letters, 1 can see how difficult it is for us to communicate and come to an understanding with people in the West; I can see their unwillingness to accept our guarded approach to such concepts as socialism and equality.”
An abridged verbatim record of the discussion “We and the Classics” (CCE 48) is published.
The poems and prose of V. Gershuni, Yu. Dombrovsky, G. Bezglasny and M. Baitalsky (CCE 45) are published. Also published is Maximilian Voloshin’s article “Poetry and Revolution: Alexander Blok and Ilya Ehrenburg”, written in 1918.
The letters of Yu. Voznesenskaya and Pinkhos Podrabinek are printed, in which the humiliation, lawlessness and tyranny reigning in places of imprisonment are described.
There are articles by F. Svetov, G. Vladimov, I. Zholkovskaya-Ginzburg and V. Abramkin, concerning the trial of A. Ginzburg (CCE 50.3).
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Community [Obshchina] No. 2.
The journal is published by members of A. Ogorodnikov’s Christian seminar (see “Persecution of Believers”).
The first issue was confiscated during a search (CCE 49). Part of the second issue was also confiscated and some material is published in reconstructed form.
A message to the reader says: “On the pages of the journal we want to describe the experience of the ailing young generation, which has come to the Church to heal its wounds”.
Thematically, the largest part of this issue is devoted to the work of the seminar and the persecution of its members. In addition, it contains the following sections: “Sources and Analogies” (little-known texts which help to explain the country’s spiritual history in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century); “Spiritual Life” (theological works by past and present writers); “Towards Interdenominational Unity”; “The Religious Movement” and “Literary Section”.
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Lithuanian Samizdat
Aušra (Dawn) No. 12 (52), August 1978
The issue opens with a declaration by the League for the Freedom of Lithuania (See “Events in Lithuania”). The greater part of it is taken up with the trials of V. Petkus (CCE 50.5) and B. Gajauskas (CCE 49.5).
The section “Memories of the Gulag Archipelago” contains P. Stavskis s memoirs, “Two Martyrs”. To commemorate the second anniversary of the self-immolation of A. Kalinauskas an article entitled “For Lithuania, for Freedom, for God” (his last words before he died) is published. In an “Open Letter”, a Lithuanian schoolboy calls on his peers to become “soldiers of truth”.
Aušra (Dawn) No. 13 (53), October 1978
In an open letter entitled “We will save Lithuania from Alcohol”, signed “Parents” it is claimed that the growing demand for alcohol is caused by the violation of the right to religious freedom.
Parts of a letter from A. Zypre, who is confined in the Kazan SPH (see In the Psychiatric Hospitals”) and a biography of V. Petkus (CCE 50.5) are published. S. Virmantas’s article “Lithuanian Patriots and their Executioners” compares the activities of KGB officials and Lithuanian patriots. The article “Here it is — Soviet Humanism”, discusses the 25-year term of P. Paulaitis (CCE 44.22 and CCE 46.7). The section “Memories of the Gulag Archipelago” includes the memoirs of a fellow-prisoner of Professor P. Davidaitis, in which the author describes his meetings with the professor in camp and the latter’s last days (he died in camp in 1942). A. Zuvintas’s article “The Soviet Mafia” describes the activities of the KGB. Also published are an article by R. Viskanta entitled “The Government Avoids a Dialogue with Believers” and an article by M. Vosilka entitled “Corruption Among Teachers (in several institutes of higher education in Kaunas the teachers demand at examination time that the female students sleep with them).
Tesos Keles (The Path of Truth) No. 10, August 1978
Rupintoelis (The Mourner) No. 6, October 1978
Perspektivas Nos. 1-4
In the foreword to the first issue, it is said that the aim of the publication is “to prepare the ground for the formation of public opinion in Lithuania”. The publication’s motto is “Respect the opinion of others even when you disapprove of it.”
Issue No. 1 includes the work “Socialism, Communism and Democracy in the Present and the Future”. The political and economic systems of leading world states are analysed. The political system of the USSR is defined as a dictatorship, its economic system as state capitalism. It is claimed that world democracy is giving way to totalitarianism.
In issue No, 2 a Lithuanian translation of A.D. Sakharov’s book My Country and the World is published.
Issue No. 3 contains M. Baskas’s article “Rubicon”, which criticizes (from a Eurocommunist point of view) violations of human rights in the USSR.
Issue No. 4 contains the pamphlet “Thank You, Party” about the bribery, extortion, striving after personal comfort and careerism of the ruling class.
A Chronicle of Current Events 