Samizdat Update, April-August 1980 (57.25)

<<No 57 : 3 August 1980>>

SEVEN ENTRIES

(Periodicals, 4-7)

[1]

A. Belyakov

“The Russian Tradition” (10 pp.)

An article on drunkenness, largely based on official statistics.

*

[2]

A. Belyakov

“Aspects of Our Economy and Problems of Automating Management” (39 pp.)

This article is divided into two sections.

Section One describes the introduction of automatic control systems and stresses the evidence of opposition by present management structures to the development of automation.

Section Two examines the reasons for this opposition and concludes that our economy belongs to a category of contradictory systems. It lists, and briefly describes, a number of phenomena resulting from the contradictions. It also briefly examines the effect of such an economic system on the personality of the individual.

*

[3]

A. Joffe, Naum Meiman, G. Freiman & G. Khasin

“Problems Set for Jewish Students in Moscow University Entrance Examinations”

The authors are “mathematicians, mostly refuseniks (i.e., those who have not received permission to emigrate to Israel) who have held seminars in Moscow and Leningrad to examine the extra problems set only for Jewish final-year pupils in mathematics, compared with those normally set in such examinations”.

They concluded that “intentional discrimination had taken place against Jews seeking admission to the mathematics faculty”. The solutions to eight ‘Jewish’ problems are explained and discussed (see CCE 51.21 [6-10] and CCE 53.31 [3]). Seven ‘non-Jewish’ problems are included for comparison.

*

PERIODICALS (4-7)

[4]

DISABLED ACTION GROUP

Action Group to Defend the Rights of the Disabled

Newsletter No. 9, (July 1980, 23 pp.)

There are two names on the title page: Yury Kiselev and Valery Fefyolov.

The Newsletter includes:

  • “Public Transport and Invalids”, a plea to the government (Document No. 15 of the Action Group);
  • “Holidays for Invalids in the USSR” (Document No. 16);
  • “An Open Letter to A.N. Kosygin, President of the USSR Council of Ministers” (Document No. 17), which also concerns the subject of holidays;
  • the articles “The 20th Anniversary of the International Paraplegic Olympic Games”; “Sport, the State and the Invalid”; “Brief Remarks on the Importance of Holidays for Invalids in the Developed Countries”;
  • a letter “In Defence of Victor Nekipelov”;
  • “An Appeal to Invalids”: this concerns an unsigned document calling for the creation of an All-Union Society of Invalids;
  • a request to A.N. Kosygin concerning the problem of cars for invalids;
  • a statement concerning the assaults on A.D. Sakharov and E.G. Bonner which took place on 15 February 1980 (CCE 56.1-1).

The Newsletter also relates an example of what has happened when the Action Group has given help to an invalid. The Group sent a letter in reply to his request, but it never reached him. However, he immediately received a holiday warrant.

Further (cf. CCE 56.25 [9]) persecution of several members of the Group is also mentioned, including the cases of Valery Fefyolov, Olga Zaitseva and Yury Kiselyov (this issue CCE 57.5).

*

[5]

POISKI I RAZMYSHLENIYA (9-10)

“Searches and Reflections” (1980), 25 pp.

Below the title appear the words

“A Moscow Journal of Literature and Society, No. 9 [1]”.

The editors’ foreword states in part:

“For 18 months the editors of the journal Poiski [Searches] have been struggling against the all-powerful KGB. There have been police searches, surveillance, threats, and finally arrests. Owing to the arrests of Valery Abramkin, Victor Sokirko and Yury Grimm, the forced emigration of Pyotr Egides and the illness of Raissa Lert, the editors of the journal have ended their activities [CCE 56.5] …

“The goal of this new journal is to preserve the public platform created by Poiski. We consider it necessary to defend the very idea of a periodic, non-governmental, non-party publication. The editors therefore consider their activities as the direct continuation of the work of Poiski.

“However, we intend our journal to circulate mainly as samizdat, and we are unable to adopt the overtly heroic position which the editors of Poiski took. This position is no doubt a noble one, but in practice it appears untenable …

“We should like to invite Andrei Sinyavsky to undertake ‘supervision’ of the journal’s publication abroad.”

The new journal is made up of several sections:

Events and People

contains documents about a variety of subjects: the exile of Andrei Sakharov (CCE 56.1); expulsions and resignations from the Soviet Writers’ Union (CCE 56.26); a statement by Lev Kopelev as to why he refused to give evidence about Poiski (CCE 56.5); statements by Kopelev in defence of Igor Ogurtsov and by Mikhail Gefter in defence of Tatyana Velikanova (CCE 55.2-1); information on the arrest of Father Dmitry Dudko (CCE 56.9); and an ‘Open Letter’ addressed to Heinrich Böll by Boris Birger.

Features

contains an unsigned article “We’re All ‘For’,” describing the obvious falsity of official Soviet election results, and a commentary by Moscow refusenik M. Novikov: “What the New Law on Soviet Citizenship Conceals”.

The “Debate” section

prints replies by V.Ya. Lakshin and I.A. Sats to “The Division … “, an article by Felix Svetov, which was published in The Herald of the Russian Christian Movement (Vestnik RSKhD) No. 121.

“Leafing through Various Newspapers” contains “cuttings from newspapers of the future”.

“Letters, Memoirs and Diaries” includes previously unpublished letters written by Boris L. Pasternak.

*

[6]

POISKI I RAZMYSHLENIYA, 10

“Searches and Reflections”, (No. 10 [2] 1980) 74 pp.

The editorial foreword states, among other things:

“The basic aim of the journal Searches and Reflections is to continue the tradition of a free-thinking periodical publication.

“The editors consider it their duty to publish articles sent to them, as well as literary documents of as wide a range of political persuasions as possible, and will strive to avoid giving preference to any one set of political, religious or philosophical ideas.”

The editorial “Thoughts on the Threshold of Communism” compares current Soviet reality with the programme adopted by the CPSU in 1961 at its 22nd Congress.

The journal is divided into sections: “Events and People”, “Features”, “Debate”, “Poetry”, and “Parodies”.

*

[7]

IN DEFENCE OF

In Defence Of (Tape-recording)

Issue No. 1: “Valery Abramkin” (Moscow, 1980). Duration; 40 minutes

This collection contains: a letter in defence of Abramkin (CCE 57.24); excerpts from the record of a search at his home on 4 December 1979 (CCE 55.2-2); excerpts from petitions submitted by his friends at the time his case was being investigated; and poetry, prose and songs by Abramkin.

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