- 9-1. Vladimir Prison and the Mordovian Camps
- 9-2. Perm Camps; Other Camps and Prisons
- 9-3. Letters and Statements
- 9-4. In Defence of Political Prisoners; Releases
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5. Letters and Statements
5.1: Mordovian Camp 1 (special-regime)
9 letters & statements
[1]
Open Letter to L.I. Brezhnev, concerning the draft USSR Constitution
N. Yevgrafov, Eduard Kuznetsov, Alexei Murzhenko, Mykhaylo Osadchy, Bohdan Rebrik, P. Saranchuk, Yury Fyodorov and Danilo Shumuk
After a number of sharp ‘queries’ revealing the difficult conditions prisoners endure, the authors write:
“We could go on asking these questions, but we are quite convinced that whatever you write in the new Constitution, none of it will be put into practice, any more than the old one was. All that is just camouflage, to deceive the public.
“From the historical experience of the past and the tendencies of the present, we have already concluded in advance that any articles of the new Constitution which proclaim limited rights for Soviet people will remain on paper …”
*
[2]
“Appeal to Soviet Public Opinion”
N. Yevgrafov, Svyatoslav Karavansky, Eduard Kuznetsov, Alexei Murzhenko, Mykhaylo Osadchy, Vasyl Romanyuk, Bohdan Rebrik, P. Saranchuk and Danilo Shumuk
The political prisoners write that recently the Soviet press has begun a campaign to discredit people languishing in Soviet concentration camps, trying in every way to blacken their activities and moral character:
“. . . Inhuman conditions have been created in Soviet concentration camps. Many of the most upright people, those most devoted to the cause of democracy and freedom, are spending their best years in overcrowded cells; the overwhelming majority of them suffer from some illness, including neuro-psychological illnesses. There’s nothing surprising in the fact that conflicts sometime arise among us, as they are skilfully fomented by the camp administration. The text of the appeal is basically concerned with analysing the libellous article in the Lvov paper Leninist Youth of 9 July 1977, the author of which is allegedly the former prisoner Yablonsky.
“We are deprived of the possibility of replying to slanderers who are state officials … of unmasking them publicly in the Soviet press. So we appeal to you from our thrice-locked cells to show your contempt from the slanderers and traitors Petrov-Agatov, Zakharchenko and Yablonsky, and others if they should offer their services in the future.”
*
[3]
Yury Fyodorov, Open Letter
In his letter Fyodorov exposes the above-mentioned article by Yablonsky which libelled the community of Ukrainian political prisoners, and attacks its ‘author’.
Yablonsky, a ‘typical criminal’, although he was imprisoned on a political charge, was known in the camp as an informer and a despicable character. When a man is clearly a degenerate and cannot put three words together, he could not have been the author of the cleverly-written article:
“… As more ‘Yablonskys’ will be publishing articles in future, I appeal to honest people to show their contempt for informers and criminal pawns. The KGB sends them into our camps to make use of them in provocative acts and fights; it uses their presence in our midst to give authenticity to articles about us signed by them …
“Do not believe any article published in newspapers about us or our living conditions … they are public flagellations of us prisoners. We live in inhuman conditions, in a tense atmosphere of provocations, repressions and baiting, which has especially increased because of the international campaign for human rights. Our life is difficult, but it resembles life in Soviet society as a whole. We have our differences and disagreements, but it is not for the Yablonskys of this world to judge us.”
Fyodorov writes that, having known Ukrainian political prisoners for many years, as they were always a majority in the camp, he could only speak of them as unselfish, highly cultured and intelligent people, inspired by the ideas of their great nation, for which they live and work; they lead their lives nobly.
“The truth, the facts about the Ukrainian patriots have guided my pen.”
***
FATHER VASYL ROMANYUK (4-6)
[4]
Vasyl Romanyuk
“An appeal to Jews and all People of Goodwill” (11 September 1977)
The appeal speaks about the fate of the group of Jews who in 1970 “made an attempt illegally to leave a country which had become a prison to them” (Kuznetsov, Dymshits, Fyodorov, Murzhenko, Izrail and Vulf Zalmanson, Penson and others). Since then Soviet emigration policy has become somewhat more liberal; many thousands of people have already been able to leave the USSR, but those who so bravely stood up against illegality and cruelty are still wasting in camps and prisons.
“I appeal to all people of goodwill, above all to all true children of Israel, to do all they can to have Eduard Kuznetsov and his comrades released , . . the fight for their release from captivity cannot be carried on out of utilitarian considerations. For many of us, those of another faith, their fate has become symbolic . . .”
*
[5]
Vasyl Romanyuk
Appeal to Catholic Priests and Believers in Western Europe
The author expresses his disquiet, on behalf of believers in the Soviet Union, at the large number of supporters communist ideas have gained in Western Europe. If European communists were really concerned about democracy and justice, they would not close their eyes to what has happened and is still going on in the Soviet Union.
Father Romanyuk calls on Christians not to ‘sit with their arms folded’. He describes the violation of believers’ rights in the USSR, particularly the liquidation of the Ukrainian Church: over 2000 Uniate priests were shot or perished in concentration camps. The ‘legal’ Orthodox Church is also in a miserable position.
We . . . address our appeal to all ordinary Catholic priests and believers of the Catholic countries of Europe, first of all in Italy and France, where communist successes have been greatest, so that you may realize the great danger of communist tyranny that threatens Europe.
*
[6]
Vasyl Romanyuk
To the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet (8 February 1977)
In his open letter Romanyuk condemns the Decree of 8 February 1977, according to which ‘conditional release with compulsory labour* can now be applied also to especially dangerous recidivists, including political prisoners. As the latter are in the charge of the KGB. people will be sent off to compulsory labour and put under the supervision of the KGB.
The Soviet government has thought up this Decree, whose aim is to make innocent condemned people admit to some guilt, and thus cover up the latest crime against human personality . . The Decree . . . gives the punitive organs the opportunity to apply any repressive acts of violence and terror against anyone, in specific new conditions. It is precisely because of this that I must reject the Decree, as I don’t wish to participate in any deception of world public opinion.
***
[7]
Mykhaylo Osadchy
To Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
Osadchy writes that, according to the Decree of 8 February 1977, he is under threat of being sent forcibly to the town of Sumy for compulsory labour under open KGB supervision — 900 kilometres from his family, his wife and two children. Sentenced for publishing his story Cataract in the West, Osadchy does not agree that this constitutes ‘anti-Soviet activity*, the charge on which he was condemned. “Even the great executioner Stalin did not sentence people directly for artistic creation.”
Osadchy regards his possible removal to Sumy — where he could be beaten up (like his mother) or killed by criminals (like his brother Vladimir Osadchy on 5 April 1975, when there was no investigation) — as a clear threat and a reference to his brother’s fate.
“Citizen Chairman, your Decree of 8 February 1977 is intended not to humanize the punitive system of our country, but to switch it over to more subtle methods of terror . . . Save me from its murderous enactment. I need to be exculpated, and only exculpated, not to be given a criminal sentence with open supervision and forced labour.”
*
[8]
N. Yevgrafov (beginning lost)
In assessing the situation in Soviet society, which has turned into a ‘police school system’, the author expresses his joy that “a sense of civic duty, of national consciousness and dignity is beginning to awake . . .”
“I appeal to you, to all true communists and socialists, to all representatives of the workers, and I beg you to speak out against Asiatic Soviet pseudo-communism . . . and the totalitarianism which hides behind Marxism. I hope that Soviet dissidents will find support and solidarity among the progressive activists of communist and socialist parties.”
*
[9]
Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Mykhaylo Osadchy, Oksana Popovich, Iryna Senik, Bohdan Rebrik, Danilo Shumuk, N. Yevgrafov and V. Dolishny
“To the Holy See, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Christian Churches in the USA, to the governments and parliaments of countries which were signatories of the Final Act of the Helsinki Agreement”
Ukrainian political prisoners wish to bring the “crying violation of elementary human rights in our country” to the attention of Christians throughout the world and all people of goodwill. They take as an example the fate of Father Vasyl Romanyuk, who got 10 years “for being an especially dangerous recidivist”. They write that, according to influential clergymen, Father Romanyuk is above the average as a preacher and is distinguished for his active part in church affairs:
“It is not without cause that his name is now used to intimidate priests in the Ukraine . . . but at the same time he has become a real martyr for the word of God, for the faith . . . We hope that all people of goodwill will make the greatest effort to put an end to this savage punishment of a true son of the Church.”
The authors ask that foreign journalists should obtain permission to visit their camp and that efforts should be made to ensure that political prisoners receive letters from abroad. They express their support for President Carter’s policy in defence of human rights; they ask him to insist that in return for every visit made by Soviet journalists to American prisons, the Soviet authorities should allow American journalists to visit Soviet prisons and camps.
*
5.2: Perm Camp 36
14 letters & statements
SERGEI KOVALYOV, 10 & 11
[10]
Sergei Kovalyov, To USSR Procurator-General Rudenko (18 November 1976)
“It has come to my knowledge that on 16 November 1976 KGB official Major Afanasov used inexcusably foul language in speaking to political prisoner S.E. Sapelyak in the camp reading-room, even addressing him with the familiar ‘thou’ and calling him insulting names. A camp official and the librarian were witnesses of this unworthy scene, but I have not the slightest reason to doubt S. E. Sapelyak’s word.
“As a protest against this insult and to demand an explanation of the discreditable incident, Sapelyak went on hunger-strike. He has already been on hunger-strike for three days, but no explanations have so far been forthcoming. In addition, Major Afanasov threatened Sapelyak, saying the camp administration would put him in the camp prison for 15 days — and it was certainly strange how punishments for breaking the regulations rained down on Sapelyak all at once, as if from a horn of plenty. Does the camp administration really intend obediently to put this threat into practice? Unfortunately, the laws I have access to say nothing about regulations governing KGB activity — or about how such activity is to be monitored. They contain no information about KGB authority in camps for political prisoners; and KGB officials won’t answer such questions. However, in such KGB activity denigration of human dignity must presumably also be considered unlawful. I ask you to enquire into this incident, to restore law and order, and to protect Sapelyak from insults and reprisals.”
*
[11]
Sergei Kovalyov, To Camp Commandant Zhuravkov (21 November 1976)
Kovalyov calls for immediate action to end S. E. Sapelyak’s hunger-strike.
“I consider that a satisfactory resolution of the conflict, very natural in the circumstances, would be achieved if some competent person would assure Sapelyak that the insult to his self-respect will not be repeated. Of course, this would resolve the conflict only if Sapelyak is not subjected to harassment or reprisals from the KGB.”
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IVAN SVETLICHNY (12-14)
[12]
Ivan Svetlichny
To the USSR Procurator-General (3 May 1977)
Svetlichny writes that at the end of the previous year he, an invalid with serious injuries to both arms, high blood-pressure and angio-spasms, was made to work as a compressor-worker in camp 35. He was punished many times for his inability to manage this work; only after two letters to Brezhnev was he given work suited to his strength. After his transfer to camp 36, he was again forced to do the impossible — he was assigned to work in the bath-house laundry and was refused the medical treatment he had been prescribed in camp 35, because there was no medicine.
He is always being reprimanded and threatened with new punishments for not fulfilling his workload (cutting logs, hauling heavy loads and so on). This “arbitrary tyranny and moral terror, sanctioned by doctors” without a medical check-up or examination of his medical history, took place on the first day after his arrival in camp 36.
“It would be no exaggeration to say that the state of medical aid here is catastrophic. There is a lack of the most elementary medicines. There are no nurses and prescribed injections are given to the sick not more than once a day and not every day. Because of the state of the medical section, many sick people who need treatment don’t even apply for medical assistance. The fact that the water is unfit to drink, the fish is rotten, and so on — matters on which medicine has no effect — is another whole subject.
“Considering that this situation is intolerable, while appeals to the local and central medical authorities achieve nothing, I ask that representatives of the International Red Cross be allowed into Institution VS 389/36 … to examine the evidence on the spot impartially and objectively.”
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[13]
Ivan Svetlichny
To Titov, Head of the Medical Section (18 May 1977)
He states that his medical card mentions no limitations on his fitness for work, in spite of his severe physical disabilities. He asks that such limitations be entered on his medical card and that his statement be attached to it.
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[14]
Ivan Svetlichny
To Camp Commandant Zhuravkov (2 June 1977)
He states that he, an invalid, has been repeatedly reported for non-fulfilment of the work norm; he has also been obviously and tendentiously picked on — for “tea-drinking in the open air” which has never before been regarded as a breach of the regime regulations. “As there can be no question in my state of health, of my fulfilling the work norm appropriate to a healthy man, this means I shall be subjected to all kinds of punishment.” Svetlichny asks to be given work appropriate to his capabilities:
“If arbitrary violence and moral terror continue to be used against me, I shall be forced to go on hunger-strike in defence of my rights on the next occasion when repressive action is taken against me.”
***
STEPAN SAPELYAK (15-17)
[15]
Stepan Sapelyak
To Camp Commandant Zhuravkov (18 April 1977)
After systematically listing his transfers from one job to another during a period of six months, Sapelyak notes that these transfers were not formulated in corresponding orders, which is clearly contrary to article 13 of the Basic Principles of Corrective Labour Law and Article 25 of the Labour Law Code. He also reports the insulting and unlawful behaviour of Major Fyodorov towards him, in trying to force him to do heavy work by means of threats, work he had been forbidden to do by a medical commission because of his hypertonia.
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[16]
Stepan Sapelyak
To Procurator-General Rudenko (7 June 1977)
“On 28 May 1977 I sent a statement to L. I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, in which I outlined the concrete facts about the so-called ‘educational’ measures taken with regard to myself in Corrective Labour Colony 389/36.
“Obviously, the statement was not sent to the addressee, in an attempt to hide from the Central Committee, the actions taken to ‘re-educate dissidents’. Only on 6 June 1977, after a written reminder from me, was the statement sent to Colonel Mikov, head of a section at the internal affairs department. …
“I ask you to make it clear to the administration of Corrective Labour Institution 389/36 that there is a difference between General Secretary Brezhnev of the CPSU CentraL Committee and Colonel G. I. Mikov, head of a section at the internal affairs department.”
*
[17]
Stepan Sapelyak
To Andropov, Chairman of the KGB (8 June 1977)
In his statement Sapelyak writes that, since the time of his arrest in 1973 (when he was 22 years old), his parents (collective farmworkers with little education) have been subjected to various repressive measures, although the conclusions of the investigation commission made it clear that they had nothing to do with his ‘case’. Their letters are being held back, his mother is summoned by the KGB and threatened, and it has been suggested that they should renounce their son. In May 1977 his mother was again summoned by the KGB:
“… they threatened to send her to prison and demanded that she should stop corresponding with people abroad who had expressed their sympathy for our family. Terrorised and intimidated, my mother lives in constant fear, not only on my behalf but now also on her own behalf …
“I find it hard to imagine that this is being done with your knowledge. I ask you to tell your colleagues in Ternopol that such actions are impermissible, and to protect my parents from repressive measures.”
***
VALERY MARCHENKO, 18 & 19
[18]
Valery Marchenko
To Titov, Head of the Medical Section (14 May 1977)
Marchenko reports that the state of his health has recently taken a sharp turn for the worse: he has a chronic kidney disorder (glomerular nephritis), cystitis, headaches and high blood-pressure and yet he is receiving no medical treatment. He asks to be immediately put into hospital and also asks that enquiries be made concerning treatment at the institute where he was being cared for before his arrest. (Marchenko was sent to a hospital in September 1977, Chronicle.)
*
[19]
Valery Marchenko
To Zhuravkov, Camp Commandant (14 May 1977)
Marchenko writes that on 4 May engineer Bulatov made out a complaint about his non-fulfilment of the norm his shift had been assigned, although he was seriously ill with kidney disease. Marchenko asks that those in charge of production should be reminded that the administration of a Corrective Labour Institution is bound to provide work for prisoners in accordance with their capabilities (Article 37, RSFSR Corrective Labour Code) and also in accordance with the articles on ‘abuse of power’ and ‘deliberate torment’ in the Criminal Code and Article 1 of the Corrective Labour Code.
*
[20]
Petras Plumpa
To Camp Commandant Zhuravkov (8 June 1977)
On the evening of 5 June Plumpa’s hand-made Catholic prayer-book in the Lithuanian language was confiscated. Captain Rak, who took away the prayer-book, declared that a charge would be brought against Plumpa for allegedly insulting him. This was not the first false report against Plumpa, using Russian terms he could not understand. Plumpa also writes about other forms of ethnic discrimination. His letters are long delayed and he is, de facto, deprived of short-term visits because the use of Russian is compulsory, but neither his wife nor his children speak the language.
Taking into account, therefore, [a] my forcible transfer to Russia from my native Lithuania, [b] the guarantee of equal rights to all nations in the USSR Constitution, and [c] my desire to avoid in future any false accusations based on language, I have decided: from 6 June 1977 onwards, I shall speak to representatives of the camp administration only in my native Lithuanian.
*
KAVOLIUNAS, 21 & 22
[21]
V. Kavoliunas
To Titov, Head of the Medical Section (18 April 1977)
After two weeks in hospital because of his recent illness, V. Kavoliunas was summoned to the medical section on 31 March, “but Major Fyodorov did not allow him to see the doctor and ordered him to go to the camp zone at once, assigning him to especially heavy work in the sawmill”. Kavoliunas describes the symptoms of his sharply worsening health as a result of this work and asks Titov to take steps to give him medical treatment. (Kavoliunas did not receive medical attention or treatment of any kind, or any special food-diet, Chronicle.)
*
[22]
V. Kavoliunas
To Rudenko, USSR Procurator-General (8 May 1977)
“Twenty four years ago, I was taken from Lithuania to Russia and put in a concentration camp for political prisoners, although until then I had never been in Russia and had not done Russia any harm.
“During 24 years in concentration camps I lost my health, began to feel severe pains in the region of my heart and stomach, but I cannot obtain medical treatment, as the treatment of prisoners depends not on the camp doctor, but on Major Fyodorov, the deputy commandant responsible for discipline.
“… I ask the Procurator-General of the USSR to allow a representative of the International Red Cross to visit our camp, in order to determine the situation here and secure the necessary treatment for sick prisoners.”
*
[23]
Dmytro Basarab
To the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet (14 June 1977)
“As I have no hope that the [CSCE] Belgrade Conference will make the USSR fulfil the obligations it undertook, which are traditionally violated in this country, I still consider it my moral duty to protest against the constant and cynical infringement of basic rights and individual freedoms in the Soviet Union.”
*
[24]
From an interview with political prisoner Ivan Shovkovoi (Perm Camp 35)
Q. “Do you consider yourself a political activist?”
A. “No . . . I’m an ordinary man, a worker, I never thought about politics as a profession. I’m only a political prisoner because the government classed me as such when they shut me up in a camp.”
Q. “Have you renounced your Soviet citizenship?”
A. “Yes, I want to emigrate … , because I don’t know how I can be of use to Ukraine here in the USSR, after I leave the camp. Then I want to have a family and bring up my own children, to read normal Ukrainian books not ‘literature in the Ukrainian language’.”
Q. “What has been your worst experience in the camp?”
A. “I saw how living men disintegrated, how the human soul was defaced.
“People who fought for the Faith, for the Homeland, for Justice . . . are tormented to the point of exhaustion, lose all self- confidence and begin to serve the enemy . . . knowing they are committing treachery, not believing in any ideals of communism.
“Not all, not very many, but some become traitors.”
Q. “What is the brightest, the best experience you have had here?”
A. “The fact that, in spite of undergoing the whole horror and torment of the Stalinist camps, the torture, the starvation, the treachery of friends and much else, there were people who had worn the padded jackets of zeks for 25 years and more, who had preserved their faith in God and their loyalty to the homeland, and these people are the majority.”
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