<<No 35 : 31 May 1975>>

NINE ENTRIES

[1]

Bukovsky & Gluzman

“A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissenters” [¹]

This article, at the end of which the ‘addresses’ of its authors — Vladimir Prison and a Perm political labour camp — are given, is dedicated to Leonid Plyushch, a victim of psychiatric tyranny.

A former ‘mental patient’ (Vladimir Bukovsky) and a former psychiatrist (Semyon Gluzman) have compiled a manual in which they try to summarize the experience of many psychiatric examinations and the basic features of psychiatric theory. They do so at sufficient length for the reader to perceive the correct behaviour which will give the psychiatrist the least possible opportunity to declare an examinee insane. The manual consists of a legal section, general information on psychiatry, and sections on ‘Dissent as a Psychiatric Problem’, ‘The Psychology of the Psychiatrist’, ‘Practical Recommendations for Your Tactics’ and ‘Behaviour in a Psychiatric Hospital’.

The information and advice given in the manual cannot, of course, guarantee that those who make use of it will be declared sane. (This is why the authors included the last section, which may also become a vital necessity for some.) However, careful adherence to these recommendations will assist in avoiding a great many mistakes which could give grounds for finding ‘symptoms’, and will reduce the chances of a diagnosis of insanity. The manual is directed against moods of fatalism and the attitude that struggle against psychiatric persecution is impossible — it is precisely this fear and helplessness that the authors consider to be the reason behind recent unexpected ‘repentances’ and ‘repudiations’.

*

[2]

ZEMLYA, 2

Zemlya [The Earth]

No 2, 25 November 1974 (Editor V. Osipov)

The journal’s contents are preceded by a press statement by the assistant editor, Vyacheslav Rodionov, dated 15 December 1974. Rodionov announces the arrest of Osipov on 28 November (CCE 34.7 [11]) and takes on himself “all responsibility for the future publication of the journal Zemlya, until the release of Vladimir Osipov from prison”.

CONTENTS

• Vladimir Osipov, “Open Letter to the Editors of the [Western] newspapers Russkaya Mysl and Novoe Russkoe Slovo, 7 August 1974″. Osipov reports on Criminal Case 38, which concerns the publication Veche, and announces his intention to publish a new ‘Christian-patriotic’ journal, Zemlya. “We intend to keep the basic line of Veche, but with a strong emphasis on Christianity”, the letter states.
• Anonymous, “Before the God of the Earth”.
• Father Dmitry Dudko, “Our Hope”, Talks 6 and 7. A record of talks which Father Dmitry conducted with his parishioners in 1973-1974.
• Valentina Mashkova, “Who Must Repent?” The author categorically rejects the idea of a general national repentance. This idea is not characteristic of the Russian spirit.
• Valentina Mashkova, Eight poems. September-October 1974.
• Gennady M. Shimanov, “On Equality and Inequality in Marriage”. An attempt to investigate this problem from the religious point of view.
• “Interview given by Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov to the editors of the Journal Zemlya, 17 September 1974″. Given before A.E. Levitin-Krasnov’s departure from the USSR.
• Vladimir Osipov, ‘To Sholokhov’. The author journeyed to Veshenskaya village in an attempt to get Sholokhov to participate in resistance to the uncontrolled destruction of Moscow’s architectural character. The story of his visit.
• “The Voice of Yury Galanskov: the 2nd anniversary of his death”. Galanskov’s letters from the camps (in extracts).
• “The Tragedy of Nikolai Rubtsov”. A letter from camp by Ludmila D, convicted for the murder of writer Nikolai Rubtsov.
• G. Balashov, “The Pluses and Minuses of State Ownership”. A continuation of the discussion begun in issues 6 and 7 of Veche. The author considers the existing economic system to be State capitalism.
• A.I. Udodov, “The Forgotten War”. An essay on the military history of events in China, 1900-1901.
• A.K., “Reply to N. Rybalchenko”. About the Moscow exhibition of unofficial art (29 September 1974). Rybalchenko was author of a threatening article in Vechernyaya Moskva (24 October 1974) on the Izmailovsky Park exhibition.
• “Legal information”: extracts from the book Especially Dangerous Crimes against the State, Gosyurizdat publishers, Moscow, 1963.
• Igor R. Shafarevich, “On the Essay-collection From Under the Rubble“. A comment on this work has already appeared in CCE 34.20-2. However, it was there incorrectly called the introduction to the collection.
• Igor Ratmirov: An article on the essay-collection Questions concerning Capitalist Russia: The Problem of a Multi-Structural Society, Sverdlovsk University: Sverdlovsk, 1972. He tells of the suppression of this collection by official historians and the persecution of the volume’s authors.
• I. Ratmirov. “Re patria”. The Soviet-German movement for emigration to West Germany.
• N.N., “On the Necessity of Establishing a Russian Fund”. A letter to the editors on the organization of material mutual aid in the Russian nationalist movement [²].
• “Chronicle”. Captain Pikulin, head of Dubrovlag Camp 19, it is reported, issued an order at the beginning of August that prisoners must agree the dates for personal visits with the administration in advance. Relatives who miss the day assigned have their visit shortened.

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[3]

A. N. Tverdokhlebov

Two Searches: Four Interrogations

The author describes in great detail searches carried out at his home on 27-28 November and 23 December 1974 in connection with Case 345 (CCE 34.7 [11]). Tverdokhlebov tells how he was interrogated at KGB headquarters on 23, 24 and 25 December 1974 (Case 345, Investigator Kharitonov) and on 9 January 1975 (Case 38, Investigator Chuprov).

A great deal of attention is devoted by the author to the methodology of interrogation (“the leading answers method”).

*

[4]

JEWS IN THE USSR

(Special issue)

Riga, February 1975. Compiler, V. Buiko.

This collection consists of extracts from the correspondence of G. B. Pinson, mother of the artist Boris Penson, who was sentenced in December 1970 to 10 years’ imprisonment at the trial of the “aeroplane people” in the Leningrad City Court (CCE 17.6-1).

It also contains official replies to her complaints, and extracts from her son’s letters.

*

[5]

Moscow Miscellany

(January 1975)

The collection is dedicated to the memory of Yury Galanskov (CCE 28.2) and opens with an article about him by Leonid Borodin.

CONTENTS

National and Religious Problems:

• A.P.V., “L. M. Lopatin and Moscow University in 1820 to 1880”.
• Skuratov, Triumph of the Suicides, Pt III: “A Stab in the Back”.’
• G. M. Shimanov, “On Trust and Responsibility in Marriage”.
• Korshunov, ‘Re-examining Old Concepts’.
• On the position of the Orthodox Church in Georgia.
• Kamaz [The Kama Car Works].
• Unknown Works of Russian Thinkers
• S. Glebov, ‘L. P. Karsavin’. A biographical sketch.
• L. P. Karsavin, ‘On the Lord’s Prayer’.
• Translations:
• Archimandrite Methodios: ‘Father Joann of Kronstadt and Leo Tolstoy’.
• Prose and Poetry:
• ‘The Unknown Country’. Short story.
• Berezovsky, ‘A Visit’. Short story.
• S. Vasilev. Poems.

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[6]

A. Solzhenitsyn

Sakharov and Criticism of “Letter to the Soviet Leaders” (February 1975)

A. Solzhenitsyn reproaches his many critics ‘among the Moscow intelligentsia’ for ‘coldly ignoring’ a document which was published at the same time as his ‘Letter to the Soviet Leaders’ and directly linked with it, Live not by Lies.

*

Turning to the criticisms made by A. D. Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn remarks with satisfaction that in the six years that have passed since the publication of Sakharov’s Reflections on Progress there has been an increase in the number of questions on which they agree. However, a number of differences remain on very important points. The most important of these is the role of ideology in the USSR.

Sakharov considers that Marxist ideology is merely a convenient facade for the rulers. But in Solzhenitsyn’s opinion it is “the evil-smelling root of present-day Soviet life, and only when we have cleansed ourselves of it can we begin to return to humanity”.

Their second difference is in relation to the permissibility and practicality of ‘some kind of different path of development for our country apart from the sudden … onset of full democracy’. Solzhenitsyn asserts that he has been represented as completely opposed to democracy in general, but that in fact he has only expressed doubt as to the possibility of the immediate establishment of democracy in the present-day USSR.

*

Finally, the author regards accusations against him of ‘Great Russian nationalism’ as also founded on misunderstanding. ‘[T]he contemporary Russian impulse towards national consciousness’ he writes, is ‘the defensive cry of a drowning people’ and insists that the sufferings endured by the Russian and Ukrainian people have been incomparably more terrible than those which have fallen to the lot of the other nations of the USSR.

Solzhenitsyn understands national renaissance to mean the necessity of ‘travelling the road of repentance, self-limitation and inward development, of contributing to good relations between nations’.

*

[7]

Günter Grass

Open Letter to Sinyavsky and Solzhenitsyn (October 1974)

Grass reminded Sinyavsky and Solzhenitsyn that progressive Western literary figures had always supported Soviet writers persecuted for their creative work.

He reproaches Soviet émigré writers of ‘the Third Wave’ for establishing contacts with reactionaries when they arrive in the West. In particular, Grass sharply condemned the editors of the journal Kontinent (founding editor, Vladimir Maximov) for collaboration with a publishing house owned by Axel Springer.

*

In a written reply, Andrei Sinyavsky stated that Soviet émigrés were not obliged to join in political battles in the West.

Two, so far as he knew, Springer had not yet put a single writer behind bars, nor had he murdered any writers, as Yury Galanskov had been murdered. However Western literary figures considered it possible to collaborate with Soviet publishing houses, which are known to be controlled by the KGB — an organization which constantly imprisons and destroys writers.

Sinyavsky stated that Springer had not imposed any political conditions on the editors of Kontinent. Sinyavsky’s point of view was supported in statements by A. I. Solzhenitsyn and A. D. Sakharov.

*

Heinrich Böll reproached Vladimir Maximov in a similar vein. Maximov replied sharply in a letter agreeing with the opinions expressed by Sinyavsky, Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.

*

[8]

MESSENGER OF THE RUSSIAN STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT

Vestnik RSKhD [founded 1925]

Vestnik RSKhD published ‘An Attempt to Imagine the Ideal Journal’, an article signed with the letters “Kh.U.” (Russia) The next number of the Messenger included comments on this article by Nikita Struve and Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn sharply attacks the authors of the article, reproaches them for using pseudonyms and advises them not to “lower their gaze before the Party authorities” and to carry out themselves in Russia their own “attempt at an ideal journal”.

In an Open Letter to Solzhenitsyn, (dated 30 November 1974), Pavel Litvinov condemns the tone of his remarks and rejects “the closed system of normative ethics which excludes any third possibility”, which in Litvinov’s view is characteristic of Solzhenitsyn as a social critic, Litvinov regards Solzhenitsyn’s creative work as more compassionate than his writing on current affairs.

*

[9]

Igor Shafarevich

on From Under the Rubble (1974)

Reactions have appeared to Shafarevich’s article on the collection From Under the Rubble, and his views on emigration have been criticized.

Shafarevich wrote that leading figures of Russian culture who voluntarily emigrate ’cannot contribute anything to that culture’, as they “have turned out not to possess enough spiritual values which could outweigh the threat of suffering”.

Yuly Daniel, in an article published in Le Monde and dated 20 January 1975, writes:

‘For an artist, separation from his Homeland is always a risk, always a tragedy and always an adventure. It is the most serious test of his spiritual potential’;

‘a true artist, even when physically separated from his native land, is always linked to her by an unbreakable, spiritual umbilical cord’.

In a brief joint statement Sinyavsky, Maximov, Victor Nekrasov and Alexander Galich expressed their indignation at ‘the impermissibly insulting tone’ of Shafarevich’s article. They write:

‘In taking it on himself to separate Russian writers from Russian culture, he has adopted the tone and methods of Soviet justice.’

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NOTES

1. Published in Survey (1975, No. 94-95), and, in a revised translation, in S. Bloch and P. Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, Gollancz, London, 1977, pp. 419-441 (US edition : Psychiatric Terror, Basic Books, New York).
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2. A note in CCE 36.14 amplifies this over-brief summary.
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