[1]
Ryazan Region newspaper Priokskaya Pravda (20 December 1975)
article by K. Mikhailov, “Diversionists of the Air”.
‘Well, so what, aren’t we allowed to listen to Western radio stations? It’s not forbidden, is it? Such a question is occasionally asked by certain young people. It is certainly true that nothing forbids it in our country. However, if we follow such super-naive logic, we could go on asking such questions to the point of obvious absurdity.
‘For instance, we could argue just as successfully about whether people are allowed to crawl under the wheels of passing cars or to jump from high buildings, just out of principle.
‘To burden human life with specially thought-out prohibitions would be extremely stupid. And are they even necessary for thinking people who are mentally and morally healthy? …
‘A certain Danilyuk, a former legal consultant at one of the car-works in the town of Ryazan, has taken the wrong road.
‘For a number of years, he systematically listened to anti-Soviet radio broadcasts and, under their influence, he began to spread slanderous fabrications about life in our country, about the politics of our Party and State. Those around him talked to him more than once, pointing out his incorrect behaviour, which disgraced a Soviet man, and seriously tried to persuade him to re-examine his views on life.
‘Danilyuk took no notice of this well-meaning advice. Seeing himself as a ‘personality’, towering above the ‘crowd’ and having the right to instruct others, Danilyuk wrote a number of lampoons defaming our system and began to look for ways of sending his compositions abroad. Various people tried to warn him not to act wrongly and attempted to save him from falling into the abyss. But Danilyuk was not accustomed to taking any notice of other people. The procurator’s office was forced to bring the slanderer to justice and he was sentenced by the Regional Court.’
(For a reference to I. F. Danilyuk’s case, see also CCE 32.20 [13].)
*
[2]
I. S. Shklovsky, The Universe, Life and Reason
Nauka publishing-house (Moscow). 3rd edition, 1973, p. 314:
N. S. Kardashev has analysed a number of complex paradoxes linked with the problem of black holes. Before him, this problem was dealt with, in its most interesting aspects, by the eminent Soviet physicist A. D. Sakharov. Kardashev, however, can take the credit for uniting …
4th edition, 1976, p. 310:
N. S. Kardashev has analysed a number of complex paradoxes linked with the problem of black holes. He can take the credit for uniting …
*
[3]
A. Kolesnikova, ‘Just a cross’, journal Rabotnitsa, 4, 1976.
The author is a lecturer in philosophy and scientific atheism at a medical college.
The following are extracts from her article:
‘Incidentally, the young men and women themselves did not find questions about the religious influence of the family unexpected. And when I decided to offer the students of our college a short questionnaire, they answered it seriously and sincerely.
‘Our college trains medical personnel largely for village work, and village children are the majority of its students. As I discovered, almost half of those questioned have icons at home and celebrate religious festivals in their families. Five per cent of them wore crosses as a family custom; 5 per cent had taken part in a christening ceremony as godparents …
‘We tried to find out when and where our students had obtained information about religion …
‘Children were especially subject to the influence of their mothers and grandmothers. The religious traditions and ideas they accepted were linked in their minds with the personality who inculcated them; for example, faith in God is linked with the mother. And, as a result, they subconsciously see criticism of religion as an insult to the mother …
‘In order to obtain professional qualifications and avoid conflict with the communist scientific world-view, they have to become hypocrites. Hypocrisy becomes their distinguishing characteristic. Usually they study well, even excellently, but their knowledge does not become part of their convictions: while accepting the facts, they refuse to draw the philosophical conclusions that follow.’
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