Searches, Interrogations, Arrests, Oct 1976 (42.3)

<<No 42 : 8 October 1976>>

SIXTEEN ENTRIES

[1]

Slogans in Leningrad

On 6 April, the day when Tverdokhlebov’s trial should have taken place but did not (CCE 40.2), three trams came out of the tram depot bearing the following inscriptions on their sides: ‘Freedom for political prisoners!’, ‘Freedom for Andrei Tverdokhlebov! ‘

On 7 April similar slogans appeared on the walls of the Conservatory and the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Training, also on the river-wall of Vasilevsky Island.

On 4 August a huge inscription measuring 40 x 1 metres appeared on the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress: “You are Trying to Suffocate Freedom, but the Spirit of Man Knows No Chains”. The inscription was soon covered with whitewash and sand-blasted, leaving a noticeable white streak.

On the night of 5-6 August slogans appeared on the buildings of the Tavrichesky Palace, the pedestrian underpass at the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Sadovaya Street, the Admiralty and some buses: ‘The USSR is a Prison of Nations’, ‘The CPSU is the Enemy of the People’, ‘Down with the Party Bourgeoisie!’ On the window of the radio shop in Gostinny Dvor was the inscription: ‘Listen to the Voice of America!’

On these days the city became flooded with MVD troops, police, KGB patrols and military-style security forces. Since then, private cars in Leningrad have been selectively searched, likewise passers-by with ‘suspicious’ parcels.

On 13 September a series of searches was carried out in Leningrad.

The search warrants mentioned only ‘the case of the anti-Soviet inscriptions’ or ‘Case 62’. Searches were carried out at the homes of the artists Yuly Andreyevich RYBAKOV and Oleg Nikolayevich VOLKOV, the poetess Yulia Okulova (her literary pseudonym is Yulia Voznesenskaya), her friend Natalya Lesnichenko and two other people (see below). Nothing relating to the slogans was found at anybody’s home.

After the searches Rybakov, Volkov, Okulova and Lesnichenko were arrested.

Okulova was visited in her cell by a man who introduced himself as the deputy head of the Leningrad KGB. He suggested that she should take the responsibility for the slogans and state that she had written them herself. He promised her that in that case a show-trial would be arranged, like the trial of Maramzin (CCE 35.4), after which she would be freed and allowed to go abroad. Okulova refused.

At one of the interrogations the deputy procurator of Leningrad, Katukova (in 1970 she was the prosecutor at the trial of the ‘aeroplane people’ CCE 17.6-1), asked her ‘When did you discuss how to write the slogans and which ones? Was Vladimir Borisov (see below) present?’ Okulova replied that she knew nothing whatever about any such discussion. No evidence was given by Yulia Okulova. Three days later she was released, after signing a promise not to leave town. She also had to sign a promise not to disclose the secrets of the investigation. Yulia Okulova is the mother of two children. She is a member of the recently organized Action Group of Leningrad’s Unorthodox Poets and Artists. This group has produced a collection of poetry and drawings which was offered to some Soviet publishing houses, but they have received no reply.

At one of the interrogations Natalya Lesnichenko was shown a note from Rybakov, which said he had written the inscriptions. After this she testified that she had been present when Rybakov wrote the slogans. Like Okulova, three days after her arrest she was released in exchange for a promise not to leave town. She also had to sign a promise not to divulge secrets.

Rybakov and Volkov were told during interrogation that if they confessed Okulova and N. Lesnichenko would be released.

Rybakov testified that he himself had written all the slogans, with N. Lesnichenko watching, but that Okulova had known he was going to do it. He described where they had got rid of the paint pots.

Volkov also said he had written all the slogans himself. He did not give any evidence about accomplices or witnesses.

All four were charged under Articles 230 (‘Premeditated destruction, demolition or damage of cultural monuments’) and 98 (‘Premeditated destruction or damage of State or public property’) of the RSFSR Criminal Code. All of them except Natalya Lesnichenko were also charged under Article 17 (‘Complicity’). Rybakov and Volkov were also charged under Article 190-1 (‘Dissemination of knowingly false fabrications’…).

Article 230 was used because of the inscriptions on the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Admiralty and the Tavrichesky Palace; Article 98 because of the inscriptions on trams and buses.

Yuly Rybakov (b. 1946) has participated in many exhibitions by independent artists, in particular the exhibition which was held ten years ago at the Kostel building: some artists set up their easels right on the street and began to draw. The police dispersed them. Yuly’s father is the actor and poet Andrei Nikolayevich Rybakov, who landed in a camp in the 1940s, Yuly was born in a camp. Now he teaches at the Academy of Arts. He has a wife and two children (one 7 years old, the other one and a half). Rybakov’s family is petitioning for his detention to be replaced by a less severe form of restriction.

Oleg Volkov (b. 1940) was earlier tried for attempted rape and spent 4 years in camps. He has also taken part in exhibitions by avant-garde artists. He is separated from his wife. He has a seven-year-old son.

[2]

Declaration by Vladimir Borisov

On the same day, 13 September, searches ‘in connection with Case 62’ were also carried out at the home of Vladimir Borisov (in Leningrad, at his own flat and at the flat of his mother) and that of his wife Irina Kaplun (in Moscow).

During the search at I. Kaplun’s home a typewritten copy of N. S. Khrushchev’s speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, ‘On the Cult of Personality’, was confiscated, together with A, D. Sakharov’s book My Country and the World, Roy Medvedev’s book On Socialist Democracy, Berdyaev’s book The Meaning of History, the book Chevengur by Andrei Platonov (a photocopy), the collection of essays Change of Landmarks, the collection of essays From out of the Depths (a typewritten copy of a book published in this country in 1921), Andrei Bogolyubov’s book about Jesus Christ, The Son of Man, a collection of letters by N. I. Bukovskaya A Mother’s Letters, Sergei Myuge’s memoirs Twenty Years is not a Century, Revolt Pimenov’s memoirs One Political Trial, an article ‘On Romantic Ideology’ by Anatoly Yakobson, B. I. Tsukerman’s collection of documents A Postal Story, a collection of poetry and songs by Galich, and a collection of materials on Sergei Kovalyov.

The witness L. D. Yevloshina took part in the search almost on an equal footing with the KGB officials.

Irina Kaplun was born in 1950.

When she was in the ninth class at school, she and some of her friends were caught distributing pamphlets against the revival of Stalinism. They only received a lecture at the time, ‘because of their youth’. In 1969, when I. Kaplun was a student in the third year of the Philology Faculty at Moscow State University, she was arrested. In 1970, after the end of the pre-trial investigation, but before trial, she was unexpectedly pardoned (CCE 11.7, CCE 16.10 [3]). She was not reinstated at Moscow University, and was not accepted at a number of other Moscow institutes of higher education after she had successfully passed the entrance examinations (for example, in 1972 she passed all the examinations for a teachers’ training college with marks of ‘excellent’).

During the search at Borisov’s flat the following were confiscated: a microfilm copy of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, volume 3; seven photocopies of A. D. Sakharov’s collection of articles; a piece of paper containing some of the slogans mentioned above (not in Borisov’s handwriting); and a handmade ‘printing mechanism’.

On 21 September at a press conference in Moscow V. Borisov issued a ‘Statement to the Press’:

‘For over half a century there has been a famine of information in our country… In searches ‘the instruments of crime’ are confiscated together with literature: tape-recorders, typewriters, amateur photo-enlarging equipment, and so on, everything that could be used to reproduce texts, or is thought to be capable of doing so by those in charge of the search.

‘In these circumstances, the problem of the independent publication of uncensored literature is extremely acute. The price paid for solving that problem is either prison, or a special psychiatric hospital, or an attack by thugs from behind a corner.

‘I have worked out the technology for a simple, cheap printing mechanism, which is easy to assemble in domestic surroundings. One of the experimental models was confiscated from me during the recent search. I am sure there is nothing unlawful in my actions. I consider it my right and my duty to assist the free exchange and circulation of information.’

At the same press conference, Ludmila Alexeyeva, Tatyana Velikanova, Irina Kaplun and Malva Landa issued the following declaration:

‘… In this country information is harshly rationed. The authorities do not grudge national power or resources to keep the ration from increasing.

‘We acknowledge the extremely limited possibilities open to us, but consider it our duty to assist in the circulation of thought and literary works … We consider it desirable, towards this end, to use not only typewriters but also printing mechanisms with larger circulation possibilities.

‘We intend to help in distributing the designs and technological details worked out by Vladimir Borisov for a printing mechanism…

‘We remind you that Vladimir Borisov is in danger of being imprisoned again. For five years, from 1968 to 1974, he was imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals and in a psychiatric prison, for participating in the Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR, and for circulating uncensored literature. Any of the objects confiscated from V. Borisov could be used as an excuse for new persecution: the printing mechanism, the Gulag Archipelago, Sakharov and the Fight for Peace …

‘We appeal to all those who value humanity, freedom, freedom of thought and freedom to create, speak out in defence of those who are threatened with persecution for spreading independent information; speak out today in defence of Vladimir Borisov.’

The Chronicle has written about Vladimir Borisov more than once [¹].

[3]

The Persecution of Ilya Levin

CCE 39.13 [10] reported the search which was carried out at the home of the Leningrad philologist Ilya Levin on 26 December 1975. On 27 January 1976 Levin was refused permission to emigrate to Israel. The reason given was his army service in 1972-3 (CCE 39.13 [10] was inaccurate about this point).

On 18 February two KGB officials came to his home (one of these was Konstantinov) and demanded that he should let them in ‘for a chat’. Levin refused. When sometime later he went out of the flat, a policeman came up to him and asked him for his passport, gave it to the KGB officials who had now appeared, and ordered Levin to return home; he himself accompanied him. For over an hour the policeman did not allow Levin to leave the house or to go to the telephone … Then the same KGB officials came to the flat, returned his passport and went away with the policeman.

On 22 February Kudrov, head of the Smolny district section of the Leningrad KGB, summoned Levin and suggested that he sign a document stating that he. Levin, was in possession of Soviet State Secrets. Levin refused, saying this was a lie. During the conversation Kudrov threatened Levin, saying he would publish an article which ‘would compromise him both here and abroad’; he also threatened him with criminal prosecution for ‘an especially dangerous crime against the State’ (he did not specify what crime) and with prosecution under Article 190-1 ‘for disseminating tendentious information’. Kudrov inquired after Levin’s mental health.

On 26 February the police detained Levin on the street ‘for an identification check’ (he was told that he was ‘very like a certain criminal’); he was taken to Smolny District UVD and subjected to a body search, A few hours later he was released.

On 9 March Levin was again approached by a policeman ‘for identification purposes’, and, despite the fact that he showed his passport, was taken to the police station. There he was searched once more and books and journals in English were confiscated from him. When Levin demanded that this unlawful behaviour should cease, the man in charge of the search, Lieutenant-Colonel of Police Borozdin, replied: ‘You can give orders when you get to Israel.’ After frequent complaints by Levin some of the confiscated books and journals were returned to him.

At the end of March some Leningrad intellectuals sent a petition to the City Department of Culture, asking to be allotted a hall for an evening in memory of Gumilyov. Levin was one of this group. On 15 April the police took him from his home to the Dzerzhinsky District UVD. There Lieutenant-Colonel of Police Uzheikin, deputy head of the UVD, asked him to sign the following statement:

‘CAUTION

‘I, Ilya Davidovich Levin, have been cautioned by the Administration for Internal Affairs of the Dzerzhinsky District Soviet Executive Committee about my incorrect behaviour in participating in antisocial activities in December 1975, on the anniversary of the execution of Decembrists [CCE 38.19 [31]], and about the impermissibility of antisocial actions in future. Article 190-3 of the RSFSR Criminal Code has been explained to me, concerning responsibility for the organization or active participation in group activities which infringe social order or show clear disobedience to the legal demands of representatives of authority.

‘I have been cautioned that, if I take part in the independently organized celebration of the 90th anniversary of the poet Gumilyov’s birth, or in other antisocial activities, I will be made to answer for them in accordance with the law.’

Levin refused to sign this document.

On 29 May Levin was taken to the Smolny District UVD. There he was asked to sign the following document:

‘WARNING

‘Suspicious activities connected with the organization of an exhibition which has not received the official approval of the Chief Department of Culture, and attendance at such an exhibition, constitute clear disobedience to the representatives of authority and are an infringement of social order. Any actions by you which disregard this warning will be defined in accordance with the corresponding laws in the criminal code.’

Officials explained to Levin that this referred to the art exhibition in the Peter and Paul Fortress fixed for 30 May, and that they had ‘a list of persons who had to be warned’.

On 30 May at about 8 o’clock in the morning a group of five (one of them in police uniform) came to Levin’s home.

The visitors refused to give their names. Levin was told that he ‘would do better to sit at home’ that day. When he left the house. Levin noticed he was being followed. Sometime later, one of those following him showed his police card and asked Levin for his passport. Then he declared that ‘this passport seems suspicious to me’ and asked Levin to follow him to the police station. At the Smolny District UVD Levin was shown a document alleging that he had refused to show his papers to a police man when asked to do so; he had then allegedly refused to follow him to the police station and, when detained by force, he had resisted. Levin refused to sign the false statement and asked to write down what had happened himself. He was not allowed to do this. Levin was searched and his case, his watch, spectacles, passport and shoe-laces were confiscated. He was released and everything except the passport was returned to him at about 7 o’clock in the evening. Immediately after his release. Levin went to the main Leningrad UVD, where he protested against his unlawful detention and the confiscation of his passport. The official on duty refused to intervene to obtain the return of the passport and stated that he ‘knew all about the matter’.

On 1 June a policeman came to Levin’s home and took him to the Smolny district people’s court. The judge sentenced him to 10 days’ detention under arrest, according to the Decree ‘On stiller penalties for attempts to harm the life, honour or authority of a policeman’; the charge against him was his ‘wilful disobedience’ on 30 May.

While he was under arrest in a special reception prison. Levin went on hunger-strike as a sign of protest. On 3 June the doctor at the prison told Levin that his hunger-strike ‘aroused doubts about his mental health’ in her.

On 9 June Levin was released.

On 29 June Levin appealed to the Procurator-General of the USSR, complaining about the continuous illegalities committed by the Leningrad police.

On 13 September a search was carried out at Levin’s home ‘in connection with the slogans’ (see above). Nothing relating to this case was found. Photographs of artists, private notes and verses were confiscated.

[4]

Arrest of Gennady Trifonov

Gennady Nikolayevich TRIFONOV was born in 1945 in Leningrad.

In 1965 he became Olga Berggolts’s literary secretary. In 1967, when Trifonov was in the army, he agreed to become a KGB informer. In an ‘Open Letter to Heinrich Boll’ on 14 May 1976 he writes:

‘During my army service pressure was exerted on me to enter the ranks of informers for the KGB. This was done by means of open intimidation, various threats going as far as accusations of homosexuality, which, as is well known, is not only subject to criminal prosecution in the USSR. but is also widely made use of to discredit persons disapproved of by the regime. In 1967 I signed an agreement to work for the KGB.

‘I was discharged early from the army and in 1967 I returned to Leningrad from Murmansk.

‘Until 1969 I continued to work as Olga Berggolts’s secretary. In 1970 I was moved to work as a secretary to the Soviet writer Vera Panova. In 1973 I was instructed to gain the confidence of the Leningrad writer Daniil Granin, but already at this point my growing reputation as a KGB informer made it impossible for me to take on this new secretarial post. In the same year. 1973. I was sent to work at the ‘Lenfilm’ film studios, where my duties included co-ordinating the activities of lesser informers and maintaining ties with the KGB authorities through the deputy personnel manager of the studio, who was also a Colonel of the USSR State Security.

‘In spite of the fact that my work for State Security was forced on me by extreme circumstances, all these years I was tormented by my involvement with the KGB. I tried to give information of the most general character, which I knew the KGB already possessed from other sources of the same kind. I knew for certain that no one had ever suffered because of what I had done… But the very fact of my involvement in KG B activities, even if it was purely formal, I felt to be a disgrace to myself as a human being and a Russian literary intellectual.

‘In August 1973 I appealed to a highly placed official of the Leningrad KGB. asking to be allowed to resign. This request was not granted. In September 1973 I tried to kill myself by taking a heavy dose of Nembutal I was saved by doctors, and. following a report from a neuro-pathologist.

‘I was dismissed from the KGB with a diagnosis of ‘reactive neurosis’. At the same time, I was dismissed from my job at the film studio.

‘Assuming that I had freed myself completely from the State Security forces, I threw myself into literary activity … From the first day of my employment by the KGB I had informed all my closest friends of it …’

While he was working at ‘Lenfilm’, Trifonov kept in contact with the KGB through the already mentioned deputy personnel manager. KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Lavrenty Vasilevich Sokolovsky, and through one of the film directors, KGB officer Yury Nikolayevich Gubanov. His activities were supervised by the deputy head of the KGB Department of Culture, KGB Captain Vyacheslav Stefanovich Novikov. On leaving the KGB, Trifonov signed a document promising to keep secret all information known to him. This ‘promise’ also contained a warning that if he gave away secrets he would be charged with ‘treason to the motherland’.

At the end of 1974. Trifonov was forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital for a month. There he was visited by KGB officials, who tried to persuade him to work for them again. After discharge from hospital Trifonov was warned at his local psycho-neurological clinic that if he revealed the circumstances of his hospitalization he would be put in hospital again.

From the beginning of 1975 Trifonov actively participated in the activities carried out by unofficial writers and artists in Leningrad.

In 1976 Trifonov decided to emigrate and live permanently abroad with his relatives in the USA. In his letter to Boll he writes:

‘On 28 April 1976 I was summoned for a lengthy interrogation, during which I was asked to give written evidence libelling my friends, the unofficial artists and poets of Leningrad.

‘I categorically refused to give such evidence … During the interrogation of 28 April an M V D official told me that if I did not stop my anti-Soviet activities, if I went on bothering the authorities for permission to emigrate from the USSR. and if I offered my work for publication abroad, more severe measures would be taken against me. On 1 May 1976 in the evening, I was savagely beaten up by three men unknown to me, who drove away in a car with a KGB number plate.’

The letter ends as follows:

‘I appeal to you, Mr Boll, and urgently request you … to help me to leave my country… I fully realize that the very act of writing this letter to you and its subsequent publication in the West will threaten my personal safety. But I have no other choice than to appeal to my colleagues, the writers of Europe, for help. To go on living in my own country, in the circumstances I have been placed in by the authorities, now seems impossible to me.’

On 15 June Trifonov was sacked from his job. In July the US embassy informed Trifonov that the American authorities were prepared to allow him in as an immigrant, but the Leningrad OVIR refused to accept Trifonov’s documents. On 19 July MVD investigator Podgaisky told Trifonov that ‘instead of going to America’ he would land himself in ‘jail or in a psychiatric hospital for a long time’, and that he was ‘a traitor to the motherland’ and ‘an enemy of the people’.

On 22 July Trifonov appealed to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the MVD, the KGB and the USSR Procurator’s Office, and also to the editors of the newspaper Izvestiya:

‘On the basis of my manuscripts confiscated from my friends and of personal correspondence, all of which is at the disposal of the KGB, and by eavesdropping on my telephone conversations and keeping a watch on my personal life with the aid of neighbours in my flat… interested circles are trying, by libellously and tendentiously interpreting the facts of my biography, to make out a criminal case against me under Articles 120 and 121 of the RSFSR Criminal Code …

With this letter I inform the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet… that I regard my persecution under all the provisions of Articles 120 and 121 of the RSFSR Criminal Code as a repressive measure by the responsible Soviet authorities aimed at infringing my right to emigrate freely from the USSR.’

(Article 120 concerns ‘Indecent behaviour’, Article 121 ‘Sodomy’.)

On 5 August a search was carried out at Trifonov’s home. His entire personal archive, and all his books and papers were confiscated … A little later Trifonov was arrested [²].

[5]

Arrested for his Decency

At the beginning of September 1976, the doctor Mikhail Spiridonovich Kovtunenko was arrested in Kiev.

The investigation has not yet come to an end. According to rumour, he is accused of bribery, as was the Vinnitsa doctor, Mikhail Shtern (CCE 34.5). The real reason for Kovtunenko’s arrest is revealed in an Open Letter, ‘If you don’t want to be a scoundrel, you’ll end up in prison!’ (dated October 1976), from the writer Mykola Rudenko, a member of the Soviet Amnesty International group (CCE 36.11 [4]):

“An important KGB official had a great idea: Listen, mates, why don’t we make use of the local doctor, Kovtunenko? He visits Chapayevka, Koncha Zaspa and Mrigi all in one day. Who could be a better choice to fulfil the duties of a secret informant? …

“They tried to persuade him for about three months. They promised him great things. I had the honour of figuring in these secret plans. When it became clear that Kovtunenko could not be persuaded, they began to threaten him with arrest. What for? Well, for example, for ‘illegally’ giving out sickness certificates.

“Somehow Mikhail Spiridonovich, tortured by moral scruples, came to see me and openly asked me for advice. I did not believe that the case looked so hopeless… Nothing like it had been seen even in the most cruel police states. But Mikhail Spiridonovich smiled sadly: “If it hasn’t been seen yet, it will be. They won’t forgive me if I refuse”.’

On 6 August M. S. Kovtunenko wrote a memorandum: ‘I. Mikhail S. Kovtunenko, have been asked to work as a KGB official, in order to watch, spy on and inform on M. D. Rudenko, because he is a member of Sakharov’s group. I fully share the opinions held by M. D. Rudenko and will defend them while I can. I consider that we have no freedom, not even of the most ordinary kind, I believe in the Ukraine.’

A month later he was arrested.

[6]

The Arrest of Mart Niklus

On 4 or 5 October Mart Niklus, a resident of Tartu (Estonia), was summoned from the school where he teaches English and taken to his home for a search.

As it turned out that there was no warrant. [See corrections CCE 43.18 to this item in CCE 43.7 [1], which also reports Niklus’s release.]

Niklus did not open his flat, but set off for the procurator’s office to clarify the situation (together with some of those who had come to carry out the search). In his absence the search was carried out regardless, and tape-recordings of lessons and texts in English were confiscated. On 8 October M. Niklus went to the procurator’s office to collect the objects confiscated and was arrested on a charge of ‘resisting the police’.

In 1958-1966, Mart Niklus served a term of imprisonment in the Mordovian camps under Article 58-10 of the old Criminal Code. He is mentioned in Marchenko’s book My Testimony.

Niklus is a zoologist, but after his release he could not obtain work in his specialized field (CCE 35.10 [38]), although he had applied to various departments about this more than once [³].

[7]

Verification of Identity

Nikolai Ivanov, who served a term as a member of the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (CCE 1.6), settled after his release in 1973 in the village of Brykovy Gory, not far from Alexandrov in Vladimir Region. He started to work as a stoker in the Alexandrov church.

As this work was seasonal, in May every year he was paid off, and in September he was taken on again at his former workplace. This summer Ivanov had agreed to help in restoring a church in the village of Godenovo, Rostov district (Yaroslavl Region).

On 21 August a car drove up to the church which was being repaired; in it sat two policemen and Kuznetsov, the head of Rostov district criminal investigation department. They asked Ivanov to accompany them to Rostov, as ‘the chiefs want to talk to him’, and promised to bring him back in the same car. When they reached Rostov, Ivanov was put in a Preliminary Detention Cell for ‘an identity check’: although he had his army card with him, he did not have his passport and it was clear from what he said that he had not been registered for work for three months. On 22 August he was transferred to the special reception prison at Yaroslavl.

Ivanov was released only 19 days later, after the Alexandrov district police station sent a reply to a written enquiry as to whether he was really registered in that district. During this whole period of time, he was not allowed to receive letters or parcels; only once was he allowed to receive some cigarettes (Ivanov does not smoke).

[8]

CCE 36 reported (CCE 36.10 [8]) that former MVD investigator Yury Ivanovich Fyodorov, after serving a 6-year sentence in the case of the ‘Union of Communists’ organization, was released at the beginning of 1975; he went to the town of Luga near Leningrad and was there placed under surveillance.

In May 1976 he was tried for infringing the surveillance regulations and sentenced to a term of exile.

[9]

JELGAVA (Latvia). On 27 August Pyotr Mikhailovich NARITSA was arrested.

On that day Naritsa had driven out of town with his wife and children and one of his acquaintances. In a wood a minibus drove up to them. Five men rudely demanded that Naritsa show them his documents, and when Naritsa asked who they were and why they were shouting, they assaulted him, beat him to the point of unconsciousness, and dragged him into a police car that had driven up.

P. Naritsa was charged with beating up vigilantes and sent to the Riga investigation prison. The case is being investigated by the Jelgava procurator’s office.

On 6 October P. Naritsa was put in the cooler.

Pyotr Naritsa is the son of M. A. Naritsa [⁴]. Since the arrest of his father in 1961 (the arrest before last), Pyotr Naritsa has been beaten up many times on imaginary or staged pretexts: in 1971, for ‘stealing a fur coat’, he was beaten up in a police station in front of his wife and father. In 1972 he was arrested for 15 days for talking to a foreigner on the street. In 1975 P. M. Naritsa was arrested for hanging a slogan out of the window of his flat on the day of his father’s arrest (CCE 38.11). A month later the case was discontinued.

[10]

CCE 41.10 has already written about the renunciation of Soviet citizenship by Soviet Germans.

According to detailed reports, in the spring of 1976 160 Germans living in Kazakhstan and about the same number in Kirgizia paid a tax of 500 roubles each into a bank in return for renouncing their citizenship and sent a declaration announcing their renunciation to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in their republic, together with the receipts for the tax paid, invitations from West Germany, applications for permission to emigrate, and passports.

The reaction of the authorities was to stop pensions being paid to some old age pensioners and to stop some workers’ wages. Fines began to be imposed on those who had sent in their passports. The authorities are threatening to bring criminal charges against all those who ‘have no passports’.

On 1 June searches were carried out at the homes of David Reimer, Anton BIeile, Kasper Nikolas and Ivan Vitmaier, as well as at Genrikh Reimer’s (CCE 41.10). On the same day Anton Bleile was arrested. It seems he was charged under Article 170-1 (Kazakh SSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code).

On 20 July Lilia Andreyevna Furman (b. 1951) was arrested for active participation in the German emigration movement. She was charged under Article 170-1 of the Kazakh SSR Criminal Code. She was one of those who had ‘sent in’ their passports. [For details of the sentences on her and other arrested Germans see CCE 44.24.]

[11]

A Search at Viktor Nekipelov’s home

On 22 June Viktor Nekipelov (CCE 32.4), who lives in the town of Kameshkovo, Vladimir Region, sent a letter to the Regional Procurator protesting against the unending efforts of the local police to supervise his life (CCE 40.15 [5]), particularly against the continuous summonses for ‘chats’. Nekipelov asked the procurator to explain how long the police could legally interfere in the private life of a man released from imprisonment. On 23 July the Vladimir Regional procurator’s office replied:

‘The Statutes on the Soviet Police lay down that the police forces must carry out educational and prophylactic work with persons who have been sentenced for premeditated crimes. This work is not limited by any concrete time limits.’

Nina Mikhailovna Komarova, wife of Viktor Nekipelov, is continuously subjected to discrimination and harassment at work. At Chemist’s Shop 45 in Kameshkovo, where she works as an analytic chemist, she has often been asked to ‘look for other work’ or ‘go to another town’. The administration was particularly annoyed by Komarova’s lack of participation in the collective life of the shop and in staff meetings, and her refusal to sign socialist undertakings or the Stockholm Appeal. The shop management examined Komarova’s work (in her absence) and issued a severe reprimand, full of minor fault-finding. Komarova was punished for failing to come to work, although she had taken time off at her own expense because her child was ill. On 13 September, at a meeting in the Regional Chemist’s Shop Administration, Komarova’s work was declared unsatisfactory and she was rebuked severely. The main accusation against her in examining her record was ‘sticking to her own personal opinion about everything’ and refusal to carry out ‘her socialist duties’.

On 23 September a search was carried out at the Nekipelovs’ home, on the authority of Procurator Tikhonov of the Moscow city procurator’s office, ‘in connection with case 46012/18-76’. When asked ‘what case is that?’, it was explained that it concerned the Chronicle and anything connected with it.

There were 57 entries in the search record. The following were confiscated: Doctor Zhivago by B. Pasternak, Live not by Lies by Solzhenitsyn. R. Medvedev’s Political Diary, poems by Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Boris Chichibabin and Nekipelov himself (including those for which he had already served 2 years), the Paris address of Leonid Plyushch, and receipts for letters sent abroad.

At the end of the search Nekipelov and his wife protested against the illegal confiscation of books, letters, articles and declarations. They refused to sign the search record.

[12]

RIGA. CCE 41.5 [6] reported on searches carried out in Riga in June and July. One more search has become known, at the home of Aldis Cerins.

Viktor Kalnins, Valdis Zarins, Gunar Freimanis and Aldis Cerins, together with their wives, were summoned for interrogation.

In addition, the former political prisoner Karl Grinert and his wife were summoned for interrogation. Karl Grinert was considered to be the organizer of a literary evening at his home, at which Zarins and Freimanis had read their verses. Those present at this evening were also summoned for interrogations or ‘talks’.

Viktor Kalnins, his wife Irene Celmins, Karl Grinert and his wife Irene Grinert were given a ‘warning’ according to the 25 December 1972 Decree. The text of the ‘warning’ referred to the organization of literary evenings and the harbouring of literature.

Valdis Zarins (b. 1917) got a 7-year sentence in 1965 under Article 65 (Latvian SSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code), for an attempt to send his verses to the West.

Karl Grinert (about 50 years old) was arrested in 1946 for taking part in the partisan movement. He was originally sentenced to be shot. He spent a few months in the death cell, but at this point the decree abolishing the death penalty was issued. Grinert was released in 1971.

Gunar Freimanis (b. 1929) has been in prison twice (CCE 41 was inaccurate in this respect). He got his first sentence, 10 years, at the end of the war, on a charge of participation in the partisan movement, while he was still a minor. In 1954 or 1955 he was released ‘for lack of evidence of a crime’. In 1964 he got a 5-year sentence under Article 65 of the Latvian SSR Criminal Code.

Viktor Kalnins (b. 1937) was arrested at the beginning of 1962. He was tried as one of a large group under Article 59 of the Latvian SSR Criminal Code (= Article 64 of the RSFSR Code). They were charged with ‘attempting forcibly to separate Latvia from the USSR’. Viktor Kalnins got a 10-year sentence. He came out in 1972. His co-defendant Gunars Rode was sentenced to 15 years. At present Rode is in Vladimir Prison (CCE 40.9-1). (In 1962 Procurator-General of the USSR Rudenko objected to the leniency of the sentence passed on the members of the group, but the Supreme Court of the Latvian SSR left the sentence as it was.)

[13]

ABRAMKIN

TUAPSE. On 10 September, on the bank of Blue Creek, a patrol of border guards ‘in search of radio sets’ searched a hut in which Valery Abramkin (CCE 41.13) was living.

An armed soldier was set to guard Abramkin, while friends living with him (including a three-year-old girl) were forbidden to go away anywhere. The border guards took away a typewriter, a tape-recorder and cassettes, books, manuscripts and personal papers, and gave it all to the deputy KGB chief in Tuapse. Bortsov, who was present during the search.

On 13 September V. Abramkin sent a declaration to the procurator of Tuapse, protesting against the actions of the border guards and KGB officials, particularly against the fact that he had been asked to sign a warning about his ‘anti-Soviet activities’. Abramkin writes:

‘In spite of my protests, the manuscripts and books belonging to me were called (without preliminary investigation) ‘politically harmful’ in the record of confiscation. After such a clearly unlawful definition of my books and manuscripts, I was glad to sign another document stating that I had been warned about committing ‘anti-Soviet actions’. It should be noted that keeping and studying any manuscripts or printed matter is not, according to the existing law, the Soviet Constitution and the Covenants on human rights ratified by the USSR Supreme Soviet, etc., subject to any penalty (including criminal prosecution) and does not come within the terms of the unpublished Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on warnings about “antisocial activities”.’

Abramkin also demanded the return of the objects confiscated. Three days later, the tape-recorder was returned to him (without the cassettes), together with the notebooks and books published in the Soviet Union (apart from A Stenographic Record of the Trial of Bukharin). The KGB kept The Gulag Archipelago, works by Daniil Kharms and Zabolotsky, Abramkin’s own manuscripts, and his typewriter.

[14]

LENINGRAD. On 24 September at 10.30 pm Lev Alexandrovich Rudkevich was detained at the Moscow Station in Leningrad, as he was about to board a train from Leningrad to Moscow; he was taken to a police station and searched, without any warrant. Nothing was found on him. He was released and departed safely.

Three hours later, in the same place, Rudkevich’s friend Alexander Georgievich Abramov (CCE 35.10 [7]) was detained by police as he was about to board a train. He turned out not to have any documents with him, he was asked to ‘accompany’ them. In the police department attached to the station, the policemen handed Abramov over to KGB captain A. Yefimov. Before the search began, Abramov heard Yefimov say the following words over the telephone to someone in the next room: ‘Well, so what? We’ll arrange it through the police then, by checking his documents and establishing his identity. We’ll find the witnesses.’ Then Yefimov began to list the contents of the bag he had not as yet searched (?!, Chronicle), When he came to an article by M. Beritashvili, Yefimov asked ‘We don’t know this one, who is he?’

After this, without any warrant, Yefimov searched Abramov’s baggage and confiscated a number of documents. No record was made of the search.

It is possible that the attention paid to Rudkevich and Abramov resulted from the fact that on the day of his departure Rudkevich phoned Tatyana S. Khodorovich in Moscow and told her of his trip.

[15]

ODESSA. The circumstances of Viktor Goncharov’s arrest (CCE 41.5 [4]) were as follows: he was arrested on 15 June at Odessa Airport while trying to buy a ticket to Yakutia on a false student card.

However, Goncharov’s case has aspects which are relevant to the interests of the Chronicle. The suitcase which was mentioned in CCE 41 disappeared in the first days of May, not from Odessa, but from an automatic left-luggage locker in the Kiev Station in Moscow. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that, the day before, Goncharov had put the suitcase there under the eyes of a policeman who had come to expel him from Moscow as an unregistered resident. Besides religious literature, the suitcase contained a few typewritten copies of Solzhenitsyn’s article ‘Live Not by Lies’ and Goncharov’s (real) library ticket.

The suitcase and its contents do not figure in the case evidence, but are constantly brought up in conversations during the investigation. As far as is known, Goncharov has expressed regret at having possessed Solzhenitsyn’s civic writings.

Sergei Kozilo (CCEs 29, 30), at whose home Goncharov stayed while in Moscow, has been dismissed, under KGB pressure, from his job with the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The trial of Goncharov, appointed for 7 September, has been put off, first to 17 September, then to 5 October.

On 15 September an acquaintance of V. Goncharov’s, Irina Nikanorova, a 28-year-old student at Odessa Art College, was subjected to an uninterrupted 16-hour interrogation on the ‘conveyor-belt’ method: four interrogators questioned her in shifts. At the same time Nikanorova was threatened with expulsion from her college and told her parents would lose their jobs, and so on. In the end, Nikanorova wrote the following statement at the dictation of the investigator:

She, Nikanorova, was a religious believer,
there was a ‘group of believers’: she herself, V. Goncharov, P. Reidman and S. Rodentsev;
Goncharov did not produce only religious literature; for example, he had personally given her the Gulag Archipelago to read;
she admitted the antisocial nature of this relationship and of her own actions, promising not to continue them.

The whole text of the statement was headed ‘Repentance’.

On the third day after the interrogation Irina Nikanorova renounced all her evidence in writing, declaring that the interrogation had reduced her to a state in which she would have written anything dictated by the interrogator.

[16]

At the beginning of September Anna Vasilyevna Mikhailenko, librarian at School No. 1 in Odessa, had a long talk with officials of the Odessa and Ivano-Frankovsk KGB administrations. The conversation took place in a room at the ‘Black Sea’ Hotel.

A. Mikhailenko gave her interlocutors details of the activities at the ‘educational’ seminar on the history of Ukrainian art, organized by Vasily Barladeanu (CCE 41.5 [4]), details of where and by whom the classes were organized, of the themes which came up at the seminar (basically an analysis of the work of Ukrainian writer Yury Zhuk, who died in the 1960s). She also gave information about those who took part in the seminar: she mentioned Viktor Goncharov, Anna Viktorovna GOLUMBIEVSKAYA (CCE 34.15), Leonid Tymchuk (CCE 38.5) and the married couple Leonid and Valentina Sery, and explained the various relationships between them and their attitude to Barladyanu. The conversation also covered A. V. Mikhailenko’s acquaintances in Western Ukraine.

A. Mikhailenko later explained that, firstly, there are good people in the KGB as well, who are longing for contacts with dissidents’, secondly, that she in her turn had been able to obtain ‘valuable information’ from them, namely; (1) she had been warned that a microphone had been placed in Golumbievskaya’s flat, (2) she had been told to advise Barladeanu to ‘get married quickly to a Jewess and emigrate’. And thirdly, A. Mikhailenko said her stories were not written down.

A day later, she was summoned again and made to write everything down on paper and sign it.

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