<< No. 43 : 31 December 1976 >>

8 ENTRIES

[1]

IGOR SHAFAREVICH

In the autumn 1975 Moscow University refused to renew its contract with Professor L R. Shafarevich after he had been giving lectures at the university for 30 years.

Igor Rostislavovich SHAFAREVICH is a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, one of the most eminent Soviet mathematicians, the author of a series of classic works on algebraic geometry. Since 1971 he has been a member of the Committee of Human Rights. He was one of the authors and compilers of the famous anthology From Under the Rubble, which was published at the end of 1974 (CCE 34.20-2).

This autumn A. N. Tyurin, a Doctor of Physics and Mathematics and a student of Shafarevich, was similarly dismissed from his post as a lecturer at Moscow University. Back in the spring, when the faculty noticed that Shafarevich was attending Tyurin’s seminar, they wanted to put an end to the seminar at once. However, on hearing that in that case Shafarevich would publicize the incident, they put oft doing anything about it — until September.

This is what Shafarevich has to say on the matter:

“The dismissal of Tyurin and myself from the university does not mean that either of us has been wholly deprived of his income — the university was not our basic place of work. But it has meant that our contacts with students have been broken and I fear that in future it will mean that the tradition we have worked on in our field (algebraic geometry) will die out, and that the school of science I have devoted the greater part of my life to founding will be destroyed.

“This is not the first time I have been dismissed from the university. I was sacked once at the end of the Stalin epoch and was only able to return when Academician I. G. Petrovsky became Rector. To the end of his life I. G. Petrovsky’s support gave me the opportunity of lecturing at the University. I remember the remarkable conversation I had with him a few months before his death:

“‘They’re putting pressure on me to dismiss you’ — Petrovsky told me — ‘but I’m cunning, I procrastinate. I say it’s not convenient in the middle of term, it’ll make a bad impression on the students. And at the end of term they themselves forget about it. It’s been going on like this for a few years now.’

“I never did get to know who the mysterious ‘they’ were, whom Petrovsky was forced to be so cunning with (after all, he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, i.e. according to the Constitution, he was one of the State leaders!)”

*

[2]

On 2 December a closed Party meeting at the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy discussed the case of Professor A. A. Zinoviev, a senior research officer at the institute (CCE 42.9 [14]). Zinoviev’s book The Yawning Heights, published by the Swiss house ‘L’Age d’Homme’ in September 1976, was defined as an anti-Soviet lampoon.

The meeting, which took place in the presence of Pilipenko’ deputy head of the science department of the CPSU Central Committee, decided to expel Zinoviev from the Party, to advise the academic authorities to dismiss him, and to make representations to the Higher Degrees Commission to deprive him of his doctor’s degree and his title of professor. The decision to sack him and the representations were carried out on the same day through the Academic Council, Zinoviev himself was not present either at the Party meeting or that of the Academic Council.

On 3 December the decree announcing his dismissal was put up on the notice board before the beginning of the working day, but was taken down 10 minutes later.

On 5 December Zinoviev spoke of his dismissal at a press conference he had called. He told the journalists that none of those who took part in the meeting had read his book.

It later became clear that the decree put up on 3 December had been annulled, as the meeting of the Academic Council had infringed some kind of regulations. On 23 December the Academic Council re-examined his case and decided to make representations to the Higher Degrees Commission to deprive him of his degree and title. Zinoviev has not yet been dismissed.

*

[3]

Problems of Linguistics

IGOR MELCHUK & others

(continued from CCE 40.13)

In the Progress publishing house T. Langedun’s book An Introduction to the Theory of Transformational Grammar (over 20 printer’s sheets) was abandoned at the printing stage, after being proof-read, on the recommendation of academic adviser Professor N. S. Chemodanov, Doctor of Philology, because it had been translated by Igor Alexandrovich MELCHUK.

On the recommendation of the same Chemodanov, the anthology of translated materials New Research in Linguistics, volume 8 (over 30 printer’s sheets), was also abandoned at the printing stage after proof-reading, because one of its editors was I. A. Melchuk and the introductory article and notes on the articles contained many references to Melchuk; in addition, the author of the introductory article, Yu. D. Apresyan, the translators and the second editor N. V. Pertsov had refused to remove these references.

Immediately after I. A. Melchuk failed to be reappointed as senior researcher at the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Linguistics on 25 March 1976, S. Ya. Fokin, a departmental head at the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, refused to let his institute publish the officially announced Combinational Dictionary of the Russian Language (50 printer’s sheets), one of whose editors was Melchuk. More than 12,000 orders had already been received for the Dictionary.

The publication of the annotated bibliography Automatic Translation 1964-1970 (over 50 printer’s sheets), which Melchuk had helped to compile and which had already reached the page-proof stage, has been put off for a year, R. R. Mdivani (Publishing House of the Research Institute of the Social Sciences Library) was responsible for the publication of this book.

About twenty articles by I. A. Melchuk, Yu. D. Apresyan, A. K, Zholkovsky, L. N. Iordanskaya, N. V. Pertsov and other authors, which had been approved and even type-set, have also been cancelled because of their many references to Melchuk’s work (the authors had refused to remove these references). The articles were cancelled on the orders of F. P. Filin, director of the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of the Russian Language and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences; of V. N. Yartseva, director of the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Linguistics and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences; and of Professor G. V. Kolshansky, pro-rector for research work at the M, Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Research Institute for Language Teaching and a Doctor of Philology.

*

[4]

KILOV & BAITMAN

Khaim Israilevich KILOV and Mark Movshovich BAITMAN, a Candidate of Physics and Mathematics, have been expelled from the Computer Centre at the Latvian University.

Kilov, an experienced systems programmer and the author of 15 works, did not pass reassessment tests for his post of senior engineer. At a meeting of the assessment commission on 12 October, A. Ja. Liepins (now secretary of the Centre’s Party bureau) said:

‘Kilov belongs to that small number of people in the Computer Centre who are not only unsuited to their present positions but unworthy of holding any job at all because of their moral and political qualities.’

Baitman was warned by the authorities at the Centre that he too would not be reappointed as a senior researcher (in May 1977). After this he handed in his resignation.

Kilov and Baitman were called as witnesses in the samizdat case of Ladyzhensky and Korovin in 1974 (CCE 34.3). In December 1974 both of them and their wives were given ‘warnings’ according to the Decree of 25 December 1972. (In all, about 20 people in Riga were given ‘warnings’ in connection with that trial). Immediately after the trial Kilov was forbidden to lecture to students and even to review their diploma work; also to visit international conferences and exhibitions.

*

[5]

LEVIN & GORDEYEV

On 28 October 1976 Kuznetsov, an official of the Leningrad KGB, gave a lecture on the ideological struggle in its contemporary phase to the Party and trade union activists of the Leningrad University faculty of mathematics and mechanics. In his lecture he spoke particularly about two faculty members; senior engineer Roman Gordeyev, Cand.Sc. (Physics and Mathematics), and senior laboratory worker S. Levin.

Kuznetsov ‘accused’ Gordeyev of the following: being acquainted with some American lady literary critic who was studying the work of the ‘harmful’ writer Remizov; he also knew a Jew who was trying to emigrate to Israel; he had links with circles close to Revolt Pimenov; he was acquainted with a leaflet put out by American lawyers (?), which described how to behave during interrogation; he read ‘pernicious’ literature; and finally, he had a portrait of Solzhenitsyn hanging in his home. (In March 1976 the same Kuznetsov had ‘talked’ to Gordeyev at his home and confiscated samizdat literature from him, CCE 40.15 [9]).

On Levin the lecturer reported that he had been a witness in a criminal case and had not told the investigator all he knew, and also that the Chronicle had published the decision of the commission which had examined the question of Levin’s reappointment (CCE 37.9 [4]).

*

At the beginning of November Levin and Gordeyev handed statements to the trade union committee, asking it to put an end to the defamatory rumours about them being spread by the KGB lecturer. They pointed out that after the lecture, which had been secretly organized for a narrow circle of officials, they were being referred to as ‘anti-Soviets’ and ‘criminals who were good at side-stepping the law’.

In his statement Gordeyev also writes that the lecture was a clear attempt to influence the committee’s decision on allotting him a flat. (Gordeyev lives with his wife and two children in a room of 12 square metres; Gordeyev’s behaviour was first linked with the allocation of a flat to him by KGB speakers in May 1975).

Levin asks the committee to bring to the attention of the union organization the fact that:

“(1) the case of Davydov and Petrov, in which he had been called as a witness, was not a criminal case in the commonly-accepted meaning of the word, and during interrogation he had behaved in accordance with his conscience and strictly according to Soviet laws;

“(2) ‘the Chronicle … is by no means an anti-Soviet publication. Its aims correspond to international documents on human rights signed by the Soviet government, and the activity of its publishers represents the exercise of the freedom of the press proclaimed in the Constitution of the USSR.”

*

[6]

VALERY ABRAMKIN

On 18 October 1976 Valery Abramkin was dismissed from his job ‘at his own request’.

In April KGB officials had already warned Abramkin that because he had participated in the ‘Sunday concerts’ (CCE 41.13, CCE 42.9 [16]) he would be sacked and would not be able to work in his specialized field (Abramkin is a chemical engineer). In August a two-day absence from work (to attend the funeral of a relative), which Abramkin had agreed in advance, was described as absenteeism and he began to receive demands for his resignation.

After a holiday during which he was subjected to a search (CCE 42.3), the pressure was increased. Abramkin was accused of another violation of the regulations, committed a few months before, and there were attempts to persuade the head of his laboratory (through the security section) to write a request for his dismissal. The head of the laboratory refused, as Abramkin was a valued colleague and his work had been singled out for praise more than once.

On 15 October the personnel department told Abramkin:

“If you don’t write out your resignation at once you’ll be sacked anyway, but your dismissal will be according to an article of the Labour Law Code after a heading by a special court” (a closed legal body which investigates cases involving employees of high security institutions).

Abramkin replied that in the conditions created by the personnel department and the KGB he could not work normally in any case, but that his moral duty was to pass on the research work he had begun to his colleagues, and this would take 2 or 3 months.

‘We’re not interested in these details,’ said the head of the personnel department, ‘You must be dismissed immediately.’

*

On 18 October Abramkin was summoned by the laboratory activists.

‘You must understand that the interests of the laboratory, the department and the institute, as well as your own interests, demand that you should leave “at your own request”.’

‘If the work regulations have indeed been seriously infringed,’ said Abramkin, ‘I should like the question of my dismissal to be decided by a court.’

‘You’re wrong if you think that just anyone will be allowed into a special hearing,’ said S. M. Karpacheva, the head of department. ‘No one will be allowed into the special hearing and they can do anything they want to you there, …’

‘In that case,’ declared Abramkin, ‘I find it impossible to leave my work “at my own request’’.’

‘The head of the laboratory, your superior, will get into trouble because of the collapse of his moral-educational work.’

After this Abramkin wrote out his resignation and was dismissed the same day.

On 20 October, when Abramkin came to collect his work book, he was asked to go to the security section. There someone was waiting for him, who introduced himself as KGB official Roshchin. T have been instructed,’ he said, ‘to return your typewriter and some of the objects confiscated from you.’ Roshchin also said that the authorities did not intend to prosecute Abramkin, hoping that his ‘good sense’ would lead him to stop the ‘Sunday concerts’ and renounce plans to issue a ‘Sunday’ journal. Roshchin gave him to understand that the KGB considered Abramkin to be the organizer of both. Abramkin replied that he saw nothing illegal in these activities.

*

On 12 December Abramkin received an answer from the KGB to the statement he had written to the procurator of Tuapse.

‘In answer to your statement of 13 September 1976, we inform you that the search of your belongings on 10 September 1976 was carried out in accordance with the Statutes on the Security of USSR State Borders, which give border guards the right to take such action. No violations of socialist legality were committed in the course of the search. The objects and documents confiscated during the search have been returned to you, with the exception of the literature and tape-recordings of politically harmful and slanderous songs, as well as books which have been withdrawn from circulation.’

Kulikov, head of the sub-section of the administration for Krasnodar Region of the KGB (USSR Council of Ministers).

Abramkin was not given back the Court Report on the case of the anti-Soviet ‘Right-Trotskyist’ bloc, investigated by the Military Tribunal of the USSR Supreme Court on 2-13 March 1938: the case against N. I. Bukharin, A. I. Rykov, G. G. Yagoda and others (USSR People’s Commissariat of Justice Publishing House, Moscow, 1938); nor was the Gulag Archipelago returned.

*

[7]

VLADIMIR SIRENKO

In September (or October) 1976 Vladimir Sirenko (CCE 8.6) — a resident of Dneprodzerzhinsk — was summoned to KGB headquarters and then taken to Overmeek, procurator of Dnepropetrovsk Region.

Sirenko was threatened with prison and told to sign a ‘Warning’. He was accused of sending his verses (by post) to the Ukrainian cultural societies of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and of associating with persons disapproved of by the authorities.

Sirenko is a journalist by training; he writes poetry and prose and has published a few collections of Russian verse. Since 1964 he has mainly been writing in Ukrainian. In recent years he has not been published. He was expelled from the Party and from the editorial board of a factory newspaper. For eight months he was unemployed, then he obtained short-term unspecialized work.

*

[8]

ALEXEI GERMANOV

On 29 November two KGB officials talked to Alexei Germanov, Malva Landa’s son who is a physical education instructor at Moscow University.

The head of the faculty had summoned him and it was in his study that the talk took place. It was explained to Germanov that his mother was engaged in hostile activities and took part in the illegal ‘Helsinki Group’ (which alleged that the Helsinki Agreements were being violated in the USSR), that she received presents from abroad and that money was being sent to political prisoners through her, Germanov made it clear that he had been living apart from his mother for a long time, and that he had different interests; he knew only that his mother’s home had been searched a number of times. In spite of this, he was asked to influence his mother and persuade her to end her ‘activities’, and given to understand that his employers might not wish to keep him in his job if they got to know what she was doing. Germanov was also reminded that his wife was preparing to defend her doctoral dissertation.

A further meeting was arranged for 6 December. This conversation was conducted by the same two persons, this time at KGB headquarters (on 16 Dzerzhinskaya Street). Germanov told them that he had informed his mother of what had been said at the previous conversation, but that he understood nothing about it, could do nothing about it, and it was not his business anyway.

*

On 30 November M. Landa issued a statement, describing all this and outlining her own attitude to what had happened: ‘They are trying to turn my son into a hostage — in order to force me to behave in a way that suits the USSR State Security.’

On 2 December the Helsinki Group published a special report which stated:

‘The organs of the KGB, not having any lawful basis for interfering in the activities of the Group to Assist the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR, are resorting to unlawful methods of influencing its members, particularly by means of blackmail and intimidation.’

===================================