<< No. 43 : 31 December 1976 >>

9 ITEMS

[1]

Letter from Soviet scientists (20 signatures)

“To the scientists of the world”

‘Dear colleagues!

‘By this letter we wish to draw your attention to the tragic fate of the biologist Sergei Kovalyov. We want scientists to have a clear idea of the position that people who dare to protest against tyrannical acts in the Soviet Union find themselves in. In the spirit of their profession scientists try to acquire an adequate knowledge of the world. Therefore, we hope that scientists in particular will be able clearly to understand certain characteristics of the Soviet regime. Such understanding would be of great importance.’

After briefly describing S. A. Kovalyov’s scientific achievements, the authors of the appeal speak of his activities in defence of human rights in the Soviet Union, for which he was in fact sentenced, and declare:

‘Sergei Kovalyov has not committed any crime. In any open society he would be among the most honoured citizens. The Soviet authorities have called Kovalyov a dangerous criminal. His imprisonment means not only deprivation of freedom. The camp authorities are trying to ‘correct’ Kovalyov’s beliefs by means of isolation, hunger and humiliation. This well-known scientist is made to do monotonous, exhausting physical work, his correspondence is limited (two letters a month), and visits from his relatives are restricted (not more than one visit in four months, in actual fact even less). Hunger is also part of the ‘corrective’ measures, so for three-and-a-half years Kovalyov is deprived of the right to receive parcels …

‘We call on scientists to appeal to the Soviet legislative authorities and also to government and Party leaders to ease Sergei Kovalyov’s lot.’

*

[2]

M. Landa, T. Khodorovich, Yu. Orlov, L. Alexeyeva and K. Uspensky

• To the International League for Human Rights
• Amnesty International
• the International Labour Organization
• the International Commission of Jurists
• the PEN Club
• the International Women’s Council

17 December 1976

The authors describe the very difficult position of former political prisoners Nadezhda Svetlichnaya, Ivan Kandyba and Alexander Ginzburg; and the prospects of Kronid Lyubarsky, who will soon be coming out of prison.

Nadiya Svetlichnaya, who was released from a Mordovian camp in May 1976, is not allowed to live, i.e. to register for residence, in Kiev (CCE 42.11 [8]), where she and her son were living until her arrest with her brother Ivan Svetlichny (now in the Perm camps) and his wife Leonida Svetlichnaya. Leonida Svetlichnaya has been fined for allowing Nadiya Svetlichnaya into her home; the police are threatening Leonida with banishment from Kiev.

Ivan Kandyba, released in January 1976, has been placed under surveillance in a village 20 kilometres from Lvov, where his elderly father lives (CCE 42.10). Kandyba, a jurist by profession, is in practice allowed to work only in one place (an electrical repair shop) — he is immediately dismissed from other jobs. He earns 18 to 55 roubles a month. He pays 25 roubles a month for the badly furnished room in which he has to live. On 30 September 1976 the police extended the surveillance order on Kandyba for six months, as he had not ‘embarked on the road to reform’.

Alexander Ginzburg, who was freed from Vladimir Prison in January 1972, is still not allowed to live in Moscow, where his wife and two children live (CCE 42.9 [6] and this issue CCE 43.15 [5]).

On 17 January 1977, after five years of imprisonment, Kronid Lyubarsky will come out of Vladimir Prison. At the end of December Captain Doinikov, the political-educational instructor at Vladimir prison, told Lyubarsky’s wife Galina Salova that her husband would probably not be allowed to live in Moscow Region (i.e. at home) after his release. He insistently pressed Salova to influence her husband to express ‘repentance’, On 15 December 1976 Salova sent a statement to the Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs asking him to avert the unlawful extension of punishment being prepared for her husband.

*

[3]

Andrei Sakharov

‘To the Polish Workers’ Defence Committee’ (20 November 1976)

‘I support the initiative of members of the Polish intelligentsia, headed by Andrzejwski, in founding the committee to defend workers against repression by the authorities.

‘In our country, as in Poland, there are many problems affecting the widest sections of the population, including the workers. The fight for workers’ rights is undoubtedly an important part of the general democratic movement for human rights. We in the USSR understand this clearly, although at present I do not know of any concrete actions which would be compared to the activity of the Polish Committee in extent and effectiveness.

‘We know how important non-conformism and human solidarity are in the conditions of a totalitarian society, and how difficult.

‘I am full of admiration for the courage of our friends in Poland, who have demonstrated the solidarity of the intelligentsia and the workers in a real and important way.

‘I hope that in time ways will be found to achieve effective cooperation in the struggle for human rights in Poland, the USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe.’

*

[4]

Appeal from 34 Germans, living in Lithuania:

To: The USSR Human Rights Committee

Copies to:

• The International League for Human Rights and
• the Helsinki Group

19 November 1976

The appeal states that when the Germans first came to Lithuania from Kazakhstan and Central Asia, they were well received. They were helped to find work and accommodation. But later the local authorities began to persecute them, as a reaction to the fact that many of them wanted to emigrate to Germany. In this, officials were following instructions from above or were subject to pressure from the KGB.

The authors want to be allowed either to emigrate or to live a normal life in the USSR.

*

GRIGORENKO (5-7)

[5]

Pyotr Grigorenko

‘To the editors of the newspaper Izvestiya‘ (21 December 1976)

‘Is this just a chance error — or … ?

‘Yesterday a telegram I had written in Ukrainian, in Russian transcription, was not accepted at the post office The receptionist told me that she could accept telegrams to Mordovia, where the telegram was addressed, only in the Russian or Mordovian languages …

‘How can it be that telegrams can be sent to any country in the world in Danish, Norwegian or Finnish, even in dialects, if the text is written in the Latin alphabet, but the sons and daughters of a nation of many millions, the citizens of a State which is a member of the UN, cannot freely use their native language within the borders of the Soviet Union? …

‘I hope that Izvestiya will answer my doubts by publishing this letter and a detailed reply to it. If your paper does not wish to reply… well, then your silence will also be a quite convincing reply, which I shall try to publicize as widely as possible.’

*

[6]

Pyotr Grigorenko

‘Statement’ (2-3 December 1976)

‘Today, 2 December, I was sent a notice from the KGB summoning me ‘for a talk’ with Prytkov (telephone number 202-30-71). I did not obey the summons for the following reasons:

‘(1) My family and I have been subjected to unlawful repression for 15 years. The KGB is to blame for this. The violations of the law in my case have not been corrected. For example, I am still deprived of my pension, which I earned and which is guaranteed by law. Why should I visit an organization which is capable only of unlawful actions?

‘(2) The summons ‘for a talk’ is itself unlawful. People should only be summoned on the grounds outlined in the Code of Criminal Procedure, I cannot accept an illegal invitation.

‘(3) Experience shows that such invitations can be dangerous. Pyotr Starchik, for example, was summoned ‘for a talk’. He entered the room. The door closed. His family remained outside the closed door, while Starchik was taken through another door to an ambulance and sent to a psychiatric hospital.

‘I do not want to play a part in any such act of violence.

Signed: Pyotr Grigorenko 2 December 1976

‘On 3 December I received a second summons — to come and see the same Prytkov at 3 pm ‘for a talk’. I did not go, for the same reasons.

Signed: Pyotr Grigorenko 3 December 1976

*

[7]

Pyotr Grigorenko

‘Statement to the USSR Minister of Communications’.

Copy to: Professor Yu. Orlov, leader of the Helsinki Group (7 December 1976).

After P. G. Grigorenko received summonses from the KGB (see above), his son tried constantly for two days, 4 and 5 December, to phone him from Munich.

After one or two words the familiar click would be heard and the telephone would go dead.

The statement describes the conversations Z. M. Grigorenko and P. G. Grigorenko had with telephone operators who tried to persuade them that they themselves had put down the receiver or that there was something wrong with their telephone (which continued to work beautifully all this time when connecting them with their friends in Moscow).

‘… At this point the telephone operator, undoubtedly by chance, revealed the real reason for what had happened: “Well then, the phone you share the line with must be interfering with yours!” Yes, of course, that was the point. But it was not the phone of another subscriber, as we do not share a telephone line with anyone, it was a clandestine bugging apparatus, which has a similar effect on the line to that of a shared line.

‘Of course, we had not doubted that we were already being bugged. As the head of Moscow telephone communications is officially in duty bound to disconnect telephones if they are used to carry on conversations “contrary to State interests”, then he must also have the authority to bug and record telephone conversations …

‘In connection with the above, I turn to you with the following request: if you are not in a position to stop unlawful bugging on city telephone lines and subscribers’ networks, if it is impossible for you to oppose the transformation of communications throughout the country into a continuous Watergate, then at least try to ensure that only those who consider it their official duty should take part, not anyone else. The head of communications should be concerned only with technology and the condition of his own communications network, not with interfering in the affairs of his subscribers. Then he would probably find the time to make the secret listeners work quietly and unnoticeably and refrain from hooligan-like behaviour on the telephone lines.’

P. G. Grigorenko compares the facts of the situation with the ‘proud promises’ the government made at Helsinki ‘to improve the exchange of information’.

*

VOINOVICH (8-9)

[8]

Vladimir Voinovich

‘To the USSR Minister of Communications’ (5 pages, 12 October 1976)

Top Secret!

To Comrade N. V. Talyzin, USSR Minister of Communications.

‘Dear Nikolai Vladimirovich!

‘I must bring to your attention, with the deepest distress, the fact that an enemy of international detente is concealed in the branch of the national economy headed by yourself: he has seized the responsible post of head of the Moscow city telephone network.

‘This is how I have managed to expose him.

‘On 20 September this year, having decided to use the services provided to its subscribers by the telephone network, I rang up my personal friend, the poet Naum Korzhavin, in the town of Boston (USA) and had a conversation with him …

‘Alas, the triumph of detente did not last for long.

‘The next morning, when I lifted the telephone receiver, I was mortified to discover that it was as silent as the grave …

The telephone repairs office informed the author that telephone number 151-28-53 had been disconnected ‘because of hooliganism’, then ‘because the subscription had not been paid’, and later ‘on instructions from above’.

‘‘What do you mean “from above’’?’

‘You know yourself what it means.’

‘It was with extraordinary difficulty that I in fact managed to find out that my telephone had been disconnected on the orders of Viktor Fadeyevich Vasilev, head of the Moscow telephone network. But why?

‘As regards not paying the subscription, that was just a lie …

‘I had not said anything hooligan-like to the poet Korzhavin. You can ring him and check this, if, of course, you’re not afraid to find your phone falling silent afterwards … Perhaps talking to another country is in itself considered to be hooliganism? Then why provide such hooligan-like services to subscribers? …

‘The fact that your subordinate, Vasilev, eavesdrops on other people’s conversations, lies, forces others to lie, and deprives people of the opportunity of communicating with each other, is itself the worst kind of hooliganism …

‘In disconnecting my telephone, Vasilev not only brings shame on himself as being a hooligan but tries to sow doubts concerning the sincerity of the Soviet Union’s efforts to develop the process of detente, and places Comrade Brezhnev himself in an awkward situation.

‘It is not for me to tell you, Nikolai Vladimirovich, that the enemies of detente in the world are still many. They have found themselves a worthy helper in our country! … After seizing the telephone network, the enemies of detente could go even further. What if they also take over the post-office, the telegraph-office, the radio and television, and then …? You yourself know what happens in such cases, as your telephone operators would say.

‘I beg you to save our country from such unpleasant consequences by immediately relieving Vasilev of his present post and instructing the new head of Moscow City Telephone Communications to re-connect my telephone.

‘Please accept my deepest and most sincere respects,

Signed: Vladimir Voinovich

*

[9]

Vladimir Voinovich

‘To the General Secretary of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts’ (10 December 1976)

Dear Mr Schumann!

Having accepted with gratitude an invitation from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, which has elected me a corresponding member, I had intended to be in Munich on 1 December 1976 to give a lecture on humour in Russian literature.

‘However, the humour lay in the fact that I could not find any official department in the Soviet Union which was able to give me permission to make such a journey …

‘Well, what can I say? …To tell you the truth, I was not very hopeful of success in any case.

‘Once again, I thank you and all the members of the Academy for your invitation, but I am not to blame for the fact that their efforts proved useless.

‘With deepest respects,

Yours,

Signed: Vladimir Voinovich

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