ARMENIAN QUESTIONNAIRE. CONTROL OVER BELIEVERS (TIRASPOL).
ADVICE ON LEAVING THE CAMPS
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[1]
A QUESTIONNAIRE (29 questions)
Given to Shagen Arutyunyan [1] in spring 1978 at the Lefortovo KGB Investigations Prison (Moscow)
Paragraph [Question] 15 is apparently missing.
(The numeration given in the available copy of the Chronicle is preserved here.)
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1. When did Arutyunyan embark on his anti-Soviet activities? When he met Zatikyan and Khachatryan, was he already completely anti-Soviet in his outlook?
2. The formation of the National United Party (NUP). This was not a child’s plaything, but a fully developed anti-Soviet organization.
The organizers were aware that they were founding NUP in order to oppose the Soviet regime [2]; they acted in full knowledge of the fact that they would be prosecuted for their activities. They made attempts to expand the organization and recruit new members.
Stepan Zatikyan had an influence over a group of people. Who exactly were they, and what work did they do? What was Zatikyan’s political allegiance? What did he say about terrorism back in 1968? Who worked with him in publishing and distributing the newspaper Paros? [3]
3. During and after the pre-trial investigation, during the trial and while serving his sentence, Zatikyan made repeated anti-Soviet statements, to which Shagen Arutyunyan was witness.
What exactly were the goals that Stepan Zatikyan set himself? How did he intend to attain them? Which did he attain?
4. Zatikyan’s relationships in the camps with Aikaz Khachatryan, Timofei Ostiikov, Armenian prisoners and Vandakurov.
What was the aim of the tea-breaks organized by the Armenians in camp? What questions did they discuss during these tea-breaks? What did Zatikyan say about terrorist activity? What attitude did others hold towards this?
5. Zatikyan’s release from the camps on completion of his sentence (). Did this change his views? If not, what form did his activities take? Who were his friends?
What was the basis of his relationship with Aikaz Khachatryan? Did they hold the same views about further struggle? Did they differ in their attitude to terrorism? How and from whom did Zatikyan obtain arms and explosives? What was the terrorist organization active at the time? Who belonged to it? What were its goals? What exactly did it do?
6. Of what did the activities of the NUP from 1974 to 1977 consist? How was the organisation structured? Who was its leader? What were its goals?
7. Why did Shagen Arutyunyan change the orientation of his activities, while remaining anti-Soviet in his stance?
(He reduced his contact with Zatikyan, maintained the same level of contact with Khachatryan, was friendly with NUP members Ovik Vasilyan, Tatevosyan, Akondzhyan and others, and at the same time spent a lot of time with Robert Nazaryan, Eduard Arutyunyan and other Helsinki Group members.)
8. Arutyunyan applied to renounce Soviet citizenship at practically the same time as Zatikyan. Exactly what declarations did they make, and to which agencies of the CPSU and Soviet regime did they appeal concerning their renunciations?
Did they send a declaration to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party or to any other bodies? What precisely did their declaration state? What were Stepan Zatikyan’s reasons for renouncing Soviet citizenship? Whither and with what aim did he intend to emigrate from the USSR?
9. In 1976 Shagen Arutyunyan personally worked out a questionnaire for NUP members. What sort of questionnaire was it?
What questions did it ask? What was the motive for compiling these questionnaires? Who kept them? How many questionnaires were completed? Why did Shagen Arutyunyan state that Paruir Airikyan was the 74th to complete the registration questionnaire? Who were the other 73 members of the NUP?
10. When and how was the [Armenian] Helsinki Group formed? What were its goals? Did it aim to combat the Soviet regime from a legal position?
There can be no question of loyalty to the Soviet regime, since all its members held sharply anti-Soviet views, except, perhaps, Samvel Osyan.
What sort of preparatory work was undertaken in founding the Helsinki Group? Arutyunyan maintains that he was only passively involved in it. However, this is not so. He was one of the instigators and was active in founding the Group, although it is true that he tried to act through others; he dragged others on stage, while himself remaining in the wings.
11. What is Shagen Arutyunyan’s relationship with Paruir Airikyan?
What does he know about Paruir’s relationship with Robert Nazaryan? How and why did he attempt to undermine Nazaryan’s trust in Airikyan?
12. Describe the practical activities of the Helsinki Group.
How were its programmatic documents prepared and disseminated? Who prepared which documents? How and where were they distributed? What precautionary measures were taken to prevent the venture from falling through? How were the documents duplicated? Who printed them? Where were they stored?
13. What anti-Soviet literature did Helsinki Group members, including Arutyunyan, possess? Where did they obtain it? Why did they do so? Where did they keep it?
14. When and with what aim did Shagen Arutyunyan travel to Moscow?
What documents did he take with him? From whom did he receive instructions, and what were they? What did he do with the documents?
15. [question missing, see opening comment, above]
16. Did Arutunyan appeal to foreign embassies in Moscow? Did he visit them?
Was he detained in Moscow? If so, by whom, why, and what explanations did he give while detained? What did he tell his friends about his trips to Moscow?
17. What letters did Shagen Arutyunyan receive from Eduard Arutyunyan and for whom were they meant? What was in these letters? What did he do with them?
18. Which Moscow ‘dissidents’ does Arutyunyan know?
How and through whom were they acquainted? What were his relationships with these dissidents?
19. Who advised Shagen Arutyunyan to refrain from joining the [Armenian] Helsinki Group when it was formed? Why did they do so?
How and to whom was the foundation of the Yerevan Helsinki Group announced? Who passed on the announcement? Where and to whom was it passed on? Who made verbal declarations about it? How were the other members of the Group informed about it?
Which of the foreign correspondents in Moscow does Shagen Arutyunyan know? When and with what aim did they become acquainted? What documents and information were passed on to them and by what means?
20. What was Arutyunyan’s aim in coming to Moscow on 30 October 1977?
Who accompanied him? At which press conference did he speak? What did he say in his speech? Who was present?
21. When, from whom and what exactly did Shagen Arutyunyan find out about the arrests of Zatikyan, Stepanyan and Bagdasaryan?
22. When did Arutyunyan meet them? What was the nature of his relationship with Zatikyan?
23. How would Shagen Arutyunyan describe Sakharov, Grigorenko and other Moscow dissidents? What does he know about their activities?
24. What was the nature of Shagen Arutyunyan’s relationship with Yelena Sirotenko?
What were her relations with Armenian dissidents?
25. How could the members of the Yerevan [Armenian] Helsinki Group — Nazaryan, Eduard Arutyunyan, Samvel Osyan, etc. — be described?
Do not make any unsubstantiated claims that they are “devoted to the Soviet regime”. They have repeatedly proven their ‘devotion’ in practice.
26. After being sentenced in 1978 Arutyunyan was held in a special Armenian MVD Investigations Prison. Who were his fellow-prisoners? With whom was he on good terms?
Serzhik. What did he say to Serzhik about the (imminent) 9 May explosions [4] in Yerevan? What was his aim in saying this? What factual information can he now add to this?
What letters did Shagen Arutyunyan intend to pass on via Serzhik, and to whom were they addressed? What did they contain? Why did he renounce this idea? Through which of the prison warders, and to whom, were these letters passed? What did he pay for this?
What did he tell Serzhik about his relationship with Zatikyan, about the explosions and arson in Moscow and his involvement in the Helsinki Group? What did he tell Serzhik about the methods employed to set premises on fire, blow up cars, buildings, etc? What exactly did he say about his friends, and which ones did he describe? To whom did he send Serzhik after his release?
27. After the trial Arutyunyan was kept on the court premises, guarded by policeman Musayev.
What did he say about himself, his friends, the explosions which had occurred in Moscow and his political beliefs?
28. What information about the arrest of Bagdasaryan, Zatikyan and Stepanyan did Shagen Arutyunyan give to foreign correspondents, and with what aim?
29. What attitude does Shagen Arutyunyan now hold towards his views? If the need arises for him to reply to questions not included in this questionnaire, he may do so.
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30. A finished reply must be submitted by Monday 24 April 1978.
Answers should be as correct, precise and, above all, as sincere as possible.
Arutyunyan’s honesty and sincerity will decide his future. If a person acknowledges that his activities have been anti-Soviet and repents of them, there is no need to re-educate him.
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[2]
CLOSER CONTROL OVER SECTS
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Moldavian SSR
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF TIRASPOL CITY SOVIET OF PEOPLE’S DEPUTIES
Report No. 18
DECISION of 6 September 1978
Measures for closer control over the observance of laws on religious cults in the city[5] of Tiraspol
The Executive Committee of the Tiraspol City Soviet of People’s Deputies notes that the Commission monitoring the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults and the public bodies of the town of Dnestrovsk, have carried out specific work concerning the observance of the “Statutes on Religious Associations in the Moldavian SSR”: they have made a study of the situation among religious sects and groups of believers. In cases where the laws on religious cults were being openly violated by believers, measures were taken against them by means of administrative and social pressure.
For infringing paragraph 25 of the “Statute on Religious Associations in the Moldavian SSR” by performing a baptism in the waters of the River Dniester on 9 July 1978, without the consent of the local authorities, I. N. Kolomiichuk, was fined 50 roubles by the Administrative Commission of the City Soviet Executive Committee. (He is a member of the executive of the church’s Council of Twenty [dvadtsatki] in the congregation of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists, AUCECB).
The Commission is constantly engaged in individual work with the leaders of religious associations and with individual members. This work is carried out at the believers’ places of employment.
From time to time, seminars are also arranged, to which inspectors from the City Department of Internal Affairs (OVD) are invited, [1] to study the legislation on religious cults, [2] locate forbidden religious meetings and ban them.
Comrade A. V. Shlyakhin, a lecturer at the Medical Institute and member of the Commission, was of great assistance in this area, as was I. S. Nikitin, a lecturer at the Frunze Agricultural Technical College, and others.
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At the same time, the Executive Committee of the City Soviet of People’s Deputies notes that the religious situation remains complex.
There is a wide network of religious associations in Tiraspol: a church of Old Believers; a congregation of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian-Baptists (legal, AUCECB); a congregation of the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christian-Baptists (schismatics, CCECB); a Pentecostal congregation; a group of Seventh-Day Adventists; and a few individual Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Despite constant surveillance of the activities of religious associations, individual members of the AUCECB (Presbyter I. Ya. Pauls) and the CCECB (Presbyter I. F. Zavertyayev) break the laws on cults, and there are attempts to defy the local authorities (baptizing in the river Dniester).
Over the last few years, a rise in the membership of AUCECB and CCECB congregations has been observed; this is due basically to persons of German nationality who have settled in Tiraspol. People from the nearby villages of Slobodzei district have been christened and baptized, and have been accepted as members of religious congregations. The congregation belonging to the CCECB avoids registration under all kinds of pretexts, and refuses to adopt a loyal stance. This congregation has an anti-social attitude; every year it sends letters containing slanderous fabrications to the highest Party and Soviet authorities.
The increasing activity of religious associations can be attributed above all to weak individual work with believers at their places of employment and residence by enterprise managers, housing committees and officials of administrative and social organizations.
The City Commission to Monitor the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults (Comrade I. A. Andreyev) has not fully ensured the coordination of activities by the city’s industrial centres and social organizations in order to ensure strict observation and implementation of the ‘Statute on Religious Associations in the Moldavian SSR’, which was confirmed by a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR on 19 May 1977.
The Executive Committee of the Tiraspol City Soviet of People’s Deputies has DECIDED:
1. To note that the Commission to Monitor the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults, industrial management and social organizations have insufficiently promoted individual work with believers concerning the strict observance of the legislation on cults.
2. To make it obligatory for the leaders of industry and social organizations (i.e., Comrade A. I. Bolshakov at the Kirov factory; Comrade V. S. Solovyov at the Forty-Year Anniversary of the Komsomol factory; Comrade L. I. Kuklin at the Car Trailer factory; Comrade A. O. Blyumental at the Souvenirs factory; Comrade I. M. Dobrovolsky at the ‘Elektromash’ factory; Comrade V. M. Ryzhy at the ambulance station; and Comrade Ya. I. Sheiko at the ‘Yury Krymov’ Motor Vessel), to work out specific measures advancing individual work with believers, to involve public opinion more widely in this work, and not to permit cases of infringement of citizens’ rights in the course of the work. They are to submit proposed measures by 1 October 1978 to the City Commission to Monitor the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults.
3. The City Commission to Monitor the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults is to make a continuous study of the evangelization carried out by religious associations, not permitting them to influence children and young people, not allowing religious assemblies by unregistered sects and groups, and making full use of administrative and social measure to put pressure on violators of the laws on cults.
The Commission is to hold regular seminars together with local inspectors of the City OVD, the head of the Housing Bureau and chairmen of house and street committees, concerning the study and observance of the laws on religious cults. Once every quarter, an information report on the work done is to be read out at a meeting of the Commission.
4. The City Department of People’s Education (Comrade V. S. Vesnin) is to mobilize the pedagogical collectives of the schools in order to discover religious pupils from religious families in good time, and to carry out active individual work with them and their parents. Proposed measures in this area should be submitted to the City Commission by 1 October 1978.
Visits by schoolteachers to prayer-meetings held by AUCECB and CCECB congregations are considered advisable, to exert a more effective influence on believers and their children.
The City Education Department is to exercise more control over the atheist education of pupils in their lessons, in afterschool groups, in homework and in pre-school children’s institutions,
5. To check up on the fulfilment of these decisions, in the first quarter of 1979 the Executive Committee of the City Soviet is to examine the question of atheist education of pupils in Schools Nos. 4, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 15.
6. The Monitoring Commission is to give practical assistance to factories and educational centres in organizing and carrying out individual work with believers.
7. With the aim of engaging in a more active struggle against believers, the secretary of the Executive Committee (Comrade I. A. Andreyev) is to strengthen the membership of the Commission to Monitor the Observance of the Laws on Religious Cults by including teachers of German who have a knowledge of atheism.
Signed: V. G. Sinev, Chairman of the Executive Committee,
I. A., Andreyev, Secretary of the Executive Committee
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There follows a ‘Plan of Measures to be Taken’, which includes the following points:
1. A seminar is to be arranged, with the participation of representatives of the Tiraspol OVD, to discuss (a) religious organizations and their activities in the city; (b) knowledge of the ’Statutes on Religious Associations in the Moldavian SSR’; (c) the tasks of local inspectors monitoring the observance of legislation on religious cults
[… Q2.]
3. Comrade V. S. Vesnin, head of the City Education Department, is to take the following measures:
(a) concentrate the forces of the schools’ pedagogical collectives on the religious pupils already discovered, and on pupils from religious families, also on the detection of religious parents;
(b) set up a system of effective individual atheist work with pupils and their religious parents;
(c) And out and compile lists of religious parents in the schools;
(d) send two or three teachers every Sunday to prayer-meetings, in order to discover which children attend them, so that they can be stopped, and also to study the sermons. The teachers are to be asked for written information on each pupil attending a prayer-meeting
[… Qs 4-7]
8. The City Department of Internal Affairs (OVD): Comrade V. M. Dobrovolsky is to work out and submit to the Commission measures detailing every religious family, its composition and religious denomination, the number of children and their ages.
A list is to be made of the addresses of house-owners who allow religious assemblies, choir-singing and instruction on their premises. Religious assemblies are not to be permitted in the homes of believers; on each occasion a formal report is to be drawn up concerning such assemblies, and the preachers and house-owners are to be made answerable to the social and administrative authorities. Each month the Monitoring Commission is to be informed in writing of the measures taken.
9. The Tiraspol Sanitary-Epidemiological Centre (Comrade N. P. Andrushchenko) is to constantly check on the sanitary-epidemiological condition of fonts for christening children, the condition of the christening water and the sanitary conditions of the synagogue building.
Prosecution is to follow in all cases where sanitary norms are not observed, and servants and representatives of the religious cult are to be made answerable to the administrative authorities.
[… Qs 10-11]
12. Together with the City Education Department, the Commission is to check the facts concerning religious work with children and young people conducted by the CCECB congregation, such as organized Bible study, learning of religious hymns as a choir, and creation of religious and musical religious schools; distribution of religious and anti-Soviet literature among young people and at places of work; listening to and recording Western religious and anti-Soviet propaganda, playing it at prayer-meetings.
ON CONFIRMATION OF SUCH ACTIVITIES HAVING TAKEN PLACE, THE ORGANIZERS ARE TO BE MADE ANSWERABLE BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITIES AND HELD CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE
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[3]
ON LEAVING THE CAMPS
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INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVICE
of the camp administration to the former prisoner as he leaves the colony.
Comrade …
Today you become a citizen of society with full rights. Before you there opens up a wide range of opportunities for leading an honest working life.
We hope that you have re-examined your basic attitudes to life, and given serious thought to your earlier mistakes. The camp administration has tried in every way to help you recognize your guilt before society, raise your political awareness and general level of education and culture, and acquire specialist training.
We are confident that you will work conscientiously for the good of our beloved Motherland, and will strictly observe Soviet laws and the rules of socialist community life.
Always remember that no matter where you live and work, you are under an obligation to prize your honour as a Soviet citizen.
On the day of your release, we would like to offer you some good advice.
On the way to your place of residence, behave properly, do not consume alcoholic drinks, be firm in your manner and do not start up any casual acquaintanceships.
On arriving at your place of residence, go to the police station immediately. There you will receive your passport, sort out your residence permit and be given assistance in finding a job and a place to live. If you have any difficulties in deciding these matters, approach the executive committee of the local Soviet of workers’ deputies. Under the existing legislation you must be offered a job no later than 15 days after requesting help in finding employment.
If the need arises to clarify any legal questions, you may obtain information at the local legal services bureau.
Strive for knowledge. Take advantage of the opportunities available for improving your career qualifications and general level of education. Cultivate a love for books and art; take up physical training and sports. Be conscientious in the fulfilment of your social responsibilities.
Be independent and honest in your actions, learn to be perceptive about people, judge them not only by their words, but by their deeds also. If earlier your friends were of dubious character, do not reestablish contact with them. Remember that a good friend is also a good counsellor and mentor. He will always warn you against taking a wrong step.
Be a good family man; bring up your children to be worthy builders of communist society. Do not cloud the lives of those close to you with unworthy behaviour. Do not rob them of their joy in life.
Write letters to us to keep us informed about your life.
We wish you success and much true happiness in life!
The Camp Administration
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NOTES
- On Shagen Arutyunyan, see CCE 41.14 [10], CCE 47.4 [4], CCE 47.15 [16], CCE 48.6 and Name Index.
↩︎ - The preferred translation in the Chronicle (see “Introduction“) of the Russian term «Советская власть» is ‘Soviet regime’.
It strikes the editor as more accurate than the alternatives “Soviet authority” used here or the bizarre and unique term “Soviet Power”, commonly used in semi-official translations of the time.
↩︎ - “The Beacon” (Paros) was an underground magazine of the Armenian Independence movement, see CCE 16.4 (“Trials in Yerevan, 1969-1970”).
↩︎ - May ?1978 explosions in Yerevan.
↩︎ - The population of Tiraspol, the third largest city in Moldavia, was 100,500 (1970).
↩︎
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A Chronicle of Current Events 