On 19 March Lev Yakovlevich VOLOKHONSKY (b. 1945), a member of the Council of Representatives of the Free Inter-Trade Association of Working People (FIAWP) [1] was arrested.
He was charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code). His arrest was formally justified by statements by A. Snisarenko, A. Fain and A. Druzhinin that Volokhonsky had circulated “anti-Soviet literature”.
Volokhonsky was also charged with the dissemination of slanderous information in spoken form
“the establishment of an underground organization, FIAWP, the composition and dissemination of FIAWP documents, giving foreign correspondents information about FIAWP, and the composition and dissemination of letters in defence of V. Skvirsky [CCE 53.9]”.
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Leningraders Yu. Galetsky, N. Vilko, Yu. Lutsky, O. Levitan and S. Sokolova, and Muscovite members of the FIAWP Council of Representatives (Valeria Novodvorskaya and Vladimir Skvirsky, who is in custody), and also T. Pletneva, were interrogated in connection with the case against Volokhonsky. The investigators were Grigorovich and V. A. Nosov.
Levitan testified that Volokhonsky had circulated The Gulag Archipelago, but gave no further evidence against him. Vladimir Borisov, Nikolai Nikitin, Natalya Lesnichenko and Yevgeny Nikolayev (all Members of the FIAWP Council of Representatives) were also summoned. None of them came for interrogation.
The case file included:
- evidence by Mark Morozov (CCE 52.4-3, CCE 53.14), according to which Volokhonsky had disseminated, in spoken form, “deliberate fabrications…”;
- evidence from Samoilov, FIAWP Council of Representatives member, who testified that Volokhonsky had composed FIAWP documents and letters in defence of Skvirsky; and
- an unfavourable description of Volokhonsky written by P. Yegides.
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TRIAL
The trial took place in the building of the Leningrad City Court on two days, 8 and 12 June. Volokhonsky’s friends were able to attend.
The judge was Yakovlev; the procurator, Malosh. At the beginning of the session Volokhonsky refused a lawyer and announced that he would conduct his own defence.
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The charge of establishing the FIAWP had been deleted from the indictment; the opinion of the investigation that it was necessary to institute criminal proceedings against Vladimir Borisov, Nikolai Nikitin, Albina Yakoreva, Ludmila Agapova, Valeria Novodvorskaya, Alexander Ivanchenko and others, had been inserted (! this in the text of an indictment, Chronicle).
With the exception of Ivanchenko, all listed were members of the FIAWP Council of Representatives. (Ivanchenko is no longer a member, see CCE 53.29 [1].)
VOLKHONSKY TESTIFIES
Volokhonsky declared that he was a member of the Council of Representatives of FIAWP, an organization with no political aims which defended the rights of working people.
Signing and disseminating FIAWP documents (including the information given to foreign correspondents) did not fall within the scope of Article 190-1, , according to Volokhonsky: these documents were not untruthful, let alone deliberate fabrications.
Volokhonsky said that he was convinced of Skvirsky’s innocence, and therefore wrote a letter in his defence. However, the text he had written was only a rough draft and had not therefore been disseminated by him or anyone else.
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Witnesses Novodvorskaya and Pletneva testified that they knew nothing about Volokhonsky’s participation in writing FIAWP documents and a letter in defence of Skvirsky. Novodvorskaya asserted that Volokhonsky had not collected signatures for the letter or disseminated it. Samoilov, who had given evidence on this matter at the pre-trial investigation, did not appear in court.
Witnesses Levitan, Fain, Snisarenko and Druzhinin were examined in connection with the charge of disseminating “literature of anti-Soviet content”. They all retracted their testimonies given at the pre-trial investigation, where they had alleged that the accused had lent them:
- The Gulag Archipelago;
- a collection of articles by Sakharov entitled In the Fight for Peace and Democracy;
- the journals Possev, Kontinent, Time and Us [Vremya i my] and A Chronicle of Current Events; and
- articles by Korzhavin and Anin.
Snisarenko and Druzhinin declared that they had given false evidence at the pre-trial investigation under pressure from KGB officials who, in the course of seven or eight interrogations, had threatened them with reprisals, or simply prison.
Druzhinin testified that he had borrowed several of the books incriminating Volokhonsky from the home of Natalya Lesnichenko, where the accused was then staying, but that he did this without the knowledge of his hosts. Snisarenko wrote a statement addressed to the USSR Procurator-General in which he described the illegal actions of KGB officials and Investigator Grigorovich. He gave the court a copy of this statement. Levitan explained that he had obtained The Gulag Archipelago not from Volokhonsky, but from Tarakanov, who had emigrated to the West. Fain stated that he had not received any literature from Volokhonsky.
Lesnichenko, who was also called as a witness, maintained that she had never seen the literature incriminating Volokhonsky in his possession.
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A curious document featured at the trial: a joke memorandum on which were drawn a stamp and an inscription in Volokhonsky’s hand (‘KGB: sucks to you!’)
Judge Yakovlev asked what the inscription signified. Volokhonsky answered that it was an incantation against the ‘telephone devil’; if you are having troubles with your phone you have to repeat this phrase three times. In his speech the Procurator declared that the KGB is an organization the employees of which risk their lives to protect our State and the peace of its citizens, and that those who made jokes at the KGB’s expense should be put in prison. However, this ‘document’ was not mentioned in the judgment.
In his defence speech Volokhonsky said that he pleaded not guilty and that the indictment was groundless on all points concerning the composition and dissemination of FIAWP documents and the letter in defence of Skvirsky, and that the dissemination of literature had not been corroborated by the witnesses’ evidence.
All points of the indictment were, however, included in the judgment — except for the dissemination of the letter in defence of Skvirsky and the circulation, in spoken form, of information defaming the political and social system, because the circulation was not systematic. It was also noted that all the witnesses who had refused to corroborate the evidence given to the pre-trial investigation were attempting to lighten Volokhonsky’s burden; Snisarenko had been trying in addition to evade responsibility regarding himself.
Taking into account that this was a first offence and that the accused had a four-month-old dependent child, the court sentenced Volokhonsky to two years’ ordinary-regime camp (the Procurator had asked for 2 ½ years).
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RESPONSES
Immediately after Volokhonsky’s arrest, members of the FIAWP Council of Representatives and friends of the accused wrote several letters in his defence.
On 8 June British, French and Swiss Trades Unions and the International Confederation of Free Trades Unions (ICFTU) sent greetings to the FIAWP in which they expressed support for Volokhonsky. The same organizations sent Brezhnev telegrams protesting against Volokhonsky’s arrest.
After the trial Volokhonsky got a letter out from the ‘Crosses’ [Kresty] Prison in Leningrad:
“I thank all those who have concerned themselves with my fate, and all the trades unions which have come out in my defence. I am turning to you … with an appeal to continue supporting the FIAWP. It is essential to avert new repressions. Victims have already been selected, as was stated plainly at my trial.“
On 15 June the Moscow Helsinki Group wrote in Document 94:
“Persecution for participation in peaceful, non-violent associations, the conviction of Lev Volokhonsky — one of the members of the Free Inter-Professional Association of Working People — these are manifestations of a complete scorn for fundamental human rights …“
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NOTES
VOLKHONSKY
Following his release, Lev Volokhonsky was again arrested in 1982, charged under Article 70 and put on trial in May 1983. He was sentenced to five years in strict-regime camps and four years in exile.
In February 1987 Volokhonsky was among the first batch of political prisoners to be released (Vesti, 1987, 3-1).
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FIAWP
- On the Free Inter-Trade Association of Working People (FIAWP), see CCE 51.19-2 [14].
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