The Case of “Poiski”, September-October 1980 (58.7-1)

«No 58 : November 1980»

See CCEs 52-57 for pattern of repression, in 1979 and 1980 [1]

See CCEs 51, 52 & 56 for summary-reviews of each issue of Poiski [2]

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(1) The case of Poiski, introduction (58.7-1)

(2) The trial of Victor Sokirko (58.7-2)

(3) The trial of Valery Abramkin (58.8-1)

(4) Abramkin’s prison letters (58.8-2)

(5) The trial of Yury Grimm (58.9)

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The samizdat journal Poiski (Searches) began to appear in 1978.

On the front page of the first two issues were printed the names of the editors: Pyotr Abovin-Egides, Valery Abramkin, Raisa Lert and P. Pryzhov (CCE 51.21 [18]). Succeeding issues bore the names of other editors: Vladimir Gershuni (CCE 51.21 [18]), Yury Grimm and Victor Sokirko (CCE 52.17).

In issue No. 6 Pryzhov’s name has been replaced by Gleb Pavlovsky (CCE 56.28 [13]; ‘Pryzhov’ was his pen name).

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In January 1979 a series of searches was conducted at the homes of several editors and contributors to the journal in connection with Case No. 46012/18-76 (CCE 52.4).

In April of the same year the Moscow City Procuracy opened an investigation into “Case No. 50611/14-79”, the case of the journal Poiski (CCE 53.16). In the months that followed, those involved in the journal were subjected to interrogations, detentions, searches, etc: one of them was even jailed (Grimm, in August 1979); another was interned in a psychiatric hospital (Gershuni, CCE 57).

On 4 December 1979 Valery Abramkin was arrested (CCE 55.2-2). The investigators declared him their ‘hostage’ the following spring (investigator Yu. A. Burtsev had threatened to arrest Abramkin if a sixth issue of the journal appeared). On 23 January 1980 Yury Grimm and Viktor Sokirko were arrested (CCE 56.5). All those arrested were charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).

On 31 December 1979 the sixth, seventh and eighth issues of Poiski appeared in samizdat. Issue No. 8 included a statement that publication would be halted (CCE 56.5). Grimm and Sokirko were arrested after the journal had ceased publication.

In the early summer 1980 a new typewritten journal, Searches and Reflections, began to appear (CCE 57.25 [5 & 6]). The anonymous editors of the new journal wished to stress that they were continuing the work of Poiski, and gave the new journal double numbers, e.g., No. 1 (9), No. 2 (10). Four issues of the journal have so far appeared.

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The investigators define certain articles in Poiski as libellous.

They quote ‘reviews’ written by

  • Professor B. S. Ukraintsev, a Doctor of Philosophy, Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
  • Ukraintsev’s colleagues at the Institute: Professor E. D. Modrzhinskaya, a Doctor of Philosophy, and P. F. Kazin, Candidate of Philosophy;
  • G. A. Trukan, a Doctor of Historical Science and Head of the Source Study Sector at the Academy’s History Institute,
  • O. Rzheshevsky, Doctor of Historical Science at the Academy’s General History Institute, and
  • T. Timofeyev, a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (and Director of the International Workers’ Movement Institute).

Their reviews were submitted to the Moscow City Procuracy in response to a written request from Yu. A. Burtsev, which read:

“Issues of the samizdat journal Poiski are enclosed for the attention of the Director of the Institute … Please evaluate the sociopolitical tendency of the journal’s contents and submit your findings to Moscow City Procuracy for filing in the criminal case materials.“

These ‘findings’, termed ‘reviews’ or ‘conclusions’ by their authors, contain such phrases as ‘politically shameless maniacs’, ‘disgusting slander’ and ‘schizophrenic delusions’. The public were informed of the involvement of a number of Moscow academics in the preparation of charges against the arrested editors of the journal Poiski by Sophia Kalistratova, Raisa Lert and Felix Serebrov, who wrote on 9 September, in a document entitled ‘Information for the Press’ [3]:

“All this recalls the ‘campaigns’, the ‘slatings’ and trials of the 1930s and 1940s, and is evidence of the successful regeneration in the academic world of such ‘scholars’ as Vyshinsky, Lysenko, Pevzner and others like them.

“Let us hope that scholars at home and abroad will judge the spare-time fervour of their above-mentioned colleagues for what it is worth.“

*

On 8 August Burtsev interrogated Oleg Kurgansky (CCE 56.5). Asked whether he knew Grimm, Sokirko and Abramkin, he explained that he knew only Grimm, whom he had met at Shcharansky’s trial.

Grimm never game him a copy of Poiski, nor any other samizdat. He had been unable to help Grimm find a typist for Poiski. Grimm had not encouraged his interest in the Free Inter-Trade Association of Working People, since he was already interested in it himself. He had not seen Grimm’s article on the Olympic Games, but Grimm had told him that he wanted to go to a country cottage while the Games were in progress. Kurgansky again (he had been questioned previously, in February, about this at work) confirmed that he had written an article about his detention of 10 December 1978, and stated that he had circulated it in samizdat himself, without any help from Grimm.

On 11 August Grigory Kreidlin, a literary specialist, received a telephone call from the personnel department of the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, where he works, requesting him to visit the department the following day at 5 pm. His wife received an identical request the same day. On 13 August a search was conducted at their home on orders from Burtsev. During the search Alla Kreidlina became distraught and named the man for whom she had typed a letter in defence of Bakhmin, a letter written by Bakhmin’s former fellow-student at the Moscow Physics and Technology Institute.

***

The Abramkin-Grimm-Sokirko case was not divided into three separate cases until 20 August.

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Sokirko

Victor Sokirko was threatened that his case might be redefined for charges under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code).

In April he was placed in a punishment cell. From the punishment cell he was taken to a hotel, where he had a talk with some economist. In July Sokirko submitted a statement to the investigator in which he said that if his name and writings (he did not accept that they were libellous, but was prepared to admit that they contained errors) were used abroad to harm the country, then he would condemn such use. In a statement to the investigator made in August he renounced his ‘samizdat activities’. On 3 September he signed the following statement:

STATEMENT TO THE PRESS

from Sokirko, Soviet citizen:

It has come to my attention that certain information concerning myself has appeared in the Western media, terming me ‘a victim of the Soviet regime’. In reply to this I must state the following: For many years, out of deep conviction, I was engaged in activities which defamed the Soviet social and political system. Unfortunately, certain of my articles were used by our enemies in the West, causing harm to our country. Now that I recognize the anti-Soviet nature of my activities, I condemn what I did and am prepared to atone for my guilt towards our people by honest labour for the good of our Motherland, I therefore categorically forbid the use of my name and my writings to the detriment of my country or for the purposes of conducting a psychological war against it.

This statement may with my consent be published by the Soviet press, by the Novosti Press Agency and through television.

(This text was the result of several revisions of Sokirko’s July statement). On 4 September Sokirko was released from custody until his trial, after signing a statement that he would not leave Moscow.

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Abramkin

On 4 September Valery Abramkin and his defence counsel Akselbant refused to continue with their examination of his case file, as Abramkin had not been released from custody after nine months in detention.

On 5 September Sophia Kalistratova, Raissa Lert, Yekaterina Gaidamachuk (Abramkin’s wife), Felix Serebrov, Ivan Kovalyov and Vladimir Gershuni sent an Open Letter to the USSR Procurator-General demanding the ‘immediate release of Valery Abramkin’, and pointing out that Abramkin’s detention in prison was ‘not only a violation of the law, but a blatant crime on the part of the officials at Butyrka Prison, see Article 126 (RSFSR Criminal Code: ‘Unlawful deprivation of freedom’).

On the same day investigator Burtsev, with the approval of V. Yu. Smirnov, an Assistant Moscow City Procurator, sent a resolution to legal consultancy office No. 16 (where Akselbant works) concerning Akselbant’s suspension of his examination of Abramkin’s case file.

The resolution stated that the suspension was considered by the investigation ‘as intended to prolong artificially the pre-trial investigation’ and ‘as an effective renunciation of defence counsel’, since ‘his (and Abramkin’s) petition does not constitute sufficient grounds for the suspension of the examination of the case file’. The ‘actual established deadline for Abramkin’s release from custody’ was not 8.20 on 4 September (as stated in the petition) but nine hours 55 minutes later. It says nothing of the reason for Abramkin’s continued detention beyond the deadline, but states that: ‘The Moscow Procuracy has petitioned for the extension of Abramkin’s detention in custody until 4 November 1980’. (In violation of existing regulations, the petition was submitted to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet by Burtsev on 26 August, i.e. not one calendar month but a mere nine days before the termination of the nine-month period. Also, it did not bear the stamp of the USSR Procuracy.)

Burtsev’s resolution was contested by Akselbant, who referred it to the RSFSR Procuracy. On 15 September Akselbant went on holiday and in this connection Yekaterina Gaidamachuk sent a statement to the court requesting a postponement of the trial until his return.

On 1 October, in reply to the open letter of 5 September, Komarov, Deputy Head of the RSFSR Procuracy Investigations Administration, informed ‘Ye. Gaidamachuk and others’ that ‘the necessary measures have been taken against the investigation officials who did not complete the investigation by the required date’.

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INDICTMENT

In the indictments all three editors are charged with preparing and circulating the journal Poiski: Abramkin, issues 1-2 to 7; Grimm and Sokirko, 4-7 (Sokirko was also charged with other offences, see this issue ‘The Trial of Sokirko’ CCE 58.7-2). The eighth issue of the journal is not mentioned at all: evidently the investigation did not have a copy.

The following articles published in the journal were cited as libellous:

  • all articles by Sokirko (signed both ‘Sokirko’ and under his pseudonym ‘K. Burzhuademov’); Abramkin’s article on the trial of Alexander Ginzburg (CCE 50.3) and his interview ‘To the Readers of Poiski’, written jointly with Pyotr Yegides; a note by Yury Grimm ‘It May Still Happen’ about his fifteen-day imprisonment;
  • Raissa Lert’s articles ‘Two Fingers or Two Meanings’ and ‘Late Experience’; all articles by Gleb Pavlovsky and ‘P. Pryzhov’; all articles by Pyotr Yegides (two of which were written jointly with Pinkhos Podrabinek);
  • the article by P. Tamarin, ‘25 Years without Stalin on the Stalinist Path’; republication of the appeal to the arrested participants in the Conference of Factory Officials in Petrograd in 1918; M. Baitalsky’s ‘Religion and the State’; ‘Unpolitical Letters’ by P. Rastin;
  • Adam Kuznetsov’s book The Poverty of the Peoples; ‘Notes on Pessimism’ by Mikhail Gefter; Vsevolod Kuvakin‘s article ‘Social Security’; essays by Grigory Pomerants, ‘Dreams of the Earth’; ‘Whose Land Is It?’ by I. Ponyrev; excerpts from the works of Georgy Vladimov and Vladimir Voinovich; ‘RD-3’ by Gely Snegiryov (the name under which Poiski No. 6 published the notes he wrote prior to his death, see CCE 52.2); ‘An Interview’ by B. Chernykh; Revolt Pimenov’s article on an exhibition of Ilya Glazunov’s work; ‘Fate behind Bars’ by R. O’Connor; the publication of S. Shagin’s appeal ‘Dear Blood Comrades!’; ‘On The Non-Accidental Decembrists’ by V. Repnikov; an Open Letter from the editors of Poiski to the editors of the independent Chinese journal Searches; and publication of the Czech document ‘Charter-77’.

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NOTES

  1. Repressives measures
    January 1979 searches and interrogations (CCE 52.4); March 1979 searches in connection with “Case 46102” in Moscow and Leningrad (CCE 53.16); August 1979 searches (CCE 54.2-1 [3]); December 1979 searches and arrest of Abramkin (CCE 55.2-2); Issue 8 statement, January 1980, and arrests of Grimm and Sokirko (CCE 56.5); May-July 1980 searches in Moscow and Moscow Region (CCE 57.6).
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  2. Summaries and reviews
    Issues of Poiski were summarised in ‘Samizdat Update’: Nos 1-3, December 1978 (CCE 51.21 [18]); Nos 4 & 5, March 1979 (CCE 52.17); Nos 6, 7 & 8, March 1980 (CCE 56.28 [13-15]) plus five articles by Sokirko. Two issues of Searches and Reflections, August 1980 (CCE 57.25 [5 & 6]).
    ↩︎
  3. Stalinist “pseudo-scholars”
    Andrei Vyshinsky (1883-1955) was a notorious Stalinist. Prosecutor during the Moscow show trials in the late 1930s he succeeded Molotov, after the war, as foreign minister.

    An agricultural biologist and charlatan who displaced and destroyed Sergei Vavilov, Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976) regained his Stalin-era prestige and influence for a while under Khrushchev.

    Pevzner ///

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