Over five years until its demise the Chronicle recorded the release of one hundred of the 275 prisoners and exiles named in the August 1977 Relief Fund List (CCE 46.23-2). A total of 66 were freed in 1978 and 1979 alone. Close examination reveals just how arbitrary this process was.

The Chronicle also noted the release of others who, as the compilers cautioned, might not have been included in the August 1977 list (or had since been convicted): see “Releases”, December 1980 (CCE 51.9-2).

Compiling and retaining information about political prisoners was regarded as a crime in the USSR. Lists of addresses of political prisoners and their families were among items taken during a search of Andrei Tverdokhlebov’s apartment in 1974 (CCE 34.7); a card index was confiscated from Ginzburg during a search in early 1977 (CCE 44.2-1), and similar details were taken from others.

From 1978 onwards Kronid Lyubarsky continued to expand, update and publish such a list each year (he and his wife left the USSR in October 1977).

Yury Lytvyn (1934-1984)

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Subsequent reports indicate the scale and nature of omissions from the 1977 list.

The Baptists regularly published a bulletin for the relatives of such captives. In September 1979, for instance, they knew that 39 Baptists were imprisoned for their beliefs and activities (CCE 54.19): yet only five prisoners and exiles of all denominations are to be found in this list (including Georgy Vins).

Some 15 imprisoned or exiled for offences under Article 190 are included here. None were held in the political camps of Perm or Mordovia, and the compilers admitted their shortcoming in this area: “there are many gaps in our information about those sentenced under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code who are … held in ordinary camps.” Chronicle reports of trials suggest that roughly half of those prosecuted for their political activities were charged under this article.

Ten years later a similar distribution was revealed when KGB chief Chebrikov reported (1 February 1987, 183-Ch) the numbers then held for political offences: those convicted under Article 190-1 totalled 119; there were 114 convicted under Article 70; and 55 were serving terms of exile for one or other offence. Furthermore, he added, 96 were currently being held in psychiatric hospitals (none so confined were recorded in the 1977 list).

The Relief Fund list included other categories not mentioned in the KGB chairman’s report. There were those ostensibly convicted for criminal offences. Over 70 were guilty of “betraying the Motherland” (Article 64), which in some cases meant leaving the USSR without permission. Others were involved (or accused of involvement) in Ukrainian or Lithuanian opposition to the Soviet regime: they made up most of the “Twenty-Fivers”.

Arrests and convictions did not stop, of course, in 1977. When releases began under Gorbachev in February 1987 the early lists confirmed by Lyubarsky contained those convicted (mostly under Article 70) in 1983-1986, a few years or in some cases months earlier: see USSR News Update, 1987 3-1.

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In the majority of cases the list indicates the year or even the date when a prisoner or exile was due for release. This was not observed in practice. In 1977-1980 this was respected in barely half the cases and after that, even fewer.

All but three of those convicted under Article 190 (maximum sentence three years) were released on time; half of the Twenty-Fivers due to regain their freedom after serving 25 or, in six cases, even more years of imprisonment were set free — but only one of the four among them aged 70 and more. A notable case was Vasyl Pidhorodetsky, released after 30 years.

Those released from the “small zone” of the prisons and camps back into the “large zone” of the Soviet Union were always at risk of re-arrest if they resumed their defamatory (190-1) or anti-Soviet (70) activities; others, e.g. Chornovil and Horbal, faced “criminal” charges. Over the following years the Chronicle and USSR News Update reported that 15 of those in the 1977 list were again prosecuted and faced yet more severe terms of imprisonment: notable among these repeaters were Paruir Airikyan, Josif Begun, Viacheslav Chornovil, Mustafa Dzhemilev, Nikolai Gorbal (Horbal), Malva Landa, and Anatoly Marchenko.

Only those who left the country escaped such ongoing persecution (CCE 53.1). Five formed part of the April 1979 exchange: Vins, Moroz, Ginzburg, Kuznetsov and Dymshits.

Six “aeroplane men” (CCE 17.6), nearing the end of their term of imprisonment were released early (Altman, Butman, Penson, Khnokh and Vulf Zalmanson in 1979; Mendelevich in 1981) and left the USSR. The fate of their rearrested co-defendant Alexei Murzhenko illustrates this distinction.

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The brutality of the system is most glaringly exposed by the treatment of those in the 1977 List’s carefully restricted category of 23 prisoners suffering from a “serious health condition”.

Seven were released but only one (Burbulis) was given his freedom significantly earlier than his sentence was due to end. Three released on time — Yury Litvin, Valery Marchenko and Vasyl Stus — were again put on trial, and ultimately died in the camps.

JC, May 2024

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