Notes of a Revolutionary

Amalrik, Andrei. Notes of a Revolutionary.  New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982.

NB: He has a complicated reln. w/ western journalists. Needs them, but thinks they were manipulated.

Intro by Susan Jacoby: "My former husband, then the correspondent of the Washington Post, was among the minority of journalists who were willing to meet with dissenters. Most of the press corps was content to get its "unofficial" news secondhand, from less timid. Andrei Amalrik, who was a reliable source of news about official persecution of other dissenters, was the first--and for many years the only-- Russian dissident to discuss publicly what he considered to be the inadequacy of western news reporting from Moscow." (A, xii-xiii)

Ginzburg asks for help getting in touch w/ the west

" But I never asked him to let me read it, partly so that if an investigator asked me if I had seen it, I couls say I knew nothing about it. I figured the authorities would not stand upon ceremony with either Ginzburg or me. And apparently Ginzburb had the same idea, which might explain why he didn't risk going to see the foreign correspondent. Or perhaps he thought the latter would be frightened if he came to see him. Because in those days, all of us were a little afraid: afraid of the regime; afraid that people who feared the regime would take us for provocateurs; and afraid of provocateurs.

Nonetheless, I agreed to put the correspondent in touch with Ginzburg and thereby took upon myself to a role that I played until the autumn of 1969--a role that involved me, to some extent, in what was later called the Democratic Movement...Ginzburg met with the journalist at our place. Since my wife and I had no curtains for our windows, we came up with a naive conspiratorial strategy just in case someone tried to photograph us from outside: we covered the windows with paintings." (A, 3)

7: met W. through wife's arts

"The Soviet authorities are stern. They don't like girls' panties hanging on cherry trees, Russians going as guests to the homes of Americans, or foreigners buying and selling paintings. And above al, they don't like when foreign correspondents stay in Russia to long: because the longer a correspondent lives there, the better he understands the situation." (A, 9)

20: sets up interviews for Ginzburg's mother

2 generations of dissidents

"The 'generation of 1956' was influenced by de-Stalinization, by disturbances in Poland, and especially by the Hungarian uprising in October 1956. I recall my impatience while waiting for the news from Hungary. If at that time there had exited some organization that asked me to take up arms agasint the regime, I would have agreed without giving it a second thought. But there was no such organization.

The 'generation of 1966' was formed under the influence of the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial of 1966, the Czechoslavak reforms of 1967-68, and (finally) the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The 'generation of 1956' was one of 'dropouts.' I use the word in quotes, because it is the Soviet press's favorite epithet for us. It can, however, also be used without quotes, because in fact we began our protests at such an early afe that we were not allowed to complete our education. Galanskov, Ginzburg, Vladimir Bukovsky, myself, and many others were expelled from universities on several occasions; in some cases, expulsion was either preceded by arrest or followed by it.

By contrast, the 'generation of 1966' consisted of 'establishmen' people. Instead of half-scholars, it included doctors of science; instead of poets who had never published a single line, it included longtime members of the Union of Soviet Writers; instead of "persons with no specific occupations,' it included old Bolsheviks, officers, actors, and artists. For many of them, the years of 1953-1956 had also been decisive. But they still had hopes for improvement; and it was not until the unmistakable regression toward Stalinization in 1965-1966 that their inner dissent was strengthened and their protest provoked." (A, 21)

29: at a trial he met Karel van het Reve-Het Parol University of Leyden, published his books abroad

"Although it was against the law, the witnesses were taken out of teh courtroom after terrifying. even Galanskov's sister was removed. Such things made the atmosphere very tense. On the fourth day, near the courthouse, Larisa Bogoraz and Pavel litinov handed out to correspondents their statement: "To the World Public." That declaration was drafted in strong language. It demanded "condemnation of this shameful trial," "realease of the degendents from armed custody." and "stripping the judge of his judicial powers.

In one leap we had overcome a difficult barrier. We had addressed ourselves to public opinion rather than to the regime; and we had spoken up in the language of free persons, not in that of loyal subjexts, thereby overcoming a centuries-old complex: the idea that no Russian--and least of all, a Soviet-Russian should address apeals to foreigners. ("We are we, and they are they." "Don't wash your dirty linen in public." "It's better to get a blow from your master's club than a piece of bread from a stranger.") That same evening, on the BBC, we heard the statement translated back into Russian. Esenin-Volpin, sitting with the text in his hands, kept repeating: 'Right! That's it! Exactly!' Huddled around the radio, we resembled a painting we had been familiar with since our youth: Behind the Fascist Lines, Members of the Young Guard Listen to Radio Moscow.


The importance of the statement was understood in the West. It was reprinted, fully or in part, in many newspapers, and The Times of London devoted an editorial to it. The flow of statements and appeals that followed it during the next two months raised hopes that a social movement of sorts had surfaced in the USSR and that something would happen at any moment. It was rather like the hopes raised in 1956 by the theory of liberalization known as 'The Thaw.' (A, 31)

36-37: Attempt to hold press conference, KGB discovers it

"No foreign journalist in the USSR can really feel and believe that he is a "noninvolved" chronicler "looking upon both good and evil with indifference" primarily because he himself is an object of manipulation by the Soviet system. Naturally, the authorities realize they cannot manage the foreign press as they do the Soviet media. But to some degree they are able to control the information that foreign correspondents send abroad from Moscow. This accomplished in two ways: by isolating the correspondents and by employing stick-and-carrot policy. (A, 38)"-examples if need be

"The role played by foreign journalists in the USSR as a source of information has been, and still is, crucial. And many journalists, despite all difficulties, have resisted blackmail--a fact confirmed inter alia by the long list of correspondents expelled from Moscow in the past fifteen years...

Lots of thoughts on Western journalists, carrots and sticks-flogging

"We had been sending our declarations and articles to the outside world because that was hte only way we could make them public without censorship. Our aim was to give the world a better idea of the state of affairs in the USSR and to reach the Russian people via Western radio. And in that we succeeded. The number of listeners to foreign radio broadcasts increased several times over. We could not, of course, instruct the Western papers and radio stations how to publish and broadcast our material. And sometimes they wrote and broadcast the opposite of what we wanted people to hear." (A, 52)

59: VOA on Czech invasion
60: brings names of protestors

73: "In that cold spring of 1969 we often met with Anatole Shub of the Washington Post, who tried to convince me that the USSR would soon have to make some changes, however slight, in order to find a common language with the West. But Shub, as an American, had too much faith in common sense. The Soviet system is basically senseless."

74: Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?


84: Western correspondents assumed he was KGB
"They took it for granted that Russians were afraid to socialize with foreigners and that the KGB would send agents to contact them. From this it followed that a Russian whou held no official position and yet was so manifestly willing to meet with them must--or could--be a KGB agent. (A,91)"

91: search of Natalya Gorbanevskaya's house

92: "After Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? was published, I gave my first interviews to American correspondents: to James Clarity of the New York Times and William Cole of CBS...We established good relations with both of them and were invited to their homes for dinner on several occasions. (A, 92)"

"I regarded the interview with William Cole as very important, since it was the first TV interview weith a dissident and millions of people would be able to see an gear me. It was a terrible blow when I learned that the video tape had been confiscated Sheremetovo Airport. (It was shown at my trial as one of the most damning pieces of evidence.) I thought that Cole would be mortally frightened by all this, but he suhhested that we repeat the interview. I agreed, with the proviso that he not try and get the videotape out of the country himself. This time I invited Petr Yakir to take part, and he invite Bukovsky, and a taped talk by Ginzburg was smuggled out of his prison camp. (A, 93)"

93: CBS never shows it, it's in Russian , why people dislike America

"I have never understood the notion that Brezhnev is a "liberal," or what meaning his admirers attach to that word. After each crisis resulting in more power for Brezhnev, I was arrested. I was taken in after he became First Secretary in late 1964, after he prevailed in the crisis of 1970, and after he triumphed over his opponents in 1972-1973 in the matter of detente. Of course, there were many other involved besides me; it's just that each of my arrests was a symptom of increased repression. (A, 97)"

107-108-legality

"I told Kirinkin that in my opinion there was nothing either anti-Soviet  or libelous in my writings, and that I would give no testimony during the investigation." (A, 108)

141: legality issues w/ the trial

142-143: getting statement to wife, it was eventually published in the Chronicle