Hayward, Max, translator. On Trial: The Soviet State versus "Abram Tertz" and "Nikolai Arzhak." New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966.

Intro:

made it to WEst by "undisclosed channels, but is of indubitable authenticity." (1)

on Sinyavsky: "It is true that, like most Russian intellectuals of his generation, he was deeply affected by Khrushchev's revelations at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 about the horrors of the Stalinist past, and reacted with all the inevitable outrage of one who had, albeit with some qualms of intellect and conscience, beleieved. This was a turning point for many younf Russians, who had hitherto tended to excuse the excesses of the Stalin era on the grounds of revolutionary expediency." 4

arrested on Sept. 13, 1965

"For the next two months, numberous anxious inquiries, both public and private, from leading Wester writers and organizations were addressed to Kosygin, Surkov (Secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers) and others. They were met by silence. Only on November 22 did Surkov (Secretary of the Union of Soviet WRiters) and others. They wre met by silence. Only on Novemeber 22 did Surkov admit the arrests at a press conference in Paris, at the same time giving a solemn assurance that 'legality' would be observed. (22)

"Ivestia tried to run a follow-up campaign of 'massive indignation' in response to Eremin's article. but it could produce only three or four rather unconvincing expressions of outrage from an ill assorted collection of 'average citizens.' The classical orchestration was lacking." (25)

"There were several unusual features about it and in one respect it was unprecedented, namelt, that it was the first time in the history of the Soviet Union that writers had been put on trial for what they had written." (26)

"The second unusual  feature was a striking difference in the way the case was reported in the fovernment newspaper Ivestia and the way it was reported in the party newspaper Pravda....The pieces are writeen in the classical style of the Russian satirical feuilleton, speak with heavy sarcasm of the accused, quote their words in order to mock them, and in general assume the guilt of the two men before the court reached its verdict. The defendants are presented as cowwardly felons who squirmed under the withering attack and the iron logic of the prosecution." (27)

More available about illegality of trial on 27

"The third unusual feature of the trial is that the accused did not plead guilty. This evidently took the prosecution by surprise and may partly explain the the very maladroit handling of of the trial, and the gingerly way in which it was reported by Pravda." (28)


"What is tragic about this trial is not only that the two men have been tried and sentenced for heresy, sacrilege and blasphemy, but that the trend toward and improvement in the administration of justice, the frequently expressed desire to do away with 'distortion of justic; as part of Stalin's legacy-- all this has recieved a sever setback. Sinyavsky and Daniel's trial could have been a test case to show that 'socialist legality' had really been established, that the earnest debate among Soviet jurists in recent years about the need to see that due legal procedures wer observed really counted for something." (32)

Article 70: "Agitation or propaganda carried out with the purpose of subverting or weakening the Soviet refime or in order to commit particularly dangerous crimes against the state, the dissemination for the said purposes of slanderous inventions defamatory to the Soviet political and social system as well as the dissemination or production or harboring for the said purposes of literature of similar content, are punishable by imprisonment for a period of from sic months to seven years  and with exile from two to five tears, or without exile, or by exile from two to five years." (42)

"In the novel The Trial Begins, Sinyavsky, under the guise of criticism of the cult of personality, sneers at the Soviet system and the principles of MArxism-Leninism." (45)

Daniel: "Stalin had not been dead all that long. We all remembered well what were called 'violations of socialist legality.' And I saw again all the symptoms: there was again one man who knew everything again one man who knew everything, again one person was being exalted, again one person was dictating his will to agricultural experts, artists, diplomats and writers. WE saw again how one single name appeared on the pages of newspapers and on posters, how the most banal and crude statement of this person was being held up to us as a revelation, as the quinesence of wisdom."  (61)

Daniel: "Even the statutes of the Writers oUnion don't require writers to write about only novle, intelligent people." (68)

Daniel: "I was asked all the time what I wrote my story This is Moscow Speaking. Every time I replied: Because I felt there was a real danger of a resurgence of the cult of personality. To this the answer was always: What is the relevance of the cult of personality, if the story was written in 1960-61? To this I say: It was precisely in these year that a number of events made one feel that the vult of personality was being revived. This was not denied; I was not told. 'You are lying, this is not true'--my words were simply ifnored as though I had never said them." (150)