Uncensored Russia Analysis

            Peter Reddaway’s Uncensored Russia: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union[1], is a compilation of The Chronicle of Current Events, a dissident underground newspaper published in the Soviet Union. Reddaway translated and published the first twenty-one issues of The Chronicle, distributed in the USSR between in 1968 and 1971. Rather than print whole issues, Reddaway sorted segments of each issue into various topics. For example, there are sections devoted to the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel and the Czech Invasion.

            Uncensored Russia, and The Chronicle, is the core of my thesis, so this document is obviously incredibly important to where I’m going. I’ve decided to focus in certain sections of it. It’s too big of a source to try to tackle the whole thing well.

I’m going to look closely at the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, two Soviet writers sent to prison camps for publishing their texts abroad. The case and circumstances surrounding it are frequently credited for beginning the dissident movement.  I’ll also be focusing on the aftermath of the trial, especially the publication of Alexander Ginzburg’s White Book, a transcript of the court proceedings and Ginzburgs’s subsequent arrest and trial. Finally, I’ll be examining The Chronicle’s reaction to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the trials of those who demonstrated against it.

Reddaway writes of these events, “"Symptoms of the new conditions were that serious criticism of STalin was now forbidden, that two secret police generals were appointed to sit on the Supreme Couty, and that in 1966 Sinyavsky and Daniel recieved savage sentences of seven and five years' hard labour. This trial--and even more so that of Galanskov and Ginzburg in January 1968--gave an immense stimulus to unofficial literary life, provoking mass protests and turning people's attention in a remarkable degree towards politics (Reddaway, 19)."

  I’ve chosen these events because they were turning points in the dissident movement and directly connect to The Chronicle’s founders. Daniel was married to Larisa Bogoraz, a distributor of the paper. Sinyavsky and Ginzburg were close friends of theirs. The founding editor of The Chronicle, Natasha Gorbanevskaya, was arrested after protesting the Czech invasion.

Reexamining The Chronicle reminded me just how impressive its breadth was. For a newspaper that relied on a network of underground newsgathering, and luck, it was able to cover the caucuses, prison camps and hospitals extensively.

Reddaway’s introduction is incredibly helpful for context, as well as analyzing the editorial bias of the Chronicle and explaining how it’s editors evaded arrest. The Chronicle’s editors insisted their paper was legal as it offered no commentary. It simply reported events as they happened.

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[1] Reddaway, Peter, trans. Uncensored Russia: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union: The Unofficial Moscow Journal, a Chronicle of Current Events. American Heritage Press, 1972. 

FIND SURVEY 77 Havel

Uncensored Russia Vol. 5- Camps

206: Information itself is evidence of a network

207 (6): Ginzburg, Daniel start hunger strike-they get concessions

208-209 (8):  Ginzburg personal hunger strike

214 (9): "It has become known..."that's the reporting network---things just "become known."

224 (11): letter from Prisoners summarized in Chronicle

350: They tried to get a feel for samizdat in the country and promote it

354: Sakharov

Extensive reporting on the provinces

402: Uzbekistan

Uncensored Russia Vol. 4- Czech

95: R: "THe dramatic Sovietinvasion of Czechoslavokia on the night of August 20-21st, 1968, introduced a new dimension into the Soviet civil rights movement....The demonstration of August 25th and other acts of protest by Soviet citizens form the core of this chapter."

96: No 3. was 10 days after the invasion

99: protests begin

THey reprint a LEditor about the protest
-includes list of participants
-It's by the editor of Chronicle Natalya Gorbanevskaya

102: (7 and 5)- consequences of being a radical

104: Rise of self-immolation as a form of protest.

112-begins trials of the arrested demonstrators

113 (4) "As reported in the third issue of the Chronicle, seven people staged a sit down demonstration at Execution Place in REd Square on August 25th, 1968 as a protest against the sending of Soviet troops into Czechoslavakia (R, 113)."

Gorbanavskaya declared unfit

114-118: just how absurd the trial was.

119: The Soviet Press as a comparison

4: "Just like the official announcement the articles mention, in the first place, only one charge, that of violating public order: i/e/ the charge under article 190-3. Secondly, even this 'violation' is not described, and nowhere is there any reference to the fact that was a protest demonstration against the intervention of Soviet troops in in Czechoslovakia. Instead, the writers of these articles, not shrinking from direct liverl, give 'character sketches of the accused aimed at compromising them in the eyes of the reader (R, 119)"

159 (11): Gorbanavskaya  arrested

Uncensored Russia Vol. 3-Ginzburg

68: Trial for someone reading The White Book

71: BIRTH OF THE MOVEMENT

(6) "On December 5th, 1968, the traditional demonstration to mark Constitution Day took play on Pushkin Square in Moscow. It is well known that the first demonstration at the Pushkin monument took place on December 5th, 1965, as a sign of protest afainst te arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniel and was held under the slogan 'Respect the Constitution!' The demonstration in 1968 was a silent meeting: about twenty people stood for ten minutes with head bared around the monument. A large number of volunteer police and K.G.B. men were also present: they waited expectedly on the sidelines but did not themselves attempt to organize any provocations. (R, 71)

(11) On December 5th, 1969, the traditional silent demonstration was held on Pushkin Square...This time about fifty people went to honour the memory of their comrades in camps, prison and exile. At six o'clock in the evening the demonstrators surrounded by a crowd of plain-clothese security men, bared their heads (R, 71) ."

73: Issue 1 juxtaposes Ginzburg w/ human rights year

79-80: protest letters re: Ginzburg

83: effects of signing letters

90: Kaiden (student who committed suicide after found to be reading Ginzburg) Chronicle devotes lots to him

Natalia as a way of looking at the Red Square Revolt

She used the Chronicle to cover it

Uncensored Russia Vol. 2- S & D

"Two important points emerge. First, the Chronicle's aim is openness, non-secretiveness, freedom of information and expression. All these notions are subsumed in the one Russian word glasnost. (R, 26)"

"The Chronicle regards itself as lefal because it merely compiles an accurate recrod of events and there is truth there can--legally speaking--be no 'libel'. 'anti-Soviet' or otherwise( R, 26)."

"Anonymity, let us recall, has seemed to the Chronicle's editors a regretabble necessity, forced on them by the authorities regard for legality. (R, 29)"

That confidence has grown still more when the maximum cross-checking against the Soviet press, reports from Western documents has confirmed the Chronicle's accuracy and revealed no serious errors at all (R, 29)."

R. is GLOWING

"As for the correspondents' own sources, these vary widely. In the compiling of trial accounts, for example, many people--including defendants witnesses and lawyers-- who have been present either at the original trial or at the appeal hearing, can help. In addition leaks of information and even of documents (176-183) sometimes provide material from official institutions...(R, 30)"

30: Correspondent's network-look how impressive
reaches the west 2 weeks to 2 months

32: audience

33: KGB

54 (1)": We are not illegal, how to send them info

55 (2): discussion of their tone
"Samizdat had a dual right to figure in the Chronicle: first, in so far as a part of expressly devoted to te question of human rights; secondly, the whole of samizdat is an example of freedom of speech and the press of creative freedom and freedom of conscience, put into practice.

58 (7): please be careful about submitting information-avoid inacurracies

61-64: letter re: S & D

66: White book and subsequent protests

Uncensored Russia Notes Vol. 1

Reddaway, Peter, trans. Uncensored Russia: The Unofficial Moscow journal, a Chronicle of Current Events. American Heritage Press, 1972. 

"The Chronicle is in fact the "organ" of these movements' mainstream, a mainstream called by its members either the Democratic Movement or, with a narrower application, the Civil (or Human) Rights Movement (Reddaway, 17). "

"The Chronicle, by contrast, focuses on precisely on many of those aspects of Soviet life where the official press is most inadequate. It illuminates them, like the best primary sources, in precise, unemotive language. It is uninhibited by censorship, yet in taking advantage of this it is constrained by potent considerations to achieve a high level of accuaracy. In brief, it both articulates the demand of aggrieved groups in Soviet society and throws fresh light on those institutions with which the groups conflict. Meanwhile almost nothing of all this reflected--at least recognizably-- in the official press. (Reddaway 17)"

17-18: Really great historical overview of samizdat beginning with Pushkin

18: Secret Speech 

19: Sinyavsky and Daniel- "Symptoms of the new conditions were that serious criticism of STalin was now forbidden, that two secret police generals were appointed to sit on the Supreme Couty, and that in 1966 Sinyavsky and Daniel recieved savage sentences of seven and five years' hard labour. This trial--and even more so that of Galanskov and Ginzburg in January 1968--gave an immense stimulus to unofficial literary life, provoking mass protests and turning people's attention in a remarkable degree towards politics (Reddaway, 19)."

"Seemingly , in fact, it was the year 1966 which saw the birth of an expressive new Russian word--full of ominous overtones for the authorities samizdat (Reddaway, 19)." 

"But how does a work get into samizdat? Usually the author, or a friend of his, or a publishing house editor, types out some copies and passes them around. In this way popular items are typed and retyped indefinitely and often reach the outside world through the help of a Soviet or Western tourist. In that case, they have a chance of second publication, this time in tamizday i.e. in the Western press or an emigre journal 'tam' or 'over there'. Finally they may also then be broadcast back to the Soviet Union by Western radio stations, thus achieving a third 'publication (Reddaway, 19).'

22: summary of the movement, solid

23: "As for foreign links, all reformist elements--those fully within the system as well as as well as those on the fringes--  have, as in the last century, profited from their development. Especially under Khrushchev foreign books and periodicals became more accessible, travel abroad, even defection, was possible for some, Western radio stations broadcasting in Russian were in certain periods not hammed, and emigre material began to circulate (R, 23)."

"The political liberalism underlying article 19 of the U.N's Declaration does indeed also underlie the Chronicle's Editorial policy. Individuals with widely varying views are, for example, given an equal amount of space. Similarly with samizdat items. And the activities of almost all the known democratically inclined groups are at least on occasion recorded. (R, 25)

But the Chronicle contains little purely editorial material, so particular aspects of its editors' position must often be inferred. No. 5, however provides some broad guidelines. After discussing the movement for human rights and its 'general aim of democratization,' the editors go on to describe 'the more particular aim pursued by the Chronicle as : 'seeing that the Soviet public is informed about about what goes on in the country' in the field of human rights. Thus 'the Chronicle is in no sense an illegal publication, and the difficult conditions in which it is produced are created by the peculiar notions about law and freedom of information which, in the course of long years, have become established in certain Soviet organizations. for this reason the Chronicle cannot like any other journal give its postal address on the last page (R,25) ."

Old Notes of Uncensored Russia

On April 30, 1968, the first edition of The Chronicle of Current Events was distributed. The first words of the issue juxtaposed the beginning of the worldwide Human Rights Year with the start of the trial of Yury Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg, Aleksei Dobrovolsky. [1] It also marked the beginning of the crown jewel of the dissident movement. The Chronicle of Current Events was samizdat published; typists secretly typed it on layers upon layers of carbon paper and distributed it discretely.  The paper was genius in its simplicity, writers described raids of apartments and arrests and on what was going on in prison camps and psychiatric hospitals, but offered no commentary. The events spoke for them selves. [2] In Uncensored Russia, Peter Reddaway compiled the first eleven issues of The Chronicle, published in Russia during 1968 and 1969.  His book was published in the U.S, as a tamizdat, text in 1972. Rather than just run the issues in their entirety, Reddaway organized individual articles into different thematic sections, such as “The Camps and Prisons,” “The Mental Hospitals” and “Solzhenitsyn.”

...

Following Stalin’s death, Khrushchev brought the “Thaw” to Soviet culture. He ushered in an era of de-Stalinization with his “Secret Speech” in 1956. The Thaw is demonstrated by Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope Against Hope, her memoir of her husband’s persecution for writing a poem attacking Stalin. The most important moment of the Thaw occurred in 1962 when Khrushchev personally approved the publication Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

 In many ways, Solzhenitsyn’s work is an attempt to further what Khrushchev said the Secret Speech. While Khrushvhev felt that “We should not wash out dirty linen before their eyes,[1]” Solzhenitsyn believed the opposite: that it was necessary to expose everything about the Stalinist years. For Solzhenitsyn, telling the truth is tied with the role of the artist. In one scene in the novel, two prisoners, Kh-123 and Tsezar, discuss the film Ivan the Terrible. Tsezar argues the film is a work of art because of its camera angles and aesthetic beauty. But Kh-123 responds, saying it’s a piece of propaganda. Tsezar believes the movie’s message is the only reason it made it past the censors. Kh-123 retorts, “A genius doesn’t adapt his treatment to the taste of tyrants![2]” This scene represents Solzhenitsyn’s overall point in writing One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. He wrote the novel, a piece of art, to expose what occurred in the camps.

Both Mandelstam’s memoir, and especially, Solzhenitsyn’s novel are in response to Khrushchev’s speech. While Khrushchev exposed and denounced the party purges in his speech, he failed to mention the terror and the persecution of the intelligentsia. Both writers believed they had a fundamental obligation as survivors of the terror to tell their stories, and to prevent the deformation of future generations. [3] Their works sought to correct the omissions in Khrushchev’s speech.

If One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was a response to the secret speech, and the events surrounding it, then The Chronicle was a response to Solzhenitsyn novel and the events of the early sixties. While Khruschev had ushered in the age of the Thaw, his successor Brezhnev tightened state controls on publishing. In his introduction, Reddaway writes of Brezhnev’s reign, “The Khrushchev era of more or less peaceful coexistence between the party and the liberal intelligentsia was at an end.[4]” As censorship became more prevalent, there were also other indications that Stalinist conditions were returning.  For one, it became illegal to make any negative comments about the former leader. Additionally, two members of the secret police were appointed to the Supreme Court. While reformers were clearly unhappy with these events,  Reddaway argues the ultimate catalyst for the birth of The Chronicle was the trial and sentencing of Sinyavsky and Daniel. He describes their sentences of seven and five years, respectively, of hard labor as “savage.” The uproar surrounding their sentencing was unheard of for the time. He writes, “This trial…gave an immense stimulus to unofficial literary life, provoking mass protests and turning people’s attention in a remarkable degree towards politics.[5]” The injustice of their trial revitalized the literary community and reminded them of what Solzhenitsyn said was their duty: to expose the truth. Out of these conditions, a newly reinvigorated literary class and a desire to show the public the truth, came The Chronicle.

Indeed, a great deal of The Chronicle was dedicated to discussing the case of Sinyavsky and Daniel. The paper chose to print Ginzburg’s White Book, a defense of the two writers. It also printed a letter by Vitaly Potapenko attacking the newspaper, the Izvestia for slandering Sinyavsky and Daniel. The letter calls out the writer of an article about the trial that referred to Sinyavsky and Daniel as “anti-Soviet lampoons.” Potapenko writes, “Such statements are called ‘contempt of court’ and are an attempt influence public opinion and the decision of the court.[6]’  Potapenkos then calls for the writer and editor of the article to be brought to court for their actions. Potapenko’s letter avoids making a judgment about whether or not Sinyavsky and Daniel were guilty, rather it demonstrates the injustice of their trial and sentencing. This letter represents one of The Chronicle’s main goals, to establish “some measure of the rule of law.[7]” The paper sought to prevent the arbitrary nature of arrests and searches in Soviet society, as part of their quest for basic human rights in the Soviet state. Potapenko’s letter demonstrates just how arbitrary the system was. The government had convinced the public the two writers were guilty before they were even put on trial. Furthermore, it also calls for the writer and editor of the news article to be held accountable for their actions. He seeks a system of laws that would not allow the Izvestia to get away with their slanderous article.

The Chronicle’s desire for a system of law is also evident in it its coverage of political prisoners sent to labor camps. In its seventh issue, The Chronicle ran the story of Svyatoslav Karavansky who was sentenced to twenty-five years in 1944 because of his role in a Ukranian nationalist organization. He received amnesty in 1960, but in 1965 he was ordered to complete his sentence after writing an article about national discrimination against university entrants. Besides the unjust nature of his second sentencing, the article also discusses trials in camps, which never included defense lawyers. Again, it demonstrates the few civil rights Russians had when attempting to fight charges levied against them.

 In other articles in Reddaway’s “The Camps and Prisons” sections, writers describe the horrific conditions in the camps. A great number of the pieces focus on hunger strikes the prisoners either threatened or went through with because of their poor living conditions. For instance, eleventh issue describes a hunger strike at the political camps of Mordovia. The prisoners at the camp decided to embark on a strike after one of their own was sent to the cooler. Other examples include hunger strikes over the denial of packages and not allowing prisoners to have guests. The hunger strikes gave The Chronicle an excuse to comment on the conditions in camps because it was necessary to explain the prisoners reasoning in undergoing the strikes.

In another piece on camps, The Chronicle printed a summary of a letter from camp prisoners laying out an argument against the camps.  It states, “The authors show how the system of concentration camps established under Stalin and since condemned in words alone, continues to serve as the basis of penal policy in our country[8].” They argue that the camps were a disgrace to the country, especially in the eyes of the world. They also pointed out most prisoners in the camps posed no true threat to the state, but rather were post-war nationalists and preachers. This particular argument is reminiscent of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The title character is not, in the least, a threat to Soviet society. During World War II, while serving the Red Army, Denisovich was a German prisoner of war. After he escaped, he was accused of being a Nazi spy, and was sentenced to work in a labor camp. The prisoners in the camps during The Chronicle’s years were sent to camps on similarly false, trumped up charges.

The chapter on the camps and their prisoners recalls One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for another simpler reason. Both pieces of writing exposed the truth about what was going on in the camps. Khrushchev’s speech conspicuously failed to mention forced labor camps. Solzhenitsyn’s novel seeks to rectify this oversight. He wants to air the truth about the camps, exposing them as slave labor camps, but Khrushchev is not willing. The Chronicle, too, sought to reveal the truth about human rights violations. In the first issue, it states,

“We believe it is our duty to point out also that several thousands of political prisoners, of whom the rest of the world is virtually unaware, are in camps and prisons. They are kept in inhuman conditions of forced labour, on a semi-starvation diet, exposed to the arbitrary actions of the administration still operating.”

Besides echoing Solzhenitsyn’s images of life in the camps as devastating, it also recalls his language. The Chronicle claims it was their “duty” to expose the truth, just as Solzhenitsyn believed it was his duty, as an artist, to tell the true story about the forced labor camps.

There are other indications of The Chronicle’s relation to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. For one, they devoted so much content to Solzhenitsyn that Reddaway dedicated an entire chapter of his book to it. The paper frequently ran content sympathetic to Solzhenitsyn’s call for the abolishment of censorship. In fact, it printed the entirety of his letter to the Russian Republic Writers’ Union.  Moreover, after Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union, The Chronicle featured many statements and letters of support from various sources, including the National Committee of French Writers, Arthur Toynbee and Arthur Miller.

The letter from Westerners brings up another important part of samizdat publishing, its evolution to tamizdat publishing. Underground texts, such as Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, were sent abroad to be published. A prime example is the very publishing Reddaway’s book, a collection of samizdat texts, in the United States. The spread of tamizdat allowed for the outside world to understand what was going on in Russia and dissidents sought to use this to their advantage. In 1969, Yury Galanskov wrote an essay about the Russia penal system and called on Westerners to pressure the Soviet government to change them. He wrote,

“The Western press, and especially the Western radio-stations broadcasting in Russian, publicise arbitrariness and acts of crude coercion by Soviet official personnel, and thus force the state bodies and officials to take quick action. In this way the Western press are fulfilling the tasks of what is at present lacking in Russia, an organized opposition, and thereby stimulating our national development[9].”

Galanskov believed that the West was able to stimulate democratic change in Russia in a way that Russians themselves were not able to.

However, Galanskov was ultimately proved wrong by the glasnost reforms. During the late eighties, Russians ushered in an age of reform in their own country, although the Western world was supportive of their efforts. In his introduction, Reddaway describes the class structure of the dissident movement. Close to half were academics, particularly in science fields, many were writers, artists and actors and some were engineers. [10] This was the third generation of cohorts within the apparatchik. This group matured after Khrushchev’s speech in 1956, and was never intimately acquainted with Stalinism. They were an educated middle class, who were career driven and careful not to be considered party hacks. This group flirted with the dissident movement. They read and supported things like The Chronicle. In particular, they were the generation that centered around unburying the past, just as Solzhenitsyn and The Chronicle sough to do.

It was this group of young urban professionals that ultimately forced democratic reforms. 

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[1] Khrushchev, Secret Speech, page 568

[2] Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, page 67

[3] Linda Gerstein, Class Lecture, December 3, 2009

[4] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 18

[5] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 19

[6] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 63

[7] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 22

[8] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 224

[9] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 225

[10] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 24

[11] Linda Gerstein, Class Lecture, December 10

[12] Linda Gerstein, Class lecture, November 24, 2009

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[1] Ed. Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia, page 53

[2] Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, page 227

Soviet Dissent, Part 3

"There is no formal structure in the human rights movement in the USSR. There are neither leaders, nor subordinates; no one assigns tasks to others; instead each is prepared to do what is necessary (A, 283)."

In the early years, "Tasks were coordinated between friends, and this ensured mutual trust without which organized activities would be impossible under conditions of constant surveillance. This system made it possible to fill vacancies frequently created by arrests: someone close to te arrested would take over his responsibilities. (A, 283)

"The backbone of the Soviet human rights movement is samizdat which facilitates the dissemination of human rights ideas. The channels of communication used by samizdat provide the connecting links essential for organization work. These channels spread out silently and invisibly; like mushroom spores, they emerge here and there in the form of public statements. (A, 284)"

"Most of the activists' energies are spent on the entire process of samizdat. Because of the lack of sophisticated technology and the necessity of working in secret, the reproduction of samizdat materials requires an enormous amount of labor. Human rights activists have dramatically increased the scope of samizdat distribution by making major changes in this process. They have transformed insolated instances of transmitting manuscripts to the West into an entire system of samizdat-tamizdat-samizdat (A, 284)."

"The first regular contacts with the West were established by Andrey Amalrik. Until 1969 he was practically the only "specialist" in this area. Through him passed most of the human rights documents--transcripts of trials, as well as political and artistic literature. (A, 284)"

What he smuggled-284

"The limited quantities of these books returned home from the West by complicated routes could not possibly satisfy the colossal demand. So tamizdat books were not only read, but used to make copies, usually photographically- a less time-consuming process, but one that requires access to a print shop. Because of the poor quality of Soviet paper, typing ribbons, and carbon paper, the used of typed originals for this process is impossible. The use of copy machines began in the midseventies when people capable of designing and building them could be found. Technical know-how is not enough; the ability and determination to organize the theft of parts not available to the public is also essential. Chanhes in the method of retyping samizdat manuscripts were also made. Side by side with the familiar "cottage industry" typists could be hired because the sale of samizdat works in the demand had become common. People who devoted all their time and effort to reproducing and distributing samizday made their appearance for example, Yulius Telesin (now in Israel), who earned the nickname "Prince of Samizdat" and Ernst Rudenko (now dead). As a rule, price was determined by the cost of typing and materials. Neither the time nor risk involved in distribution were calculated into the price; these were considered a contribution to society. Usually the paid typists were friends of the activists; certain efforts to enlarge the pool of typists were met with disaster. Some new typists, once they realized the nature of what they were typing, turned the manuscripts over to the KGB. After years of painstaking and dangerous work, samizdat channels and thus links between human rights activists were consolidated and greatly enlarged (A, 285)"

"The Chronicle of Current Events, which ten years later Sakharov called the greatest achievement of the movement, was born in 1968, a fruitful and important year for the human rights movement. The first issue appeared on April 30, amid the heat of repression against the signers. Its prototype was the informational bulletin of the Crimean Tartars about which the Moscow activists learned. By the summer of 1983 sixty-four issues of the Chronicle had reached the West. A reliable source of information on the situation of human rights in the USSR, the Chronicle of Current Events is, as its name implies, intended to report violations of human rights in the USSR, human rights statements, and facts relating to the implementation of human rights "without prior official permission." The factual nature of the Chronicle determines its approach to material: in principle it refrains from giving commentary. However, the Chronicle is not only a register for human rights violations in the USSR or a chronicle of the human rights movement, but also, of that emerging movement, as well as between human rights activists and members of other dissident movements, it aided in the dissemination of the ideas and influence (A, 285) ."

Soviet Dissent Notes Part 2

119: Soviet vs. dissident texts

167: German samizdat

181: Jewish samizdat

210: Baptist samizdat

226-228: Pentacostal

269: "Samizdat played an immense role in the spiritual emancipation of Soviet society.

It made possible a change in the life-style of Muscovites and others in the late fifties. Under STalin, when informing had become the norm, unofficial contacts between people had been reduced to a bare minimum. As a rule, two or three families would associate only among themselves, and there were very few homes where many people gathered. After the fear of mass arrests had passed, people three themselves at each other, deriving satisfaction from merely being together. A normal Moscow circle numbered forty to fifty "close friends." Although divided into smaller subgroups, teh entire group regularly gathered for parties that were held on the slightest excuse, and everyone knew everything about everyone else. All these circles were connected with other similar circles and the links led to Leningrad, Novosibirisk and other cities. Everyone gathered around the table imbibed tea and more than tea. Affairs were begun; families formed and broken up. Together everyone sang, danced , and listened to music. Tape recorders had gone on sale, and they were not particularly expensive. They facilitated the distribution of song... (A 269)

270: "Large groups that fostered mutual trust created ideal conditions for the spread of samizdat. Samizdat was probably first circulated within such groups and then spread to various others. Although everyone knew it was necessary to be very careful, few, in fact were. Most people confined their effors to awkward attempts at camouflage, which were often the object of humor (A, 270)"-there's a joke

270: 20th party congress, openness

274: Sinyavsky and Daniel

"It was clear that their arrest had been calculated as a declaration of war on samizdat" on its contributors, distributors and readers. Theirs were the first arrests reported by foreign radio stations broadcasting to the Soviet Union. They referred to Daniel as Danielo and from time to time reported on the indignation of the West: Terts and Arzhak had been translated into several European languages and their books were successful.

These foreign radio reports made everyone aware of the arrests and caused consternation among all those connected with samizdat. Everyone, not just friends and family of the arrested, argued hotly over how the incident would turn out: would the authorities quietly dispose of the arrested or would they put on a "show trial" in the Stalinist tradition in which, somehow, defendents were induced to slander themselves monstrously and even ask to be tried without leniency. Afterwards, would new arrests begin? What would the sentences be? Speculation included death by firing squad. (Experience during the Stalinist period taught that the word "enemy" in the newspaper meant just that.

In this uncertain and anxious environment that the first demonstration in the history of the Soviet regime that was accompanied by human rights slogans took plac in Moscow's Pushkin Square on December 5, 1965. A few days prior to December 5, which was celebrated as Constitution Day, typed leaflets containing a "civic plea" appeared...(A 273-275)"

The doc. is there.

276: Trial of S & D

276: "However, when people left the courthouse, either for a lunch break or at the end of a session, everyone rushed up to the wives of the defendants, who told their friends what was going on inside. Both the correspondents and the KGB could hear them. And every evening reports on the trial and commentary were carried by foreign radio broadcasts. Thanks to this procedure, the West learned about the trial, and especially important, so did people all over the Soviet Union. Thus, future human rights activists discovered the only means available to them to spread ideas and information under Soviet Condition. (A, 277)

277: The White Book, protest Methods

Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights Pt. 1

Alexeyeva, Ludmilla. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1987.

"Samizdat completed the data necessary for this book. The source of essential information is the Chronicle of Current Events, which the academic Sakharov has called the principal achievement of the human rights movement. The anonymous editorial board that publishes CCE is renewed approximatley every two years, generally because of the arrests of it's editors. Since 1968, sixty-four issues of Chronicle have appeared; they contain an immense amount of material about the violation of human rights throughout the USSR and about the continuing struggle against these abuses. The excellent quality of the information from Chronicle has withstood investigation. At the trials for those involved in Chronicle, usually on the charges of "slander," teams of KGB agents seeking frounds on these accusation on several occasions checked the reliability of the information of human rights activists. (Al, vii-viii)

Al 9: Birthday of the movement- Dec. 5 1965, Pushkin Square

Al 10: Historical background, Secret Speech,

Al 11: Novy Mir as signal of part of the movement, publication of One Day

Al 12: How Samizdat works

"The more successful a work, the faster and further it is distributed. Of course, samizdat is extremely inefficient in terms of the time and effort expended but it is the only possible way of overcoming the government monopoly on ideas and information (Al, 12)."

"Russian samizdat began with poetry, possibly because poetry is easier to reproduce--brief and easier to memorize. But there may be a deeper cause: spiritual emancipation begins in the area of simple human feelings (Al, 13)."

Al 13: Estimate more than 300 authors most young circulating

Al 15: Zhivago

THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IS INHERENTLY TIED WITH SAMIZDAT

"It was only by virtue of samizdat that the human rights movement itself was able to rise and spread.

The chief functions of the human rights movement are gathering and disseminating information on human rights violations and defending these rights, irrespective of citizens' nationality, religion or social background. In this way contacts are established with other dissident movements. The movement's participants carry out their work with samizdat information journals, the best known of which is the Chronicle of Current Events. 


AL 41: Ukranian Chronicle spin off

AL 52: Ukranian dissidents and western journalist

Al 74: Catholic Chronicle

Al 109-114: Comparison between Chronicle and Official Coverage

A Narrowing of My Thesis

To narrow down my thesis, I find myself going back to where I started this project, with The Chronicle of Current Events. [1] The Chronicle was an underground newspaper published by a select group of dissidents in the late sixties and early seventies.  When I sat down to do this assignment earlier in the week, I panicked. I was going through my notes and it seemed to be a jumble of odd anecdotes about newspapers, journalists, Decembrists and radio. There was no sort of overarching idea.

That was until I found my notes on The Thaw Generation, written by Ludmilla Alexeyeva and translated by Paul Goldberg[2]. Alexeya’s book is her memoir of her years as a leader in the dissident movement; in particular, she focuses on the years she spent as an editor of the Chronicle. Looking at it, I realized everything I’ve been reading connects back to The Chronicle, at least in a tangential way. So my narrowed topic is: the reporting and dissemination of The Chronicle as a case study for how information was shared by dissidents in the Soviet Union.

Here’s how I see it shaping up, so far:

·      How The Chronicle came about-The context of The Chronicle is a fascinating story. The concern with openness and transparency began earnestly among dissidents after Khrushchev’s Secret Speech and the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[3]. But the samizdat movement began in earnest after the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel, and the subsequent publication of Ginzberg’s The White Book[4].

·      How an underground newspaper gathers news- This is one of the things that initially attracted to me to this topic. I spent the summer working at a newspaper and have a decent feel on traditional reporting. I didn’t have a sense of how to report a story when it was dangerous to get caught with notes or interview the people stories were on. The Chronicle used a network of dissidents spreading information back and forth to each other in person.

·      How to publish an underground newspaper in the USSR-This is where history of samizdat publishing comes in. Dissidents typed up carbon copies and passed them around. It’s impossible to estimate how many copies of The Chronicle were in circulation for this reason.

·      How/Why The Chronicle stories were broadcast on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Part of the reason The Chronicle was so influential in the USSR was that its articles were broadcast in. Dissidents were savvy about getting in touch with foreign broadcasters and journalists to bring their stories abroad.

·      How/Why The Chronicle  was published in the United States? How did Reddaway’s Uncensored Russia come to be? The Chronicle and tons of other samizdat was smuggled to the States and published here.

This is still somewhat of a jumble. The way I’m looking at it is the process story of how samizdat, using The Chronicle, as a case study came to be an influential part of the dissident movement.

I still don’t have a thesis for my thesis, per se, but everything I’ve been looking at does connect to the story of The Chronicle.

---

[1] Peter Reddaway, Uncensored Russia: protest and dissent in the Soviet Union: the unofficial Moscow journal, a Chronicle of current events (New York: American Heritage Press), 1972.

[2] Alexeyeva, Ludmilla and Paul Goldberg, trans. The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the Post-Stalin Era. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), 1993.

[3] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2005.

[4]Hayward, Max, trans, On Trial: The Soviet State versus “Abram Tertz” and “Nikolai Arzha,” (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers), 1966.

Possible structure ideas

Use the Chronicle as the Structure

-Use you your network to report

-Copy and pass around

-get on the radio

BUT ULTIMATLEY WHAT IS THE POINT???

The Thaw Generation- Notes Vol. 2

A & G 141: The White Book

"I was amazed by the thought of Ginzburg openly handing it top the KGB...The manuscript brought together the first of Western stories about the arrests, a copy of Esenin-Volpin's leaflet, his legal commentary..."

A & G 159: 

"By that time, Lara and I had an understanding: we did not ask each other about sensitive matters unless either of us needed assistance.

"Those who could type (there were four of us) worked in shifts, till our minds went dim. Those whou couldn't type dictated or stacked the pages and corrected typos. Two people with a typewriter worked in the kitchen. Two people with a typewriter worked in the kitchen; two more worked in one of he rooms. The hosts' child slept in the room between them. Heaps of paper, carbons and manuscript pagses were stacked all around. In the kitchen, someone was constantly making coffee and sandwiches; and at any given time, at least one of us was asleep on the couch or on the cot."

160: survivor's obligation-One Day in The Life

162-163: Article 190, Article 70

166: Ginzburg/White Book Trial-trial on samizdat

170: RADIO! 

171: Anatole Shub-Western journalist who helps Larisa 

(A & G) 206: Network as media- How the Chronicle Came About

"Thanks to letters from the camps, we were learning about religious prisoners and about "nationalists" from the Baltic and the Ukraine. Since their families stayed with us in Moscow before taking trains to Mordovia, our network kept expanding. Through those new connections, we could keep track of new government repressions taking place thousands of miles away.

The volume of information we were receiving had begun to overwhelm our ability to record and exchange it. It was simply impossible to keep track of the thousand popisanty as they were being dragged through the KGB's inquisition. That information was no less important than what was in The White Book, and it had to be collected systematically. We needed a samizdat way of sharing new of what was going on-- a bulletin that would record the information that what was going on---a bulletin that would record the information that came our way. It would offer no commentary, no belles lettre, no verbal somersaults; just basic information. Natasha Gorbanevskaya, a professional editor, agreed to take the job.

The name of  the bulletin was borrowed from a BBC Russian-language news round up: Khronik tekushchikh sobytiy ("The Chronicle of of Current Events"). Natasha typed up one copy with seven carbons, then handed the carbons to friends for retyping. We typed up a few more copies and handed them out to friends; they, too, made additional copies."

Declaration of Human Rights

"As did most of our works, the issues of Khronika eventually ended up in the West and were broadcast back to the USSR over shortwave radio( G& A 207) ."

"In the first issue, the majority of stories came from Moscow and Leningrad. Only one news item came from the Ukraine. A later issue suggested a method for sending information to the bulletin: 'Tell it to the person from whom you received Khronika, and he will tell it to the person from whom he received  Khronika, etc. Whatever you do, don't try to get through that chain on your own if you do, you may be mistaken for a [KGB] informant. (G & A 207)

208: Sakaharov

210: Prague Spring

232: Western Media

245: The rules of being a dissident

251-252: radio stuff

260: "Thus, KGB chief Yuri Andropov's assignment was to strangle Khronika without making too many arrests, especially in Moscow. Unable to resort to mass terror, Andropov had to find a creative way..."

281: Appeal to West and Helinski Group, 

284: Holding press conferences, again western journalists

308-309: Media savvy, meets w/ ambassador near reportesr 

310-312: survivor obligation

The Thaw Generation-Notes

Alexeyeva, Ludmilla and Paul Goldberg, trans. The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the

Post-Stalin Era. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.

"Every night, we gathered in cramped apartments to recite poetry, read "unofficial" prose, and swp stories that, taken together, yielded a realistic picture of what was going on in our country (A & G, 4)."

Dissidents have 3 options

"The first was to toe the party line and be allowed to advance professionally; the second was to put a career on hold and wait for another thaw; the third was to stay the course of the thaw and accept the consequences: an aborted career and the life of a pariah (A & G, 5)." 

"I had to act.  I had to act as an individual. All of us had to. Our leaders were wrong. They needed us. They needed the public. By realizing that, we became citizens (A & G, 19)."

"But at the time we were at school, few of those connections could be called friendships. Going out of the immediate circle of friends --usually limited to two or three-- meant multiplying the chances of having your offhand remarks reported to the authorities (A & G, 32)."

-Mandelstam as an example

A & G 33-34: bond w/ the Decembrists

"Newspapers, books, and journals were now devoted exclusively to praises of Comrade Stalin, our Communist party, the Soviet motherland, the Great Russian People, and Our Valorous Armed Forces. No book could be "idealess." A love story, a poem, or an adventure for its own sake was no longer acceptable. Every work had to be of ideological value. Otherwise, it was classified as "bourgeois diversionism (A & G,  38)."

"As far as I was concerned, the Soviet system was sound, Marxism-Leninsim was the most progressive ideology in the world, and all Russia's problem could be attributed to the large number of "careerists" who had joined the party for personal gain(A & G, 48)."-it's not the system that's broken...this is her early on 

A & G 65: Bloodshed in history, but she's no longer cool with it 

A & G 66: Dissent begins with Lenin

****A & G 71:**** Beria trial

A & G 72: "In December 1953, Novy mir published an article innocuously title "On Sincerity in Literature." In it, Vladimir Pomerantsev, a little-known writer, accused the Soviet literary establishment of "varnishing reality" and churning out contrived, formulaic work that portrayed universal prosperity."

A & G 73: The Thaw

A & G 76: Secret Speech

A & G 86: Sybarites- dissident group

A & G 96: One Day in the Life...

A & G 97: " Sometime in the mid-1950s, poet Nikolai Glazkov decided to act as his own publisher.  Glazkov, a fine poet and a bear of a man who made a living in menial jobs, folded blank sheets of paper and typed his verse on all four sides. Then he took a needle and thread and sewed the pages together at the crease. The result was something like a book.

On the bottom of the first shhet, Glazkov typed "samsebyaizdat" which was both an acronym for "I published myself" and a parody of "gospolitizdat," the name of an official publishing house. Later  "samsebyaizdat" lost the reflexive sebya and was shortened to samizdat, "self-publishing."

Samizdat sprung up on its own, arising naturally from kompanii. It could not have existed without them. My friends and I helped each other fill the enormous void of information, and soon the izdat, publishing, part of samizdat became a kompaniya ritual: if you liked a manuscript, you borrowed it overnight and copied it on your typewriter. Generally, I made five copies. Three went to friends, the fourth went to the person who let me borrow the poem, and the fifth remained in my possession." 

A & G 99: deals with translations

A & G 110: Daniel!!!

A & G 113: Daniel's publications

A & G 117: S & D arrested

120-leaflet to promote Pushkin Square

"Several months ago the organs of state security arrested two citizens: writers A. Sinyavsky and Yu. Daniel. There are reasons to fear violation of glasnost of the legal process. It is commonly known that violation of the law on glasnost (Article 3 of the Constitution of the USSR and Article 18 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republic) constitutes an illegal action. It is inconceivable that the work of a writer could constitute a crime against the state.

In the past, unlawful actions by the authorities have taken the lives of millions of Soviet citizens. This blood stained past demands vigilance in the present. It is more prudent to give up oe day of tranquility than to spend years suffering the consequences of lawlessness that has not been stopped in time.

Soviet citizens have a means for resisting capricious actions of the authorities. That method is the Glasnost Meeting whose participants chant only one slogan: WE DE-MAND GLAS-NOST FOR THE TRIAL OF (followed by the last names of the accused)!" or where the participants display a corresponding banner. Any shouts or slogans that depart from demands of strict adherence to laws must be regarded as counter-productive or, possibly, provactional must be halted by participants of the meeting." (A-G, 120_

A & G 124: "It was hard to imagine the number of intermediate steps that went into te production of the book I held in my hands. There was the act of smuggling the manuscript to the West, then the no less dangerous act of smuggling the published books back into the country.

Inside was Yulik Daniel's voice and real people in surrealistic situations. There was the story of a young man who in siring children can guarantee which of them will be boys and which will be girls. If at the moment of ejaculation he visualizes Karl Marx...