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

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

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

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. 

---

[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

---

[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 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

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.

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