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  As part of a research program launched at the end of 1990 by NIPC Memorial to study the history of dissident activity and the human rights movement in the USSR, the following definition of dissidence (dissent) was proposed:

  Since then, dissidents have often been used to refer mainly to people who oppose authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, although the word is also used in broader contexts, for example to refer to people who oppose the prevailing mentality of their group. According to Lyudmila Alekseeva, dissidents are a historical category, like the Decembrists, Narodniks and even informals:58.

  The terms “dissident” and “dissident” have caused and continue to cause terminological disputes and criticism. For example, Leonid Borodin, who actively opposed the Soviet system and was persecuted, refuses to consider himself a dissident, since by dissident he understands only the liberal and liberal-democratic opposition to the regime of the 1960s - early 1970s, which took shape in the mid-1970s in human rights movement. According to L. Ternovsky, a dissident is a person who is guided by the laws written in the country where he lives, and not by spontaneously established customs and concepts.

  The dissidents dissociated themselves from any involvement in terrorism and, in connection with the explosions in Moscow in January 1977, stated:

  …Dissidents view terror with indignation and disgust. … We urge media professionals around the world to use the term “dissidents” only in this sense and not to expand it to include violent individuals. ...

  We ask you to remember that every journalist or commentator who does not distinguish between dissidents and terrorists is helping those who are trying to revive Stalinist methods of dealing with dissidents.

  In official Soviet documents and propaganda, the term “dissident” was usually used in quotation marks: “the so-called ‘dissidents’.” Much more often they were called “anti-Soviet elements”, “anti-Soviet”, “renegades”.

  Ideology

  Among the dissidents there were people of very different views, but they were united mainly by the inability to openly express their beliefs. There has never been a single "dissident organization" or "dissident ideology" uniting the majority of dissidents.

  If what happened can be called movement - as opposed to “stagnation” - then this movement is Brownian, that is, a phenomenon that is more psychological than social. But in this Brownian movement, here and there, turbulences and currents constantly appeared, moving somewhere - national, religious “movements,” including human rights ones.

  Dissidence as a phenomenon originated among the Moscow intelligentsia, largely in that part of it that experienced the tragedy of its fathers and grandfathers in the late thirties, experienced a just feeling of revenge in the wake of the famous “thaw” and the subsequent disappointment. At the first stage, Moscow dissidence was neither anti-communist nor anti-socialist, but precisely liberal, if by liberalism we mean a certain totality good wishes, not certified by either political experience, political knowledge, or, especially, a political worldview.

  • “true communists” - were guided by Marxist-Leninist teaching, but believed that it was distorted in the USSR (for example, Roy Medvedev, NCPSU, “Young Socialists”);
  • “Western liberals” considered capitalism of the Western European or American type to be the “correct” system; some of them were supporters of the “theory of convergence” - the doctrine of the inevitability of rapprochement and subsequent merging of capitalism and socialism, but most of the “Westerners” considered socialism a “bad” (or short-lived) system;
  • “eclectics” - combined different views that contradicted the official ideology of the USSR;
  • Russian nationalists - supporters of Russia's “special path”; many of them great importance attached to the revival of Orthodoxy; some were supporters of the monarchy; see also soil scientists (in particular, Igor Shafarevich, Leonid Borodin, Vladimir Osipov);
  • other nationalists (in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) - their demands ranged from the development of national culture to complete separation from the USSR. They often proclaimed themselves liberals, but, having achieved during the collapse of the USSR political power, some of them (for example, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Abulfaz Elchibey) became ideologists of ethnocratic regimes. As Leonid Borodin wrote, “quantitatively, the nationalists of Ukraine, the Baltic states and the Caucasus have always prevailed in the camps. There were, of course, connections between the nationalist opposition and Moscow dissidence, but according to the principle: “a lousy Muscovite gets a tuft of wool.” Limply welcoming the anti-Russian sentiments of the Moscow oppositionists, the nationalists did not connect their successes with the prospects of Moscow dissidence, pinning their hopes on the collapse of the Union in economic competition with the West, or even on the Third World War.”

  Dissidents also included activists of the Zionist movement (“refuseniks”), activists of the Crimean Tatar movement for the return to Crimea (leader - M. A. Dzhemilev), nonconformist religious figures: Orthodox - D. S. Dudko, S. A. Zheludkov, A. . E Krasnov-Levitin, A.I. Ogorodnikov, B.V. Talantov, G.P. Yakunin, “true Orthodox Christians”, Baptist - Council of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches, Catholic in Lithuania, Adventist Reformists led by V. A. Shelkov, Pentecostals (in particular, the Siberian Seven), Hare Krishnas (see International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Russia).

  Since the late 1960s, the meaning of the activity or tactics of many dissidents who adhered to different ideologies was the struggle for human rights in the USSR - first of all, for the right to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of emigration, for the release of political prisoners (“prisoners of conscience”) - see Human rights movement in the USSR.

  Social composition

  The institutionalization of science inevitably led to the emergence of a layer of people who critically comprehend the surrounding reality. According to some estimates, the majority of dissidents belonged to the intelligentsia. At the end of the 1960s, 45% of all dissidents were scientists, 13% were engineers and technicians:55,65-66.

  For a thousand academicians and corresponding members,
  For the entire educated cultural legion
  There were only this handful of sick intellectuals,
  Say out loud what a healthy million thinks!
  

  In fact, two main directions of dissident opposition to the totalitarian regime have emerged.

  The first of them was focused on support from outside the USSR, the second - on the use of protest sentiments of the population within the country.

  The activities, as a rule, are open; some of the dissidents, mainly Moscow human rights activists, were based on appeals to foreign public opinion, the use of the Western press, non-governmental organizations, foundations, connections with political and statesmen West.

  At the same time, the actions of a significant part of the dissidents were either simply a form of spontaneous self-expression and protest, or a form of individual or group resistance to totalitarianism - Group of Revolutionary Communism, Valentin Sokolov, Andrei Derevyankin, Yuri Petrovsky and others. In particular, this second direction was expressed in the creation of various kinds of underground organizations, focused not on connections with the West, but exclusively on organizing resistance within the USSR.

  Dissidents directed open letters to central newspapers and the Central Committee of the CPSU, produced and distributed samizdat, organized demonstrations (for example, “Glasnost Rally”, Demonstration on August 25, 1968), trying to bring to the public information about the real state of affairs in the country.

  Dissidents paid much attention to “samizdat” - the publication of homemade brochures, magazines, books, collections, etc. The name “Samizdat” appeared as a joke - by analogy with the names of Moscow publishing houses - “Detizdat” (publishing house of children’s literature), “Politizdat” ( publishing house of political literature), etc. People themselves printed unauthorized literature on typewriters and thus distributed it throughout Moscow, and then throughout other cities. "Erica takes four copies,- Alexander Galich sang in his song. - That's all. And that's enough! (See the lyrics of the song) - this is said about “samizdat”: “Erika”, a typewriter, became the main instrument when there were no copiers or computers with printers (copiers began to appear in the 1970s, but only for institutions , and everyone working for them was required to keep track of the number of pages printed). Some of those who received the first copies reprinted and replicated them. This is how dissident magazines spread. In addition to “samizdat,” “tamizdat” was widespread - the publication of prohibited materials abroad and their subsequent distribution throughout the USSR.

  In February 1979, the “Elections-79” group arose, whose members intended to exercise in person the right granted by the Constitution of the USSR to nominate independent candidates for elections to the Supreme Council of the USSR. Roy Medvedev and Lyudmila Agapova, the wife of the defector Agapov, who sought to go to her husband, were nominated. The group submitted documents to register these candidates, but did not receive a response by the due date; as a result, the relevant election commissions refused to register the candidates.

  Position of the authorities

  The Soviet leadership fundamentally rejected the idea of ​​the existence of any opposition in the USSR, much less the possibility of dialogue with dissidents. On the contrary, in the USSR the “ideological unity of society” was proclaimed; dissidents were called nothing more than “renegades.”

  Official propaganda sought to present dissidents as agents of Western intelligence services, and dissidence as a kind of professional activity that was generously paid from abroad.

  Some dissidents actually received royalties for works published in the West (see Tamizdat); the Soviet authorities invariably tried to portray this in a negative light as “bribery” or “venality,” although many officially recognized Soviet writers also published in the West and received fees for this in the same way.

  Persecution of dissidents

  The persecution to which Soviet dissidents were subjected included dismissal from work, expulsion from educational institutions, arrests, placement in psychiatric hospitals, exile, deprivation of Soviet citizenship and expulsion from the country.

  Before the year, criminal prosecution of dissidents was carried out on the basis of clause 10 and similar articles of the criminal codes of other union republics (“counter-revolutionary agitation”), which provided for imprisonment for up to 10 years, and since 1960 - on the basis of art. 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960 (“anti-Soviet agitation”) and similar articles of the criminal codes of other union republics, which provided for imprisonment for up to 7 years and 5 years of exile (up to 10 years of imprisonment and 5 years of exile for those previously convicted of a similar crime) . Since then, Art. 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR “Dissemination of deliberately false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social order", which provided for imprisonment for up to 3 years (and similar articles of the criminal codes of other union republics). For all these articles from 1956 to 1987. 8,145 people were convicted in the USSR.

  In addition, for the criminal prosecution of dissidents, Articles 147 (“Violation of the laws on the separation of church from the state and school from the church”) and 227 (“Creation of a group causing harm to the health of citizens”) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960, articles on parasitism and violation of the regime were used registration, there are also known cases (in the 1980s) of planting weapons, ammunition or drugs with their subsequent discovery during searches and initiation of cases under the relevant articles (for example, the case of K. Azadovsky).

  Some dissidents were declared socially dangerous and mentally ill, and forced treatment was applied to them under this pretext. During the years of stagnation, punitive psychiatry attracted the authorities due to the lack of need to create the appearance of legality required by trial.

  In the West, Soviet dissidents who were subjected to criminal prosecution or psychiatric treatment were treated as political prisoners, “prisoners of conscience.”

  State security agencies were involved in the fight against dissidents, in particular, the 5th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (for the fight against “ideological sabotage”)

  Until the mid-1960s, virtually any open display of political dissent resulted in arrest. But starting from the mid-1960s, the KGB began to widely use so-called “preventive measures” - warnings and threats, and arrested mainly only those dissidents who continued their activities despite intimidation. KGB officers often offered dissidents a choice between emigration and arrest.

  The activities of the KGB in the 1970-80s were significantly influenced by the socio-economic processes occurring in the country during the period of “developed socialism” and changes in foreign policy THE USSR. During this period, the KGB focused its efforts on combating nationalism and anti-Soviet manifestations within the country and abroad. Domestically, state security agencies have stepped up the fight against dissent and the dissident movement; however, the actions of physical violence, deportations and imprisonments became more subtle and disguised. The use of psychological pressure on dissidents has increased, including surveillance, pressure through public opinion, undermining a professional career, preventative conversations, deportation from the USSR, forced imprisonment in psychiatric clinics, political trials, slander, lies and compromising evidence, various provocations and intimidation. There was a ban on the residence of politically unreliable citizens in the capital cities of the country - the so-called “exile for the 101st kilometer”. Under the close attention of the KGB were, first of all, representatives of the creative intelligentsia - figures of literature, art and science - who, due to their social status and international authority, could harm their reputation Soviet state in the understanding of the Communist Party.

  The activities of the KGB in the persecution of the Soviet writer, Nobel Prize laureate in literature A. I. Solzhenitsyn are indicative. In the late 1960s - early 1970s, a special unit was created in the KGB - the 9th department of the Fifth Directorate of the KGB - exclusively engaged in the operational development of a dissident writer. In August 1971, the KGB attempted to physically eliminate Solzhenitsyn - during a trip to Novocherkassk, he was secretly injected with an unknown poisonous substance; the writer survived, but after that he was seriously ill for a long time. In the summer of 1973, KGB officers detained one of the writer’s assistants, E. Voronyanskaya, and during interrogation forced her to reveal the location of one copy of the manuscript of Solzhenitsyn’s work “The Gulag Archipelago.” Returning home, the woman hanged herself. Having learned about what had happened, Solzhenitsyn ordered the publication of “Archipelago” to begin in the West. A powerful propaganda campaign was launched in the Soviet press, accusing the writer of slandering the Soviet state and social system. Attempts by the KGB, through Solzhenitsyn’s ex-wife, to persuade the writer to refuse to publish “Archipelago” abroad in exchange for a promise of assistance in the official publication of his story “Cancer Ward” in the USSR were unsuccessful and the first volume of the work was published in Paris in December 1973. In January 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, accused of treason, deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the USSR. The initiator of the deportation of the writer was Andropov, whose opinion became decisive in choosing the measure to “suppress anti-Soviet activities” of Solzhenitsyn at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. After the writer was expelled from the country, the KGB and Andropov personally continued the campaign to discredit Solzhenitsyn and, as Andropov put it, “exposing the active use by reactionary circles of the West of such renegades in ideological sabotage against the countries of the socialist commonwealth.”

  Prominent scientists were the target of many years of persecution by the KGB. For example, the Soviet physicist, three times Hero of Socialist Labor, dissident and human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate A.D. Sakharov was under KGB surveillance since the 1960s, subjected to searches and numerous insults in the press. In 1980, on charges of anti-Soviet activities, Sakharov was arrested and sent into exile without trial in the city of Gorky, where he spent 7 years under house arrest under the control of KGB officers. In 1978, the KGB attempted, on charges of anti-Soviet activities, to initiate a criminal case against the Soviet philosopher, sociologist and writer A. A. Zinoviev with the aim of sending him for compulsory treatment to a psychiatric hospital, however, “taking into account the campaign launched in the West around psychiatry in USSR" this preventive measure was considered inappropriate. Alternatively, in a memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee, the KGB leadership recommended allowing Zinoviev and his family to travel abroad and blocking his entry into the USSR.

  To monitor the USSR's implementation of the Helsinki Agreements on the observance of human rights, in 1976 a group of Soviet dissidents formed the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), the first leader of which was the Soviet physicist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR Yu. F. Orlov. Since its formation, the MHG was subjected to constant persecution and pressure from the KGB and other security agencies of the Soviet state. Members of the group were threatened, forced to emigrate, and forced to stop their human rights activities. Since February 1977, activists Yu. F. Orlov, A. Ginzburg, A. Sharansky and M. Landa began to be arrested. In the Sharansky case, the KGB received the sanction of the CPSU Central Committee to prepare and publish a number of propaganda articles, as well as to write and transmit to US President John Carter a personal letter from the defendant’s father-in-law denying the fact of Sharansky’s marriage and “exposing” his immoral character. Under pressure from the KGB in 1976-1977, members of the MHG L. Alekseeva, P. Grigorenko and V. Rubin were forced to emigrate. Between 1976 and 1982 they were arrested and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment or exile (in total- 60 years of camps and 40 years of exile) eight members of the group, six more were forced to emigrate from the USSR and were deprived of citizenship. In the fall of 1982, under conditions of increasing repression, the three remaining members of the group were forced to announce the cessation of the activities of the MHG. The Moscow Helsinki Group was able to resume its activities only in 1989, at the height of Gorbachev's perestroika.

  The KGB agencies sought to obtain from the arrested dissidents public speaking, condemning the dissident movement. Thus, the “Counterintelligence Dictionary” (published by the Higher School of the KGB in 1972) states: “The KGB bodies, carrying out measures for the ideological disarmament of the enemy together with party bodies and under their direct leadership, inform the governing bodies about all ideologically harmful manifestations, prepare materials to publicly expose the criminal activities of bearers of anti-Soviet ideas and views, organize open speeches by prominent enemy ideologists who have broken with their previous views, carry out political and educational work with persons convicted of anti-Soviet activities, organize disintegration work among members of ideologically harmful groups, and carry out preventive measures in that environment , in which these groups recruit their members." In exchange for mitigation of punishment, they managed to obtain “repentant” speeches from Pyotr Yakir, Viktor Krasin, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Dmitry Dudko.

  Letters from Western figures in support of dissidents were deliberately left unanswered. For example, in 1983, the then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Yu. V. Andropov gave special instructions not to respond to a letter from Federal Chancellor of Austria Bruno Kreisky in support of Yuri Orlov.

  Lawyers who insisted on the innocence of dissidents were removed from political cases; This is how Sofya Kallistratova was removed, insisting on the absence of a crime in the actions of Vadim Delaunay and Natalya Gorbanevskaya.

  Exchange of political prisoners

  Impact and results

  Most residents of the USSR had no information about the activities of dissidents. Dissident publications were largely inaccessible to most citizens of the USSR, and Western radio broadcasting in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR was jammed until 1988.

  The activities of dissidents attracted the attention of the foreign public to human rights violations in the USSR. Demands for the release of Soviet political prisoners were put forward by many foreign politicians, including even some members of foreign communist parties, which caused concern among the Soviet leadership.

  There is a known case when Viktor Orekhov, an employee of the 5th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, under the influence of the ideas of dissidents, began to inform his “supervisors” of information about upcoming searches and arrests.

  Be that as it may, by the beginning of the 1980s, according to the testimony of the former participants in the dissident movement themselves, dissidence as a more or less organized opposition was over.

  The collapse of the totalitarian regime in the USSR, the acquisition of certain political rights and freedoms by the population - such as, for example, freedom of speech and creativity - led to the fact that a significant part of the dissidents, recognizing their task as completed, integrated into the post-Soviet political system.

  However, the former dissidents did not become a significant political force. Alexander Daniel answered the question about the reasons for this:

  A little about one unfounded complaint against dissidents and the reason for disappointment in them. The basis for misconceptions about their role in the political process in the territory of the former Soviet Union is a false analogy with contemporary oppositions in Eastern and Central Europe - primarily in Poland and Czechoslovakia. But “Solidarity” or “Charter 77” were real mass movements, with their own political platforms, their own leaders, their own social ideals, etc. These movements - persecuted, semi-underground - were, nevertheless, prototypes of future political parties capable of fighting for power, winning and maintaining it. In Russia, there was no political movement called “dissidence”; there was no common political platform - from monarchists to communists. And the fact that there was no dissidence political movement, meant in particular that dissidence did not predispose to political thinking. Dissident thinking is “I am here and now doing this. Why am I doing this? Forgive me, according to Tolstoy, according to Sartre and according to all the existentialists, I cannot do otherwise.” This is a purely existential act, emanating from a moral impulse, although framed as an act of defense of rights. Of course, most dissidents did not like Soviet power, but even then, why should we love it? But they didn’t fight against her. All their words about this at that time were by no means to divert the eyes of the KGB officers; they really did not set such a task for themselves. Why? Because there was no political perspective in sight. Acting on the basis of how your word will respond in three hundred years or never will respond at all, on a philosophy of hopelessness, is impossible in combination with political thinking. I know one very serious, strong exception - Sakharov. Sakharov, as a man of a very strong and generalizing mind, suspected that something could happen in his lifetime, and tried to rise a little higher than both existential and political thinking, to be a conductor of moral politics. But for this it was necessary to have very extraordinary intellectual fearlessness, especially given the aversion to politics that infected the entire intelligentsia. Sakharov in this sense is perhaps the only political thinker. And it’s not for nothing that he was the first to fit into political life. And dissidents as such are not politicians. They can say: “This will be good.” But no one ever taught them how to move from what is to what should be. What are the algorithms for this transition, what are the stages of this transition? How to walk along this path without slipping, without crossing the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable compromise?

  A number of Soviet dissidents are active in legal political activity in modern Russia- Lyudmila Alekseeva, Valeria Novodvorskaya, Alexander Podrabinek and others.

  At the same time, some of the Soviet dissidents either categorically did not accept the post-Soviet political regime - Adel Naidenovich, Alexander Tarasov, or were not rehabilitated - Igor Ogurtsov, or were even again subjected to repression for their opposition activities - Sergei Grigoryants

  Dissidence caused enormous harm to the USSR. The vast majority of dissidents are traitors working for Western intelligence services, members of the so-called “fifth column”. Under the guise of protecting human rights, they tirelessly and inevitably led the country to collapse. Those positive phenomena that existed in the USSR were hushed up or deliberately distorted, changing the meaning to the opposite, and the communist system, with which most of the people living in the Union were happy, was presented in every possible way as slavish, inhuman, etc. In the end, they celebrated victory when, together with traitors in the highest echelons of power, they managed to destroy a great power - the USSR. Quite a few dissidents now live in the United States and NATO countries. There, many of them were awarded various highest awards for “human rights” activities, and some - openly, for their work to destroy the USSR...

  Dissident organizations

  • All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People
  • Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR
  • Free interprofessional association of workers
  • International Union of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches
  • Group for establishing trust between the USSR and USA
  • Russian public Fund assist the persecuted and their families
  • Working Commission to Inquire into the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes

  see also

  Notes

  1. History of Soviet dissidents
  2. History of Soviet dissidents. Memorial
  3. “Dissident” (from the manuscript of the book by S. A. Kovalev)
  4. Where did dissidence come from? : The history of Soviet dissent in the memoirs of one of the heroines of the dissident movement Lyudmila Alekseeva (undefined) . [Recording of an interview with Yu. Ryzhenko]. Colta.ru (February 27, 2014). Retrieved January 19, 2015.
  5. Bezborodov A. B. Academic dissidence in the USSR // Russian Historical Journal, 1999, volume II, No. 1. ISBN 5-7281-0092-9
  6. Vladimir Kozlov. Sedition: Dissent in the USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. 1953-1982 years. According to declassified documents of the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR
  7. Dissidents about dissidence. // "Banner". - 1997. No. 9
  8. L. Ternovsky. Law and concepts (Russian version).

  Especially for the OU, Alexey Makarov recalled the most important events in the history of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union.

  July 1958

  Opening of the monument to Mayakovsky in Moscow and the beginning of informal meetings of young people on the square near the monument. Many participants in poetry readings would later become famous dissidents.

  1959–1960

  Alexander Ginzburg publishes three issues of the samizdat poetry magazine "Syntax", which publishes most of the famous Russian poets of the mid-20th century - from Akhmadulina to Brodsky.

  June 1–2, 1962

  Demonstration of workers protesting against price increases in Novocherkassk. Troops were deployed to disperse the protesters. Several dozen people were killed.

  February–March 1964

  Arrest of the poet Joseph Brodsky in Leningrad on charges of “parasitism”; sentence - 5 years of exile. Released in September 1965 thanks to numerous, but non-public actions of the intelligentsia, as well as pressure from the world community. An unofficial recording of the trial, made by journalist Frida Vigdorova, will mark the beginning of a new genre of samizdat.

  December 5, 1965

  “Glasnost rally” on Pushkin Square in connection with the arrest in September 1965 of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who published under pseudonyms abroad. Considered the starting point of the dissident movement.

  January 22, 1967

  Vladimir Bukovsky organizes a demonstration on Pushkin Square to protest against the adopted new political articles Criminal Code, including Article 190-3 “Organization or Active participation in group actions that violate public order,” as well as in connection with the arrest of like-minded people (Alexander Ginzburg, Yuri Galanskov, etc.). Bukovsky and his comrades will be convicted under the articles of the Criminal Code against which they protested.

  January 11, 1968

  Larisa Bogoraz and Pavel Litvinov issue an appeal “” in connection with the trial of Alexander Ginzburg, Yuri Galankov, Alexey Dobrovolsky and Vera Lashkova, asserting in society the idea that human rights are not internal matter states.

  April 30, 1968

  The first issue of the human rights bulletin “Chronicle of Current Events” is published (the last one is dated December 31, 1982). His even-handed tone and factual accuracy made him a linchpin of the dissident movement. All issues can be found at the link: http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/chr/index.htm.

  August 25, 1968

  “Demonstration of the Seven” on Red Square to protest against the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia. A participant in the demonstration (and the first editor of the Chronicle of Current Events), poet Natalya Gorbanevskaya, will compile a documentary collection “Noon” about the demonstration and the trial of its participants.

  May 20, 1969

  The first human rights association in the USSR was created - the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights. The addressee of her messages will be the UN Commission on Human Rights.

  November 4, 1970

  Andrei Sakharov, Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov found a human rights expert organization - the Human Rights Committee.

  1971

  Academician Andrei Sakharov (already known as the author of “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”) sends a “Memorandum” to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev proposing democratic reforms.

  1972–1973

  Increased pressure on human rights defenders in Russia and Ukraine. The arrested Pyotr Yakir and Viktor Krasin give confessions during the investigation and at trial, which leads to the suspension of the publication of the Chronicle of Current Events and a temporary crisis in the dissident movement.

  February 12–13, 1974

  Arrest, charges of “treason” and deportation to Germany of the writer, Nobel Prize winner (1970) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose “experience in artistic research” “The Gulag Archipelago” was published in December 1973 in Paris.

  October 30, 1974

  The Day of Political Prisoner of the USSR is celebrated for the first time. A press conference for foreign journalists is taking place in Moscow, and hunger strikes are taking place in political camps.

  October 1975

  Academician Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

  May 12, 1976

  Creation of the Moscow Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR. Subsequently, Helsinki groups appeared in Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine and Armenia, as well as in Western countries. The Helsinki Act drew attention to the relationship between human rights and international security.

  1976–1978

  Creation of specialized human rights associations: the Christian Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Believers in the USSR, the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, and the Initiative Group for the Defense of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

  January 22, 1980

  Andrei Sakharov was detained in Moscow on his way to work, by a special decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was deprived of all state awards and deported to Gorky (a city closed to foreigners) without trial.

  September 6, 1982

  The last three members of the Moscow Helsinki Group (Elena Bonner, Sofia Kallistratova, Naum Meiman) declare that it is ceasing its activities due to repression.

  December 8, 1986

  After a multi-day hunger strike demanding the release of all political prisoners in the Chistopol prison, human rights activist, author of the book “My Testimony” Anatoly Marchenko dies.

  December 16, 1986

  General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev calls Academician Sakharov’s apartment in Gorky (a telephone was specially installed there the day before) and informs him of permission to return to Moscow. Sakharov demands the release of all political prisoners in the USSR.

  January–February 1987

  The process of releasing political prisoners begins. Many of them are forced to sign pledges “not to violate Soviet laws.”

• 1. Spatial arts:
• 2. Temporary arts
• 7. Contemporary art
• 8. Science is the most important element of culture. The main stages of the development of science. The connection between science and production.
• 9. The main stages of the development of the scientific revolution. Scientific picture of the world.
• Stage 1. The first scientific revolution took place in the 17th century. It is associated with a revolution in natural science.
• Stage 2. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. A new scientific revolution took place, starting in physics and covering all major branches of science.
• Stage 3. In the middle of the twentieth century, the scientific and technological revolution (STR) began.
• 10. Culturogenesis. Culture and civilization, their relationship.
• 5) Language.
• Classification of civilization
• 11. Interpretation of the concepts of culture and civilization in the concept of N.Ya Danilevsky, Father Spengler.
• The concept of local cultures by N.Ya.Danilevsky
• Concept about. Spengler
• 12. Interpretation of the concepts of culture and civilization in the concept of a. Toynbee
• Stages of life of civilization in Toynbee's concept
• 2) Growth stage.
• 3) Breakdown stage
• 13. The emergence and development of postmodernism.
• 14. Postmodernism as a way of life.
• 15. Typology of cultures. Eastern and Western types of cultures.
• Stage 1 - prehistory, which lasted hundreds of thousands of years.
• 7. Identification of crops by place and time of their origin:
• 16. Culture and people. Enculturation and socialization.
• 17. Culture and personality
• 18. Culture and education. Education in the modern world.
• 2. The task is to unify education (uniformity, a single form of education) in developed countries.
• 19. The emergence of culture. Material and spiritual culture of primitive society.
• 20. The uniqueness of the culture of Ancient Egyptian civilization.
• 1. Culture of the Ancient and Middle Kingdoms
• 2. Culture of the New Kingdom era.
• 21. Culture of ancient India.
• 22. Cultural heritage of Ancient China
• Periodization of the history and culture of Ancient China:
• 23. Culture of ancient Japan
• 24. Culture of medieval Japan.
• 25. Cretan-Mycenaean culture in myths and archaeological research
• II. History of Hellenism (late 4th-1st centuries BC)
• 26. Characteristics of Byzantine culture
• 27. Culture of the Western European Middle Ages
• 28. Culture of the Arab-Muslim East in the Middle Ages
• 29. Characteristics of Renaissance culture
• 30. Culture of Russia in the first half of the 18th century
• M.V. Lomonosov
• 31. Culture, science and education in Russia in the second half of the 18th century.
• 32. Culture of Russia in the first half of the 19th century. "Golden Age" of Russian culture.
• 33. Culture of Russia in the second half of the 19th century.
• 34. “Silver Age” of Russian culture (1890s - 1917).
• 35. Development of enlightenment, education, science in Russia at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries.
• 36. Development of education and enlightenment in Russia after the October Revolution and in the 1920s.
• 37. Development of higher education and science after the October Revolution and in the 20s in Russia.
• 38. Activities of the “Down with Illiteracy” and “Militant Atheists” societies. Proletkult movement.
• 39. Attitude towards “fellow travelers” in literature and art in the 1920s.
• 40. Culture of Russian abroad in the 1920s.
• 41. Cultural revolution of the 1930s in the USSR
• 42. Training of the new Soviet technical and humanitarian intelligentsia in the 30s in Russia. Development of science, literature and art
• 43. The influence of the cult of personality, the policy of mass repression on the creative intelligentsia.
• 44. Religion and church under Stalinist totalitarianism. The attitude of the authorities towards religious buildings in the 30s, and towards historical and cultural monuments in general.
• 45. “Thaw” in the spiritual life of Soviet society after the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
• 46. ​​Development of education and science in the USSR in the mid-1950s - mid-1960s
• 47. The spiritual life of Soviet society in the mid-1960s - early 80s.
• 48. Achievements and failures in the system of public education and higher education in the 1970s and early 80s. In Russia
• 49. Dissident and human rights movement in the USSR
• 50. Education, science and culture in market conditions in the 1990s.
• 51. Nature and culture. The role of nature in the development of culture.
• 52. Ecology and ecological culture.

49. Dissident and human rights movement in the USSR

They expressed their disagreement with the current situation in the country, with the authorities’ refusal to liberalize society dissidents.

A dissident is a dissident person who does not share the dominant ideology, who disagrees. Dissidence as a phenomenon is characteristic of totalitarian regimes during periods of crisis and decomposition.

The core of the dissident movement was human rights activities.

Main forms of dissident activity

Collection and distribution of information prohibited by the authorities (samizdat).

Protests and appeals to the country's senior leadership and law enforcement agencies.

Preparation and distribution of “open letters” in defense of those illegally convicted or dedicated to pressing problems of the socio-political life of society.

Demonstrations and rallies.

Specific moral and material assistance to individuals subjected to illegal repression and their families.

Dissidence posed a moral and ideological threat to the system. The dissident movement included human rights, national liberation, religious organizations and movements.

In September 1966, several additional articles were introduced into the RSFSR Criminal Code, including articles 190 (1) and 190 (3), which “facilitated” the persecution of all dissidents. At the suggestion of KGB Chairman Yu.V. Andropov, more attention was paid to the fight against dissent. The fifth department of the KGB (to combat dissidence) was created.

In letters to higher authorities, dissidents boldly condemned the illegal privileges of the nomenclature and the artificial exaltation of the figure of Secretary General L.I. Brezhnev, the monopoly position of the CPSU, the actual lack of rights of the Soviets. The authors of the letters demanded the introduction of constitutional guarantees against the new cult of personality, the right to fearlessly think and express one’s opinion.”

An important part of the dissident movement was self-produced literature – “samizdat”. IN "samizdat" publishednumerous typewritten magazines: “Veche”, “Search”, “Memory” - in Moscow, “Sigma”, “Hours”, “37”– in Leningrad, etc. “Samizdat” distributed journalistic and artistic works, criticized Soviet reality and exposed Stalinism. Human rights activists exposed the situation of prisoners, persecution for beliefs, and the use of psychiatry as a means of political suppression. Thanks to musical “samizdat”, Soviet people widely recognized the songs of B. Okudzhava, A. Galich, V. Vysotsky.

A strong impetus that led to the emergence of the human rights movement in the USSR was the trial of the writers A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel. Sinyavsky and Daniel published several literary works in the West under pseudonyms. In the USSR they were accused of anti-Soviet activities and arrested. In February 1966, a trial took place. This was the first open political trial after Stalin's death, and it made a depressing impression on contemporaries: writers were tried for their literary works, and, despite the pressure, they did not admit their guilt. They did not consider their activities and their works to be contrary to Soviet laws.

Rumors about the arrest of writers reminded the Soviet public of the trials of “enemies of the people” and aroused the indignation of many people. On December 5, 1965, that is, on Constitution Day, the first demonstration in many decades not sanctioned by the authorities took place on Pushkin Square. About 200 people took part in it - mainly students from Moscow universities. The demonstration took place under the slogans: “We demand transparency over Sinyavsky and Daniel!” and “Respect the Soviet Constitution!” The demonstration was quickly dispersed, the posters were taken away and torn up. About 20 people were detained, many student participants were expelled from universities. Some were placed in psychiatric hospitals.

A significant part of the creative intelligentsia strongly objected to the trial of writers for their works. The Supreme Court sentenced A. Sinyavsky to seven years, and Yu. Daniel to five years in strict regime forced labor camps. Such harsh measures were not accidental: Sinyavsky and Daniel, in essence, criticized not particular shortcomings and omissions, but the very essence of the command-administrative system.

After the trial of Y. Daniel and A. Sinyavsky, two dissidents A. Ginzburg and Y. Galanskov compiled and distributed a “White Book” about this trial. It included Soviet and foreign newspaper articles about the trial, letters of protest, the last word of the defendants and many other materials. In 1967, the compilers of the book and their two “accomplices” (V. Pashkova and A. Dobrovolsky) were arrested. A trial took place—the “trial of four,” as it was then dubbed. Ginzburg received five years in prison, and Galanskov - seven years.

It was this second public political process that caused the widest public protests. Letters of protest were signed by about a thousand people - a completely unprecedented number. Many still did not quite understand what this threatened them with. Now they were fired from their jobs. The consequences of this were twofold. On the one hand, such massive protests never happened again. On the other hand, hundreds of people finally joined the dissidents. As a result, the movement was firmly on its feet.

A new stage in the development of the dissident and human rights movement occurred during the suppression of the Prague Spring (1968).

In 1968, Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle” was published in the West. The following year the author was expelled from the Republican Union of Writers.

A.D. became the recognized spiritual leader of the human rights movement. Sakharov. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was awarded the Stalin Prize for the creation of the hydrogen bomb. He was three times Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1968, he wrote the article “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom.” It was published in samizdat literature. He called for “to complete the exposure” of I. Stalin, and highly praised V. Lenin. He put forward the idea of ​​a “gradual rapprochement (convergence) of capitalism and socialism,” which would “take positive features from each other.” “Reflections” had unprecedented success all over the world. In Western countries, this article was published in a total circulation of 18 million copies. The Soviet press began to argue with Reflections with a great delay - since 1973.

In 1968, Sakharov was removed from secret work. Having come into conflict with the state, he decided to refuse the money received from it. He donated all his savings - 139 thousand rubles - to the needs of medicine.

The figures of the human rights movement included such masters of art as I. Brodsky, M. Rostropovich, A. Tarkovsky, E. Neizvestny and others, who did not want to live under the tutelage of the state.

In 1970, the Human Rights Committee was created in Moscow, which included A. Sakharov, A. Solzhenitsyn, A. Tverdokhlebov, A. Galich. The Human Rights Committee was founded as an association of authors, which, according to Soviet law, formally not only required permission from the authorities, but even registration. The Committee was the first independent public association in the USSR to have membership in the international League of Human Rights, which served as a guarantee that its members would remain free.

Sakharov spoke out in defense of political prisoners and against the death penalty. In October 1975, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was widely condemned in the Soviet press. Sakharov was not allowed to travel for the prize as “a person with knowledge of state secrets.” Instead, on December 10, his wife Elena Bonner received the award.

Thus, the human rights movement is a special phenomenon in the political and cultural life of the country, the most radical form of protest. Cultural figures who tried to openly express their doubts and protests became dangerous to the authorities and were forced to end up either in prison or outside the USSR. So, throughout the 60-70s. Many artists and cultural figures left the Soviet Union voluntarily, as well as forcibly: director of the Taganka Theater Yu.P. Lyubimov; film director A.A. Tarkovsky; artists - M.M. Shemyakin, E.I. Unknown; poets - I.A. Brodsky, A.A. Galich et al.; writers - A.I. Solzhenitsyn, V.N. Voinovich, V.P. Aksenov and others; musicians - V.N. Rostropovich, G.P. Vishnevskaya; ballet dancers – R.H. Nuriev, M.V. Baryshnikov et al.

The total number of dissidents in the USSR, according to some estimates, did not exceed 2 thousand people; according to others, it numbered more than 13 thousand people.

Religious movements also joined the opposition. The struggle for freedom of movement from the USSR and freedom of emigration (primarily Jewish and German) attracted much attention.

On October 30, 1974, dissidents celebrated the Day of Soviet Political Prisoners for the first time. In subsequent years this became a tradition. Another tradition was born in the political camps: every year on December 10, Human Rights Day, to hold a one-day hunger strike.

In the mid-1970s, a new stage of the dissident and human rights movement began, which can be called “Helsinki.”

In the summer of 1975, the Soviet Union signed the Final Act Helsinki meeting on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The countries that signed the act were required to respect human rights. A public group to promote the implementation of the Helsinki Agreements was created in Moscow. The group collected and analyzed material on human rights violations in the country and sent its reports to the governments of all countries party to the agreement. Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian Helsinki groups emerged. The appearance of Helsinki groups in the country was greeted painfully by the authorities. At the end of 1979 - beginning of 1980, almost all the leaders and active participants in the human rights movement were arrested and exiled.

Dissidents expressed outrage against the introduction Soviet troops to Afghanistan. Sakharov immediately announced his protest to foreign journalists. He was detained. The prosecutor announced to the academician that he would be deprived of all awards and titles. Without trial, Sakharov was sent into exile administratively to the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). They also wanted to remove him from the ranks of academicians, but P. Kapitsa stood up for him. During the entire time of A. Sakharov’s exile, a campaign was going on in many countries in his defense.

Underground dissidents did not disappear until “perestroika”. In February 1986, M.S. Gorbachev said that we have no political prisoners. But that was not the case. In August 1986, dissident A. Marchenko died in Chistopol prison after going on a hunger strike. He demanded the release of all political prisoners. Soon after his death, the gradual release of political prisoners began. They were released not under an amnesty, but each separately, demanding a petition for clemency. Not everyone agreed to write it, understanding it as an admission of guilt.

Academician A. Sakharov was allowed to return from exile. Sakharov's return from exile in December 1986 marked the beginning of a new era - a new political “thaw”. Returning to the capital, Sakharov immediately became involved in public activities. For the first time he traveled abroad - to the USA, France, Italy, Canada. He became one of the founders of the human rights organization Memorial. He was elected as a people's deputy from the Academy of Sciences and became known throughout the country as a political figure. At the height of the political struggle, in December 1989, Academician Sakharov unexpectedly died.

Thus, during the years of Brezhnev’s stagnation, there were dissidents in the country who fearlessly expressed their protest against the existing reality, and during the years of perestroika they continued to actively fight for human rights.

DISSIDENTS (from the Latin dissidens, literally - sitting separately; dissenter), originally - those of different faiths; in the political vocabulary of the 2nd half of the 20th century - individuals in totalitarian and authoritarian states who publicly declare their rejection of certain principles of the socio-political system, criticizing specific manifestations of domestic and foreign policy.

Historically, the term is associated with religion, its content has changed. The word "dissident" appeared in Poland in the 16th century with the beginning of the Reformation. Initially, this concept in 1573, an act of the Sejm of the Warsaw General Confederation, designated followers of all Christian confessions (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox), between whom a religious peace was established on the basis of equality of confessions. During the Reformation, which swept European countries, supporters of the Catholic Church, in the fight against dissent, began to call all opponents of Catholicism dissidents. Later, with the development of the Reformation, dissidents were people who did not profess the dogmas of the dominant Church in a particular country. Measures were taken against them that limited religious and civil rights, threatening, among other things, the personal safety of those of other faiths. The issue of the political rights of dissidents became especially acute in the 16th and 17th centuries. In England, dissidents included opponents of the Anglican Church (both Catholics and followers of Protestant sects - Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Puritans, etc.), in France - Huguenots, in Catholic Poland - Orthodox and Protestants, in Germany - persons who did not adhere to the faith of the prince, whose subjects they were.

In the mid-1950s - mid-1980s in the USSR and other socialist countries, political dissidence was a manifestation of opposition in the absence of civil society and political institutions for expressing in constitutional forms of protest or points of view different from those dictated by the official ideology. Among the first illegal dissident organizations (numbering within 10 people) were, for example, in Moscow - the “People's Democratic Party of Russia” (1955-58, organizers - V.S. Polenov and others), a circle of graduate students of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University of Leningrad N. Krasnopevtsev (1956-57), in Leningrad - circles led by mathematician R. I. Pimenov (1956-57) and student V. I. Trofimov (1956-57). The most numerous (28 members, 30 candidates) was the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSKHSON; 1964-67, leader - N.V. Ogurtsov). Dissidents attracted public attention during the liberalization of the regime after the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956). The first public manifestations of dissidence included the reading at the monument to V.V. Mayakovsky in Moscow, mostly not accepted for publication in Soviet censored publications (1958-1961, active participants - V.N. Osipov, E.S. Kuznetsov, N. V. Bokshtein). Dissidents published abroad (the so-called tamizdat) and published several typewritten copies (the so-called samizdat) of literary works that had not been censored in the USSR. They were popularized by foreign radio stations (“Voice of America”, “Freedom - Free Europe”, etc.) or distributed illegally in the country, which greatly increased the potential of the dissident movement. The first books published abroad were: “The Trial is Coming” (1959), “Lyubimov” (1963) by A. D. Sinyavsky, “Life and Fate” (1959), “Everything Flows” (1963) by V. S. Grossman, “ Moscow Speaks" (1961), "Redemption" (1963) by Yu. M. Daniel and others. The most famous "Tamizdat" publications included "Doctor Zhivago" by B. L. Pasternak (1958), "The Gulag Archipelago" by A. I. Solzhenitsyn (1973), “Yawning Heights” by A. A. Zinoviev (1976). The first samizdat literary magazines were “Syntax” (No. 1-3; 1959-60; Moscow; circulation reached 300 copies; editor A. I. Ginzburg), which published poems by B. A. Akhmadulina, N., which encountered obstacles from censorship. I. Glazkov, A. S. Kushner, B. Sh. Okudzhava, G. V. Sapgir, I. S. Kholin and others, and “Sphinxes” (1965; editor V. Ya. Tarsis), which contains poems poets of the literary association SMOG founded by L. G. Gubanov. The largest publication, the bulletin “Chronicle of Current Events” (No. 1-64, 1968-83; compiled by N. E. Gorbanevskaya and others), recorded cases of violations of human rights in the USSR and speeches in their defense. A protest demonstration on Red Square in Moscow against the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia and the trial of the demonstrators (1968) caused a serious response in the country and abroad.

The dissident movement in Eastern European countries has been developing since the late 1950s. In Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the GDR and other socialist countries, dissident opposition groups were led by such political figures as L. Walesa, V. Havel, V. Kostunica, A. Demachi, A. Gönz, R. Eppelman, to whom the West helped powerful moral and material support.

The views of dissidents varied in ideals and political orientation. Some (for example, brothers R. A. and Zh. A. Medvedev) believed that all the shortcomings socio-political systems stemmed from Stalinism, being the result of a distortion of Marxism-Leninism, and saw the main task in the “purification of socialism”; R. A. Medvedev believed that the socialist trend would become widespread and would allow democratic reforms to be carried out in the USSR, and subsequently (at the beginning of the 21st century) to build a classless communist society. Others (the leader - Academician A.D. Sakharov) saw the future of world civilization in the convergence of two systems - capitalist and socialist, which was to be accompanied by demilitarization, the creation of a “mixed type” economy, the strengthening of international trust, the protection of human rights, law and freedom, deep social progress and democratization, strengthening the moral and spiritual principles in man. A. I. Solzhenitsyn saw the way out of the main, in his opinion, dangers that threatened the country in the next 10-30 years (war with China and common death in an environmental disaster with Western civilization), in the rejection of Marxist ideology and in developing “an old Russian banner, partly even an Orthodox banner.” He also proposed recognizing that for the foreseeable future it is not a democratic, but an authoritarian system that is necessary for Russia, to abandon the production of vodka as the most important source of state income and from many types of industrial production with toxic waste, to build dispersed cities, etc. Some dissidents [for example, A.M. Ivanov (Skuratov), ​​G. M. Shimanov] saw the root of world evil (and the tragedy of Russia) in the rejection of Christianity by Western civilization and in the replacement of the fullness of spiritual life with the “false shine” of material well-being, they believed that Russians play a disproportionately small role in the life of the country role, and a national revolution under the slogan “one indivisible Russia” can change the situation. I. R. Shafarevich gained a reputation as an ideologist of the national Orthodox movement, criticizing the totalitarian system (articles in the collection “From Under the Blocks,” Paris, 1974), author of the books “Socialism as a Phenomenon of World History” (Paris, 1977) and “ Russophobia" (since 1980 it was distributed in samizdat, since 1989 it was republished many times). “Neo-pagans”, formed by the mid-1970s, called for a return to pre-Christian beliefs, considered the Proto-Slavs and ancient Slavs to be part of the tribes of the ancient Aryans, who had a common culture and religion in the space from India to Spain. The authorities viewed the desire to leave for Israel as a form of Jewish nationalism: in 1970, a trial of individuals who unsuccessfully sought permission to emigrate and intended to hijack a plane for this purpose ended with harsh sentences for the organizers of the action and arrests among Zionist youth in a number of cities in the country.

One of the main directions in dissidence was the human rights movement. Within its framework, the Committee of Human Rights in the USSR operated in 1970-73 (created by V. N. Chalidze, members - A. D. Sakharov, I. R. Shafarevich, etc.), since 1973 - the Russian section of the organization Amnesty International , since 1976 - Moscow Group for Assistance to the Implementation of Humanitarian Articles of the Helsinki Agreements (leader - Yu. F. Orlov, members - L. M. Alekseeva, M. S. Bernshtam, E. G. Bonner, etc.; soon similar groups arose in Ukraine , in Georgia, Lithuania and Armenia), since 1977 - a working commission formed under it to investigate the use of psychiatry for political purposes (A.P. Podrabinek and others).

The struggle of several hundred dissidents against the vices of the existing regime aroused the sympathy of an immeasurably wider circle of fellow citizens, which testified to significant contradictions in society. Western intelligence services sought to use the dissident movement for their own purposes, providing it with support (for example, by 1975, the American CIA participated in the publication in Russian of more than 1.5 thousand books by Russian and Soviet authors).

Phenomena similar to the dissident movement in socialist countries can sometimes be observed in states with a stable democratic system. Thus, in the United States, dissidents were persecuted during the period of McCarthyism, during mass protests against the Vietnam War, for the civil rights of people of color, etc. However, the existence of civil society institutions and systemic opposition allows democratic countries to more easily overcome ideological and social conflicts.

Lit.: Alekseeva L. M. History of dissent in the USSR: The newest period. M., 1992. M., 2006; she is the same. History of the human rights movement. M., 1996; Bezborodov A. B., Meyer M. M., Pivovar E. I. Materials on the history of the dissident and human rights movement in the USSR of the 50s - 80s M., 1994; Polikovskaya L.V. We are a premonition... the forerunner... Mayakovsky Square, 1958-1965. M., 1997; Samizdat c. M.; Minsk, 1997; 5810. Supervisory proceedings of the USSR prosecutor's office in cases of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda: [March 1953-1991]. M., 1999; Koroleva L. A. Historical experience of Soviet dissidence and modernity. M., 2001; Anthology of samizdat: Uncensored literature in the USSR, 1950-1980s: In 3 volumes. M., 2005; Sedition: Dissent in the USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. 1953-1982 M., 2005.

Movement of Soviet citizens who were in opposition to the policies of the authorities and whose goal was liberalization political regime in USSR. Dating: mid-60s - early 80s.

A dissident (lat. dissenter, dissenter) is a citizen who does not share the official ideology dominant in society.

Prerequisites

The discrepancy between the rights and freedoms of citizens proclaimed in the USSR Constitution and the real state of affairs.

The contradictions of Soviet policy in various fields(socio-economic, cultural, etc.).

The Brezhnev leadership's departure from the policy of de-Stalinization (thaw).

The 20th Congress and the campaign of condemnation of the “cult of personality” and the policy of the “thaw” that began after it made the population of the country feel greater than before, albeit relative, freedom. But often criticism of Stalinism spilled over into criticism of Stalinism itself. Soviet system, which the authorities could not allow. Replaced N.S. in 1964 Khrushcheva L.I. Brezhnev and his team quickly set out to suppress dissent.

The dissident movement as such began in 1965 with the arrest of A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, who published one of their works “Walks with Pushkin” in the West. As a protest against this, on December 5, 1965, on Soviet Constitution Day, a “glasnost rally” was held on Pushkin Square in Moscow. This rally was not only a response to the arrest of Yu. Daniel and A. Sinyavsky, but also a call on the authorities to comply with their own laws (the speakers’ posters read: “We demand openness of the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel!” and “Respect the Soviet Constitution!”). December 5 can be called the birthday of the dissident movement in the USSR. From this time on, the creation of a network of underground circles, wide in geography and representative in composition of participants, began, whose task was to change the existing political order. It was from this time that the authorities began a targeted fight against dissidence. As for the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel, it was still public (took place in January 1966), although the sentences were quite severe: Sinyavsky and Daniel received 5 and 7 years in maximum security camps, respectively.

The speech on August 25, 1968 against the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, which took place on Red Square, also became a symbol of dissidence. Eight people took part in it: student T. Baeva, linguist K. Babitsky, philologist L. Bogoraz, poet V. Delaunay, worker V. Dremlyuga, physicist P. Litvinov, art critic V. Fayenberg and poetess N. Gorbanevskaya.

Goals of the dissident movement

The main goals of the dissidents were:

Democratization (liberalization) of social and political life in the USSR;

Providing the population with real civil and political rights and freedoms (observance of the rights and freedoms of citizens and people in the USSR);

Abolition of censorship and granting freedom of creativity;

Removal " iron curtain"and establishing close contacts with the West;

Preventing neo-Stalinism;

Convergence of socialist and capitalist social systems.

Methods of the dissident movement

Sending letters and appeals to official authorities.

Publishing and distributing handwritten and typewritten publications - samizdat.

Publication of works abroad without the permission of Soviet authorities - tamizdat.

Creation of illegal organizations (groups).

Organization of open performances.

Directions of the dissident movement

There are three main directions in it:

Civil movements (“politicians”). The largest among them was the human rights movement. His supporters stated: “The protection of human rights, his basic civil and political freedoms, open protection, by legal means, within the framework of existing laws, was the main pathos of the human rights movement... Repulsion from political activity, a suspicious attitude towards ideologically charged projects of social reconstruction, rejection of any forms organizations - this is the set of ideas that can be called a human rights position";

Religious movements (faithful and free Seventh-day Adventists, evangelical Christians - Baptists, Orthodox, Pentecostals and others);

National movements (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Armenians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Germans and others).

Stages of the dissident movement

The first stage (1965 - 1972) can be called the period of formation. These years were marked by: a “letter campaign” in defense of human rights in the USSR; the creation of the first human rights circles and groups; organization of the first funds for material assistance to political prisoners; intensifying the positions of the Soviet intelligentsia not only regarding events in our country, but also in other countries (for example, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1971, etc.); public protest against the re-Stalinization of society; appealing not only to the authorities of the USSR, but also to the world community (including the international communist movement); the creation of the first program documents of the liberal-Western (the work of A.D. Sakharov “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”) and pochvennik (“Nobel Lecture” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn) directions; the beginning of the publication of "Chronicles of Current Events" (1968); the creation on May 28, 1969 of the country's first open public association- Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR; the massive scope of the movement (according to the KGB for 1967 - 1971, 3,096 “groups of a politically harmful nature” were identified; 13,602 people included in them were prevented).

The efforts of the authorities in the fight against dissent during this period were mainly focused on: organizing in the KGB special structure(Fifth Directorate), aimed at ensuring control over mental attitudes and “prevention” of dissidents; the widespread use of psychiatric hospitals to combat dissent; changing Soviet legislation in the interests of combating dissidents; suppression of dissidents’ connections with foreign countries.

The second stage (1973 - 1974) is usually considered a period of crisis for the movement. This condition is associated with the arrest, investigation and trial of P. Yakir and V. Krasin (1972-1973), during which they agreed to cooperate with the KGB. This resulted in new arrests of participants and some fading of the human rights movement. The authorities launched an offensive against samizdat. Numerous searches, arrests and trials took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Vilnius, Novosibirsk, Kyiv and other cities.

The third stage (1974 - 1975) is considered to be a period of broad international recognition of the dissident movement. This period saw the creation of the Soviet branch international organization Amnesty International; deportation from the country A.I. Solzhenitsyn (1974); awarding the Nobel Prize to A.D. Sakharov (1975); resumption of publication of A Chronicle of Current Events (1974).

The fourth stage (1976 - 1981) is called Helsinki. During this period, a group was created to promote the implementation of the 1975 Helsinki agreements in the USSR, headed by Yu. Orlov (Moscow Helsinki Group - MHG). The group saw the main content of its activities in the collection and analysis of materials available to it about violations of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords and informing the governments of the participating countries about them. The MHG established connections with religious and national movements that were previously unrelated to each other, and began to perform some coordinating functions. At the end of 1976 - beginning of 1977, the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, and Helsinki groups were created on the basis of national movements. In 1977, a working commission was created under the MHG to investigate the use of psychiatry for political purposes.

Practice of the dissident movement

We will try to follow the course of events, first of all, the activities of the main human rights movement of the dissident movement.

Following the arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniel, a campaign of letters of protest followed. It became the final watershed between government and society.

A special impression was made by a letter from 25 prominent scientific and cultural figures to Brezhnev, which quickly spread throughout Moscow in 1966, about the tendencies to rehabilitate Stalin. Among those who signed this letter is composer D.D. Shostakovich, 13 academicians, famous directors, actors, artists, writers, old Bolsheviks with pre-revolutionary experience. The arguments against re-Stalinization were made in a spirit of loyalty, but the protest against the revival of Stalinism was expressed vigorously.

There was a massive distribution of anti-Stalinist samizdat materials. Solzhenitsyn’s novels “In the First Circle” and “Cancer Ward” became most famous during these years. Memoirs about the camps and prisons of the Stalin era were distributed: “This must not happen again” by S. Gazaryan, “Memoirs” by V. Olitskaya, “Notebooks for grandchildren” by M. Baitalsky, etc. “Kolyma Stories” by V. Shalamov was reprinted and rewritten. But the most widespread was the first part of E. Ginzburg’s chronicle novel “Steep Route”. The petition campaign also continued. The most famous were: a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU from 43 children of communists who were repressed during Stalin’s times (September 1967) and letters from Roy Medvedev and Pyotr Yakir to the magazine “Communist”, containing a list of Stalin’s crimes.

The petition campaign continued in early 1968. Appeals to the authorities were supplemented by letters against judicial reprisals against samizdators: former student of the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute Yuri Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg, Alexei Dobrovolsky, Vera Dashkova. The “Trial of Four” was directly related to the case of Sinyavsky and Daniel: Ginzburg and Galanskov were accused of compiling and transmitting to the West the “White Book on the Trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel,” Galanskov, in addition, of compiling the samizdat literary and journalistic collection “Phoenix-66” ", and Dashkova and Dobrovolsky - in assistance to Galanskov and Ginzburg. The form of the 1968 protests repeated the events of two years ago, but on an enlarged scale.

In January, a demonstration took place in defense of the arrested, organized by V. Bukovsky and V. Khaustov. About 30 people took part in the demonstration. During the trial of the “four,” about 400 people gathered outside the courthouse.

The petition campaign was much broader than in 1966. Representatives of all layers of the intelligentsia, right down to the most privileged, took part in the petition campaign. There were more than 700 “signatories.” The signature campaign of 1968 was not immediately successful: Ginzburg was sentenced to 5 years in a camp, Galanskov to 7, and died in prison in 1972.

In the spring and summer of 1968, the Czechoslovak crisis developed, caused by an attempt at radical democratic transformations of the socialist system and ending with the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. The most famous demonstration in defense of Czechoslovakia was the demonstration on August 25, 1968 on Red Square in Moscow. Larisa Bogoraz, Pavel Litvinov, Konstantin Babitsky, Natalia Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, Vadim Delone and Vladimir Dremlyuga sat on the parapet at the Execution Ground and unfurled the slogans “Long live free and independent Czechoslovakia!”, “Shame on the occupiers!”, “Hands off Czechoslovakia” !”, “For your and our freedom!”. Almost immediately, the demonstrators were arrested by plainclothes KGB officers who were on duty in Red Square awaiting the departure of the Czechoslovak delegation from the Kremlin. The trial took place in October. Two were sent to a camp, three to exile, one to a mental hospital. N. Gorbanevskaya, who had an infant, was released. The people of Czechoslovakia learned about this demonstration in the USSR and all over the world.

The reassessment of values ​​that took place in Soviet society in 1968 and the government's final abandonment of the liberal course determined the new alignment of opposition forces. The human rights movement has set a course for the formation of unions and associations - not only to influence the government, but also to protect their own rights.

In April 1968, a group began working that published the political bulletin “Chronicle of Current Events” (CTC). The first editor of the chronicle was Natalya Gorbanevskaya. After her arrest in December 1969 and until 1972, it was Anatoly Yakobson. Subsequently, the editorial board changed every 2-3 years, mainly due to arrests.

The editorial staff of the HTS collected information about human rights violations in the USSR, the situation of political prisoners, arrests of human rights activists, and acts of exercise of civil rights. Over the course of several years of work, HTS has established connections between disparate groups in the human rights movement. The chronicle was closely connected not only with human rights activists, but also with various dissidents. Thus, a significant amount of CTS materials was devoted to the problems of national minorities, national democratic movements in the Soviet republics, primarily in Ukraine and Lithuania, as well as religious problems. Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists were frequent correspondents of the Chronicle. The breadth of the Chronicle's geographical connections was also significant. By 1972, the releases described the situation in 35 locations across the country.

Over the 15 years of the Chronicle’s existence, 65 issues of the newsletter were prepared; 63 issues were distributed (the practically prepared 59th issue was seized during a search in 1981; the last, 65th, also remained in manuscript). The volume of issues ranged from 15-20 (in the early years) to 100-150 (at the end) typewritten pages.

In 1968, censorship in scientific publications was tightened in the USSR, the threshold of secrecy for many types of published information increased, and Western radio stations began to be jammed. A natural reaction to this was the significant growth of samizdat, and since there was not enough underground publishing capacity, it became the rule to send a copy of the manuscript to the West. At first, samizdat texts came “by gravity”, through familiar correspondents, scientists, and tourists who were not afraid to bring “forbidden books” across the border. In the West, some of the manuscripts were published and also smuggled back into the Union. This is how a phenomenon was formed, which at first received the name “tamizdat” among human rights activists.

The intensification of repression against dissidents in 1968-1969 gave rise to a completely new phenomenon for Soviet political life - the creation of the first human rights association. It was created in 1969. It began traditionally, with a letter about violations of civil rights in the USSR, this time sent to the UN. The authors of the letter explained their appeal as follows: “We are appealing to the UN because we have not received any response to our protests and complaints, sent for a number of years to the highest government and judicial authorities in the USSR. The hope that our voice will be heard, that the authorities will stop the lawlessness that we constantly pointed out, this hope has been exhausted.” They asked the UN to “protect human rights violated in the Soviet Union.” The letter was signed by 15 people: participants in the signing campaigns of 1966-1968 Tatyana Velikanova, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Sergei Kovalev, Viktor Krasin, Alexander Lavut, Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, Yuri Maltsev, Grigory Podyapolsky, Tatyana Khodorovich, Pyotr Yakir, Anatoly Yakobson and Genrikh Altunyan, Leonid Plyushch. The initiative group wrote that in the USSR “... one of the most basic human rights is being violated - the right to have independent beliefs and disseminate them by any legal means.” The signatories stated that they would form the “Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR.”

The activities of the Initiative Group were limited to investigating facts of human rights violations, demanding the release of prisoners of conscience and prisoners in special hospitals. Data on human rights violations and the number of prisoners was sent to the UN and international humanitarian congresses, International League human rights.

The initiative group existed until 1972. By this time, 8 of its 15 members were arrested. The activities of the Initiative Group were interrupted due to the arrest in the summer of 1972 of its leaders P. Yakir and V. Krasin.

The experience of the Initiative Group's legal work convinced others of the opportunity to act openly. In November 1970, the Human Rights Committee in the USSR was created in Moscow. The initiators were Valery Chalidze, Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Academician Sakharov, all three were physicists. Later they were joined by Igor Shafarevich, mathematician, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The committee's experts were A. Yesenin-Volpin and B. Tsukerman, and the correspondents were A. Solzhenitsyn and A. Galich.

The founding statement indicated the goals of the Committee: advisory assistance to public authorities in the creation and application of human rights guarantees; development of theoretical aspects of this problem and study of its specifics in a socialist society; legal education, promotion of international and Soviet documents on human rights. The Committee dealt with the following problems: a comparative analysis of the USSR's obligations under the international covenants on human rights and Soviet legislation; the rights of persons recognized as mentally ill; definition of the concepts “political prisoner” and “parasite”. Although the Committee was intended to be a research and advisory organization, its members were approached by a large number of people not only for legal advice, but also for assistance.

Since the early 70s, arrests of dissidents in the capital and major cities have intensified significantly. Special “samizdat” processes began. Any text written on one’s own behalf was subject to Art. 190 or art. 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which meant 3 or 7 years in camps, respectively. Psychiatric repression intensified. In August 1971, the USSR Ministry of Health agreed with the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs a new instruction granting psychiatrists the right to forcibly hospitalize persons “posing a public danger” without the consent of the patient’s relatives or “other persons around him.” In psychiatric hospitals in the early 70s there were: V. Gershuni, P. Grigorenko, V. Fainberg, V. Borisov, M. Kukobaka and other human rights activists. Dissidents considered placement in special psychiatric hospitals more difficult than imprisonment in prisons and camps. Those who ended up in hospitals were tried in absentia, and the trial was always closed.

The activities of the HTS and samizdat activities in general became an important object of persecution. The so-called Case No. 24 is the investigation of the leading figures of the Moscow Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR, P. Yakir and V. Krasin, arrested in the summer of 1972. The case of Yakir and Krasin was essentially a process against HTS, since Yakir’s apartment served as the main point of collecting information for the Chronicle. As a result, Yakir and Krasin “repented” and gave evidence against more than 200 people who took part in the work of the HTS. The Chronicle, suspended in 1972, was discontinued the following year due to mass arrests.

Since the summer of 1973, the authorities began to practice expulsion from the country or deprivation of citizenship. Many human rights activists were even asked to choose between a new term and leaving the country. In July - October, Zhores Medvedev, the brother of Roy Medvedev, who went to England on scientific business, was deprived of citizenship; V. Chalidze, one of the leaders of the democratic movement, who also traveled to the USA for scientific purposes. In August, Andrei Sinyavsky was allowed to travel to France, and in September, one of the leading members of the Islamic State and editor of the Chronicle, Anatoly Yakobson, was pushed to leave for Israel.

September 5, 1973 A.I. Solzhenitsyn sent a “Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union” to the Kremlin, which ultimately served as the impetus for the forced expulsion of the writer in February 1974.

In August 1973, the trial of Krasin and Yakir took place, and on September 5, their press conference, at which both publicly repented and condemned their activities and the human rights movement as a whole. In the same month, due to the arrests, the Human Rights Committee ceased its work.

The human rights movement virtually ceased to exist. The survivors went deep underground. The feeling that the game was lost became dominant.

By 1974, conditions had developed for the resumption of activities of human rights groups and associations. Now these efforts were concentrated around the newly created Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights, which was finally headed by A.D. Sakharov.

In February 1974, the Chronicle of Current Events resumed its publications, and the first statements of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights appeared. By October 1974, the group had finally recovered. On October 30, members of the Initiative Group held a press conference chaired by Sakharov. At the press conference, foreign journalists were presented with appeals and open letters from political prisoners. Among them, a collective appeal to the International Democratic Federation of Women about the situation of women political prisoners, to the Universal Postal Union about systematic violations of its rules in places of detention, etc. In addition, at the press conference, recordings of interviews with eleven political prisoners of Perm camp No. 35 were played, concerning their legal status, camp regime, relations with the administration. The initiative group issued a statement calling for October 30 to be considered the Day of Political Prisoners.

In the 70s, dissidence became more radical. Its main representatives hardened their positions. What was at first simply political criticism turns into categorical accusations. At first, most dissidents cherished the hope of correcting and improving the existing system, continuing to consider it socialist. But, ultimately, they began to see in this system only signs of dying and advocated for its complete abandonment.

After the USSR signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Helsinki in 1975, the situation with respect for human rights and political freedoms became international. After this, Soviet human rights organizations were protected international standards. In 1976, Yuri Orlov created a public group to promote the implementation of the Helsinki Agreements, which prepared reports on human rights violations in the USSR and sent them to the governments of the countries participating in the Conference and to Soviet government bodies. The consequence of this was the expansion of the practice of deprivation of citizenship and deportation abroad. In the second half of the 1970s Soviet Union accusations were constantly made on the official international level in non-observance of human rights. The authorities' response was to intensify repression against Helsinki groups.

1979 was the time of a general offensive against the dissident movement. In a short time (late 1979 - 1980), almost all figures of human rights, national and religious organizations were arrested and convicted. The sentences imposed became significantly more severe. Many dissidents who had served 10-15 year sentences were given new maximum sentences. The regime for holding political prisoners has been tightened. With the arrest of 500 prominent leaders, the dissident movement was decapitated and disorganized. After the emigration of the spiritual leaders of the opposition, the creative intelligentsia became quiet. Public support for dissent has also declined. The dissident movement in the USSR was practically eliminated.

The role of the dissident movement

There are several points of view on the role of the dissident movement. Supporters of one of them believe that a nihilistic orientation prevailed in the movement, revealing pathos prevailed over positive ideas. Supporters of the other speak of the movement as an era of restructuring of social consciousness. Thus, Roy Medvedev argued that “without these people, who retained their progressive beliefs, the new ideological turn of 1985-1990 would not have been possible.”