FINAL REPORT T ONATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

CONTRACTOR :

University of Delawar e

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR :

Yaroslav Bilinsky

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER :

621- 9

The work leading to this report was supported in whole or inpart from funds provided by the National Council for Sovie tand East European Research .

TITLE :

The Helsinki Watch Committees i nthe Soviet Republics : Implica -tions for Soviet NationalityPolicy

Yaroslav BilinskyT8nu Parming

AUTHOR :

Yaroslav Bilinsky(University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711, USA )

Tönu Parming(University of Maryland, College Park, ND 20742, USA )

HELSINKI WATCH COMMITTEES IN THE SOVIET REPUBLICS :

IMPLICATIONS FOR SOVIETY NATIONALITY POLICY *

Paper presented at Second World Congres son Soviet and East European Studies ,

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, German Federal Republic ,September 30 - October 4, 1980

*This paper is based on the authors' longer study, The Helsinki WatchCommittees in the Soviet Republics : Implications for the SovietNationality Question, which was supported in whole or in part fro mfunds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East Europea nResearch, under Council Contract Number 621-9 . Travel to Garmisch-Partenkirchen has been--in Bilinsky's case—made possible by grant sfrom the American Council of Learned Societies and the University o f

Delaware . The authors would like to thank their benefactors an dexplicitly stress that the authors alone are responsible for th econtents of this paper .

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Unexpectedly, within two years of the signing by the SovietUnion, the United States, Canada, and thirty-two European states ,of the long and solemn Final Act of the Conference on Security an dCooperation in Europe in Helsinki, August l, 1975, there sprang u pas many as five groups of Soviet dissenters claiming that th eHelsinki Final Act justified their existence and activity . First ,May 12, 1976, there was established in Moscow the Public Group t oPromote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords in the USSR . FromNovember 9, 1976, through April l, 1977, similar general purpos egroups were founded in the Ukraine, in Lithuania, Georgia an dArmenia .** The main reason why Helsinki Watch Committees were estab-lished in the non-Russian republics was the feeling among thei rorganizers that the non-Russian Groups, all of which continued t ocooperate with the Moscow Group, would nonetheless be more effectiv ein publicizing violations of national rights specific to thei rrepublics .

Simultaneously, in the United States an official Congressional -Executive Commission (the U .S . Commission on Security and Cooperationin Europe) started its work . We have found evidence that th einitiators of the official American Commission had been influence dby Soviet dissenters after having been sensitized to the issue b ytheir constituents of East European (Lithuanian, Jewish, Ukrainian ,and other) backgrounds . Apparently alarmed at the potential reper-cussions of the Helsinki Final Act in their country, Soviet authoritie sarrested and jailed the leading members of the Moscow and all the fourrepublican Groups, but were able to destroy only the Georgian Group .The emergence of the Helsinki Watch Committees in the Sovie tRepublics thus shows how an international act can unexpectedly serveas a stimulus for dissident activity which in turn is furthe rreinforced by the international feedback provided by sympatheti cofficial bodies and by relatively well-organized emigré communitie sin the West .

Since the signing of the Helsinki Final Act by th eSoviet government, the Soviet nationality question--like that o fSoviet human rights--has ceased to be an exclusive domestic question ,has become internationalized .

**We are not concerned with such more specialized group swithin the Soviet Helsinki movement as the Christian Committee t oDefend the Rights of Believers (establ . Dec . 27, 1976), the WorkingCommission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Politica lPurposes (establ . Jan . 5, 1977), the Group for the Legal Struggl eand Investigation of Facts about the Persecution of Believers i nthe USSR of the All-Union Church of the Faithful and Free Seventh -Day Adventists (establ . May 11, 1978), and the Catholic Committe eto Defend the Rights of Believers (establ . November 13, 1978) .

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.

The Helsinki Final Act that had been intensively negotiate dfor close to three years and whose roots go back to an unsuccessfulSoviet diplomatic initiative as far back as 1954 is a bundle o fsolemn yet contradictory promises that are not binding in inter -national law . At first sight, the Soviet government had ample reasonto be satisfied : in return for the solemn reemphasis of the de fact orecognition of Soviet territorial acquisitions in Eastern Europe i nBasket I and equally strong promises of economic, scientific andtechnological cooperation in Basket II, the Soviet Union endorse dthe measures of "Cooperation in Humanitarian and Other Fields, "popularly known as Basket III, and consented to the human right sprovisions of the "Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations BetweenParticipating States" in Basket I, particularly Principles VI I( "Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, includin gfreedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief") and VII I("Equal rights and self-determination of peoples ") . 1 Principle VIIIon the self-determination of peoples was accepted on the insistenceof the German Federal Republic despite initial Soviet misgivings :the principle is designed to facilitate an eventual reunification o fthe two Germanys .2 The long Principle VII included references tothe Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration o fHuman Rights and the two International Covenants on Human Rights , 3all of which had been signed by the Soviet Union . Principle VII als ocontained two sentences that could be interpreted as ensuring th erights of national minorities, viz . :

The participating States will respect human right sand fundamental freedoms, including the freedom o fthought, conscience, religion or belief, for all withou tdistinction as to race, sex, language, or religion .[Opening sentence . ]

The participating States on whose territory nationa lminorities exist will respect the right of person sbelonging to such minorities to equality before th elaw, will afford them the full opportunity for the actua lenjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms an dwill, in this manner, protect their legitimate interests i nthis sphere . [Fourt h sentence.]4

Principle VII also included an interesting challenge inserted on th edemands of the British delegation :

They [" the participating States"] confirm the righ tof the individual to know and act upon his rights an dduties in this field . [Seventh sentence . ]

The Soviet delegation clearly realized that both Principles VII an dVIII could be turned against their country . For example, theyinitially objected to the inclusion of Principle VIII on self -

4

determination on the ground that self-determination has been tradi-tionally associated with the rights of colonial peoples to establis htheir independence . 6 But ultimately the USSR accepted the twoprinciples for three reasons of ascending importance . First, asHarold S . Russell points out so well, built into the text of th etwo principles were implicit and explicit limitations . The very titl eof Principle VII parallels Article 18 of the International Covenan ton Civil and Political Rights, the USSR fought valiantly and no tcompletely unsuccessfully to have that Principle explicitly refer t othat Covenant and the Soviet Union can, therefore, be expected t oinvoke that Covenant together with its escape clauses whenever i twill be called upon to interpret Helsinki Principle VII . 7 To rul eout separation of national minorities, Principle VIII on "Equal right sand self-determination of peoples" on the insistence of Canada an dYugoslavia was tempered by a reference to acting in conformity wit hthe relevant norms of international law " including those relating toterritorial integrity of states, " which in turn alluded to a ver yexplicit prohibition of dismemberment contained in the UN Declaratio non Friendly Relations . 8 Secondly, the Soviet delegation was verymuch aware that the controversial Principles VII and VIII wer epreceded by Principle VI on "Nonintervention in internal affairs, "which could be interpreted broadly . Thirdly, the seeming concessionsby the USSR in Principles VII and VIII were not only limited b yimplicit and explicit limitations in those very Principles an dfurther restricted by a broad interpretation of preceding Principl eVI, but they were essentially promises made to further advance th eongoing process of détente . The Soviet government appeared to gai nmuch more than lose from signing the Helsinki Final Act . It gave theAct the utmost publicity . 9

It called for a great deal of intelligence and even greate rcivic courage on the part of Soviet dissenters such as Dr . Yuri Orlov,Elena Bonner-Sakharov, Aleksandr Ginzburg, Lyudmila Alekseeva, MalvaLanda, former Major-General Petr Grigorenko (Petro Hryhorenko) an dothers to cut through the lawyers' and diplomats ' reservations andestablish an open Public Group to Promote the Implementation of th eHelsinki Accords in the USSR in Moscow May 12, 1976, based on th eHelsinki Final Act . The initiative of the Moscow dissenters wa sundoubtedly stimulated by the Final Act's "Basket IV " : the agreemen tto hold a follow-up conference in Belgrade in 1977 . 10 In its firs tannouncement the Moscow Group promised to accept and to forward t oother signatories of the Final Act any complaints by Soviet citizensabout violations of their rights as outlined inthe Final Act . Th eGroup would also conduct investigations of its own and would reques tfrom the signatories the establishment of International Investigatin gCommittees to examine especially inhumane policies such as the takin gaway of children from religious parents, the abuse of psychiatri chospitals for political purposes, etc . (nationality problems, however ,were not mentioned) . The Moscow Group expressed hope that it smaterials would be taken into consideration at all future meetings

5

provided by the Final Act (i .e., implicitly at the Belgrade Conference )and called on the public in the signatories' states to form their ownnational Groups for the Promotion of the Implementation of th eHelsinki Accords (later an International Committee for the Promotio nof the Helsinki Accords could be formed) . 1 1

Given the distinguished liberal and multi-national membershi pof the Moscow Group (e .g ., Orlov and Alekseeva were Russians ,Hryhorenko was a Ukrainian, Bonner, Ginzburg, and Landa were partl yor fully Jewish), the questions emerge, ' ''Why were additional HelsinkiWatch Committees organized in four non-Russian republics? What i nparticular is behind the organization of the first non-Russian Group ,the Ukrainian Group November 9, 1976?" The reason for the formatio nof the non-Russian Groups is not that the Moscow Group was insensitiv e

to nationality questions . Before the establishment of the Ukrainia nGroup the Moscow Group issued nine documents, two of which dealtwith nationality problems ; after the establishment of the non-Russian Groups, by August 1979, the Moscow Group issued ninety mor edocuments, nineteen of which were addressed to nationality concerns . 13

Nevertheless, the non-Russian Helsinki activists apparently wer econcerned that either the Moscow Group might not be sensitive enoug hor that there were simply human and national rights issues tha tcould more effectively be raised by non-Russian Helsinki Groups .

The main initiator of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and th eperson who indirectly may be responsible for the formation of th eLithuanian, Georgian and Armenian Groups, was the Ukrainian write rand former high Party official Mykola Rudenko . He was personallyacquainted with Academician Sakharov and Dr . Valentin Turchin(Sakharov was an unofficial member or at the very least a benefacto rof the Moscow Group) . With Valentin Turchin and Yuri Orlov ,Rudenko joined between 1973 and April 1975 the Soviet Chapter o f

Amnesty International . 14 Rudenko had the highest regard explicitl yfor Academician Sakharov and Dr . Turchin, implicitly for Dr . Orlov . 15

Rudenko was also personally acquainted with Major-General Hryhorenko :upon his insistence Hryhorenko joined the Ukrainian Group whil eremaining a member of the earlier Moscow Group . Clearly Rudenk ohad demonstrated his lack of national prejudice and his ability t ocollaborate with Russian dissenters . In all the nineteen document sof the Ukrainian Group issued between November 9, 1976, and December ,1977, there does not appear to be any clear explanation why th eUkrainian Group was formed in addition to the Moscow Group .16 Thetrue reason is hinted at in a letter that Rudenko wrote to Dr . AndrewZwarun of the Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee in Washington ,D .C . Wrote Rudenko :

It is incorrect [to say], that our Group is a sectionof the Moscow one . We collaborate with the Muscovites ,they are actively supporting us, for they are genuin edemocrats . But from the [very] beginning we have decided

6

not to enter into a relationship of subordination ,because we have that, which is not understood by everyRussian . 1 7

What is " that which, Rudenko was afraid, not every Russian woul dunderstand"? In the last fifteen years (roughly starting with th earrest of Ukrainian intellectuals in August 1965 and continuing afterthe second wave of mass arrests in 1972) the relations between th eSoviet government and the Ukrainian intelligentsia defending th eposition of the Ukrainian language and culture have been very tense .They have become so bad that some Soviet Ukrainians have become con-vinced that their country has become engaged in a struggle fo rnational survival . One prominent recent Soviet Ukrainian emigre ha ssaid that he personally had come to the conclusion that Ukrainia nculture could develop only in an independent Ukraine . 18 In any case ,wrote Rudenko in an open letter, " the majority of Ukrainian politica lprisoners had been sentenced for alleged or real nationalism . "1 9

Certain members of the Moscow Group (L . Alekseeva, M . Landa, Y . 0rlov ,A . Ginzburg, A . Shcharansky, and V . Slepak) in publicly welcomin gthe formation of the Ukrainian Group November 12, 1976, hinted tha tthey were aware of the situation in the Ukraine being especiall ydifficult . 20 Nevertheless, for all the sympathy of the democrat sin Moscow, Rudenko and his associates remained convinced that i twas up to the Ukrainians to defend their language and culture an dthat a separate Ukrainian Helsinki Watch Committee was necessary .

The second reason for establishing such a separate Group wa sperhaps a matter of wounded national pride : though the Ukrainian SSRhad been a charter member of the UN, though it had participated i na number of international conferences, and though it had signed an dratified the two international covenant s 21 on economic, social an dcultural rights, and on civil and political rights on which some o fthe human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act were based ,the republic as such was not allowed to participate in the Helsink iprocess, though such European ministates as Liechtenstein an dSan Marino were . 22

The charter members of the Ukrainian Group, besides Rudenkoand Hryhorenko, were the writer Oles Berdnyk, the lawyers Lev Lukianenk oand Ivan Kandyba (Lukianenko in 1961 had been sentenced to death ,but his sentence was on appeal commuted to 15 years' imprisonment) ,historian Mykola Matusevych and electronics engineer Myroslav Marynovych ,former secondary school teacher Oleksii Tykhy, microbiologist Nin aStrokata-Karavansky, and elderly but spry Mrs . Oksana Meshko . Whenthe regime cracked down (Rudenko and Tykhy were among the firs tHelsinki Watchers in the Soviet Union to be arrested in February 1977 ,they were the first to be tried and sentenced to long terms i nJune 1977) 23 the Ukrainian Group added more and more members--som efrom labor camps and exile--until in December 1979 it was the larges tof all Soviet Helsinki Groups, numbering thirty members .

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What did the Ukrainian Group do? It tried to defend bot hindividual human rights (injustices committed against politica lprisoners and their relatives) and collective nationality right s(rights to use the native language) in a long series of memoranda ,appeals, individual letters and similar documents . Some of the docu-ments are rather emotional and futuristic in tone bearing the hall-mark of Oles Berdnyk, who is a well-known author of science-fiction . 24

What effect has the Ukrainian Group had upon the public inthe Ukraine? In their summary report covering the first four months:of its existence (Memorandum No . 7) the Group said that they ha dreceived "hundreds of letters and complaints from all over th eUkraine . "25 The existence of the Group was widely publicized b yWestern Radio : Voice of America reached the cities, the more out -spoken Radio Liberty could be best heard in the countryside . Some-times the complaints were impossible to deal with, the role of th eUkrainian Group being sometimes misconstrued as that of an unofficialombudsman (one example that was given by a former associate of th eGroup was that of an old woman complaining that the authorities hadtaken away her cow, could the Ukrainian Helsinki Group please help?) .But there were also more conventional complaints by political andnon-political prisoners against abuses of the authorities . Mostinteresting in this respect is Informational Bulletin No . 4 o fNovember 1978 . It contains among other things summaries of ninepetitions of prisoners, seven of which had been addressed to th eUkrainian Group . One such petition is by Alexander Stepanovich Levin ,probably a Jew, who had again been sentenced to nine years an dnine months for "especially malicious hooliganis m " after alreadyserving ten years . He complains of a juvenile delinquent bein gbrutally mistreated in camp . Another prisoner§ petition is fromYuri Leonidovich Fedorov, who, judging by his name, could be eithera Russian or a Ukrainian . A third, Vladimir Ivanovich Shatalov, i smost probably a Russian . All of them are serving sentences in alabor camp in the Ukraine and have protested their treatment to th eUkrainian Group to Promote the Im p lementation of the Helsink iAccords . 26 It would seem that at the very least news of the Grou p ' sexistence had spread to mistreated prisoners--both Ukrainian an dnon-Ukrainian--and to some very ordinary citizens, quite apart fro mthe dissident Ukrainian intelligentsia .

Why was the Lithuanian Helsinki Group organized November 25 ,1976? If the purpose of the Ukranian Helsinki Group was to synthesiz ethe Ukrainian nationalist cultural dissent of the 1960's and 1970' swith the All-Union human rights movement on the platform of Helsink i(the KGB were not persuaded : they rejected members of the UkrainianHelsinki Group as bourgeois nationalists in disguise) 27 , theLithuanian Group had somewhat more different and perhaps mor eambitious goals . It was first designed to be a coalition of allmajor dissent groups in Lithuania, brought together under, an dlegitimized by, the Helsinki Accords of 1975 . Secondly, the Gro up

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appears to be the first significant move in postwar Lithuania t oexpand the dissent movement beyond the confines of a narrow ethni cbase . Thirdly, very soon after its organization the LithuanianGroup consciously assumed the role of the defender of human an dnational rights throughout the Baltic republics . The timing of itsestablishment would nevertheless suggest that an immediate reaso nfor its organization may have been the example given by Ukrainia ndissidents some two weeks before, November 9, 1976 .

The charter members of the Lithuanian Group were its initiato rViktoras Petkus, by profession a scholar of Lithuanian literatureand history, who had had a long-time relationship with the Catholi c

youth and dissent movement ; Jesuit Father Karolis Garuckas ; thepoet and Lithuanian scholar Tomas Venclova, son of a prominen t

Communist official ; the elderly poetess Ona Lukauskaite-Poskiene, agood acquaintance of both Venclova Father and Son ; and the Jewish

physicist Dr . Eitan Finkelshtein . Petkus and Father Garuckasrepresented in the Lithuanian Helsinki Group the Catholic dissen t

movement ; Venclova and Lukauskaite-Poskiene stood for the mor esecular intellectual nationalist dissent ; Dr . Eitan Finkelshtein, aJewish activist, had been expressly recruited to represent non -

Lithuanians . 28 Venclova's wife was also Jewish and this, in additionto Finkelshtein, who was especially involved in issues of emigration ,provided a second bridge to the Jewish community in Lithuania .

Secondly, there is a certain unique transethnic quality tha tcharacterizes the activity of the Lithuanian Group . Petkus waspersonally acquainted with Dr . Yuri rlov, Academician Sakharov an d

Sakharov's close friend biologist Dr . Sergei Kovalev . Kovalev, adefender of human rights, among others defended the rights of Lithuanian

Catholics . He was tried in Vilnius in December 1975 and sentence d

to a long term of imprisonment . " . . . The fact that a Russiandissident [Kovalev] had openly supported the Catholic Church o fLithuania and had paid for his actions with the loss of freedom madea big impression on the population of Lithuania . The government wa spressed to halt demonstrations in support of Kovalev . ThroughoutLithuania, hundreds were taken into custody."29 This observatio nwas made by Dr . Eitan Finkelshtein, who, too, was a friend o fAcademician Sakharov . When Sakharov came to Kovalev ' s trial inVilnius he stayed in Finkelshtein ' s apartment . Petkus wanted t opublicly welcome Sakharov at the Vilnius train station with flower sbut was intercepted by the KGB and arrested for a few hours :Sakharov might have stayed at the Petkus's except for the fear tha tthis would lead to further persecutions of former political prisone r

Petkus . 30 Those transethnic cross currents may explain why Petku s

immediately and eagerly supported Venclova ' s idea that the LithuanianGroup be set up on a territorial rather than an exclusive ethni c

basis, i .e ., that it defend the human and national rights of al lcitizens living in the Lithuanian SSR irrespective of their nationalit y

and that it include among its charter members non-Lithuanians

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(Dr . Eitan Finkelshtein was offered such membership and he accepted) . 3 1

Those cross currents explain why among the documents of the LithuanianGroup we find one defending a Russian family of Pentecostalists , 3 2and even one speaking up for Volga Germans . 33 Most interestingly ,those transethnic crosscurrents helped to make collaboration betwee nthe Moscow and the Lithuanian Group particularly close and fruitful :not only was the formation of the Lithuanian Group announced at apress conference in Dr . Orlov's apartment in Moscow December 1, 1976 ,but two documents of the Lithuanian Group were researched with th ehelp of Mrs . Alekseeva, of the Moscow Group, and then cosigned byher or by her an d Orlov.34

The documentary output of the Lithuanian Group is no tvoluminous : eighteen documents of human and national rights vio-lations, of which issues 13, 15, 16 and 17 have not reached the Wes tas of January 1980, plus the founding declaration, two longer state -ments to the Belgrade Conference : one on the position of the RomanCatholic Church and one on the "present situation in Lithuania" (i .e . ,the effects of deportations in the 1940's, the position of th eLithuanian language and culture, and other secular concerns) and ,finally, an individual statement by Dr . Eitan Finkelshtein . 35Nevertheless, of the fourteen documents received in the West, two ,as we have already seen, dealt with Russian Pentecostalists andVolga Germans . In addition, three defended Estonian dissidentsMart Niklus, Erik Udam, and Enn Tarto . 36 The explanation for thi sis both simple and deeply significant . All those Estonians hadeither personally met Petkus in labor camp or had heard much of hi sreputation . When the Lithuanian Group was organized they immediatelyappealed to Petkus to have the Group represent the rights of all th eBaits, at least so long as no Estonian or Latvian Helsinki Group swere organized . Petkus and his associates gladly complied . 37 Thusthe Lithuanian Group assumed the role of a spokesman not only fo rLithuanians but for other Baits as well, even those who were living

outside Lithuania .

But for all its cosmopolitan leanings the Lithuanian Grou phas stood four square in the center-of the Lithuanian nationa lmovement , 38 at least with respect to one crucial question, that o fnational independence . In its opening declaration it alluded " thatthe contemporary status of Lithuania was established as a result o fthe entrance of Soviet troops onto her territory on June 15 , 1940."39There is a similar restrained reference to Molotov ' s ultimatum o fJune 14, 1940, 11 p .m . in the second, "secular" Belgrade statement . 4 0Though there is no written proof our distinct impression is tha tmembers of the Lithuanian Group would not object if the status qu oante June 14, 1940, could somehow be restored . For that matter ,members of the Moscow Group seem to be of the same opinion .

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The Georgian Helsinki Group, formally known as the Publi cGroup to Promote Implementation of the Helsinki Accords in Georgia ,which was set up in January 1977, presents a big paradox . It hasbeen established in a republic where the educational and socio -economic standards of the indigeneous population have always bee nvery high and where both official (i .e ., government sponsored) andunofficial (dissident) nationalist sentiments have run very strong .Georgian language is heard in the cities as well as the countryside ,and the number of Russians has continued o decrease from 1959 t o1979 in both relative and absolute terms .

41Nevertheless, the Georgia n

Helsinki Group appears inordinately weak, it is the weakest of al lthe Watch Committees outside of Moscow . Only a single documentissued by the Georgian Group as such appears to have reached the West , 42

and it is not a programmatic declaration like those issued by th eUkrainian and Lithuanian Groups, nor do we have any information thatsuch a program had been written at all . After the arrests of theleading members of the Group and especially after the trial and publi crecantation in May 1978 of its leader, the writer and literary scholarDr . Zviad Gamsakhurdia the Helsinki Watch Committee in Georgia appear sto have become inactive . A weak Group is a strong country ?

The solution of this paradox may lie in three factors . First,there had been a vigorous human rights movement in Georgia lon gbefore the Helsinki Watch Committee was established . 43 Several o fthe leaders of the Helsinki Group had already left their mark o nGeorgian and international public opinion through their activit yin the preceding human rights groups, and they may not have attache dsufficient importance to their work under the Helsinki Act . It isinteresting, e .g ., that after the formal establishment of the Watc hCommittee in Georgia its leader Dr . Gamsakhurdia issued two importantdocuments which he signed qua individual citizen, not as a memberof the Committee (one was cosigned by Merab Kostava, another Committe emember, but it, too, was not presented on behalf of the Group) . 44

Second, the regime moved fast to arrest the leaders of the Group .Third and most important, given the strength of Georgian nationalis mamong the population and given the tendency of the Georgian Sovie tGovernment to make concessions to that nationalism, it can be argue dthat the existence of the Helsinki Group in Georgia was less neede dthan, e .g ., in the Ukraine . It would also appear that rather dis-creetly but still noticeably, concessions were made to some membersof the Helsinki Watch Committee in Georgia, possibly in return fo rtheir virtual suspension of activity . 0nly in Georgia was the leaderof the Helsinki Group allowed to plea bargain with the regime, whic hon balance may be a sign of hidden strength rather than weakness .

The charter members of the Georgian Group, according to a nannouncement in TheChronicleof Current Events, i .e ., not in anypublication of the Group, were : Beglar Bezhuashvili, a laborator ytechnician in the Art Department at Tbilisi University ; Dr . Zvia dGamsakhurdia, the apparent leader of the Group ; the two computer

1 1

scientists, brothers Drs . Grigori and Isai Goldshtein, who wer eJewish; Teimuraz Dzhanelidze, a voice teacher at the music vocationa lsecondary school (tekhnikum) in Rustavi ; and the Georgian art-historian Victor Rtskhiladze . 45 An immediate controversy arose a sto whether or not writer and musicologist Merab Kostava was a membe rof the Group--he was . Later members of the Group may have beenreligious activist Valentina Pailodze and Elisaveta Bykova-Goldshtein(the wife of Isai Goldshtein) . 46

What has the Georgian Group done and what has been the impac tof its activity? It is impossible to say for certain because th eonly document issued by the Group has dealt with the harassment an ddismissal from work of one of its members, Rtskhiladze . 47 We can,however, speculate a little and say that the inclusion of the twoGoldshtein brothers, both of whom had been refused permission t oemigrate, and the formal title of the Group (Public Group to Promot ethe Helsinki Accords in Georgia rather than Georgian Public Group )may have been an indication that the Georgian Group like the Lithuania nGroup, intended to systematically defend the rights of all citizen sof the republic, Georgians and non-Georgians . Furthermore ,Rtskhiladze was known as the champion of the return of the so-calle dMeskhetian Turks, the native Moslem population of southern Georgi awho had been deported in World War II . On the other hand, to judgefrom the contents of the Georgian Herald No . 1, an undergroundpublication edited by Gamsakhurdia in 1976, the Group probably woul dhave defended such national Georgian rights as continued highe reducation in Georgian, publication of college textbooks in Georgian ,and the right to submit academic dissertations in their nativ elanguage, rather than Russian . The Georgian Herald also denouncedtorture and other violations of human rights . Like the UkrainianGroup, the Georgian Group could hardly have ignored the rather heavy -handed attempts by the central government to impose Russian i nGeorgian education.48

Despite the fact that the Armenian Group was formall yestablished in Gen . Hryhorenko's apartment in Moscow, April l, 1977 ,it should be taken seriously . Its documentary output is limited ,but of high quality, it also has continued to function at leas tthrough the summer of 1979 . The formal leader of the Group was theeconomist Eduard Bagratovich Arutyunyan . The second founding memberand its real moving spirit was physicist turned theologian Rober tNazaryan. The third founding member was engineering student Samve lOsyan . Within half a year of its establishment the Armenian Grou pwas joined by an expelled student of pedagogy compelled to becom emanual worker Shagen Arutyunovich Arutyunyan (no relation to Eduar dBagrotovich Arutyunyan) and expelled philology student, forme rpolitical prisoner and then factory worker Ambartsum Khlgatyan.

Why was the Armenian Group organized in April 1977? Giventhe traditional rivalry between the Armenians and Georgians in th eCaucasus we are temp-tad to remark that once the Georgian human rights

12

activists organized their Group in 1977, their Armenian counterpart swere soon to follow . We are not persuaded that such a motive wa saltogether absent in the minds of Nazaryan and Eduard Arutyunyan, bu tit would be an exceedingly shallow interpretation to see in thi sthe main, perhaps even a major reason . Another explanation has beenprovided by Robert Nazaryan himself when he told Western correspondent sat the April 1977 press conference in Moscow : "At a time whenauthorities wanted to crush the Moscow and the Ukrainian Groups we hav estarted our own Group to show our solidarity in this dangerous moment .490rlov had had many ties with Armenia (he was corresponding member ofthe Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences, e .g .) and the press conferenc ewas held in the apartment of General Petro Hryhorenko, a member o fboth the Moscow and the Ukrainian Groups . Nazaryan was sincere instressing the motive of solidarity . Nevertheless, it might perhapsbe argued that the main reason for the establishment of the ArmenianGroup was a recent shift in the attitudes that many Armenians ha dtoward the Russians : traditionally anti-Turkish and anti-Islami cand, therefore, pro-Russian, in the 1960's and 1970's the Armenian sbegan to re-evaluate their position vis-a-vis the regime and th eRussians . 50

The composition of the Group reflected the range of thos enew attitudes . Eduard Arutyunyan had been born in Mountainou sKarabagh . The issue of the return of Mountainous Karabagh with it soverwhelming Armenian majority from under the rule of the Azerbaidzha nSSR to the Armenian SSR has constituted an increasingly bitter disput ebetween Armenian patriots and the central regime for decades ,especially since the Azerbaidzhanis have mistreated the Armenia n

population . 51 Some Armenians would raise the maximal demand for th ereturn of Western, Turkish occupied Armenia ; many Armenians woul dlike the Soviet government to press the Turkish government t oacknowledge its guilt for the genocide of 1915, which it has refuse dto do for sixty-five years ; practically all Armenians cannot under -stand why the central Soviet government if it be genuinely intereste din Armenian good will does not quickly transfer the Karabagh provinc eto Armenia . In the Armenian Helsinki Group Eduard Arutyunyan woul dpress for a solution of the Karabagh problem . 5 2

Robert Nazaryan represented the great moral and quasi-political role of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which by and larg eappears to have succeeded in finding a modus vivendi with the Sovie t

authorities . The Church has also played an important role in th eworld-wide Armenian diaspora . Furthermore, as respected deacon o fthat Church, Nazaryan was able to collect contributions in suppor tof Armenian politica l prisoners.53

Osyan did not play any significant role--under pressure fro m

the regime he became inactive . Ambartsum Khlgatyan had been a membe rof the small, secret, and ultimately suppressed Armenian Democrati c

Union of the 1940's . The Union did not have any concrete territorialor political goals besides introducing genuine democracy in Armenia .

13

Members of the Union argued that it was the Western democraciesthat had really won World War II, not Stalin, and that it was in th einterests of Armenia to learn from the United States and Great 5

4Britain how to nominate and elect responsible democratic leaders .Khlgatyan appears to have remained faithful to the liberal and pro -Western ideas of his youth .

Shagen Arutyunyan was a founding member in 1966 of theNational United Party of Armenia (NOP) . The long-term goal o fnationalist NOP was : "the solution to the Armenian question : theestablishment of a national state governing the entire territory o fhistoric Armenia, the unification of all Armenians in diaspor athroughout the world into a territorially and governmentall yestablished homeland, and a national renaissance . " The firs tintermediate goal was the achievement of independence by Armeni athrough a peaceful referendum in which "an absolute majority vot eof the population of Armenia as well as citizens of Armenia temporaril yliving in other countries" would decide whether or not Armenia woul dsecede from the Soviet Union . The regime clamped down hard sendin gthe NOP activists to jail and prison camp for many years . 5 5

What did the Armenian Group do? It issued seven documents ,including the almost desperate final appeal to Armenians abroad o fFebruary 8, 1978, starting with the possibly premature statement :"The Armenian Helsinki Group has been crushed . "56 The followin ggeneral points can be made : First, the quality of the documents ,particularly that of the first declaration and of the announcemen t(or memorandum) to the Belgrade Conference and of its supplement i shigh . The documents bristle with facts, contain closely reasone darguments . Second, as in the case of the Ukrainian Group, human andnational rights are considered inextricably intertwined . The initialDeclaration is particularly effective in that it presents thirtee nconcrete demands often firmly anchored with legal references :demands 1-5 are general human rights (e .g ., point 1 : " to defendthe civic, political, economic, social, cultural and other right sand freedoms which are inherent to human dignity and are vital fo rman's free and full development ") whereas points 6-9 presentspecifically Armenian demands (point 6 : " free movement in and ou t

of the country . . . but cooperating all the while with th eactivities aimed at encouraging the concentration of Armenians withi nthe boundaries of the Armenian Republi c " ; point 7 on the admissionof the Armenian SSR to the UN ; point 8 on the reintegration of Karabag hand Nakhichevan ; point 9 on more widespread use of Armenian as astate language . Points 10-13 are more instrumental and procedura lin nature (e .g ., point 12, on assembling, studying and circulatin gdata relative to the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act) .Thirdly, the most urgent concern of the Armenian Group, to judg efrom the third paragraph of the Declaration and from the repeate dappeal for collections of February 1976 with a postscript of May 197 7is to help the fourteen jailed victims of the nine secret politicaltrials of 1973-1974, which involved members and sympathizers of NOP .

14

What has the Soviet government done? The Soviet nationalit ypolicy in the 1960's and 1970 ' s (especially under Brezhnev) has beenrather harsh toward any demands for cultural and political autonom ythat have been raised by the non-Russian elites and peoples . TheGerman scholar Gerhard Simon sees in the regime ' s policy a reactionto the growing national consciousness of the non-Russians :

The harsher tones and the restrictive measures, too ,. . . are to a large extent a reaction of the leader-ship to a growing national self-consciousness and t othe increasing expectations of the peoples, who do no treally (gerade nicht) see their future in a pushin gback of the particular and specific, but in thei racknowledgment and development . 5 7

On the other hand, one could argue that the "growing national self-consciousness and the increasing expectations " of the non-Russianpeoples in the USSR stem from their long-range demographic, educa-tional-cultural and socio-economic development under Soviet rule ,that they have been stimulated by the growth of nationalism i nEastern Europe and the Third World and that to a large extent the yconstitute a reaction to the impatience with which the Soviet regimesince the late 1950's—and especially since 1961--has tried to brin gabout linguistic assimilation and maximum politico-administrativ eunity in the name of " the Soviet people, a new historicalcommunity . " In any case, though the central government in the fore-seeable future might perhaps win the war of assimilation and inte-gration with respect to the Belorussians, e .g ., and fight it to adraw with the Ukrainians, it has already lost several importan tbattles : the new USSR constitution of 1977 circnmscribes mor enarrowly the position of the Union republics, but does not abolis hthem altogether, and the right of secession has not been eliminated ; 58

furthermore, after a language demonstration in Georgia and somewha tmore discreet requests by Armenian Party authorities, the new stat econstitutions of the Georgian, Armenian, and also of the Azerbaidzhan iSSR have retained references to the indigenous languages bein g"state languages "--the assimilators tried to eliminate that anomal yin the draft constitutions, but failed . 59 Though those battles too kplace in 1977 and 1978, the battle lines had been drawn long befor ethe establishment of the Helsinki Watch Committees in the non-Russia nrepublics .

Before the establishment of the Helsinki Groups there ha dbeen, roughly speaking, an elite human rights movement centered i nMoscow and more broadly based, perhaps even mass-based, nationalis tand religious movements in the republics . The relatively narrowhuman rights movement did have a sprinkling of non-Russian associate sin the republics (e .g ., Rudenko in the Ukraine, Gamsakhurdia inGeorgia) but those ties were personal rather than representative o fthe republican concerns, accidental rather than systematic . In the

1 5

Helsinki movement in the Soviet Union for the first time in th ehistory of Soviet nationality relations the liberal dissident elite sfrom Russia and from four non-Russian republics organized in independen tHelsinki Watch Committees started cooperating with each other on asystematic basis using the Helsinki Accords for legitimizing thei ractivity . It did not matter that in achieving a synthesis of concer nfor both individual human and collective nationality rights the Sovie tHelsinki, activists might have stretched Principles VII and VIII o fBasket I beyond the limits envisaged by the cautious diplomat-lawyer swho had drafted them--the Soviet Helsinki monitors, Russian and non-Russian alike--acted very much in the spirit of the Universa lDeclaration of Human Rights and the two International Covenant sreferred to in Principle VII . Above all, by acting together th eHelsinki monitors challenged the old imperial principle of " divideand rule" and thus--viewed in a long prospective—constituted aserious danger to the continued stability of the Soviet Empire ,officially known as the Soviet Union .

The Soviet government could also not ignore the internationa limplications . The Helsinki Final Act was a solemn statement ofintentions signed by 35 countries, which--ironically--has bee nexceedingly well publicized externally and internally by the Sovie tgovernment itself . Then in August 1975 an anonymous group of Sovietdissenters who may or may not have been identical with some of th eHelsinki monitors persuaded an American Congressional delegation tha tit would be a good idea to set up monitoring commissions . The resul tof this idea, as re-shaped by Representative Millicent Fenwick an dformer US Senator Clifford P . Case, both of New Jersey, was th eestablishment of the US Commission on Security and Cooperation i nEurope (CSCE) by June 1976 . This led at least some KGB investigator sto charge Orlov "with organizing the Moscow Helsinki Group at th ebehest of Congress" and with managing the Group "on the orders o fCongress and at the personal direction of Congressman Fascell," th ehead of the US CSCE .60

The truth is different, but the role of the Western powers ,particularly of the United States, in helping the Helsinki Watc hCommittees in the USSR should not be ignored . They rendered theGroups indispensable technical aid and also furnished them welcom emoral and diplomatic support . Many Soviet citizens heard about th eestablishment of the Groups from Western radio : BBC, Deutsche Welle ,Voice of America, and particularly, Radio Liberty . As to moralsupport, the US CSCE held hearings on the Helsinki Monitors in th eSoviet Union to which it invited as witnesses such recent émigrés a sTomas Venclova,61 Lyudmilla Alekseeva,62, Aleksand r Ginzburg,63Petr Vins, 6 4 who had joined the Groups in the USSR . The Commissio nhas been very energetic and active in publishing the documents o fthe Groups, at US Government expense . Above all, members and staf fof the US CSCE were made delegates to the Belgrade review conferenc ein 1977-78 where-though behind closed doors-they helped to criticize

1 6

the Soviet delegates for specific violations of the Helsinki Fina lAct (a complex subject that really calls for separate treatment) . 6 5

Furthermore, from the Soviet point of view, to add insult to injury ,the emergence of the Helsinki Watch Committees appears to hav ereinforced the activity of the generally nationalist and anti-Sovietemigré communities (the well-organized Balts in Sweden and th eUnited States, e .g .) . The latter prevented in 1975 President For dfrom recognizing de jurethe incorporation of the Baltic States int othe USSR and helped him inaugurate Radio Liberty broadcasts in al lthree Baltic languages in September 1975 . 66 A group of Ukrainian-Americans formed the Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee i nWashington, D .C .--Rudenko was in contact with that group, transmitte dto it some Ukrainian Group documents for publication, and its hea dDr . Zwarun was invited to testify on behalf of the Ukrainian Grou pbefore the US CSCE . 67 Another prominent Ukrainian-American witnesson more general questions was Professor Lev E . Dobriansky long-timePresident of the Ukrainian Congress Committee o f America.68

In an apparent attempt to nip the development of the Helsink iGroups in the bud, the Soviet government resorted to a combinatio nof relatively non-violent and relatively violent measures, not al lof which were successful . An unsuccessful but very imaginativ eattempt was that of KGB major Albert Molok who on three occasion sin early April 1977 offered to former Estonian political prisone rErik Udam half a million rubles in expense money if Udam would se tup a bogus Estonian dissident committee and establish contact wit hAmerican diplomats in Moscow . Udam diplomatically refused and t oprotect himself publicized the attempt through the Lithuanian Group . 69

Tomas Venclova January 25, 1977, was given a Soviet passport vali dfor 5 years to enable him to accept a teaching position at th eUniversity of California . In the United States Venclova, however ,continued to actively represent the work of the Lithuanian Group ,was subsequently deprived of Soviet citizenship . 70 LyudmillaAlekseeva was allowed to emigrate to the U .S . with her husband andone son February 22, 1977 . She has continued her work as the MoscowGroup's Official Representative Abroad . 71 Gen . Hryhorenko also wa sallowed to leave the country in November 1977, then stripped of hi sSoviet citizenship in February 1978 . 7 2

On the other hand, Aleksandr Ginzburg was arrested February 3 ,

1977 ; Mykola Rudenko and Oleksii Tykhy were arrested February 5, 1977 ;Dr . Yuri Orlov was arrested February 10, 1977 ; April 7, 1977, wasarrested the head of the Georgian Group, Gamsakhurdia ; in August ,1977, came the turn of Petkus, the de facto head of the Lithuania nGroup ; Nazaryan of the youngest Armenian Group, was arreste dDecember 1977.73

It would be both very depressing and idle to chronicle th epersecution of all the 68 active Helsinki Group Members . 74 Mor einteresting are some subtle and not so subtle measures used by the

1 7

.

KGB to combat the Helsinki monitors . At first the Helsinki monitor swould be tried for anti-Soviet agitation and similar political offenses .This left them at least the dignity of being officially recognize das prisoners of conscience . More recently the Soviet prosecutio nhas lodged against them ordinary criminal charges, some very nasty ,but none very plausible . 75 The regime has offered deals to some o fthe most prominent dissidents . Rudenko, who had been a very highParty official (the Secretary of the Ukrainian Writers Union underStalin, 1947-1950), and who suffers from a festering wound goin gback to World War II, was given a very harsh sentence : seven yearsin labor camp . But he was not immediately shipped off to serve hi sterm: the regime wanted to obtain a confession from him in retur nfor a reduced sentence but failed . 76 On the other hand, Zvia dGamsakhurdia, who admittedly had previously been the subject o fthree assassination attempts--twice with poison gas--confesse dalmost everything at his trial in May 1978, repented, and incriminate done American diplomat and several Western news correspondents . Forcooperating with the prosecution, Gamsakhurdia was sentenced to thre eyears of labor camp and two years of exile but was pardoned at th eend of June 1979 . For discrediting himself and attempting to dis-credit the Georgian Helsinki movement, Gamsakhurdia was not onl ypardoned but may have won additional concessions : Soviet artillerywould no longer train their gunners in an area containing invaluableancient Georgian cave monasteries, the authorities would prosecut ea corrupt bishop of the Georgian Church whom they had stubbornl ytolerated . Possibly there were also concessions on Georgian remainin gthe "state language"of Georgia (in the latter case the street demon -stration of April 14, 1978, helped immensely) .77 Finally, and mos tdisturbingly, it should be mentioned that some opponents of the Sovie tregime have been killed under mysterious circumstances and tha tattempts have been made to intimidate through them members of th eHelsinki Groups.78

Clearly, the Soviet government has set its course on a tota lsuppression of the Helsinki Groups, their total destruction by hoo kor by crook . In a way this is understandable for the Helsinkimonitors are undermining the legitimacy of the present Soviet orderwith the help of Western governments and nations . But in the longrun the present course of the Soviet government is bound to hav e'tragic consequences for the peoples of the Soviet Union; for it is inthe Helsinki Groups that some of the most . reasonable and moderat e

dissenters, both Russian and non-Russian, have found their vocation .If the moderates are destroyed, who will take their place in aneventual transformation of the Soviet Union?

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NOTE S

1For the text of the Final Act see "Conference on Securityand Cooperation in Europe [CSCE], Final Act (Helsinki, August 1, 1975) , "[US] Department of State Bulletin, Vol . 73, No . 1888 (September l ,1975), pp . 323-350 . Three good interpretations are Harold S . Russell ,"The Helsinki Declaration : Brobdingnag or Lilliput?, " AmericanJournal of International Law [AJIL], Vol . 70, No . 2 (April 1976) ,pp . 242-272 ; A . H . Robertson, "The Helsinki Agreement and HumanRights," Notre Dame Lawyer, Vol . 53, No . 1 (Oct . 1977), pp . 34-48 ;and "The Helsinki Accord , " The Review of the International Commissio nof Jurists, No . 18 (June 1977),pp . 15-18 . Russell, an Assistan tLegal Advisor for European Affairs, Department of State, was th eprincipal U .S . negotiator for the Helsinki Declaration on Principle sGuiding Relations between Participating States . Robertson isProfesseur Associé, University of Paris I, formerly Director o fHuman Rights, Council of Europe, Strasbourg . All three, Russell(pp . 246-49), Robertson (pp . 34-35), and the International Commissio nof Jurists Review (p . 15) stress the fact that the Act is not bindin gin international law . A very interesting comprehensive article i sby McDougal, Myres S . et alii, "Human Rights and World Public Order :Human Rights in Comprehensive Context , " Northwestern University LawReview, Vol . 72 (May/June 1977), pp . 227-307 .

2Russell, loc . cit ., p . 269 .

3See "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultura lRights " and "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights " inAJIL, Vol . 61, No . 3 (July 1967), pp . 861-890 . President Cartersigned both documents (see N .Y . Times, 6 October 1977, p . 2) butthe US Senate has not consented to the convenants as of the time o fwriting (June 1980) .

4"CSCE : Final Act , " loc . cit ., p . 325 .

5lb id .

6Russell, loc . cit ., p . 269 .

7 lbid ., p . 268 .

8 lbid ., p . 270 .

9Compare, e .g ., the extensive coverage in Pravda, August 1 ,1975, pp . 1-3, and Aug . 2, 1975, pp . 1-6, including full text o fagreement on pp . 2-6, with the relatively skimpy coverage in N .Y .Times, August l, and 2, 1975 .

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10See "CSCE: Final Act , " loc . cit . (Note 1, above), p . 349 .

11 See "Ob obrazovanii Obshchestvennoi Gruppy Sodeistvii aVypolneniiu Khel'sinkskikh Soglashenii v SSSR," of May 12, 1976 ,in Samisdat - Archiv, e .V ., Sobranie dokumentov samizdata, Vol . 30[SDS 301, pp . 3-5 .

12See Document No . 1 (May 18, 1976), "The Case of Mustaf aDzhemilev, a Crimean Tatar ; and Doc . No . 9, (Oct . 12, 1976), "Thefate of Jews in the village of Ilinki," both listed in Dr . Boiter' sintroduction in SDS 30, p . 2 .

13See the following documents : #10 (Nov . 10, 1976) ,"Repression of the Crimean Tatars" ; #12 (Dec . 2, 1976), "Ukrainianrefugees" ; #15 (Dec . 8, 1976), "Dismissal of seven students fromVilnius school" ; #18 (Jan . 14, 1977), "The situation of th eMeskhetian" ; #19 (Jan. 10, 1977), "Disruption of Moscow seminar o nJewish culture" ; #22 (Apr.-May 1977), "The right of ethnic Germansto emigrate" ; #24 (Nov . 4, 1977), "The discrimination agains tCrimean Tatars continue s " ; #28 (Dec . 31, 1977), "In defense of PetrVins, Ukrainian Group member" ; #31 (Feb . 2, 1978), "In defense ofLevko Lukianenko, Ukrainian Group member" ; #40 (March 15, 1978) ,"On the case of A . Shcharansky" ; #41 (March 15, 1978), "Deprivationof P . Grigorenko's citizenship " ; #43 (April 6, 1978), "Discriminatio nagainst M. Dzhemilev upon his releas e" ; #59 (Aug . 20, 1978), "Trialof Levko Lukianenko, member of the Ukrainian Group " ; #60 (Sept . 2,1978), "Discrimination against Crimean Tatars continues" ; #79(Jan . 25, 1979), "Persecution of the Helsinki Groups" ; 482 (Mar . 15 ,1979), "Flagrant violations of human freedoms and rights in th eUkraine, Moscow, Leningrad, and Tashkent" ; 484 (Apr . 14, 1979) ,"On the condition of Petr Vins who is making efforts to emigrate t oCanada" ; 493 (June 11, 1979), "Freedom to all imprisoned members o fthe Helsinki Groups ! " ; and #99 (Aug . 1979), "Repressions on ideologica lgrounds from August 1978 to August 1979 (main emphasis on repression sin the Ukraine . ") See Baiter, SDS 30, p . 2, for ## 10-51 andMrs . L . Alekseeva's letter to Y . Bilinsky of November 7, 1979, fo rcontents of subsequent documents .

14See A. Baiter, SDS 30, p . 143 .

15Wrote M . Rudenko : "As far as my political views wer econcerned, that question was not discussed at all . A . D . Sakharov

and V . F . 'urchin possess such a broad perspective and such tolerance ,which make them genuine democrats . " See Rudenko, EkonomichniMonolohy (New York : Suchasnist ' , 1978), p . 106n . ; emphasis inoriginal .

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16Reference is to the declaration and the eighteen memoranda

of the Ukrainian Group . It should be noted, however, that Memorand aNos . 3, 10, 12-17 have not reached the West as of June 1980 .

17See excerpt from letter in Smoloskyp, press releas e

(in Ukrainian) of May 30, 1977, p . 2. In his letter to Y . Bilinskyof June 2, 1980, p . l, Mr . Osyp Zinkewych, one of the editors o fSmoloskyp, has identified this extract as coming from a letter fro mM. Rudenko to Dr . A . Zwarun .

18See Ivan Dziuba, Internationalism or Russification ?(London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968) . See also the undergroundUkrainian Herald (especially Dissent in Ukraine : The UkrainianHerald Issue 6 [of March 1972] [Baltimore : Smoloskyp, 1977] andEthnocide of Ukrainians in the USSR : The Ukrainian Herald Issue 7- 8[of Spring 1974] [Baltimore : Smoloskyp, 1976]) . The neo-Marxis tLeonid Plyushch told at a hearing in the US Congress : "Most of thepeople who are labeled as bourgeois nationalists [in the Ukraine ]are only demanding that their culture be permitted to develop freely .In this instance I am more Catholic than the Pope himself, becaus eI believe that the development of Ukrainian culture is utopian withi nthe framework of the Soviet Union . Therefore, I am for the secessio nof the Ukraine from the Soviet Union . . . " (See US Congres s[94th : 2nd session], House of Representatives, Committee o nInternational Relations, Subcommittee on International Organizations ,Hearing : Psychiatric Abuse of Political Prisoners in the SovietUnion--Testimony by Leonid Plyushch [March 30, 1976], p . 22) .Secondary literature on Ukrainian dissent in the 1970's is rathe rvoluminous . See, among others, Julian Birch, "The Nature an dSources of Dissidence in Ukraine, " in Peter J . Potichnyj, ed . ,Ukraine in the Seventies (Oakville, Ont . : Mosaic Press, 1975) ,pp . 307-330 ; Bohdan Bociurkiw, "Soviet Nationalities Policy an dDissent in the Ukraine," The World Today, Vol . 30 (May 1974), pp .214-226 ; Wsewolod W . Isajiw, "Migratsiia do mist, suspil ' ni zminyi rukh oporu na Ukraini , " in Suchasnist ' (Munich), Vol . 20, No . 1(Jan . 1980), pp . 75-85 ; Jaroslaw Pelenski, " Shelest and His Perio din Soviet Ukraine (1963-1972) : A Revival of Controlled Ukrainia nAutonomism , " in Ukraine in the Seventies, pp . 283-305 ; also RomanSzporluk, "The Ukraine and the Ukrainians , " in Zev Katz et alii, eds . ,Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York : Free Press, 1975) ,pp . 21-48 . Very interesting and informative is the comprehensiverecent article by Gerhard Simon, "Die nichtrussischen Völker inGesellschaft und Innenpolitik der UdSSR , " Osteuropa, Vol . 29, No . 6(June 1979), pp . 447-467 (see p . 464 on Ukrainian dissent) . See alsoY . Bilinsky : "The Communist Party of Ukraine After 1966, " inUkraine in the Seventies, pp . 239-266 ; "Politics, Purge, and Dissentin the Ukraine since the Fall of Shelest , " in Ihor Kamenetsky, ed . ,Nationalism and Hilmar'Rights : Processes of Modernization in the USS R(Littleton, Colo . : Libraries Unlimited, 1977), pp . 168-185 ; and"Political Aspirations of Dissenters in Ukraine , " inUkrains'kyistoryk (The Ukrainian Historian, Munich), Vol . 15, No . 1-3 (1978) ,pp . 30-39 .

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19See Rudenko's open letter on Ukraine's participation inthe Belgrade Conference and the creation of the Ukrainian [Helsinki ]Group, of November 14, 1976, in Komitet Hel'sinks'kykh Garanti idlia Ukrainy, Vashington (Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee ,Washington, USA), Osyp Zinkewych, comp ., Ukrains''kyi pravozakhysny irukh : Dokumenty i materialy kyivs'koi Ukrains'koi Hromads'koiHrupySpryiannia vykonanniu Hel'sinks'kykh Uhod (Baltimore : Smoloskyp ,1978), p . 17 . Source henceforth cited as UPR. Letter has beentranslated into English in Y . Bilinsky and Tönu Parming, The HelsinkiWatch Committees in the Soviet Republics : Implications for the Sovie tNationality Question (henceforth : HWC) (unpublished ms, March 1980) ,pp . A-35 to A-38 .

20See their announcement about the formation of the Ukrainia nHelsinki Group, reproduced in UPR, p: 10 . The relevant sentence sread : "We draw attention to the fact that those who on the territoryof the Ukraine attempt to gather and transmit to the public informatio nabout violations of human rights, and especially those who want t otransmit such information to heads of state--encounter extraordinaril ydifficult obstacles . This contradicts both the spirit and the letterof the Helsinki Accords . . . The creation of the Ukrainian PublicGroup under the circumstances which prevail in the Ukraine is an actof great manliness . "

21The Ukrainian SSR signed both covenants March 20, 1968 ,and ratified them in the fall of 1973--see Radians'ka Ukraina ,Oct . 31, 1973, or Digest of the Soviet Ukrainian Press, Dec . 1973 ,p . 29 .

The resentment at being excluded from the Helsinki conferenceappears clearly in the first Declaration of the Ukrainian Group o fNovember 9, 1976 ; in Rudenko's Open Letter of November 14, 1976 ;and above all in the Group's Memorandum No . 2 (Concerning theParticipation of Ukraine in the Belgrade Conference, 1977), o fJanuary 20, 1977 . Ukrainian text in UPR pp . 11-14, 15-17, and99-102 . English translation in HWC, pp . A-09 ff ., A-35 ff ., andA-39 ff ., or in US Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperatio nin Europe [US CSCE] Reports of Helsinki-Accord Monitors in the Sovie tUnion : Documents of the Public Grou p s to Promote Observance of th eHelsinki Agreements in the USSR . . . , [Vol . I], February 24, 1977 ,pp . 96-98 (Declaration), US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki Accord sMonitors in the Soviet Union, Vol . III of the Documents of the Publi cGroup to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR . . . ,November 7, 1978, pp . 130-133 .

23On the data of Rudenk o ' s and Tykhy ' s arrests (Feb . 5, 1977 )see Ukrainian Group Memorandum No . 4 - UPR, pp . 103-104 ; HWC, pp . A-44to A-45 ; and US Congress (95th : 1st Session), Basket III : Imp lementa-tion of the Helsinki Accords : Hearings Before the CSCE . . . o nImplementation of the Helsinki Accords, Vol . IV : Soviet HelsinkiWatch, Reports on Repression June 3, 1977 ; U .S . Policy and Belgrade

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23 (Continued )Conference June 6, 1977 (Washington : US G .P .O ., 1977), pp . 69-70 .Ginzburg had been arrested earlier (Feb . 3, 1977), 0rlov was arrestedFeb . 10, 1977 - see US CSCE, Profiles : The Helsinki Monitors(revised Dec . 10, 1979), pp . unnumbered . On Rudenko ' s and Tykhy' strial, see UPR, pp . 265-342 .

24A full inventory of the documentary output of the Ukrainia nGroup has not yet been made . According to the US CSCE the Grouppublished through the late summer of 1979 over 30 declarations an dappeals and ten information bulletins (US CSCE, comp ., Fact Sheet :Update on the Soviet Helsinki Movement, rev . Dec . 10, 1979, pp .unnumbered) . UPR contains 56 documents exclusive of the informationbulletins . Berdnyk ' s memoranda are apparently those numbered No . 5and 7 .

25See HWC, p . A-61 or US CSCE, Basket III Hearings, Vol . IV ,pp . 75 ff ., or UPR, pp . 109 ff .

26Documents consulted at Prolog Research Corporation, Ne wYork . They are being published .

27Bilinsky ' s interview with Mr . Petro Vins, September 30, 1979 .

28lnterview with Professor Tomas Venclova, October 11, 1979 .See also below .

29See Lituanus, Vol. 23 (No. 3, 1977), p. 57.

30lnterview with Professor Tomas Venclova, October 11, 1979 .

31lbidem .

32Document No . 8 (June 2, 1977), "Persecution of the VasilevFamily, Russian Pentecostals Living in Vilnius, Lithuania, " in HWC ,pp . A-92 to A-93 or US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki Accord Monitors inthe Soviet Union . . . , Vol . III (7 November 1978), pp . 163-64 .

33Document No . 6 (March 19, 1977), "On Discrimination Agains tthe Volga Germans in the USSR, " in HWC, p . A-90 or US CSCE, Ibid . ,p . 161 .

34Document No . 1 (November 25, 1977), " On the Situation o f

Two Lithuanian Catholic Bishops, " in HWC, pp . A-84 to A-85 ; alsoSDS 30, pp . 67-68, and US CSCE, Reports of the Helsinki-Accord Monitor sin the SovietUnion . . . [Vol . I] (February 24, 1977), p . 121 . Notethat only the SDS 30 version has Alekseeva's and Orlov's cosignatures ,which have, however, been authenticated by Tomas Venclova . Technicallythe document is counted as one of the Lithuanian, not the Moscow Group .Secondly, Moscow Group Document No . 15 (December 8, 1976), "On the

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34 (Continued )Expulsion of 7 Students from Venuolis High School (Vilnius), Fromthe Lithuanian Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsink iAccords in the USSR," signed by L . Alekseeva and Tomas Venclova ,see US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki-Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union . . . ,Vol . II (June 3, 1977), pp . 32-33 . Technically, this is a documentof the Moscow Group alone, de facto it is a joint document . L . Alekseevahas vividly told the story of this last document in her first testimon ybefore the US CSCE, June 3, 1977—see US Congress (95th : 1st Session) ,CSCE, Basket III : Implementation of the Helsinki Accords , Hearings . . .on the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Vol . IV : SovietHelsinki Watch, Reports on Repression June 3, 1977 . . . ,(Washington, 1977), pp . 34-36 .

35The initial declaration, the 12 first documents and the 2Belgrade declarations have been reproduced in HWC, pp . A-82 to A-11 5or see US CSCE, Reports . . . , Vol . I, pp . 120-23 ; Vol . III, pp . 158-76 ;and US CSCE, The Right to Know, the Right to Act . Documents o fHelsinki Dissent from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (May 1978) ,pp . 96-103 . On Document No . 14 see Jonas Papartis, "LithuanianHelsinki Group Issues New Document," Radio Liberty Researc hRL 162/79 (May 29, 1979) and on No . 18--same, "Lithuanian HelsinkiGroup Protests Arrest of Terleckas, " RL 15/80 (Jan . 8, 1980) .

36 See Documents No . 3 (December 23, 1976), "In Defense o fMart Niklus" ; No . 7 (May 26, 1977), "On Erik Udam and KGB Attempt sto Enlist Him as a 'Dissident" and No . 11 (June 26,

1977),

"Onthe Persecution of Enn Tarto"--see HWC, pp . A-87 to A-87a, A-91 andA-99, or US CSCE, Reports

.

.

.

, Vol . III, pp .

158,

162, 168 .

37 Interview with Professor Tomas Venclova, Oct . 11, 1979 .

38 See on this the following secondary sources : V . StanleyVardys, ed ., Lithuania Under the Soviets (New York : Praeger, 1965) ;Algirdas Budreckis, "Lithuanian Resistance, 1940-52," in Alberta sGerutis, ed ., Lithuania 700 Years (New York : Maryland, 1969) ;Tönu Parming, "Contrasts in Nationalism in the Soviet Balti c " (Papergiven at the 15th annual meeting of . the Southern Conference on SlavicStudies, University of Virginia, 21-23 October 1976) . Also seeV . Stanley Vardys, The Catholic Church, Dissent and Nationality inSoviet Lithuania(Boulder, Colo . : East European Quarterly, distribute dby Columbia University Press, 1978) ; and Thomas Remeikis, "PoliticalDevelopments in Lithuania during the Brezhnev Era, " in George W .Simmonds, ed ., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the Er aof Brezhnev and Kosygin (Detroit : University of Detroit Press, 1977) .

39"Announcement of Formation and Statement," last paragrap hof statement, in HWC, p . A-82 or US CSCE, Reports . . . , Vol . I, p . 120 .

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40 "Statement to the Belgrade Conference on the Presen tSituation in Lithuania (July 17, 1977)," 1st Paragraph, in HWC ,p . A-108 or US CSCE, The Right to Know.. . Documents...(May 1978), p . 96 .

41According to the 1959 population census, there were 407,88 6

Russians living in Georgia where they accounted for 10 .l% of thetotal population . The 1970 census listed 396,694 (8 .5%) Russians .The 1979 census showed only 372,000 (7 .4%) Russians . See Richard B .Dobson, "Georgia and the Georgians, " in Katz et alii, eds . ,Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, Table 8 .1, p . 168 and AnnSheehy, "Data from the Soviet Census of 1979 on the Georgians an dthe Georgian SSR," Table 5, p . 10, in Radio Liberty ResearchRL 162/80 (May 2, 1980), RLB, Vol . 24, No . 19 (May 9, 1980) . Forinterpretations of modern nationalism in Georgia see, above all ,Ronald Grigor Suny, Soviet Georgia in the Seventies, 14 pp . (KennanInstitute for Advanced Russian Studies Occasional Paper No . 64 ,May 15, 1979, prepared for the conference on the Soviet Caucasu sco-sponsored by the US International Communication Agency, th eKennan Institute, and the Wilson Center) and Mark Kipnis, "TheGeorgian National Movement : Problems and Trends, " Crossroads(Jerusalem), Autumn 1978, pp . 193-215 . Suny develops the idea o f"the demographic, political, and cultural re-nationalization of th eGeorgians," particularly after 1953 (p . 4) .

42"On the Persecution of V . Rtskhiladze (Press Release) , "March 1977, see SDS 30, pp . 75-76 ; HWC, pp . A-156 and A-157 ; orUS CSCE, The Right to Know . . . (May 1978), pp . 104-105 .

43Notably the movements of the Georgian Meskhetians in the1960's, the Georgian Jews (since 1969), the Initiative Group fo rthe Defense of Human Rights in Georgia (since the summer of 1974) .Gamsakhurdia, Kostava and Rtskhiladze belonged to the last group .

44 See "Zviad Gamsakhurdia's Letter to Minister of Cultur eof the Georgian SSR O[tar] Taktakishvili, First Deputy Minister o fCulture N . Gurabanidze, " February 28, 1977—see HWC, p . A-158 orAS 3115 in Materialy samizdata (MS), No . 4/78 (Jan . 20, 1978) ;secondly, "Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava : V . Zhvaniia hasbeen Sentenced for Bombings , " March 19, 1977, see HWC, pp . A-159 toA-161 or AS 3114 in MS, No . 4/78 .

45 See extract from Khronika tekushchikh sobytii, No . 44(March 16, 1977)(New York : Khronika Press, 1977), p . 27 . In HWC ,p . A-155 or SDS 30, p . 74 . Incidentally, unlike Drs . rlov andSakharov, the Goldshtein brothers have a so-called kandida tdegree (junior Ph .D .) .

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t

46According to a very competent and careful oral source ,neither of the two had really joined the Group . Mrs . Pailodzebelonged, however, to the kindred Initiative Group for the Defens eof Human Rights in Georgia .

47He was dismissed March 9, 1977 . See Note 42, above .

48 See, above, all, "Attempts to Russify the University o fTbilisi" and "Russification of One Department of the Academy of Art"in Georgian Herald, No . 1, pp . 16-18, translated in HWC, pp . A-135to A-138 . The Georgian writer Revaz Dzhaparidze eloquentlypublicized those issues at the Eighth Congress of Georgian Writer sin April 1976—see "Georgian Writer Speaks out Against Russification, "Radio Liberty Special Report RL 406/76 or AS No . 2583, MS 23/7 6(July 14, 1976), also Suny, on . cit ., pp . 7-8 .

49See UPI dispatch from Moscow, April 4, 1977.

50See the following interpretative articles : (1) MaryK . Matossian, "Armenia and the Armenians, " in Katz et alii eds . ,Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, pp . 143-160 ; (2) Vahakn D .Dadrian, "Nationalism in Soviet Armenia--a Case Study of Ethnocentrism , "in Simmonds, ed ., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Euro p e . . . ,(3) Garo Chichekian, "Recent Trends in the Distribution and Ethni cHomogeneity of the Armenians in the U .S .S .R . : A Brief Statistica lSurvey , " Armenian Review [AR] , Vol . XXVIII, No . 3-111 (Autumn 1975) ,pp . 325-331 ; (4) Ann Sheehy, "Armenians Increase Their Share o fthe Population of the Armenian SSR , " RL 39/80 in RLB, Vol . 24, No . 5(February 1, 1980), (5) See also a very interesting and importan tpiece by Haig Sarkissian, "An Eyewitness Account : 30th Anniversaryof the Turkish Genocide as Observed in Erevan, " AR, Vol . XIX ,No . 4-76 (Winter 1966), pp . 23-28 .

51See the following p rimary sources on Karabagh : (1) "Appeal

to Khrushchev by the Armenians of Mountainous Karabagh , " see AR,XXI/3-83 (Autumn 1968), pp . 61-66 or HWC, pp . A-183 to A-187--inArmenian, see Levon Mrktchian, Hairenakan dzainer (Munich : Institutfür armenische Fragen, 1978), pp . 26-34 ; (2) E . H . Hovhanissian ' sletter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Sovie tUnion, between Nov . 25, 1964 and April 24, 1965--see AR ,XX/1-77(Spring 1967), pp . 64-71 ; HWC, pp . A-188 to A-194 ; Mrktchian, PP -47-56 ; (3) "The Appeal of the Armenians of Artsakh to the People andLeaders of Armenia [1967], " HWC, pp . A-195 to A-198 ; Mrktchian ,pp . 91-96 ; (4) "A Letter-Document on the Conditions of the Armenian sof Artsakh [1972] , " HWC, pp . A-199 to A-202 ; Mrktchian, pp . 104-110 ;and (5) " Cero Khanzadian ' s Letter to Brezhnev about Karabagh [1978?] , "HWC, pp . A-203 to A-205, document courtesy of Professor Vahakn N .Dadrian . Among the secondary sources should be mentioned : (l )Dr . James H . Tashjian, "The Problem of Karabagh (Annex to a Memorandu mAddressed to the Soviet Union, the United Nations and the Peoples o fthe World)," AR, =I/1-81 (Spring 1968), pp . 3-49 ; (2) V . N . Dadrian,

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"Those Audacious Armenians, " Christian Science Monitor, January 10 ,1978 ; (3) Raymond H . Anderson, "Armenians Ask Moscow for Help ,Charging Azerbaidzhan with Bias, " N .Y . Times, December 11, 1977 ; (4 )Ronald G . Suny, "Historical Perspectives on the Regions of Karabaghand Nakhichevan , " public lecture Southfield, Michigan, March 17, 1978 .

52Interview with Mr . Ambartsum Khlgatyan, September 26, 1979 .

53See "Supplement [to Appeal to Armenians Abroad, o fFebruary 8, 1978] : A Collection to Aid Political Prisoners an dTheir Families," February 1976, PS of May 1977," US CSCE, ReportsHelsinki Monitors III, pp . 182-183 ; HWC, pp . A-181 to A-182 .

54 lnterview with Mr . Ambartsum Khlgatyan, September 26, 1979 .

55On the NOP see David Kowalewski, "The Armenian NationalUnity Party : Context and Program," AR, XXXI/4-124 (April 1979) ,pp . 362-70 . A samizdat report on the activity of NOP on pp . 364-70 ,quotations from pp . 365-366 . See also "Secret Political Trials inSoviet Armenia : 'An Unendorsed Communique,'" AR, XXXI/3-123(March 1979), pp . 265-302 which reproduces materials from the 2n dAirikyan trial of October 1974, at which he was sentenced to seve nyears of prison camp and three years of exile .

56See the following documents of the Armenian Group : (1 )"Declaration," April 1, 1977 - Mrktchian, pp . 122-127 ; SDS 30 ,pp . 78-81 ; (2) "Announcement to Belgrade Conference," June 1977- -US CSCE, The Right to Know... (May 1978), pp . 106-112 ; SDS 30pp . 85-94, (3) "To Delegates of the Belgrade Conference and Armenia nFellow-Countrymen, Supplement , " September 12, 1977, US CSCE, Reportsof Helsinki Accord Monitors, III (Nov . 7, 1978), p . 177 ; (4) " Statementof Armenian Helsinki Group Member Robert Nazaryan with a Request fo rAcceptance into the Helsinki Agreement Implementation Group, "Oct . 26, 1977--see ibid ., p . 178 ; (5) "An Appeal to the Presidium ofthe Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR, " December 4, 1977--ibid . ,pp . 179-180 ; (6) "An Appeal to Armenians Abroad, " February 8, 1978--ibid ., p . 181 (citation in text is from this document) ; and No . 7--see Note 53, above . All those documents have been reproduced inHWC, pp . A-163 to A-182 .

57Simon, loc . cit . (note 18, above), p . 454 . The American

secondary literature on the Soviet nationality question is voluminous .Singled out should be: (1) Pipes, Richard, The Formation of theSoviet Union : Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (New York :Atheneum, 1968, rev . ed .) ; (2) Allworth, Edward, ed ., Soviet NationalityProblems (New York : Columbia University Press, 1971) ; (3) Katz, Zevet alii, eds . Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York :Free Press, 1975) ; (4) Kamenetsky, Ihor, ed ., Nationalism and HumanRights : Processes of Modernization in the USSR (Littleton, Colo . :Libraries Unlimited, 1977 ; published for Association for the Stud yof the Nationalities [USSR and East Europe]) ; (5) Azrael, Jeremy R .,

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57 (Continued )ed ., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York : Praeger ,1978) ; (6) Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone's illuminating article, "Th eDialectics of Nationalism in the USSR , " Problems of Communism ,Vol . 23, No . 3 (May-June 1974), pp . 1-12 . In French literature ,indispensable is D'Encausse, Helene Carrère, L'Empireeclatéla révolte des nations en U .R .S .S . (Paris : Flammarion, 1978) .

58Simon, pp . 454-455 and A . Shtromas, "The Legal Position

of Soviet Nationalities and Their Territorial Units According to the1977 Constitution of the USSR , " Russian Review, Vol . 37 (1978) ,

pp . 265-272 .

59 Best source is Ann Sheehy, "The National Languages an dthe New Constitutions of the Transcaucasian Republics , " RL 98/78in RLB, Vol . 22, No . 19 (May 12, 1978) . Mrs . Sheehy may, however ,underestimate the importance of the language demonstration or near -riot in Tbilisi . See our HWC, pp . 5-63 to 5-65, 5-76 .

60Aleksandr Ginzburg's testimony before the US CSCE ,

May 11, 1979, see US Congress (96th : lst session), CSCE, Basket III :Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Hearing . . . on Implementationof the Helsinki Accords, Vol . X: Aleksandr Ginzburg on the HumanRights Situation in the U .S .S .R. (Washington, 1979), p . 10 .

610n February 24, 1977, see US Congress (95th : 1st session) ,CSCE, Basket III... , Hearings . . . on the Implementation of theHelsinki Accords Vol . I : Human Rights, February 23 and 24, 1977 . . .(Washington, 1977), pp . 53-61 .

62On June 3, 1977, see loc . cit . (note 34, above), pp . 29-37 .

63See note 60, above, pp . 8-21 .

64 0n July 19, 1979 . See US Congress (96th : lst session) ,CSCE, Basket III... , Hearings . . . , Vol . XI . . . .On Human Rights Violations in Ukraine, July 19, 1979 (Washington ,1979), pp . 121-138 .

65See, however, Dante B . Fascell, "Did Human Rights Surviv eBelgrade?," Foreign Policy, No . 31 (Summer 1978), pp . 104-118 andUS Congress (95th : 2nd session), CSCE, The Belgrade Follow= Meetin gto the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Euro p e : A Repor tand Appraisal, transmitted to the Committee on International Relations ,U .S . House of Representatives, May 17, 1978 (Washington, 1978), 105 pp .

66We have documented this at length in our HWC, pp . 3-9 ff .

670n February 24, 1977 . See Note 61, above, pp . 62-76 .

3

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680n April 28, 1977 . See US Congress (95th : 1st session) ,CSCE, Basket III... , Vol . II : Religious Liberty and MinorityRights in the Soviet Union, April 27 and 28, 1977 . . . (Washington ,1977), pp . 134-162 .

69See its document No . 7, as cited in Note 36, above .

70US CSCE, Profiles : The Helsinki Monitor s (rev . Dec . 10 ,1979), unpaged . See also Note 61, above, documenting Venclova' sappearance before the US CSCE .

71Profiles . . .

72lbid .

73 lbid .

74Number as of December 1979 . See HWC, pp . A-02 to A-0 6for details .

75For instance, in February 1979, Vasyl Ovsienko, an associat eof the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was sentenced to three years " forresisting the militia in the performance of their dut y"--see AS No . 3594 ,MS 18/79 . January 21, 1980 another associate of that Group ,Mykola Horbal got five years for "attempted rape"--Svoboda (Jersey City ,N .J .), January 31, 1980, p . l . June 3, 1980, there started a tria lin Yakutsk. The defendant is the well-known responsible Ukrainia ndissident journalist and new [since the fall of 1979] Ukrainia nGroup member Viacheslav Chornovil . The charge is rape . (Svoboda ,June 5, 1980, p . l) . June 6, 1980, Chornovil was sentenced to fiv eyears of labor camp (ibid ., June 11, 1980, p . l) .

76See the protest of his wife Raisa in MS, 15/78 (April 18 ,1978) and the article of his friend Gen . Hryhorenko, "Nezlamni .Part 2,

Svoboda, Nov .

24,

1979, p .

2 ..

. ,"

77We have discussed Gamsakhurdia's involved career in detailin HWC, pp . 5-54 to 5-59 and 5-65 to 5-69 .

78There is first the secret trial and exceedingly hast yexecution of three Armenians (Stepan S . Zatikyan, Akop Stepanyanand Zoven Bagdasaryan) in the last days of January 1979 : They hadbeen accused of causing an explosion in the Moscow subway January 8 ,1977, which killed several passengers (see on this especiallyMalva Landa's lengthy expose, Stepan Zatikyan, Akop StepanyaniZoven Bagdasaryan prigovoreny k smertnoi kazni po stal'sifitsirovany mobvineniam (February-May 1979), AS No . 3676, in MS 28/78) . ShagenArutyunyan of the Armenian Helsinki Group had known Zatikyan as aco-founder of NOP, had been closely questioned in that affair . Ortake the case of the very popular non-conformist Ukrainian rockcomposer Ivasiuk . He left the Lviv Conservatory in the company o f

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78 (Continued )a stranger during Easter, April 22-24, 1979 . Within days the militi abegan to speculate that he probably committed suicide . In about amonth his body was discovered hanging high up in a tree in a forest .If the samizdat reports rather than the official version are correct ,his eyes had been gouged out, which would make it the stranges tsuicide ever (see " Ivasiuk Volodimir , " n .d ., n . place, MS No . 45/7 9[December 24, 1979], 2 pp . AS No . 3800 .) Also "Big Brother isEverywhere," TIME, June 23, 1980, p . 39 . Ukrainian Group membersSichko father and son attend the funeral, give an oration, are soo narrested and then jailed . On Dec . 4, 1979, Petro Sichko (Sr . )is sentenced to 3 years of severe regimen camp, Vasyl Sichko (Jr . )to 3 years of moderate regimen camp . See Svoboda : TheUkrainianWeekly, January 20, 1980, p . 1 and Smoloskyp, Vol . 2, No . 6 (Winter1980), p . 2 of Ukrainian inset .