The Initiative or Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (russian: Инициати́вная гру́ппа по защи́те прав челове́ка в СССР) was the first civic organization of the
Soviet human rights movement. Founded in 1969 by 15 dissidents, the unsanctioned group functioned for over six years as a public platform for
Soviet dissidents concerned with violations of human rights in the Soviet Union.
The main work of the group consisted in documenting abuses and preparing appeals. The letters focused on persecution of people for their convictions in the USSR, with particular attention being given to the use of
punitive psychiatry
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society ...
and to
political prisoners
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...
. Unusually for the dissident movement at the time, the appeals were directed to international organizations such as the
UN Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...
. The documents of the Initiative Group were circulated in ''
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
'', and published by the Western press, as well as being broadcast back into the USSR by radio stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle.
Most of the members of the group were harassed and persecuted: they and family members lost their jobs, they were arrested and imprisoned, or encouraged to leave the Soviet Union altogether. By 1979, all the founding members of the Group were imprisoned, in internal exile or living abroad. The Initiative Group served as a precursor and model, nevertheless, to a variety of dissident organizations that took over many of its functions,
among them
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
's
Committee on Human Rights in the USSR, the
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, russian: link=no, Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 ...
, and the
Commission on the Abuse of Psychiatry.
Founding
In late 1968, Ivan Yakhimovich, a philologist and chairman of a collective farm in Latvia, wrote a letter to the Communist Party expressing his concern for the fate of arrested ''
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
'' authors
Yuri Galanskov
Yuri Timofeyevich Galanskov (russian: Ю́рий Тимофе́евич Галанско́в, 19 June 1939, Moscow - 4 November 1972, Mordovia) was a Russian poet, historian, human rights activist and dissident. For his political activities, suc ...
and
Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander "Alik" Ilyich Ginzburg ( rus, Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Ги́нзбург, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ɨˈlʲjidʑ ˈɡʲinzbʊrk, a=Alyeksandr Il'yich Ginzburg.ru.vorb.oga; 21 November 1936 – 19 July 2002), was a Russian journalist ...
.
After the letter by Yakhimovich was widely publicized, he was expelled from the Communist Party, arrested and later committed to a psychiatric hospital without trial.
In April 1969 former general and dissident
Pyotr Grigorenko
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
met with fellow dissidents at his apartment and proposed creating a formal "Committee in Defense of Ivan Yakhimovich". The proposal elicited mixed reactions: Some dissidents advocated for a broader human rights group, while others doubted the effectiveness of a group over informal expressions of protest, and warned of the significantly harsher crackdowns organized activity would provoke under
Anti-Soviet Agitation laws.
The disputes came to a close in May, when a report by
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
chairman
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the p ...
lead to the arrest of Grigorenko. This was followed by the arrest of poet
Ilya Gabai, another luminary of the dissident movement.
![Vkrasin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Vkrasin.jpg)
On 19 May 1969, the day of Ilya Gabai's arrest, a group of dissidents assembled at Pytor Yakir's apartment and agreed to join a proposed human rights group, modelled after the Initiative Groups of
Crimean Tatars
, flag = Flag of the Crimean Tatar people.svg
, flag_caption = Flag of Crimean Tatars
, image = Love, Peace, Traditions.jpg
, caption = Crimean Tatars in traditional clothing in front of the Khan's Palace ...
.
As a first action,
Victor Krasin drafted an appeal. It enumerated several political trials of the late 1960s, in which defendants were prosecuted for exercising the right to impart information. It was addressed to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
and exhorted it to investigate human rights abuses in the Soviet Union:
We appeal to the United Nations because our protests and complaints, addressed for a number of years to the higher state and judicial offices in the Soviet Union, have received no response of any kind. The hope that our voice might be heard, that the authorities would cease the lawless acts which we constantly pointed out—this hope has been exhausted. Therefore we appeal to the United Nations, believing that the defense of human rights is the sacred duty of this organization.
The document was signed ''The Initiative Group for the Defense of Civil Rights'' ''in the USSR''. This designation was followed by the names of fifteen dissidents: The Muscovites
Tatyana Velikanova
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova (russian: link=no, Татья́на Миха́йловна Велика́нова, 3 February 1932 in Moscow – 19 September 2002 in Moscow) was a mathematician and Soviet dissident. A veteran of the human rights ...
,
Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya ( rus, Ната́лья Евге́ньевна Горбане́вская, p=nɐˈtalʲjə jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvnə ɡərbɐˈnʲefskəjə, a=Natal'ya Yevgen'yevna Gorbanyevskaya.ru.vorb.oga; 26 May 1936 – 29 Nove ...
, Tatyana Khodorovich,
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov (also spelled Sergey Kovalev; russian: link=no, Сергей Адамович Ковалёв; 2 March 1930 – 9 August 2021) was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a diss ...
,
Victor Krasin,
Aleksandr Lavut, Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, Yury Maltsev, Grigory Podyapolsky, Pyotr Yakir and
Anatoly Yakobson, Vladimir Borisov from Leningrad, Ukrainians Genrikh Altunyan and
Leonid Plyushch
Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident.
Although he was employed to work on Soviet ...
, and the Crimean Tatar activist in Uzbekistan
Mustafa Dzhemilev
Mustafa Abduldzhemil Jemilev ( crh, Mustafa Abdülcemil Cemilev, Мустафа Абдюльджемиль Джемилев, ), also known widely with his adopted descriptive surname Qırımoğlu "Son of Crimea" ( Crimean Tatar Cyrillic: , ; born ...
. These names were supplemented by a list of 38 supporters.
On 20 May 1969, without consulting the other members of the group, Pyotr Yakir and Victor Krasin passed the text to foreign correspondents and a representative of the United Nations in Moscow. Expecting to first discuss the petition and further actions, all fifteen individuals had effectively become members of a new public organization.
The members agreed to continue with appeals under that name, on the conditions that no member's name would be used as co-signatory without their express consent.
History
First appeals (1969-1970)
Over the course of 1969, the Initiative Group sent four further letters to the United Nations. In each instance, it appealed for recognition and assistance with the human rights problems in the Soviet Union.
Document No. 2 (30 June 1969) was a supplement to its original petition. Written by Natalya Gorbanevskaya and
Lyudmila Alexeyeva
Lyudmila Mikhaylovna Alexeyeva (russian: Людми́ла Миха́йловна Алексе́ева, ; 20 July 1927 – 8 December 2018) was a Russian historian and human-rights activist who was a founding member in 1976 of the Moscow Helsink ...
, it provided information about the case against
Anatoly Marchenko
Anatoly Tikhonovich Marchenko (russian: Анато́лий Ти́хонович Ма́рченко, 23 January 1938 – 8 December 1986) was a Soviet dissident, author, and human rights campaigner, who became one of the first two recipients (al ...
and about the use of
punitive psychiatry
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society ...
against Ivan Yakhimovich and
Pyotr Grigorenko
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko ( uk, Петро́ Григо́рович Григоре́нко, russian: Пётр Григо́рьевич Григоре́нко, link=no, – 21 February 1987) was a high-ranking Soviet Army ...
.
As the letter reached the West through ''samizdat'' distribution and was picked up by shortwave radio stations, the members of the group were interrogated and some arrested.
Document No. 3 (26 September 1969) appealed personally to United Nations Secretary General
U Thant
Thant (; ; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held t ...
. It reported the reaction of the Soviet authorities to the first two documents, which included the arrest of four members: Vladimir Borisov, Genrikh Altunyan, Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, and
Mustafa Dzhemilev
Mustafa Abduldzhemil Jemilev ( crh, Mustafa Abdülcemil Cemilev, Мустафа Абдюльджемиль Джемилев, ), also known widely with his adopted descriptive surname Qırımoğlu "Son of Crimea" ( Crimean Tatar Cyrillic: , ; born ...
, and called on U Thant to use his authority and place the violation of human rights in the USSR on the agenda. As the appeal reached the Western media, UN information centers around the world were instructed by its secretariat not to forward petitions to New York.
When these appeals to the UN went unanswered, the Initiative Group turned to other recipients: The
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
and the International Congress of Psychiatrists for cases involving
punitive psychiatry
Political abuse of psychiatry, also commonly referred to as punitive psychiatry, is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment, for the purposes of obstructing the human rights of individuals and/or groups in a society ...
, the Papacy for the arrest of
religious dissenters, news agencies such as
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
, and simply "public opinion".
By May 1970, six of the fifteen original members of the Initiative group had faced arrest or imprisonment.
Mission statement (1970)
In May 1970 the Initiative Group commemorated its first anniversary with an "Open Letter" addressed to
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
and the
Soviet press agency. Penned by mathematician
Tatyana Velikanova
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova (russian: link=no, Татья́на Миха́йловна Велика́нова, 3 February 1932 in Moscow – 19 September 2002 in Moscow) was a mathematician and Soviet dissident. A veteran of the human rights ...
, biologist
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov (also spelled Sergey Kovalev; russian: link=no, Сергей Адамович Ковалёв; 2 March 1930 – 9 August 2021) was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a diss ...
and poet
Anatoly Yakobson, it set out three tenets that guided the group's activity: It aimed not only defend human rights, but by being a group itself assert the formally guaranteed freedom of association; the diverse group was unified by the conviction that "the foundation of a normal life of society is recognition of the unconditional value of the human individual"; and the group's activity in defense of human rights was not a form of politics:
The Initiative Group has no set program, no bylaws, and no defined structure. Each of us has the right to abstain from signing a document of the Group, and each of us has complete freedom when acting in his or her own name. ..The Initiative Group does not get involved in politics. We don't lobby for any specific government measures. We only say: don't violate your own laws. While we don't engage in politics, we have no intention of becoming reconciled to the punitive measures directed against dissenters. Resistance to illegality, to the abuse of power, these are the tasks of the Initiative Group. The Initiative Group does not believe that it is attacking the state when it criticizes specific actions of the authorities.
In spite of these common goals, the Initiative group was marked by ideological differences. Some, like Sergei Kovalev and Anatoly Yakobson, saw their activity as strictly humanitarian and avoided actions that might be construed as treasonous or
anti-Soviet
Anti-Sovietism, anti-Soviet sentiment, called by Soviet authorities ''antisovetchina'' (russian: антисоветчина), refers to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the ...
; others like such as Pyotr Yakir, Victor Krasin and Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, believed that they were engaged in a political struggle with the Soviet regime, and were open to cooperation with the
NTS, an émigré anti-communist organization founded in 1930. These disagreements lead Kovalev, Yakobson and
Alexander Lavut to threaten that they would leave the Initiative Group.
Case 24 and aftermath (1972-1973)
The members of the Initiative Group were closely linked with other dissident information networks. In April 1968, the ''
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
'' (self-published) bulletin ''
Chronicle of Current Events
''A Chronicle of Current Events'' (russian: Хро́ника теку́щих собы́тий, ''Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy'') was one of the longest-running ''samizdat'' periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. This unofficial newsletter reported v ...
'' had begun circulation, reporting violations of civil rights and judicial procedure by the Soviet government and responses to those violations by citizens across the USSR.
A succession of the Chronicle's editors came from the ranks of the Initiative Group.
In 1972 the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
initiated
Case 24, a wide-ranging crackdown intended to suppress the ''Chronicle''. Three members of the Initiative Group were arrested that year.
Leonid Plyushch
Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident.
Although he was employed to work on Soviet ...
endured four years of punitive psychiatry until he was released in 1976 and immigrated to the West. Pyotr Yakir and Victor Krasin began to collaborate with their interrogators. In a televised testimony, they recanted their "anti-Soviet activity" and renounced the Initiative Group as a fraudulent undertaking whose real purpose was the deception of international public opinion.
The crackdown reduced the Initiative Group to five members.
Between July 1972 and December 1973, the Initiative Group issued only two documents, rejecting the accusations and reporting the conditions and procedure of interrogations. In 1974, it resumed its activity with a steady stream of protests focusing on the plight of inmates of the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
and
psychiatric hospitals
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
. As a result, a large volume of testimonies about prisons and camps entered the information networks of the movement.
Day of the Political Prisoner in the USSR (1974)
In 1974, the Initiative Group organized a "Day of the Political Prisoner in the USSR". The action had been conceived in the Gulag by
astrophysicist Kronid Lyubarsky as part of an ongoing campaign for the recognition of inmates' status as
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s. Wives of inmates smuggled information about the planned action out of the
Mordovia
The Republic of Mordovia (russian: Респу́блика Мордо́вия, r=Respublika Mordoviya, p=rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə mɐrˈdovʲɪjə; mdf, Мордовия Республиксь, ''Mordovija Respublikś''; myv, Мордовия Рес ...
n and
Perm
Perm or PERM may refer to:
Places
*Perm, Russia, a city in Russia
** Permsky District, the district
**Perm Krai, a federal subject of Russia since 2005
**Perm Oblast, a former federal subject of Russia 1938–2005
**Perm Governorate, an administra ...
labor camps and out of
Vladimir prison to the Moscow dissident community.
On 30 October 1974, the Initiative Group held a press conference at the apartment of
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
. Speaking before invited foreign correspondents,
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov (also spelled Sergey Kovalev; russian: link=no, Сергей Адамович Ковалёв; 2 March 1930 – 9 August 2021) was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a diss ...
,
Tatyana Velikanova
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova (russian: link=no, Татья́на Миха́йловна Велика́нова, 3 February 1932 in Moscow – 19 September 2002 in Moscow) was a mathematician and Soviet dissident. A veteran of the human rights ...
, Tatyana Khodorovich and
Alexander Lavut reported the origins of the event in the Gulag and the spectrum of political prisoners in the USSR. In the name of the Initiative Group, a statement was distributed explaining the origins of the action and contradicting the Soviet regime's claim that it did not have political prisoners. While the press conference was in progress, inmates in
Vladimir Prison and in camps in Perm and Mordovia conducted a hunger strike.
Kovalev was arrested two months later, and his role in the press conference featured prominently in his interrogations. Nevertheless, the Day of the Political Prisoner became an annual event in the Gulag. In 1991 the annual event was supplanted by Russia's official
Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions.
End of activities and Moscow Helsinki Group (1976)
By March 1976, of the members of the Initiative Group only
Tatyana Velikanova
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova (russian: link=no, Татья́на Миха́йловна Велика́нова, 3 February 1932 in Moscow – 19 September 2002 in Moscow) was a mathematician and Soviet dissident. A veteran of the human rights ...
and Tatyana Khodorovich remained at liberty. In November 1977, Khodorovich emigrated to the West. Velikanova continued to sign documents in the name of the Group for another two years, before her arrest in November 1979 marked the formal end of the Initiative Group as a public structure. A final appeal from 17 November 1981 was smuggled out of the women's zone of the Mordovan labor camps. Calling attention to the treatment of infirm and elderly inmates, it was signed by dissident Tatyana Osipova and by Tatyana Velikanova, who described herself as "Member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR".
The Initiative Group survived long enough to pass on the baton to other emerging human rights groups in the Soviet Union during the later 1970s. The last statements by its remaining members — Grigory Podyapolsky (died 9 March 1976), Tatyana Velikanova, and Tatyana Khodorovich — were supported by other dissidents who would become members of the new
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, russian: link=no, Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 ...
:
Yuri Orlov
Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov (russian: Ю́рий Фёдорович Орло́в, 13 August 1924 – 27 September 2020) was a particle accelerator physicist, human rights activist, Soviet dissident, founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a founding ...
, Malva Landa, and
Lyudmila Alekseeva. Established in May 1976, the Moscow Helsinki Group quickly assumed the Initiative Group's role as flagship of the human rights movement in the USSR.
See also
*
Committee on Human Rights in the USSR
*
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, russian: link=no, Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
*
*
Документы Инициативной группы по защите прав человека в СССРat
''Memorial society''
*
{{Authority control
Organizations established in 1969
1969 establishments in the Soviet Union
1969 establishments in Russia
Organizations disestablished in 1979
1979 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
1979 disestablishments in Russia
Organizations based in Moscow
Human rights organizations based in the Soviet Union
Human rights organizations based in Russia
Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union