British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985 9781472527288, 9781474210492, 9781472525161

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. From Belov to Bukovsky – The Growing Awareness of Psychiatric Abuse
2. Shifting Psychiatric Concerns, the Special Committee and the Soviet Withdrawal
3. Prisoner’s Banquets, Ghosts and the Ballet – The Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry
4. From Toothache to Keston, via Moscow – Michael Bourdeaux and the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism
5. Attempting Impartiality – Amnesty International and the Soviet Union
Conclusion – The Rush to Expertise
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985

British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985 Mark Hurst

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Mark Hurst, 2016 Mark Hurst has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

978-1-4725-2728-8 978-1-3500-5441-7 978-1-4725-2516-1 978-1-4725-2234-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hurst, Mark, 1987- author. Title: British human rights organizations and Soviet dissent, 1965-1985 / Mark Hurst. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Identifiers: LCCN 2015035791 | ISBN 9781472527288 (hardback) | ISBN 9781472525161 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781472522344 (ePub) Subjects: LCSH: Dissenters–Soviet Union–History. | Human rights–Soviet Union–History. | Human rights workers–Great Britain–History– 20th century. | Non-governmental organizations–Great Britain–History– 20th century. | BISAC: HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century. Classification: LCC JC599.S58 H87 2016 | DDC 323.06/041 – dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035791 Cover design: Sharon Mah Cover image: Women’s Campaign for the Soviety Jewry protest outside the Soviety embassy in London, 1973 / University of Southampton Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

1 2 3 4 5

Introduction From Belov to Bukovsky – The Growing Awareness of Psychiatric Abuse Shifting Psychiatric Concerns, the Special Committee and the Soviet Withdrawal Prisoner’s Banquets, Ghosts and the Ballet – The Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry From Toothache to Keston, via Moscow – Michael Bourdeaux and the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism Attempting Impartiality – Amnesty International and the Soviet Union Conclusion – The Rush to Expertise

Notes Bibliography Index

vi vii viii 1 11 43 79 115 147 179 190 229 242

List of Illustrations Figure 1.1

Figure 3.1

Figure 3.2 Figure 4.1 Figure 4.2

Figure 4.3

Peter Reddaway presenting in front of Roger Haydon at the Keston College AGM, 21 November 1985 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University) Rita Eker and Margaret Rigal in discussion, date unknown (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton) The 35’s office, November 1989 (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton) Keston College, date unknown (Keston College Archive, Baylor University) Michael Bourdeaux speaking at a Keston reception held for Margaret Thatcher at Church House, Westminster, 25 April 1984 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University) Margaret Thatcher at a Keston reception held in her honour, Church House, Westminster, 25 April 1984 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University)

28

90 92 125

139

140

Acknowledgements In the course of this research, I have been fortunate enough to interview a number of the activists discussed in this book. I would like to thank all interviewees for giving their time to talk about their experiences, and to point out further avenues of enquiry. I would like to offer particular thanks to Michael Bourdeaux, Xenia Dennen, Harold Merskey, Peter Reddaway, George and Margaret Rigal, and Michael Sherbourne for being so welcoming and for their invaluable contributions. I owe thanks to Philip Boobbyer, Michael Hughes, Zoe Knox, Ulf Schmidt and David Welch for their comments and support during the writing of this book. The anonymous reviewer of an earlier manuscript has done much to shape this current text, and I am very grateful for their incisive and helpful comments. This project would not have been possible without the financial support from the School of History, University of Kent. The School of History has been a very supportive department in which to work and one that I am proud to be affiliated to. I am also grateful for support from the Christine and Ian Bolt Scholarship which funded a research trip to the United States in the course of this project. I owe particular thanks to Kate Bradley, Tim Keward, Jackie Waller and Miriam Zapp who kept me afloat while writing this book. Finally, I would like to thank Amy Roberts for her overwhelming encouragement and support throughout this project – it is dedicated to her.

List of Abbreviations APA

American Psychiatric Association

AUSNP

All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists

CAPA

Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse

CSRC

Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism

EGBDF

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

FGIP

Human Rights in Mental Health-Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry (formerly known as Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry)

ICM

International Council Meeting (Amnesty International)

IEC

International Executive Committee (Amnesty International)

IISG

Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (International Institute for Social History)

IS

International Secretariat (Amnesty International)

KNS

Keston News Service

MSCSJ

Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry

RCL

Religion in Communist Lands

SCPAP

Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (Royal College of Psychiatrists)

The 35’s

Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry

UDHR

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Working Group

Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals

WCC

World Council of Churches

WPA

World Psychiatric Association

WSI

Writers and Scholars International

Introduction

The twentieth century will go down in history as a period of great conflict. States fought each other in an array of bloody encounters in order to prove their ideological worth, ostracizing their own citizens who did not step in line with their grand ambitions. This was particularly the case in the Soviet Union, where internal political opponents were suppressed on an industrial scale by the communist authorities, with the spectre of the KGB falling heavily on those who challenged the direction of the great socialist experiment. But alongside this, the later-half of the twentieth century ought to be recognized as a period of great hope and optimism for humanity. While the mid-1940s saw the legislative development of human rights as a concept, particularly with the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it was not until the late 1970s that it became politically important. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the 1974 US Trade Act, which linked the Soviet Union’s coveted most-favoured nation status with the United States to the removal of the restrictions being placed on Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate, and the Helsinki accords of 1975 highlight the impact that human rights could have on the direction of the Cold War. Yet, prior to this, the impact of campaigns seeking to highlight the persecution of Soviet dissidents was remarkably limited, and cases of abuse were even overlooked by prominent international organizations that sought to maintain a dialogue with the Soviet authorities instead of speaking out against reported abuses. Much of this has to do with the wider awareness of human rights as an important political consideration, and the extent to which individuals, institutions and governments understood human rights. The history of human rights has been a hotly debated area of scholarship in recent years.1 While Linda Kerber, the president of the American Historical Association, boldly claimed in October 2006 that ‘we are all historians of human rights’, critical analysis of this concept only really began in the twenty-first century.2 Indeed, it is particularly remarkable that prior to the publication of Lynn Hunt’s pioneering 2007 study Inventing Human Rights, research into human rights was overly focused on locating the foundations of the concept, rather than asking more probing questions about its impact and political power.3 Samuel Moyn, who has done much to bring this state of affairs to light, highlighted in 2014 that ‘a mere decade ago, no historians were working on human rights in any time period’, a somewhat surprising omission that is telling of both the unquestionable power and the complexity of human rights as a concept.4 So, how do we account for the sudden interest in human rights issues? Mark Mazower has suggested that the interest in the history of human rights stems from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent shifts in international relations,

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noting that ‘the recent upsurge of interest in the history of human rights must surely be seen as one of the more productive intellectual consequences of the ending of the Cold War’.5 Following the end of many decades of ideological conflict, the opportunity has arisen to question the basis of this utopian vision and the impact that it has had on both politics and society. Moyn made shock waves of his own following the publication of The Last Utopia in 2010, which took a critical approach to the history of human rights. He provocatively and eloquently argued that it was in the 1970s that human rights became a salient political concept, exploding seemingly out of nowhere to dominate international relations and the concerns of activists around the world, rather than in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as is often claimed. Human rights became, he argues, a competing ideology in the Cold War between capitalism and communism, and offered a ‘last utopia’ in which people could put their ideological faith.6 This assertion has been reiterated by Jan Eckel, who has noted that ‘the essential attractiveness’ of human rights was due to their ability to ‘provide a way of responding to the failure of older political projects, of transcending the logic of the Cold War, of basing political action on a moral foundation, and of reaching a vantage point that supposedly was above politics’.7 In the context of the Cold War, protecting individuals from the arbitrary assault of totalitarian governments through an apolitical and impartial ideal was particularly attractive to many activists who, even if they were not aware of the philosophical or political complexities of human rights as a concept, were intimately drawn to doing what they could to support vulnerable people taking a stand behind the iron curtain. This was to become an important tool for activists, who could use impartiality in an attempt to position themselves as being outside the ideological confines of the Cold War in order to gain support, even if their actions suggested that they were anything but apolitical. While there has been a vast amount of focus on the activism taking place behind the iron curtain, the comparable lack of attention paid to Western activists campaigning on behalf of political dissidents is remarkable.8 The impact of dissidents in the Soviet Union cannot be fully understood without an assessment of their position internationally, particularly as they so often played an integral role in the Cold War. A greater awareness of the response to Soviet dissidents furthers our knowledge of both the dissident movement itself and the broader development of international relations in the later part of the twentieth century.9 The accounts written by contemporary activists in the West, such as Sidney Bloch, Daphne Gerlis, Peter Reddaway and Allan Wynn, offer personal insights into both the working of activist groups in the West and the way in which dissidents in the Soviet Union interacted with their Western supporters and colleagues.10 Such publications are a fascinating insight into the way in which activists conducted their campaigns and are telling of a powerful force in British politics that developed in the latter half of the twentieth century, when the tradition of implicit trust for the politician in the grey suit in Westminster and the civil servant in Whitehall was chipped away and replaced with new and increasingly influential forms of authority. In particular, the role of the expert and the non-governmental organization (NGO) came to occupy an important space in British political life.11 Scholarship on the role played by NGOs

Introduction

3

in modern Britain has undergone important developments in recent years, most notably through the scholarship of Matthew Hilton, Nicholas Crowson, James McKay and Jean-François Mouhot, and their important co-authored work The Politics of Expertise.12 NGOs used their expertise to become authorities in a number of areas such as environmentalism and humanitarianism, which themselves had only become prominent political issues in the latter half of the twentieth century. NGOs have been at the heart of a transformation in British politics over the last 50 years, utilizing their expertise on particularly issues to gain the trust of the public and thereby use their authority to influence the direction of the political system. That this has come during a period when trust in traditional politics has declined only reiterates the potential power that NGOs have. The response to the Soviet Union, and its reports of widespread human rights violations, was no exception to this. NGOs formed in Britain to support persecuted prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union became authorities on Soviet affairs during the 1970s. In doing so, each organization gained trust from different aspects of British society, with their expertise being routinely used by those in positions of political power. This was neither a static nor a consistent response, but one that fluctuated according to Cold War pressures, the actions of dissidents themselves and the broader recognition of human rights as an important concept. This complex and multifaceted response to the dissidents from concerned individuals in the United States and Western Europe is deserving of its own rich historiography. This is particularly important given the rise of dissenting figures in contemporary Russian society including Pussy Riot, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Pyotr Pavlensky, and the need to understand how the international community might respond to their political efforts.13

Three Phases of Development The aim of this book is to assess how individuals in Britain responded to the Soviet dissident movement from its development in the 1960s through to Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in the mid-1980s, when the policies of glasnost and perestroika dramatically changed the Soviet political landscape. Although many different activist organizations developed in Britain during this period to campaign on behalf of Soviet dissidents, they all followed a similar trajectory that culminated in a rapid rush to the expertise that they had obtained by the mid-1970s, once human rights had become an important political issue. This rush to expertise occurred in three phases, beginning with the establishment of activist groups in Britain in the 1960s. The impetus behind activist organizations formed to highlight the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union began with a small number of activists, often one sole pioneering figure who became concerned about the actions of the Soviet authorities after reading an account of abuses being conducted behind the iron curtain. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the experiences of political dissidents in the Soviet Union, perhaps due to a combination of the great resolve shown in their struggles and the tenacity of their activism, something that sits in direct contrast to

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the corruption and anachronistic nature of the Soviet leadership. This interest has culminated in a great depth of scholarship which has gone some way to account for the development of the broad Soviet dissident movement and its intriguingly complex political philosophy. Given the close temporal proximity to events at the time of writing, reflections on the impact of the dissident movement also include a number of personal reflections on political activism in the Soviet Union. Much of this has come from individual dissidents themselves, who have produced numerous memoirs of their experiences of life in the Soviet Union, offering an insight into their varied forms of dissent, which have been widely translated. The works of Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Anatoly Shcharansky have arguably dominated this literature, perhaps reflecting their prominent positions and the wide recognition of their activism in the West.14 The memoirs of other dissidents, such as Vladimir Bukovsky, Petro Grigorenko, Anatoly Marchenko, Victor Nekipelov, Ida Nudel and Leonid Plyushch among many others, offer further insight into the workings of the Soviet system and the position of political dissent within it.15 The evocative personality and politics of individual dissenters, which is often vividly presented in their memoir accounts, has led to some excellent biographies written by scholars in the West, most notably Michael Scammell’s biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Emma Gilligan’s work on Sergei Kovalyov, Martin Gilbert’s book on Anatoly Shcharansky and Jay Bergman’s exemplary piece on the life of Andrei Sakharov, Meeting the Demands of Reason.16 Despite this recent flourishing of literature on the political activism of dissidents in the Soviet Union, pioneering Western activists in the 1960s were not blessed with such widely available source material or comment. Instead, they spent years developing their expertise on this issue through the establishment of contact with dissidents in the Soviet Union and the collation of information that had made its way to the West predominantly in the form of samizdat. Samizdat was a method of publishing through which dissident authors could distribute their work to a wide audience without being censored by the Soviet authorities, and as a result this became one of the main methods by which dissidents could discuss political ideas with a wider audience, both domestically and internationally. The term samizdat is a play on the acronyms of Soviet state publishing houses such as Goslitizdat and Gospolitizdat, and literally translates as ‘self-publishing house’.17 Samizdat material was produced via the laborious retyping of documents by dissidents, often on so-called ‘onion paper’, which, although comprised of very thin paper, allowed several copies to be reproduced on one typewriter at once. This was a very time-consuming process and produced materials that were very fragile, owing to the thin paper that was used, which was also often of poor quality. Vladimir Bukovsky has neatly encapsulated the phenomenon of samizdat, describing its process as follows: write myself edit myself censor myself publish myself distribute myself go to jail for it myself.18

Introduction

5

The function of samizdat was to fill ‘the gaps that the official Soviet press insist[ed] d[id] not exist’, namely political and cultural opposition to official attempts to create Homo Sovieticus – the perfect Soviet citizen.19 The dissident production of samizdat material was not solely about outright political dissent. This method of publication allowed classic literary works such as Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago to be distributed and read throughout the Soviet Union. Both Bulgakov’s and Pasternak’s works, which contained anti-Soviet rhetoric, are now rightly regarded as literary classics by many; classics that would have been largely unread had it not been for samizdat.20 Engaging in the production of samizdat was also a particularly important challenge for religious dissenters, who attempted to circumvent the state dominance of publication in order to reproduce religious materials such as Bibles and other liturgical books. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet authorities significantly restricted the production of religious materials as part of state-driven atheism, which forced covert religious organizations to build underground printing presses to produce the amount of literature that they needed to engage in their religious beliefs.21 One of the great strengths of samizdat was its ability to spread information from the highly secretive Soviet society to the outside world. Activists in the West used this information to write an array of reports, articles and books on the dissident movement. The samizdat information received by pioneering activists in Britain in the mid-1960s came through a method defined by the political scientists Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink as the boomerang model. Keck and Sikkink’s model demonstrates that Western organizations and activists could be used by dissidents in the Soviet Union to bypass the internal suppression of information about human rights violations, which was being ruthlessly conducted by the notorious KGB, in order to exert pressure on the Soviet authorities. By sending samizdat details to the West about the position of dissidents, akin to throwing a boomerang, it was hoped that the information it contained would inspire activism that would in turn lead to pressure on the Soviet authorities from the international community, returning the boomerang.22 Initial throws of the samizdat boomerang in the 1960s were predominantly unsuccessful, with the British public paying relatively little attention to the information being distributed in the West by activists. However, during the second phase of the rush to expertise in the mid-1970s, activist organizations began to be recognized for the knowledge that they had accrued on life in the Soviet Union. This came at a time when there were dramatic developments in the Cold War which thrust Soviet dissidents into public consciousness in Britain, something that in turn pushed the work of activists on to the front pages of national newspapers because of their recognized authority on this issue. The rush to expertise on the Soviet dissident movement came during a period when the concept of human rights was gaining political traction in international relations. The mid-1970s saw a series of events that positioned human rights as an important issue in the context of the Cold War, shifting it from a marginal issue to the centre of international relations. Much of this came from the major developments during the period of détente, particularly with the end of the Vietnam War, which had done much to dehumanize US foreign policy.

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British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985

Barbara Keys has noted that the US authorities greatly needed to reposition morality as an integral part of its foreign policy following its failures in Vietnam.23 Support for human rights ideals was a perfect way to do this, as not only did it offer a powerful ideological weapon to use against the Soviet Union, it also helped to re-establish American confidence on the international stage. As Keys noted, ‘human rights were far more important than a slogan … they helped redefine American to Americans, for they were about American identity even more than they were about foreign policy’.24 The Helsinki Accords of 1975, in particular the agreement of provisions in Basket 3, also had a profound effect on the position of human rights in the discourse of international diplomacy. As Sarah Snyder has deftly outlined, the broader Helsinki process ‘directly and indirectly influenced both Western and Eastern governments to pursue policies that facilitated the rise of organised dissent in Eastern Europe, freedom of movement for East Germans, and improved human rights practices in the Soviet Union – all factors in the end of the Cold War’.25 Concern for human rights was not a short-term issue used by the superpowers in order to bolster their position in the Cold War, but a political issue that, once fully unleashed in the mid-1970s, has come to dominate international relations. While the increasing awareness of the plight of the dissidents was much welcomed by individual activist organizations in Britain that had developed an authority on the plight of Soviet prisoners of conscience, the rush to their expertise in the late 1970s by journalists, politicians and the general public alike caused them huge complications. This was particularly exacerbated when the level of interest in their work is compared to the relative ignorance towards their campaigns prior to the mid-1970s. Despite receiving the attention for their cause that many had spent years campaigning for, the rate at which this recognition came was overwhelming for many activist groups. In the third phase of the rush to expertise, many activists expanded their work at a rapid pace in order to keep up with the perceived demand for information, something that not only demoralized overworked researchers but also put great strains on the structural integrity on activist organizations working to support Soviet dissidents. The rate of expansion was so rapid that despite the much welcomed publicity for their cause, many groups began to struggle to function effectively. This was something that also affected a number of activist organizations following the collapse of the Soviet Union when campaigns that had been front-page news were forced to rapidly downsize their activity, and in some cases even cease their work altogether as public concern for their campaigns dwindled – something that often had terminal consequences for campaigning organizations. *** While Western activism in support of Soviet dissidents was immensely important in the distribution of information about their plight, it was the shift in international relations that occurred in the mid-1970s that allowed activist organizations to have a significant impact, something that their activism alone did not allow. An assessment of the British response to Soviet dissent is a complex and multifaceted task due to the number of differing issues being assessed and the close proximity in which they occur. Taking a completely chronological approach to the development

Introduction

7

of activism from the beginning of awareness of the Soviet abuses in the mid-1960s through to the late 1970s, when the persecution of Soviet dissidents regularly made the front pages of British newspapers, would be an immensely complex and unwieldy way to assess the British response to Soviet dissent. In order to highlight the transitioning importance of activist organizations in Britain working to support Soviet dissidents, this book will be divided into three major areas. It will begin by considering the British response to the Soviet abuse of psychiatry in a contextual fashion, demonstrating the broad changes in activism over the long 1970s. Chapter 1 will chart the growing awareness of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry from the 1965 publication of Valery Tarsis’s Ward 7 through the cases of Evgeny Belov, Petro Grigorenko and Zhores Medvedev. The differing reaction to the incarceration of these individuals charts the understanding of Soviet abuses among the British public and how by 1970 any initial doubts about the reports of abuse taking place in the Soviet Union were removed. However, despite the impact that the efforts of Vladimir Bukovsky had in the kindling of activism in Britain, including the formation of the Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals, and the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry in the early 1970s, there was relatively little public response to reports of abuse beyond these committed individuals. Chapter 2 will continue to chart the development of activism against the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, beginning with the exchange of Vladimir Bukovsky for the Chilean communist Luis Corvalan in December 1976, an event that had a huge impact on the British and international movement to combat the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, forcing psychiatrists around the world to take more constructive steps against the reports of abuse. This chapter will outline the important role played by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry in putting pressure on the Soviet authorities, highlighting how much of its own efforts were driven by the intimate relationship that it had with activists. The increasingly coordinated international pressure on the Soviet psychiatric community, often driven by the information provided by activists, eventually led to the Soviet withdrawal from the World Psychiatric Association in embarrassing circumstances – a substantial, albeit bittersweet victory for those involved in these campaigns. Alongside particular expertise on the issue of psychiatric abuse, activist organizations in Britain also developed authority regarding the Soviet assault on religious belief. This was a complex issue given the geographical breadth of the Soviet Union and its array of religious beliefs. Chapter 3 will consider the activism of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, more commonly known as the 35’s, and their efforts to publicize the persecution of the refuseniks – Soviet Jews who had been refused exit visas to emigrate and subsequently punished for their attempts to leave the Soviet Union. The 35’s developed rapidly from a remarkably naïve and ill-informed group in the early 1970s, to becoming a key source of information on the position of Soviet Jewry by the end of the decade, and going on to hold close relationships with leading members of the British government. The 35’s were publicly noted for their extravagant demonstrations, which were designed to draw the attention of the media to the plight of the refuseniks, but beneath this exterior their campaign was

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British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985

underpinned by the collation of quality information from the Soviet Union collected by regular telephone calls to Soviet Jews. The 35’s participation in the broader rush to expertise was more subtle than that of other organizations owing to its demonstrative presence, but it is clear in the differing direction that the group was forced to take from the late 1970s onwards, when it began to focus more explicitly on obtaining the support of those in positions of political power, rather than solely raising awareness of their concerns. Chapter 4 will continue the analysis of the response to the persecution of religious believers, assessing the activism of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism, more commonly known as Keston College. Keston was founded by Michael Bourdeaux to document the position of religious belief in the Soviet Union, becoming the voice of the persecuted Soviet believer. Bourdeaux’s personal journey has been described as a transition from being largely dismissed as a ‘McCarthyite with a dog collar’ in the 1960s to becoming internationally renowned for the research that he conducted, even being invited as a specialist to brief Margaret Thatcher on the position of religion in the Soviet bloc.26 This, however, misses the complexities in Keston’s development, which occurred in sync with the growing recognition of the dissident movement in the West during the rush to expertise. This chapter will explore the motivations behind Keston’s work, highlighting the role that its leading members’ Christian faith played in motivating the organization during difficult periods, and how it drove them to take often reckless financial decisions in order for the group to conduct its activism in the most pronounced manner possible. The fifth and final chapter of this book will assess the activism on behalf of Soviet dissidents by an organization that has become inextricably linked in public consciousness with human rights activism – Amnesty International. Amnesty’s efforts on behalf of Soviet prisoners of conscience were intertwined with the group’s ostensible obsession with impartiality, seeking to plough a neutral line in the context of the Cold War. Due to this, its researchers found a kindred spirit in the samizdat journal the Chronicle of Current Events, which reported the persecution of dissidents in an apolitical and emotionless fashion, something that led Amnesty to use it extensively in its efforts, even producing an English translation for wider consumption. This, however, led to a series of complications for the group, as reprinting dissident material endangered its desired impartiality, and threatened not only its reputation but also the safety of a number of dissidents who had formed an Amnesty group in Moscow. The complexities that the organization was faced with were set against an ever-pressing desire for Amnesty to expand its research in a professional manner, which was anything but easy during the rush to expertise, which pushed its Soviet researchers to the limits. In his 1970 Nobel Lecture, Alexander Solzhenitsyn concluded with the powerful phrase ‘ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WORLD’.27 In essence, this notion motivated much of the activism around the world in support of those in the Soviet Union willing to risk their lives to stand up for their political beliefs. While words of truth were initially collated by committed activists in Britain in the 1960s, their message was largely ignored in the West. It was only when the conditions

Introduction

9

were right in international relations in the mid-1970s following the end of the Vietnam War, the signing of the Helsinki Accords, and the exchange of Vladimir Bukovsky, that a rush to expertise occurred in the West to those organizations that had developed an authority on the plight of the Soviet dissident movement, and the fundamental truth that had long been present in their campaigns began to be widely recognized and acted upon. The response to the Soviet dissident movement highlights that throughout the Cold War, the world was becoming an increasingly small space. The fine line between Western activist and Soviet dissident became increasingly blurred to the extent that by the 1980s they were often virtually indecipherable. The rise of human rights as an important political concept in this period meant that the widespread state persecution of political opponents would no longer be tolerated on the international stage. Rosemary Foot has argued in an essay in the groundbreaking Cambridge History of the Cold War that ‘neither the course nor the ending of the Cold War can be understood without some reference to the impact that human rights ideas had on East-West rivalries’.28 Much the same can be said for those affected by the negligence of human rights ideals and of those who campaigned to highlight the Soviet abuses on the international stage.

1

From Belov to Bukovsky – The Growing Awareness of Psychiatric Abuse

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union became infamous for the development of the Gulag: a widespread system of labour camps where opponents of the regime were subjected to brutal punitive measures.1 Following the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union could no longer engage in the widespread terror that had dominated previous generations, where political opponents of the state disappeared into the labyrinth that the dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn dubbed the ‘Gulag Archipelago’. In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto head of state, boldly announced that the Soviet Union no longer had any political prisoners, and that those who expressed dissatisfaction with the state were, in fact, mentally ill. Vladimir Bukovsky, a dissident who was subjected to the full brutality of the Soviet state in the 1960s for his political views, recalled that ‘not many people took his words seriously at the time – this wasn’t the only rubbish he was continually spouting. But this was not the premier’s little joke, it was a directive and it signified a major turn in punitive policy.’2 Khrushchev’s comments outlined a shift in the way the Soviet authorities dealt with political dissidents which developed in the mid-1950s. Robert Hornsby has described this new policy of mass intimidation and persuasion as prophylaxis, which focused on two aspects of suppressing dissent: minimizing public protest through political agitation and intimidating individual dissidents through KGB pressure. Hornsby argues that, when combined, these two factors ‘provided an effective inter-locking mechanism of social control that played a major, though largely unseen, role in maintaining passivity throughout the vast majority of Soviet society for many years to come’.3 As part of this policy, it was common for political opponents of the Soviet state to disappear into a new labyrinth of psychiatric institutions, ostensibly for treatment, with the Soviet authorities attributing their political dissent to insanity, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. To understand the nature of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, it is important to consider how the treatment of the mentally ill developed in Russia. Formal psychiatric treatment in Russia dates back to 1723, when Peter the Great decreed the formation of hospitals for the mentally ill. Prior to this, treatment of mental illness was conducted solely by the Church, with monasteries forming rudimentary asylums. The mentally ill were treated as if possessed by demons, and treatment of their conditions was reliant

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on attempted exorcisms and other faith-based cures.4 The facilities for treating the mentally ill developed throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the creation of formal houses for the insane and more specialist mental hospitals, marking a transfer in the treatment of mental illness from religion to medicine.5 The first notable case of psychiatric treatment being used to punish a political opponent occurred during the developments of provisions for the mentally ill, with the incarceration of the philosopher and vocal critic of the tsarist regime Pyotr Chaadayev. Chaadayev argued in his noted ‘philosophical letter’, which was published in the political journal Telescope in 1836, that Russia ‘had not contributed in any way to the progress of the human spirit, and whatever has come to us from that progress we have disfigured’. Geoffrey Hosking has noted that this letter touched ‘a raw nerve’ among the Russian intelligentsia and sparked a lengthy debate over the direction of Russia’s development between the Slavophiles and the Westernizer.6 Following the publication of this letter, Chaadayev was monitored by the Third Section, the tsarist secret police and predecessors of the Soviet KGB, who noted that the philosopher ‘leads a strange life and is writing something of which it is impossible to find out. But it is well known that these works are quietly read.’7 Despite the relative ambiguity of the reports of the Third Section, Chaadayev was considered a threat by Tsar Nicholas I, who considered the contents of his 1836 letter ‘a farrago of nonsense, worthy of a lunatic’ and decreed that he be detained in his home. This decree explicitly ordered that ‘taking into consideration the unwell state of this unfortunate person [Chaadayev], the Government in its solicitude and fatherly concern for its subjects, forbids him to leave his house and will provide free medical care with a special doctor to be appointed by the local authorities from among those under their jurisdiction’.8 While Chaadayev’s incarceration was framed in this caring light, his detention and enforced medical care was designed to prevent the spread of his ideas, which were considered to threaten the mandate of Tsarist rule. Following the collapse of the Tsarist regime following the two revolutions of 1917, and the establishment of the Soviet Union, treatment of the mentally ill became centralized under the control of the People’s Commissariat for Public Health, which was later renamed the Ministry for Public Health.9 The centralization of psychiatric treatment dramatically slowed the ability for any changes in practice to be made, with all local developments, no matter how small, having to be ratified and approved by the top tier of the Ministry of Health. This centralization of control over mental healthcare placed huge amounts of power in the hands of particular psychiatrists and central figures; something that put the mechanisms in place to allow for widespread political abuse of the system.10 Even when carried out with the best of intentions and with the greatest concern for ethics, psychiatry has many detractors. The necessary detention and treatment of individuals without their explicit and immediate consent, often involving physical restraint and medical sedation, makes psychiatry one of the most controversial medical disciplines. That this detention is based on broadly defined disorders that are difficult to explain to the uninformed, and even more difficult to effectively treat, further complicates matters. Even if conducted in an ethical manner, psychiatry as a discipline attracts criticism. Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist most noted for his work The

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Myth of Mental Illness, has argued that mental illness is comparable to a metaphor, and nothing more than a pseudo-scientific concept. Szasz was particularly opposed to the psychiatric treatment of any individual against his or her will, regardless of the individual’s condition, because of the impossibility of effective diagnosis of mental illness using chemical or biological tests. As a result of Szasz’s concerns, he argued that psychiatric disorders have been used to restrain those on the edge of society, denying them their legal rights.11 This line of argument was also followed by the philosopher Michel Foucault who was equally critical of psychiatry, arguing that it is repressive and controlling. His two controversial works Madness and Civilisation and The Birth of the Clinic challenge the very basis of psychiatry as a discipline, critiquing the concept of madness itself.12 While it is important to note that both Szasz and Foucault are outliers for their vehement opposition to psychiatry, one of the major difficulties faced by activists in the West who campaigned against the Soviet abuses was the need to defend themselves from accusations by anti-psychiatry protestors. As Paul Calloway has noted, there was a certain sense of irony in Western psychiatrists’ responding to the reports of abuse in the Soviet Union which had been raised by anti-psychiatry protestors but ignoring accusations made by similar groups that commented on Western practices.13 The need to justify psychiatric treatment was also apparent in the Soviet Union, where the abuses of their own discipline in detaining and treating sane individuals meant that Soviet psychiatrists, desperate to maintain the highest clinical standards to match their Western counterparts, had to justify their unethical actions through the development of new conditions. One such condition was sluggish schizophrenia, a dubiously defined condition on which many dissidents were detained against their will in psychiatric institutions. This condition was developed and defined by a group of Moscow-based psychiatrists headed by Andrei Snezhnevsky, the director of the Institute of Psychiatry of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and including among others Georgi Morozov, the director of the infamous Serbsky Research Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, and Daniil Lunts, the head of the Serbsky’s special diagnostic section.14 Bukovsky noted in his memoirs that sluggish schizophrenia was a ‘socially dangerous disability developed very slowly, without showing any outward signs or in any way impairing the patient’s intellect; and the only people who could diagnose it were Snezhnevsky and his pupils’, making the condition particularly apt for the detention and punishment of mentally healthy dissidents, who were unable to challenge their diagnosis or subsequent detention.15 The psychiatrist Sidney Bloch and the political scientist Peter Reddaway have outlined in Russia’s Political Hospitals, their voluminous and detailed account of the Soviet abuses published in 1977, the central role that Snezhnevsky occupied in Soviet psychiatry, which helped facilitate the widespread support for justifying the abuses. Snezhnevsky was the editor of the important Korsakov Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry and a leading member of the presidium of the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists (AUSNP), the official Soviet psychiatric organization; as a result he played a leading role in the broader foreign relations of Soviet psychiatry. Snezhnevsky’s pedigree internationally as a psychiatrist was bolstered by his honorary membership of the World Psychiatric Association, the

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American Psychiatric Association and the British Royal College of Psychiatrists. His ideas did not go entirely unquestioned by his fellow Soviet psychiatrists, as his views on the fluid definition of schizophrenia were challenged by his colleagues based in Kiev and Leningrad. For example, between 1954 and 1959 the dissident Viktor Rafalsky was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia on three occasions by psychiatrists in Moscow, only to be ruled sane in Leningrad on three separate occasions. There were also an array of more apathetic psychiatrists who were not among the so-called Snezhnevsky school. Bloch and Reddaway identified a group of ‘average’ psychiatrists who, in their opinion, were either relatively ignorant towards the political abuse of psychiatry or completely passive towards it. This group regularly evaded involvement in cases that involved dissidents and preferred to pass them on to others so as not to take personal risk for their case. Bloch and Reddaway also contend that discussion of cases involving dissidents was virtually nonexistent between psychiatrists because of a fear of being reported to the authorities for their opinions – risking not only their professional reputation but also their employment status.16 Thus, even if Soviet psychiatrists knew of cases of abuse, it is likely that many kept quiet in order to preserve their own reputation and standard of living, further perpetuating this unethical practice. As a result of this, and the support given by the Soviet leadership to Moscow psychiatrists conducting abuse, by the early 1960s the Snezhnevsky school of thought became the dominant theory in Soviet psychiatry, and internal opponents of sluggish schizophrenia were moved to less prestigious positions away from the seats of power.17 Sluggish schizophrenia was repeatedly challenged as a legitimate medical condition by psychiatrists from around the world, who raised particular concerns about the dubiously defined manner in which it was diagnosed. The psychiatrists Harold Merskey and Bronislava Shafran outlined their concerns over the legitimacy of this condition in an article published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, stating that the concept of sluggish schizophrenia was ‘virtually limited to the Soviet Union’, and noted that if the articles they had considered defining and outlining sluggish schizophrenia ‘had been submitted in English to a Western journal, most of them would probably have been returned for radical revision’.18 The concerns about the legitimacy of this condition led many psychiatrists and activists to suspect that it was in fact the Soviet authorities that were pushing for the psychiatric evaluation and detention of dissidents, rather than psychiatrists themselves. The convenient nature of its symptoms, the concerns about its medical validity and its restriction solely to the Soviet bloc demonstrate that sluggish schizophrenia had been invented to suit the demands of state security bureaus, something that was used by the Soviet authorities to persecute dissidents from the mid-1950s onwards. While undergoing psychiatric assessment, dissidents were subjected to horrendous conditions. Repeated questioning of their mental state and their political views were carried out by psychiatrists, nurses and other unspecified non-medical staff, leading some dissidents to question whether they were being treated by medical professionals or KGB investigators.19 The most brutal aspect of the psychiatric evaluations was that they were accompanied by forced treatment, often through a course of injections of the anti-psychotic drugs Sulfazin and Atropine, and periods of Insulin shock therapy.20 The misuse of psychiatric medicines had horrific effects on

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the patient, causing short-term agony and long-term health conditions. In an article discussing the medical implications of the Soviet abuses, the psychiatrists Nanci Adler and Semyon Gluzman outlined the effects of utilizing psychiatric treatments in an unethical manner, noting that they caused intense muscle pain, exhaustion, toxic psychosis and permanent brain damage.21 The effects of chemical ‘treatments’ are also described in detail by those dissidents who had been incarcerated in psychiatric institutions. The haunting descriptions of psychiatric ‘treatments’ tend to focus on the effect that psychiatric drugs had on others, rather than their own experiences, suggesting that they were perhaps too vulgar or painful to recollect. In his memoirs, the Ukrainian dissident Leonid Plyushch vividly described the effects that the misuse of psychiatric medicines had on those around him, nothing that ‘one inmate was writhing in convulsions, head twisted to the side and eyes bulging. Another patient was gasping for breath, and his tongue was lolling’.22 What is most concerning about Plyushch’s recollections is that psychiatric ‘treatments’ were often given before patients had been diagnosed, and they were ‘given in such large doses in order to reveal the malingerers and to break any resistance’, which is clearly an indication that potent psychiatric medicines were being used to punish and suppress those in psychiatric institutions, rather than to treat them.23 Bukovsky claimed that everyone’s treatment in psychiatric institutions began with ‘the agonising haloperidol in doses large enough to fell a horse’, further demonstrating the violent effects of misusing psychiatric drugs.24 Powerful psychiatric medicines appear to have been administered as a matter of course to those interned in Soviet psychiatric institutions, suggesting that the Soviet authorities wanted dissidents to be ‘treated’ regardless of whether it was needed, or how painful it was. What is perhaps most haunting about the use of anti-psychotic drugs was that in many cases their horrific side effects were both easily preventable and reversible. Many of the psychiatric drugs used to punish dissidents were also used by psychiatrists in the West, and some are still used in psychiatric treatment in British hospitals today. In the conventional medical use of psychiatric tranquilizers – such as Trifluoperazine, Aminazin and Chlorpromazine – an array of anti-Parkinsonian drugs are used to combat the side effects experienced by those by treated by powerful psychiatric drugs, which can resemble those suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The painful side effects of tranquilizers can be alleviated by ceasing treatment for periods of time and allowing the side effects to wear off.25 Soviet psychiatry either lagged so dramatically behind the position of psychiatric treatment in the West that they were unaware of the conventional way of treating the side effects of psychiatric drugs; or they knew about the preventable side effects of their ‘treatments’, and were using them as a tool to torture and repress enemies of the state. If a dissident was not broken by their own experiences of disorientating and painful treatment, being detained in a room surrounded by other patients was a similarly traumatic experience. The psychiatric institutions in which dissidents were incarcerated also contained patients with genuine mental health conditions who were being treated by psychiatrists. Zhores Medvedev, a dissident targeted for his criticisms of Soviet authorities approach to science, noted that on his first night in the Kaluga Psychiatric Hospital he was placed in a ward with patients who suffered

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from depressive psychosis, psychopathy and alcoholism.26 Bukovsky likewise recalled two patients he met; one who maintained virulent anti-American opinions and believed that he had killed the US president John Kennedy by pressing a bell which summoned the guards, and another who held extremely paranoiac views that he would be eaten by another patient. In both cases, Bukovsky recalled the insistent teasing and hostility towards genuine patients by the sane dissenters in an attempt to outline both their superiority and their sanity.27 Alongside their own treatments, the haunting and oppressive atmosphere created by being forced to share a ward with potentially violent patients with mental health conditions can only have increased the pressure on dissidents to recant their views in exchange for release and to break their resolve. The political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet authorities to put pressure on political opponents to recant their dissent, and to attempt to discredit individual dissidents by association with mental illness, was arguably the most brutal weapon used behind the iron curtain. While the purges of the Stalinist era were a physical assault on individuals, epitomized by the horror of the gulag, the abuse of psychiatry was an attack on the purity of the individual which, if successful, removed the validity of their opinions entirely.

The Developing Awareness of Psychiatric Abuse Public awareness in Britain of the extent of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry began in 1965, following the publication of a novel by the Russian author Valery Tarsis. Tarsis was a senior member of the Soviet Writers’ Union, who had had an intimate history with the state oppression. His father had been involved in the failed 1905 revolution against the Tsarist regime by hiding arms for the revolutionaries, an experience which led Tarsis to suffer frequent nightmares about the police searches of his house that had occurred in his childhood. His fears returned unabated during the Stalinist purges, when his father ‘disappeared’ and his father-in-law the Air Force General Alksnis was shot.28 Despite having published a number of academic texts on Western literature in the Soviet Union, Tarsis had on several occasions failed to have his literary work published via official channels in the Soviet Union during Khrushchev’s cultural thaw. In desperation, he sent a manuscript copy of his novel The Bluebottle to the West in the early 1960s, hoping to have his work published abroad, bypassing the restrictions of the Soviet censor.29 This manuscript made its way to the Londonbased Collins and Harvill Press, a publishing house headed by the translator Manya Harari, who had formed the Harvill Press with her friend Marjorie Villiers. The Harvill Press specialized in the publication of Russian dissident literature and later became a subsidy of Collins in 1954, becoming the Collins and Harvill Press.30 Harari had obtained widespread recognition for the 1958 publication of Boris Pasternak’s acclaimed Doctor Zhivago, which she had translated with Max Hayward, cementing her reputation as an astute reader of Russian literature. The Collins and Harvill Press became noted for publishing the works of Russian dissident authors

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such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sinyavsky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and in October 1962 Tarsis joined their ranks when they published a translation of The Bluebottle, which highlighted his literary abilities.31 As a punishment for his transgressions in seeking a foreign publisher for his work, which he did not seek to hide from the Soviet authorities, Tarsis was confined against his will in a Moscow psychiatric institution in August 1962, three months before the publication of The Bluebottle in Britain.32 Despite a relative lack of awareness in the West about the extent of the abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, concerns were raised by some about the medical legitimacy of his incarceration. Edward Crankshaw noted in a February 1963 article for The Observer that the only sign Tarsis had shown of insanity was his ‘recklessness in publishing abroad’. While disparaging of Tarsis’ internment, Crankshaw’s article also highlighted that his treatment was a world away from the 1930s Soviet persecution of political opponents, noting that ‘Stalin would have shot any writer who did what Tarsis has done. Khrushchev has given up shooting, and likes to boast that there are no political prisoners in Russia anymore. But Russia is still the place where it is madness for a gentle intellectual to publish his discontent abroad.’33 Following his discharge in February 1963, the persecution against Tarsis continued as he was repeatedly denied employment and regularly harassed by the Soviet authorities following his decision to leave the Communist Party in March 1963. Despite his publication success in the West, where he became a dollar millionaire through royalty payments into a Western bank account, Tarsis did not see the fruits of his labour in the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities significantly restricted his access to his money in the West and refused his attempts to import a much desired car, which would have made his life much easier owing to the difficulties he had walking following an injury sustained during his time as a correspondent for a Soviet newspaper during the Second World War. During an interview with Robin Stafford of the Daily Express, Tarsis discussed the restricted access to his money in the West with great bitterness, launching into a ‘stream of anti-Soviet expletives describing Russia as lawless’ and a ‘prison without bars’.34 The persecution that Tarsis suffered in the early 1960s inspired an account of his incarceration in a psychiatric institution, entitled Ward 7, which he had smuggled to the West shortly before the fall of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964. The title of Tarsis’ work is drawn from Anton Chekhov’s short story Ward No. 6, in which a Russian doctor’s interaction with patient suffering from mental illness leads to his own incarceration within an asylum.35 Tarsis’ link to Chekhov’s work of the late nineteenth century demonstrates his awareness that this type of abuse has long been practised in Russia, and that his own work documented the next chapter in a wider story of the state’s misuse of psychiatry. Tarsis makes this point explicit in his work, with his fictional psychiatrist Professor Andrey Nezhevsky noting that ‘we’ve advanced beyond Ward 6 … Ward 7 has better amenities’.36 This link was an attempt by Tarsis to raise the credibility of his assertions, positioning his account within the wider context of classic Russian literature. Much like other Russian literary greats, Ward 7’s main character, Valentine Almazov, is a direct representation of Tarsis himself, and the character is used as a vehicle through

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which to describe Tarsis’ own experiences of psychiatric abuse. This is a technique that was also adopted by Solzhenitsyn, who used the characters of Ivan Denisovich Shukov in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Gleb Vikentich Nerzhin in The First Circle to tell his own story in a quasi-fictional medium.37 Like The Bluebottle, Ward 7 was published by the Collins and Harvill Press, although with much greater publicity than his earlier novel. Extracts of Ward 7 were published over several weeks in The Observer in May 1965 shortly before its release, offering readers a glimpse into the Soviet abuses and raising Tarsis’ profile among the paper’s readership.38 Ward 7 was met in the West by a combination of stunned disbelief at its contents and a great concern for the plight of its author who was still living behind the iron curtain. Edward Crankshaw stated a review of the book published in The Observer that while it was a pity that Ward 7 was not written as a ‘straight autobiography’, Tarsis’s work was ‘the most searing indictment of the Soviet system produced by a man who still lives inside it’.39 An anonymous review in The Times tellingly entitled ‘Russia with the lid off ’ heaped praise upon Tarsis’ account, stating that ‘it is breath-taking to think that a man, still living in Russia, can write with apparent serenity and with great precision’. Tarsis’ predicament of writing such a damning account while still in the Soviet Union was not lost on this reviewer, who noted with obvious concern that ‘goodness knows what will happen to the Russian author of Ward 7’.40 This fear was subtly echoed in a Church Times review which aptly noted that the ‘most astonishing thing about the book is that it should come out at all’.41 Perhaps more importantly than its critical reception, Ward 7 had a profound impact on a number of individuals who went on to play a leading role in the British campaigns against the abuses outlined by Tarsis. Peter Reddaway, an academic based at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, noted that Ward 7 had a huge impact on him because of the personal element of Tarsis’ descriptions.42 Despite its fictional portrayal, Reddaway later asserted in a book on the Soviet abuses that he co-authored with the psychiatrist Sidney Bloch that, given its quality, Ward 7 should be considered as a primary source regarding the internment of sane dissidents in mental hospitals. Such was the quality of this account that Reddaway recalled it inspired him to take action against the Soviet abuse of psychiatry.43 Tarsis’ personal account of Soviet psychiatric abuse in the early 1960s was reinforced by events that took place concurrently with its publication in the West. In 1964, the British students Elizabeth Hoey, Susan Poole, Michael Beckley and Robert Dwyer went on a trip to the Soviet Union, organized by the official Soviet tourist organization Sputnik. To offer assistance during their time in the Soviet Union, the four travellers were assigned the student interpreter Evgeny Belov, with whom they became friends, referring to him by the friendly nickname Zhenya. During their trip, this group spent much time talking about a variety of political issues, on which Belov fulfilled his role as a representative of the communist superpower with great aplomb. Belov was reputedly recognized among his Soviet friends as ‘the very model of a good communist’. He was particularly concerned about the political ignorance of his British friends, and therefore tried ‘in every way’ to persuade them that communism was the ‘best possible political system’. This group of students continued their correspondence with Belov after leaving the Soviet Union, in which

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he continued to extol the virtues of a communist life. Despite their attempts to argue with him, the four students noted that ‘he was not to be shaken in his loyalty to communism’.44 A year later, this group of students returned to the Soviet Union to meet with their friend. In similar political discussions they noticed a marked change in his political attitude. While he was still a committed communist, Belov began to critique certain aspects of the Soviet system, seeing faults that needed to be corrected. He argued that the end of the proletarian dictatorship and the rise of the ‘state of the whole people’ were empty words of the Soviet authorities, and that more needed to be done to allow the Soviet public to have more overall power in the direction of the state. He raised his concerns at a meeting of his party organization, the Foreign Languages Institute in Moscow, and given his dissenting political views, he was immediately suspended from the party. Following his suspension, Belov’s four friends continued their trip onwards to Tokyo, arranging to meet him again in Moscow on their way back to Britain. Belov did not arrive for this meeting. Concerned about the plight of their friend, this group travelled to Belov’s home, where they discovered from his neighbours that Belov’s parents and younger brother had been detained by the police and that Belov himself had been medically examined, and subsequently detained in a psychiatric institution. This revelation horrified them, as in their recent meetings with him, he showed no symptoms of underlying mental illness, and they became convinced that his detention was due to his unorthodox political opinions, and challenge of the Soviet system.45 On their return to Britain, this group of students began efforts to support Belov, launching a national campaign on his behalf. They wrote an open letter to Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and de facto leader, and Anatoly Kosygin, Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, entitled ‘The student who suddenly went “mad” ’, which was published in The Guardian on 6 October 1965. This letter called for the Soviet authorities to ‘put right a terrible injustice’, stating that ‘we will not rest until he is free again’.46 Their campaign for Belov was also supported by Amnesty International, which stated in their 1965 annual report that ‘although an enthusiastic Communist, he had criticised certain aspects of the regime and had written to party authorities’ about his concerns. The lack of response to their letters, and Belov’s subsequent incarceration, led the group to assume that his detention was politically motivated, and that Belov in turn was a prisoner of conscience.47 Amnesty’s adoption of Belov’s case was far from smooth. Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International, was directly criticized by the media about the hearsay nature of the evidence they had on Belov. Benenson was also questioned about Amnesty’s decision to support this campaign without ‘checking the facts’ from the Soviet authorities. Benenson dismissed the criticisms put to him and notedthat the Soviet authorities had refused to reply to ‘persistent enquiries’ about similar cases of abuse, specifically mentioning the Soviet silence on the incarceration of Valery Tarsis.48 In comparison to the lack of attention to earlier murmurings of psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union, Amnesty noted that Belov’s case gained public traction in Britain because ‘it recalled the accounts of asylum life in Valery Tarsis’ Ward 7’, highlighting the blurred lines between Tarsis’ fictional account and the

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reality in the Soviet Union.49 This shift was also noted in a front-page article in The Guardian that reported the campaign for Belov, which tellingly stated that ‘previous reports of this kind of thing [psychiatric abuse] were not always fully believed, but this time there is no room for doubt’.50 In the wake of Ward 7, reports of this form of abuse, which were being recounted by those that had visited the Soviet Union and heard about the abuse of psychiatry directly, were no longer dismissed outright as fictional. The combination of Tarsis’ fiction and the reality presented by Belov’s British friends began the concern in Britain about the Soviet authorities’ politically motivated abuse of psychiatry. The incarceration of Belov, and the wider campaign launched on his behalf, was extensively reported in The Guardian, and as a result this campaign received such a positive response that Amnesty reputedly found itself ‘in the unaccustomed situation of having to restrain the enthusiasm of its supporters’.51 Among Belov’s supporters were a number of prominent figures in British cultural life, who lent their public support to this campaign. The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote directly to Anatoly Kosygin noting his ‘profound concern’ for Belov, calling for his immediate release.52 The dramatist Arnold Wesker also wrote directly to Kosygin stating, The case of Eugene [sic] Belov has been brought to the attention of not only myself but all England through the publication of an account of this young man written by four students who knew him personally … even if one were to make allowances for their youthful interpretation of the event, it does seem as though Eugene [sic] Belov is the victim of the last gasps of a dying Soviet authority … We will all be gratified to read in our newspapers that the Soviet Government has taken steps to release Belov and his family and so give less cause to those who want to perpetuate an atmosphere of antagonism between our two countries.53

In response to the reports of Belov’s incarceration, and the campaign on his behalf, the Soviet authorities did their utmost to silence discussion of psychiatric detention. On 11 October 1965, The Guardian published a letter that had been sent to the paper by Konstanti Belov, Zhenya’s father. This letter had been passed to the paper by the London correspondent of the Soviet Komsomolskaya Pravda, who had transcribed its contents by telephone from Moscow and had partly translated it into English.54 This letter stated that ‘it is a lie that Zhenya was expelled from the party, it is a lie that he was forcibly taken to hospital, it is a lie that his parents have been arrested’. Instead, he claimed that Belov was being treated in a psychiatric institution, something that was ‘already having some affect’. Konstanti Belov was critical of the campaign launched on his son’s behalf, calling for The Guardian to stop ‘the unworthy hullabaloo’ that had been raised and deploring ‘the fact that the ill luck of our family has become the subject of political speculation’.55 Given Amnesty’s association with this campaign, Peter Benenson responded directly to this letter, which was published alongside Konstanti Belov’s assertions. Benenson asserted that the campaign was not politically motivated, retorting that ‘the impartiality and objectivity of this organisation [Amnesty International] have frequently been recognised in the Soviet Union by quotations over Moscow Radio of

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our reports about conditions in South Africa and Portugal’. The repeated questioning and reassertion of Amnesty’s impartiality was to dominate its wider campaigns to support Soviet prisoners of conscience throughout this period, which is discussed in greater depth in Chapter 5. Benenson went on to reiterate his concern for Belov in this letter, concluding with the suggestion that the Soviet authorities give a visa to any one of the four students who led this campaign or to a British psychiatrist, noting that ‘it is always good to have a second medical opinion’.56 This was undoubtedly designed to put pressure on the Soviet authorities, forcing them to scientifically justify this detention while raising questions about the legitimacy of their treatments. Such criticism backed the Soviet authorities into a corner and forced them to continue their efforts against Belov’s supporters in a more aggressive fashion. In an attempt to shift the focus from psychiatric ethics to cold war politics, an article published in Izvestia shortly after this exchange described the Belov campaign as ‘a filthy soap bubble launched from the British Isles’ and called Victor Zorza, the journalist who wrote most of The Guardian’s commentary on Belov, a ‘rabid anti-Communist’ who ‘does not discard any means once he has been told to produce yet another instalment of his anti-Soviet lies’.57 Bloch and Reddaway noted that this was the first of many criticisms of Western campaigns for dissidents that was printed in the Soviet media, and that despite his bold claims, the letter from Belov’s father to The Guardian was largely viewed with scepticism in Britain. Had Belov been genuinely suffering from a mental illness, the Soviet authorities would have welcomed Benenson’s suggestion that a British psychiatrist evaluate Zhenya, which would have definitively ended this campaign on his behalf, thus ending the pressure it was under. That this did not take place only confirmed the fears of this campaign, highlighting that Belov was being detained for his politics, not his mental health.58 Despite the wide reporting of Belov’s case in The Guardian, other major newspapers did not report his plight with such vigour. The Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express made no reference to his case in this period, suggesting that although there was increasing awareness of the Soviet abuses, it was by no means a universal concern in Britain. While The Guardian’s efforts increased publicity of the unethical practice of psychiatry, it was only when General Petro Grigorenko, a highranking and highly decorated general in the Red Army who had served with great distinction in the Second World War, was incarcerated in a psychiatric institution that the wider press began to report on the abuses more extensively. Born into a working-class family in Ukraine, Grigorenko was a devout communist who found answers for the many questions that arose in his lifetime in the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and he spent most of his life working with great diligence for the Soviet regime. It was this devotion to communism that led him to dissent. At a meeting of the party conference of the Lenin District of Moscow in September 1961, Grigorenko challenged the ‘calm course’ of the conference by speaking publicly of his concern that Nikita Khrushchev’s policies were leading the party towards the re-emergence of the personality cult that had dominated Joseph Stalin’s time in power. Grigorenko was attacked for his ‘political immaturity’, removed from the conference and ostracized for his public criticisms of the Communist Party.59 Following this outburst, Grigorenko was dismissed from his position as a lecturer at the Frunze

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military academy, the most notable of its kind in the Soviet Union, and transferred to become chief of the Operations Branch of the Fifth Army in the Far East of the Soviet Union in January 1962, something that Bloch and Reddaway have described as a ‘distinct demotion, the result of his first major entry into the political arena’.60 Grigorenko’s actions against the Soviet regime rapidly developed, and in November 1963 he formed the ‘Group for the Struggle to Revive Leninism’, which took part in leafleting campaigns to publicize its efforts to re-establish Leninist principles in government. The KGB saw this leafleting as the distribution of anti-Soviet material, for which Grigorenko was arrested on 2 February 1964. Grigorenko was first held in Moscow’s infamous Lubyanka prison, but was later transferred for psychiatric evaluation at the Serbsky Institute on 12 March.61 Reflecting on this evaluation in his memoirs, Grigorenko was shocked at the attempts to discredit him politically through psychiatric diagnosis and noted that ‘it never entered my mind that a system of “Chaadayevization” might exist in my own country’. It was through his own experiences that he came to understand the scale on which psychiatry was being politically abused to persecute dissidents and that this policy was no longer confined to the history books.62 Grigorenko was diagnosed as suffering from a ‘psychological illness in the form of a paranoid development of the personality involving delusions, combined with the first signs of cerebral arteriosclerosis’ and detained in a psychiatric hospital. Grigorenko’s forced detention and treatment came to an end a year later in April 1965, and he was released from his incarceration, although he was informed that he was in remission and required to make regular visits to his district psychiatric clinic. Following his release, Grigorenko returned to his political activities, protesting against the injustices that he had experienced, and taking up the cause of the Crimean Tatars, who had been deported en masse to Central Asia by Stalin in the mid-1940s and refused permission to return to the Crimean Peninsula.63 While Grigorenko’s incarceration in psychiatric institutions in the mid-1960s was not covered by the British media, his activism in the late 1960s was reported in a frontpage article in The Times on 10 January 1968. This article discussed an altercation that Grigorenko had had with ‘some plain clothes men’ outside the courtroom where the trial of the dissidents Yuri Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg, Alexei Dobrovolsky and Vera Lashkova was taking place – the so-called ‘Trial of the Four’, which was documented in detail by Pavel Litvinov, the grandson of Stalin’s foreign minister Maxim Litvinov turned human rights activist. This article noted that Grigorenko was ‘believed to have spent almost two years in a psychiatric hospital’ and that since his release he had been active in campaigning for the ‘abolition of censorship and for freedom of expression’.64 The next day, The Times reported that Grigorenko’s attempts to gain admission to this trial had been turned down on ‘the grounds that he was still under psychiatric treatment’, despite the fact that he had been discharged from hospital.65 Grigorenko’s continued activism drew the ire of the Soviet authorities, and in May 1969 he was tricked by the KGB to travel to Tashkent to support a fictional group of Tatar leaders who were due to face trial. Upon arriving in Tashkent, Grigorenko was arrested, and he was charged with distributing politically defamatory literature. Following a brief period of imprisonment, where he was subjected to beatings by his

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KGB guards, Grigorenko was evaluated by psychiatrists in Tashkent, who reported that he showed no symptoms of mental illness.66 The Daily Express reported prominently on Grigorenko’s detention in Tashkent, with their Moscow correspondent Roy Blackman displaying great admiration for his actions – ‘Nothing would stop the general saying what he thought. Not prison. Or a punitive mental home.’67 Following his initial detention and evaluation in Tashkent, Grigorenko was subsequently taken to the Serbsky Institute in Moscow, and upon reassessment by psychiatrists including Georgi Morozov and Daniil Lunts, he was judged to be ‘suffering from a mental illness in the form of a pathological paranoid development personality’. This re-evaluation in Moscow, which stated that Grigorenko needed ‘compulsory treatment in a special psychiatric hospital’, was a clear indication of abuse, coming immediately after he had been judged well by Soviet psychiatrists in Tashkent.68 The British press continued their interest in Grigorenko’s case, with the Daily Express noting in December 1969 that he had been declared ‘insane’, and The Guardian highlighting the convenience of this declaration, noting that it would ‘presumably save the embarrassment of a trial’.69 The Daily Mail even published details of Grigorenko’s experiences during his incarceration, stating in an article entitled ‘The mind murderers’ that he had been ‘put in a straitjacket, forcibly fed during a hunger strike and put in solitary confinement for 28 days at the Serbsky Institute before being paraded before a panel of experts for a decision on his mental health’.70 Much of this information was relayed to the West in the covert accounts of his incarceration that Grigorenko managed to have smuggled out by his wife Zinaida. The British filmmaker Leslie Woodhouse used Grigorenko’s accounts to great effect to make the short documentary film ‘Grigorenko: The Man Who Wouldn’t Keep Quiet’.71 This documentary was shown on British television on 24 November 1970, and it was the first in a series of projects in which Woodhouse tried to create documentaries on areas that issues of access made difficult. This entailed a reliance on evidence such as transcripts, tape recordings and, in the case of this documentary, diaries.72 This documentary depicted the barbarity of the incarceration of a sane dissident in a psychiatric institution, with aggressive patients shown attacking visiting relatives and the piercing screams of the mentally disturbed acting as a haunting soundtrack. This documentary re-enacted Grigorenko’s psychiatric evaluation, with actors playing the role of Georgi Morozov and Daniil Lunts, demonstrating the injustice and arbitrary nature of this diagnosis. The visual representations of psychiatric abuse in this film had a profound effect on its viewers. In a review published in the Daily Mirror, the journalist Mary Malone described Grigorenko as being ‘in the Montgomery tradition of speaking his mind, keeping a straight back, and clouting the opposition for six regardless of consequences’. Such imagery of the noble British officer taking a stand against the odds reached a crescendo in this piece, with Malone concluding that ‘perhaps the foreign office could swap a few of our yes-men for this courageous rebel. We could do with his fighting spirit to set us all an example over here’.73 Given that Grigorenko’s detention in the mid-1960s was unreported by the British press, such a dramatic use of imagery in the early

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1970s demonstrates the changed public awareness of such abuses and the accepted veneration of dissidents who were challenging Soviet rule. Coinciding with Grigorenko’s second incarceration, the biologist Zhores Medvedev was detained in a psychiatric institution for nineteen days in May 1970. Medvedev had a history of critiquing the Soviet regime which dated back to the early 1960s. In 1962, Medvedev had circulated a samizdat account criticizing the policies of Trofim Lysenko, a fraudulent geneticist who had gained the favour of the Soviet leadership, and, as a result, his controversial views dominated Soviet science. This account was eventually published in the West by Columbia University Press, which released The Rise and Fall of Trofim Lysenko in 1969.74 Medvedev was attacked for his criticisms of Lysenko, which led to his dismissal from a position in an agricultural academy. Following Nikita Khrushchev’s fall from power in October 1964, Lysenko’s views were recognized officially as fraudulent, and the criticisms against Medvedev ended. Medvedev wrote a samizdat account of the difficulties that he had experienced during this period, in which his ability to maintain contact with other scientists and receive scientific papers from abroad was particularly difficult. This account was later published in the West as The Medvedev Papers, after it had circulated underground in the Soviet Union for several months in the late 1960s. The transit of Medvedev’s account to the West was discussed by John Maddox, then editor of the prominent scientific journal Nature, in an article for the Daily Express in which he noted that ‘for the sake of those involved I cannot reveal how we got the papers. But they certainly didn’t reach us by post’.75 Bloch and Reddaway argued that it was because of this samizdat account that Medvedev lost his position as the head of the Department of Molecular Radiobiology at the Institute of Medical Radiology in March 1969. This was part of a wider attack on Medvedev that continued into the 1970s. On 29 May 1970, Medvedev was taken from his apartment by two psychiatrists by three policemen and detained in a psychiatric hospital in the city of Kaluga. This detention was expected, as Medvedev had thwarted several attempts to detain him in the weeks leading up to this, including invitations to visit the education department about his son’s welfare, which asked him to come alone, and a visit to a clinic with his son where Medvedev had been shown to a waiting room only to be locked inside. This forced detention was the final step in a long running saga.76 In contrast to Grigorenko’s lengthy incarceration, Medvedev was quickly released after protests on his behalf from a series of prominent figures, both from within the Soviet Union and abroad. During his short incarceration, there were a plethora of calls for his release from an array of prominent figures in the Soviet Union.77 The public support for Medvedev was due in part to his previous denunciations of Lysenkoism, which had been widely supported by Soviet scientists. The prominent physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov noted in his memoirs that he had become sensitized to the issue of the political abuse of psychiatry by Grigorenko’s incarceration and was personally concerned about Medvedev’s case, owing to the strong bond that he had built with Zhores’ twin brother Roy and his long personal battle against Lysenkoism. At an international symposium at the Institute of Genetics on 30 May 1970, Sakharov boldly asked for signatories for an

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appeal on behalf of Medvedev: before the beginning of a session, he wrote on a blackboard, ‘I am collecting signatures in defence of the biologist Zhores Medvedev who has been forcibly and illegally placed in a psychiatric hospital for his writings’. This action was condemned by the head of the institute Nikolai Dubinin, who criticized Sakharov for mixing science and politics. Dubinin was perhaps most concerned about the number of Western scientists present at this symposium who might have seen this appeal for Medvedev.78 Solzhenitsyn also launched a powerful appeal on Medvedev’s behalf, claiming that his treatment was a ‘variation on the GAS CHAMBERS’ – a clear reference to the Holocaust and the Nazi genocide. Solzhenitsyn’s statement, which was published in the underground dissident journal The Chronicle of Current Events, directly criticized those psychiatrists involved in his detention, vehemently arguing that the ‘incarceration of free-thinking healthy people in madhouses is SPIRITUAL MURDER’.79 Despite not covering the initial stages of his psychiatric detention, the British media reported frequently on Medvedev’s case. Both The Times and The Guardian reported his detention, delivering a substantial amount of detail on both Medvedev’s personal plight and the broader developments in the dissident movement at this time. An article from 2 June 1970 noted that the extent of concern for Medvedev’s plight in the Soviet Union was so great that a special psychiatric commission had been sent from Moscow to Kaluga to assess Medvedev. This was particularly remarkable as it was noted that ‘such as speedy response, and official action on Sunday, are almost unheard of in the Soviet Union’.80 The pressure that was placed upon the Soviet authorities both domestically and internationally eventually led to Medvedev’s release on 17 June 1970, and this news was prominently reported on the front page of the Daily Express.81 Bloch and Reddaway attributed his release after such a short period of confinement to a combination of factors, including the incessant campaigning of his brother Roy, the weight of protest that had developed in the Soviet Union and the close attention paid to this case by the Western press – conclusions that were also reached by contemporary journalists.82 The Guardian reported that the widespread support for Medvedev, and ‘uneasiness in the Kremlin at the possible spread of the protest movement both in Russia and abroad, may have helped overrule the security police this time’.83 The rapid response to Medvedev’s case in the face of public protest, both domestically and from the international community, sent a signal that concerted public effort could affect the Soviet policy towards the incarceration of dissidents, which could be utilized in the future. While the cases of Tarsis, Belov and Grigorenko could be seen as isolated incidents, Medvedev’s incarceration and his swift release changed that picture for many. In his reporting on Medvedev’s incarceration, The Guardian’s Victor Zorza was notably shaken in his previous assessments of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry. He frankly stated in an article on 8 June 1970 that [t]his is one of those occasions when I have to recall how grievously wrong I have been in judging the Kremlin. Five years ago, I gave it as my considered view that it was not the policy of the Soviet Government to send its political opponents

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British Human Rights Organizations and Soviet Dissent, 1965–1985 to lunatic asylums. The case of Jaures[sic] Medvedev, a Soviet geneticist, whose detention in a psychiatric hospital has now given rise to protests by some of the most outstanding Soviet scientists, is so clear that no one can now make the mistake I did.84

Zorza’s admission that he had been wrong about the extent of the unethical use of psychiatry in the Soviet Union marked a broader change in the British awareness of the Soviet abuses. It was now inarguable that the Soviet authorities were using psychiatry to persecute dissidents; the question was now what should be done about it. Unlike his previous articles on psychiatric abuse, Zorza ended this cathartic article by reiterating a call from Grigorenko’s wife on her husband’s behalf: Will no one intervene, or will those public figures in the West whose voice has so often been used by the Kremlin respond to the appeal from Grigorenko’s wife and speak up for him, for Medvedev, for dozens of others whose names we know, and for hundreds whose names we don’t know?85

The days of the fictional Ward 7 were now long gone. The institutional abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union to persecute dissidents was now known in the West.

Vladimir Bukovsky, the Working Group and the WPA Despite the awareness in the early 1970s that psychiatry was being used to persecute political dissidents in the Soviet Union, there was little that could be done in the West to actively protest against reported incidents of abuse, as there was a distinct lack of reliable information about this unethical practice. This changed in 1971 with the efforts of the dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who offered the fuel that kick-started a number of Western campaigns. Bukovsky had first shown his dissenting ideals in his youth when he resigned from the Soviet youth organization the Pioneers and refused to join its elder counterpart the Komsomol. From this foundation, Bukovsky went on to become involved with the Mayakovsky Square poetry readings in the late 1950s, which furthered his political dissent and led to his eventual incarceration in a psychiatric institution in May 1963 after he was found to own a copy of Milovan Djilas’s The New Class – a piece that was deeply critical of the Soviet regime.86 Bukovsky was released from his incarceration in 1965 and he continued his dissident activity, which led to his arrest and subsequent imprisonment. When put on trial in 1967, Bukovsky used the occasion of his defence speech as a rostrum with which to publicly criticize the actions of the Soviet government, accounts of which were distributed widely in samizdat and later published in the West.87 While Medvedev’s short incarceration in a psychiatric institution had been directly impacted by domestic and international support, Bukovsky recognized the importance of international opinion for his activism and sought to utilize it to his advantage. Bukovsky managed to acquire 150 pages of medical files and

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documents that outlined the psychiatric evaluations of six prominent dissidents: Vladimir Borisov, Viktor Fainberg, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Petro Grigorenko, Viktor Kuznetsov and Ivan Yakhimovich. In a textbook example of the boomerang model outlined by the political scientists Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Bukovsky sent the documents he had acquired about these cases of abuse to the West in January 1971 with a letter calling for psychiatrists to study and express their opinions on this material publicly, asking specifically if they contained enough material to diagnose any mental illness and, on this basis, whether the individuals in question needed to be isolated from society in a psychiatric institution.88 Alongside this, Bukovsky asked psychiatrists to place the issue of the Soviet abuses, and the outcome of the documents he had sent, on the agenda of the next International Congress of Psychiatrists.89 Reflecting on the documents that he sent to the West, Bukovsky later recalled that he had held little hope of receiving a substantial response, noting that he had sent them to the West as there was little else he felt that he could do.90 In his memoirs To Build a Castle, Bukovsky reiterated this lack of hope, noting ‘what chance was there of breaking through all those ideological encrustations, prejudices and doctrines? I had little faith in its success’. Despite this, he considered the long odds ‘worth a try’, hoping there ‘were more honest people in the world’ than he thought.91 Despite this reticence, Bukovsky was aware that public opinion in the West was beginning to shift, and that following the incarceration of Medvedev, this issue would gain increased publicity. This is clear to see in the letter which accompanied the documents he sent to the West, in which he noted that ‘I believe you will not remain indifferent to this problem and will devote a portion of your time to it – just as physicists find time to combat the use of the achievements of their science in ways harmful to mankind’. This was a reference to the work of Andrei Sakharov, who had become a dissident following the testing of a nuclear weapon that he had helped to develop against his will, and subsequently obtained international acclaim in 1968 with the publication of his essay Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom.92 The Bukovsky papers were released to the press by a small French organization, known as the International Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, and contained the most comprehensive information regarding Soviet psychiatric abuse available in the West at the time.93 Although the authenticity of Bukovsky’s documents was originally questioned, perhaps unsurprisingly given their clandestine nature, Bukovsky was held up as an ‘impeccable source’ by Peter Reddaway, who noted that his integrity was beyond reproach, lending weight to his claims. Reddaway’s assertion about Bukovsky’s reliability was built on his broad experiences of dealing with samizdat material and was quickly confirmed when no psychiatrist mentioned in the Bukovsky papers came forward to publicly refute any of their claims, a silence that confirmed their accuracy. This was further confirmed when Soviet psychiatrists attending the 1971 World Psychiatric Association (WPA) world congress in Mexico City conceded to the WPA’s secretary general Denis Leigh that the contents of the documents that Bukovsky had acquired were genuine.94

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Figure 1.1 Peter Reddaway presenting in front of Roger Haydon at the Keston College AGM, 21 November 1985 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University).

The Bukovsky papers were swiftly translated into English by the newly formed Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals, which was founded in February 1971 in direct response to this material.95 The Working Group was described by Bloch and Reddaway, two of its founding members, as being a ‘small ad hoc research group, composed mainly of psychiatrists, human rights experts and specialists in Soviet affairs’.96 The organization and campaigning efforts of this group during its early years are relatively unclear, which is due in part to the ad hoc nature in which the group operated, a phrase that neatly describes the group in this period. Despite this ad hoc nature, its efforts were driven in this period by Reddaway, who played a leading role in the group in its early years. Allan Wynn, who himself later became the chairman of the Working Group, noted in his memoir Notes of a Non-Conspirator that Reddaway had kept the group active in its early years ‘at the cost of sacrificing much of his time and energy’, which typified his tireless activism for Soviet dissidents across a number of organizations throughout the 1970s and 1980s.97 Alongside Reddaway, the Working Group was also comprised of an array of psychiatrists and other concerned individuals, most notably Gery Low-Beer, a consultant psychiatrist based at the Horton Hospital, Surrey; and Sidney Bloch, who was based at the University of Oxford, who were particularly active in the group’s work.98 In the months following the receipt of the Bukovsky papers, members of the Working Group used their personal contacts and professional influence to spread information about the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Not only did

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members of the group translate the Bukovsky papers; they also used their connections to have its contents reprinted in the general and scientific press. Reddaway had an article published in The Times in March 1971, which contained the full text of Bukovsky’s appeal letter, and a brief contextual note on Medvedev’s incarceration.99 The British Journal of Psychiatry also published a full version of Bukovsky’s appeal in a letter to the journal from the psychiatrist Derek Richter. Richter’s letter also contained details of the Working Group’s efforts, noting that ‘most of the documents Bukovsky mentions [in his appeal] have now been translated into English and are available for psychiatrists who wish to study them from the Hon. Secretary of the group’, before giving contact details from which this material could be obtained.100 This was something that many British psychiatrists evidently did, as on 16 September 1971 a group of forty-four psychiatrists headed by the University of Sheffield’s Alec Jenner wrote a letter to The Times in response to Bukovsky’s appeal, which noted his courage in sending the documents he had acquired abroad. The signatories of this letter unanimously agreed that ‘on the basis of the evidence contained in these reports, the undersigned psychiatrists feel impelled to express grave doubts about the legitimacy of compulsory treatment for the six people concerned, and their indefinite detention in prison’. The psychiatrists who co-signed this letter went further in their critique of the diagnosis and treatment of the dissidents that Bukovsky had obtained materials about, noting that in their professional opinion, four out of the six cases did not appear to display any symptoms of note and that their diagnosis had been ‘made purely in consequence of actions in which they were exercising fundamental freedoms’, directly linking their incarceration in psychiatric institutions to their political dissent.101 This was a damning indictment of the Soviet actions, heightened by the medical credentials and psychiatric expertise of those who signed this letter. In response to this letter, Andrei Snezhnevsky was forced to defend Soviet psychiatry in an Izvestia interview, in which he referred to the ‘absurd reports that healthy persons are put in psychiatric hospitals’ with a feeling of ‘deep disgust at this outrageous fabrication’.102 As well as using the media to heighten awareness of the Soviet abuses of psychiatry, the Working Group also produced their own pamphlets, which contained a raft of information on the Soviet abuse of psychiatry. In 1971 the group produced its first major publication entitled The Internment of Soviet Dissenters in Mental Hospitals, which contained a remarkable amount of detail on individual cases of psychiatric abuse, including that of Petro Grigorenko and Natalya Gorbanevskaya among many others. It also contained the text of Bukovsky’s appeal to Western psychiatrists as a set of appendices.103 The level of detail given in this publication demonstrates that the group had access to quality information such as the Bukovsky papers and that it was effectively used to create a clear and coherent document on an incredibly complex issue that was dogged by issues of accessibility to reliable source material. It highlighted the expertise that this group had established on the Soviet abuses in a remarkably short period of time, which went a long way to giving the group’s claims legitimacy. Remarkably, this pamphlet made its way via underground channels back into the Soviet Union for dissidents to use. The samizdat journal The Chronicle of Current Events

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contained a short review of this document in March 1972, noting that it was ‘concise in form but extremely rich in information’.104 The production of this pamphlet in samizdat demonstrates both the importance of the group’s efforts for dissidents in the Soviet Union and how much it was respected. The complexities and inherent risk in producing samizdat meant that only material of the highest quality or value was reproduced, demonstrating how it was respected within the Soviet Union. The reproduction and distribution of this material behind the iron curtain also highlights the beginning of a transnational blurring of activism across ideological lines, demonstrating the importance of assessing the Soviet dissident movement in an international context in this period. Without understanding the activism of organizations such as the Working Group, an important part of the dissident movement itself is overlooked. The wide distribution of the Bukovsky papers in both the general press and in medical journals meant that the political abuse of psychiatry that was taking place in the Soviet Union could no longer be ignored by the international psychiatric community. The activism that was born out of the Bukovsky papers played an important role at the November 1971 World Congress of the WPA, which took place in Mexico City. One of the main ways in which pressure could be exerted on Soviet psychiatrists to stop the abuse of their discipline was through the WPA, of whom the official organization of Soviet psychiatry, the AUSNP, was a member. Following the receipt of Bukovsky’s documents on psychiatric abuse, Western activists focused their attention on the WPA in an attempt to persuade its members to take action against their Soviet counterparts. In anticipation of action against the AUSNP by the WPA, activists targeted its 1971 world congress, distributing an array of publications outlining the Soviet abuses of psychiatry to delegates in both the lead up to and at the Mexico City congress itself. Bloch and Reddaway noted that due to the widespread knowledge of the incarceration of Zhores Medvedev in May 1970, and the receipt of primary material on the abuses from Bukovsky, the ‘stage was set’ for extensive discussion of the political abuse of psychiatry at this congress.105 This, however, did not occur. Ramos de la Fuente, the president of the 1971 WPA World Congress, noted in his inaugural speech that to keep silent about the abuse of psychiatry would ‘weigh heavily on our consciences’.106 Despite this claim, he did not go on to mention any individual cases of abuse, or any nations where there were allegations of abuse occurring, despite the widely available material from the Soviet Union that highlighted that widespread abuses were taking place. The WPA’s Executive Commission, which was headed by the British psychiatrist Denis Leigh, ruled that there would be no discussion of Soviet practices, something that was met with outrage. It would be easy to criticize Leigh explicitly for this decision; however, it is notable that no one on the Executive Committee challenged him, which suggests that there was a wider consensus for Leigh’s actions among the WPA’s leadership and that he should not be singled out for criticism. The Dutch human rights activist Robert Van Voren, a vocal activist against the abuse of psychiatry who has subsequently written extensively about the Soviet abuses, has described Leigh’s interpretation of the WPA statutes on this matter as ‘tendentious’.107 While discussion of the Soviet abuses at this conference might have forced Soviet psychiatrists to change their ways, it was also possible that it could have

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completely alienated them from the international psychiatric community, making any attempt to engage with them to reform their practices substantially more complex. The Soviet delegation to the 1971 WPA World Congress was led by Andrei Snezhnevsky, a psychiatrist linked intrinsically to reports of abuse, who was based at Moscow’s infamous Serbsky Institute. Snezhnevsky threatened to walk out of the congress if there were any discussion about the unethical nature of the Soviet psychiatric practices, clearly aware of the ‘unfavourable publicity’ and pressure that could be exerted on the Soviet delegation by other psychiatrists at this conference.108 Bloch and Reddaway’s detailed account of the 1971 congress in Russia’s Political Hospitals positions the WPA’s approach in the context of its institutional purpose. This account conveys a great sense of frustration at the WPA’s inaction in 1971, which is doubtless linked to the activism of its authors.109 The approach of the WPA to the reports of Soviet abuse can be explained by its desire to maintain cordial relations with psychiatrists in the Soviet Union and other nations in the Soviet bloc. The WPA, which was itself a fledgling organization having been formed only in 1961, appeared to prefer to bring together the international psychiatric community, rather than divide it through focusing on allegations of abuse. One can sympathize somewhat with the WPA taking a cautious approach to dealing with allegations of abuse. Had samizdat documents later been proven to be forgeries created by an anti-Soviet group, the world psychiatric community would have been divided and the authority of the WPA significantly undermined, if not destroyed. This cautious approach was outlined by the British actor David Markham. Markham campaigned widely against the Soviet persecution of Bukovsky in the 1970s, and he supported the efforts of the Working Group by acting as its secretary. Markham held regular vigils outside the Soviet embassy in London to commemorate and celebrate Bukovsky’s birthday, events that he described to the press as starting ‘as soon as I can get my car parked and ending when I have exhausted myself in the evening’.110 In a letter to the British Journal of Psychiatry published shortly before the WPA congress in October 1971, Markham suggested that the relative indifference and hostility towards the Soviet abuse of psychiatry among British psychiatrists might be because of ‘the fear that, in openly criticizing their Soviet colleagues, British psychiatrists might be offending medical protocol, or might be simply “playing at politics”’.111 This cautious approach and the desire for psychiatry not to be dragged into the ideological conflict of the Cold War was echoed by the American Psychoanalytical Association, which adopted a resolution in December 1971 showing concern about the ethics of psychiatry but, importantly, not making any mention of the Soviet abuses explicitly.112 The WPA’s failure to take up the issue of the political abuse of psychiatry at this congress in the way expected by activists had significant ramifications for dissidents interned in Soviet psychiatric institutions. The dissident Victor Fainberg noted that after the lack of discussion about the Soviet abuses at the WPA World Congress, ‘a huge new wave of repression began, and many prisoners who were about to be released, stayed on … They even started giving Volodya Borisov injections again.’113 Bukovsky did not escape this renewed attack, and as punishment for sending documents abroad about psychiatric abuse, he was arrested in March 1971 and

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sent to the Serbsky Institute in Moscow for a psychiatric evaluation which took three months. He was declared mentally sound that November, but was still held in prison and later charged under Article 70 of the Russian criminal code in January 1972 for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’. At a trial that was described by the International Commission of Jurists as part of the ‘persistent repression of freedom of speech in the Soviet Union’, Bukovsky was sentenced to two years in a prison, followed by five years in a labour camp and a further five years in internal exile.114 The Guardian reported that ‘Mr Bukovsky had been charged with activities which would hardly be considered criminal in a country where freedom of speech was respected’, leading many to the conclusion that the WPA’s failure to discuss the Soviet abuses directly led to Bukovsky’s imprisonment.115 In response to Bukovsky’s sentence, an array of psychiatrists wrote to The Times in March 1972, offering their full support to this dissident and noting that it was ‘both wrong and unnecessary to lock up such a person’.116 The great irony of Bukovsky’s appeal for support is that when he needed it the most, it was distinctly lacking. Bloch and Reddaway have noted that the passivity of psychiatric organizations around the world seemed like a ‘tragic betrayal of Bukovsky’, one that led to increased personal suffering in the Soviet penal system.117 Despite his incarceration in psychiatric institutions and imprisonment in labour camps, Bukovsky’s activism was not stopped. While imprisoned in labour camp no. 35 in the Perm region of the Soviet Union, he co-authored ‘A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissenters’ with the imprisoned psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman, a samizdat guide for dissidents offering advice on how to survive incarceration in a psychiatric institution without being mentally and physically broken. This manual was based largely on their own experiences of Soviet psychiatry, and it became one of the most important samizdat guides on psychiatric abuse. It offered advice on the legal requirements of the Soviet state to those held in psychiatric institutions, the vague definitions of sluggish schizophrenia, and recommended further samizdat reading. Perhaps most importantly, this manual offered explicit advice on how to deal with different types of psychiatrists, including the need to persuade the ‘dissertation writer’ that you are not suitable material for analysis and to avoid showing any symptoms at all to the ‘Professional Hangman’, who ‘deliberately practices the exculpation of mentally-healthy persons’.118 Bukovsky’s stance against the Soviet authorities and his attempts to utilize international opinion were met with great admiration from other dissidents within the Soviet Union. No. 35 of the underground samizdat publication The Chronicle of Current Events included a short section of quotes from dissidents about Bukovsky’s efforts in recognition of ‘Vladimir Bukovsky Day’ on 29 March 1975. Zinaida Grigorenko and her son Andrei noted that ‘Bukovsky was responsible for cutting short the terms spent in prison psychiatric hospitals by Grigorenko, Gershuni, Borisov, Fainberg, and others’.119 The dissident Leonard Ternovsky goes further, noting that ‘Bukovsky did what any decent man should have done, but what only a hero is capable of doing’.120 Ternovsky’s account in the Chronicle betrayed a sense of guilt for his own lack of action about the Soviet abuses, arguing that ‘the first to speak out against the shameful use of medicine in order to harm people should have been medical people, doctors. And I am one of these. If I had done my duty then, I would today be where Bukovsky now is. But he acted in my place.’121

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Ethics and the Royal College In the years following the WPA’s relative inaction about the reports of psychiatric abuse taking place in the Soviet Union, there was a flourishing of activism in Britain, with committees and campaigns formed to coordinate the anger and concern being expressed by some about the actions of Soviet psychiatrists. While the Working Group was formed in direct response to the receipt of materials about psychiatric abuse from the Soviet Union, other activists came to protest against the Soviet abuses following their involvement in other campaigns. For example, the psychiatrist Harold Merskey began his activism against the Soviet abuses following his involvement with the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry (MSCSJ), a group that was established after the Jewish MP Greville Janner invited a number of Jewish medical practitioners and scientists to form a group to campaign against the persecution of Soviet Jewry. Throughout the 1970s, Janner utilized his prominent position as a member of parliament and a leading member of Jewish organizations such as the British Board of Deputies, of which he was president between 1979 and 1985, to reposition the plight of persecuted Soviet Jewry in the public spotlight. Janner did this in the mainstream media by playing a leading role in the protests against the visit of Alexander Shelepin, the former head of the KGB, to Britain in 1975. Shelepin’s visit was met with a series of protests from a variety of different groups, including Soviet Jewry campaigners, human rights activists and trade unionists. Janner called for Shelepin to be refused a visa and supported an early day motion in the House of Commons, condemning his visit that was drawn up by the Conservative MP Norman Tebbit. The protests against Shelepin were widely reported in the media, regularly making the front page of national newspapers such as the Daily Mail, who declared ‘you’re not welcome comrade’, and, to ensure their message was heard, even printed it on their front page in Russian so that their opinions would not be mistaken by this unwelcome guest.122 Janner used his position as a member of parliament to raise concerns about the persecution of Soviet Jewry on a number of occasions, giving an array of speeches in the House of Commons on the matter.123 While this gave much needed coverage to this issue, his main role in supporting Soviet dissidents was not as an activist himself, but instead as a facilitator, bringing concerned parties together to form effective campaigning organizations. The MSCSJ was formed in February 1972 following Janner’s invitation to an array of Jewish and non-Jewish doctors, scientists and medical practitioners to form a committee to campaign on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The persecution of Soviet Jewry had become a major concern for many in the West following the Dymshits-Kusnetzov affair in June 1970, when a group of Soviet Jews had attempted to hijack a plane in Leningrad in order to fly to Sweden and escape the persecution they had experienced after requesting to emigrate. All those involved in this attempt were detained after walking towards the plane for which they had bought tickets, leading some to suspect that the Soviet authorities had prior knowledge of their plan. The fact that it was reported in Leningradskaya Pravda the following day, an incredible rarity given that, as The Guardian’s Victor Zorza noted, ‘no such incident has ever been “reported” in

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the Soviet press as a news item’, confirmed their involvement in stoking this plot. This led Zorza to suggest that it was likely that ‘police provocateurs had played some part in inducing the group of 12 to make the attempt’.124 Following this event, which has also come to be known as the Leningrad Plot, Mark Dymshits and Eduard Kuznetsov were sentenced to death for their involvement in this attempted hijack at a trial from which Western journalists were excluded.125 The sentences passed on Dymshits and Kuznetsov were later reduced to fifteen years imprisonment following international and domestic outrage. The Times prominently reported in January 1971 that ‘the Anglo-Jewish community received the news about the repeal of the death sentences with great relief ’, but cautioned that this relief would ‘dampen international protests over the labour camp sentences and the underlying reason for the attempted hijacking – the ban on most Jews who wished to emigrate to Israel’.126 While this affair was widely reported in the British press and went someway to galvanize efforts to support Soviet Jewry, there was a fear that this concern would disappear overnight, and hence Janner attempted to avoid this disappearance with the formation of this committee of concerned scientists and medical practitioners.127 The MSCSJ was chaired from its inception by Harold Merskey, who had been allocated this leading role in the committee before he had even stepped into the room where its first meeting was being held. He attributed this decision to his prestigious position as a psychiatrist at the internationally renowned Maudsley hospital in London.128 Campaigns conducted by individuals affiliated to respected scientific and medical institutions were substantially more effective that their lay counterparts, as their international profile meant that their correspondence could not be ignored by the Soviet authorities, who were desperate to enhance their scientific credentials on the world stage. Letters from prominent figures had to be opened by their Soviet counterparts regardless of their content, and their cumulative effect could force a change in the treatment of individual dissidents and broader policy. Allan Wynn, a cardiologist who played a leading role in the Working Group, was distinctly aware of this, noting in his memoirs: Paper is dangerous in the Soviet Union but it is also immensely important … Letters which come from scientific or official bodies have an even greater impact – they may never be answered but they are rarely ignored. The effect is subtle and cumulative. The Soviet government craves respectability – it knows how damaging its image of brutality and inhumanity is.129

In the wider context of the Cold War, the Soviet authorities’ desire for international respectability in a variety of scientific fields offered a route for concerned individuals with significant credentials to protest about their actions. The impact that respected individuals could have on the persecution of individual dissidents was vast. The Soviet authorities held positions such as Merskey’s in very high regard, and it was thought that by making him the chairman, the committee’s protests would carry more weight with the Soviet hierarchy and not be simply ignored.130 The initial aims of the MSCSJ are clearly set out in the committee’s first report, which listed the individuals involved with the committee and outlined the approach that it

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took in its activism. The committee was concerned primarily with generating publicity for individual scientists or doctors in the Soviet Union who were ‘suffering at the hands of the Russians’. It sought to do this through a wide campaign of writing letters and articles in the general and scientific press, assisting journalists who were writing articles on the plight of Soviet Jewry, helping the campaigns of likeminded activist groups and leading motions at scientific meetings condemning the punitive measures of the Soviet state. The committee was also involved in attempting to persuade other scientists and medical practitioners to put pressure on the Soviet authorities in the cases of Soviet Jews who were also practitioners of their shared speciality. For example Gerald Wootliff, one of the committee’s members, persuaded the Fédération Dentaire International to pass a resolution condemning the restriction of movement of dental surgeons, which was claimed as an outstanding achievement by the MSCSJ.131 Alongside publicity campaigns, the committee also engaged in humanitarian efforts to support Soviet Jews, acquiring specialist medical supplies which were not commonly available in the Soviet Union. In one case Alexander Lerner, a cybernetician based in Moscow, received a small plastic net that had been sourced by the committee which was needed in an operation on his gall bladder. The net that Lerner needed was not produced in a sufficient quality in the Soviet Union, especially for a dissident challenging the Soviet authorities. The committee also used their connections to acquire much needed drugs, medical supplies and equipment for other Soviet Jews, including Lydia Korenfield and the noted chemist Benjamin Levich among others.132 Although the MSCSJ was initially founded explicitly to support Soviet Jewry, it quickly introduced its members to the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, something that became evident to the committee during its efforts. Somewhat surprisingly given his prominent position at one of the most prestigious psychiatric institutions in the world, Harold Merskey first became aware of Soviet psychiatric abuse through his association with the MSCSJ.133 During telephone conversations with Benjamin Levich, Merskey was told about the plight of Yan Krylsky, who had been ominously threatened by men in white coats with detention in a psychiatric institution. Merskey conducted a short and informal psychiatric diagnosis of Krylsky over the phone, which he later admitted was a rather bold move for a psychiatrist who ‘ought to see people in person in order to assess them’. Merskey assured Krylsky that this was not a formal diagnosis, but a statement that, given the evidence he had heard, although Krylsky was ‘a somewhat emotional or impulsive young man’, he ‘did not seem to have anything abnormal about him’.134 Despite not being a formal diagnosis, Merskey noted that this conversation gave Krylsky a great sense of protection from the Soviet authorities and their threats to detain him in a psychiatric institution.135 Krylsky felt that Merskey’s quasi-evaluation of sanity offered him a level of protection that could be used in any dealings with Soviet psychiatrists, especially as it came from such a renowned psychiatrist in the West. Despite this reassurance, Krylsky was subsequently incarcerated in a psychiatric institution by the Soviet authorities against his will and was restrained in bed while being given pyrexia-inducing injections.136 This practice, which sent Krylsky’s temperature up as alarmingly high as 41.5 degrees Celsius, had historically been used as a treatment for mental illness but was described by Merskey as a procedure for which ‘there is no modern use for’. Such high fevers were particularly unpleasant, and

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often accompanied by great physical irritation which resulted in painful abscesses.137 Krylsky was subsequently released following a campaign in the West on his behalf led by his father Julius, and he was later given permission to immigrate to Israel in January 1974.138 The MSCSJ had lobbied the Soviet authorities for a cessation of Krylsky’s unethical treatment and a relaxation of the conditions in which he was held. The committee later claimed that the improvement in the conditions in which Krylsky was being kept, and his subsequent release, was one of their main achievements, highlighting the humanitarian dimension of their activism.139 Merskey’s involvement in Krylsky’s case opened his eyes to the political nature of the Soviet abuses of psychiatry and led him to become involved in campaigning against the unethical practice of his discipline. Merskey became involved in supporting the Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals and became an important force in the British campaign against the Soviet practices, publishing widely on the ethics of the Soviet practices in scientific and medical journals. He wrote articles on the Soviet practice of psychiatry for The Lancet, The British Journal of Psychiatry and The Journal of Medical Ethics and became an authority on the ethical dimensions of abuse.140 His growing concerns over the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union also played a substantial role in persuading his fellow psychiatrists to become increasingly vocal about the Soviet abuses. Following the receipt of the Bukovsky papers in 1971, and the cool reaction to the reports of abuse from the Soviet Union at the WPA conference in Mexico City, there had been remarkably little public comment about the Soviet abuses from organizations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the leading psychiatric organization in Britain. Despite this, a number of members of the Working Group wrote widely on the Soviet abuses in the media throughout 1972, ensuring that the issue did not disappear following relative disinterest from the psychiatric community. The Working Group’s Suzanne Shafur published a letter on the issue of psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union in The Lancet in January, in November Gery Low-Beer published a letter in The Guardian on the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia in Soviet dissidents and in December Peter Reddaway published an article in The Times on Andrei Sakharov’s call for action from the international psychiatric community.141 Alongside this, there were also a number of appeals on behalf of dissidents published in newspapers supported by members of the Working Group. The Times published appeals for Bukovsky on 31 January and 30 March, and an appeal for Victor Fainberg and Vladimir Borisov on 11 September, which were each co-signed by a number of prominent individuals, including academics, cultural figures, and a number of psychiatrists affiliated to the Working Group.142 Although there was growing attention towards the Soviet abuses in the British media in the period following the 1971 WPA World Congress, relations between Soviet and Western psychiatric organizations actually improved. In November 1972, Denis Leigh and Linford Rees, then treasurer of the WPA, were made honorary members of the AUSNP at a ceremony conducted at the Soviet Embassy in London.143 Bloch and Reddaway have noted that the acceptance of honorary positions was a particular coup for the Soviet authorities, coming at a time when there was growing public concern at the reports of abuse. By accepting honorary positions in the AUSNP,

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the leadership of the WPA were giving a vote of confidence in Soviet psychiatry, going against the mounting evidence against them. More than this, Bloch and Reddaway alleged that Leigh had told a number of people that the growing campaign against the Soviet abuses was in fact ‘a sophisticated and expensively organized operation, with CIA participation’ and that he doubted the authenticity of the reports of Soviet abuses, especially given that he was of the opinion that Bukovsky suffered from schizophrenia. This disdain for the activism of organizations such as the Working Group from the WPA continued in November 1972, when the group were prevented from distributing literature to those attending a WPA conference on schizophrenia in London. Following this decision, a WPA representative reputedly described a member of the Working Group as a ‘mischief-making propagandist’, dragging the broader ideological conflict of the Cold War into an issue that had been focused explicitly on a concern for medical ethics.144 By the turn of 1973, the issue of psychiatric abuse had quietened, no doubt due to a widespread persecution of dissidents that was being driven by the KGB that year following the lack of commitment to take action on reports of abuse from the international psychiatric community. However, in Spring 1973, the Royal College of Psychiatrists were forced to deal publicly with the issue of the Soviet abuses when the Working Group’s Gery Low-Beer put forward a resolution at a Quarterly Meeting of the Royal College, which was seconded by Harold Merskey, that explicitly stated the college ‘deplores the current use of psychiatry in the Soviet Union for the purpose of political repression and condemns the activities of doctors who lend themselves to this work’. Merskey’s involvement in this was no doubt influenced by his work with both the MSCSJ and the Working Group and his intimate familiarity with the case of Yan Krylsky. This resolution offered the opportunity for members of the Royal College to take a public stance against the Soviet abuses. However, the general disinterest of British psychiatrists in the reports of abuse coming from the Soviet Union was clear, as this resolution only received a quarter of available votes in support, demonstrating the relative apathy for this issue from the membership of the Royal College.145 The Royal College’s disinterest in publicly criticizing the Soviet abuses was not lost on the British media, which subjected the organization to a barrage of criticism in the latter half of 1973. The noted journalist Bernard Levin wrote two articles in The Times on the issue of the Soviet abuses and the lack of response from British psychiatrists in June 1973. Levin’s articles betrayed his great frustrations about the lack of action against the Soviet abuses, highlighting an urge to document the extent of the Soviet abuses publicly: I have for some time been collecting material on the extent and nature of this practice, and the picture that emerges seems to me so horrifying, its details so little known in Britain, and its history so shot through with appeals from the victims for public pressure on the Soviet authorities to be built up from outside, that a detailed account of some aspects of the situation seems called for.146

Levin’s accounts of the abuses were wide-ranging and ferocious, documenting the cases of Grigorenko, Medvedev and Bukovsky, while being deeply critical of

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the international response to this persecution and calling the reaction of Western psychiatrists ‘lamentably patchy’.147 Many journalists joined Levin in his criticisms of psychiatrists in the West, particularly following the Royal College’s decision to allow British psychiatrists to attend conferences in the Soviet bloc on especially controversial issues, including the diagnosis of schizophrenia. David Carver – the general secretary of International PEN, an organization campaigning on freedom of expression issues – was particularly scathing in his criticisms of the Royal College. He noted in a letter to The Times on 27 August 1973 the institutional hypocrisy of an organization that denounced the abusive practices of Soviet psychiatrists while at the same time met with them at professional conferences. Carver made particular reference to the WPA co-sponsored symposium on schizophrenia that was held at the infamous Serbsky Institute, Moscow, in October 1973, where a number of British psychiatrists were due to deliver papers.148 The Serbsky Institute’s position at the centre of the Soviet abuses, and the number of psychiatrists based here who had been involved in the justification of sluggish schizophrenia as a legitimate diagnosis of mental illness in dissidents, made this a particularly insensitive place for Western psychiatrists to attend symposia on this issue. In response to criticisms of the Royal College’s stance, its registrar Morris Markowe wrote to The Times on 30 August, noting that ‘it is not for this Royal College to decide whether individual psychiatrists should present papers at this or any other symposium’ and reiterated that the Royal College was greatly concerned about the political abuse of psychiatry.149 The president of the Royal College, Sir Martin Roth, also wrote to The Times on 4 September to explain the college’s position on this matter, making it clear that although ‘the treatment meted out to such men as Medvedev, Gluzman and Grigorenko is odious, repugnant and intolerable by any civilized standards’, the decision for individual psychiatrists to take part in conferences in the Soviet bloc was a matter of ‘individual conscience’. The critics of the Royal College’s position on this matter were clearly of great frustration to Roth, who began this letter by stating that the Royal College ‘does not require lecturing on the iniquity of depriving psychiatrically normal political dissenters of their freedom’.150 Institutionally, the Royal College was stuck. While it was being compelled to take a stand against the Soviet abuses, there was little that it could do to control individual members who wished to attend conferences in the Soviet Union, especially in the face of an international body which was relatively apathetic towards reports of abuse. It was also responding to the desires of its members, who had refused the opportunity to force the Royal College to officially condemn the Soviet abuses earlier that year. The open letters from both Markowe and Roth, which were part of an attempt to placate criticism of the Royal College, did little to stop the tide of disapproval of its lack of action on this issue. Shortly after Roth’s open letter to The Times, the journalist Paul Dacre bitterly called for British psychiatrists to speak out about the Soviet abuses, highlighting his frustration at their lack of comment in the face of brave appeals from dissidents in the Soviet Union. In an article published in the Daily Express on 10 September, Dacre quoted a number of psychiatrists planning to attend conferences in the Soviet Union who were very noncommittal on the issue of the abuses, with comments ranging from ‘I am going with an open mind and open mouth. But one

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must remember that there are different systems of politics and different systems of medicine in the world. It is wrong to pre-judge the issue’ through to ‘I don’t want to comment on matter until I get back from the Soviet Union’. This clearly frustrated Dacre, who argued vehemently that ‘more positive action is now needed’ and that the time had come for British psychiatrists who planned to visit the Soviet Union to seriously reconsider their plans.151 The Daily Mail’s science correspondent John Stevenson was also deeply critical of British psychiatrists’ plans to attend this conference, describing their decision not to boycott the Serbsky symposium as an ‘embarrassment’.152 The public criticisms of those psychiatrists planning on attending this conference were also made by their fellow psychiatrists. Gery Low-Beer, who had put forward the earlier resolution condemning the Soviet actions to the Royal College, noted in a letter to The Guardian that if those British psychiatrists attending the Soviet conference did not protest against the political abuse of psychiatry, then ‘they will have earned the reproaches of a band of brave men and women who have dared to think differently and are paying a price for it’.153 Not all were critical of those psychiatrists who planned to attend this conference at the Serbsky Institute. Zhores Medvedev was vocal in calling for scientists from the West not to boycott conferences and symposia held in the Soviet Union, instead highlighting the potential that such events offered. He particularly urged psychiatrists to attend the Serbsky’s symposium on schizophrenia, so they could use the opportunity to question those individuals driving the abuses about their actions. He noted that while Western scientists would not be allowed to ‘obtain first-hand knowledge of political “patients”’, in breaks between official engagements they would be able to ask more delicate questions, such as ‘why political dissidents were always investigated by the same panel of “specially trusted and high-ranking” Moscow psychiatrists, rather than by psychiatric clinics’. Medvedev also jokingly suggested that Western visitors invite their Soviet counterparts to visit Speakers’ Corner in London, stating ‘it will be interesting to know whether they see any of the speakers and the audience as possible patients if Hyde Park were not in London, but in Moscow’.154 Medvedev’s advice was echoed by Andrei Sakharov, who called for those psychiatrists planning on attending the Serbsky symposium to insist on investigating the reports of Soviet abuse. Sakharov’s demand came shortly after a group of Soviet psychiatrists had a letter published in the Soviet newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta, denouncing the criticisms of Soviet psychiatry coming from the West.155 In spite of the varied criticisms of this conference, on 15 October a group of fourteen Western psychiatrists arrived at the Serbsky Institute, where they were greeted by Andrei Snezhnevsky and given a short lecture on Soviet forensic psychiatry by Georgi Morozov, two of the psychiatrists most closely linked with the abuse of dissidents through the misdiagnosis of psychiatric disorders. During their visit, the Western visitors were presented with six case histories of the most noted dissidents through which their hosts engaged a policy of misinformation and misdirection. During their discussion, the visiting psychiatrists were not allowed to question any of the dissidents being assessed, but instead witnessed the examination of a patient with symptoms judged typical to those shown by the dissidents in question. Bloch and Reddaway noted that this ‘piece of theatre’ was designed to persuade those psychiatrists in attendance

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that the dissidents they had previously discussed were much like this patient, who the visitors saw was a schizophrenic.156 Despite the restrictions placed upon them, and the clear attempts by the Soviet authorities to manipulate this visit to their advantage, some of the visiting psychiatrists did manage to visit dissidents who were being held in psychiatric institutions. Denis Leigh and his Swedish colleague Carl Perris managed to visit Petro Grigorenko, who was being held at the time in a psychiatric institution outside of Moscow. While they were unable to conduct a detailed examination of Grigorenko, who had refused to work with an interpreter who had been supplied to his two visitors by the Soviet authorities, they did get a sense of the conditions in which he was being kept. Grigorenko was ‘kept in a small alcove containing four beds in a ward of 84 beds which was supervised by three doctors’ and described himself to Leigh and Perris in basic German as being ‘very well’.157 The first-hand experience of those psychiatrists who took part in this trip confirmed the fears of many activists and concerned individuals about the Soviet abuses. John Wing of the London University Institute of Psychiatry made it publicly clear that Soviet psychiatrists used ‘a rather wide diagnosis’ of schizophrenia, which could be used to facilitate political persecution. The ethical dimension of the wide-ranging diagnoses was apparent in the differences between Western and Soviet psychiatry, which Wing put down to a difference in the ‘concept of responsibility’, something that he felt needed addressing on an international level.158 On 9 November 1973, Roth wrote a telegram to the leaders of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the AUSNP, outlining the Royal College’s concern at reports of the political abuse of psychiatric treatment in ‘various countries’, and noted an appreciation that ‘reports on such matters are liable to some distortion’. He called for an impartial commission, made up of psychiatrists of high repute from a number of countries to investigate claims of abuse, showing clear concern about reports of the unethical practice of psychiatry. He outlined the need to protect the ‘good name of psychiatry the world over’, something that was being brought into disrepute by reports of abuse.159 In this new climate of concern about the Soviet abuses and wide publicity about the Royal College’s relative inaction on the issue, Low-Beer and Merskey put their resolution to the Royal College once again on 16 November 1973. Following the pressure exerted on British psychiatrists since the previous vote earlier that year, there was a great change of heart in the members of the Royal College, which was doubtless influenced by the public and private discussions following the Serbsky symposium in October 1973. This time, the resolution passed with a healthy majority, an outcome that was described in The Guardian as the Royal College’s ‘strongest statement yet’ on the Soviet abuses, marking a clear break from its previous inaction on this matter.160 Perhaps of most importance for activists working to put pressure on the Soviet authorities, the Royal College’s council also publicly noted its intention to form an ‘international enquiry to review evidence of psychiatry being misused in the USSR’, which was welcome news for those who had had little success in persuading the WPA to take action.161 In May 1974, Bernard Levin neatly reported the development of the Royal College’s position on the Soviet Union in his column for The Times, arguing that

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Western scientists had now reached a ‘crossroads of conscience’, which presented ‘a challenge that cannot be ignored’. In contrast to the turn of the decade, where reports of psychiatric abuse were considered one-off instances that could be largely overlooked in the West, more significant actions were needed by the psychiatric community, not only to protect those who were being abused by the Soviet authorities but also to maintain the reputation of their discipline which had been shaken by their inaction. Activism against the Soviet abuses was no longer confined to the ethics of psychiatrists in the Soviet Union, but to the morality of psychiatrists and scientists around the world. As Levin noted, What is now at stake is nothing less than the honour of the international scientific community. Once upon a time, scientists could, and did, maintain (or, in some cases, pretend) that they did not know what was going on in the Soviet Union, but that time has long since gone by: a scientist, or anybody else for that matter, would now have to be deaf, blind and stupid to believe that the evidence was anything less than conclusive. It is time that the international scientific community bestirred itself collectively.162

*** In the late 1960s, the political abuse of psychiatry adopted by the Soviet authorities to oppress political dissidents was an ephemeral concern to the international psychiatric community, resigned to scant accounts in autobiographical novels and infrequent news reports. In the early 1970s, the increased frequency with which cases of abuse were being reported highlighted the growing concern in Britain for dissidents who had been incarcerated in psychiatric institutions as a form of persecution. Much of this was due to the 1971 Bukovsky papers, which gave flesh to international concerns and much needed material for activists to campaign with. While detailed discussion of the Soviet abuses did not occur at the 1971 WPA World Congress in Mexico City, and the Royal College only supported a resolution explicitly condemning the Soviet authorities after a period of pressure against them, by the mid-1970s the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union was an international concern, and one that could no longer be ignored. Especially so after the events of 18 December 1976.

2

Shifting Psychiatric Concerns, the Special Committee and the Soviet Withdrawal

On the appropriately freezing morning of Saturday 18 December 1976, following the heaviest snowfall that Britain had experienced in several years, readers of the Daily Mirror were given the remarkable news of an event that changed the direction of international relations. On page eight, sandwiched between an article on the love life of the Queen’s Park Rangers footballer Stan Bowles and a piece on six mechanics who had been poisoned after mistakenly drinking anti-freeze thinking it was cherry brandy, there was an article entitled ‘Freedom for a Russian Rebel’, which stated that ‘Russia has freed its most outspoken rebel, 33-year-old Vladimir Bukovsky’, exchanging him for the imprisoned Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan after years of negotiation between the Chilean, US and Soviet governments.1 The news of this exchange made the front pages of most British newspapers. The Guardian reported that Chile and the Soviet Union had swapped their ‘thorns’ in the form of troublesome political prisoners.2 The Times took a more personal approach, reporting Bukovsky’s mother’s description of her released son as being ‘terribly emaciated and like a victim of a concentration camp’.3 The Daily Express noted that the exchange meant that Bukovsky had escaped from the Russian ‘mind-benders’, and in stark contrast to his previous incarceration in psychiatric institutions, prisons and labour camps, ‘a bed has been made up waiting for him in the cosy study of a Sussex farmhouse’.4 Shortly after a stop over in Geneva, where Bukovsky was demonstratively used as a pawn in a Cold War exchange, he was invited to stay with the 63-year-old actor David Markham, who had travelled to Switzerland to meet Bukovsky following his release. Markham’s wife, the author Olive Dehn, noted to the press: We can only hope and pray that he will now be able to fill up that waiting bed … he has had a terrible time and the Swiss authorities may put him straight into hospital. But we would be delighted if he was well enough to fly back with David. It would be lovely if he could spend Christmas with us.5

Markham and Dehn had led a campaign for Bukovsky’s release, albeit a largely amateurish one that had been largely ignored by the British press. In an article about this activism, The Guardian’s Peter Cunningham noted that although Markham and Dehn had been driven by ‘the thought of the young Russian sitting through six years

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of solitary confinement, in freezing conditions, on starvation diet’, their campaign was overlooked in favour of others that were better organized. Markham’s assessment of his campaigning efforts in this article are revealing of both the great reverence that he had for Bukovsky and the rapid development of groups that were coming to dominate activism on behalf of Soviet dissidents, noting that ‘I don’t consider I have got him out. There were a lot of other committees working in different ways and now a certain amount of credit seeking is going on, I’m afraid. But for me it was simple: I identified with this man because he represents what was happening.’6 Markham and Dehn were not the only cultural figures in Britain who had campaigned for Bukovsky’s release. In August 1976, a group of writers, including Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Iris Murdoch and Heinrich Boll, wrote a letter to Leonid Brezhnev appealing for Bukovsky’s release that was publicized in The Guardian, doubtless due to the celebrity names attached to this appeal.7 Bukovsky’s exchange was widely held by dissidents in the Soviet Union as a great victory. In an open letter published in the Chronicle of Current Events by Petro Grigorenko, Yuri Orlov and Andrei Sakharov, Bukovsky’s release was described as a ‘decisive turning-point in the direction of humanity and reason’, something that was also recognized in the West.8 As an article in The Guardian noted, this event was a turning-point as ‘by agreeing to the exchange the Russians are acknowledging that Mr Bukovsky has been held as a political prisoner’, something that they had strenuously denied before this event took place.9 In October 1976, just two months before this sensational event, a Soviet deputy justice minister had stated that Bukovsky was being held in jail ‘not for “dissidence” but for real actions’.10 This change of heart by the Soviet authorities was an explicit admission that they held political prisoners. But more than that, it was an admission that they were willing to use them to negotiate with their Western counterparts, something that dramatically changed the position of political dissidents in the context of the Cold War. The significance of this admission was not lost on activists in the West. Victor Fainberg, himself a former victim of the Soviet abuses who had become a vocal activist following his emigration to Britain, noted to the Daily Express that Bukovsky’s exchange was ‘more important and significant than that of [Alexander] Solzhenitsyn’ in February 1974 because of this tacit admission.11 Not only could the Soviet authorities could no longer deny that they held individual dissidents prisoner because of their political views, it also revealed that international opinion and negotiation could now impact on the domestic policy of the Soviet Union. An editorial in the Daily Mirror highlighted this neatly by noting that this exchange would not have taken place ‘if Moscow did not give a fig for world opinion’.12 This gave activists like Markham an indication that if their efforts were replicated for other dissidents they were also likely to have success, something that opened the door for increased activism into the late 1970s and 1980s when human rights issues became politically important. Bukovsky’s exchange also marked a turning point in British awareness and concern for Soviet dissidents, particularly the way in which the government campaigned to support individuals behind the iron curtain. Following his release, Bukovsky visited London in January 1977, meeting a number of leading politicians including Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the Conservative Party, and the Liberal leader David Steel.

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Perhaps unaware of the political clout that such a meeting could offer, the Prime Minister James Callaghan snubbed a meeting with Bukovsky during his visit to London, stating clearly in the House of Commons that ‘I do not intend to see Mr. Bukovsky.’ This led to an outrage from a number of politicians. The Conservative MP Janet Fookes was particularly incensed by this comment, noting to the press that ‘we should apologise for the churlish behaviour of our Prime Minister this afternoon’, something that was echoed by Thatcher, who called Callaghan’s refusal to meet with Bukovsky ‘one of the most disgraceful and undignified Commons replies ever given by a Prime Minister’, stating that her own meeting with Bukovsky had been ‘extremely interesting’.13 The reason for the dismissal of this meeting by the Prime Minister can perhaps be seen in Bukovsky’s own comments about Callaghan. Speaking to members of the Conservative party at the House of Commons following Callaghan’s comments, Bukovsky denounced the government’s diplomacy with the Soviet Union, stating that ‘it is still a bit difficult to imagine a real British gentleman trying to make deals in private and secrecy with murderers’.14 Callaghan’s dismissal of a potential meeting with Bukovsky may have been due to a desire to maintain diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in an attempt to exert persuasive rather than aggressive pressure on the communist superpower in the wider spirit of détente. Following Bukovsky’s exchange, however, this form of diplomacy was now firmly relegated to the past, and the direct approach preferred by Thatcher and Steel was to dominate British politics now that the dissidents’ plight and human rights issues had become entrenched as politically important in the West. Alongside the momentous occasion of his exchange, Bukovsky was also a great asset for activists in the West working to publicize the Soviet abuses. As he noted in his memoir To Build a Castle, which was written shortly after his exchange and published in 1978, his release from the Soviet Union had given the West ‘something very precious and important, something forbidden, that should never have been let out of the country. Something no search could ever discover.’15 His young age, ability to speak English, forthright opinions regarding the Soviet Union and his tenacious activism made him a celebrity of sorts in the West and, for a period, the most recognizable face of Soviet dissent. Allan Wynn of the Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals noted that following his release from the Soviet Union, Bukovsky had ‘achieved a recognition that made it impossible for his appeal[s] to be dismissed as just another attack on psychiatry by a disaffected person’.16 Perhaps most important of all, after his release the international psychiatric community could no longer simply reject reports of psychiatric abuse coming from the Soviet Union. This was something that Bukovsky recognized, noting in January 1977 in response to the relative lack of response by British psychiatrists to the reports of Soviet abuse that ‘I hope that my personal example will help to convince them.’17

A Change in Tone The change in rhetoric against the Soviet abuses in the late 1970s came after several years of increased pressure that had been put on dissidents in the Soviet Union, something that set the foundations for Bukovsky’s release. The mathematician and

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dissident Leonid Plyushch was arrested on 15 January 1972 for conducting ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’, charges that were regularly applied to dissidents who spoke out against the Soviet abuses. His arrest was linked to his membership of the Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR, a dissident organization whose formation in May 1969 following the arrest of Grigorenko has been described by Robert Horvath as a ‘landmark in the history of the Soviet dissident movement’.18 In July, Plyushch was sent to a psychiatric institution, where he was forcibly ‘treated’ for his dissent with a cocktail of psychiatric drugs including haloperidol and insulin. This cocktail was so strong that his wife Tatiana, who had not been able to see him for the first 18 months of his time in a psychiatric institution, found him unable to speak.19 Plyushch’s forced treatment was described by Bloch and Reddaway as ‘the most blatant misapplication of drugs known to us’, which alongside the separation from his family, close proximity to mentally disturbed patients and an increasing sense of hopelessness destroyed him both mentally and physically.20 As in previous cases, details of Plyushch’s plight were widely spread by the efforts of dissidents such as Pavel Litvinov, Grigory Podyapolsky, Yuri Orlov and Tatiana Khodorovich who put out a series of appeals on his behalf. Andrei Sakharov was particularly vocal in his support for Plyushch, writing an appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations Kurt Waldheim in June 1974 which included an account of the Soviet abuses entitled ‘Punishment by Madness’, written by Khodorovich.21 Plyushch’s incarceration drew a sustained international campaign on his behalf, which attracted organizations such as Amnesty International who sponsored an ‘International Day for Leonid Plyushch’ on 23 April 1975.22 Most notably, Sakharov’s appeal for Plyushch in February 1974 led a group of French mathematicians to form an international campaign on his behalf, merging with their efforts for another dissident Yuri Shikhanovich.23 Remarkably, the campaign for Plyushch also gained the support of the French Communist Party, which publicly stated its concern about his position.24 Following the campaigns on his behalf Plyushch was later released in January 1976, ostensibly as a result of this international pressure, and immigrated to France on the day of his release. At a press conference following his arrival in France, Plyushch called for Western activists to continue their ‘fight for man’s rights in the USSR’ calling this activism ‘your international duty’.25 Writing about Plyushch’s first press conference after immigrating to France for the Daily Express on 16 May 1976, the journalist Michael Brown noted that ‘the Russians consented to his release to the West only after a relentless campaign by his wife Tatiana to make known around the world the extent of his plight’. Explicit in Brown’s article was a desire for greater activism on behalf of Soviet dissidents, highlighting Plyushch’s assertion that ‘human rights have got to become more than just a bit of paper’. Brown reiterated this sentiment, stating that Plyushch’s ‘words contain warnings to the West. They include too an appeal for help for those he left behind, the men and women who spoke out as he did and were still – those that remain alive – paying the penalty’.26 This was a remarkably different rhetoric from a journalist writing for a British newspaper in comparison to reports of the persecution of dissidents such as Grigorenko and Medvedev in previous years. The call for activism from Westerners was now increasingly at the forefront of articles on the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union.

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Another dissident subjected to incarceration in this period was Victor Fainberg. Fainberg was one of the seven dissidents who on 25 August 1968 publicly protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in Moscow’s Red Square.27 This protest, which reputedly lasted less than thirty seconds, led to each of those taking part being arrested. Fainberg was interned in a psychiatric institution in Leningrad for over four years following this event, describing life in the psychiatric wards as lacking ‘any human dignity and security’. He noted that the inmates in psychiatric institutions were ‘deprived of all rights – even those of prisoners in concentration camps’ and that ‘the doctors are prison officers, and the male nurses are criminals who have served their terms for theft or hooliganism. There is a large field of activities for them, beating the madmen.’28 While many abused their positions in psychiatric institutions, there were a few individuals that stood up against the attempts to persecute dissidents such as Fainberg. Marina Voikhanskaya worked at a psychiatric hospital in Leningrad where she became aware of the political abuse of psychiatry, first showing concerns that the incarceration of the artist Yuri Ivanov was unjust as she felt that he did not suffer from any mental illness.29 She personally intervened in the cases of Ivanov and Fainberg, offered her personal support to them bringing them presents and books and actively prevented them from receiving the harshest of psychiatric treatments.30 Voikhanskaya was ostracized by her fellow psychiatrists for becoming involved with dissenters and was advised to end her association with troublesome patients by her seniors. After she first offered assistance to Ivanov, she was called to the office of her section head who said: ‘Can I give you a piece of friendly advice? Stop visiting Ivanov, for your own good and his.’ Following Voikhanskaya’s protests, she was forbidden from seeing Ivanov but refused to comply and met with him on Sundays ‘like a visiting relative’. Following her informal meetings with Ivanov, Voikhanskaya was a marked person, and she began to be followed by ‘a car, painstakingly washed and sparkling, with a uniformed chauffeur’, in an attempt to intimidate her. This shadowing was also mirrored while she was at work in the hospital, where she was followed from one department to another.31 Despite the pressure that she was being put under, Voikhanskaya continued her efforts to assist dissidents whom she felt were being inappropriately treated and even managed to intervene when a senior doctor was about to give Fainberg a large dose of Aminazin. Fainberg had repeatedly threatened to commit suicide if he was subjected to forced injections, and the assertiveness of his threats combined with Voikhanskaya’s interventions dissuaded this doctor from carrying out this treatment. Voikhanskaya’s intervention in this case had effectively saved Fainberg’s life, acting selflessly despite the immense personal risk that she was being put under.32 While the cases of Plyushch and Fainberg caught the attention of both the British press and concerned activists, they were merely the tip of the iceberg of increasing persecution against Soviet dissidents in the mid-1970s. Amnesty International later reported in 1980 the extent of the persecution against dissidents that had dramatically increased in this period. Sergei Kovalyov, Andrei Tverdokhlebov, Yuri Orlov and Alexander Podrabinek were all attacked by the Soviet regime after they had publicized Plyushch’s incarceration, with Kovalyov himself convicted in December 1975, like Plyushch for the arbitrary ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’. Tellingly during

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the closing statements of his trial, the prosecutor leading the case against Kovalyov noted that in the Soviet Union ‘the confinement of healthy people in psychiatric hospitals is completely excluded’, accusing him of slandering the communist state with ‘reactionary bourgeois propaganda’ due to his support for Plyushch.33 On 1 June 1976, the longstanding Ukrainian dissident Valentin Moroz was due to be transferred to a labour camp from his prison cell to serve part of his sentence. However, in the weeks leading up to this scheduled move, Moroz was instead moved to a psychiatric institution in order to ‘determine the type of physical work he was fit to do in the camp’. An account of this move in The Chronicle of Current Events noted that Moroz’s wife Raisa had not been informed of this move, and after much negotiation with the Soviet bureaucracy, she managed to visit him in the infamous Serbsky Institute in Moscow where he was being evaluated. During her visit, Raisa stated that she would do all she could to ‘get him out of him out of this psychiatric hospital, even if it killed her’.34 Moroz’s plight had been publicized in Britain on a regular basis in the mid-1970s, with The Guardian publishing regular updates on his position in this period, including a plea for his release from the exiled dissident Pavel Litvinov.35 Alongside this detention, in 1976 alone, Vladimir Borisov, Pyotr Starchik and Alexander Argentov were also interned in psychiatric institutions, signalling a dramatic increase in the attacks on dissidents by the Soviet authorities in this period.36 This increased persecution had a knock-on effect on activism in Britain, with the formation of organizations intent on taking a more demonstrative approach than their more academic predecessors. This can be seen clearly in the work of the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA), an organization formed as an offshoot of the Working Group in September 1975 to take a more activist approach to the issue of the Soviet abuses. CAPA was chaired by Henry Dicks, a prominent British psychiatrist who had formerly been the president of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association, the forerunner to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Dicks had become increasing concerned about the Soviet abuses in the mid-1970s and had publicly accused Soviet psychiatrists in December 1976 of adopting ‘Nazi tactics’ in their use of psychiatry in persecuting Borisov. Dicks was incensed by their actions noting in a telegram to Mikhail Isakov, the senior doctor at the hospital in which Borisov was detained, that ‘unless this ceases, your names will be linked in history with the Nazis, whose methods you have copied. Shame on you and your contemptible masters.’37 Such vociferous comment signalled a marked change from the early 1970s, where many British psychiatrists brushed off reports of such abuses with remarkable ease. CAPA’s aims were much like those of other groups working to publicize the Soviet human rights violations in the 1970s, essentially to do all they could to put an end to Soviet abuses. In their campaign material they set themselves four bold and, in some cases, rather impractical aims: 1. To investigate the abuse of psychiatry for the purposes of the state wherever it may occur. 2. To publicize the use of psychiatric methods for political repression. 3. To bring about the release of sane persons interned in mental hospitals because of their political, ethical or religious beliefs. 4. To eradicate these evil practices completely and forever.38

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CAPA collated information on the political abuse of psychiatry and publicized this material through a variety of media outlets and at public events. Publicity was seen as essential to their campaign, with one of their campaign leaflets noting that ‘CAPA members assist in the vitally important task of making the public aware of the political abuse of psychiatry and the plight of individual prisoners of conscience in psychiatric hospitals’.39 This leaflet also illustrated the position that CAPA members felt they occupied, with its letterhead depicting a typical ‘jail break’. This image shows a number of people pulling a dissident out of a hole in the wall of a psychiatric institution with a length of rope. The hole had been created by a man wielding a pick-axe, standing next to a chest full of petitions and letters of protest, illustrating the impact that CAPA felt that their letters were having on dissidents in psychiatric institutions. The final figure at the end of the rope to which the dissident is attached is silhouetted, suggesting that the group had a gap which needed to be filled by another willing supporter. The names of six dissidents are written in bold letters on the side of this institution, with the names of Plyushch, Borisov and Bukovsky crossed out in a reference to their freedom. Gluzman, Krasivsky and Ponomarev remain, an indication of their imprisonment in psychiatric institutions. These actions all occur beneath the phrase ‘THREE OUT – BUT LOTS MORE TO GO!’ demonstrating the urgency and the importance of CAPA’s campaigns, which they felt were literally dragging dissidents out of psychiatric incarceration.40 While CAPA was publicly focused on their noble and broad aims, at its heart the organization was a vehicle through which activists could organize protests and demonstrations against the Soviet abuses, none more so than Victor Fainberg. During their interactions in psychiatric institutions, Fainberg became very close to Voikhanskaya, the psychiatrist who had helped limit the extent of his treatments. Fainberg was released from his second period of incarceration in a psychiatric institution in June 1974, and was told by the Soviet authorities that ‘like it or not, I was emigrate to Israel’. After his release Voikhanskaya, who had been on holiday in the Crimea, returned to Leningrad to tell Fainberg that her marriage had ended, and that she wanted to marry him. There was no time for a ceremony given Fainberg’s impending emigration, and the pair went on to marry over a telephone link with Jerusalem in a ceremony on 13 June 1974 conducted by Israel’s Chief Rabbi.41 This marriage was far from a formality, as it could not be officially registered due to delayed paperwork confirming Voikhanskaya’s divorce from her first marriage. This was to be the first of several bureaucratic conflicts that Voikhanskaya was to have with the Soviet authorities, something that was undoubtedly linked to her dissent. Shortly after her marriage to Fainberg, Voikhanskaya began the bureaucratic process to leave the Soviet Union to join her new husband with Misha, her nine-yearold son from a previous marriage. This was not a simple process and one that was used by the Soviet authorities to put pressure on Voikhanskaya in order to punisher for her actions in support of dissidents detained in psychiatric institutions. Despite being the sole responsibility of his mother, Misha was refused permission to emigrate because of his father’s objections, which were allegedly made after being pressured by the KGB. Voikhanskaya decided to emigrate alone without her son, following a long and arduous application process that was laden with barriers and delays. CAPA played an extensive part of the campaign in support of Voikhanskaya, petitioning

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the Soviet authorities on her behalf, calling for ‘as many cards, letters and telegrams as possible’ to be sent to the Leningrad OVIR offices in charge of the visa decisions and regularly enquiring about the progress of her request for an exit visa. CAPA even went as far as listing the direct telephone number of Captain Bokov, the head of the office dealing with her application for an exit visa, and requested that he be contacted directly about Voikhanksaya’s case by Russian speakers affiliated to the group.42 Prominent psychiatrists in Britain followed CAPA’s example and took steps to support Voikhanskaya’s efforts to emigrate. Alec Jenner, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sheffield, headed a joint letter sent to the Soviet Ministry of the Interior in March 1975 calling for her to be granted an exit visa. Jenner’s letter was reported in an article in The Guardian, which also included the context of Fainberg’s case and Jenner’s previous actions in 1971 in support of the Bukovsky documents, reiterating the wider concerns about psychiatric abuse that were slowly developing in the first half of the 1970s.43 In April 1975, Voikhanskaya was eventually given permission to leave the Soviet Union, and was reunited with Fainberg at Vienna airport. Following their meeting, where Fainberg presented his wife with a bunch of flowers and a wedding ring, the pair travelled to the UK, initially staying with David Markham and Olive Dehn, before eventually settled in Cambridge, where Voikhanskaya has remained to this day.44 Given Voikhanskaya’s experience in the Soviet Union, and her direct involvement with dissidents that had been incarcerated in psychiatric institutions, she was in great demand by activists and NGOs in Britain. Shortly after her arrival in the West, Voikhanskaya took part in an Amnesty International led symposium on the Soviet abuse of psychiatry in Geneva, the first step in her involvement in Western campaigns against the Soviet abuses.45 She went on to join the Working Group, featuring prominently on the group’s publications as a member of its medical panel, something that was given much credibility given her experiences in the Soviet Union. The unlikely marriage between Fainberg and Voikhanskaya, which was described by some journalists as being like a tragic Russian novel, and their subsequent separation at the hands of the Soviet authorities received much attention in the British press. In an article for the Daily Mail shortly after Voikhanskaya’s emigration, the journalist Malcolm Stuart emotively referred to the pair as ‘the couple that beat Russia’s mindbenders’. He noted that Voikhanskaya’s decision to emigrate to the West without her son Misha was an ‘immense human sacrifice’ but one that she was persuaded to do by a number of dissidents in the Soviet Union who ‘convinced her it was vital that the West should hear, for the first time, the testimony of a qualified witness’.46 Suzanne Shafur, a member of the Working Group, wrote at length for New Psychiatry about the background of Voikhanskaya and Fainberg, taking a more scientific approach to their story by focusing particularly on the issues of psychiatric abuse. Shafur noted that ‘Dr. Voikhanskaya impressed me with her unassuming modesty, humour and quiet confidence’, arguing that ‘she is the opposite in personality to the typical political activist, and I have no reason to doubt the genuineness of her testimony’, highlighting the value of her personal experiences for activists in Britain campaigning against the Soviet abuses.47 Voikhanskaya also told Shafur that

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Victor [Fainberg] was released due to pressure from the West … He was allowed to leave because his case was well known in the West and his persistent hunger strikes threatened his life. There would have been adverse publicity if he had died, so it was preferable to let him go – only pressure from the West helps.48

Shafur concluded her article in the specialist psychiatric publication with a passionate call for action to heed Voikhanskaya’s advice, particularly in the wake of the criticism of psychiatry as a discipline by figures such as Thomas Szasz. She noted that ‘if we fail to take a stand and distinguish clearly and publicly between responsible psychiatry and its betrayal in the Soviet Union, Szasz’s case will be greatly strengthened’.49 The broader reporting of the persecution of individuals such as Plyushch, Fainberg and Voikhanskaya in the mid-1970s came at a time when the political discourse surrounding human rights and the persecution of dissidents was changing. 1977 saw the growing wave of concern about the actions of the Soviet authorities burst, with Bukovsky’s exchange in December 1976 setting the tone for the year ahead. In January 1977, the dissidents Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Feliks Serebrov, and Alexander Podrabinek formed the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes in the USSR, following the example of the Helsinki Watch groups formed following the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975. The Working Commission was assisted by Alexander Voloshanovich and Anatoly Koryagin, two Soviet psychiatrists who were greatly concerned about the abuse of their discipline. The purpose of the Working Commission was to give advice and assistance to those incarcerated in Soviet psychiatric institutions, something that it did in an overt manner closely following what it was allowed to do under Soviet law. They collated information on reports of politically motivated diagnoses, compiling some 1,500 pages of evidence, much of which was sent on to organizations in the West, such as Amnesty International and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.50 The activity of the Working Commission drew the attention of the Soviet authorities, who brought the work of the organization to a premature end with the exile and imprisonment of many of its members. Podrabinek was sentenced to internal exile following the publication of Punitive Medicine, an account of the abuses that outlined a number of cases in substantial detail, which was subsequently published in the West.51 Alongside developments in the Soviet Union, 1977 also saw a great increase of public awareness of Soviet dissidents among the British public. So much so that the Soviet abuse of psychiatry even made its way into prominent cultural settings. The noted playwright Tom Stoppard, who was a keen supporter of a number of campaigns to support Soviet dissidents, wrote Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (EGBDF) in 1977, which explicitly focused on the Soviet abuse of psychiatry.52 EGBDF is set predominantly within a psychiatric hospital and explores the incarceration of the dissident Alexander who shared a room with Ivanov who suffers from extreme delusions – notably that he is surrounded by his own personal orchestra. Stoppard’s play is performed with a full orchestra, which is used to demonstrate Ivanov’s delusions to the audience, playing at poignant moments to heighten the emotions raised throughout the play. The musical score was produced by the noted conductor André Previn, who had offered both his

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services and an orchestra to Stoppard, a delicious offer that a playwright interested in the absurd could not resist.53 The play’s imagined orchestra is, however, anything but perfect for Ivanov. In a candid exchange laden with typical Stoppardian wordplay, Ivanov complains that he’s ‘got a blue-arsed bassoon, a blue-tongued contra-bassoon, an organ grinder’s chimpani, and the bass drum is in urgent need of a dermatologist’, an outburst that leads Alexander to conclude ‘your condition is interesting’.54 This excerpt is typical of the play’s overall style, with Stoppard’s depiction of a dissident interned in a psychiatric institution conducted in a dark yet comic manner, infusing humour and typical Stoppardian wordplay to illustrate the barbarity of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry. For example, in the opening scene, Ivanov gives the sane Alexander the confused, yet worthwhile advice about how to survive his time in psychiatric incarceration: ‘Number one – never mix music with politics. Number two – never confide in your psychiatrist. Number three – practise!’55 Stoppard’s decision to write about this topic was, in part, driven by his association with an array of human rights organizations active in supporting Soviet dissidents in the 1970s such as the Working Group and CAPA. Indeed, Stoppard’s support for the work of both groups was demonstrated when he became a patron for both of these organizations – a symbolic role but one that was nonetheless of utmost importance for promoting their work. His association with activist organizations led him to travel to the Soviet bloc on a number of occasions in 1977. In February, Stoppard visited the Soviet Union with Peter Luff, the Assistant Director of Amnesty International UK, and later in June that year he visited Czechoslovakia – the country of his birth – where he met the playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel. While in Moscow, Stoppard was introduced to an array of dissidents, including Vladimir Albrecht, Valentin Turchin and Andrei Sakharov and had the surreal experience of communicating with them in KGB-bugged flats by using a child’s ‘magic eraser’ pad, a common way for dissidents to avoid monitoring. Even more strikingly, during his trip Stoppard visited a psychiatric institution in Moscow to see the incarcerated dissident Vladimir Borisov, with whom he briefly communicated by ‘gesture and expression’ through one of the institution’s windows, albeit at a distance. The high levels of surveillance under which dissidents were monitored and the way in which they were being persecuted had a profound effect on Stoppard. In an unpublished account of his trip to Moscow he noted that while spending time visiting tourist sites, he spotted a man taking his photograph: ‘like everybody else in sight he wore a fur hat, but like nobody else in sight he wore dark glasses; as though he were a character in a morality play’.56 Stoppard’s intimate engagement with this totalitarian state marked a vivid blurring between his personal life and the absurdity of his work and resonated strongly with the play he had penned shortly before his experiences behind the iron curtain. Stoppard dedicated EGBDF to Bukovsky and Fainberg, two individuals who had first-hand experience of psychiatric incarceration. Among Stoppard’s many motivations for writing about this issue was a meeting that he had with Fainberg in April 1976, which gave him inspiration to adapt a play about a millionaire triangleplayer that he had toyed with following Previn’s initial offer of an orchestra. During this meeting, Fainberg expressed his concerns about the plight of Bukovsky to Stoppard who, due to the experiences of meeting this dissident, swiftly rewrote this

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play into EGBDF.57 As well as EGBDF being dedicated to them, both Fainberg and Bukovsky also make appearances in the play itself: Bukovsky as the unknown ‘friend C’ and Fainberg as one of the group of dissidents referred to anonymously as a letter between M and S in the dialogue.58 The first run of performances of EGBDF took place at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in July 1977, and contained a cast of great talent, many of whom were to become household names. Ian McKellen, John Wood, Philip Locke and Patrick Stewart were among the cast, who were accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra. Following his release from the Soviet Union, Bukovsky was invited to attend rehearsals of the play shortly before it was first performed publicly. In his introduction to the published text of the play, Stoppard notes that he found Bukovsky’s visit to rehearsals deeply embarrassing and something that had a profound effect on the actors. McKellen, who played the role of the dissident Alexander, ‘seized up in the middle of a speech touching on the experiences of [the] visitor, and found it impossible to continue’.59 He later noted in a letter to Stoppard that ‘the rehearsal when C [Bukovsky] walked into Floral Street was overwhelming + I don’t think I recovered the objective composure which your play demanded. Such a big hall, such a big orchestra, such big themes’.60 Both Stoppard and McKellen held Bukovsky in exceptionally high regard, and as a figure whom they felt they could never do justice to, having never experienced a similar period of incarceration. This admiration was not one way. When reflecting on the 1977 play, Bukovsky noted his great admiration for Stoppard’s abilities as a playwright, particularly his ability to weave an array of themes and events comically into his plays. Despite the concerns of McKellen and Stoppard, Bukovsky was full of praise for this EGBDF, particularly enjoying its production at the National Theatre in 2009, which received an array of positive reviews from critics.61 Performances of EGBDF are logistically demanding as the play requires a full orchestra as an integral part of its performance, something that has limited it to only being shown on a handful of occasions. Its early performances included a run at the Mermaid Theatre, London, in the summer of 1978 shortly before it was renovated. This show was reviewed by Ned Chaillet in The Times, who noted that the play ‘works as entertainment and as a salutary reminder of grim, political truths’. Despite this, Chaillet noted his concern that not everyone in the audience would remember that the piece was about a sane dissident and an insane man, both of whom were incarcerated, and that the nuances of the play might be lost.62 Others criticized Stoppard’s play for the ambiguity of its final scene, where both Alexander and Ivanov are released from their incarceration after a KGB colonel mixes up their cases, exclaiming to a doctor that ‘there’s nothing wrong with these men. Get them out of here!’, something that, in itself, satirizes the KGB’s efforts in diagnosing both characters.63 However, this chaotic and veiled criticism of the Soviet regime could easily be misinterpreted. Martin Huckerby, who also reviewed the play for The Times, noted that ‘plenty of critics came to the wrong conclusion that the dissident was responsible for the confusion and was duping the KGB’ rather than the ironic twist that Stoppard intended.64 Alongside its success on the stage, EGBDF was also produced for television and shown on BBC1 in July 1978, allowing a wider audience who might not have had access to the theatre to see it.65 Despite praise for stage performances of the play,

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critics were largely unimpressed by its television adaptation, noting that the three distinctive ‘stages’ in which the play is set did not translate well onto the screen.66 Despite concerns about the aesthetics of the production itself, the fact that a drama about the incarceration of sane dissenters in a psychiatric institution appeared on mainstream British television in 1978 suggests that a wide audience was exposed to the issue of Soviet psychiatric abuse. Performances of EGBDF, either on the stage or television, drew discussion. Although critics were unsure that its political motives left a clear and lasting impression on the audience, the sheer virtue of its discussion taking place in such a prominent location developed the public awareness of the Soviet abuses. Stoppard’s intention to keep the issue of Soviet dissent, and the persecution of dissidents in the public consciousness was carried out not only in the showing of EGBDF itself but also in all reviews of the play, regardless of how they assessed its quality. If anything, a critical review may well have drawn more attention to the psychiatric abuses than an entirely positive one. While the success of EGBDF highlighted the broader shift in public awareness of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, there was still much to be done from international psychiatric organizations in response to the Soviet’s unethical practices. By the mid1970s the timid nature of the WPA towards reports of the Soviet abuses earlier that decade was considered simply unacceptable by many activists and psychiatrists around the world. As a result, the issue was arguably the main topic up for discussion by the 4,000 delegates from 60 countries who attended the organization’s 1977 world congress, held in US City of Honolulu from 28 August to 3 September.67 The inaction by the WPA on this issue meant that the Soviet abuses had come to threaten the very core of international psychiatry. There was a very real threat that if the WPA failed to effectively respond to the reports of psychiatric abuse emanating from the Soviet bloc that disgruntled psychiatrists from around the world would break away from the organization to form their own transnational body. Sidney Bloch, who as a member of the Working Group was likely to be one of those psychiatrists who would break away from the WPA in the event of no action on the Soviet abuses, attended the Honolulu congress as a British delegate. He discussed the building unrest from psychiatrists about the WPA’s inaction on the Soviet issue and stated to the media during the congress that if the WPA refused to take action it would be ‘abdicating its responsibilities and would be unrepresentative of the profession at world level’.68 Bloch noted his great concerns that this issue had been ‘swept under the carpet’ in 1971, and that by 1977 ‘much information has come out of the Soviet Union … now the documentation and testimony is overwhelming and incontrovertible – that there is a pervasive misuse of Soviet psychiatry for political purposes, a systematic misuse of psychiatry coordinated at the highest levels’, calling for action in the face of previous ignorance.69 Bloch was one of the many activists attending the Honolulu congress who sought to force the WPA to confront the Soviet abuses. The Working Group had begun making moves to position itself as experts on the matter of the Soviet abuses in the lead up to the Honolulu congress, primarily through the production of its own reports. In Spring 1977, the Working Group produced a short pamphlet entitled The Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union which outlined the Soviet abuses in a clear

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and succinct fashion. This piece included information ranging from practical details of how this abuse was taking place, analysis on why the Soviet authorities were using this tactic against dissidents and an assessment of the Western response to reports of abuse. The aim of this report was both to highlight the abuses that were taking place in the Soviet Union and to emphasize that they were substantially different from concerns about the practice of psychiatry in the West because the Soviet abuses were part of state policy and were motivated by the ‘intentional misconstruing of dissent as mental illness’.70 Much like Bloch’s comments to the press, this report concluded that ‘the use of psychiatry as a political weapon needs to be freely discussed in Honolulu. The world psychiatric community cannot afford again, as in Mexico, to evade its responsibilities.’71 Following the production of this leaflet, the Working Group began to publish its own news bulletins, which were produced with ‘extraordinary care and attention’ by their principal editors, Peter Reddaway and Christine Shaw, who utilized the information they had available to produce detailed publications on the Soviet abuses.72 Much like the group’s earlier pamphlet, their news bulletins outlined cases of psychiatric abuse in extensive detail, discussing their background and offering reasons for the Soviet authorities’ action against individual dissidents. As well as the details of individual cases, the bulletins also listed the addresses of national psychiatric bodies and other organizations campaigning against the Soviet abuses, broken down by country and including details for groups such as Amnesty International, the WPA and the Royal College. Interestingly, this breakdown by country also included a section on the Soviet Union, giving details for leading psychiatrists such as Andrei Snezhnevsky, Daniil Lunts and Georgi Morozov and the addresses of prison hospitals in Leningrad, Kazan and Smolensk which had been reported to have conducted psychiatric abuses.73 As well as this information on the position of dissidents in the Soviet Union, the bulletins also provided extensive commentary on the activism being conducted to publicize the Soviet abuses in the West, offering detailed assessments of the position of national and international bodies towards the Soviet Union. Given its proximity to the Honolulu congress, the first edition of this bulletin is laden with information about the event, offering details on the background of the abuses following the receipt of the Bukovsky documents in 1971; how the Soviet authorities were trying to manipulate the WPA; and perhaps most importantly the sessions that were to take place at Honolulu where the Soviet abuses could be discussed. The production of publications by the Working Group in the run up to the Honolulu congress, which were laden with details about what concerned individuals could do to petition national psychiatric organizations and the WPA for action, highlights the intentions behind their production. By focusing their attention explicitly on psychiatrists, the Working Group’s campaigns experienced three major benefits. First, the psychiatrists that were targeted by this material had the potential to influence the direction of the Honolulu congress through their petitioning of national and international psychiatric organizations. Their publications gave the reader ample material to conduct their own activism, and would have been invaluable to uninformed individuals who wanted to petition the Soviet authorities against their

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unethical practices. Second, the Working Group made it clear in their publications that letters from medical organizations or individual doctors in the West sent directly to the Soviet Union had a significant impact on the treatment of dissidents. By including the details of Soviet psychiatrists, the Working Group was providing sufficient material for individuals who had received this bulletin to put pen to paper and write to organizations and individuals in the Soviet Union. Such small actions could have a significant effect on dissidents in the Soviet Union, especially when they came from internationally recognized specialists in the West with whom the Soviet authorities wanted to engage with. As a result, the Working Group’s June 1977 news bulletin specifically requested letters to the Working Commission’s Alexander Podrabinek from ‘colleagues in medicine and public health’ as a matter of urgency.74 Third, and perhaps most importantly, the Working Group’s publications positioned them as an authority on the Soviet abuses. The frequent use of specialist terminology, extensive references, and the prominent display of the Working Group’s medical panel – which included an array of well qualified psychiatrists replete with their medical qualifications – in their publications aimed to appeal to psychiatrists and other specialists working in this field. Such as display of academic pedigree was an attempt to emphasize that the material presented in their publications was reliable and scientifically accurate due to the reputation and expertise of those associated with it. This presented the Working Group as a concerned scientific organization rather than a collection of activists. This goes someway to explain the rather unusual omission of Reddaway’s name from prominent mention in any of the Working Group’s publications. Although Reddaway played a leading role in the Working Group, his reputation was as a political scientist and activist, not a psychiatrist. As a result, the inclusion of his name in their reports might have dissuaded some from the overall picture that was being presented. By positioning itself as a collection of concerned psychiatrists, rather than an outright activist organization, the Working Group effectively positioned themselves as an authority on this matter, ready to offer their expertise to those attending the WPA conference who were uninformed about the Soviet abuses and looking for a reliable source of information. The Working Group’s efforts can be seen at the Honolulu congress itself, where they arranged a ‘Special Extra-Congress Meeting on Psychiatric Abuse for Political Purposes’ in collaboration with a French organization.75 This meeting sought to ‘inform both congress participants and the press about the issues’ regarding the Soviet abuse of psychiatry.76 Had this meeting been presented as a press conference by an activist organization, or as a demonstration, it is likely that its message would have been overlooked. By highlighting its academic credentials and presenting its efforts as an extension of the proceedings at the Honolulu congress, rather than an interruption, the Working Group was engaging in a subtle, yet effective, form of activism. Although the Working Group took an academic approach to its activism in order to not alienate themselves from the WPA delegates, its members were also prepared to disrupt the collegial proceedings at Honolulu with a stark and personal reminder of the Soviet abuses. A number of exiled dissidents exerted a great deal of pressure on delegates attending the WPA congress with the support of organizations such as the Working Group. Marina Voikhanskaya, herself one of the Working Group’s medical panel, discussed her own first-hand experiences of the Soviet abuses of psychiatry

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during a session at the congress. Given that her son Misha was still being held in the Soviet Union following her emigration to the West, her public denouncement of Soviet psychiatry carried great personal risk. Bloch and Reddaway noted that the KGB were attempting to exert pressure on Voikhanskaya by holding Misha as a ‘political pawn’, which would force his mother to keep quiet about the abuses while punishing her for her dissent. Her brave participation at Honolulu was a defiant symbol that the KGB attempts to silence her had failed.77 Much like his previous attempts to influence the WPA in 1971, Bukovsky was also vocal in his call for international psychiatry to take action against the Soviet authorities for their abuses. In a letter to Howard Rome, then President of the WPA, shortly before the congress, Bukovsky explained that the Working Group was helping him to send a personal appeal to as many delegates attending the congress as possible, noting explicitly to Rome that [i]t is in the power of the WPA, if it acts firmly, (a) to have Dr. [Semyon] Gluzman released from his prison camp, (b) to ensure that Alexander Podrabinek and the other members of the Moscow ‘Working Commission on the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes’ are not arrested and given heavy sentences, and (c) to put an end in the near future to the worst abuses of psychiatry in the USSR.78

Bukovsky’s letter to Rome also highlighted his concerns that the Soviet authorities had been attempting to manipulate international opinion by hiding the full extent of their unethical practices, begging him ‘not to be deceived and manipulated any more by the lies and manoeuvrings of Professors Snezhnevsky, Vartanyan, et al.’ Reiterating the expertise of the Working Group, Bukovsky argued that the extent of the Soviet abuses had ‘now been very carefully documented in the new book by Dr. Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway’ who had demonstrated ‘how the gullibility of WPA officials not only prolonged the suffering of many Soviet victims or corrupt psychiatry but has also given those officials a sad place in the history of world medicine’.79 Such a powerful recommendation from Bukovsky for Bloch and Reddaway’s Russia’s Political Hospitals which was published in 1977 reiterates the extent that they had become established authorities on the Soviet abuses by the time of the Honolulu congress. Both were regularly quoted by journalists writing about developments at Honolulu for the British media, with Bloch in particular becoming a figurehead in the press for the concerned psychiatrist. Neither Bloch nor Reddaway are mentioned as members of the Working Group in articles about the Honolulu congress, nor as activists, but instead as recognized experts on this issue owing to the publication of Russia’s Political Hospitals, which Bukovsky rightly highlighted as a carefully documented text which remains to this day one of the most informative pieces on the Soviet abuses. Reddaway was even noted as ‘Dr Peter Reddaway’ in The Guardian despite not having completed a doctorate, reiterating the rush to expertise that occurred in this period; something that Bloch and Reddaway were well positioned to fill.80 Following extensive discussion and lobbying by activists, dissidents and concerned delegates at Honolulu, a resolution was put forward to WPA members jointly by

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delegates from the Royal College and the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists which stated: The WPA take note of the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes and that it condemn those practices in all countries in which they occur and call upon the professional organizations of psychiatrists in those countries to renounce and expunge those practices from their countries: and that the WPA implement this Resolution in the first instance in reference to the extensive evidence of the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR.81

This resolution was passed narrowly by 90 votes to 88, and the relative closeness of this vote concerned many activists. In the voting process, each country’s vote was weighted according to the number of its individual members, meaning that Western societies were proportionally favoured over their counterparts in the Soviet bloc.82 Had the WPA vote been based on a ‘one society, one vote’ basis, the resolution would have failed by a much wider margin of 33 votes to 19.83 Allan Wynn, a member of the Working Group, noted in his memoirs that the reason for this closeness was ‘not because the delegates felt that the accusations were false or the evidence insufficient, but because of the very natural feeling that a milder approach which carried less risk of causing a rupture with the Soviet Union would be more appropriate’.84 This sentiment was echoed by Bloch, who neatly encapsulated the division between those who wanted to enter into dialogue with Soviet psychiatrists and others who favoured increased political pressure, stating: There are quite a lot of people who feel either they can’t trust the evidence or, as the Scandinavians said, that they must maintain a dialogue with the Russians. But we have found that diplomatic language has no effect. The only thing that gets people released from hospitals and prisons is a strong campaign of protest.85

There was also a tangible concern that this was a political rather than medical matter and that it was not the place of the WPA to enter into the Cold War. Wynn argued that ‘it is doubtful whether, since the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union has been faced with such a humiliating accusation in an international context’, something that raised concerns that this was a politically motivated action.86 In response to the passing of this resolution, the Soviet authorities stated that any suggestion it had abused psychiatry was a fabrication and part of a wider slander campaign by the US CIA.87 Eduard Babayan, a psychiatrist and senior official of the Soviet Ministry of Health, reiterated the official denial that psychiatric abuse was taking place in the Soviet Union, stating that ‘no sane people are placed in a mental hospital, or are treated in a mental hospital. Only sick people are treated.’88 Indeed, given the relatively narrow support that this vote had, which could have been dramatically swung with a different voting system, it is surprising that the Soviet delegation did not protest the outcome of this vote in a more vociferous fashion. This is telling of its desire to maintain good relations with the WPA and the international prestige that it offered as well as the inherent reality behind international concerns.

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The 1977 passing of the WPA resolution on the Soviet abuses was met with a great sense of relief by many activists and recognized widely as a step that should have been taken in previous years. This resolution was hailed in the media, with an editorial article in The Times describing the resolution as ‘welcome news’, noting that the WPA had ‘risen to its responsibilities’.89 Bloch was noted by the Daily Telegraph as stating that ‘at last the World Psychiatric Association has got off the fence and acted in a morally responsible fashion’, a feeling that was echoed by many other activists and commentators.90 Alongside the WPA’s condemnation of the Soviet abuses, the organization also took active steps to deal more effectively with reports of abuses, both from within the Soviet Union and elsewhere in the world. Following the resolution condemning the Soviet abuses, the American Psychiatric Association also put forward a resolution which called for the formation of a WPA Committee to review reports of the abuse of psychiatry.91 This resolution passed with a comfortable majority of 121 votes to 66, following the support of the Royal College who had been instrumental in its foundation, and who became the first institution to submit case of abuse for it to assess.92 The WPA Review Committee was criticized by many, with the Soviet delegation to the WPA fiercely opposed to its formation. They refused to acknowledge the existence of the committee stating that it would violate national sovereignty and, according to Robert Van Voren, that ‘it would distract the WPA from its main function, namely the exchange of scientific ideas’.93 Costas Stefanis, Chairman of the WPA’s ethics committee from 1977 to 1993 and later the organization’s president from 1983 to 1990, also protested the formation of this committee, fearing that it would condemn the AUSNP on insufficient evidence in the same manner that he felt the WPA had already done at this congress.94 Despite their concerns, the WPA review committee was formed in December 1978 with members from Czechoslovakia, Brazil and Norway and were chaired by the Canadian psychiatrist Jean-Yves Gosselin. The Review Committee’s remit was to assess reports of suspected abuse of psychiatric treatment that were forwarded on to it by a WPA member society, ensuring that it would not be deluged by reports of abuse from concerned activists around the world but that it would only be dealing with cases that had been raised by qualified psychiatrists. The Review Committee became the key point of contact between national psychiatric organizations, acting as a passageway through which evidence of abuses could be passed on to the international organization via concerned psychiatric bodies.95 The varied discussions on psychiatric ethics that took place at Honolulu led the organization to adopt a Code of Ethics, which was drawn up by the Swedish psychiatrist Clarence Blomquist in the period leading up to the WPA congress. Blomquist’s Code was comprised of ten guidelines setting out the ethical practice of psychiatry including the need to inform patients about the nature of their condition and how it could be treated; and that patients should not be treated against their will unless their condition necessitated it; and that once they had reached a position where they no longer needed treatment, they must be released unless they voluntarily consented to further treatment. This document, known as the Declaration of Hawaii, has become an international code of ethics for psychiatrists and highlights the developments that international psychiatry underwent in the mid-1970s, shifting from relative ignorance

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and apathy towards ethical issues in 1971 through to producing an international code on this matter in 1977.96 This change can be attributed to the efforts of activist organizations such as the Working Group in highlighting the Soviet abuses but perhaps more importantly to the broader international shift in the importance of human rights rhetoric that occurred during this period, which caused the plight of Soviet dissidents to become a politically important issue.

The Special Committee The discussion of psychiatric ethics at the Honolulu congress, and the decision to create a WPA Review Committee, led national psychiatric bodies such as the Royal College to take a more proactive response to the issue of the Soviet abuses and take institutional measures to respond to reports of the unethical practice of psychiatry. On 14 June 1978, on the recommendation of its Executive and Finance Committee, the Royal College formed the Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (SCPAP), a section of the Royal College that became integral to its response to reports of the unethical use of psychiatry. This committee was formed to ‘consider all reports of the political abuse of psychiatry wherever it might occur’ and was initially chaired by Peter Sainsbury, an esteemed psychiatrist with a reputation for his rigorous use of empiricism in psychiatric treatment.97 Prior to the formation of the SCPAP, all matters regarding the abuse of psychiatry had been dealt with by the Royal College’s Public Policy Committee, but it was felt that this committee would find it impossible to deal with the increasing volume of material during its meetings – as a result it requested the formation of a more specialist committee.98 This specialism is clear from the composition of the SCPAP which although a small committee, included Sainsbury as its chair; Desmond Pond, the President of the Royal College; Kenneth Rawnsley, the College’s Vice President; two representatives of the College’s Public Policy Committee; and Gery Low-Beer, a psychiatrist whose Russian language abilities and expertise on the Soviet abuses came to play a significant role in the work of the committee.99 The calibre of the founding members of the committee, and their positions within the Royal College, led Bloch and Reddaway to note that the ‘importance attached to the committee’s work was immediately obvious from its composition’, reiterating not only the importance that the Royal College was now paying to this issue but also how much concerns about the abuse of psychiatry had shifted since the start of the decade.100 The SCPAP’s main purpose was to advise the Royal College on the reports of the unethical practice of psychiatry, acquiring information on abuses from a wide variety of sources and disseminating this material as appropriate. As well as discussing reports of abuses that it received, the SCPAP also played an integral role in the Royal College’s response towards the issue of the unethical practice of psychiatry. Members of the SCPAP became responsible for drafting and approving letters to be sent to prominent Soviet psychiatrists on behalf of either the president or the Royal College. This was established from the very first meeting of the SCPAP on 26 July

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1978, when committee members considered, and approved, the text of a letter to be sent to Andrei Snezhnevsky by Desmond Pond, who had recently been appointed as President of the Royal College. This letter introduced Pond to Snezhnevsky and highlighted his concerns about the reports of abuse in the Soviet Union. There was a particular focus in Pond's letter on the honorary position of Corresponding Fellow that Snezhnevsky held at the Royal College, highlighting the tradition of this position which was designed to ‘speed the transmission of information and exchange of ideas between scientists and members of learned professions’, a poignant position given the silence on the issue of psychiatric abuse from figures like Snezhnevsky. Pond’s letter concluded with a threat that if Snezhnevsky’s role appeared to no longer fulfil the function of distributing information, his honorary position would be reconsidered by the Royal College – a thinly veiled threat to dismiss Snezhnevsky from the college in embarrassing circumstances.101 This type of letter was an important tool in the SCPAP’s arsenal, utilizing the reputation of the Royal College to put pressure on its Soviet counterparts through the threat of international isolation. Bloch and Reddaway have described the process of making individual psychiatrists mindful of the international awareness of their actions as ‘nudging’, a technique that became an effective way for both activists and official organizations to put pressure on Soviet psychiatrists.102 As a result of the SCPAP’s position as the Royal College’s specialists on the issue of psychiatric abuse, the committee came to play an integral role in the Royal College’s relationship with the WPA Review Committee. The SCPAP was in frequent contact with the WPA Review Committee, with an array of materials and correspondence being sent between the two groups from its formation through to the mid-1980s. The SCPAP was proactive in this process, requesting information from the WPA Review Committee about how to submit cases for review in January 1979, a period when the international body had yet to establish its own procedures, along with material on the cases of four dissidents who were believed to be victims of abuse.103 The way in which the WPA Review Committee operated – only assessing reports of abuse that had been sent to them by its member societies – alongside the influence that the SCPAP had on both the Royal College and a substantial proportion of psychiatrists in Britain and further afield meant that the SCPAP became a prime target for the attention of activists. This was further exacerbated by the perceived independence of the committee. While the SCPAP played an important institutional role in the Royal College, its members felt that they could also act as an autonomous body. Reflecting on the function of the SCPAP, Sidney Levine, a founding member of the committee, noted his belief that the SCPAP was empowered to act independently on behalf of the Royal College owing to the importance of issues under discussion and the ‘recognized expertise’ of its members.104 Much like activist groups in the mid-1970s, the SCPAP was also a part of the rush to expertise, utilizing the authority of its members on the issue of the Soviet abuses to give it political clout among the broader membership of the Royal College. However, unlike activist organizations who had developed networks with dissidents in the Soviet Union, the SCPAP’s ability to obtain its own

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information was limited. As a result, the committee’s members came to rely on the detailed material that activists could obtain from behind the Iron Curtain. Although the relationship between the SCPAP and activist organizations appears in hindsight to be naturally symbiotic, with the information obtained by activists fitting neatly alongside the SCPAP’s ability to bring details about the Soviet abuse of psychiatry to the attention of international psychiatry, it was not founded on complete agreement. In its first meeting in July 1978, the SCPAP’s members decided that the committee should hold no formal links with other organizations but that it ‘should feel free to seek help and advice when this was felt to be necessary’.105 This ambiguous and somewhat condescending phrase underplays the nature of the relationship that the SCPAP developed with activist organizations, particularly as a number of its members were also leading figures in the Working Group, most notably Bloch and Low-Beer. Even more importantly, Bloch and Low-Beer were among the most dynamic members of the SCPAP, regularly attending the committee’s meetings throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s and playing an active role in its work. While Bloch’s activism is perhaps most connected with his public comments surrounding the Honolulu congress and the two books that he co-authored on the issue of the Soviet abuses with Peter Reddaway, Low-Beer was more substantially intertwined with the SCPAP. Low-Beer had first publicly expressed his concerns about the unethical practice of psychiatry in the British press in the early 1970s. In a letter to The Observer in July 1973 responding to an article on the misuse of psychiatry by the authoritarian regime in Portugal led by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Low-Beer noted that ‘it is disturbing that some of the perpetrators and back-room boys of these inhuman acts should escape prosecution’.106 His concerns were later directed towards the Soviet Union when in September 1973, during a period when increasing pressure was being put on the Royal College to take action against the Soviet abuses, Low-Beer noted in a letter to The Guardian that there was a ‘deep anxiety felt by a large number of British psychiatrists about the systematic misuse of psychiatry and psychiatric facilities for the purpose of political repression in the Soviet Union’, before outlining the need for concerned individuals to take action against their Soviet counterparts.107 His Russian language abilities and psychiatric training aptly positioned him to campaign against the Soviet abuses. This included conducting telephone conversations with victims of the Soviet abuses, including Petro Grigorenko and Andrei Sakharov, which were reported in the Daily Mail. His conversations supplied concerned individuals in the West with information on the Soviet abuses, although the fact they were allowed to occur is surprising. Low-Beer attributed the Soviet decision not to halt his conversations with dissidents to the fact that ‘they know I am in close touch on this matter with psychiatrists in Britain and America and because they are hoping that, through my responses, they will get a deeper insight into the attitude of the West’.108 By the mid-1970s, in line with the growing concern about the Soviet abuse of psychiatry, Low-Beer became more vocal in the British press about the abuse of individual dissidents, utilizing his scientific reputation both to bring the Soviet practices into question and to call for more action against the Soviet abuses from his colleagues in the West. In a letter to The Guardian in February 1975, Low-Beer outlined his concerns for Vladimir Bukovsky, calling for psychiatrists to ‘do all

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they can to right a terrible wrong that has been committed and to put all possible pressure, both individually and through their associations, on their Soviet colleagues and Soviet authorities to secure the release of a brave and generous man’.109 In March 1976, he wrote a co-authored letter to The Guardian with the psychiatrist Henry Dicks rebutting an attack on Victor Fainberg that had appeared in the Soviet press, noting with particular vengeance that ‘we agree with the verdict of our Soviet “colleagues” at the Leningrad Special Hospital who turned to Victor Fainberg with brutal frankness and said “your only illness is dissent”’.110 Dicks’ public comments were also echoed by Low-Beer’s private attempts to influence the policy of the Royal College towards the Soviet Union. In July 1976, he wrote to Linford Rees, then President of the Royal College, about the controversial honorary membership of the AUSNP that he held. Low-Beer called for Rees to reconsider this position, noting that if he were to resign it or to use it to petition the Soviet authorities about their actions, he ‘would have the support of the great majority of the members of our college’.111 Such activism on behalf of dissidents in the Soviet Union in this period led Low-Beer to join the Working Group and, like Bloch, he became a member of the group’s medical panel. In April 1978, Low-Beer took part in a trip to Moscow that marked him out from other activists in this period, allowing him to visit victims of psychiatric abuse firsthand through the connections he had built up with the dissident Working Commission for the Investigation of the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes. While in Moscow, Low-Beer delivered a letter from Linford Rees to Alexander Podrabinek, a leading member of the Working Commission. This letter outlined that the Royal College was studying evidence about the treatment of dissidents in psychiatric institutions, something that would undoubtedly have been welcomed by Podrabinek, reiterating the support that his work was receiving from Britain in the face of hostility from the Soviet regime.112 Alongside this reiteration of concern for the plight of dissidents, one of the main purposes of Low-Beer’s visit to Moscow was for him to psychiatrically examine a number of individuals, some of whom had been held in psychiatric institutions against their will.113 This was the first time that a Russian-speaking Western psychiatrist was able to make first-hand evaluations of dissidents, something that gave Low-Beer a great insight into the lives of individual dissidents and the threats that they faced from the Soviet authorities.114 One of the nine dissidents assessed by Low-Beer was Evgeny Nikolayev, who was being held in the Kashchenko psychiatric hospital in Moscow. Nikolayev had written to both the WPA and the Soviet authorities, protesting against being held in a psychiatric institution against his will. Nikolayev’s wife, Tyan Zaochnaya, asked Low-Beer to assess her husband, seeking the second opinion of a Western psychiatrist to put pressure on his Soviet counterparts to alter their diagnosis.115 Somewhat unsurprisingly, despite Low-Beer’s professional standing, he was refused permission to assess this patient by the doctor in charge of the hospital, who stated that according to Soviet law, ‘only close relatives could meet psychiatric patients’.116 The Soviet authorities were furious about Low-Beer’s interaction with dissidents while in Moscow, and on leaving the country he was searched by Soviet airport officials. Thankfully, the psychiatric reports that Low-Beer had written on the dissidents he had assessed were safely left behind in Moscow due to the fear that

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they would be confiscated by Soviet officials at the airport, and he only suffered the indignity of having a few photographs and his diary-notebook, which contained the addresses of a number of dissidents, confiscated.117 Low-Beer attributed this ‘relatively benign send-off ’ to a letter from the Royal College wishing him a productive trip, something that Bloch and Reddaway noted ‘demonstrated that Low-Beer was no lone adventurer but represented an influential Western organization, a fact necessitating his delicate handling’.118 In order to maximize the publicity surrounding his momentous trip to the Soviet Union, Low-Beer held a press conference on his return to London where he recalled his experience of Soviet psychiatry in scathing terms to the journalists in attendance. He recounted the case of Ludimila Aga Pova, who had been subjected to abuse following her request to visit her husband who had defected to Sweden. Low-Beer had examined Pova and noted to the press that ‘it was quite clear she was suffering from no mental abnormalities other than anger, indignation and frustration that she had not been able to visit her husband’, before going on to state that she ‘would have been an active propagandist of the Soviet Union if she had been allowed in the first place to visit Sweden’. Low-Beer used this press conference to publicly demand that the WPA took more significant action against the Soviet abuses, noting that ‘the signs are that more people will end up like those I met in psychiatric hospitals’.119 This call was also echoed in a report that Low-Beer wrote for the Royal College, in which he noted that of the nine dissidents that he examined, he considered five as entirely normal and four as suffering from abnormalities that had been used as an excuse to make troublesome dissidents disappear into psychiatric institutions. He stressed that ‘it was really quite embarrassing to me to interview such a completely sane and normal man’, highlighting the extent of the Soviet abuses in particular cases.120 The Guardian reported that Low-Beer’s report to the Royal College on his visit to Moscow was a ‘hair-raising tale’, making direct comparisons between the Soviet abuses and the Nazi doctors who perverted their skills in the concentration camps, stating that ‘the increasingly systematic, blatant and brutal persecution of Soviet dissidents has now reached the stage at which it poses a genuine moral problem for the West’.121 Low-Beer’s actions prior to the formation of the SCPAP, the expertise that he had obtained on the Soviet abuses, and his linguistic skills made him a valuable and influential committee member. Indeed, his membership of this committee is in itself an indication of the reputation he held. Every other founding member of the SCPAP was on the committee because of their position within the Royal College, Low-Beer was appointed to the committee because of his expertise. The same can be said of Bloch, who applied to join the committee in late 1978. His membership was heartily endorsed by Low-Beer who highlighted Bloch’s use to the committee because ‘he was so knowledgeable in this field’.122 Through Bloch and Low-Beer, who had developed their knowledge on the Soviet abuses in part through their association with the Working Group, activist organizations came to play an essential role in the SCPAP’s acquisition of information and the overall direction that it took. Given their expertise on the Soviet Union, Bloch and Low-Beer came to dominate the efforts of the SCPAP, playing a central role in the group’s actions and utilizing their

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expertise to shape the output of the committee. For example, in November 1979, the SCPAP agreed that Bloch and Low-Beer should submit a number of well-documented cases of psychiatric abuse to the committee for scrutiny in order for them to be sent on to the WPA Review Committee, suggesting that they played a key role in identifying which individual dissidents should be supported by the committee.123 Later in October 1980 at the request of the SCPAP’s members, Low-Beer drafted a letter to the Soviet authorities protesting against the persecution of members of the Moscow Working Commission. This was sent to Desmond Pond, with the request that he sign it and send it to the Soviet authorities on behalf of the Royal College. In a letter to Pond, Peter Sainsbury noted that Low-Beer’s drafted petition was ‘to save you trouble’.124 Low-Beer was not only advising the Royal College on how best to petition the Soviet authorities as an expert on the issue of abuse – he was also writing the petitions. Alongside Bloch and Low-Beer, another member of the Working Group who had a substantial impact on the work of the SCPAP was Peter Reddaway. Reddaway’s influence both as an academic and as an activist was felt on the SCPAP through his frequent correspondence with the committee’s chair, Sainsbury. Reddaway was in regular contact with the SCPAP and the Royal College from the late 1970s onwards and provided them with the most up-to-date information that he had on abuses in the Soviet Union, collated from his extensive network of contacts.125 His correspondence with the Royal College began shortly before the foundation of the SCPAP, with Reddaway sending details about a number of cases of abuse on behalf of the Working Group in March 1978. This letter was considered by the Royal College’s Executive and Finance Committee and may have played a role in the College’s decision to form the SCPAP shortly afterwards.126 Reddaway’s relationship with the SCPAP began in November 1978, when Sainsbury wrote to Reddaway noting that the SCPAP had discussed his correspondence with the Royal College on the cases of Semyon Gluzman and Alexander Podrabinek, something that is corroborated by the committee’s minutes from its October 1978 meeting.127 By supplying information to the SCPAP, and developing close links with the committee through his personal relationship with its members, Reddaway could exercise great influence on the committee’s direction, particularly towards the Soviet authorities.128 Given the influence that the SCPAP had on British psychiatry, Reddaway’s relationship with the committee allowed him to utilize the reputation and authority of the Royal College to exert pressure on the Soviet authorities. For example, in March 1979 Reddaway asked Sainsbury to forward copies of the original Russian information bulletins produced by the Working Commission to the WPA. While this in itself was not an unusual request, especially given the manner with which Reddaway was frequently sharing information with the SCPAP, the detail with which Reddaway outlined how to send material to the WPA is substantial. Such a detailed account highlights the efforts that Reddaway was taking in order to influence the actions of the committee, setting out the specific procedures they could take in order to fulfil his requests.129 This letter to Sainsbury also included a copy of an appeal from the Working Commission to the WPA President Peter Berner, which Reddaway requested be sent to the WPA ‘in the name of the College’, stating that ‘I can vouch for its authenticity.’130 Again, Reddaway sought to use his relationship with the SCPAP

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in order to have dissident appeals sent to the WPA with not only his own authority as an academic, but also that of the Royal College; something that would ensure it was seriously considered. Another such example occurred in August 1979, when Reddaway sent a letter to Sainsbury stating that ‘I think it is growingly important to maintain steady and strong pressure on the Soviets and to encourage the WPA to take the same line’. Again, this was a subtle attempt to influence the direction of the committee, reiterating Reddaway’s desire for the Royal College to exert their own pressure on the WPA to take action.131 Reddaway utilized his relationship with the Royal College in order to send information directly to the WPA, ensuring that any material sent via the Royal College carried the reputation of its members with it, which in turn gave it substantially more clout than even the expertise of Reddaway alone could offer. The SCPAP also greatly benefited from the information that Reddaway and his sources could offer to the Royal College. His expertise on the Soviet abuses was much appreciated by members of the SCPAP, who wanted the latest information on cases of abuses which was often unavailable through their own sources. For example, in September 1979, Reddaway supplied the committee with information obtained by the Working Group about the dissident Valeria Makeyeva, about whom the SCPAP admitted they had ‘very little definitive information’.132 Reddaway even supplied material on the Soviet abuses directly to the WPA on occasion. His correspondence with the WPA in September 1982 was noted by Peter Berner to have ‘contained information of considerable value to us’, alongside a request for further details, highlighting the reputation for expertise that Reddaway had developed in this period.133 Due to his authority on the Soviet abuses, the SCPAP maintained its relationship with Reddaway, and Sainsbury sent him letters of thanks occasionally for the information that he provided.134 The relationship between Reddaway and the SCPAP was a mutually exclusive one, with both sides gaining favourably – the SCPAP with the most up-todate information and expertise, and Reddaway with a direct route to send information to the WPA, which would be treated with more respect and urgency that his own approaches alone. While members of the Working Group held substantial influence over the SCPAP, they were not the only organization seeking to influence its behaviour in this period. Amnesty International also sought to use the material that it had on individual dissidents, and the concerns of its members in the West, to put pressure on the Royal College to intervene in the cases of individual prisoners of conscience. The SCPAP regularly asked for details on particular victims of psychiatric abuse from Amnesty, and its archival material contains a number of Amnesty reports on psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union.135 The SCPAP’s use of Amnesty’s reports became so pronounced and frequent that during correspondence in May 1982 with Marjorie Farquharson, a researcher within Amnesty’s International Secretariat, Sainsbury suggested that a member of Amnesty’s staff be appointed to act as a liaison officer between the SCPAP and Amnesty so that the committee could be kept up-to-date on cases of psychiatric abuse that were being received by the organization.136 While this was not officially fulfilled, in part due to the pressures that Amnesty’s researchers were under during

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this period, such a request demonstrates the frequency with which the SCPAP and Amnesty dealt with each other and the symbiotic nature of their relationship. The SCPAP dealt most frequently with Amnesty through its correspondence with Enid Nussbaum, a member of the Keele and North Staffs Amnesty Group, who was campaigning on behalf of the dissident Nikolai Baranov. Her efforts to raise the plight of Baranov began in September 1980, when she wrote to psychiatrists based in Stoke-on-Trent, requesting that they write to the Soviet authorities directly about his incarceration.137 Following internal discussion, Khadim Hussain, the Consultant Psychiatrist at St Edward’s Hospital, Cheddleton, referred her concerns on to the SCPAP, after being politely warned by a colleague that Nussbaum ‘will assuredly pursue us in this matter, as she is an energetic and determined lady’.138 Following this referral, Nussbaum displayed her determination on this matter through her frequent correspondence to the SCPAP on the plight of Baranov, including an array of requests for information, translated documents from Baranov or his close family and friends and appeals for action from the Royal College on this matter between 1980 and 1983.139 She even requested a list of the British delegates due to attend the 1983 WPA World congress, ostensibly to petition them to raise Baranov’s plight.140 Nussbaum’s requests were also bolstered by her MP John Golding, who wrote to the SCPAP requesting that they take Baranov’s case to the WPA, a letter that was doubtless encouraged by Nussbaum’s efforts.141 Her correspondence with the SCPAP doubtless impacted on their actions towards the case of Baranov, and it is of little coincidence that in October 1981 Sainsbury wrote directly to Elena Moiseeva-Baranova, Baranov’s sister, noting that ‘it will be perfectly possible to arrange for a Russian speaking member of the Royal College to carry out [an] examination’ of her brother.142 Nussbaum noted her thanks for Sainsbury’s letter, stating that ‘I’m sure it is vitally important to the successful outcome of this case.’143 The SCPAP’s initial desire not to engage in formal links with human rights organizations was doubtless in an attempt to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the Royal College, a prestigious organization with an international membership and to preserve the committee’s independence. However, despite its initial insistence on maintaining a separate position from other organizations, the links between the SCPAP and activist groups working to publicize the Soviet abuses became remarkably close. So much so, that the SCPAP itself came to be reliant on the work of activists, who played an integral role in the working of the committee. Activist organizations had expertise and access to information that was too useful for the SCPAP to ignore out of a desire for impartiality. In order to effectively use its reputation to ‘nudge’ Soviet psychiatrists, the SCPAP needed the reliable and accurate information that only organizations such as the Working Group and Amnesty International could provide. The fact that many of its members were also leading members of activist organizations further blurred the boundary between activists and the Royal College. Levine even suggested that the committee itself was initially formed at the request of various ‘informed organizations’ such as Amnesty International and the Working Group, who had approached the Royal College requesting that it respond to the ever growing number of cases of abuse that were

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being reported in the West.144 By the 1980s, the overriding reason that the SCPAP could not afford to ignore activists was because it was largely comprised of them.

Merging Interests and the Soviet Withdrawal Following the 1977 WPA world congress in Honolulu, activist organizations in Britain continued to provide the ample material needed for ‘nudging’ Soviet psychiatrists on the issue of abuse. Their activism against the Soviet abuses developed markedly in this period, in tune with the growing public awareness in the West of the political nature of the Soviet abuses; the growing opportunities afforded by the formation of bodies such as the SCPAP; and the fluid position of individual dissidents. For example, CAPA’s earlier campaigning efforts for Marina Voikhanskaya shifted following her emigration in 1975 and focused instead on petitioning the Soviet authorities to allow her son Misha to join her in Britain. This vociferous campaign gained the support of a number of prominent cultural figures in the West including the musician Yehudi Menuhin, and the playwright Harold Pinter, who were doubtless drawn by emotive separation of mother and son.145 Tom Stoppard also became a vocal supporter of Misha’s case and even managed to take him gifts from his mother while visiting the Soviet Union in February 1977, something that potentially risked his personal safety. Stoppard wrote about meeting Misha in the Spring 1977 edition of CAPA’s newsletter Straightjacket, in which he called Marina’s son an ‘exceptionally sweet and endearing boy with a very nice grave manner’, reflecting the situation that he had been placed in.146 The initial campaign for Misha stumbled along in the late 1970s, with little immediate success and despite widespread concern in Britain over his position, he remained in the care of his grandmother, Leah Friedlender.147 However in April 1979 the Soviet authorities relented and granted both Misha and his grandmother the necessary permissions to immigrate to Britain and settle with Marina who was living in Cambridge.148 Upon hearing of Misha’s impending emigration the Daily Express reported his mother’s response to the news, noting ‘I am so happy. I am in heaven.’149 Following his release, the Express ran an extended feature on the Voikhanskayas which focused on the third member of the family to join Misha and his grandmother on their journey to Britain – his Siamese cat Levquist. Levquist caught the attention of the Express’ journalists, who referred to Misha’s feline companion as ‘the cat who came in from the cold’ in an article entitled ‘The Cat’s Whiskers’. Despite the light-hearted commentary of this family reunion, this article also contained the stark reality of the attack on the Voikhanskayas by the Soviet authorities. Marina described the whole affair as being directly related to her intervention in cases of psychiatric abuse and her involvement with organizations in the West, noting that ‘it was to punish me. All my moves to get him to England were blocked by the KGB’. The authors of this article were also keen to stress that Misha’s release came after ‘a big campaign in the West’ which forced the Soviet authorities to relent, something that was good news for activists involved in this effort.150 Misha’s release suggested that the Soviet authorities’ stance on the dissidents was beginning to soften slightly at the turn of the decade, suggesting that their efforts were having a tangible effect, however slight.

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Media interest in Misha’s case did not disappear following his arrival in Britain. His release was even used by Michael Cummings, a cartoonist for the Daily Express, to mock James Callaghan in the run up to the 1979 general election. Cummings depicted Misha and his grandmother leaving their aeroplane after arriving in Britain carrying a suitcase with the slogan ‘We chose freedom from Communism’ and being welcomed at an airport by both the prime minister and his Conservative opponent Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was depicted in this cartoon as a model politician – well dressed, assertive and welcoming – in contrast to the powerless stooge of Callaghan, literally held up off his feet by a huge figure labelled ‘Jim’s successor’, dressed in Soviet military regalia complete with a variety of hammer and sickle insignias. ‘Jim’s successor’ looked demonic, equipped with a hypnotic glance directed at the Misha and his grandmother and outstretched arms offering a heavy handed and rather sinister welcome.151 The portrayal of Callaghan as little more than a Soviet crony was part of wider political developments attempting to discredit him in the run up to the 1979 general election. Cumming’s use of Misha’s case to discredit Callaghan in a tense period of British politics illustrates that it was well known enough among Daily Express readers for this satirical piece to make sense, highlighting how well reported his release had been. Misha’s new life in Cambridge was also reported in the national press, with The Guardian covering his first day at his new school, complete with a photograph of his new uniform and new name, having chosen to go by the more English ‘Mike’. This article referenced the worldwide campaign that had been conducted on his behalf, noting that his mother’s ‘battle’ for his release had finally paid off.152 Although at times subtle, the reports following Misha’s release to the West consistently highlighted the work of the campaigns conducted on his behalf to publicize this abuse, demonstrating a substantial development from earlier that decade where such campaigns were virtually non-existent. While the efforts of organizations such as CAPA in both raising awareness of Misha’s position and campaigning on his behalf were anonymous and grouped into a larger campaigning effort, their efforts doubtless impacted on the broader public awareness of the Soviet actions. Alongside their campaign for Misha, CAPA’s activism expanded in the late 1970s in the form of a variety of public events which included vigils of fasting and prayer, sponsored walks and more conventional demonstrations targeting Soviet exhibitions and cultural events.153 CAPA also ran a flying squad of activists in London who were ready to demonstrate at a moment’s notice. The flying squad were involved in protests outside Wembley Stadium during a display by Soviet gymnasts, and at a performance by a Soviet singer at Wigmore Hall, where Fainberg took to the stage before the encore began and gave a speech on Soviet psychiatric abuses to the audience. 154 While CAPA’s public campaign efforts were well intentioned, they were not always successful in raising the group’s profile. In December 1977, the group ran a vigil for over two weeks outside the entrance to Kensington Palace Gardens, London, close to the Soviet Embassy.155 However, despite the efforts that went into organizing this event, it was not reported by the British press. On a more successful note, like many other organizations in this period CAPA engaged in sending letters and Christmas cards to those in the Soviet Union who were victims of psychiatric abuse, demonstrating an awareness of their case in the West and offering a level of support. In a leaflet publicizing a campaign to send New Year cards to the Soviet Union, which included

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the details of a number of dissidents to write to, CAPA noted that their letters were to offer both ‘support and encouragement’ and to give dissidents ‘protection by informing their captors that people far away know and care about them’.156 CAPA’s letters were considered to have had a substantial impact on the lives of those persecuted by the Soviet regime and would have doubtless been of solace to the individual dissidents who received them. By the early 1980s, the pressure being put on the Soviet authorities by activists and organizations such as CAPA played a part in this issue being taken increasing seriously by national and international psychiatric organizations, who were growing tired of the deafening Soviet silence on this issue. Such pressure, based on the reliable information obtained by activist groups, made it particularly difficult for prominent Soviet psychiatrists to dismiss protests against their actions as propagandist attacks by Western governments. The claims of Andrei Snezhnevsky, who had stated in an Izvestia article in 1973 that ‘in fifty years of work in the Soviet public health service he knew of no case in which a healthy man was put in a psychiatric hospital’, stood apart from the information that was being received and distributed by activists in the West. Snezhnevsky was alleged on numerous occasions to have played a key role in the political abuse of psychiatry, utilizing his senior position at the Serbsky Institute in order to persecute dissidents.157 Such allegations were particularly serious for the Royal College, of whom Snezhnevsky held an honorary position despite the accusations about his unethical practices which went unanswered. Following discussions about his actions by the SCPAP, by December 1979 the Royal College had grown tired of Snezhnevsky’s evasion and informed him that he ‘had acted unethically and no longer warrants a place of honour in the Royal College of Psychiatrists … His direct involvement in the misuse of Soviet psychiatry seems incompatible with this privilege.’158 Snezhnevsky was given the opportunity to appear before the Royal College’s Court of Electors to defend himself against the accusations that he had been involved in the unethical practice of psychiatry but, prior to this meeting, he resigned his honorary position in embarrassing circumstances.159 Snezhnevsky’s resignation from the Royal College was given minimal publicity and was not reported by the British press, something that the SCPAP’s members agreed was unfortunate.160 The failure to effectively publicize Snezhnevsky’s resignation from this honorary position meant that little pressure was actually exerted on the Soviet authorities following what was a particularly embarrassing event. This could have been exploited as an important moment in ending the Soviet abuses, highlighting Snezhnevsky’s role in this unethical practice and reducing his international credibility as a psychiatrist. The decision to not publicize his resignation can be attributed to the fact that some members of the Royal College’s council did not want to give this case any publicity – perhaps through the embarrassment of Snezhnevsky having had an honorary position in the Royal College for so long.161 This is corroborated by Bloch and Reddaway, who noted that Snezhnevsky’s resignation was met with ‘no particular satisfaction’ by the Royal College, despite the fact that this was a tacit admission of unprofessional conduct by a senior Soviet psychiatrist. Instead, they contend that ‘the sense felt was one of sadness that such a procedure had been necessary in the first place’.162 This sense of frustration can also be seen in correspondence between

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Reddaway and Peter Sainsbury shortly after Snezhnevsky’s resignation, with Sainsbury noting that the letter accompanying his resignation was ‘quite purile[sic]’, although remarking with scant consolation that the resignation would save the college ‘substantial legal costs’.163 Following the relative ignorance of Snezhnevsky’s resignation, CAPA converged with the Working Group in May 1980 to hold an event at Central Hall, Westminster, to publically reiterate the facts surrounding the Soviet abuses utilizing the best material available. The centrepiece of this event was a public hearing on the cases of Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Leonard Ternovsky and Viktor Nekipelov – effectively a public trial of dissidents who had been subjected to psychiatric abuse – where translations of letters of support from concerned Soviet citizens were read.164 Evidence was also given at this ‘trial’ by Grigorenko, Bukovsky and the émigré psychiatrist Alexander Voloshanovich, three figures whose first-hand experience of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry gave them an authority that was all but impossible to refute.165 This ‘trial’ was chaired by Louis Blom-Cooper QC, a noted barrister who had been involved in the formation of Amnesty International in the early 1960s and was outspoken on a number of human rights issues. By collating individuals, and subsequently the information that they had in this public forum, CAPA and the Working Group were displaying both the reliability and volume of material they had on the Soviet abuses. Not only did this reiterate their expertise on this issue, but it also provided a public spectacle which, in the context of Snezhnevsky’s resignation and the accusations laid at him by the Royal College, could only confirm the barbarity of the Soviet authorities’ actions. This ‘trial’ was followed by a public meeting where several renowned figures spoke about the Soviet abuses, including Grigorenko, Voloshanovich, the Swedish psychiatrist Harold Blomberg, and the former Labour MP Eric Moonman. This day concluded with the signing of three open letters to prominent figures in the Soviet Union, registering concern at the plight of Bakhmin, Ternovsky and Nekipelov and calling for their release. The open letters were then sent to the Moscow City Procurator, the head of the Vladimir Region KGB, and Feliks Serebrov of the Moscow Working Commission, notifying him of the meeting and the two previous letters. Each letter received over 100 signatures, notifying both individual dissidents and Soviet officials that prominent figures in the West were concerned about the reports of abuse that they had received.166 This event, with its array of renowned figures that attended, drew the attention of the media. An article in The Times on the event focused particularly on Grigorenko’s involvement and his assertion that conditions for dissidents in the Soviet Union was rapidly deteriorating.167 The highly respected scientific journal Nature also ran a short report on the mock trial, noting that the Soviet authorities appeared to be sensitive towards allegations of psychiatric abuse being discussed in this manner.168 While the reporting of this event in The Times could be overlooked, the article in Nature, a publication that was deeply respected in the Soviet Union, can only have added to pressure being heaped onto the Soviet authorities, especially coming so shortly after Snezhnevsky’s embarrassing resignation from the Royal College. While CAPA and the Working Group were effective in their individual campaigns, by the early 1980s their joint activity highlighted that a unified approach was proving

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increasingly effective for activists, preventing a dilution of their efforts. It was recognized that this activism would be even more effective if it went beyond British borders, and in December 1980 the Working Group joined with activists from France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands to form the International Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (IAPUP).169 CAPA later joined IAPUP in the summer of 1982, reuniting its campaigning efforts with the Working Group.170 Given the efforts of individual organizations across Europe in putting pressure on the WPA and national psychiatric associations to, in turn, put pressure on the Soviet authorities, it was clear that a more coordinated effort from activists would have more impact. Allan Wynn, who later became the Chairman of the Working Group, attributed the formation of IAPUP to the efforts of Reddaway in taking the initiative to bring together European groups working on the issue of Soviet psychiatric abuse so that they could speak with a more united voice.171 IAPUP was not a typical international organization. Instead, it was a confederation of concerned bodies, something that had a significant effect on the way in which the group functioned. Perhaps most notably, IAPUP meetings were particularly lengthy and cumbersome as the sheer array of languages from the different delegates affiliated to organizations from differing countries meant that communication was very slow. Alongside this, there was no essential need for all affiliate members of IAPUP to reach a consensus. Meetings therefore revolved around the need to persuade others to a particular point of view, which led to lengthy and sometimes heated discussions.172 Robert Van Voren, an activist who played a leading role in IAPUP, noted that some activists found novel ways of dealing with issues, recalling that at meetings Low-Beer would ‘doze off and slowly his snoring would fill the room. However, right at the moment when a decision had to be made he would wake up, voice his opinion, and after the decision was taken he would continue his nap.’173 For activists in Britain, perhaps the biggest impact that the formation of IAPUP had was the need for the Working Group and CAPA to become more acquainted with activism against the Soviet abuses across Europe. This came mostly through regular IAPUP bulletins, which replaced the News Bulletins previously produced by the Working Group. The decision to combine the Working Group’s publication with IAPUP was communicated to its supporters in a letter from Reddaway in June 1981 which, as well as notifying the Working Group’s merger with IAPUP, also noted Reddaway’s personal thanks for supporters who ‘responded so generously to our request for financial support for the News Bulletin production’.174 The IAPUP bulletins formed the major output of the organization, and were a development in both content and frequency in comparison to their predecessor produced by the Working Group. They contained substantially more in the way of up-to-date information, giving them a flavour more akin to the regular reports from contemporary human rights organizations. Unlike the Working Group’s sporadic production of reports, IAPUP bulletins were produced on a regular basis from its foundation, with two to three reports per year being produced in the early 1980s. The most notable difference between IAPUP bulletins and those of the Working Group was the reporting of issues from a broader transnational position rather than solely from a British perspective. IAPUP bulletins contained reports about the activism of likeminded groups in continental Europe and North America, going

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beyond the more insular reporting of the Working Group bulletins. For example IAPUP bulletin No. 2, published in October 1981, reported on the activism of the German Association Against the Political Abuse of Psychiatry, the Swiss Association against Psychiatric Abuse for Political Purposes and the Canadian Psychiatrists Against Psychiatric Abuse, offering a broader European approach.175 Despite the new scope and increased frequency of the IAPUP bulletins, the quality established in the Working Group bulletins was maintained. This was due to the editorial work of Reddaway and Christine Shaw, which undoubtedly developed from their Working Group publications. While the editorship of both Working Group and IAPUP bulletins are not mentioned explicitly in the publications themselves, Wynn has suggested that the reason for the high quality of IAPUP bulletins was due to the ‘extraordinary care and attention devoted to them by the principal editors, Peter Reddaway, and later, Dr Christine Shaw’. Given the similarity in style between the Working Group and IAPUP bulletins, and the involvement of both Shaw and Reddaway in the Working Group, one can assume that they played a key role in the production of both publications. 176 After the formation of IAPUP in 1980, the individual efforts of the Working Group did not cease, and their efforts were regularly reported in a dedicated section of the IAPUP bulletin. In June 1982, Wynn became the Chairman of the organization, replacing Reddaway who had done so much to establish the reputation of the group since its foundation and maintained his involvement with the group as its Vice-Chairman.177 Wynn notes in his memoir account Notes of a Non-Conspirator: Working with Russian Dissidents that the Working Group devoted most of its time during this period to ‘accumulating, assessing and correlating “objective” evidence on the abuse’, continuing the empirical approach to its activism that it had taken since its foundation.178 From 1980 to 1983, IAPUP bulletins noted that the efforts of the Working Group was focused on increasing awareness of psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union through articles in the mainstream and scientific press, and by its members appearing on television documentaries.179 This aim was doubtless aided by its close relationship with the Royal College through the SCPAP. In the years leading up to the 1983 WPA world congress in Vienna, it was becoming increasingly clear that the AUSNP were virtually ignoring all of the outcomes of the 1977 WPA congress. By early 1981, the WPA Review Committee had received 27 complaints about psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union from nine WPA member societies, to which the AUSNP had remained deafeningly silent, despite being prompted to respond by the WPA’s Executive Committee. So much so, that in October 1981, Jean-Yves Gosselin, the Chairman of the Review Committee, wrote to the WPA’s Executive Committee noting his frustrations with the Soviet silence and the inability of the Review Committee to make any progress without their participation.180 The SCPAP’s frustrations at the lack of response from the AUSNP led the committee to look for new ways to put pressure on the Soviet authorities. In February 1981 the SCPAP’s members discussed the lack of Soviet response at length, concluding that following informal consultations with the WPA a resolution could be put to the Royal College calling for the AUSNP’s expulsion from the WPA.181 This was a bold suggestion, but one that was felt necessary in order to more resolutely challenge Soviet psychiatrists. As Bloch and Reddaway have noted, ‘the idea of expulsion had thus crystallized as an option in the

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face of Soviet intransigence’. The timing of this move was also importance, coming two years before the next scheduled WPA world congress, which would give plenty of time to gain support from other national organizations for a resolution calling for the Soviet’s expulsion.182 Following attempts by the SCPAP to put direct pressure on Soviet psychiatrists by writing to them directly about the treatment of individual dissidents, it was becoming clear that more substantial action was needed.183 As a result, in May 1981 the SCPAP recommended that a draft resolution calling for the Soviet expulsion should be put to the Royal College’s governing council. Following a short delay, owing to Peter Berner, the President of the WPA, visiting the Royal College, this resolution was put to its members in November 1981. This resolution, which was drafted and proposed by Sidney Bloch and seconded by Peter Sainsbury, stated: In view of (a) well-documented evidence of the continuing, systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the Soviet Union since the General Assembly’s resolution of September 1977 to ‘renounce and expunge these practices’, and (b) the failure of the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists to cooperate at all with the WPA’s Review Committee on Political Abuse of Psychiatry in its investigation of various complaints by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other WPA members societies, this General Assembly resolves that the All-Union Society should now be expelled from the WPA until such time as the All-Union Soviet can show that the political abuse of psychiatry has been brought to an end.184

The reasoning behind this resolution could not be clearer – because the AUSNP had not effectively responded to the issues raised by the WPA since its Honolulu congress, it no longer had a legitimate place in international psychiatry. Sainsbury noted in a letter to Berner that such as strongly worded criticism was justified as ‘the Soviet authorities are more likely to respond to a challenge of this kind than by personal approached to our psychiatric colleagues in Russia’ and ‘the USSR places value and importance on its membership of international scientific bodies and would want to avoid the embarrassment of being excluded from them’.185 Despite this justification for strong measures, the outcome of this resolution was not universally agreed upon by the membership of the Royal College. Some members reputedly felt that a suspension of the AUSNP would be more appropriate, fearing the alienation of a vast number of psychiatrists who had not necessarily been involved in cases of abuse. Nevertheless, the clause allowing the AUSNP re-entry to the WPA once ‘the political abuse of psychiatry [had] been brought to an end’ effectively made the proposed expulsion a non-time specific suspension, and as a result the resolution was passed by a large majority.186 The President of the Royal College Kenneth Rawnsley informed the WPA of this decision in a letter to Berner, requesting that this resolution be considered by the WPA’s Executive Committee and be included for discussion at its world congress due to be held in Vienna in 1983.187 The Royal College’s strongly worded 1981 resolution condemning the abuses conducted by Soviet psychiatrists was, according to Bloch and Reddaway, ‘unprecedented in the history of the College, and probably in the history of psychiatry’.188 Even more unprecedented was the phone call that the Royal College

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received from a Soviet diplomat shortly after this resolution had been passed, inviting a representative of the College to the Soviet Embassy to discuss the issue further. The shock of this invitation is clear in Bloch and Reddaway’s account of the resolution, which stated that ‘for several years the College, and other British groups, had been trying to communicate with the Ambassador – in vain. The door was always closed. The call for Soviet expulsion had dramatically produced the opposite effect – no less than a cordial invitation to discuss the whole issue!’189 On 9 December 1981 the SCPAP members Sidney Levine and Peter Sainsbury were received by Sergei Ivanov, the Soviet Union’s scientific attaché at the Soviet Embassy. In his account of this meeting which was submitted to the SCPAP, Sainsbury noted his apologies for not contacting more members of the committee in advance of his visit to the Embassy. However, reiterating the influence that activist groups had on the SCPAP, he notes that during his preparations he was in touch with both Amnesty International and Reddaway, highlighting the greater expertise that they had on this issue that members of the Royal College’s specialist committee on the matter. Despite initial problems getting passed the Soviet doorkeeper, Levine and Sainsbury reputedly spent nearly two hours discussing the abuses. Ivanov was particularly interested in the events leading up to the proposal of the Royal College’s 1981 resolution, and the accuracy of the information that had been assessed regarding the abuses. In turn, Sainsbury reiterated the growing frustrations at the Soviet silence on the reports of abuses, and that many national psychiatric organizations agreed with the Royal College’s position on the matter.190 This meeting, which in itself was a remarkable shift by Soviet diplomats who had previously completely ignored pressures in Britain, was doubtless an information gathering exercise by the Soviet authorities, but one that was also of much use to the SCPAP. The opportunity to continue this dialogue could aid its attempts to persuade Soviet psychiatrists to cease their abuses, and as a result a second meeting between Ivanov, Levine, and Sainsbury took place at the Royal College on 27 April 1982. According to an account of the meeting drawn up by Levine, Ivanov suggested that it was important to rebuild the relations between Soviet and British psychiatric organizations that had deteriorated following the Honolulu congress. He suggested that the Royal College invite two senior Soviet psychiatrists to address a meeting of the college; namely Ruben Nadzharov and Marat Vartanyan – two psychiatrists well acquainted to members of the SCPAP following the numerous reports of their involvement in cases of abuse. Levine also noted Ivanov’s anxiety that only psychiatrists be allowed to attend such a meeting, something that he put down to the fact that Ivanov ‘clearly did not relish the prospect of a confrontation with Mr Bukovsky or for that matter Peter Reddaway’; again reiterating the influence that activists had on the SCPAP’s members. Ivanov’s suggestions clearly left little impression on Levine, whose account of this meeting highlighted his personal frustrations, stressing that ‘matters had progressed beyond a point where some bland generalisations about Soviet psychiatric practice would be acceptable’.191 Ivanov’s proposals for further meetings were discussed at length by the SCPAP who agreed that ‘the suggestion was appreciated but we do not think a meeting with these two particular gentlemen would be profitable. We were already well acquainted with their views’ and that a better way

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to re-establish relations between the Royal College and the AUSNP would be for a group of College members to visit a wide range of institutions in the Soviet Union.192 Following his meetings with Soviet diplomats, Sainsbury asked Reddaway for his views on the developing relations between the Soviet Embassy and the SCPAP, reiterating the importance of his expertise for the committee and his influence over its direction. Reddaway noted that his major concern about this relationship was that [t]o be drawn into direct negotiations with this government on professional and scientific exchanges would, it seems to me, be a) formally improper, b) undignified, c) disorientating to both doctors and the public, at home and abroad, and anyway d) futile, because there is no chance that the outcome would satisfy any of the College’s real concerns.193

Reddaway’s concerns, which appear to be largely shared by the members of the SCPAP demonstrate that the efforts to engage in reconciliation between the Royal College and its Soviet counterparts were bound to fail. Indeed, they became increasingly unlikely throughout 1982, as international pressure on the AUSNP grew at a steady pace. By mid-1982, the APA and the Danish Psychiatric Association followed the Royal College’s lead and had taken active steps to put pressure on the AUSNP. They were joined by the end of the year by psychiatric organizations in Australia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.194 By the end of 1982, it was becoming increasingly clear that the General Assembly of the WPA would vote for the expulsion of the AUSNP.195 On 3 January 1983 Reddaway noted in an article for The Guardian that ‘in recent weeks, the odds on the Society of Soviet Psychiatrists being expelled from the World Psychiatric Association have increased greatly’.196 By the end of that month his predictions had come true. On 31 January 1983, the AUSNP sent a letter to the Executive Committee of the WPA, noting that it ‘no longer considers it possible to remain a member of the WPA, and hereby officially notifies the leadership of its departure from the WPA’. In this letter, the AUSNP detailed its criticisms of the ‘whole slanderous campaign’ that was being conducted against it, something that it denounced as ‘blatantly political in nature’ and ‘directed against Soviet psychiatry in the spirit of the “cold war” against the Soviet Union’. It particularly blamed the ‘active role’ played in this campaign by the leadership of the APA and the Royal College, blaming the US administration for interfering in the work of national psychiatric organizations critical of Soviet psychiatry. It was also critical of the WPA, highlighting that a ‘discriminatory mechanism was employed in Honolulu against Soviet psychiatry when a slanderous resolution was pushed through’. Of all its statements, its claim that ‘many outstanding psychiatrists from Western countries, including WPA members, during their visit to the USSR, at their request, had the opportunity to examine the corresponding patients in whom they were interested, and no one expressed any doubts as to the correctness of the diagnosis of the mental diseases’ would have particularly struck activists in the West – particularly those such as Low-Beer, who had personally assessed Soviet dissidents who had been

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detained and raised concerns about their diagnoses.197 In spite of the stern rebuttal of the accusations it faced, and the attempts to politicize the campaign against it, the AUSNP’s resignation was deeply embarrassing for the Soviet authorities. Van Voren noted that the AUSNP’s resignation led to ‘an enormous loss of prestige’ for the Soviet Union as ‘never before had a superpower been forced to leave a global scientific organization because of violations of human rights’.198 This was more than the Soviet authorities trying to avoid criticism and external pressure for its domestic policy, but a dramatic and embarrassing destruction of international reputation for its medical and scientific prowess, which, in the context of the wider ideological conflict of the Cold War, was immensely damaging to its international prestige. While this was an embarrassing resignation, it is important to note that it was only a fraction of the potential embarrassment that Soviet psychiatrists could have faced had they been expelled from the WPA, which would have carried with it the weight of international psychiatry condemning the Soviet actions. While Bloch and Reddaway noted that the AUSNP’s resignation ‘came as a thunderbolt’, the reality is that it was largely overlooked by the British press.199 The news of the AUSNP’s resignation, which was made public on 10 February 1983, was consigned to smaller articles buried in the newspapers in the weeks following the announcement, including two short articles in The Times and an article by Reddaway in The Observer from 13 February entitled ‘Why Russia quit psychiatric body’.200 This lack of publicity was due in part to the Royal College’s minimal efforts to highlight this issue, but can also be attributed to the growing inevitability that the AUSNP would have been expelled from the WPA at its forthcoming world congress. As a result of this its ‘shock’ resignation was, in fact, anything but a surprise for many. Perhaps unsurprisingly, activists that had been campaigning against the Soviet abuses welcomed the news of the AUSNP’s resignation. In a statement released on behalf of the Working Group, Allan Wynn recognized the resignation ‘as a tacit admission that political psychiatry has been practiced in the USSR and as a sign that the new Kremlin leadership may have taken the first steps to abolish this perversion of medicine’. He also stated his belief that the ‘process of abolition [would] take place gradually and unobtrusively and [would] take some time as structural and personnel changes will be necessary’ and retained a hope that once the Soviet authorities had completed this process, the AUSNP would be re-admitted to the WPA.201 Shortly after the resignation, Wynn published an article in The Lancet outlining his thoughts on the resignation, arguing that it was a significant victory for human rights that would pay dividends in the long term.202 In contrast, the SCPAP’s reaction to the AUSNP’s resignation, which dominated its meeting on 24 February 1983, was one of frustration. Low-Beer noted his concerns that the Royal College’s proposed resolution on the Soviet abuses would not be discussed by delegates at the 1983 WPA world congress, as it would be impossible to expel a member organization that had resigned. Levine also noted that after his initial reaction of ‘pleasure’ on hearing of the AUSNP withdrawal, he became concerned that not enough publicity had been given to this resignation, something that he felt should be exploited further than it was.203 Instead of being a crowning moment for

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the SCPAP’s members, the AUSNP’s resignation from the WPA culminated in a sense of frustration that matters had gone that far. *** The rapid developments that occurred in the campaign against the Soviet authorities’ political abuse of psychiatry in the short period between the exchange of Vladimir Bukovsky for Luis Corvalan during a cold snap in December 1976 and the AUSNP’s embarrassing withdrawal from the WPA on 31 December 1983 captures the dramatic shift that occurred in international relations in this period. When this is compared to the relative ignorance of this issue in the late 1960s, the shifting awareness of the Soviet abuse of psychiatry among the British public becomes even more marked. The reason for the speed of this development is complex and linked to the broader shifts in international relations that were occurring in this period. However, the actions of individuals such as Sidney Bloch, Gery Low-Beer and Peter Reddaway, among other activists, played a significant role in how developments played out. The condemnation of the AUSNP at the 1977 WPA congress in Honolulu and the establishment of the WPA’s Review Committee rapidly accelerated the reputation of activists, as national psychiatric organizations took part in the rush to expertise. The authority of activists, developed in a period when the plight of the Soviet dissidents was largely overlooked and provided them with a powerful platform when the ‘last utopia’ began to blossom in the mid-1970s and concerns for human rights issue came to play an important part in the Cold War. By being recognized as experts on the issue of the Soviet abuses through their publications and public efforts, activists not only influenced the direction of powerful organizations such as the Royal College towards the Soviet Union, they crafted their response.

3

Prisoner’s Banquets, Ghosts and the Ballet – The Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry

Jonathan Cohen: ‘Hello? Is that Mental Hospital number 36? May I speak to Dr Radzishevsky, the senior medical officer, please? …’ Dr Radzishevsky: ‘… Radzishevsky speaking’ Cohen: ‘My name is Jonathan Cohen. I am phoning from London. I understand that you are holding a perfectly healthy person named Yuli Brind.’ Radzishevsky: ‘His case is under review and awaiting expert advice. His physical and mental condition are to be examined’ Cohen: ‘His mother phoned me and said that he is completely healthy’ Radzishevsky: ‘He will soon appear before a board of professors and doctors and they will decide whether he is sick or not’ Cohen: ‘We here in England hope that you are not keeping healthy people in mental hospitals’ Radzishevsky: ‘We look at these things objectively’ Cohen: ‘We hope so. May I phone you again after the board has met? When will that be?’ Radzishevsky: ‘Probably in about a week or so’ Cohen: ‘When exactly?’ Radzishevsky: ‘Sunday’ Cohen: ‘I’ll phone you after Sunday’ Radzishevsky: ‘All right’ Cohen: ‘Goodbye’1

This telephone exchange, which was reported by the journalist John Windsor in an article in The Guardian in May 1972, was a typical form of activism conducted by those concerned about individuals in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. On

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occasions such as this, it had remarkable success in both acquiring information about the position of individual dissidents and putting direct pressure on the Soviet authorities. Following this brief exchange, Cohen expressed his amazement to Windsor that Dr Radzishevsky gave him any information at all about Brind, a Soviet Jew who was being persecuted following his application for an exit visa to emigrate to Israel, stating that ‘I think I caught him on the hop’. Regular telephone calls to the Soviet Union kept activists in Britain abreast of the latest developments, but were a constant source of frustration for his wife as they went on late into the evening. The length of Cohen’s frequent conversations meant that ‘she daren’t put the egg and chips on the table for fear they will be left to get cold’. His efforts were described by Windsor as being ‘untypical of the British Jewish contacts who keep the telephone lines to Russia buzzing night after night’. He was an untypical activist not because of his style of activism, nor for his tenacity in making frequent and lengthy telephone calls. Instead, he was untypical because of his gender.2 British campaigns on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s were dominated by the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, which was more commonly known by its nickname ‘the 35’s’. The 35’s were formed in the context of a growing sense of frustration at the perceived lack of support for persecuted Soviet Jewry from the established Jewish bodies in Britain, such as the Board of Deputies.3 While the Six Day War in June 1967 had a huge impact on galvanizing Soviet Jewry, an event described by the prominent dissident Anatoly Shcharansky as having an ‘indelible impression’ both on himself and Soviet Jewry more broadly, and the outrage at the Dymshits-Kuznetsov affair in June 1970 had been widely reported in the West, there was remarkably little activism against the Soviet Union from Jewish organizations in Britain.4 One of the most systematic attacks on religious believers by the Soviet authorities was its attacks on the refuseniks – Jews who had applied to leave the Soviet Union but were refused the necessary exit visas by the Soviet authorities.5 Refuseniks were often targeted for persecution by state officials due to this request to leave; they were being forced out of work (a punishment made worse by the fact that being unemployed was a criminal offence in Soviet law), assaulted, and in some cases imprisoned on a series of trumped-up charges. Ijo Rager, a counsellor in charge of Soviet Jewish affairs at the Israeli Embassy in London from 1971 to 1973, thought that Jewish housewives in Britain would be a great force to use in a campaign supporting Soviet Jewry in the face of this persecution, owing to the amount of spare time that they had available. He noted that ‘women activists could be a good gimmick’, so he started to approach women’s organizations for candidates to lead such a campaign. His enquiries highlighted a number of figures; foremost among them were Doreen Gainsford and Barbara Oberman, who, along with a number of like-minded supporters, formed a Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry.6 This was perhaps an unusual group to take a stand against the authorities of the Soviet Union and one that, in the context of domineering international statesmen of the early 1970s, appears unlikely to have had much political success. However, their actions went on to play a significant part in the emigration of thousands of refuseniks to Israel and other countries around the world, and their activism arguably had an impact on the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. John Windsor was perhaps right

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to note that Dr Radzishevsky ‘must come to regret the day that he tangled with the Jewish housewives’ communications network’, to whom Cohen regularly passed his information.7

A Developing Reputation for Demonstration Throughout the 1970s, the 35’s developed a reputation for outlandish demonstrations on behalf of the refuseniks. Their demonstrations were reliant on the group’s utilization of imagery and symbolism, through which they drew attention to their cause. On 2 May 1971 members of the fledgling organization took part in the organization’s first event, a 24-hour vigil and hunger strike to highlight the plight of Raiza Palatnik – an imprisoned refusenik from the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Members of the group gathered outside the Soviet Embassy in London under a large banner bearing the slogan ‘KGB STOP TORTURING RAIZA PALATNIK’. When they contacted journalists about their protest, attempting to gain publicity for their actions, members of the group played upon the mathematics surrounding their demonstration. As an article in The Guardian reporting on the event noted, an unnamed member of the group explained to the paper that ‘Raiza Palatnik is a 35-year-old married woman at present imprisoned by the secret police in Odessa. There are 35 of us here for this vigil, and we are all 35 years old.’ Barbara Oberman added that although Palatnik had been tortured by the Soviet authorities, ‘her spirit has not been broken’.8 Daphne Gerlis, a member of the campaign who has written a history of the organization in the book Those Wonderful Women in Black, noted that Doreen Gainsford, a public relations officer for an offshoot of the Dior fashion company, contacted a number of journalists about this protest explaining ‘we are a group of 35 girls, demonstrating outside the Soviet Embassy for the release of a Jewish woman imprisoned because she wants to go to Israel. She is 35 years of age and we are here for 35 hours.’ Gainsford played a leading role at this protest due to the fact that she had once taken part in a ‘Ban the Bomb’ protest march to Aldermaston; although scant experience, this was enough to put her ahead of her peers.9 Highlighting her background in public relations, she exaggerated the group’s hunger strike to thirty-five hours from the planned twenty-four hours to make the numbers match, providing a better story for the media. During one of her numerous calls to journalists with this message, a reporter at the Daily Telegraph clearly frustrated at the repeated telephone calls from the group reputedly exclaimed across the newsroom ‘it’s the 35’s again’, and the nickname stuck.10 Playing on this foundation, the group referred to themselves as ‘the 35’s’, with individual members becoming ‘35ers’, and this number became an important part of the group’s identity, appearing prominently on their publications, letters and demonstration banners. This was a rather shrewd move from a publicity point of view, as ‘the 35’s’ is a much neater slogan for a demonstration banner than the more unwieldy ‘Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry’. This is apparent in The Guardian’s coverage of the group’s first demonstration, which, despite including a photo of the group’s protest in a prominent part of the newspaper, did not explicitly

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reference the campaign’s full name in the accompanying article, only referring to the group as ‘the 35s by 35’. Despite this relative anonymity, the group’s efforts to draw attention to their cause were ultimately successful, with this article noting that the group’s aim was ‘to let people know that there are many Jews in Russia like Mrs Palatnik: imprisoned for religious attitudes but not allowed to leave the Soviet Union as they wish and go to Israel’. 11 Having this line printed in a national newspaper was, in itself, a success for the campaign, which was bolstered by further reports on the campaign’s work for Palatnik, albeit anonymously, later that week in The Observer.12 The story of how the 35’s acquired their unusual nickname, much like the stories and symbols used by other NGOs formed in this period, is useful for highlighting both the nature of the organization, and what it sought to achieve. In the case of the 35’s, it is clear that even from its foundation, the role of the media and publicity was to become essential to its working. As Matthew Hilton and others have noted in The Politics of Expertise, foundation myths used by NGOs ‘should be understood not as histories, but as marketing exercises’.13 This can be seen in the case of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry with its adoption of the 35’s as a nickname, highlighting both the group’s desire to obtain media attention through its demonstrations from its foundation and the steps that it was willing to take to make it as easy as possible. Despite this relative proficiency with the media through the establishment of its nickname, the 35’s were far from an immaculately slick and organized media-savvy organization in the early 1970s that this story suggests. In truth, the campaign still had some way to go to find its feet – something that was emphasized by the relative naivety of its supporters who lacked sufficient awareness of how to campaign and raise public knowledge of the refusenik issue. During their initial vigil for Palatnik, which was importantly a hunger strike, Oberman recalled that ‘the father of one of the group drove up in his Rolls-Royce with food for the “starving girls”. We had to ask him to disappear – fast.’14 The image of a hunger strike being aided by a well-wisher in a luxury car was clearly not one that the group wished to cultivate. Throughout the 1970s, the 35’s utilized an array of symbolism and humour in their demonstrations to draw attention to the plight of the refuseniks, which was often reliant on strong imagery. One of the symbols that the 35’s repeatedly used was that of the ‘prisoner’s banquet’, where prominent figures would be invited by the organization to take part in a ceremonial meal of the type that a dissident would partake in every day while in prison. In February 1972, the group invited members of parliament to take part in one of their banquets at the House of Commons.15 Even the most glamorous were invited to take part in the gruesome meals. On 29 March 1973 The Guardian featured a report of the actress Ingrid Bergman attending a banquet where she ate an unappetizing meal comprised of a ‘watery cabbage soup, a lump of black bread, a boiled potato, an ounce of raw cod, a lump of sugar, a pat of butter, and a glass of water’ – a far cry from the extravagance of her Casablanca days. This revolting combination of food led Bergman to suffer a ‘mild attack of nausea’, and her displeasure is clear in the photograph accompanying this article, in which she is tentatively sipping at her watery soup. The imagery conjured up by this unappealing menu was heightened by the fact that the 35’s had designed it to replicate

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the type of meal that the refusenik Sylva Zalmanson was being forced to eat during her imprisonment following her involvement in the Dymshits-Kuznetsov Affair. This food was aptly described by Bergman as ‘just to keep you alive. It is figured out so exactly that though you might rather die, it forces you to stay on’ – a description that aptly fitted the refuseniks themselves.16 By connecting this revolting meal to an individual, the 35’s were deftly using strong imagery to present the conditions experienced by the refuseniks in a very real manner, rather than the more distant accounts of life in the Soviet Union that were widespread. Another staple of the 35’s demonstrations was the stage invasion of public events where Soviet cultural delegations of musicians, athletes or dancers were performing. Much like their demonstrations, their stage invasions were designed to catch the attention of both the media and those attending, if only for the nerve showed by the 35ers. In November 1972, an article in The Times reported that members of the Women’s Campaign wearing football jerseys invaded Crystal Palace’s pitch at Selhurst Park moments before they were due to start a friendly fixture against the visiting Russian champions Leningrad Zenit. The 35ers were again protesting on behalf of Zalmanson, with a spokesman from the group noting to the press that ‘this women’s crime was her wish to go to Israel’. The efforts of the 35’s at this event not only disrupted the match itself but provided the opportunity for a number of photographs of bemused footballers, themselves at the forefront of Soviet propaganda efforts, receiving leaflets from activists on the pitch outlining abuses conducted by the regime they were there to promote.17 Similarly rowdy events occurred in June 1973, when the 35’s conducted another stage invasion, this time at the Coliseum Theatre, London, where the Georgian State Dance Company was performing. Once again, The Times reported on this event, publishing another photograph of 35ers in action. It showed five members of the group standing on the stage of the Coliseum, opening umbrellas emblazoned with the phrase ‘USSR STOP ANTI-SEMITISM’, evidently smuggled into the theatre specifically for such a stunt.18 Sometimes the bold nature of the 35’s protests necessitated action from the authorities in Britain. In November 1973, several 35ers chained themselves to the door of the Cavendish Hotel in Piccadilly, London, where an exhibition of Russian art was being held. Given the public disturbance that this incident caused, the Metropolitan police intervened, forcibly breaking the handcuffs and releasing the protestors. According to a report in The Times the bolt croppers used by the police to free the 35ers reputedly ‘dated from the suffragette days, and were brought from Cannon Row police station for the occasion’. The bolt croppers that were used had allegedly once been used to break the handcuffs of a suffragette protest, illustrating a symbolic link between the two groups.19 The Daily Mail also ran an article on this protest, including photographs of the famous bolt croppers and the chained 35ers. Despite the commotion this action caused, much like the previous actions by the campaign, this article reiterated the message that the demonstration was designed to spread. One of the protesters noted their reasoning for this action to a journalist from the paper, stating ‘we feel it is immoral for this exhibition to continue at a time when a Soviet Jew is being put on trial for doing nothing more than apply for a visa to Israel’.20

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In order to best promote their campaign message, the 35’s designed their demonstrations in order to cause a scene, especially for those with tickets to cultural performances which had been designed as propaganda pieces for the communist regime. In June 1974 the Daily Mirror reported on a performance of Swan Lack by the famous Bolshoi Ballet at the Coliseum Theatre, London. The Bolshoi’s performance gained much publicity, owing in part to the adult film actress Linda Lovelace’s attendance at this event, an appearance that was reported on the front page of the Daily Mirror alongside a large, and revealing, photograph of her in a see-through dress.21 Those attending this performance expecting the glitz and glamour of high Soviet culture were instead greeted by nearly 200 policemen on duty and an array of demonstrators chanting ‘KGB stop persecuting the Jews’ and waving a number of banners protesting the Soviet abuses. Among the protestors were more than fifty 35ers who taunted ticket holders as they arrived at the theatre, slowly clapping their arrival at this controversial performance. Far from destroying the spectacle, Robin Young noted in The Spectator that the 35’s demonstrations inside and outside the Coliseum Theatre, and the threat of imminent disruption of the Bolshoi’s performance, added to the excitement of the company’s return to London.22 Those attending this event would have been aware of the political controversy surrounding it, and the potential of a disruption added to the drama of seeing such a performance. After members of the audience had been searched on their way into the theatre, ostensibly to prevent the smuggling of contraband that might affect the performance, they were once again greeted with a large police presence inside the theatre. Despite attempts to prevent any disturbances to the performance once the Bolshoi had begun, there were repeated interruptions to the ballet which ranged from individual audience members standing up to note their protests against Soviet regime through to the more inventive ‘high-pitch whine’ that emitted from a device concealed inside a discarded chocolate box. After the device was ‘warily poked’ by police officers, it was decided safe enough to be ‘thrown out of a window’, where it was later discovered to be a battery-operated vibrator with a siren attachment. Despite the interruptions, the ballet itself went on unabated, but the assault on the audience from the demonstrators did not finish with the performance. While leaving the theatre, members of the audience were forced to run a gauntlet flanked by protestors heckling them with chants of ‘shame’. While this portrays a more vicious side to the 35’s demonstrations, it was not all aggressive. An image accompanying a report of this event in the Daily Mirror sums up the lighter side of this demonstration, capturing a police sergeant carrying a toy machine-gun that had been confiscated from someone at this demonstration. Owing to this image, the event, in typical tabloid fashion, was dubbed ‘the Toy Gun Demo’ by the paper.23 Not all stage invasions or demonstrations conducted by the 35’s in the early 1970s were reported with tales of such aggression. In complete contrast to ‘the Toy Gun Demo’, a demonstration by thirteen 35ers against the sale of Russian icons at Sotheby’s in February 1973 was conducted with remarkable politeness and restraint by the demonstrators. A spokesman for the famous London auctioneer succinctly noted to the press that ‘it was all very polite. They unfurled a banner and one of them apologized. Afterwards they left.’ When put into context this is a remarkable

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response, given the clear attempt by the 35’s to hijack the occasion for their own ends. The unusual location for a political protest made it all the more notable, with staff from the auctioneer stating to a journalist from The Times that it was the only demonstration they could remember ever taking place there.24 The gracious nature of some of the 35’s protests can also be seen in the humorous manner in which they were led. In November 1976, the 35’s took part in a spooky demonstration during the visit of Boris Ponomarev, a member of the Soviet Politburo, to London at the invitation of the Labour Party. Ponomarev had reputedly masterminded the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an event that had led many in the Soviet Union into political dissent. Ponomarev’s trip to Britain was dogged by protests, which began when he landed at London’s Heathrow airport and included an angry exchange with Greville Janner, an MP who had tried to give him a facsimile copy of Magna Carta and a Jewish prayer book that had been signed by 250 MPs at a Labour Party meeting held at the House of Commons. Janner told the press that ‘I asked Mr. Ponomarev if he would accept the copy of Magna Carta as a symbol of British concern for our own freedom, and the prayer book as a symbol of our concern for others’. This was regarded by Ponomarev as a great insult; he refused to accept both the documents and banged the table and shouted in protest.25 While later paying his respects at the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, Ponomarev became haunted by a number of spirits who declared themselves as ‘the ghosts of Karl Marx carrying the spirit of the Helsinki Agreement that you have murdered by persecuting Soviet Jewry’. The ghosts took care to remind the high-ranking Soviet official in both Russian and English that ‘Marx was a Jew’, before he was spirited away by his aides. The haunting was not only seen by Ponomarev’s visiting delegation but also by nearly fifty members of the Soviet Embassy who had also come to pay their respects. Although the ghosts were 35ers crudely dressed in bed sheets, the spectacle of Ponomarev being haunted was a perfectly judged media event, described by the Daily Mirror as ‘the haunting of Red Boris’. Ponomarev’s unwelcome visit to Britain was reported around the world, with the Chinese People’s Daily noting that he had made ‘a sorry spectacle of himself … unwelcome everywhere, greeted with jeers, condemnation and even abuse’.26 Throughout their various demonstrations in the early 1970s, the 35’s desire to attract media attention is ever present. Reports on the humorous nature of the 35’s protests, such as the haunting of Red Boris, bemused Leningrad Zenit footballers and police officers confiscating toy machine guns, also carried the more serious news of the refuseniks. The group’s campaigning methods were a humorous vehicle through which serious concerns were reiterated, one that was engineered explicitly to appeal to journalists. The relationship between the 35’s and the press was key to their campaigns, and it gave them an effective tool to spread their message to a much larger audience than their traditional street protests and demonstrations could ever reach. This paid dividends, with many national newspapers reporting on both their demonstrations and the position of individual refuseniks that the group was working to support, such as Palatnik and Zalmanson. This ensured that the persecution of Soviet Jewry was highlighted in an array of media outlets where it would have otherwise been ignored. The 35’s utilized emotional rhetoric throughout their campaigns, which was made explicit when, on a number of occasions, the group hosted refuseniks who had

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been successful in their applications for exit visas. During the visits that the former refuseniks paid to Britain, the 35’s drew on their ability to create a media spectacle to attract attention both to their guests and their campaign. For example, in February 1972 the 35’s invited Katia Palatnik to join them in London for two weeks. Katia had campaigned in the Soviet Union on behalf of her sister Raiza – who had been arrested and accused of distributing anti-Soviet literature – by telephoning Western activists and giving them details of the refuseniks’ position. Somewhat unexpectedly, Katia was granted an exit visa by the Soviet authorities in January 1972, something that the 35’s put down to the difficulties she was causing them with her activism. The 35’s saw this as a sign that their campaigns were having an influence on the Soviet authorities, who were concerned about the flow of information about the refuseniks to activists in the West who used this information to publicize the Soviet abuses. Doreen Gainsford noted to The Guardian’s Malcolm Stuart that Katia’s exit visa ‘shows our campaign here is having some effect … a short time ago they would have taken no notice of Western opinion and would have gaoled Katia too’.27 The 35’s also took the opportunity to invite Katia’s sister Raiza to visit London when she was eventually granted an exit visa. When Raiza arrived at Heathrow airport in January 1973, the 35’s presented her with thirty-five white roses, something that The Guardian’s Dennis Barker described as a ‘floral reception’. Much like the 35’s public demonstrations, the lavish attention brought to Raiza during this visit by the 35’s drew the attention of the media not only to this recently released dissident but also to the cause of others still being persecuted in the Soviet Union. Barker’s article on Palatnik’s arrival included detailed analysis of the persecution that Raiza had been subjected to following her decision to request an exit visa, including five months of daily interrogation in a ‘police dungeon’, long periods of solitary confinement and widespread anti-Semitic harassment while being detained in a labour camp. This account also included details of the 35’s campaigning efforts on her behalf and the concurrent campaign they were running in support of Zalmanson, reiterating the campaign’s efforts in the national press.28 The 35’s use of their guests in this manner was not always appreciated by other activists in Britain. In a letter to Gainsford, the psychiatrist Harold Merskey criticized the 35’s decision to take the wives of two refuseniks to a demonstration outside the Home Office in London. Members of the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry (MSCSJ) had requested that the 35’s not protest on certain issues until the British Dental Association had approached the Soviet Embassy in London at their behest. Merskey considered that using their guests in this way was deeply damaging, particularly as he felt the 35’s were already good enough at demonstrating themselves to not need to use their guests in this manner.29 The 35’s talents for protesting were, however, slightly frustrated during their repeated petitioning of the Soviet Embassy in London in the early 1970s, where 35ers took an array of letters and appeals on an almost daily basis. The embassy staff were, perhaps unsurprisingly, very cold in their response towards the 35’s. In the early 1970s a weekly letter that outlined the reports of persecution that had occurred in the Soviet Union that week was delivered in person by a 35er to the Soviet Embassy in London. Staff at the embassy routinely refused to accept the letters, initially by

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locking the door and then later the gate on the street to stop the deliveries from taking place. Frustration at the inability to deliver their letters and petitions was clear from members of the group, with some activists taking more dramatic measures to make sure their messages got across to the Soviet authorities. In July 1973, The Times reported the arrest of Annette Spier, who had been detained by the British police after she had thrown a bundle of some 300 letters at the carriage of Nikolai Lunkov, the newly appointed Soviet ambassador to Britain. This manner of delivery was doubtless born out of their frustration at the failed use of more conventional methods to send their letters.30 While the 35’s had little success in delivering their petitions to Soviet officials, by the mid-1970s their campaign carried a substantial amount of public support. In February 1977, a petition organized by the group condemning the treatment of Soviet Jewry managed to obtain over 100,000 signatories. Despite this, it was refused by the Soviet cultural attaché Andrei Paraftaev, who rather confusingly stated that the embassy was not a political organization. Paraftaev argued that the signatories of this petition, which were so numerous that it had to be delivered to the Soviet Embassy in three supermarket baskets, had been ‘misled by propaganda and there was no persecution of anyone in Russia’ and dismissed the contents of this petition outright.31 Despite this refusal, securing the signatures of that many people in this watershed year for organizations working to support Soviet dissidents suggests that the overall concerns of the group were shared by a great number of people, and that the naivety and scant awareness of the refuseniks from the early 1970s was now confined to the past. Delivering their petitions to the Soviet Embassy in the 1970s was far from an easy task, and it involved facing up to a great deal of intimidation and threats from Soviet officials. Margaret Rigal, a leading member of the 35’s, recalled that on one occasion when she attempted to deliver one of their regular petitions, she chanced across a staff member as she approached the embassy. She asked if he would take the letter into the embassy for her, but after an initially friendly meeting, the Soviet official swiftly recognized the letter as one of the regular protests from the 35’s, and his tone changed markedly. Rigal vividly recalled this transition in emotion, noting that despite their jovial introductions ‘he looked at me and he told me what I could do and where I should be … If he could have absolutely slaughtered me he would have done so. It was real, real hatred.’32 This threat of violence, although never actually followed through against the 35’s, was ever present throughout their campaigning. In one of his letters to the group, the noted BBC journalist John Simpson stated that it took ‘real guts’ for the 35’s to stand up to the Soviet authorities, referring both to their commitment and to the size of the opponent that they faced.33 This defiance of the threats by the Soviet authorities is most notable in the recollection of the visits to the Soviet Union by members of the 35’s. Rigal recalled being held at a Moscow airport as she went through customs with her husband George, awaiting a return flight to London. After being separated from other passengers in the queue for security clearance, the Rigals were led to a different area of the airport. Upon being forced to wait by airport officials, Margaret simply sat down on the counter and started reading her book, which, she recalled, greatly angered the officials.34 This defiance at the actions of the Soviet guards is remarkable given her circumstances. She was one

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of the leading figures of a Western group formed to protest the actions of the Soviet authorities, undoubtedly monitored by members of the KGB during her trip, and was at their mercy in the airport. Yet despite this, she still had the nerve to protest at the actions of the security guard, recalling the event in an interview many years later almost as a farce. Indeed, portraying this event in a humorous and almost ludicrous manner highlights the resolve of the 35ers and their attitude towards the Soviet authorities. Rigal was far from oblivious to the danger that she was potentially in, but was markedly defiant in its face. This resilience occurred alongside the knowledge that some of her Russian friends had been imprisoned for ‘sixteen days at a time for nothing’, with some of them going on to serve much longer sentences, which makes this resilience and strength of nerve even more remarkable.35 What gave the 35’s the upper hand and a great deal of courage in the face of the Soviet authorities’ threats was that, in their opinion, the Soviet authorities ‘weren’t very clever’ and more importantly that they kept their own laws.36 The 35’s recognized their campaign as an intellectual battle fought with words and slogans rather than a physical one, in which as long as they stuck to the rules they would be unharmed. While they regularly pushed the boundaries of acceptability to their limits, this is certainly prevalent throughout their public demonstrations, which emphasized spreading information through disruption and annoyance rather than outright unlawful violence or criminal damage. Indeed, it is quite telling that both the recollection and contemporary reporting of the group’s demonstrations focus on their light-hearted and comic nature, rather than the illegality of their actions. As a result, the members of the campaign were unafraid of threats from the Soviet officials, due in part to the strong desire to do all they could to help the refuseniks. Daphne Gerlis puts this neatly, noting in Those Wonderful Women in Black that ‘every 35er stressed that whatever “risks” they may have taken and whatever inconveniences they may have encountered, faded into insignificance when compared with the knowledge that the freedom which they accepted as their birthright, was now being experienced by those for whom they had worked’.37 In this conflict, not only were the 35’s convinced that their efforts would not lead to physical repercussions from the Soviet authorities, but they were also aware that any hardship they were to endure would be insignificant in comparison to the suffering of the refuseniks they were working to support. Counterintuitively, any threat from the Soviet authorities was more likely to have redoubled the efforts of the 35’s in their campaigning, rather than persuading them to cease their actions. Attempts by the Soviet authorities to dismiss the work of the group not only fell on deaf ears in Britain, but they often descended into relative farce. Alexander Shelepin, the head of the important Soviet All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and former head of the KGB, was dismissive of the demonstrations against his visit to London in April 1975, claiming they were ‘the work of a small group of Zionists, each of whom was paid £5’ for their attempts to discredit Soviet officials. Such an assertion that protestors were nothing more than paid stooges was particularly controversial given Shelepin’s background in the KGB, something that made the front pages of national newspapers. Rather cuttingly, the Labour MP Maurice Edelman put the precise nature of Shelepin’s comments down to ‘the payments he himself pays people to demonstrate on behalf of the party in Moscow’.38 In juxtaposition to Shelepin’s comments, it appears

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as if the demonstrations by groups such as the 35’s had a profound effect on Soviet dignitaries. Margaret Rigal’s husband George recalled that during one of his visits to London, the Mayor of Moscow was so shocked by 35’s demonstrations that he was left visibly shaken, leading him to eventually cut short his visit.39 Such a physical response to the 35’s neatly encapsulates the impact that the group’s demonstrations could have on the Soviet hierarchy, which, when combined with the wider reporting of such events, highlights how effective they were at positioning the plight of the refuseniks as an important political issue in Britain.

New Leadership, New Direction? In the early 1970s, knowledge of the refuseniks was very limited among the British public, and as a result the 35’s focused their attention explicitly on raising awareness of the persecution of Soviet Jewry through their novel demonstrations. Towards the end of the decade, however, the persecution of Soviet dissidents was much more broadly known, particularly following Vladimir Bukovsky’s exchange in December 1976. This raised a dilemma for the 35’s. With the plight of Soviet dissidents well known, their protests began to lose impact and the organization needed to reassess its approach. This need for reassessment was brought to the fore when Doreen Gainsford informed members of the group that she would be following the example of the many refuseniks she had campaigned for by immigrating to Israel with her family on 1 March 1978. Gainsford had been a leading force for the campaign from its foundation, frequently writing to national newspapers and leading some 400 demonstrations since the group’s foundation. Her efforts were recognized by Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the opposition, who noted in response to an invitation to Gainsford’s leaving party that her ‘energy has been a great source of strength to the Jewish community not only in this country by throughout Europe’ and that, on a personal level, she had ‘long admired the persistent manner in which you have pursued your objectives’.40 A large number of people turned up to this leaving party, including more than 300 MPs; among them was Foreign Secretary David Owens. Indeed, Gainsford’s position had become so important that her emigration to Israel drew the attention of the national press, with The Observer’s Tony Craig lauding her efforts and her ‘major role in securing the release from the Soviet Union of nearly 150,000 Jews, and bringing attention to the plight of some three million more’.41 Shortly after Gainsford’s emigration, Barbara Oberman also announced her decision to immigrate to Israel. In an interview with the London-based radio station LBC on 8 November 1978, she noted that this was not an easy decision to make, but one that she and her family had committed to.42 The emigration of two leading 35ers left a substantial gap in the 35’s organization, which was filled by the joint leadership of Rita Eker and Margaret Rigal. Eker and Rigal have come to dominate the history of the organization, and their efforts are largely responsible for taking the active pressure group that had been led by Gainsford, which reputedly had the support of some 20,000 members, and making it more professional and effective into the 1980s.43 Central to the group’s development was the decision to shift the target of the campaign’s work from the general public towards those in positions of power. Given that the refusenik

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issue was now well known, this new focus aimed to utilize public awareness of the Soviet persecution to persuade those with political influence to pressurize the Soviet authorities to cease their abuses.

Figure 3.1 Rita Eker and Margaret Rigal in discussion, date unknown (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton).

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The subtle shift in direction by the 35’s leadership was, in part, driven by the roles that Eker and Rigal played in the organization alongside their leadership positions. Eker was in charge of office administration and played a key role in the creation of new campaigns, demonstrations and the day-to-day running of the organization. She often described her role in the group as being a ‘general dogsbody’, something that Daphne Gerlis notes as although ‘not far from the truth … in no way sums up the flair and élan which epitomises Rita’s approach’.44 Central to Eker’s work was the running of the 35’s headquarters, which were often far from meeting the requirements of the organization. Much like many other fledgling organizations in this period, the campaign had originally been based in one of its leading members homes – that of Doreen Gainsford. With the expansion of the group’s work in the mid-1970s, it moved to a succession of run-down and poorly maintained premises in North-West London. Offices were often donated to the campaign by those who no longer required them or had been forced to move on to pastures new, meaning that they were often in quite a state of disrepair. Gerlis noted that the standard condition of a typical 35’s office was a ‘building which is under threat of demolition’. These offices also included leaking basements, where 35ers had to work surrounded by buckets to catch water, and the premises of a former charity that had been undisturbed for so long that the front door had been completely blocked by overgrown bushes.45 Not only were their gifted offices in appalling conditions, but they were also largely inappropriate for the requirements of a rapidly expanding campaign.46 One such office at 148 Granville Road, London, was dubbed ‘the laundry’ by the group, a name that highlights both its previous existence and how suitable it was for office work. 35ers were forced to work around ‘an enormous hole in the centre of the floor where a machine had been ripped out’, before they were later unceremoniously forced out of the building by contractors who were there to demolish it.47 Upon leaving the laundry for a new office at 564 Finchley Road, the group demonstrated clear delight that its new offices were ‘very convenient for Golders Green Station and all main shops’ and noted with great glee, ‘we’ve even got carpet!’48 In spite of logistical pressures, the 35’s made the most out of the office space that they had, and in extreme circumstances even resorted to reappropriating toilets as storage cupboards for campaign materials. This novel use of space backfired, however, when flooding caused irreparable damage to campaign materials and photographs of demonstrations.49 A similar fate occurred to the transcripts of a great number of telephone conversations conducted between activists and refuseniks, which were irreparably damaged by rainwater during one of the group’s frequent office moves.50 Despite these issues, the 35’s managed to develop effective bases in far-from-perfect locations. They even managed to start a crèche, which provided the much needed care for the small children of 35ers, thus freeing their parents to focus on the campaign.51 The 35ers based at their central London offices became known as the group’s ‘frontliners’. Shortly before Gainsford’s emigration in 1978, the group had thirty-six frontliners who dealt with the day-to-day running of the organization and over 150 people ‘who could be called upon to attend demonstrations at a moment’s notice’.52 Gerlis has noted that frontliners were ‘willing to drop everything, often at the sacrifice

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Figure 3.2 The 35’s office, November 1989 (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, Hartley Library, University of Southampton).

of their family life, their leisure, and their health’, something that the group’s leadership were deeply appreciative of.53 Frontliners were allocated to an array of necessary administrative tasks relating to the 35’s work, which included the reading of newspapers and other sources to collate stories of interest and maintain books of press cuttings for use in their campaigns.54 This work led to the creation of the group’s meticulous records on individual refuseniks and dissidents, and other detailed information that assisted its campaigns, thus building up an arsenal of information that gave a vivid picture of the situation in the Soviet Union. Alongside its frontline members in London, concern for the plight of the refuseniks led to the establishment of 35’s groups around the country. As a result of the regional development, the London office became a centre for the group’s organization, coordinating an array of affiliated 35’s groups. Regional 35’s groups were largely autonomous, and had the ability to use their own initiative in instigating campaigns and demonstrations in support of refuseniks. As a result of this freedom, many groups established themselves throughout the country, with particularly active organizations formed in Liverpool, Leeds and Bournemouth.55 Regional groups were of great benefit to the 35’s, as appeals to individual members of parliament would carry substantially more weight if they came from a group of constituents, rather than a single appeal from a central office in the capital.56 Regional 35’s groups took part in an array of demonstrations much like their London counterparts, including the Brighton & Hove group’s demonstration at the Milk Race in June 1979, the Liverpool

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group’s production of a book of poetry in April 1980 and the St Albans group’s sale of cards addressed to the refusenik Riva Feldman in the run-up to Christmas in 1980.57 Regional groups also took part in their own novel forms of activism. For example, the Horsham 35’s held a coffee morning in January 1979 to raise funds for one of its members to travel to the Soviet Union to visit a refusenik, and in April 1979 the Liverpool 35’s organized a ‘teddy bear’s picnic’ to mark the International Year of the Child, with six children having bears called Misha demanding ‘this year in Jerusalem’, which was reported in the Liverpool Weekly News.58 The Leeds 35’s even produced a number of calendars in the early 1980s which contained the details of the birthdays of the refuseniks they had adopted for their campaigns. This was a subtle, yet remarkably effective way of encouraging activism, as a note attached to the 1983 version noted ‘this calendar enables anybody to drop a line to any of these adoptees, particularly on their birthday … a minute of your time could affect someone’s whole life’.59 The regional dimension of the 35’s organization even expanded beyond British borders into the 1980s, with 35’s groups forming in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the United States.60 The 35’s central office in London played an important role in coordinating regional organizations, and its relationship with its regional counterparts was predominantly informal and based on the spread of information about the latest position of the refuseniks. This was initially done on an ad hoc basis, with frontliners travelling from London to supply 35’s groups around the country with information. This, however, was a time-consuming process. This distribution of information became formalized in June 1978, when the 35’s central London office began producing a News Circular, which was sent to an array of interested parties, including its frontliners, regional groups and other activists working to support Soviet dissidents. This Circular became an integral part of the group’s activism under Eker and Rigal because it facilitated the distribution of the latest information the group had on the refuseniks to a wide audience, encouraging subsequent activism to put pressure on positions of power in both the West and the Soviet Union alike.61 The Circulars themselves were laden with information, something that can be seen in the nine pages of the 35’s Circular from 27 June 1978, which contained details on the cases of a number of refuseniks, including Iosif Begun, Vladimir Cherkassky, Gregory Goldstein, Ida Nudel and Vladimir Slepak. Alongside this, it also contained material on the group’s demonstrations, including an event on 15 June where a group of 35ers who were dressed as prisoners had taken a ride in the pouring rain through Central London in a lorry emblazoned with banners, and notifications of a number of forthcoming events, including a tour of Britain by the former refusenik Dina Beilina, and a sponsored walk in London. The activism of the frontliners was also supplemented with details of the efforts of regional 35’s groups in Brighton and Hove, Glasgow, Dublin and Leeds, before this edition concluded with a selection of reproduced articles on Soviet dissidents from the British press, and a collection of documents, including an extract from Hansard and a translated letter of protest that had been sent to Leonid Brezhnev by nineteen refuseniks.62 This edition was typical

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of the Circulars that were produced by the 35’s into the 1980s, and it demonstrates the amount of information about both the position of individual refuseniks and the campaigns that were being conducted on their behalf that the group were able to cram into a short space. Although they were laden with vast amounts of information, the 35’s Circulars were remarkably amateurish in style when compared to the more polished publications produced by other groups in this period. They comprised of roughly photocopied pages with crude copyediting and low-quality images. This is most notable with its numerous press clippings, which acted as a crude digest of the latest reports on the refuseniks. Articles were photocopied straight from their original publication, without any formatting to fit the circular, and were often rather difficult to read. By reproducing material in this manner, it is apparent that the Circular was a hasty and amateur affair. This style gives the publication a samizdat flavour, self-produced at a relatively low cost so that its information could be spread as widely and cheaply as possible, regardless of aesthetic. Alongside this rough copy, the Circulars also predominantly refer to individual refuseniks by their first names, giving it an unusually personal style when compared to other activist literature of the period. This approach betrays the emotional nature of the 35’s efforts, working for individuals whom they considered close friends rather than more abstract figures. While it was far from the more scholarly and polished material produced by other activist organizations of this period, beneath the stylistic flaws the 35’s Circulars contained a high level of information on the position of refuseniks that was of much use to activists in the West. Peter Reddaway has noted that one of the reasons the 35’s reputation developed was because they were putting out this ‘steady stream of weekly or twice weekly [Circulars]’, which stands somewhat in contrast to the group’s colourful protests and stage invasions.63 It is telling that although the 35’s archive at the University of Southampton does not contain copies of this circular, Reddaway’s personal papers, which are held at George Washington University in Washington D.C., contain a near complete run of the circular from its first edition in June 1978 through to December 1985, when he emigrated to the United States.64 Given Reddaway’s vast experience of dealing with samizdat, his activism in support of Soviet dissidents and his academic credentials in this field, such a comprehensive collection speaks great volumes about the quality of the 35’s Circulars. According to Reddaway, the Circular gave the group a reputation for being reliable because this publication proved ‘they were basing themselves on real documents’.65 The 35’s empirical approach to activism was something it shared with many British NGOs working to support Soviet dissidents of this period, yet its reliance on quality and verifiable information about individual refuseniks is easy to overlook when faced with the image of its members demonstrating in fancy dress. On this matter, Rigal noted that ‘we have a rule in the office; nothing is given out without confirmation … we were very concerned about saying things like “prisoners on the verge of death”. You can’t go on year after year saying that people are dying it’s not true, so we have to be very careful.’66 The 35’s were acutely aware of the importance of reproducing quality information that reported the situation of the refuseniks as it actually was. In the politically fraught context surrounding the collapse of the superpower détente

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in the late 1970s, groups such as the 35’s had much to gain from a reputation for reliability. While the group had initially made a name for themselves by being demonstratively extravagant, under the leadership of Eker and Rigal their campaigns had become underpinned by a reliance on reliable and accurate information which was impossible for its critics to logically and factually dismiss. By the late 1970s, the 35’s were recognized as experts on the refusenik issue who commanded the respect of journalists and politicians alike due to the access they had to the most up-to-date information on this matter available in the West. The group had become an authority on the refusenik issue, moving on from the fancy dress and toy gun demonstrations that had been required to draw attention to its cause in the early 1970s. Although the 35’s were embarking on a new direction under their new leadership, leaving the toy guns in the cupboard, they still sometimes used their staple demonstrations to highlight their cause. This was not something they could do on a regular basis as, by the late 1970s, they had recognized that their demonstrations were ‘no longer considered newsworthy’. Instead, they made the decision to demonstrate only ‘when they wish to be seen by Soviet visitors, by British politicians or strategy makers’, a tactical move in line with their desire to target those in positions of power.67 With this new direction to their demonstrations, the 35’s were noticeably more strategic with this form of activism. For example, the 35’s returned to their haunting ways in September 1979, when delegates attending the Trades Union Congress conference in Liverpool were ‘haunted by the plight of Ida Nudel and Vladimir Slepak’, in the form of ghostly 35ers. Following this demonstration, six trade union leaders attending this conference appealed directly to the Soviet authorities for the release of Nudel and Slepak, and a petition addressed to Brezhnev protesting the treatment of the refuseniks received the signatures of hundreds of delegates, suggesting the effectiveness of the 35’s new targeted approach.68 This new strategy was put to full use during the 35’s well-publicized campaign against the 1980 Olympic Games, which were held in Moscow. Discussions about British athletes boycotting the Games made the event a media spectacle and one that provided the 35’s with the perfect opportunity to highlight the refusenik issue in the national and international media. The growing public concern about the Olympics taking place in the Soviet capital was noted by the 35’s in a short note in its circular from 17 July 1978, which declared that ‘the general feeling about removing the Olympics from Moscow is gaining momentum and we must capitalise on this public sympathy NOW, while it lasts. WE MUST GET SUPPORT from all influential people in every field’.69 This concern was echoed in an editorial piece from The Times in August 1978, which highlighted the quandary surrounding the ethics of hosting the Olympics in Moscow, noting that although ‘dissidents will feel betrayed … the West needs levers with which to influence Soviet behaviour and the Olympics comes in handy for this purpose’.70 The 35’s sought to influence these levers in their wide-ranging campaign against the Moscow Olympics, which included direct appeals to national Olympic Associations, petitions led by their regional organizations in Britain and further afield and the group’s staple public demonstrations. In a letter to The Guardian in October 1979, Eker noted that the aim of this campaign was to ‘convince the sporting world that their actions in holding the 1980 Olympics in Moscow are likely to cause great

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suffering among many innocent Moscow citizens’. Of particular concern for the 35’s was the widespread fear among refuseniks that they would be held in prison or in labour camps during the Games so that they did not raise political concerns that would detract from the sporting spectacle, which gave the Soviet authorities the much-craved international attention.71 In the run-up to the Games, the 35’s took part in an array of demonstrations to publicize their concerns about the Moscow Olympics taking place. In August 1978 they took part in a rally against the Games in Trafalgar Square, which was followed in September by a mock Olympic torch procession by 35ers dressed as prisoners.72 The Games’ mascot, the friendly bear Misha, was frequently desecrated by the group in this period, ranging from the setting of a bear trap for Anatoly Shcharansky and Ida Nudel, through to a depiction of Misha wearing a belt with the Olympic rings emblazoned with the slogan ‘REMOVE THE GAMES FROM THE USSR’.73 The figure of Misha also made its way into some of the group’s protests, with members of the Croydon 35’s giving two Soviet athletes a three-foot-tall teddy bear in September 1979, flanked by children holding banners stating ‘I was not made by a Prisoner of Conscience’ and ‘No Olympic Games unless Nudel and Sharansky[sic] are released’.74 The 35’s efforts to discredit the Soviet Union prior to the Olympics did not go unnoticed, and in the weeks before the Games, Soviet television ran an hour-long programme alleging that organizations in the West had been training anti-Soviet agents who would sneak into the Soviet Union under the cover of being Olympic tourists. The 35’s found such allegations that they were spies laughable, declaring on the cover of their Circular from 8 July 1980 that ‘Mata Hari-Eker and James BondRigal’ were based at ‘a secret laundry H.Q. in 148 Gr..lr R..d’, before concluding ‘Yours sincerely, (Sh..sh.. you know who!)’. Furthering the espionage style, this Circular was stated to be sent to ‘Relevant Adopters, Frontliners and Staff (and sh … sh … sh … all commanders, officers and rankers of the Secret Army!)’, and the 35’s even went on to demonstrate outside the London offices of the Soviet airline Aeroflot displaying the banner ‘Terror of the KGB. Secret Army – “Exposed”. ’ In this edition of the Circular, the group admitted that the Soviet allegations were ‘ridiculous’ and something for ridicule, but highlighted that ‘those of us who have never lived under a totalitarian dictatorship will not be able to imagine what it means to be the subject of such abuses openly through the official government media’.75 The following week, the 35’s were again the subject of a propaganda smear from the Soviet Union, when an English broadcast from Moscow discussed the ‘lady activities of the Zionist extremist organisation Committee 35’. This broadcast by a Mr Viktor Valentinov alleged that this ‘Zionist housewives’ group … are working their fingers to the bone in scaring the British athletes and tourists wishing to come to Moscow for the Olympic Games with all kinds of punishment’. Much like previous smears, the Circular noted that ‘the whole broadcast is filled with such stupid nonsense’, before defiantly declaring ‘let us laugh at them!’.76 Laughing in the face of Soviet propaganda attacks highlights the resolve of 35ers in their Olympic campaign and how the attempts by the Soviet authorities to discredit the group were ineffective. Despite the efforts of the 35’s and their supporters, who on this issue included Margaret Thatcher, who argued widely against British participation, a British boycott of

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the Games did not take place.77 Indeed, it could be argued that it was the performances of the two British athletes Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett that became the defining moments of the Moscow Olympics. At the start of the Games in July 1980, Eker and Rigal had a letter published in The Guardian asking that those who were attending the Moscow Games ‘remember those who have waited for up to 16 years for permission to leave the country of their birth, the Soviet Union, where freedom of emigration does not exist’. This letter also implored visitors to ‘question every Soviet official they meet as to why free emigration is not permitted’, as an attempt to encourage activism from those attending the Games.78 During the Moscow Games, the 35’s took part in daily demonstrations outside the Regent Street offices of Intourist, the official Soviet travel agency that controlled travel for foreign tourists inside the Soviet Union.79 Despite their efforts, the 35’s had little impact on the broader prestige of the Moscow Olympics, which they were forced to concede, and it ended as a propaganda triumph for the Soviet authorities. This failure, however, was used by the organization to reassert the need for further action to support the refuseniks. The front page of the 5th August 1980 edition of the Circular prominently stated: WE MUST REDOUBLE OUR EFFORTS!80 Following their Olympic efforts, the 35’s continued to demonstrate against Soviet cultural performances and exhibitions in Britain, aiming to disrupt the propaganda value of these events. In December 1980, the 35’s took part in a demonstration outside a shop in Holburn that stocked an array of Russian goods, protesting at the sale of products that had been made in Soviet labour camps and requesting that individuals write to the prime minister asking that the marketing of such goods be made illegal.81 The 35’s demonstrations focused not only on limiting the value of the pro-Soviet enterprises but on curtailing them altogether. For example, in April 1983 the Daily Mail reported the 35’s dismay at the decision by the Greater London Council (GLC) to approve a Soviet cultural exhibition due to be held at London’s South Bank Centre.82 In quite a coup, Soviet Jewry campaigners managed to persuade the GLC to allocate space to human rights organizations at the event, allowing Amnesty to stage an exhibition on the Soviet persecution of prisoners of conscience. Despite this concession, a variety of groups protested the exhibition, with Eker bitterly noting that Amnesty only dealt with prisoners of conscience, not ‘the hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews who are still waiting for re-unification with their families in the West’.83 Such protests did have an effect on the members of the GLC, if delayed. A year after the exhibition, Labour Party leaders of the GLC publicly apologized for allowing this event to take place, noting that the South Bank was not a ‘political battleground’.84 Alongside their continued demonstrations, the 35’s revived their use of stage invasions of cultural performances conducted by Soviet performers to bring attention to their campaign. In May 1984, the Moscow Classical Ballet toured Britain with the noted prima ballerina Ekaterina Maximova of the Bolshoi, which became frontpage articles in the British press.85 Their performance on 16th May at the Dominion Theatre had drawn a number of demonstrations on behalf of Soviet dissidents, some of which had been timed for the moment that Maximova took to the stage. The Daily Mail reported that a man calling for the release of Andrei Sakharov stormed the stage, while ‘members of the audience punched and kicked other demonstrators who were

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shouting in front of the orchestra pit’. The 35’s had also organized a demonstration outside of the theatre about the plight of the refuseniks, including banners with the slogans: KGB’S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY SAKHAROV’S DYING IN GORKY ORLOV EXILED IN SIBERIA SHCHARANSKY IMPRISONED IN CHISTOPOL.86

Stan McMurty, the cartoonist more commonly known as Mac, whose work regularly appeared in the Daily Mail, used the drama of this event to poke fun at the Soviet authorities and the propaganda value of controversial cultural performances. In a cartoon published in the Daily Mail on 18th May, Mac depicted two talented dancers from the Moscow Classical Ballet company in the midst of a routine flanked by two lines of enormous dancers, looking very much like nightclub bouncers in tutus. A man in the front row of the theatre turns to his partner and comments on the size of the additional performers: ‘looks as if they’re expecting another demo … ’.87 Activists are noticeably absent from Mac’s sketch, perhaps given the increased security in this performance, with no explicit reference to the 35’s themselves. Although not directly attributed, this cartoon highlights that the stage invasions conducted by the 35’s and other activist groups had become so noted in public consciousness that this joke would have resonated with the readership of the Daily Mail. The 35’s themselves were particularly enamoured with Mac’s cartoon, replicating it prominently on the cover of the 22 May 1984 edition of their circular, alongside a number of other press cuttings about their protests at Soviet ballet performances.88 While the 35’s use of demonstration from the late 1970s onwards marked a noticeable development in the organization, its quieter lobbying of individuals in position of political power is perhaps more telling of the group’s shifting attention in this period. This is something that Rigal played a leading role in, particularly developing the group’s relationships with individuals at the heart of the British government. Reflecting on her experience in dealing with British politicians, Rigal noted that ‘it takes five years of writing regularly before they really take any interest in you and it’s ten years before they trust you enough to do something, after twenty years they say “oh hello Margaret” without knowing who you are or what you are. They know the name but they don’t know the face’.89 Rigal’s regular petitioning of those occupying the corridors of parliament had an important role to play in the effectiveness of the 35’s work, as it enabled her to get ‘a hundred MPs to sign anything more or less’.90 Widespread support from figures across the British political spectrum added much weight to the 35’s activism, and attaining the support of members of parliament became a major aim of the group’s work. This petitioning was also conducted by grassroots 35ers across the country. In March 1979, the 35’s Circular called for its regional groups to contact prospective parliamentary candidates from all parties contesting the 1979 General Election, urging them to write to the Soviet ambassador about the refusenik issue. This request made it clear that petitions from across Britain were essential for them to be effective, highlighting that ‘LOCAL CONTACT IS VERY NECESSARY’.91 This

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tactic was repeated in the run-up to the General Election in May 1983, when a note in the 35’s Circular encouraged its members to offer help to prospective parliamentary candidates with their campaigning efforts. The group noted that ‘in the past, we have found they are all most grateful for all your assistance at this very busy time’, with the clear intention that their efforts be recognized with subsequent support for the 35’s campaign if the candidates they had assisted went on to receive political power.92 Although the 35’s enjoyed much support from Westminster, its campaign was not wholly endorsed by the British establishment. The Conservative MP Robert Adley declined to help the 35’s in a letter to the organization dated 13 July 1978 stating, ‘I am as concerned for the persecuted citizens of the Soviet Union as I am for Palestinians deprived of the right to live in the land in which they were born. So I must decline your invitation.’93 Rigal’s response to this letter was one of restraint, and it attempted to change the opinion of Adley, stating that any increase of freedom for a minority would affect the rest of humankind.94 Although it had the support of a number of important and prominent MPs, the refusenik issue and the efforts of the 35’s did not receive universal support from British politicians. That said, the 35’s efforts at Westminster came at a time when there were a great number of MPs willing to support their campaign. The formation of groups such the All-Party Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry and the Parliamentary Wives for the Release of Soviet Jewry highlights that there was widespread concern about the refuseniks among British politicians.95 The 35’s played an important role in promoting this support, something that can be seen from the sheer scale of correspondence that its members had with MPs in this period. The 35’s archival material contains a staggering amount of correspondence between the organization and individual MPs, with the group regularly sending appeals en masse to MPs, which were, on the whole, responded to positively, with offers to sign a petition or send a letter to an appropriate Soviet dignitary. What is notable about the responses to their appeals is that they were not isolated to MPs from particular parties or areas of the country, suggesting that concern about the refuseniks was widely felt across a broad political and geographical spectrum at Westminster. 96 The 35’s efforts at Westminster did not, however, translate directly into parliamentary speeches on the group’s activism. In fact, 35’s are virtually anonymous in Hansard, with the only reference to the group occurring in the House of Lords on 29 June 1977, when Lord Hylton asked the government representative Lord GoronwyRoberts what was being done in response to the abrupt expulsion of three 35ers from Yugoslavia.97 Despite the official silence surrounding the work of the 35’s, many MPs repeatedly raised the plight of individual refuseniks in Parliament in the late 1970s and early 1980s, doubtless using the information that had been given to them by 35ers. For example, on 28 June 1978 during a debate about the treatment of Yuri Orlov, Edward Lyons asked Evan Luard, then an under-secretary of state in the foreign office, if the government would press the Soviet authorities to allow observers at the trial of Shcharansky, a refusenik at the heart of numerous 35’s campaigning efforts. Luard responded that it ‘seemed strange that if the trial [of Orlov] were as fair as the Soviet authorities had suggested, that they should want to conceal the proceedings from the public’, and that the government might consider making an approach for observers

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to be present at the trial of Shcharansky, pressure that was much desired by the 35’s.98 Ida Nudel, another refusenik at the centre of the 35’s efforts, was regularly mentioned in Parliament by an array of MPs in the late 1970s, including Ronald Brown, Greville Janner, Ivan Lawrence, Eric Moonman, Nicholas Winterton and Alec Woodall among others.99 On 11 May 1983, Alec Woodall asked the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Malcolm Rifkind if, on a recent trip to Moscow, he had discussed the plight of the refuseniks Vladimir Slepak and Alexander Lerner with the Soviet authorities. In the same debate, John Blackburn also asked after Yosef Begum100 and ‘others of his religion’.101 The refuseniks mentioned in Westminster were among those whom the 35’s campaigned for, and it is more than likely that the MPs who had raised their concerns had been informed about their plight by the 35’s.102 This can be seen where members of parliament raised the case of a specific refusenik in the same week of their plight being discussed in the 35’s circular, suggesting a direct correlation between the two. For example, in a debate in the House of Lords on 30 November 1978, Lord Avebury called for the British government to make cooperation with the Soviet authorities on computer technology more difficult if the persecution of refuseniks such as Shcharansky continued. This came three days after the 35’s circular contained a translation of an open letter from Shcharansky’s mother to the US Congress, calling for it to speak out in ‘defence of an innocent man’, a letter that Lord Avebury may have been responding to.103 Similarly, in a Commons debate about the Moscow Olympics on 17 March 1980, there were a number of references to issues that had been frequently raised by the 35’s in their campaigns against the Games. In this debate Winston Churchill, the grandson of the war-time prime minister, raised the issue of the refuseniks, and the plight of Nudel and Shcharansky in particular, calling for more action from the British government.104 Given the amount of information sent to MPs by the organization about individual refuseniks in the lead up to their raising concerns in Parliament alongside various other, lobbying efforts, the silent influence of the 35’s is present. While gaining the support of individual MPs was of much use to the campaigning efforts of the 35’s, the organization had most to gain from attaining the attention of senior government ministers, and the prime minister in particular. Among many other issues, Margaret Thatcher demonstrated deep concern about the human rights violations being committed in the Soviet Union, a point that she repeatedly made during her time in office, and as a result of this she developed good relationships with NGOs and prominent individuals who were working in this area, such as the 35’s and Bukovsky.105 In her memoirs, Thatcher noted that ‘even a system like that of the Soviets, which set out to crush the individual, could never totally succeed in doing so, as was shown by the Solzhenitsyns, Sakharovs, Bukovskys, Ratushinskayas and thousands of other dissidents and refuseniks’.106 Thatcher was a supporter of the 35’s efforts and was well engaged in the wider issues surrounding the refuseniks. During her infamous meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev at Chequers in 1984 shortly before his rise to power in the Soviet Union, Thatcher reputedly raised the issue of the refuseniks with the Soviet leader-in-waiting, with whom she claimed she could ‘do business’. In her memoirs, she noted that at this meeting she ‘criticized the constraints placed on

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Jewish emigration to Israel’, insisting that ‘the Soviets had to know that every time we met their treatment of the refuseniks would be thrown back at them’.107 Throughout her time in office, the 35’s did all they could to develop their relationship with Thatcher, and their efforts were greatly aided by the fact that she was the member of parliament for Finchley, an area of London where many of the 35’s lived and where the group’s central offices were based. Rigal recalled the relationship that the 35’s developed with Thatcher with utmost pride and praised her efforts for the refuseniks noting, ‘Thatcher was really a very active supporter and she knew more about what was going on, and the details of the refuseniks than many of our members … she was sympathetic to the refuseniks, that was something she understood and sympathised with.’108 In order to develop the relationship between the organization and the prime minister, Eker and Rigal regularly sent letters to Thatcher. They also visited her, often to congratulate her for a landmark in office or a successful election result, with a bouquet of flowers, or simply to give her a copy of the latest material produced by the group.109 This was in order to maintain their relationship with the prime minister to influence her policy towards the Soviet Union, especially regarding the persecution of refuseniks. On a pragmatic level, Thatcher also benefited from her links with the 35’s. Her relationship with the organization meant that she could get access to the latest information available regarding the refuseniks, something that was of much use for government officials and civil servants. In a letter to Eker dated 2 August 1982 regarding the worsening position of Shcharansky, Thatcher requested that any information received by the 35’s about his case be treated with ‘suitable discretion’ and forwarded to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This statement is underlined in hand by Thatcher, highlighting the importance that she placed upon it.110 It is, however, still an ambiguous comment – either the 35’s were to distribute this information in a sensible manner, omitting anything that may have harmed the prospects of Shcharansky’s release, or that this information was not to be distributed to anyone but the government. While at face value this placed the 35’s in complete control of the way in which they used the information they received, there was an implied insistence on keeping the government informed of their activism and the latest information they had on Soviet Jewry, something that would have been mutually beneficial for both parties. Her insistence on being kept abreast of the latest information that the 35’s had on the refuseniks demonstrates that Thatcher held their material in high regard, considering it to be accurate and reliable, thus reiterating the reputation that the group had attained. Thatcher’s support for the 35’s was not only welcomed as a great asset by its members but also often exploited as part of their campaign efforts. A letter sent to Thatcher from the 35’s in December 1984 offered thanks to Downing Street for the role they had played in sending a sack of 35’s postcards to the Soviet Embassy. The Soviet Embassy would normally have refused to accept such a delivery from an activist group such as the 35’s but, as this letter noted, they would ‘hesitate to refuse them if they came from Downing Street’.111 The 35’s use of this channel to send material to the Soviet Embassy was noted by The Guardian, which reported this delivery beneath an image of a 35’s demonstration, showing Rigal dressed as Santa Claus alongside Galina Panov, a

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former refusenik who had fled the Soviet Union in 1974.112 Thatcher’s support not only gave the 35’s the ability, in this instance, to ensure that the Soviet Embassy received their delivery, but it was also a tacit endorsement of the 35’s efforts – a very powerful ratification of their campaign that would have greatly raised their profile in the eyes of the Soviet authorities. With this backing, the Soviet authorities could not simply ignore the 35’s campaign, hoping it would go away as they had done in the 1970s with the group’s regular petitions to the embassy. Despite the strong relationship that developed between the 35’s and Thatcher, the organization was not always fully supportive of her approach towards the Soviet Union. In January 1989, Thatcher publicly stated that, in principle, Moscow should hold a human rights conference in 1991, demonstrating her confidence in the Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. This decision was vastly unpopular with a number of human rights organizations, with the 35’s calling it a ‘surrender’ and a ‘betrayal of thousands of innocent and brave men and women’, concerns that were reported on the front page of The Times.113 This was due to a strongly felt belief that concessions should not be granted to the Soviet authorities on the issue of human rights, which had developed over a decade’s worth of activism. This event aside, the relationship that developed between the 35’s and Thatcher was strong, and the organization was deeply grateful for the assistance that she gave to its campaign. In a letter dated 18 March 1992, Eker thanked Thatcher for her efforts in the strongest terms: ‘we have thanked you on so many occasions for the constant and unequalled assistance you have given us. We really find it impossible to express our appreciation for all that you have done for us … Without you the world would be a very different place.’114 Having such a powerful ally for their campaign played a significant role in the group’s successes and gave Thatcher detailed information that impacted her approach towards the Soviet Union.

Showing Some Tachlis Central to the 35’s development under Eker and Rigal was its desire to be seen as experts on the refusenik issue, as this was an essential factor in its ability to gain the support of individuals in positions of political power. What is perhaps most notable about the wider reporting of the 35’s campaigns in the 1980s is how often the group was referred to as an authority for information, which stands somewhat in contrast to its public image in the early 1970s and its reliance on extravagant public demonstration. For example, an article in The Times dated 29 April 1985 reported on the transfer of the refusenik Iosif Begun to a jail in Moscow, referring directly to the 35’s as its sole source of evidence. This was repeated in November 1985, when the paper again explicitly referenced the 35’s as an authority for the information it presented.115 The 35’s of the mid-1980s were far away from the group founded in 1971, which had to shoo away ill-informed well-wishers driving Rolls-Royces from a hunger strike. By becoming a reliable source of information on the refusenik issue, the 35’s occupied an interesting position for a pressure group, and one that had many benefits. In the early 1970s, the 35’s had been reduced to gimmicks in order to get themselves heard,

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yet less than a decade later they had come to be trusted by sections of the media, which saw the group as offering essential information, rather than just provocative and colourful demonstrations ready-made for tabloid newspapers. Where did this rapid rise to authority come from? While the 35’s were at the forefront of campaigning for the refuseniks throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the most important figure in their campaign was the Russianspeaking schoolteacher Michael Sherbourne, the real name of the pseudonymous ‘Jonathan Cohen’, who was interviewed by The Guardian’s John Windsor in May 1972. Sherbourne’s nightly telephone calls to the Soviet Union formed a strong link between the 35’s and the refuseniks in the Soviet Union, facilitating the development of the campaign’s authority through the supply of quality information. Sherbourne became involved in the Soviet Jewry movement in Britain after despairing about the lack of commitment on the issue from groups such as the Board of Deputies and what he saw as the ‘general waffle’ that he felt was being spoken at public meetings about the refuseniks. His concerns about the communist regime stemmed from his childhood, when he had attended a public meeting in 1931 on life in the Soviet Union, addressed by the fellow travellers Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. At this meeting, Sherbourne recalled that in response to a question about the famine in Ukraine which has become known as the Holodomor, Bernard Shaw ‘indignantly jumped out of his seat and said famine, nonsense, I’ve never eaten so well in all my life’.116 This had a profound effect on Sherbourne, who found this an incredible fatuous response, and one that he could still vividly recall some 80 years later.117 This unease about the Soviet Union stayed with Sherbourne during the Second World War, especially following the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939. After the war, Sherbourne attended a teacher training college, owing to the shortage of teachers in London in the late 1940s. He claimed that of the approximately 450 students at the college, some 80 were members of the communist party, and that owing to his views on the Soviet Union he was ‘constantly at loggerheads’ with them. Towards the end of his time at the college, and during one of his regular arguments on the issue of the Soviet Union in the college’s library, Sherbourne was challenged by a communist party member who took a ‘Teach Yourself Russian’ paperback from the shelves and thrust it under his nose, exclaiming ‘I’ll bet you can’t learn Russian’. Sherbourne took up the challenge, and despite having no prior knowledge of the language, he took to it well and quickly developed his abilities. Sherbourne’s self-taught Russian was later supplemented during his part-time study at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, where he studied for a degree in Russian Language and Literature, which he was awarded in 1972.118 Sherbourne’s frustrations at the lack of effort from the British Jewish community to the reports of persecution coming to Britain from the Soviet Union developed in the late 1960s. At an event held in Woburn House, London, by the Board of Deputies in 1969, Sherbourne recalled that like his earlier encounters with the fellow travellers in the 1930s, he grew increasingly frustrated at ‘the amount of useless waffle’ being spoken about the Soviet Union, and was the only person to vote against a

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resolution that was to be sent to the Soviet Embassy. Sherbourne was challenged about his show of dissent, and he recalled stating to this meeting, ‘The reason I put my hand up is that you have been saying nothing all this meeting, for the last couple of hours – nothing of real value. We need some tachlis [the Yiddish term for action]’. I said ‘All you are proposing is a pious resolution to ease your own consciences and you think that the Soviet embassy will take the slightest bit of notice of it?’ I began to get more angry the more I spoke. I said ‘They’ll probably throw it in the wastebin without even looking at it’.119

Despite Sherbourne’s protestations, the resolution was passed unanimously. Sherbourne’s public display of dissent towards the lack of response towards the Soviet Union from Jewish organizations in Britain led to him coming into contact with the 35’s. At a later public meeting called by the Chief Rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovits, following the Leningrad affair in June 1970, Sherbourne again made his frustrations about the lack of action publicly known. He recalled once again standing up at this meeting and stating, Chief Rabbi I mean no disrespect when I interrupt you, and I do apologise for that, but I feel I must say that I’ve been listening for the last couple of hours to a great deal of hot air. No one has said anything practical, no one has put forward any ideas of doing anything, and all we’re doing is easing our own consciences.120

Sherbourne’s outburst was reputedly met with stunned silence, apart from the sole clap of one individual – Myra Janner. At the end of this event, Janner, the wife of Greville Janner and later a member of the 35’s, approached Sherbourne and told him ‘you sound like one of us’.121 Sherbourne’s activism in support of the refuseniks had begun shortly before his second public outburst through his role as a secretary for a Synagogue in the London suburb of Southgate. Sherbourne had taken a booking for a number of Jewish exservicemen who had formed a Soviet Jewry Committee and wanted to use the Synagogue’s hall to hold a meeting. Sherbourne asked if he could attend the meeting with his wife, and if they could offer this committee any assistance, which they readily accepted. In passing, Sherbourne mentioned that he was fluent in Russian, upon which he recalled that the chairman of the committee ‘pounced on me’. Through this committee’s contacts, Sherbourne was given a short list of telephone numbers for refuseniks in Moscow, and he began to make telephone calls to them from his home in North London. It was through his conversations with those in the Soviet Union that Sherbourne became the centre for information on the refuseniks in Britain in the 1970s. He recalled that this activism ‘got into my blood’, and he went on to regularly make five or six telephone calls an evening to the Soviet Union. At the peak of his activism, he spent upwards of thirty-five hours a week telephoning refuseniks, a remarkable figure which is made even more astonishing given that he also worked full time as a teacher in this period.122

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Perhaps the greatest influence that Sherbourne had on the Soviet Jewry movement in Britain in its early years was in defining the terminology that it used, something that was mirrored by activists around the world. The term refusenik was coined in 1971 by Sherbourne, who had translated it from the Russian otkaznik, which had been translated into Hebrew for him by the refusenik Gabriel Shapiro. Otkaznik derives from the Russian term otkaz, meaning refusal, which accounts for Sherbourne’s literal translation – refusenik.123 The subsequent international recognition of this term illustrates the importance of Sherbourne’s conversations with Soviet Jews, which not only offered information on the refuseniks but also shaped the framework in which they were discussed. Although this term is perhaps an obvious and direct translation from the Russian, it is perhaps testament to the work of both Sherbourne and the 35’s that it stuck in the public discourse as opposed to other terms such as waitnik or refusednik, which were also used to describe the position of Soviet Jewry that had been refused exit visas. The term refusenik is now established and widely used in the English language, although its original definition is regularly forgotten. The term is now more commonly used to denote people who refuse to do something that is expected of them, often something far removed from the hardships experienced by the original refuseniks.124 Sherbourne’s telephone conversations with the refuseniks created a flow of information through which knowledge about the refuseniks was developed in the West. The process of receiving and distributing information in this manner was neatly described in The Times in 1971, which noted that ‘its methods are simple: nightly telephone calls to Jews in the Soviet Union usually yield masses of information which is quickly passed onto the press’.125 Sherbourne’s telephone calls with the refuseniks also allowed information on other Soviet dissidents to be delivered to Western activists. In January 1978, Alexander Podrabinek’s open letter to Amnesty International on the persecution of his brother Kirill was read to Sherbourne by the refusenik Victor Yelistratov. Sherbourne transcribed this letter and passed it on to other activists in Britain, including Peter Reddaway, whose personal papers contain copies of this material which would have been invaluable for his own activism.126 Similarly, in March 1979 Sherbourne translated an open letter jointly written by the refusenik Naum Meiman and Andrei Sakharov, which noted their joy at the foundation of a committee in the West to campaign on behalf of Yuri Orlov and Anatoly Shcharansky. This letter also enclosed details of a number of Soviet prisoners of conscience, which was published in the 35’s circular.127 Sherbourne’s telephone conversations, and the information that they offered, were of great use to activists in the West concerned about the position of refuseniks and other dissidents. As Gal Beckerman has aptly noted in his history of the American Soviet Jewry movement, ‘Sherbourne saw himself as a vessel, a way for messages to emerge from the Soviet Union … [his] calls provided the kind of sustenance that gave the Western side of the movement energy and will’.128 While Sherbourne operated alone in his telephoning endeavour, he was supported financially by Cyril Stein, the philanthropist and chairman of the British bookmakers Ladbrokes. Stein gave significant financial support to Soviet Jewry activists and

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met  the cost of the Sherbourne’s telephone calls to the Soviet Union and further afield,  ensuring that his telephone bill was paid every month in full.129 Given the frequency that Sherbourne was calling both the Soviet Union and activists in the United States to receive and distribute information, the cost of conducting longdistance telephone calls would have been a substantial sum – one that Sherbourne did not have to worry about. Reflecting on Stein’s financial support for his efforts, Sherbourne recalled, He [Stein] would pay for all my calls so I never had the slightest worry about making anything. I gave my monthly telephone bill to his accountant, whose wife was one of the members of the 35’s, and that’s all needed to do. I never saw it again, so I knew I could make these calls and he knew he could trust me that I wouldn’t abuse that privilege. 130

This financial assistance was essential, as it allowed Sherbourne to engage in his activism without worrying about the financial consequences of his extensive international telephone calls. Without Stein’s support, Sherbourne would not have been able to afford to make regular long-distance telephone calls on his teacher’s salary alone, something that would have had a dramatic effect on the wider British awareness of the refusenik issue, depriving the 35’s of an essential source of information for their campaigns. In his conversations with numerous refuseniks, Sherbourne built up strong personal links with many individuals in the Soviet Union, treating them almost as an extension of his own family. In particular, Sherbourne built up close links with Shcharansky, on whose behalf he campaigned tirelessly. Beckerman described their relationship as a ‘deep bond’, which was formed over their many conversations, sometimes over fortyfive minutes in length.131 Shortly after his release from imprisonment in February 1986, Shcharansky made time in an incredibly busy schedule to spend time with Sherbourne and his family at his home in London. Sherbourne’s personal photographs of this event show a very friendly and joyous occasion, which more closely resembles a family reunion rather than the meeting of a former prisoner of conscience and an activist who worked on his behalf.132 When Shcharansky gave Sherbourne a Jewish Agency Award at an event in London in December 2013 for his efforts in support of Soviet Jewry, he spoke about him in particularly warm terms. This was a mutual respect as in response, Sherbourne noted that Shcharansky was ‘not just an ordinary refusenik, you could tell from his voice and the kind of person he was, he was a leader, a natural leader of people’.133 Another strong relationship that Sherbourne formed was with the refusenik Ida Nudel, whose appreciation for his efforts is clearly outlined in her memoir A Hand in the Darkness. In a section discussing her persecution at the hands of the Soviet authorities, Nudel recounted that she had heard rumours that she was to be imminently confined in a psychiatric institution by the KGB, something that paralysed her with fear. Upon hearing this information during one of his regular telephone conversations with her, Sherbourne reiterated his efforts to support her in, shouting down the receiver ‘Ida,

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don’t be afraid … Don’t be afraid, they won’t dare.’134 In order to remind Nudel of those in the West concerned about her position, Sherbourne sent her a copy of a photograph of himself in the midst of one of his many telephone conversations to her, sitting next to a telephone and a recording device in the hallway of his house in London. This gesture was warmly received by Nudel, who prominently displayed this image in her home. Indeed, it can be clearly seen in a subsequent photograph that she later sent to Sherbourne, somewhat highlighting its strong personal value to her.135 Nudel’s house was subsequently searched by the KGB, and according to Sherbourne the only item taken was this photograph.136 This was an attempt by the KGB to intimidate Nudel, severing her links with Western activists who posed a real nuisance to the Soviet authorities and a great solace to the dissidents. It is interesting to note that in order to confiscate this photograph, Soviet officials must have been aware of whom the figure in this image was. The KGB was broadly aware of Sherbourne’s contact with the refuseniks, and attempted to discredit him in the Soviet press, referring to him as ‘the British Lord Sherbourne’, and denouncing him as a fascist.137 The Soviet authorities even made attempts to stop his telephone conversations with the refuseniks, with operators refusing to connect his calls, and in some instances his conversations were more crudely ended with the line being cut mid-conversation. The Soviet authorities were threatened by Sherbourne’s conversations with refuseniks, as it meant that the image of the Soviet Union that had been carefully crafted by state propaganda was being challenged in the West. Attempts to label him as a fascist were personally harmful given his Jewish faith and were aimed to discredit him both in the Soviet Union and in the West. They were also somewhat farcical given his involvement in the Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London in October 1936, where Sherbourne had taken part in the demonstrations against the fascist Blackshirts led by Oswald Mosley.138 Despite a number of obstacles, Sherbourne managed to evade attempts to cease his efforts on several occasions. He recalled one successful technique to evade the Soviet authorities which was the fact that he spoke Russian with what sounded like a slight Lithuanian accent, duping Soviet telephone operators into thinking he worked for the Lithuanian telephone exchange, which ensured that his calls to refuseniks were connected.139 Sherbourne’s efforts to bypass the Soviet authorities highlight both the ingenuity and the ferocity with which he conducted his activism. Daphne Gerlis has described his efforts as a ‘one man battle’ fought by someone who was never afraid to ‘show his head above the parapet’.140 This fighting metaphor is particular apt, as not only did Sherbourne’s activism focus on obtaining information from the refuseniks themselves, but it also included vociferous attacks against the seeming inaction from established Jewish bodies in the United Kingdom, such as the Board of Deputies. In an open letter dated 28 June 1977, which was circulated to Soviet Jewry campaigners in Britain, Sherbourne vented his frustrations at the lack of action to support Shcharansky. He accused the Jewish leadership in Britain of ‘cowardice, blindness, ineptitude, complacency’ and concluded with great urgency that ‘SHCHARANSKY MUST BE SAVED’.141 This passionate and desperate call for more

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action from the Jewish community in Britain demonstrates that he was prepared to be critical of authorities in both the Soviet Union and the West, highlighting his commitment to the refuseniks. The scale of Sherbourne’s conversations, and the relationships that he built up with a number of refuseniks, positioned him as a key bridge between the Soviet Union and the West. The 35’s utilized the information he had obtained to take part in demonstrations or circulate it more broadly given their links with journalist and politicians alike. This process was only successful due to a change in approach by the refuseniks themselves, who by the late 1960s were willing to freely discuss their position with Westerners, fully in the knowledge that their telephones could be tapped at any moment by the KGB. An article in The Times from July 1971 commenting on the flow of information to the West through telephone conversations noted that ‘a few years ago, the whole project [of collecting information from refuseniks in this manner] would have been unthinkable’.142 The refuseniks’ desire to leave the Soviet Union had become so strong that the threat of imprisonment was no longer considered as a deterrent for their activism. As Benjamin Nathans has noted, this was a transition common to the broader dissident movement in the Soviet Union in this period, as dissidents began to increasingly utilize international human rights agreements to leverage global public opinion.143 This was a dramatic change, and one that allowed activists such as Sherbourne to obtain the most up-to-date information on refuseniks possible, often well in advance of the press. Sherbourne’s warm relationship with leading refuseniks gave him exclusive access to material in advance of other activists and journalists in the West. For example, the report of Shcharansky’s trial in 1978 came to the West through Sherbourne’s conversations with Anatoly’s brother Leonid. Shortly after leaving the courtroom, Leonid recounted details of the trial in a telephone conversation with Sherbourne, giving as close a transcript of the events as possible. In this instance, Sherbourne obtained extensive details about the trial and the verdict long before media outlets in the West were able to.144 The details of the trial of Raiza Palatnik, the refusenik whose cases was taken up by the 35’s at their first demonstration in May 1971, were obtained by an ‘unofficial reporter’ who managed to attend all three days of her trial. This reporter was telephoned each night after the trial by Sherbourne, who was provided with a detailed account of the day's proceedings. Sherbourne used his contacts to pass these reports to journalists at national newspapers, who used this information to report on the trial long before the Soviet media agency TASS released any details of events having even taken place. An anonymous 35er noted her bewilderment at how this dissident managed to obtain this information: ‘How he managed to get into the court every day is something of mystery. But he did. As soon as we got the information we passed it on to Fleet Street and the system worked very well.’145 Sherbourne’s use of the telephone to obtain information rather than relying on written materials meant that he could receive the latest information much faster, and arguably more reliably, than others could ever hope to. This put him in an immensely important position for journalists and activists alike, who desired this exclusive material for their reports. Sherbourne readily shared the information that he had on the refuseniks with an array of Fleet Street journalists, most notably with The Times’s outspoken columnist

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Bernard Levin. After being told of the position of the refuseniks in conversations with Sherbourne, Levin demanded that he speak directly to a refusenik family, via Sherbourne’s translation, using his own telephone. Owing to the need to book a call to the Soviet Union in advance, and to ensure that someone appropriate would be available, Sherbourne arranged for a conversation to take place with the refusenik Valentin Prusakov the week after Levin’s request. Levin initially gave Sherbourne a list of ten questions to put to Prusakov. After Levin’s initial questions had been answered he posed a final question enquiring about what their neighbours in the Soviet Union thought about their plight. Sherbourne remembered the ‘explosion’ at the other end of the line after he put this question to Prusakov: he recalled Prusakov exclaiming that ‘this man is crazy! I don’t discuss this sort of thing with my neighbours, they’re all anti-Semites’.146 Sherbourne had to explain the high level of anti-Semitism present in the Soviet Union to Levin and that refuseniks told their neighbours nothing of their situation through the fear of reprisal.147 Levin’s naïve response to this dissident was perhaps born out of his limited awareness of the plight of the refuseniks, which is comparable to the reaction to the initial 35’s demonstration in May 1971. Sherbourne corrected this in a seemingly revelatory fashion for Levin, and this enlightenment is clearly demonstrated in the venom with which he wrote articles on the persecution occurring within the Soviet Union in his column for The Times. Levin considered the persecuted dissidents as the ‘true heroes’ in the Soviet Union and called for British people to take immediate action to support them; he wrote frequently about them in passionate terms in his regular column in The Times.148 While it is likely that Levin would have come across the refuseniks’ plight through other links, and may have written in such urgent terms regardless, his meetings with Sherbourne played an important part in introducing him to this issue. Through this link, the silent influence of the 35’s activism is present throughout Levin’s fervent calls for action in support of the refuseniks. Sherbourne’s passionate desire to take active steps to support Soviet Jewry in the face of inaction and his insistence on distributing information about their plight as widely as possible were traits that he shared with the 35’s. The combination of his linguistic abilities, contacts within the Soviet Union and ferocious commitment to supporting the refuseniks made him an essential part of the 35’s activism, without which the group would have been deprived of this essential information. Such was the quality of this information that Peter Reddaway has noted that if he were to pick just one person responsible for the reputation and achievements of the 35’s, it would be Sherbourne.149 Sherbourne’s integral role for the 35’s efforts was reciprocated by his admiration for their own activism, which can be seen in his 1977 open letter in which he notes that ‘were it not for the wonderful ladies of the 35’s for whom I have the greatest respect, Shcharansky’s name would be forgotten in this country’.150 With their shared ferocity and drive, Sherbourne and the 35’s were natural partners and worked well together to raise the plight of the refuseniks in British public consciousness. In the early years of the 35’s efforts, the group could reputedly organize a demonstration to take place outside the Soviet Embassy in London within forty-eight hours of receiving information from the Soviet Union via Sherbourne’s telephone

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calls. In January 1972, Sherbourne received information that the refusenik Vladimir Slepak had been threatened with a charge of parasitism by the Soviet authorities. This information was relayed to the 35’s, who swiftly took up his case, demonstrating outside the Soviet Embassy with placards bearing Slepak’s name. While the 35’s recognized this was all ‘corny, placard waving stuff ’, the demonstration itself was of utmost importance for its symbolism, reiterating to Soviet Embassy officials how good the group’s sources of information were and how quickly it was able to spring into action. As a member of the group noted to The Guardian’s John Windsor, the 35’s protests were ‘just our way of saying to the Soviet Embassy: “There is nothing you can do that we won’t find out about. Harm a Soviet Jew and we’ll be on your doorstep the following day” ’.151 Such a swift response to such information necessitated a great level of dedication, and activists affiliated to the 35’s gave up vast amounts of their time and resource to the refusenik cause, dedicating their life’s work to supporting individuals in the Soviet Union they had never met. Their efforts were born out of the frustration of the inaction of others and an incessant determination to stand up for the persecuted refuseniks in the Soviet Union. Why then did 35ers choose to devote such substantial resource to the plight of the refuseniks, who, on the whole, they did not initially know? The personal risks taken by many 35ers and the amount of effort and time put into the work of the campaign necessitated a great sense of altruism. While this selflessness was abundant in many of the campaign’s members, it would be erroneous to claim that this was the sole reason for their personal tachlis. The 35’s felt a duty to stand up against the persecution of the refuseniks, with whom they shared a common religious faith. This can be seen throughout their activism, but is perhaps most explicit in a letter written by Eker and Rigal to The Spectator in April 1981, in which they were deeply critical of the lack of action taken against the Soviet abuses of religion by Christian churches in the West. In reference to the seeming lack of publicity surrounding the attacks on Christianity in the Soviet Union, this letter outlined that they were ‘disappointed by their failure to publicise the plight of their co-religionists’. This phase is particularly telling of the 35’s own motivations, and the efforts that they felt others in Britain should be undertaking in order to highlight the Soviet authorities’ abuses, betraying that the campaign was compelled in their activism for the refuseniks because of their shared religion.152 In comparison to other activists in Britain working to support the myriad of dissidents in the Soviet Union, the 35’s developed particularly strong emotive bonds with the individuals whom they were supporting. Rigal recognized the importance of this powerful link between the activist and the victim, and understood the necessity of trust in their work. She recalled, This is where the Jews had it compared to anyone else, because the Jews trusted each other and this is one of the things that made all the difference. When Michael [Sherbourne] got onto Viktor they were two people who understood what the other one was talking about. When we were in there they trusted us and we trusted them.153

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The trust that existed between the refuseniks and individual 35ers was beyond that of a friendship, and more akin to close family relations. Like all NGOs working for Soviet dissidents in this period, trust was paramount to the activities of the 35’s. There was more to the efforts of the 35’s than just a simple identification with their Soviet counterparts; there was a genuine and emotional trust between the activist and persecuted. This is clearly seen in the relationship that Sherbourne developed with refuseniks such as Shcharansky and Nudel. The photographic images and recollections of the visits of 35ers to refusenik families in the Soviet Union held in the 35’s archive could easily be mistaken for photographs of family events.154 The deep emotional ties that 35ers built with the refuseniks can also be seen throughout their circular, which utilized this emotive concern to rally members to demonstrations. A circular from May 1979 included details for a ‘first demo’ against the 1980 Olympics which noted ‘no excuse for non-attendance – think of Ida [Nudel], Vladimir [Slepak] and Anatoly Shcharansky’. That refuseniks were referred to by their first names alone in this rather blunt demand for attendance highlights the emotion in the work of the 35’s, who appear to have been fighting for close friends rather than distant unknown figures.155 This was a great strength for the organization, whose members developed strong emotional attachments to the individuals they were supporting. As Gerlis has noted, ‘Ask a 35er about “her” adopted refusenik and her face lights up. So often it is not the relevant details of the case which she remembers – the number of years in refusal, the length of prison sentence – but the minutiae of their lives.’156 Although the relationship between individual refuseniks and 35ers offers an explanation for the efforts of the 35’s, it does not fully explain the direction of the group itself, nor why it was so committed to the dissemination of information regarding individual refuseniks. The reasoning for this perhaps lies in the history of the AngloJewish community and its response to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. Support for Soviet Jewry from Britain during the 1970s and 1980s needs to be placed into the wider historical context of the twentieth century. Jewish believers have been subjected to a vast amount of persecution throughout their history, most notably in the Tsarist pogroms in Russia and the Holocaust instigated by fascists in Eastern Europe. As Shlomo Lambroza has noted, ‘the history of Russian Jewry is one of discrimination punctuated by episodes of violence leading to mass migration’.157 The persecution of the refuseniks was part of a long lineage of anti-Semitism in Russia. The efforts of the 35’s filled the void in public knowledge about the persecution of refuseniks in the Soviet Union, and these efforts were motivated by the lack of information that was circulated in Britain about the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s. The need to educate the British public about the position of Soviet Jewry was seen by the 35’s in the same light as the need to educate about the events of the Holocaust. Rigal noted the distinct lack of education that she had about the ‘big politics’ surrounding the events of the Holocaust and was determined that she wouldn’t let her children grow up ‘not knowing anything’ of the Soviet persecution.158 As a result of this, there are references to the broader anti-Semitic persecutions of the twentieth century throughout the activism of the 35’s. This can be seen in the letter sent by Doreen Gainsford to Margaret Thatcher, notifying her

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of Gainsford’s emigration to Israel in March 1978. In this letter, Gainsford notes that ‘You and I have had the discussion in my very early days and agreed that the 30s-40s must never be allowed to happen again’, implicitly showing concerns about a second Holocaust.159 Barbara Oberman also noted shortly before her immigration to Israel in an interview on the London-based radio station LBC in November 1978 that ‘there’s no doubt just as the Holocaust physically destroyed the Jews, the Soviet Union today spiritually is destroying the Jews’.160 The direct link between the Holocaust and the Soviet abuses that was made by the 35’s appeared frequently in the group’s Circular. In September 1978, the Circular reported that a member of a 35’s group in Nottingham, who, when asked by reporters of local radio stations to comment on the TV mini-series ‘Holocaust’, had ‘used the interview to discuss what happened in the Thirties in Germany and that we must prevent a repetition in the Eighties’. This article highlighted the potential that this series offered to bolster their campaign against the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, demanding that its members ‘don’t miss this valuable opportunity to underline the need to take action NOW and gain support for the Removal of the Olympic Games. Copy the Nottingham idea and discuss the Olympics and “Holocaust” with your local radio stations.’161 Susan Lander, the chairman of the Liverpool 35’s group, followed this advice and a week later was quoted in the Liverpool Echo stating that the series’ message was directly related to the persecution of Soviet Jewry, noting that ‘people today don’t believe it, but unfortunately it’s true. Holocaust brings it all back … the whole world must know that it’s not going to happen again’.162 The link between the Holocaust and the Soviet persecution goes someway to explain the effort that went into the 35’s campaign against the Olympic Games. A copy of the Circular in April 1979 outlined reports that the group had received that Soviet officials were threatening an end to emigration following the Olympics, when there would be a ‘solution to the Jewish problem’.163 Such language raised great fears from 35ers for the future of Soviet Jewry, which was compounded by the reports of rife anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. Such concerning reports led the group to grimly question in April 1983, ‘has the wheel come full circle? Will the world take action before Soviet Jews endure the fate of European Jews suffered in the forties?’164 These examples are only a selection of the frequent links made by the organization between the persecution conducted by the Nazi regime and persecution of Soviet Jewry. The link between the events of the Holocaust and the persecution of the refuseniks is also evident in Sherbourne’s activism, perhaps most notably in his venomous open letter from June 1977. In this letter he criticized the lack of action from the Jewish leadership in Britain towards the persecution of Soviet Jewry, highlighting that the prison sentence Shcharansky had received for his dissent was substantially shorter than that of Orlov. This mismatched justice seemed particularly out of place, as Shcharansky was charged with being a member of the Helsinki Monitoring Group in Moscow, a group that Orlov chaired. Sherbourne concluded that ‘Shcharansky is on trial for his life because he is a Jewish leader’ arguing furiously that ‘Jewish leaders here twiddle their thumbs – they have forgotten DREYFUS – they have forgotten MENDEL BEILIS – they have forgotten the HOLOCAUST – they have never heard of ENTEBBE’.165 Sherbourne concluded that Shcharansky was being disproportionally

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punished because he was a prominent Jewish figure in the Soviet Union, and that the ignorance of Soviet anti-Semitism by the Jewish leadership in Britain was inexcusable. The 35’s concern about the resurgence of anti-Semitic persecution in the Soviet Union on a scale comparable to the Holocaust, and the desire to inform wide sections of the public about their concerns, was part of a broader approach that human rights activists have in common. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink have noted in Activists beyond Borders that activists hope that ‘by telling the truth about the past to the widest possible public they can prevent its repetition’.166 The potential to prevent another tragedy comparable to the Holocaust had a strong resonance with the 35’s, and the activity of the organization should be seen as both a reaction to the Holocaust and a pre-emptive attempt to halt further persecution in the Soviet Union. Some scholars have identified the increased awareness and understanding of the Nazi genocide as having an explicit impact on human rights activism in the 1970s, accounting for the widespread growth of the international human rights movement in this period. Aryeh Neier has argued that one of the reasons for the blossoming of the human rights movement was a ‘widespread understanding that the failure to unite in denouncing crimes such as those of the 1930s contributed to the calamity that followed’.167 While this is perhaps an easy conclusion to draw, with the events of the Holocaust doubtless playing an important role in motivating activists such as the 35’s, it does not fully account for the hiatus between the end of the Second World War and the rebirth of human rights as a salient issue in international relations in the late 1970s. The debate surrounding the role played by the Holocaust in motivating activists in the 1970s, and its broader impact in the expansion of human rights activism, has been deftly assessed by Gerald Daniel Cohen, who has identified that a ‘dividing line separates historians who attributed the post-war resonance of human rights to the top-down protections envisioned in the later 1940s from others who now locate in the 1970s the soaring phase of the “last utopia”’.168 The case of the 35’s, and their blossoming activism for the refuseniks in the 1970s, highlights that the post-war idealism of human rights, encapsulated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was only borne out by activists in the 1970s. The rife anti-Semitism of the immediate post-war period in the Soviet Union – including the infamous ‘Doctors’ Plot’, where a number of Jewish physicians who treated the Soviet leadership were accused of trying to murder their patients in the Kremlin – did not lead to the formation of Soviet Jewry groups like those formed in the 1970s.169 While one of the main motivations for the 35’s work was the desire to stop Soviet anti-Semitism from developing into the persecution of the 1930s and 1940s, the impact of the 35’s increased markedly once détente began to wane in the late 1970s, and human rights became an increasingly important issue in international relations. As an organization, the 35’s were reliant on the barbarity of the Holocaust for their drive, and, much like many other organizations in Britain working to support those in the Soviet Union, they depended on developments of the Cold War for their activism to have a wider impact. *** The campaigning efforts of the 35’s can be neatly summarized by the direction the group was taken in by its leading figures. Following its establishment in 1971,

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Doreen Gainsford and Barbara Oberman focused the group’s attention primarily on gaining media attention, highlighting the plight of the refuseniks as an important political issue. Once the dissidents’ plight had become mainstream news, Rita Eker and Margaret Rigal took the 35’s in a different direction, focusing on gaining the ear of those in power and supplying them with the necessary information to put direct pressure on the Soviet authorities. The reasons for this shift were, in part, driven by the decreasing impact of the group’s public demonstrations. But it can also be attributed to the broader shift in the attitudes towards Soviet dissent and human rights issues more broadly that occurred in the late 1970s. Like many other activist groups in this period, the 35’s were caught up in the rapid ascendancy of human rights as a salient political issue in international relations, something they unconsciously exploited to great effect. The distinguished BBC journalist John Simpson lauded the efforts of the 35’s for their activism in support of the refuseniks, which was based on an immense level of personal sacrifice and a strong clarity of purpose. In a letter sent to the group following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Simpson noted that ‘it’s quite clear that you were doing exactly the right thing. My hats off to you; it was courage and foresight like that which brought the old discredited Soviet Union to its grave’.170

4

From Toothache to Keston, via Moscow – Michael Bourdeaux and the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism

Many of the activist organizations in Britain that worked to support persecuted dissidents in the Soviet Union were founded either in response to a harrowing report of an individual being persecuted or following the bold efforts of a dissident contacting the West to obtain support. The establishment of one of the most important organizations that documented the precarious nature of religious life behind the iron curtain, which caught the attention of political figures around the world and led to international acclaim for the work of its researchers, however, began with a trip to the dentist. During the early stages of his National Service in the 1950s, the young Michael Bourdeaux was earmarked to serve as an interpreter in West Germany due to his natural ability with languages. After the completion of his National Service, he had been due to take up a place at the University of Oxford to read French and German, so a period as an interpreter was to be a perfect experience to put his developing linguistic talents to practice. However, during a long weekend on leave at home, Bourdeaux suffered from toothache and was given a short period of medical leave while on a course of antibiotics following the painful extraction of a troublesome tooth. On his return, Bourdeaux discovered that he had missed the required entrance examination for his planned posting and that he had been reassigned to general office duties for the remainder of his National Service, including ‘kindling unwilling fires, making tea and scrubbing floors’.1 Completing such menial assignments was far from what he had envisaged spending his National Service doing. As a result, he appealed to the officer of his section to change this decision but was informed that the chosen interpreters had already left for Germany and that there was nothing he could do to change the situation. Bourdeaux was aghast at this news, and against the advice of his section’s officer, he took his concerns further up the chain of command, requesting a meeting with a senior officer to resolve his case. During a meeting over a cup of tea Bourdeaux was again informed that there was nothing that could be done given the small range of opportunities available during National Service. However, upon recognizing that Bourdeaux had ‘had a raw deal’, the Group Captain ‘shuffled through the papers on his desk’ and mumbled ‘something about languages’. Following an awkward silence,

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this officer offered Bourdeaux an opportunity that went on to shape his life’s work. In this period, the British Government had begun training Russian linguists who would be of utmost value in the potential event of a conflict with the Soviet Union. Given his linguistic abilities, Bourdeaux was offered a place on a Russian language course, something that he readily took up. He was despatched to the library to ‘see if there’s a Russian book in the “Teach Yourself ” series’ to prepare him for the entrance exam, being warned by the Group Captain – ‘better make sure you don’t fail’. Bourdeaux quickly took to this new language and developed such a passion for it that after completing his National Service he went on to read Russian and French at Oxford from 1954 to 1957. He never saw the Group Captain who had opened up this new path for him and cannot even remember his name, but his intervention had a profound impact on Bourdeaux’s life.2 Bourdeaux’s chance introduction to the Russian language also opened his eyes to religious life in the Soviet Union. Following his training in Russian and French, Bourdeaux also completed a degree in Theology. His two interests came to the fore during 1959, when he travelled to Moscow as part of the first year-long British Council cultural exchange with the Soviet Union.3 Much like his introduction to the Russian language, Bourdeaux’s participation in this exchange was also partly down to chance, as he had initially been planning to spend this year in Belgrade studying the Serbian Orthodox Church, owing to its good relations with the Anglican Church in Britain. Shortly before he was due to leave for Serbia, an agreement was signed between Britain and the Soviet Union during Harold Macmillan’s visit to Moscow in February 1959, which allowed for increased cultural relations to take place between the two nations.4 Conveniently for Bourdeaux, the whole process of organizing exchanges following this agreement was incredibly swift, something that he attributed to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s desire to have his ‘whole cadre of spies … into the British universities as soon as possible’. This, timed with a relatively naïve Foreign Office willing to facilitate the process, meant that all bureaucratic formalities were quickly completed, and Bourdeaux was selected as one of the group of British students to take part in the exchange following an interview with the British Council. After a short briefing from Foreign Office officials, which he recalled ‘lasted the inside of a day with a nice lunch in the middle’, Bourdeaux made preparations for life behind the iron curtain.5 The year that Bourdeaux and his peers spent on this cultural exchange gave them the chance to appreciate what life was like in Moscow, the capital of the great socialist experiment – a unique experience in the context of the Cold War. At this time political dissent in the Soviet Union and the phenomenon of samizdat was virtually unknown in the West.6 Despite this, some of those taking part in this cultural exchange managed to participate in activity that tested the patience of their Soviet hosts. For example Tony French, a historical geographer who was based at University College London, conducted research into the development of historical Russia waterways during his exchange. His work, which included requests to visit a number of dams and see the Moscow Volga Canal, raised the suspicions of the Soviet authorities who were concerned about his interest in this infrastructure.7 Another of Bourdeaux’s compatriots on this exchange was Martin Dewhirst, who went on to become a noted professor of Russian history and

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literature. During the exchange, Dewhirst managed to attend the funeral of the Nobel Prize winning author Boris Pasternak in the Moscow suburb of Peredelkino in June 1960. Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago had drawn the ire of the Soviet authorities, who had expelled him from the Union of Soviet Writers, and Dewhirst’s attendance was part of his broader association with the fledgling dissident movement, something that later led to his denouncement in the Soviet press.8 Bourdeaux’s time in Moscow gave him an insight into the day-to-day workings of the communist system that he felt could not have been achieved by an academic route alone. As he later recalled, ‘what I learnt about religion and human rights in Russia … came not through book knowledge primarily but with my own two feet, taking myself around Moscow, meeting people, looking at churches which were being destroyed’.9 His visit came during a time when the communist nation was going through a serious of dramatic changes after the death of Joseph Stalin. Khrushchev’s rise to power and his policy of de-Stalinization, which attempted to develop the Soviet Union after years of Stalinist terror, suggested to Western commentators that the Soviet authorities were reforming themselves politically from within. However, Bourdeaux’s experiences in the Moscow during this period gave him a very different impression of Khrushchev’s reforms. Bourdeaux recalled that he ‘came to see, through meeting ordinary people, that the death of Stalin six years earlier had not inaugurated a golden age for Russian people’ and that ‘the smiling face of Khrushchev had a very nasty side to it’, particularly towards religious believers.10 While his time in power is perhaps most noted for the thaw in both politics and culture, culminating in the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous One Day of the Life of Ivan Denisovich in the literary journal Novy Mir, Khrushchev’s time as General Secretary saw what Robert Service has dubbed a ‘crude assault’ upon religious belief.11 Churches of all faiths were demolished across the Soviet Union, and the state directly intervened in the organization and operation of a number of religions. The Russian Orthodox Church, which had seen a period of resurgence during the Second World War due to Stalin’s lenience towards them in return for its unifying support for the war effort, came under particular assault.12 Upon returning to Britain in 1960, Bourdeaux was ordained as an Anglican curate in a North London parish and appeared destined for a life in the Church.13 However, his personal experiences of the persecution of religious life in Moscow drove him in a different direction. In January 1961, Bourdeaux wrote an article for The Observer outlining his experiences during his year in Moscow. In this piece, he questioned the sincerity of the Russian Orthodox Clergy, highlighting his concerns about the freedom of religion claimed by the Soviet authorities.14 This article was criticized by an anonymous Russian Orthodox Cleric who wrote to The Observer shortly after the publication of Bourdeaux’s article arguing that ‘after a year in Moscow does Mr. Bourdeaux really expect straight answers to all his questions?’. The brevity of Bourdeaux’s visit was reiterated when this cleric conceded that although the Orthodox Church was ‘passing through times of great difficulty’ it had dealt better with the problem of ‘spreading the gospel in a communist society in the past forty years of martyrdom than Mr. Bourdeaux could do in a visit of one year’.15

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Bourdeaux’s concerns about the freedom of religious belief in the Soviet Union returned in 1964 when he received a letter from his former teacher Nicholas Zernov, the Spalding lecturer in Eastern Orthodox culture at the University of Oxford. Alongside his letter, Zernov had included a document about the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union that he had received from a French teacher which he thought would interest Bourdeaux. This document was an appeal to the West to intervene in the Soviet authorities’ decision to close the Pochaev monastery in Ukraine. This appeal, which had been signed by the semi-anonymous Pronina and Varvavva struck a chord with Bourdeaux because of the way in which it had been written, focusing on ‘absolute simplicity, just listing the facts to which they claimed to be eyewitnesses’. He felt so strongly about the contents of the document that he had received that he felt compelled to investigate their claims further, following a ‘gut feeling’ that he ‘was for the first time in [his] life hearing the true voices of the persecuted Church’.16 Despite this desire to learn more of their plight, in this period there was little information available in Britain on political dissent in the Soviet Union, let alone details on the persecution of religious belief. It was this lack of information, combined with Bourdeaux’s fear that the oppression of religious believers was worse than he had imagined, that led him to become personally involved in this matter. In April 1964, Bourdeaux managed to travel to Moscow on a ‘very cheap trip’ accompanying a group of teachers. When he could break away from the group to talk to locals, he found that his ‘conversations were inhibited by the all-pervading fear’.17 As a result, he obtained no new information about the position of religion in the Soviet Union. However, his second trip to Moscow in August that year, when he accompanied a group of American tourists, proved much more productive. During this visit he was told by friends of a church that had been destroyed under the pretence of the extension of the Metro system. Bourdeaux visited the remains of this church on his first night in the Soviet capital and came across two women who were trying to peer over a fence to see what remained of the building. When they later left the site of the church, he followed them and asked if they could tell him why the church had been destroyed. Initially shocked, the pair motioned him to follow them to the outskirts of Moscow so as not to be overheard by others who might inform the authorities of any conversation that took place. Once at the outskirts, he was escorted into an old building where he was introduced to a third woman, whom he engaged in conversation. During their discussion, Bourdeaux mentioned that it was an appeal he had received from Pronina and Varvavva that had led him to return to Moscow to seek more information about the persecution of religious belief. Upon stating these names to his new acquaintances, Bourdeaux recalled: Suddenly the silence was total. I wondered if I had said something wrong. Then a deep sob from the third woman. ‘My guests … this is Feodosia Varavva’. ‘Yes, I wrote that appeal, this is Pronina who signed it too … When we’d written it we came to Moscow, a distance of nearly 1,300 kilometres to find a foreigner … eventually

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we met a French schoolteacher who happened to speak Russian. She took the letter from us … We arrived here this afternoon (with a further appeal) to look for another foreigner but before we had time to start our search, our friend sent us out to see the terrible things which had been happening in Moscow itself. That’s when we met you.’18

At this chance meeting Bourdeaux’s acquaintances implored him to ‘be our voice’ in the West, taking his concerns about the position of religious belief in the Soviet Union further by conducting activism to raise awareness of their plight. While it is all but impossible to verify the exact details of Bourdeaux’s meeting with Pronina and Varavva in 1964, the profound impact that it had on him cannot be in doubt. This chance meeting is described by Bourdeaux as both ‘the way of the hand of God’ and the moment when ‘God wrenched the steering wheel out of my grasp’.19 He interpreted this meeting as a divine intervention, and upon his return to Britain, he began to follow this call which became his life’s work.20 Bourdeaux’s experience of life behind the iron curtain set him apart from other commentators on the position of religion in the Soviet Union, offering him an authority over those who lacked this first-hand experience. This authority, however, was largely spurned given the uncomfortable nature of Bourdeaux’s conclusions. Prior to his visits to Moscow in 1964, Bourdeaux had begun writing about religious life in the Soviet Union – work that gained renewed importance following his chance encounter in Moscow. His writings eventually became his first book on the subject of Soviet religious persecution, Opium of the People, which was published by Faber and Faber in 1965. Bourdeaux’s initial approaches to publishers with this text were largely unproductive, something that he attributes to the revelations that this manuscript contained about the treatment of religious believers in the Soviet Union. In the context of Khrushchev’s reforms, this stark assessment of the life of religious believers was controversial and uncomfortable for many in the West to deal with. This is especially so in the broader context of Khrushchev’s policy of de-Stalinization that was widely seen to be reforming the Soviet Union in a positive way.21 Bourdeaux’s revelations made the publication of his work difficult. He recalls approaching twelve different publishers with a manuscript, which became increasingly dog-eared as it was passed from one editor to another. One reputedly noted that his work was in ‘danger of rocking the boat’ and that regardless of the accuracy of his accusations, ‘all this talk of persecution can only harm Christians in the Soviet Union, even if it were true’. Faber and Faber liked the style of Bourdeaux’s work, noting a clear gap in the literature for this piece but insisted that the manuscript be completely rewritten and that the latest information from the Soviet Union be added to his account.22 In its published form, Opium of the People is a detailed, yet personal account of religious belief in the Soviet Union based on Bourdeaux’s own experiences. It outlines the history of belief in Russia from Kievan Rus’ through to the Soviet Union, assessing the position of both the Russian Orthodox Church and other Christian faiths in the communist state. It concluded with a section entitled ‘New Perspectives’,

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which focused on Bourdeaux’s fears about the position of religion – namely that the Christian faith was being eroded in the Soviet Union despite the propaganda efforts by its authorities to present to the West that it protected individual freedom of religion. The aim of Bourdeaux’s work was to clarify thoughts in the West about the position of the Church in the Soviet Union, highlighting ‘how absurd and unfounded is the picture presented by the worst sort of cold-war agitators who seek to portray the Russian Church as a mere tool of the Soviet Government’.23 In the context of Khrushchev’s reforms this was a bold, and unorthodox position on the Soviet Union, and subsequently Bourdeaux recalls that his book was met by an ‘outcry of horror’ following its publication.24 His perception of a general sense of disbelief at his accusations, however, appears to be overstated as the response to Opium of the People was largely positive. The regular ‘Summary of the News’ section in the Church Times noted in June 1965 that Opium of the People ‘presents moving evidence of the appalling difficulties under which the Russian Church and its people still labour’.25 Such was the Church Times’ appreciation of this work that it serialized extracts from Bourdeaux’s account, something that was much admired by some of its readership.26 J. C. Pollock wrote to the paper in July 1965 noting that Bourdeaux’s book was an ‘excellent portrayal of the situation in Russia’ and one that filled a necessary gap in the literature.27 Despite concerns about the accuracy of some historical analysis, the academic reviews of this work were also largely positive. Dmitry Pospielovsky noted in a review for Soviet Studies from April 1966 that although Bourdeaux’s discussion of Russian religious history contained ‘many inaccuracies and dubious generalizations … this book is in many ways an invaluable contribution to the literature on the state of religions in the USSR’. Pospielovsky, an academic based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, also described Opium of the People as ‘a serious, often critical and penetrating witnessaccount by an honest Western observer, who certainly has no bias in favour of either Russia or Russian Orthodoxy’.28 This is an incisive reading of this book, recognizing its strengths as an eye-witness account of religious life in Russia rather than a groundbreaking academic text on Russian Orthodox history. This quality was also recognized by Edward Crankshaw, who noted in The Observer that the book was a ‘necessary reminder that all is not well with Russia’, one that ‘should be read by all Western churchmen who are inclined to put their trust in Eastern prelates’. Crankshaw’s review highlights the uncomfortable nature of Bourdeaux’s comments for many in Britain at this time, which challenged ‘the persistent failure in the West to understand the savagery of the war being waged by the Soviet Government on organised religion’, highlighting the initial scepticism that Bourdeaux faced when approaching publishers with this material.29 The largely positive response to Opium of the People does not match up with Bourdeaux’s claimed ‘outcry of horror’ about his work. Outright criticism of his work was limited to those with a vested interest in protecting the Soviet Union’s international image such as Yuri Alexandrov, a journalist who had written articles for the Soviet publication Agitator on religious issues. In December 1966, Alexandrov wrote to The Times to ‘introduce clarity in certain matters concerning religion in the USSR, a question which evidently, interests the British public’. This was a pressing

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matter, as he argued ‘Mr. Bourdeaux willy-nilly has confused the issue completely’. Alexandrov dismissed Bourdeaux’s claims that there was ‘tortuous machinery’ preventing religious activity, noting that the reason religious groups had been refused registration was that they ‘do not recognize Soviet legislation on cults, and their religions and rites incite believers to the violation of laws of the state and of the order established in the country’.30 Alexandrov’s comments avoid the truth in Bourdeaux’s accusations and paint the plight of religious believers in a far brighter light than it was in reality. Aside from the few propaganda attacks, how can we account for Bourdeaux’s perception of criticism? In the mid-1960s, public awareness of political dissent in the Soviet Union was virtually non-existent in Britain. The awareness of the plight of religious believers in the Soviet Union among the British public was equally low, and Bourdeaux’s hope that his work would be a revelation for many, something that was unfounded, goes some way to explain his perception of the book’s controversy. The poor reception of Opium of the People did not occur because people believed Soviet propaganda on their treatment of religious believers, it was because their persecution was not considered as an important issue, and as a result the publication of Bourdeaux’s work did not lead to any notable action on the matter. Bourdeaux’s recollection that publishers’ did not want to publish Opium of the People because it was in danger of rocking the boat may have in fact been due to the fact that in 1960s Britain, the violation of human rights in the Soviet Union was simply not a politically important issue that would sell books. Despite the relative lack of action following the publication of his book, Bourdeaux continued his activism unabated. In the mid-1960s he took up a position at the Centre de Recherches et d’Etude des Institutions Religieuses in Geneva, after meeting its director William Fletcher, and devoted his time to researching the Soviet Union from his home in Chislehurst, Kent. Fletcher’s Centre de Recherches was comprised of eight researchers, who were paid for ‘half-time’ work on the basis that they were already established scholars in their field.31 In this position, Bourdeaux was given responsibility for the Soviet Union and required to keep up-to-date with the developing position of religion through a detailed reading of the Soviet press.32 In February 1967, he was supported in this work by Xenia Howard-Johnston, who had recently graduated from Oxford with a degree in Russian.33 Howard-Johnston, who later became Xenia Dennen following her marriage to the Anglican priest Lyle Dennen, became an integral part of Bourdeaux’s research on the Soviet Union and has maintained her close relationship with him to this day.34 While the Centre de Recherches facilitated Bourdeaux’s work on religion in the Soviet Union, it was not without its controversies. The funding behind Fletcher’s organization was unclear at the time, and details about its work remain remarkably vague.35 While Fletcher’s financial support allowed Bourdeaux to continue his research, the suspicious funding of such an organization during the Cold War draws a number of questions about its purpose, particularly in the context of bodies such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-sponsored organization funding cultural activities in the West.36 If Bourdeaux was to present himself as an impartial figure and to have an effective impact, he needed to establish his own reputation and expertise independent of Fletcher’s organization.

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Establishing Activism In order to more effectively ‘be the voice’ of the persecuted religious believer in the Soviet Union, Bourdeaux joined with a number of like-minded individuals to form the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism (CSRC), institutionalizing the research that he had done on the Soviet Union in the 1960s. During its foundation, which began with informal meetings in 1969 and culminated in the group’s registration as a charity in September 1970, the CSRC sought to establish itself as an academic body. The group’s implicit demands for academic credibility can be seen in the background of its four founding members: Bourdeaux, whose expertise had been established through his personal experiences in the Soviet Union in the 1960s; the diplomat and writer Sir John Lawrence, who was noted for his links with the BBC and religious organizations such as the World Council of Churches; Peter Reddaway, an academic based at the London School of Economics; and Leonard Schapiro, Professor of Political Science with Special Reference to Russian Studies at the London School of Economics, and an influential scholar of Russian politics and society. Each of the CSRC’s founding members was an established authority in their field and had a passion for the study of the Soviet Union that was transmitted throughout the work of the organization. Perhaps more importantly, they all shared a common position that the political reality in the Soviet Union was different to what they felt was commonly presented in the West. During reflection on the CSRC’s foundation, Bourdeaux noted that the group’s founding members ‘were a nucleus of what we were certain was a new way of approaching the truth, approaching samizdat, approaching dissidents, approaching the whole of political reality in the Soviet Union’.37 The CSRC was a collection of figures willing to support Bourdeaux in the work he had begun with the publication of Opium of the People, challenging the lack of public interest in the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union. The CSRC’s association with prominent figures from its foundation became an important part of establishing its reputation. In later years, trustees of the group included the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, and the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain.38 The calibre of both its founding members and its trustees offered great benefits to the CSRC, whose reputation was substantially bolstered through association with such respected figures. Its affiliation with prominent religious and secular figures meant that the CSRC’s work obtained a sense of legitimacy and accuracy, something that was essential given the somewhat controversial nature of its research. Despite attracting the affiliation of a number of prominent figures, the CSRC’s origins were based in more humble premises – one small bedroom in Bourdeaux’s family home in Chislehurst.39 From its foundation, the main focus of the CSRC’s work was on constructing and preserving an archive of materials about the position of religious believers in communist countries. This material allowed the group to conduct research in as impartial a manner as possible, basing their assertions on material that they considered to be reliable, much in the same way as Varvavva and Pronina had focused on the absolute simplicity of reporting the

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facts in their appeal to the West. Through his relationship with individuals on both sides of the iron curtain, Bourdeaux received and collated a detailed array of samizdat materials, developing a reputation for collecting this material. Such was this reputation that in many instances, samizdat material made its way to the CSRC rather than the organization explicitly seeking it out. As awareness of the CSRC and the work it was doing grew, so too did the influx of this material. So much so that in 1970 Bourdeaux moved to 34 Lubbock Road, a larger property in Chislehurst to give the CSRC more space to conduct its research and house its ever-growing samizdat collections. The rapidly expanding collections of the CSRC in the early-1970s highlights the effective manner in which samizdat material was making its way to the West through a network of anonymous couriers who brought material to Bourdeaux’s infant organization. This smuggling of information interested journalists at the Daily Mail, who in January 1972 reported that this flow of samizdat was like a ‘James Bond style operation’ set up to ‘smuggle out up-to-date information on a religious war taking place in Russia’. While in part true, this depiction does sensationalise the academic nature of Bourdeaux’s activism, making it appear far less bookish than the reality. In contrast to the exciting claims of daring espionage utilizing ‘secret micro-film’ and ‘highly-confidential material’, Bourdeaux noted to the paper that the CSRC ‘did not set up the channels used to get this information out’ of the Soviet Union, reiterating the academic nature of his work.40 The samizdat material that the CSRC managed to obtain via a variety of channels contained an array of rare and important documents on the position of religious life in the Soviet Union. This included the transcript of the trial of Aida Skripnikova, who had been imprisoned for her religious beliefs, and a series of documents from Soviet archives outlining the confiscation of church valuables in 1922.41 This collection also included the original copy of a ‘Memorandum to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, which was sent to the CSRC in 1972 by a group of Lithuanian dissidents. This Memorandum contained the signatures of 17,000 people demanding religious freedom from the Soviet authorities in Lithuania. Signing such a document carried a huge risk as it was a clear indication of political dissent against the Soviet regime which could have resulted in serious repercussions for its signatories, including imprisonment and psychiatric incarceration. Subsequently, this Memorandum has become considered by some as the founding document of Lithuanian independence and is revered by many as a religious relic.42 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this document was displayed in the Vilnius National Library in 2005, after which an appeal was lodged for its return to Lithuania on a permanent basis. In July 2007, Bourdeaux returned this document to Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius in a public ceremony in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, an event that was followed closely by the local media.43 By collating such important source material, the CSRC were in an ideal position to make their own assertions about the position of religion in the Soviet bloc, backing up their claims with the information they were collecting. An integral part of the CSRC’s activism came through the publication of translated samizdat material and

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articles putting this material into context. Bourdeaux had started this process through publications such as Opium of the People, but this distribution of information became more formalized through the creation of the CSRC’s own publications. At a Fleet Street press conference held on 27 February 1973, the CSRC launched Religion in Communist Lands (RCL), a quarterly academic journal that was to become an integral part of its work. The first issue of RCL had a print run of 9,000, with around a third being sent as complimentary copies to a variety of religious groups, illustrating where the CSRC thought the readership of this publication would come from and where it wanted to build up more support from.44 RCL was reputedly met with much interest from the both secular and religious press including no less than five journalists from ‘various sections of the BBC’ who had attended its launch.45 In an article in the first issue of the journal, Bourdeaux declared that RCL was to become the ‘focal point for the establishment of fact and forum for discussion of all aspects of religion in communist countries’.46 This was particularly important for the CSRC, who sought to redress the relative ignorance in the West towards the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union. In order to fulfil Bourdeaux’s noble aims, RCL came to include articles, discussion and sources on a wide variety of topics relating to religious life in the Soviet bloc. This variety can be seen in its first edition, which contained articles on developments in the Lithuanian Catholic Church and the Council of Baptist Prisoners’ Relatives and an array of sources including details about atheist education, the teaching of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Tikhon and a Christmas message from Russian Baptists.47 RCL was a synthesis of the CSRC’s research and an important step for the organization to further establish its academic credentials. In the first edition of this journal, a ‘News from the Centre’ article written by Bourdeaux noted that RCL was the only academic journal that sought to promote the study of religion in the Soviet Union and other communist states. RCL was not just an activist pamphlet outlining the work of the CSRC, but it was also breaking new academic ground, and encouraging further scholarship in this area. This emphasis was part of the attempt, in Bourdeaux’s words, to create ‘a greater understanding of the religious situation in Eastern Europe’ and not simply to become a record of persecution in the Soviet Union.48 The CSRC did not see its role as being a documenter of abuse, but as a documenter of religious life – a subtle but important distinction on the purpose of the organization. Bourdeaux noted that RCL sought to ‘cover all aspects of religious life, putting the persecutions and pressures in perspective while emphasising positive features’.49 This is in stark contrast to the work of other religious groups working in this field, such as the Voice of the Martyrs who campaigned for the human rights of Christian prisoners of conscience, and were much more virulent and anti-communist in their rhetoric. Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian priest imprisoned for his religious beliefs, had formed the Voice of the Martyrs, following his exile from the Soviet bloc. In 1967 Wurmbrand published Tortured for Christ, an account of his imprisonment which was widely published around the world, inspiring many to protest against the Soviet abuses. Wurmbrand took a particularly strong anti-communist approach in his activism, arguing that communism and Christianity were deeply incompatible – a stark contrast to the CSRC’s more balanced approach.50

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Figure 4.1 Keston College, date unknown (Keston College Archive, Baylor University). Following the development of the CSRC’s work in the early 1970s, and the publication of its academic journal, it was becoming increasingly clear that in order for the organization to function effectively, the group had to move from Bourdeaux’s family home into more substantial premises.51 A permanent headquarters for the CSRC had been a long-term aim of the organization, which began fundraising campaigns in 1972 to obtain finances for new premises. This campaign, however, only raised enough funds to ‘maintain a minimum staff ’ for the centre by February 1973, falling short of its aim to subsidize the publication of RCL and to provide finance for a permanent headquarters for the growing organization. Bourdeaux put part of this financial shortfall down to the ‘unbelievable rise in property prices’ in the south-east of London where the CSRC was looking for premises.52 By the end of 1973, this campaign had seen moderate success, raising £3,000 of ‘new cash donations and subscriptions’ for the centre, but this was still a modest rise that barely covered the publication costs of RCL. The lack of success was clearly frustrating for Bourdeaux who noted in his regular ‘News from the Centre’ article in RCL that ‘we hope for a much greater response from church bodies than there has been and here I think our existing friends can help us’. He particularly targeted the United States as a market for the CSRC’s work, calling for assistance to raise the group’s profile on the other side of the Atlantic.53 The need to acquire a more substantial and permanent headquarters had become ‘the main problem’ facing the CSRC by the end of 1973, as Bourdeaux’s house was becoming increasingly unfit to house an organization of its size, and renting an appropriate property was considered too much of a burden for the organization. In an RCL article, Bourdeaux argued that the organization needed a ‘permanent

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headquarters, where there will be adequate library and office facilities, and where we can make provision for the growing number of students from many countries who wish to use what we have to offer’ – an ambitious aim for a fledgling organization that was struggling financially.54 The desire to have space for students to stay while working with the CSRC’s materials was reputedly enthusiastically received by its supporters, suggesting the organization’s desire to become an educational body where people could study religious life in the Soviet bloc using their materials and publications.55 In a portent perhaps linked to its desire to become an educational establishment, a redundant old Church of England primary school in the village of Keston, just south of Bromley, London, was offered to the CSRC by the Diocese of Rochester in November 1973. It was an ideal building to house the work of the CSRC but needed substantial work to update and adjust it to meet the needs of the organization.56 After another fundraising campaign, which managed to attract a number of individual donations, including £2,000 from one generous anonymous donor, and an array of loans to the organization, the CSRC managed to acquire enough capital to purchase the old school for £32,500 in 1974, which became the centre of the organization’s activism for the duration of the Cold War.57 Owing to its new home and its desire to become an educational body, the CSRC quickly become known as Keston College, a moniker that reflected its desired academic credentials and new location. Although this new name was only made official at an AGM held on 7 October 1978, the organization was referred to as Keston College shortly after it had relocated in 1974 and swiftly became the group’s public identity – something it has maintained to this day.58 Keston’s new building offered the group ‘tremendous possibilities for responding to the increasing demands being made on it from all over the world’.59 The larger space of its new premises allowed the organization to more effectively store their research materials, with space for both internal researchers and external visitors to consult its archival collections.60 The potential for future developments, however, came at a cost. While this potential was exciting for the organization, it put the CSRC under great financial pressure. £22,000 was needed in a combination of donations or low interest loans within the first six months of its life in the College building in order maintain its work.61 So pressing were Keston’s financial burdens that it was decided that RCL would not be published until its difficulties had been addressed, and redundancies were made in order to continue the group’s work. There was a very real risk that the organization could not survive this move, but this risk was considered necessary for its work on behalf of persecuted believers.62 Upon moving into its new premises Keston sought to establish its new identity through the production of a regular information bulletin known as the Keston News Service (KNS). The KNS was initially edited by Bourdeaux, who stated in its trial edition from 17 May 1974 that it aimed to ‘improve and formalize the output of up-tothe-minute information’ from the college, streamlining the informal links that Keston were developing with the press.63 The KNS sought to organize the informal press releases that the group had previously published on an infrequent basis into a more formal and regular publication which was more accessible to journalists, academics and other interested individuals. Keston initially aimed to publish fifteen copies of this

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news service a year, and the KNS went on to become the most prolific of Keston’s publications, with over 200 issues published in its first decade.64 The KNS had a distinct identity in comparison with other Keston publications, offering short articles about religious life in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, focusing on short news stories rather than the extended analysis that it had previously produced. A typical edition of the KNS contained an array of short, information-laden stories on the latest cases regarding religious persecution in the Soviet bloc. The vast bulk of articles in the KNS focused on cases of persecution, and in this regard it reads much like publications produced by other activist organizations in this period.65 The distinct difference in the contents of the KNS in comparison to the academic style of RCL was due to the pressing need for Keston to distribute its information on the Soviet bloc. This can even be seen in the contrasting physical composition and appearance of the two publications. RCL was professionally finished in distinctive and well-presented volumes that sit neatly on the shelf of a library. In stark contrast, the KNS looks distinctly rushed, printed on thin and easily torn yellow paper with the utilitarian font of a well-used typewriter. It looks more like a first draft rather than a finished product, and amateurish in composition. The presentation of the KNS gives it the impression that the information contained within each edition was so ‘hot off the press’ that there was no time for formatting, as the quality of the publication lay in its content, not its style. The rushed style of the KNS is very similar to the regular circulars produced by the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, which were equally hasty and amateurish in publication. Both publications contained the most up-to-date material on Soviet dissenters, and the need to distribute as widely as possible took priority over aesthetics. In an editorial in its first edition, Bourdeaux outlined the importance of producing the KNS as swiftly as possible, noting that this new publication must be a ‘samizdat experience’.66 This is an interesting turn of phrase as not only does it neatly describe the process of the in-house publication of the KNS, itself a type of samizdat publication, but also a potential assimilation with the dissidents that Keston reported on. Bourdeaux’s statement suggests that the KNS was not only a method for reporting on dissidents, but a way of Keston becoming active in their struggle, participating in the tradition of creating samizdat material and, in doing so, becoming dissidents themselves. Given Bourdeaux’s personal experiences in Moscow in the 1960s, and the risks that he was taking to develop his fledgling organization, an incorporation of a dissident publishing style seems particular apt for an activist so ingrained in his cause. Despite their differences in appearance and style, both RCL and the KNS were united by their reliance on academic rigour, something that has been emphasized by leading members of Keston such as Philip Walters, formerly the organization’s Head of Research and Executive Director. Walters noted that through its work, Keston positioned itself as ‘a thoroughly reliable source of information backed up by scrupulous research and objective criteria of academic quality’.67 The ostensible obsession with empirical rigour and corroboration of material compiled in Keston’s archive is indicative of its wider aims. The integral part of Keston’s work was the establishment and maintenance of a resilient academic reputation that would

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ensure the comments made in its publications would be taken seriously. Without this reputation, the work that Keston did would have been derided as little more than myth or politically charged accusations. Establishing a reputation for scholarly neutrality through focusing carefully on documents was seen as the best defence against accusations of taint or bias, with material available to defend their position. An example of this can be seen in the criticisms of ‘The Georgian Orthodox Church: Corruption and Renewal’, an article written by Peter Reddaway in RCL. David Lang, a Professor of Caucasian Studies at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London (SOAS), critiqued Reddaway’s use of primary sources in this article in an open letter to The Times, noting that academics at SOAS had not had the opportunity to consult this material on the Georgian Orthodox Church, which was held in Keston’s archive.68 Lang noted that there were several errors in Reddaway’s article and concluded that he was baffled by the focus on the Georgian Church by members of the Western press.69 Reddaway responded to these accusations by claiming that Lang had in fact been informally invited to consult documents at Keston by Bourdeaux and reiterated that photocopies of any document were available for consultation by any interested party, something that was also stressed in RCL articles.70 Reddaway continued in his response to stress the array of checks that were carried out on primary documents before they were published, something which Lang failed to mention. It is interesting that in his response to this, Lang further critiqued a piece of documentary evidence used by Reddaway and then sought to distance himself from Keston, stating that he had no connection to the group, had not been invited to consult its materials, and had no ability to check or censor its publications.71 While this could be dismissed as a trivial matter, it caught the attention of Lambeth Palace, who sought to diplomatically maintain the reputation of Lang while endorsing Reddaway’s claims and material that it was based upon.72 Although this particular episode is largely academic in its focus, the reliance on empirical sources as Reddaway’s primary defence, and the later support of this evidence by Lambeth Palace, is indicative of how Keston keenly guarded its reputation. The need for Keston to maintain academic rigour was especially important in the ideological context of the Cold War, where misinformation and deceit could jeopardize the reputation of an activist organization, who were often subjected to numerous propaganda attacks by the Soviet authorities. This stance was made clear in the first edition of RCL, with an article by Bourdeaux highlighting that ‘the most stringent steps are taken to assure the authenticity of documentary evidence emanating from the communist countries’.73 One way through which Keston could bolster their reputation for accuracy was for its researchers and supporters to visit the Soviet Union and report on their own experiences there as Bourdeaux had done in the 1960s. This, however, was often extremely difficult to do, due to the travel restrictions that were placed on Keston’s researchers. Although he was never publicly banned from travelling to the Soviet bloc, Bourdeaux was effectively blacklisted by the Soviet authorities as a result of his work in the mid-1960s. He was repeatedly refused access to the nations that he was studying, doubtless in an attempt to discredit his work and to prevent him from making further connections in the Soviet bloc. Somewhat surprisingly given his outspoken criticisms of the Soviet authorities, Bourdeaux

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did manage to visit the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. In February 1975 he visited Moscow with his wife some ten years after his revelatory meeting with the Ukrainians who had set him on the path that led to the foundation of Keston. He wrote a detailed account of this visit in RCL, calling the trip a ‘triumph’ in which he had managed to visit a number of figures across a variety of different faiths with whom he discussed an array of issues. This published account offers a great insight into the motivation behind Bourdeaux’s efforts, and his desire to use this trip to discover what could be done to assist those in difficulty comes across vividly. He ‘was especially concerned to find out whether the ideals of Keston College were right’, something that was confirmed during conversations with his contacts in Moscow which highlighted to him that ‘to be associated with the honest study of that we do, entailing the reporting sometimes of unpleasant facts is, for the present at least, in no way a bar to the widest range of contacts. Rather the opposite’. The dissidents with whom Bourdeaux met on this trip were noted to be deeply supportive of his efforts, deploring the lack of financial support that Keston was receiving in the West and even suggested that a Moscow branch of Keston be formed alongside a Russian-language version of RCL. Bourdeaux advised ‘waiting a little’ before forming such a group, noting the irony of hearing a demand for a Russian version of RCL when its English edition was ‘at that moment being threatened by continued failure of the Churches in this country to support the work of Keston’.74 Bourdeaux returned from his visit to Moscow re-energized and ‘brimming with new ideas of practical as well as moral support for Russian Christians’ and ready to develop the activities of Keston further.75 However, any potential development was hampered by the widespread financial constraints that the group was under. Keston’s financial constraints were further exacerbated by the care and attention that its leadership needed to pay to the source of its income in order to maintain its independence as a research institution. Xenia Dennen noted that the group’s leadership ‘always insisted that we should never be controlled or influenced by anyone, so our independence was absolutely central. So as far as I’m aware we never accepted money from any dirty source’.76 Accusations of funding from ‘dirty sources’ – from either the Soviet authorities or the intelligence services in the West – were particularly harmful for the reputation that Keston was establishing, something that was built in part on its neutral political position. As a result of this, Keston refused to accept funds from any government, or government-backed bodies, and made the entirety of its research publicly available.77 When asked about the organization’s financial difficulties during the 1970s, Bourdeaux noted that Keston never received any major grant and that any accusation that the CIA funded their research is ‘utter and total rubbish’.78 Keston raised the bulk of its finances from individual donations by its members and supporters who donated small amounts from £10 to £50 a year.79 As Dennen put it, ‘most of our funding was from private individuals who just were concerned about people in prison’.80 This offers an insight into the group’s supporters, who were not only willing to be paid up members on a yearly basis in the knowledge of the group’s financial problems but who were also willing to contribute extra finances as and when required. Despite the financial difficulties that Keston experienced in the mid-1970s

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shortly after acquiring its college buildings, it operated on a policy of investing any funds that it received directly into supporting and expanding its research rather than setting aside money for future financial security. As a result, Keston’s financial position was repeatedly treacherous throughout the 1970s. This was seen as a risk worth taking in order for the organization to be operating at its full potential to highlight the attacks on religious belief being conducted by the Soviet authorities, something that was driven in part by Bourdeaux’s personal interaction with believers in the Soviet Union. Keston’s financial strategy came at a price, leaving the group particularly vulnerable due to its lack of savings. Its financial fragility can be seen throughout the ‘News from Keston’ section of RCL in the 1970s, which contained regular requests for donations from members, seeking money and low interest loans not only to fund both development and maintenance of the college premises but perhaps more importantly to keep the group afloat financially.81 Bourdeaux noted that as Keston had balanced its budget ‘on a razor’s edge’, the atmosphere at the January 1975 Annual General Meeting was ‘one of desperation because of our financial plight’.82 While Keston’s financial workings helped to develop its activism and production of detailed information on the position of religion in the Soviet bloc as much as possible, it was not healthy for the longevity of the organization – a modus operandi that Bourdeaux described as being ‘fragile financially, but very strong organisationally’.83 This all came at a time when there were increasing demands for the organization’s research and time, something that was made clear in November 1976, when Bourdeaux noted that Keston was ‘continually being asked to undertake more work – translations, books, more and more research – and yet the financial support still leaves us struggling to pay the salaries at the end of each month’.84 Although its finances were precarious, Keston managed to stay afloat through the support of its members and organizations interested in its research. In September 1975, Keston received a grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct research into Vatican-Kremlin relations and the religious situation in Lithuania. This funding allowed Dennis Dunn, an academic based at Texas State University, to conduct research at Keston, something that doubtless informed his 1977 book The Catholic Church and the Soviet Government, 1939–1949, which was published shortly after his time with the organization.85 Keston was also awarded £3,000 by Christian Aid in 1975 to ‘help repay the loan incurred in buying Keston College’, a sum that doubtless eased some of the financial pressures on the organization.86 Such grants and donations helped to keep Keston functioning while allowing the group to maintain its independence.

Developing Authority Following the growing public awareness of the plight of dissidents in the Soviet Union, which became an important political issue in the West in the late 1970s, Keston’s activities began to receive increased attention from the religious and secular media. This was in stark contrast to the early 1970s, when the work of the CSRC had been virtually ignored by the British press. By the end of this decade, Keston was regularly referenced in the media as an authority on the persecution of religious belief in the

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Soviet bloc, with journalists presenting Keston’s reports as authoritative pieces. For example the famed columnist for The Times Bernard Levin noted that he was indebted to Keston for allowing him to use extracts from their English-language publication of Three Generations of Suffering, the autobiography of the Russian Baptist Minister Georgi Vins, in his February 1976 article ‘Christian Voices in the Soviet Wilderness’. Levin’s article on Vins is based predominantly on this account, quoting extensively from Keston’s translation.87 Levin’s recognition of the sources produced by Keston means that his articles became a vehicle through which their research was broadcast to a much wider audience than usual. This is in the same manner as the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, whose information was put to a much larger audience through Levin’s articles than their protests alone could ever reach. Keston’s materials were again used by a national newspaper in July 1976, when an article in The Guardian referred to a piece published in RCL on the introduction of new Soviet legislation on religious affairs written by Walter Sawatsky, one of Keston’s researchers. Sawatsky is referred to as an authority on this matter in this piece, which is essentially a summary of his RCL article.88 These two references are in themselves not that remarkable, but given that they are among the first references to Keston College’s work by these publications, referring to its research in such an authoritative manner highlights not only that the group had established itself as an organization to be trusted by the mid-1970s but also that its work was now worth reporting on. Levin explicitly referred to Keston’s research again in August 1977 in the first of a threepart article on the Soviet dissident movement, quoting at length from the KNS.89 In a telling portent of the future of the Soviet state, Levin concluded this series with the bold assertion that a new Russian revolution was inevitable, arguing that ‘there is nothing romantic or fantastic about this prognosis; it is the most sober extrapolation from known facts and tested evidence’, even going as far to suggest that the collapse of the Soviet system would occur on 14 July 1989 – a prediction that was remarkably close to the reality.90 Levin’s argument captured a sense of the growing interest in the dissident movement and the broader rush to the expertise that groups such as Keston held on this matter by journalists and commentators – something that can be seen in the frequency with which Keston’s work was reported in the British press from the late 1970s onwards.91 Keston’s expertise was also frequently utilized by the producers of television and radio programmes in this period. This was perhaps most explicit with Keston’s researchers becoming regular ‘talking heads’ on television and radio programmes discussing religious belief in the Soviet Union because of their established expertise in this area. Bourdeaux was most prominent in this, appearing on BBC radio productions such as the long running The World At One and Long Live the Snowdrops – a piece about the Christian Church in the Soviet Union aired in 1977.92 Alongside Bourdeaux’s involvement in radio programmes, Keston’s researchers were also frequently involved in assisting the production of a number of television programmes from the late 1970s onwards, including broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV, NBC, Southern Television, Belgian Television and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation among many others.93 Their involvement in television and radio productions often coincided with developments in

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religious affairs, notably the election of Cardinal Wojtyla of Cracow as Pope John Paul II in October 1978 – an event that Keston’s researchers were able to offer detailed context for various media outlets including The Guardian, who quoted Bourdeaux’s thoughts on the new Pope.94 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 also prompted a flood of interest in Keston’s work by the media, something that reputedly ‘clogged the telephone lines’, with calls from national radio and television presenters, the major newspapers and church leaders’.95 The emergence of the Solidarity movement in Poland also brought much attention from journalists for Keston’s work. Keston was also frequently involved in religious programmes on the BBC. For example, in March 1980, Bourdeaux gave the second Lenten lecture on BBC Radio 4 as part of series of talks by individuals whose lives had been influenced by living or working abroad. Bourdeaux’s lecture, entitled ‘What I have learned from Christians in Russia’ was a prominent position to discuss both his own experiences of life in the Soviet bloc and Keston’s work, giving the group much welcomed publicity.96 The dramatic rise in Keston’s media profile, from scant coverage in its early years through to being referenced as an authority on the Soviet persecution of religious belief demonstrates the rush to expertise that occurred in the mid-1970s. Given the increased public interest in its work, Keston had to develop its internal processes, something that had begun shortly after it moved into its college buildings. Following this move, Bourdeaux’s fledgling organization had begun to mature into a more professional unit, increasingly aware of the struggles that it was facing and equally determined to overcome them through its own form of activism. Central to this was the continued development of its samizdat collections, upon which the group was reliant for its activism. This collection had begun as a largely ad hoc affair, somewhat matching the organization’s location in Bourdeaux’s house. After the move to Keston, the organization took steps to professionally maintain this archive, with Bourdeaux noting at the group’s January 1975 AGM that appointing a senior archivist was its ‘next urgent need’.97 The steps that Keston took to professionalize the management and use of its archive can be seen in a document produced by the organization in March 1977, which outlined its procedure for the reading and processing of samizdat documents and publications. This document highlights the security procedures that the college had in place to protect this valuable material, which required that all samizdat material be locked overnight and at weekends in fireproof filing cabinets and that only copies of documents could be removed from the college buildings.98 Keston’s procedures for the management of its archival material also outlined how its researchers should deal with newly received material, stating that they should ‘skim [each] document or publication, looking for significant new information’. If this information was considered important enough for publication, it was to be brought to the attention of Keston’s designated Information Officer, and an English-language summary of its contents was to be written alongside the corroboration of any facts with other available source material in order to assess its reliability. Keston’s guidelines also stated that any new information should be sent to ‘certain key people’, including Peter Reddaway, Peter Dornan (Radio Liberty), Janis Sapiets (BBC) and

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Clayton Yeo (Amnesty International).99 The distribution of newly received samizdat material in this fashion highlights the relationship that Keston had built with both journalists and other activists working to support Soviet dissidents who could make extensive use of this samizdat material and ensure that its contents were used to inform activists working in this area and the wider public about the position of religious believers in the Soviet Union. Keston’s aim to facilitate the flow of information from received samizdat, through internal analysis by Keston researchers and on to subsequent distribution to academics, journalists, activist organizations and the general public can be seen in a diagram appended to its internal processing guide. This diagram outlined how information was received by the College, in the form of books and journals, press, official church publications and samizdat; which researcher was charged with processing them; and the process by which this material was to be sent onto external ‘targets’, such as journalists, activists, the general public and academics. Such a clearly defined procedure demonstrates that in the years following its move to Keston, Bourdeaux’s organization had developed a clear awareness of the processes that it needed to go through in order to make best use of the material that it had received and how to make an impact on public awareness through its contacts.100 It had planned to increase this distribution of up-to-date information through the establishment of a newspaper which would reproduce this material alongside the KNS. However, at a meeting of its Council of Management in November 1976, it was decided that this was too much for the organization to cope with, owing to the financial risks involved with a new publication, the increased strain on staff and the fear of publishing unverified information.101 The flow of information from crude samizdat through to finished product typified Keston’s approach to activism, allowing others to utilize the material that it was collating in order to either conduct their own campaigns for persecuted believers in the Soviet Union or to report on life behind the iron curtain. Bourdeaux has noted that one of the most important tools for proving his concerns about the Soviet persecution of religious believers was ‘setting up the archive and getting the original words instead of my own commentary’.102 Dennen has also keenly stressed the centrality of the archive to Keston’s work, noting ‘we do not put out any information unless it’s based on properly researched [material], it has got to be based on documentation wherever possible which is why right from the start we started building up the archive. The archive is an absolutely central part of the structure of Keston’.103 Without the careful management of this archive, and broad distribution of the information that it contained, the organization would not have been able to function. This essential part of Keston’s activism can be seen in the number of people needed to process this material. In 1977 there were fourteen researchers working with samizdat in Keston’s archive, a number that rose to 25 in the 1980s, demonstrating both the sheer scale of material that was being collected and how quickly it was expanding in this period.104 In order to make the most of its archival collections, Keston expanded its output markedly in the late 1970s. Most notably, the KNS increased rapidly in size throughout its first decade of publication. Initial editions in the early 1970s contained between

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one and eight news articles, with each edition numbering no more than eight pages in total. From mid-1978 onwards, however, individual editions of the KNS became substantially larger, nearly doubling in size with an increasing number of articles covering more content. This development was part of a wider shift in Keston’s output, with the group seeking to separate the widely used news service from the reproduction of translated samizdat material, which it aimed to produce in a dedicated section of the KNS, something that was announced by Bourdeaux in an RCL article in October 1978.105 The development of the KNS in the late 1970s can be attributed to a variety of factors. By this period, Keston had collated a vast amount of material due to a combination of the organization’s reputation and the contacts that it had developed since its foundation. Bourdeaux noted in February 1978 that the organization was managing to circulate less than 10 per cent of the information that it received, a figure that he argued should be ‘at least doubled’.106 In order to do this, Keston needed to devote more financial resources to the production of the KNS, something that was difficult to do given the broader financial difficulties that the group were under. Given that the only way to make publication of the KNS financially viable was to rely on a base of regular subscribers, Keston’s leadership were clearly confident that they could expand this area of its publications without it becoming an unnecessary burden on the organization’s broader work. This confidence was doubtless born from Bourdeaux’s conviction that Keston’s work was necessary given the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union. That said, it was unlikely that Keston, which was stretched to extremes both financially and in human resources, could afford to devote time or finance to a publication if it was largely self-indulgent with a low readership. It is of no coincidence that the KNS expanded dramatically at time when Keston’s work was becoming increasingly recognized, coinciding with the broader awareness of the plight of dissidents in the Soviet Union. Alongside the physical expansion of the KNS, Keston reported an increase in the number of subscribers to RCL in April 1978, something that was noted as ‘evidence of its value and use as an important source of reference’.107 It was, however, the broader recognition of the plight of dissidents that enabled Keston to expand its output in this period rather than Keston’s work having a dramatic impact on the awareness of the Soviet persecution of religious believers. While Keston’s work was making a breakthrough in the public sphere, its physical premises were beginning to fall apart. The old school buildings that it occupied were rapidly becoming unfit for purpose by the end of the 1970s and were in need of extensive renovation in order for them to be used effectively. Keston’s headquarters were overcrowded due to the rapid expansion of its work and the number of researchers it housed, something that put particular pressures on the group considering that the quality of the buildings themselves were also deteriorating rapidly in this period. The school’s old canteen was converted by the organization into a research block in 1978 to meet some of its increased needs, including four new research rooms, a small common room and new toilet facilities. This, however, was not a long-term solution to Keston’s issues as this part of the College had been originally built as a temporary structure, only intended to stand until 1945 when it was initially built. It also became quickly apparent that there were numerous difficulties in using this part of the school,

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which was ‘never anything but damp, cold and dark. Books and important papers were affected by mould, and conditions were very cramped’.108 Such conditions were far from ideal to house Keston’s important archival collection or in which to conduct research. In order to make necessary improvements to the College’s infrastructure, it was estimated that Keston needed to spend ‘no less than £100,000’, a substantial sum for an organization that frequently suffered from financial difficulties and had little in the way of savings.109 Keston’s financial pressures were so pronounced that Bourdeaux even suggested at an internal meeting in January 1979 that one way of obtaining this necessary sum might be to sell Keston’s archives, hoping to persuade any potential buyer to pay immediately and ‘wait some years to take possession of this material’.110 In the end, radical steps were not needed as finance was raised through donations from three unspecified ‘major Trusts’ and a substantial anonymous donation which allowed work on the College to begin in late 1979.111 The first stage of Keston’s physical development was the construction of a Communications Centre, which opened in January 1980 and housed the group’s information officers and its photograph archive. From this new building, the KNS underwent a change in format under the editing of Alyona Kojevnikov, who had been newly appointed as an Information Officer. Kojevnikov had made weekly appearances on the religious programmes for the BBC Russian Service in the late 1970s, publicizing Keston’s research and informing a wider audience about its findings.112 Her editing of the KNS began a new format for the publication, which included a selection of commentary articles on religion in totalitarian states, translations of samizdat documents and biographical pieces on prominent religious figures in the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc. This new format also coincided with a rapid growth in the physical size of the KNS, with single editions in the 1980s regularly containing over ten articles spread over fifteen pages, nearly double the size of its earlier editions, implicitly reiterating the amount of information that Keston felt worth distributing. Although Keston’s expertise was being increasingly recognized and utilized at the turn of the 1980s, Bourdeaux was still not content with the public response to its work. He felt that the concerns that he raised in Land of Crosses, his account of religious life in Lithuania published in 1980, had been overlooked.113 In an RCL article from January 1980 he noted with particular frustration that if his work dealt with ‘a nation of three million people in Africa and similarly deprived of its religious liberty, the outcry would resound daily in our newspapers. Because the repression comes from the Kremlin, no one seems to care’.114 Much like Bourdeaux’s reaction to Opium of the People in the mid-1960s, this frustration can be put down to public reaction to his work not matching his expectations rather than them being completely dismissed. In a review of Land of Crosses in the Church Times, David M. Paton noted that ‘many will be grateful for the book and inspired by it’.115 An inspiration that was clearly felt by the Lithuanian community in the United States, who made Bourdeaux their non-Lithuanian ‘man-of-the-year’ in August 1980, doubtless linked to the publication of Land of Crosses.116 Again, public consciousness of the persecution of believers in the Soviet bloc did not meet with

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Bourdeaux’s expectations of response, yet the increasing reception and reporting of Keston’s work demonstrates that it was becoming better known. The work on Keston College continued in May 1980, when the Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, one of Keston’s patrons, ceremoniously laid and dedicated the foundation stone for the College’s new building. Despite the ceremony that accompanied the start of this new building, which was to offer Keston increased potential for future research, the organization still lacked over half of the £90,000 needed to complete this work, again reiterating the group’s policy of investing in its work even if it lacked the financial security to do so. 117 Owing to the costs of its expansion and development, Keston’s financial difficulties became even more pronounced in 1981, when it directly impacted on the organization’s ability to conduct research and publish material. In a special ‘Letter from the Director’ in the combined first and second editions of RCL in 1981, Bourdeaux made it clear that ‘the past six months have been difficult ones for Keston College from a financial point of view’. The 1980 editions of RCL had cost the organization £16,000 to produce, its biggest financial cost that year after the salaries of its staff, and it was made clear that this outlay needed to be substantially reduced in order for the organization to produce a credible financial outlook for the future. As a result, Keston restricted the publication of RCL to two issues in 1981, compared to the four to six editions a year that had been regularly produced by the group in the mid-1970s.118 Alongside the restriction in RCL’s production in 1981, Keston also stopped employing an editorial assistant for the journal, something that prompted Dennen to resign as its editor in February 1981, noting that she could not complete this role on a part-time basis without secretarial support.119 Jane Ellis, who became RCL’s editor after Dennen’s resignation, noted in her first editorial that her predecessor and her editorial assistant ‘would have to lose their jobs’ following the financial crisis in the organization that Bourdeaux announced in 1981. This is in contrast to Dennen’s announcement of her resignation, suggesting that this move was perhaps less voluntary than she suggested in her final RCL editorial. It is also important to note that Ellis mentions receiving the support of an editorial assistant in her first RCL editorial, raising further questions about the reasoning behind Dennen’s resignation.120 Alongside Dennen, Keston also lost staff from both its archive and switchboard, something that was doubtless linked to its financial problems.121 Given the dramatic changes to the journal’s staff, there was a pronounced fear about the journal’s future, something highlighted by Bourdeaux’s ominous conclusion to his 1981 ‘Letter from the Director’ which stated that ‘it is too early to say what will happen to RCL in 1982’.122 As it happened, RCL’s fate marginally improved following its restricted output in 1981, increased slightly to three editions in each year from 1982 to 1987, but financial concerns still prevented the college from returning to its output of the 1970s. Despite this improvement, Keston was still suffering financially, something that led the organization to critically examine its purpose. Philip Walters, who became Keston’s Acting-Director during this difficult period, noted in October 1981 that this examination ‘though traumatic, has proved therapeutic’, arguing that although immediate plans for expansion had to be halted, ‘the momentum and efficiency of our work has, if anything, increased’. Although optimistic, Walters cautioned that ‘we are still by no means on safe financial grounds. Now more than ever we need substantial

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committed long-term support for our work if we are to plan ahead effectively and realistically’.123 The nature of the disparity between Keston’s aims and its finances became clear in March 1982, when Walters stressed that the organization needed an extra £200,000 of guaranteed regular income each year in order to expand Keston’s research. Such financial pressures meant that Keston could not afford to continue the ambitious expansion of the College, something that was made virtually impossible following an outbreak of dry rot that drained a substantial amount of the savings put aside for this project.124 The timing of Keston’s debilitating financial problems could not have been worse. Walters stressed that ‘it is a tragedy that at a time when the value of the work of Keston should be gaining increasing recognition from all quarters we should still be unable, for financial reasons, to expand our premises or our research staff ’.125 This was particularly clear in the attention that Keston’s research was obtaining due to developments in the Soviet bloc, which stressed the importance of its work through its public engagement. For example Alexander Tomsky, a Keston researcher specializing in Czechoslovakia and Poland, appeared eight times on television and twenty-five times on the radio in one fortnight in early 1982, and details of his research on Czechoslovakia was later broadcast in Czech by the BBC External Services. 126 Tomsky’s research in this period culminated in Catholic Poland, a short book produced to coincide with visit of Pope John Paul II to Britain in May 1982.127 Keston’s decision to invest in the infrastructure of the College premises in the late 1970s and early 1980s despite lacking the financial security to do so was one of its own and is revealing about the wider motives of the organization. The College’s leadership saw its work as a long-term project and felt that a gamble in investing in its premises, despite lacking the financial resources to do so, was one worth taking. The financial problems that Keston experienced during the period when its work was gaining recognition was not due to the additional stresses put on the organization by this increased public interest but instead by the inherently risky long-term decisions taken by the group, attempting to push its capacity to the limit. By the end of 1982, Keston was showing more financial prudence, with Walters stressing in RCL that ‘we must decide exactly how much new money we need to raise in order adequately to cover the field of research we have set ourselves … the fact is that if we carry on with our present budget, we shall have to limit our activities’.128 One solution for Keston’s financial issues in this period was an attempt to harness international support for its efforts. In 1982, Bourdeaux became Keston’s International Director, focusing his attention on systematically developing the organization’s global position, hoping that ‘the funds for the needed expansion of Keston College will come, at least in part, from overseas’. This was not an easy process, one that Bourdeaux noted would not ‘lead to dramatic changes overnight’ but was an avenue considered worth exploring. This led Bourdeaux to spend time in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, where fledgling Keston support groups were developing.129 This was an onerous task due to the amount of public meetings and media interviews that had to take place during his lengthy trips abroad. During a visit to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore in the summer of 1982, Bourdeaux reputedly took part in 105 public and private meetings in order to highlight the quality of Keston’s work and its need for support.130

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Although public and private meetings around the world were important for developing support for Keston’s work, on Thursday 8 September 1983, Bourdeaux took part in a private meeting that demonstrated new levels of prestige for the organization. Following a personal invitation from the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Bourdeaux was invited to take part in a series of seminars organised at Chequers where she had assembled an array of experts on different aspects of life in the Soviet Union. In her memoirs, Thatcher noted that the purpose of this meeting was for her to ‘pick the brains of experts on the Soviet Union’, something that was particularly important given the changing dynamic of Anglo-Soviet relations following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in November 1982.131 Bourdeaux had been chosen personally by Thatcher to attend this meeting as a figure of expertise on religion and human rights, something that went against the recommendation of the Foreign Secretary and officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FO). Thatcher recalled that the initial list of experts proposed for this seminar was dominated by civil servants based in the Foreign Office, not the independent experts that she originally had in mind. Upon receiving this list of civil servants, Thatcher wrote a stern note on this list of suggested participants, stating: This is NOT the way I want it. I am not interested in gathering in every junior minister, nor everyone who has ever dealt with the subject at the FO. The FO must do their preparation before. I want also some people who have really studied Russia – the Russian mind – and who have had some experience of living there. More than half the people on the list know less than I do.132

As a result of Thatcher’s demands, those invited to the Chequers seminars were ‘adjusted’ to ensure that they met her requirements. Bourdeaux attributes his personal selection to attend this seminar to his regular appearances on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme, a broadcast he claims that Thatcher regularly listened to before she began work.133 Thatcher noted in her memoirs that the seminar’s participants went on to give ‘some first class papers’ on a wide range of issues including ‘the Soviet economy, its technological inertia and the consequences of that, the impact of religious issues, Soviet military doctrine and expenditure on defence, and the benefits and costs to the Soviet Union of their control over Eastern Europe’.134 Thatcher discussed this Chequers conference in length in her memoirs, suggesting that it had a significant impact on helping her ‘shape policy towards the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc in the months and years ahead’.135 Bourdeaux claims that Thatcher was particularly interested in his opinions, ushering him to join her at lunch where ‘she spent the whole lunchtime talking to me about my own views’. This conversation opened up links between Bourdeaux and Thatcher who informed him that if Keston received any material that he thought she would be interested in, he ‘must contact her personally and she gave me means to do so’. Bourdeaux recalls that on one occasion he took a document to Downing Street that he thought was of importance. Upon showing identification, Bourdeaux was welcomed into Number 10 and met by Thatcher, who went through the document with him.136 Such a direct link to the Prime Minister offered Keston a channel through which to take information to the top of the British politics, highlighting the authority that its research now commanded.

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Figure 4.2 Michael Bourdeaux speaking at a Keston reception held for Margaret Thatcher at Church House, Westminster, 25 April 1984 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University).

The expertise and authority of Keston reached new heights in 1984, when Bourdeaux was awarded the Templeton Prize, an award that conveys recognition of an individual’s work in ‘affirming life’s spiritual dimension’, which has been described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for religion.137 This prize, which included a muchneeded £140,000 award, gave Keston’s work many plaudits. That it came the year after it had been awarded to Alexander Solzhenitsyn made it even more fitting. In March 1984, the Church Times reported Bourdeaux’s receipt of this prize on its front page, quoting a spokesman from the Templeton foundation who noted that ‘Michael Bourdeaux has stabbed awake the conscience of comfortable Western Christians’, developing ‘one of the most crucial links in religious freedom between East and West’.138 An editorial article in The Times noted that the award was ‘a welcome acknowledgement of the importance of the work undertaken by him and his colleagues’ who had ‘gained a world-wide reputation for its reliable research on religion in communist lands’.139 The Times followed their interest in Bourdeaux’s award in a subsequent article in April that outlined Keston’s work in detail, noting that the organization had ‘gradually become known throughout the communist world as a place to turn in a tight corner, a place to send documents where they will be understood, and, without being sentimental, a place that cares’. This piece also offered a detailed insight into Keston’s political position in the mid-1980s, noting that the organization was trusted by the British Foreign Office and had a strained relationship with the Soviet authorities who reputedly tolerated its

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existence, yet often referred to Bourdeaux as anti-Soviet. Perhaps of most importance to Keston’s work, this detailed article was also accompanied by information about the cases of six persecuted religious believers that it was working on behalf of, including details of their addresses – clearly in an attempt to persuade concerned readers to write to them directly.140 This article offered details of Keston’s work in a prominent location that would have been unheard of a decade previously. Keston celebrated Bourdeaux’s award at a reception held in Church House, Westminster, on 25 April 1984, where Thatcher was the guest of honour. At this reception, Thatcher reiterated the high regard in which she held Keston’s research, stating that she would ‘take advantage of the work and personalities of Keston College’ and that ‘when I see our American friends as Prime Minister, I will frequently use the work of Keston College’. Given the strong personal relationship that Thatcher developed with the US President Ronald Reagan and the reputation that she was developing as a prominent figure in international relations, this was a compliment of the highest order. Bourdeaux was keenly aware of the impact that Thatcher’s support of Keston had on the overall reputation of the group, aptly noting that her presence at this reception was ‘a boost to the confidence and morale of an organisation which, in the past, has not only struggled to makes its voice heard but has sometimes been on the very verge of extinction from the lack of financial support’. He stressed that Thatcher’s attendance at this reception was ‘a positive recognition of the role that Keston College has to play in the public life of this country’.141

Figure 4.3 Margaret Thatcher at a Keston reception held in her honour, Church House, Westminster, 25 April 1984 (Keston College Archive, Baylor University).

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Not only did Bourdeaux’s receipt of the Templeton Prize and Thatcher’s support for his work give Keston much needed public attention, but it also gave him the confidence to take a public stance against the World Council of Churches (WCC), who he felt had been too accommodating towards the Soviet Union.142 In a lecture that Bourdeaux delivered at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London on 29 October 1984 entitled ‘The Russian Church, Religious Liberty and the World Council of Churches’, he outlined his concerns that ‘it is only realistic to suggest that the WCC policy towards the Soviet Union has failed’, calling for an end to its soft approach to the communist state.143 In this provocative lecture, which was later published in RCL in June 1985, Bourdeaux also linked the persecution of religious believers to the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, arguing that the WCC should follow the example of the WPA in putting pressure on the Soviet authorities and present a more united international front.144 The strength of conviction needed for Bourdeaux to publicly criticize the actions of the WCC in this manner came from the reputation that Keston had acquired by the mid-1980s. Prior to this, Bourdeaux recalled that he had ‘tried to be diplomatic for many, many years up to 1984, but by 1984 they had crossed all boundaries of integrity in my view’.145 While this might be the case, the fact that his criticisms came shortly after his receipt of the Templeton Prize and Keston’s development of a relationship with Thatcher suggests that by 1984 he had acquired the authority to make such accusations. Due to his reputation, Bourdeaux’s comments made the front page of the Church Times, who agreed with the sentiment of his arguments, noting that ‘a re-evaluation of policy would engage the WCC in much deeper study of the true situation and therefore acting in a way that would be not only morally sound but likely to strengthen the position of Soviet believers’.146 Bourdeaux’s criticisms of the WCC were described by Jane Ellis in an editorial of RCL as ‘a lengthy and important article’, that she hoped would ‘serve as a starting point for debate about, and possibly re-evaluation of, the policy of the WCC – and indeed, of Western churches more generally – towards the churches of Eastern Europe’.147 Ellis’ hope of increased dialogue was not shared by the WCC, who declined an invitation to respond to Bourdeaux’s article in RCL, creating an even deeper rift between the WCC and Keston.148 This split became so acrimonious that when the international division of the British Council of Churches was working on a study later that year, the WCC were alleged to have refused any involvement with this work as long as Keston and Bourdeaux were involved.149 Bourdeaux later noted that the WCC never publicly responded to his criticisms and is clearly proud of standing up to this organization’s approach towards the position of religious believers in the Soviet Union.150

Transition and Motivation Keston’s authority and public standing went through dramatic changes during the rush to expertise of the mid-1970s, something that is highlighted by the increased media response to its work and the accolades that it received in the early 1980s. As an organization, it developed from a niche group working out of a room in

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Bourdeaux’s family home through to becoming an internationally recognized organization based in its own college premises which had direct links with an array of journalists, academics and politicians – even including the prime minister. This transition occurred rapidly in just over a decade and can be attributed to the wider developments in international relations rather than solely through the group’s own work. This is not to dismiss Keston’s efforts, which were later proved to be effective, but to highlight that this transition was largely out of their control. This is something that Bourdeaux himself was implicitly aware of, noting in an article in RCL from January 1977 that Pressure from the West in the form of publicity in the press is of help to those who are being discriminated against under communist governments because of their religious beliefs or because of their dissenting attitude to the system. For many years my view of this was disputed, but the exchange of Vladimir Bukovsky in December was only the latest in the line of those who have benefitted from action in the West.151

Bourdeaux’s identification of Bukovsky’s exchange in December 1976 as simply one of many dissidents who had benefitted from Western support is entirely accurate, with individuals such as Evgeny Belov, Zhores Medvedev and Leonid Plyushch among many others benefitting from this support in the 1960s and early 1970s. What is intriguing about the case of Vladimir Bukovsky is why this previously niche concern for dissenters rapidly became such an important political issue in international relations. As Bourdeaux notes, why was his view of religious persecution in the Soviet Union long dismissed, only for it to be gradually seen as important before the climactic year of 1977? The growing public acceptance of Bourdeaux’s view of religious persecution in the Soviet Union can also be seen in Keston’s development from this period onwards. The financial support that had been lacking in the early 1970s increased markedly in the later part of the decade, with Bourdeaux noting an explicit increase in donations to the organization from ‘churches of all denominations’ in 1977 as the plight of dissidents became more publicly known.152 The stark nature of this transition, with Keston shifting from a largely overlooked group to making the front pages of national newspapers, begs an assessment of the group’s motivations. What kept Keston researchers and supporters motivated through a period when its work was being largely ignored? The answer to this lies in the religious motivation of those associated with Keston, as the organization had been driven from its foundation by its Christian faith. Bourdeaux’s personal belief played a substantial role in this, as his own faith was the predominant reason for his efforts. He has described his work in the formation of Keston and his own publications as being directed by the ‘hand of God’ putting him on this path.153 The feeling of divine intervention felt by Bourdeaux is most clearly noted in his work Risen Indeed, in which he states: ‘God’s signature is on the small events of this world just as indelibly as on the large. His two direct interventions into my life [came] when he wrested the steering wheel from my grasp to set me on a new course.’154 This religiosity can also be seen

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in the first paragraph of the first edition of RCL, in which Bourdeaux reflects on his background before forming Keston, noting that: [i]f I look back, however, over university, many months spent in Russia, visits to all the European communist countries (except Albania), work in a parish the beginning of serious research for writing books, the value of the slow progress is unquestionable, the logic clear, the guiding hand of God tangible.155

Bourdeaux’s efforts in founding Keston were explicitly linked to his religious beliefs, and he considered his work on the position of religion in the Soviet Union as part of a personal spiritual calling. This goes some way to explain the passion and intensity with which Bourdeaux went about his study of the persecution of religion in the Soviet Union and his reasoning behind the direction of his activism from the 1960s onwards. It also goes some way to suggest why Keston was so willing to risk financial security in favour of expanding its research output, relying on faith. Although it is clear that faith played a large role in motivating Keston’s efforts, it is unclear whether its members and supporters actually saw the group as an activist organization. In her Gresham College lecture on the history of Keston College in May 2013 entitled ‘The KGB’s Bête Noire’, Dennen argued that ‘Keston was a non-political organisation, indeed a charity which could not get involved in any campaigns’.156 While this is technically true, as Keston were legally constrained in their activism by their position as a registered charity which prevented them from conducting active political demonstrations or lobbying, it is erroneous to claim that Keston was not an activist organization. From its formation, Keston did not intend to become an outright activist group, deciding instead to focus on becoming a research centre to provide information for others, something that it did with great aplomb. In June 1981 Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, praised Keston for the information that it compiled for others to use, noting that the organization provided ‘the basis for a more informed dialogue on the subject of religion in communist lands’ and that the group was ‘doing invaluable work in providing the raw material upon which a really informed and scholarly analysis of contemporary religious trends in communist countries can be built’.157 Keston’s charity commission report states that its purpose was to use this raw material, ‘to promote the advancement of education in religion and to promote and encourage the study of and research into religion in communist states, states which have been communist or present or former totalitarian states’.158 This restricted the organization to become an academic body focused on education and research. However, although Keston largely followed this remit, in reality it was much more activist than its declared status allowed. Indeed, Dennen argues that the group could not have been a more active organization within the limits of their brief.159 Keston carried out their activism in a different manner to a traditional activist organization, utilizing the documents they received in order to spread information about the Soviet abuses and encourage action from other bodies. Their consultations with the British government and public comments about the WCC demonstrate how

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the group was using its academic work in an attempt to influence the direction of bodies with political power, efforts that were, in themselves, a form of activism that pushed the boundaries of the organizations’ remit as an educational body. Keston’s distribution of material through its publications and links with the media gave others the ability to take more active efforts on their behalf. This can be seen in Religious Prisoners in the USSR: A Study by Keston College, a pamphlet published by the College in 1987. This report was essentially a list of people imprisoned in the Soviet Union for their religious beliefs, divided into different faiths and denominations. This publication included a variety of information on individual prisoners, including their personal details, details about their arrest, and their address written in Latin and Cyrillic scripts.160 This list was supplemented by a section entitled ‘How You Can Help’, which offered clear instructions on how a reader could assist Soviet prisoners of conscience, stating that readers should ‘send short, simple greetings to let them know that you care and are supporting them in prayer’. Keston’s instructions discouraged the sending of long letters, unless a reply had previously been received, showing awareness that if letters of support were linked back to Keston, it would have an adverse effect on a prisoner. 161 This publication noted in the clearest terms that political remarks of any nature should be avoided at all costs, and that letters should ‘NEVER mention Keston College … this may prove to be harmful as a believer could be accused of having connections with a Western anti-Soviet organisation’.162 In 1982, Bourdeaux took Keston’s calls for explicit activism further, not only requesting for letters to be sent to those in need but also for those who visited the Soviet Union to meet persecuted believers. This carried a certain degree of personal risk for those who took their activism a step further during visits to the Soviet bloc, and reiterates the activist element that Keston concealed behind the academic nature of its work.163 Explicit calls for activism, in the form of letter writing and visiting those who were being persecuted, were not the actions of an academic group, solely dedicated to researching religious persecution. Instead, they betray a subtle activist element to Keston’s work which is often dismissed by supporters of the group. Keston was much more of an activist group than a cursory view of its structure and output suggests. By providing the information that allowed others to protest, Keston was encouraging activism from others without sacrificing its own position as an academic institution which leant it a heightened reputation, an effective move in the context of the Cold War where a lack of political impartiality could quickly ruin the public image of an organization. *** Despite the many successes that Keston had throughout the years in documenting the plight of religious faith in the Soviet Union and other nations in the Soviet bloc, and the fondly held memories of the work of the College by those affiliated to it, the organization’s history is inextricable linked with a great deal of tension and struggle in the face of adversity. In November 1976, Bourdeaux aptly noted that [t]he fortunes of Keston College seem destined to have a stormy course. Occasionally we seem to be on the crest of a wave for a short time only to plunge into even greater depths a few weeks later. The only thing which makes us cling tenaciously

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on and determined to survive is the knowledge that those we serve – the believers in Eastern Europe – are surmounting troubles of a greater magnitude than ours and emerging with faith strengthened.164

Little did Bourdeaux know when he wrote this that Keston was on the brink of a wave of public recognition that would come with the increased interest in the plight of dissidents in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. Keston’s dramatic rise from Bourdeaux’s largely overlooked concerns for religious believers in the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s to an established and respected NGO in the 1980s could not continue after the end of the Cold War. As concern for the victims of the Soviet persecution of religious belief waned dramatically following the collapse of the iron curtain, so too did Keston’s authority. While its members were clearly delighted to see the release of many prisoners of conscience from prisons and labour camps across the Soviet Union, Keston’s work in documenting the position of religious belief under communist rule had clearly come to an abrupt end. Although communist regimes still existed in China, Cuba and North Korea, alongside a host of other nations where religious freedoms were under threat, Keston’s focus had predominantly been on the Soviet bloc. After its collapse, Keston could not continue to function as it previously had. Ruth Gledhill, The Times’ religious affairs reporter noted the irony in Keston’s difficult position, stating that ‘all the good things which have happened in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the last 12 months are threatening it with redundancy or even bankruptcy unless it can find a new role’.165 Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Keston was forced to reduce its staffing, initially to a small group of researchers in Moscow, alongside a small number of staff in the UK, a vast step down from the 1980s where substantial investment in premises was needed to house the rapidly expanding organization.166 Financial donations to Keston by its membership significantly dried up after the end of the Cold War, with The Observer reporting that donations to the group dropped from £400,000 a year in its heyday to £300,000 in 1990, forcing the organization to sell the college’s premises that had given the group its name. Bourdeaux put this decline down to the new openness in the Soviet bloc, noting in this article that ‘one American organisation, for instance, used to give money because it was concerned about democratic rights in Eastern Europe. Now it says it can give the money direct to the new democratic governments’, bypassing Keston.167 Due to renewed financial pressures, Dennen was made Keston’s chairman and put the organization through what she has termed its own period of perestroika.168 As the organization could no longer afford to support its own team of researchers, Keston’s academic work was cut to a bare minimum. Previously essential members of staff had their positions made redundant, such as Philip Walters whose contract was terminated in circumstances that were particularly uncomfortable.169 In order to save further expense RCL, which was renamed Religion, State and Society in 1992 to convey its broader remit in the post-Soviet era, was sold to the publishers Taylor and Francis.170 Walters remained as its editor after leaving Keston, and the journal has developed into an internationally renowned publication on religion in communist and post-communist nations. Religion, State and Society continues to occupy the unique position of RCL despite the widening area of interest as indicated by its title, and is perhaps one of Keston’s greatest academic legacies.

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Keston’s hasty fall from grace demonstrates the fickle nature of how organizations are thrust into the limelight through a rush to expertise and then dismissed once the issue that had brought them to public prominence loses political importance, often with devastating consequences. In Keston’s case, the group that had once been able to influence the course of international relations had been left questioning its modus operandi. As Tim Radford aptly noted in an article on Keston’s work published in The Guardian in August 1997: The collapse of Soviet power in 1990 changed things for everybody. That included Canon Dr Michael Bourdeaux of the Keston Institute in Oxford. One day he was in the frontline of the fight against religious persecution and the next he was in charge of 37 fragile cabinets full of fragile history.171

5

Attempting Impartiality – Amnesty International and the Soviet Union

Of all organizations working to publicize human rights violations in the latter half of the twentieth century, Amnesty International has come to occupy a space at the very centre of public consciousness in Britain. In over fifty years of activism, Amnesty has had a dramatic impact on the way in which human rights is understood in both domestic politics and international relations, coming to play a prominent role in the construction of the discourses surrounding human rights and the persecution of prisoners of conscience around the world. So much so, that Amnesty has become synonymous with human rights campaigning through the development of widely copied models of activism and emotional symbolism. This influential position of power has developed from the strength of the group’s ethos of impartial activism which formed in its early years, something that came to characterize its efforts for Soviet dissidents. Its attempts at ploughing an impartial line was an attempt to sidestep the ideological conflict of the Cold War, something that was noble in ambition but nonetheless flawed given the complexity of international relations during this period. Amnesty was born out of an insistence that individual civil liberties should be protected in as impartial manner as possible, regardless of political affiliation or nationality. The inspiration for this campaigning organization came from the British barrister Peter Benenson, who launched a campaign for amnesty after reading a report in the Daily Telegraph of two Portuguese students who had been imprisoned in Lisbon by the Salazar dictatorship for making a public toast to freedom.1 Inspired by this case, Benenson wrote a short article entitled ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’ which was published in The Observer on 28 May 1961 about his concerns for prisoners of conscience around the world. This article started what was initially anticipated to be a year-long campaign to draw attention to prisoners of conscience around the world but which eventually spiralled into the international campaign that dominates contemporary human rights activism due to public support for its efforts.2 Benenson’s article was received with much acclaim both in Britain and around the world. It was reprinted simultaneously in the French newspaper Le Monde, and a Spanish newspaper even mentioned Benenson’s article despite the risk of repercussions from the Franco regime.3 This is the official version of Amnesty’s foundation that has been told by the organization for many years. The reality of the group’s formation is, however,

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somewhat unclear. Tom Buchanan had persuasively challenged the narrative of Amnesty’s foundation, tellingly being unable to identify either the Daily Telegraph article that Benenson claimed inspired the foundation of Amnesty or the names of the two Portuguese students who toasted to freedom – an alarming silence for an organization with Amnesty’s reputation.4 Despite this, the myth of the organization’s foundation has been continued by the group in its official narrative, strengthening the overall ethos of the group despite resting on remarkably unstable foundations.5 The reasoning for the success of this myth, being largely understood and reiterated by the organization itself as reality is perhaps due to Benenson’s ability as an inspiration figure focused on grand aims and ambitions rather than details. Buchanan has noted that one factor in the success of Benenson’s campaign was his ‘true genius … in fashioning memorable (often religious) symbols and images’. As a result, 1961 was a particularly apt year for his appeal, coming a century after the emancipation of the serfs in Russia and the freeing of slaves in the United States, two events had a great impact on the development of inviolable rights through increased empathy for other human beings.6 The exact date of the article’s publication was also particularly apt, falling on Trinity Sunday, highlighting the impact that Benenson’s Christian faith had on his decision to launch this campaign.7 The mythology surrounding Amnesty’s foundation is also encapsulated within Benenson’s article in The Observer, which has become the organization’s founding document outlining the ethos and culture of the group. This article specifically identified the prisoners of conscience that Amnesty were to support, defining them as ‘any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence’.8 As a result of this, Amnesty would only support prisoners of conscience who did not use or endorse the use of violence. This decision was based on Benenson’s personal moral philosophy, influenced by his faith and interactions with the Quaker Eric Baker, who played a large role in Amnesty’s formation.9 While this is a noble and ethical stance, it is laden with complexities which came to the fore in 1964 when one of its adopted prisoners of conscience, the activist Nelson Mandela, advocated the use of violence as a part of his efforts against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Amnesty decided that this meant that they were unable to support him, and while they continued to campaign for his release, this was not as one of their prisoners of conscience – a decision endorsed by a poll of its membership after a long and far-reaching internal debate.10 This position of non-violence became one of the driving forces of Amnesty’s work, only tarnished by its involvement in supporting members of the Baader-Meinhoff group in the 1970s. Amnesty’s efforts for members of this group can be seen as one of the most challenging issues in the organization’s history, something that greatly affected its public image in the West at the time.11 The issue of violence caused particular complications for Amnesty’s support of prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union many of whom were, or had previously been, members of the communist party. It can be argued that any political endorsement of communism is in fact a notion of support for the use of violence due to the Marxist doctrine that oppressive bourgeois governments should be overthrown by force

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including, if necessary, the use of violent measures.12 This created a problem for supporting prisoners of conscience who were, or had been, members of the communist party. For example, Petro Grigorenko had been both a high ranking member of the Red Army and the communist party before becoming an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime. As he noted in his memoirs: From my childhood onward I believed in communist ideas and later served them fanatically. I took a leading place among the ruling hierarchy and worked successfully in my chosen field. I had bright prospects. And all of a sudden I embarked on a road of struggle, something that not only deprived me of all of my privileges but led me into hostile relations with the authorities. I was threatened with the strongest repressions and with execution. 13

Whether Amnesty should adopt such an individual as one of their prisoners of conscience was a particularly difficult question laden with political and moral consequences. This issue was further complicated by the position of the communist party in the Soviet Union as many joined the party simply to further their own career or to reap the benefits of being part of the party apparatchik. Critics of the Soviet regime and its counterparts in Eastern Europe argued that those in the party formed an elite class, known as the nomenklatura that went against communist principles.14 In order to reap the benefits of Soviet life, many joined the party and publicly espoused communist doctrine, even if they themselves did not advocate the violent overthrow of bourgeois governments. Amnesty’s leadership showed concerns about how to deal with reports of human rights violations in the Soviet Union and other communist states from its foundation. At its second international conference held in September 1962 in Sijsele, Belgium, Sean MacBride, the Chairman of Amnesty’s International Executive Committee (IEC) from 1961 to 1975, gave a lecture entitled ‘Persecution in the Marxist-Leninist States’. That this was delivered alongside other lectures that covered broad themes such as ‘Persecution of Religion’, ‘Persecution of Minorities’ and ‘Racial Persecution’ highlights the importance to which the topic of MacBride’s lecture was placed.15 Amnesty also held a conference on the theme of ‘Personal Freedom in the MarxistLeninist Countries’ in June 1962, which explored a number of issues regarding civil liberties in the Soviet Union.16 Benenson responded directly to the issue of supporting Soviet prisoners of conscience in May 1964, when he noted that as over a century had passed since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, conditions had changed dramatically from the early days of Marxist ideology. He urged Amnesty members to use their initiative, judging cases on their individual merits and not to abandon a prisoner of conscience because ‘he happens to be called a communist’. He also argued that in many cases, government officials had libelled political opponents by calling them communists, further highlighting the need for each case involving such figures to be individually assessed.17 This circular meant that the issue of supporting prisoners of conscience with a link to communist political organizations was effectively dealt with before the Soviet dissident movement had fully developed. It also set out the case-by-case approach to prisoners of conscience that was to continue throughout

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the ideological battlefield of the Cold War. This was in an attempt to allow Amnesty to conduct activism for prisoners of conscience without directly becoming involved in the political conflict itself, seeking to become a politically impartial authority on reports of human rights violations. Amnesty’s noble aims of impartiality were extremely difficult to maintain in the context of the Cold War, where competing ideologies made it all but impossible for an organization like Amnesty to exist in a political landscape apart from the broader tensions in international relations. This came to the fore in 1966, when Amnesty was accused of receiving secret funding from British Intelligence to conduct campaigns in Rhodesia, an accusation that shook the core of the organization.18 Direct financial links to the British government, especially through covert channels, would have destroyed the organization’s credibility as an impartial authority. Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the accusations was that they occurred publicly in the British press, questioning Amnesty’s reputation, something that it came to be reliant upon in its campaigns.19 Benenson’s response to the allegations eventually led to him being driven from the organization. He had become increasingly paranoid of those around him in Amnesty’s management and even faked the theft of his briefcase to test the response of the police. He was worried that the Soviet authorities believed that Amnesty had been infiltrated by British Intelligence, something that would have affected the neutrality of the organization.20 In December 1966 MacBride told Benenson that he was suffering from overwork and that his actions regarding the allegations would ‘1) Destroy Amnesty and 2) Destroy himself ’.21 Despite a number of concerns, Amnesty came out of this scandal relatively unscathed, with remarkably little long-term impact on the group’s authority following this controversy. This is extraordinary in the context of the period, when the authority of organizations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom were destroyed once their funding from the US intelligence agencies was revealed.22 The outcome of this affair highlights the strength of Amnesty’s ethos, which had become entrenched in a relatively short period of time. This ethos of campaigning for persecuted prisoners of conscience had become so established that it gave the organization a sense of protection from controversies and demonstrated that it could exist and flourish without the day-to-day management of the organization by its inspirational founder. This is an indication of how powerful Amnesty’s impartiality was, something that it would attempt to cling on to throughout its campaigns for Soviet prisoners of conscience.

Research and Professionalization Amnesty is a complex organization, divided into a number of layers that each play a role in the wider output of the group. At the centre of the group is the International Secretariat (IS) which is concerned with Amnesty’s day-to-day working. Based in London, the IS has acted as the group’s information source since its foundation and contains the group’s leadership and research bodies. The IS was essentially born out of Amnesty’s first headquarters in Benenson’s barrister offices and has subsequently moved into new premises as and when needed. Its location in London

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gives the impression that the group is British, when in reality it was, and remains, an international organization based in Britain: a subtle distinction but one that is particularly telling about the group itself. Its London base has been a cause for internal discussion, with fears that the group should have more physical presence around the world given its global ambitions.23 The location of the IS was discussed in an internal report to Amnesty’s IEC in November 1975, which noted that as an outstanding English-speaking world metropolis, London was an obvious place to locate an organization that had an English working language. This report also noted the benefit of Amnesty being located in ‘a classical center [sic] of liberal traditions’ and that drawing on the democratic traditions of the UK was of much use for the organization – a slight contrast to its professed political impartiality.24 Running in tandem with the IS are a collection of national Amnesty groups, such as Amnesty International USA and Amnesty International UK, which carried out the campaigning efforts of the organization. National groups are in turn comprised of local Amnesty groups, where the bulk of the organization’s membership reside. Local groups are tasked with responding to the information provided by the IS, adopting so-called ‘prisoners of conscience’ from around the world and campaigning on their behalf.25 Jonathon Power has described local groups as the ‘central cog in the machinery Amnesty used in its struggle on behalf of political prisoners.’26 This is true in a number of senses. Local groups contain the vast grassroots membership of the organization which carry out the bulk of its activism and are also from where its finances are raised from. Amnesty’s local groups were dubbed the ‘three’s network’ by Benenson, denoting the three prisoners of conscience that were allocated to each local group for their letter writing campaigns – one from a Western nation, one from a communist nation and one from the developing world. Local groups took part in the activism that the group has become synonymous with – letter writing. As part of their campaigning efforts, local activists were encouraged to write letters directly to prisoners of conscience making it clear that Amnesty members were aware of their plight. Activists also wrote numerous letters to the authorities detaining prisoners of conscience, highlighting that the international community was aware of their actions.27 The technique of sustained pressure on the authorities through letter writing by local activists was remarkably effective in improving the position of prisoners of conscience, reiterating to their captors that their actions were widely condemned around the world.28 Letters sent to the Soviet Union by Amnesty members are described with great affection by dissidents in their memoirs. Leonid Plyushch referred explicitly to the impact of Amnesty letters in his memoir History’s Carnival noting that although he feared they were written in vain, they made him feel part of a wider international struggle, bolstering his morale during imprisonment.29 Amnesty’s letter writing campaigns were particularly effective in the case of Soviet prisoners of conscience due to the highly bureaucratized manner in which the Soviet state functioned. The numerous letters sent by local Amnesty groups added much pressure to the work of the Soviet bureaucracy, and was a literal way of showing the Soviet authorities the concern from Western activists for imprisoned and persecuted dissidents. This was a method of protest exploited by dissidents themselves, who wrote large amounts of

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correspondence to the Soviet authorities to complain about any infringements that they experienced while imprisoned, overburdening bureaucrats with paperwork as a form of activism.30 In order for letter writing campaigns to take place, the IS needed to keep abreast of the latest developments in the Soviet Union and provide its national and local groups with information to use. As a result, maintaining a supply of quality information was an integral part of Amnesty’s efforts for Soviet dissidents. This desire for accurate and reliable information can be seen from the group’s International Council Meeting (ICM) in 1966, where two resolutions were passed regarding the Soviet Union. The first was a direct pledge for Amnesty to make ‘vigorous’ representations to the Soviet authorities about the imprisoned writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who had been sentenced in 1966 to seven and five years hard labour respectively, stating that the organization should do more to publicize their plight among both its own members and the wider public.31 Its second resolution on the Soviet Union at this meeting outlined the group’s need to engage in research on the position of political prisoners in the Soviet Union and other communist states so that it was not ‘worse informed about it [the Soviet Union] than we are about [the position] of political prisoners in other countries with which we are concerned’.32 Through this resolution, Amnesty’s leadership demonstrated a fear that its knowledge of the Soviet Union could suffer in comparison to other nations, highlighting how central research and information was to its activism and how much more it felt it could do to improve its knowledge of the situation behind the iron curtain. Amnesty’s knowledge of the Soviet Union was developed by the processing of vast amounts of information, which it used to create an array of reports, press releases and publications. From the outside, the work of Amnesty’s researchers appeared to be seamless, with a near-continuous supply of reports produced on issues around the world. However, this efficient exterior hid the level of chaos and stress that Amnesty’s researchers were subjected to, especially those working on the Soviet bloc. Internal documents and the minutes of management committees regarding Soviet research reveal the constant struggle within the organization to keep on top of the everincreasing tide of information being received from behind the iron curtain. From the mid-1960s onwards, Amnesty’s research on the Soviet Union was an endless pursuit undertaken by a small group of hardworking and dedicated researchers, often pushed right to their limits. Personnel were essential to Amnesty’s work, especially so in the early days of the IS’s Investigation Department, which conducted the group’s research. In its early years, Amnesty’s research into individual nations was often delegated to one individual researcher, regardless of the size of the nation or the scale of human rights violations taking place there. Amnesty’s researchers were either unpaid volunteers or permanent members of staff who were either paid very modest wages or, in some cases, solely in luncheon vouchers.33 The amount that individuals were paid varied dramatically from one researcher to another, suggesting that they often donated their time for little financial reward. For example, an internal report from 1967 noted that Alex Hawson was unpaid for his one day a week researching Egypt, Therese Raymond was paid just over £20 per year in luncheon vouchers for two days a week working on

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Syria, and Colin Leyland-Naylor was paid £52 and given £52 in luncheon vouchers per year for his full time job as press cutter.34 Such remuneration was remarkably low in comparison to Bruce Laird, the highest paid member of the Investigation Department, who received £1,000 per year for his work, as well as receiving £52 of luncheon vouchers and £104 of National Health Insurance contributions to supplement this income.35 Laird was the Amnesty’s main Soviet researcher during the 1960s and early 1970s, although it is unclear from archival material when he started this work, reflecting the undeveloped and amateurish nature of Amnesty’s Investigation Department in the 1960s. Laird’s responsibilities within Amnesty highlights its need to attract flexible researchers in this period, as a staff salary list from 1967 shows that alongside his work on the Soviet Union, Laird also had responsibility for research on East and West Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Switzerland.36 Although he was assisted by Hilary Sternberg, a part-time researcher who worked on the Soviet Union translating samizdat material, and Christel Marsh, who helped him with his research into Eastern Europe, the diversity of Laird’s work illustrates how thinly spread researchers were.37 It would have been all but impossible for any individual, no matter how talented or how ably supported, to keep fully up-to-date with human rights violations that occurred under across such a breadth of languages, cultures and political regimes. As well as his multifaceted research responsibilities, Laird also held a number of important roles in Amnesty’s hierarchy, including its European working party.38 The importance of Laird’s work for Amnesty was recognized financially, as he received the highest salary paid at the time by the Investigation Department, matching that of Stella Joyce who was then Head of Department, but the breadth of his responsibilities highlights the amateurish nature of Amnesty’s research in this period, something that is perhaps reflected in the relative lack of detailed reports on the Soviet Union in the late 1960s.39 At the turn of the 1970s, Amnesty began a process to modernize its Investigation Department, concentrating its efforts on improving the quality and quantity of its research. Central to this development was the recruitment of a core of full-time paid researchers under the leadership of Zbynek Zeman, who had been appointed as Amnesty’s Head of Research in July 1970.40 Zeman was born in Czechoslovakia, and fled to Britain following the Communist coup d’etat in 1948. He read history at University College London in the early 1950s and soon afterwards began an academic career specializing in the history of Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. It was through working on an account of the Prague Spring, which was published by Penguin in 1968, that Zeman was persuaded to leave academic life to work for Amnesty, and his linguistic and academic abilities were doubtless greatly welcomed by the group.41 Zeman’s proposed modernization of Amnesty’s research was set out in an internal IEC report from November 1970 which outlined his desire to have a minimum permanent core of eight researchers, each with a secretary, who were to be supplemented with additional researchers in the following years. This central core of permanent researchers was described as being fundamental to the organization and ‘without which it would be impossible to carry out the work of the department’. It was to include researchers specializing on issues in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and

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three administrative positions including a librarian, a special projects researcher and a director of research. This aimed to give ‘the present organisation a better service’ rather than expand the organization as a whole.42 Amnesty’s first priority in Zeman’s November 1970s report was to appoint an assistant researcher on Eastern Europe, indicating its ambitions to strengthen this area of its work.43 It sought to recruit individuals ‘on the strength of their academic and linguistic qualifications and for their ability to be flexible and deal with new situations as they arise in their particular regions’.44 Good linguists and persons with high academic qualifications were essential to the organization as was their flexibility which, given the varied workload of an Amnesty researcher in this period, was perhaps the most important trait they could possess.45 The nature of this recruitment process is also revealing of Amnesty’s organizational priorities at the beginning of the 1970s. By recruiting academics and linguists, rather than media or marketing experts, Amnesty were focusing explicitly on improving the quality of its research and thereby its expertise rather than its ability to work with the media or in fundraising, something that critics have highlighted becoming the norm in recent years.46 Despite Amnesty’s ambitions in developing the quality of its research on the situation in the Soviet bloc, there were only ever two or three researchers working specifically on the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, of which there was only ever one dedicated researcher who was supported by assistants or secretaries. Given the developing nature of Amnesty in the 1970s, this dedicated researcher was often anything but, holding an array of other responsibilities, either for research on other nations or for the wider running of the developing organization. This had the inevitable consequence of diluting their ability to focus on their research, something that is clear to see in the case of Laird, whose research on the Soviet Union suffered through his broader role within Amnesty. Despite this pressure, during this period Amnesty came to play an integral role in distributing information of the highest quality on the dissident movement through its translation and reproduction of arguably the most important samizdat material to cross the iron curtain – The Chronicle of Current Events.47 The Chronicle was first published in April 1968 by the Natalia Gorbanevskaya, who was described in the journal as being not only its ‘moving spirit’ but also a key factor in determining the publication’s ‘style, structure and principles’.48 Gorbanevskaya was a distinguished poet and gained notoriety in the Soviet Union following her participation in the 1968 Red Square demonstrations against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Her book Red Square at Noon, a compilation of documents about the protest and the subsequent trial of the protestors involved, was published widely in the West and led to her becoming recognized internationally as one of the leading Soviet dissidents.49 The Chronicle’s approach to reporting the situation in the Soviet Union was vastly different from the bulk of samizdat, which was laden with political argument and the opinion of writers. One need only consider the samizdat works of dissident authors such as Andrei Amalrik and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to see how forthright and forceful their opinions often were.50 Central to the Chronicle’s style was an intrinsic desire for empiricism and objectivity, reporting events as they occurred without commentary, allowing readers to formulate their own opinions on events.

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Joshua Rubenstein has highlighted how clear this emotionally detached approach was in the first edition of the Chronicle, which focused on the aftermath of the 1968 trial of Yuri Galanskov and Alexander Ginzburg. This edition could have easily been more accusatory and emotional in its reporting given the miscarriages of justice present at this trial.51 Instead, it is a notably neutral account, focusing on reporting facts as objectively as possible.52 The Chronicle’s reliance on detachment and factual reportage gave its account of events much credibility, something that was desperately needed in the age of misinformation and propaganda. This approach became a key trait of the Chronicle, one that greatly enhanced its reputation among Western commentators who sometimes gave the impression in their articles that it was a news bulletin rather than a dissident journal.53 In the foreword to a Polish translation of the Chronicle, its translators neatly referred to the journal’s style as being ‘laconic, to-the-point, non-editorializing’ and even in some cases ‘dry’.54 The frank style of the Chronicle was arguably its greatest strength, presenting evidence on the events without allowing ideology or politically driven rhetoric to take over. The historian and polemicist Tibor Szamuely described the Chronicle as having ‘no political line: its sole aim is sober factual information concerning the movement for civil rights in the USSR: what acts of dissent have been carried out, who has been arrested and for what, which political trials have been held, who has been sent to what prison or labour camp or lunatic asylum’.55 Peter Reddaway has described the Chronicle as ‘one of the most important documents ever to come out of the Soviet Union’, as it contained some of the richest samizdat material available on the position of dissidents in the Soviet bloc.56 As a form of dissent, the Chronicle sits in a wider tradition of Russian intellectual nonconformism that dates back many centuries. Dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s followed a style of dissenting literature produced by the Russian intelligentsia going back many centuries. Martin Malia described Solzhenitsyn as an author who resurrected the dissenting traditions of the Russian literary greats such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.57 Marshall Shatz has also described at length the historical precedent that Soviet dissidents found themselves, arguing that they were part of a longstanding tradition of dissent in Russian history going back to the Tsarist intelligentsia.58 The wide-ranging political and philosophical debates among Soviet dissidents have been compared to the division of the Westernizers and Slavophiles of the Imperial period, with both groups discussing their concerns for the future development of Russia.59 While the Chronicle fits into the broader tradition of intellectual nonconformity that is ever-present in Russian history, it broke slightly with its forefathers forming its own distinct path.60 Philip Boobbyer notes that although there are some similarities between the Chronicle and Liberation, a journal produced by the philosopher Pyotr Struve in the early twentieth century, it would be erroneous to suggest that they are one and the same. Instead, Boobbyer highlights the unifying force of both journals as a comparable feature, noting that the importance of the Chronicle was that it brought elements of the highly divided Soviet dissident movement together.61 While the Chronicle was far from the only journal produced by the dissident movement, its objective approach meant that it reported across the breadth of this fragmented

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movement, loosely bringing together a wide variety of differing ideological positions present among the dissidents. Another great benefit of the Chronicle over other samizdat journals produced in this period was its national scope. Some samizdat pieces had a clear regional focus, such as the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church which focused on issues regarding the Catholic faith in Lithuania.62 The Chronicle took a much wider approach, covering events in both small towns and major cities, and formed a nationwide information network across the Soviet Union.63 This national scope is important when considering the information that the Chronicle contained and how it was utilized in the West. Rather than focusing on events from the major cities such as Moscow and Leningrad, the nationwide scope of the Chronicle further illustrated the objective approach that it took, suggesting that it reported on matters regarding their importance rather than their proximity to major cities in the Soviet Union. One of the most important aims of the editors of the Chronicle was for its contents to be spread as widely as possible, both in the Soviet Union and internationally. This was for two main reasons. First, reports on the Chronicle’s content in the West trickled back into the Soviet Union allowing its contents to be spread far and wide, so that those without access to samizdat copies of the journal could also be informed of its contents, particularly via radio transmission.64 Second, it was considered of utmost importance to maintain a regular flow of information about the Soviet persecution of dissidents to those in the West. Gorbanevskaya felt that this information would paint a picture of how systematic the Soviet abuses were and oblige those in the West who did not live under such conditions to engage in action on behalf of the dissidents.65 The production of this material did not come without risks. Given the potential unrest that publications such as the Chronicle could cause, the Soviet authorities took a variety of actions to prevent and stop the publication and distribution of this material. The punishments for those found to have been involved with the production of samizdat were severe, with the KGB actively seeking to stop this material being distributed. In an article for The Times, the journalist Leopold Labedz discussed typical punishments in detail, noting that they included a ‘loss of livelihood, exile or imprisonment’ or, as he chillingly put it, ‘such mild routine measures as forcible confinement in mental institutions’.66 This was the fate that met Gorbanevskaya, who was arrested in December 1969 for her involvement in editing early editions of the Chronicle. She was declared ‘not responsible’ by Soviet psychiatrists, and sent to a psychiatric hospital in Kazan for evaluation and treatment.67 The risks involved in the Chronicle’s publication clearly played on the minds of its editors, who felt that their work was about more than simple reportage but a form of activism in itself. Commenting on the delays in the production of No. 28, the Chronicle’s anonymous editors noted that ‘to remain silent would mean to facilitate – even though indirectly and passively – the use of a “tactic of hostages” which is incompatible with justice, morality and human dignity’.68 For its editors, the Chronicle was an act of defiance against the Soviet regime and that failing to engage in its publication would in fact be an act of compliance with the regime. The threat of persecution was considered a risk worth taking.

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While the KGB were intent on suppressing underground literature in this period, their record of success is very mixed. Despite the efforts of the Soviet authorities, the Chronicle remained in publication with minimal disruption for nearly fifteen years. This highlights both the KGB’s shortcomings in preventing its publication and the clear determination of those behind the Chronicle in disseminating this material. Andrei Sakharov aptly described the journal as being a ‘genuine miracle’ and ‘an expression of the spirit and moral strength of the human rights movement in the USSR’.69 The Chronicle was a powerful statement by dissidents in the Soviet Union, who were prepared to defy the regime in distributing information about its human rights abuses. Much like activism in the West on their behalf, it was based on a wide network of individuals willing to distribute this information, regardless of the consequences. The Chronicle’s editors noted that the journal was comprised of ‘not only the people who compose its text, but those who send it information, and those who copy and circulate it, and perhaps even those who read it.’70 Its distribution in the West extended the network internationally, something that gave it an air of indestructibility, and made it all but impossible for the KGB to completely silence it. If leading figures were removed or silenced, the ethos of the Chronicle in distributing factual information about Soviet abuses meant that others would continue its work. Copies of the Chronicle made their way to the West through a variety of routes often reliant on anonymous couriers, such as journalists, students, activists or diplomats, bringing material across the borders. Peter Reddaway recalled that the route they took out of the Soviet Union was ‘haphazard’ and that, on the whole, he did not know how they made their way out, only where they ended up. Reddaway recalls that he received the first edition of the Chronicle from the BBC journalist Dennis Blakeley, who had been given a copy by Pavel Litvinov whom he knew personally. In one particularly graphic case, Reddaway recalled that he had received a copy of the Chronicle from James Juenger, the Moscow Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Juenger had visited the apartment of Pyotr Yakir shortly before leaving the Soviet Union to visit London. Yakir gave him a fresh edition of No. 21 of the Chronicle, which Juenger then passed onto Reddaway later that evening when the pair met for dinner. This edition of the Chronicle had been delivered to Reddaway some hours after it had been typed by Yakir and, although a remarkable case, demonstrates how quickly this material could make its way to Western activists if the conditions were right.71 Given his interest in the Soviet dissident movement and his developing activism in this area, Reddaway came to obtain copies of the Chronicle after they had made their way to Britain, which he translated into English and circulated to his friends and colleagues using the mailing system at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he was a Lecturer in Government. He justified this expense ‘on the grounds that this was a form of research’, and that he was getting feedback about the Chronicle from other interested parties. Reddaway initially translated and distributed this material without charge, something that he recalled developing in a very spontaneous and ad hoc manner, indicative of the wider activism on behalf of Soviet dissent in Britain in the early 1970s.72 The early translations of the Chronicle

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were essentially produced by Reddaway so that they could be used by anyone that was interested in their contents.73 The distribution of the early translations of the Chronicle illustrates how information on Soviet dissenters spread from Reddaway through to a wider network of concerned individuals in Britain. This was in keeping with the wishes of the Chronicle’s editors, who wanted ‘to have the widest possible distribution of the information contained in its issues’.74 The distribution of the Chronicle formed a primitive network of activists, linked by a common interest in developments in the Soviet Union. Reddaway’s informal translation and editing of the Chronicle was later supported by other activists in this network who were interested in its contents. For example, Xenia Dennen, who was heavily involved in publicizing the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union through her work with Keston College, was one of those who assisted Reddaway with this work, translating the Chronicle No. 7.75 The reception of Reddaway’s initial translations of the Chronicle highlighted the broader interest that this material was beginning to attract. Reddaway sought to open up the potential readership of this material further and approached Amnesty about publishing regular translations of the Chronicle. He recalled that this decision to approach Amnesty was a simple one for him to make, as it was the only human rights organization in this period that had an established reputation of impartiality, it had the ability to produce the Chronicle, and Reddaway had personal links with the group. He had joined Amnesty in 1964 after reading about their work in The Guardian after they had taken up the case of Evgeny Belov. Reddaway thought that they were a ‘potentially important organisation’ and began sending samizdat material to them from the mid-1960s onwards.76 Given the quality of its contents, Amnesty showed great interest in the Chronicle, noting in its 1970 annual report that the samizdat journal was the organization’s main source of information on Soviet prisoners of conscience and new arrests.77 Benjamin Nathans has noted that without the crescendo of information provided to Western activists by publications such as the Chronicle, Amnesty’s activism in support of Soviet prisoners of conscience would ‘scarcely have been possible’.78 The quality of the information that it provided was so useful to Amnesty’s work that the group began to informally provide local groups working for Soviet prisoners of conscience with translations of the Chronicle. In December 1970, the organization decided to formalize this distribution of the Chronicle by making copies of the journal available to subscribers in order to make it financially viable.79 Amnesty first published an English translation of Chronicle No. 16 in February 1971, and went on to publish complete translations of the journal through to No. 64 in 1984.80 Publishing this journal was new territory for Amnesty, who acknowledged in their 1971 annual report that it was the first time they had ‘published material of this kind – i.e. material which is distributed outside the organization, and which has not been compiled by Amnesty observers as a result of their own enquiries’.81 This was a bold step for the organization, as it was effectively endorsing and distributing material in its name that it had not authored. In doing so, Amnesty was using its own fledgling authority to bolster that of the Chronicle, ensuring that its contents would have been more widely utilized in the West. Reddaway maintained his involvement in the Chronicle throughout the 1970s, editing and translating the journal for Amnesty, initially without requesting a fee for his

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services. As the editions of the Chronicle grew, Amnesty were able to supply Reddaway with finance to pay for translators to assist him and to claim a small amount for his own editorial work.82 Reddaway played an essential role in the production of English translations of the Chronicle, using his expertise and personal contacts in this field to produce translations, rather than bringing this task under the control of Amnesty’s already stretched Soviet researchers. This can be linked to the changes in Amnesty’s Investigation Department, which became known as the Research Department during the reforms led by Zeman in the early 1970s, that sought to increase its academic repute and the developing pressures on the organization into the mid-1970s. Reddaway’s association with Amnesty in this period is also revealing of his desire to have this material distributed widely. His work for the organization, often without pay and alongside his academic position, put great pressure on his personal resources. His commitment to continuing this throughout much of this period demonstrates both his personal resolve and his commitment to the quality of the material within the Chronicle. Alongside his approach to Amnesty, the interest in Reddaway’s early translations of the Chronicle also led him to produce a compilation of its contents titled Uncensored Russia, which was published in 1972 by Jonathan Cape. Reddaway compiled and translated the first eleven editions of the Chronicle, and instead of reproducing them in a verbatim fashion, used the content within individual editions to demonstrate the development of events in the Soviet Union thematically, allowing events to be easily portrayed without the need for extensive commentary from the editor.83 Uncensored Russia was broken into seven main segments, using the analogy of a river to describe each section: the mirror of the movement, the main stream, the movement in captivity, individual streams, mainstream publications, tributaries, and dams. This division allowed detailed analysis of national movements alongside the cases of individual dissidents, specific dissident works and the response of the Soviet authorities towards the dissident movement. The subtitles of Reddaway’s divisions also suggest that he saw the Chronicle as a vehicle in which information on dissenters could flow from the tributaries of the Russian provinces, through individual national streams into the mainstream of dissident activity in Moscow, and, to extend the metaphor further, on to the West if it could avoid the dams of the Soviet censors. This identification might also suggest the role that Reddaway felt he played in this flow of information, providing an avenue for it to be spread out further in the West. Tibor Szamuely noted in The Spectator that Reddaway’s approach to this material was a wise choice, and one that he had carried out with ‘excellent editorial judgement’.84 Reddaway’s notes and annotations within Uncensored Russia are relatively short on the whole, and do not detract from the material presented from the Chronicle itself, designed instead to thread the extracts together into a more fluid narrative rather than offer extensive analysis in their own right. Reddaway’s annotations make the material presented more accessible to the reader and offered a sense of context to extracts that can at times feel disjointed due to the thematic approach. Uncensored Russia was well received in the West and even produced a modest income for Reddaway, a rarity for an academic publication, suggesting that there was a wider public interest in its contents.85 Western critics were not the only ones to comment

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on Reddaway’s publication, as the Soviet authorities were particularly unhappy with its contents. In February 1973, the dissident Gabriel Superfin was interrogated by the KGB who alleged that he had proof-read Reddaway’s work before its publication in the West. In this interrogation, the KGB also demanded that Superfin hand over the archives of the Chronicle, reiterating the concerns they had about its production and the efforts that they were taking to halt its production.86 The KGB’s efforts to halt this production of information highlights that the Chronicle was an important publication both for Soviet dissidents and Western activists. Its affiliation to Amnesty only heightened its reputation further.

Questions of Impartiality Amnesty’s commitment to its research on the Soviet bloc was brought into the spotlight when Laird left the organization in June 1972. Following this, its research on the Soviet Union was conducted by Jane Ward, who was supported by the parttime researchers Hilary Sternberg and George Steiner, and the Eastern Europe secretary Julia Kemp.87 As under Laird’s stewardship, the amount of time that Ward could spend focusing explicitly on the Soviet Union was limited, as she was also charged with conducting Amnesty’s research on Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, two nations that demanded substantial study in their own right. In a letter to Eric Baker in January 1973, Zbynek Zeman noted that Ward was responsible for ‘writing case sheets, supervising group correspondence for the 400-plus adopted prisoners in the area, co-ordinating the work of outside contributors like Peter Reddaway and other experts and preparing missions like that to Yugoslavia in July 1972’. Despite this high workload, Ward took to her research across three broad nations with great skill and dedication. In his letter to Baker, Zeman noted that her work was of ‘a consistently high standard’ and that with the support of a part-time assistant she had produced ‘142 case sheets – a regular average of six a week and an unusually high total’.88 Despite the quality of Ward’s research on the Soviet Union, the IEC recognized that it needed to expand its work on the Soviet bloc and noted in September 1973 that recruiting a new researcher on Eastern Europe was a major priority for the Research Department. Members of the IEC were aware that the pressure being put on Ward was having an impact on the overall quality of Amnesty’s research on the Soviet bloc, with a report from its September 1973 meeting stating that while ‘every other area in the Research Department has expanded, the East European research staff has decreased, without any corresponding decrease in the work load’. Ward, was the sole full time researcher in Amnesty’s East European section, which had responsibility for research across a vast territory with a variety of different languages, customs and cultures. Perhaps owing to the wide scope of this work, the overall quality of its research was described by an internal report as being ‘inadequate’ and the appointment of an additional researcher for this area was considered a ‘matter of great urgency’.89 However, the attempt to recruit researchers to bolster Amnesty’s research were particularly difficult, with an Eastern European researcher position advertised for over a year without success in 1973.90 Given the amount of expertise on

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the Soviet bloc in London during this period, it is particularly surprising that Amnesty could not secure a researcher in this field. This suggests that working for Amnesty in this period was not a decision made lightly nor for financial gain. The interest in Amnesty’s work in recent years means that the group regularly advertises internships and an array of volunteering opportunities that are competitively applied for. This is a position far away from the early 1970s, where working for Amnesty was not a hotly contested opportunity. Amnesty’s need to appoint extra expertise on the Soviet bloc became of even greater importance in September 1973 when the dissidents Vladimir Albrecht, Vladimir Archangelsky, Ilya Korneyev and Andrei Tverdokhlebov contacted the IS, informing them that the group had been a great inspiration to them.91 This message was released in a statement to the press shortly afterwards, coinciding with the sixth ICM in Vienna where this message was relayed. The dissidents’ astonishment at Amnesty’s ideological position in contrast to their own experiences is clear to see in their message, which noted that in the Soviet Union terms like ‘conscience, dignity, and conviction’ had been limited to the ‘strivings of individual human beings, rather than wider society’.92 They outlined their complete shock at hearing Amnesty’s approach to human rights, stating that ‘we could not at first grasp the fact that it is possible to speak to total strangers about these things, even though they live in totally different conditions and other cultures’. It was this ability to speak freely about issues concerning human rights that rang true with their own experiences, leading to their deep admiration of Amnesty’s work and attempts to become affiliated with the organization.93 In conjunction with a number of like-minded figures in the Soviet Union the dissidents who had contacted the ICM founded Group 73 in order to formalize their interests in Amnesty’s method of activism. Benjamin Nathans has argued that the establishment of this group highlights how Soviet dissidents were turning to transnational frameworks and institutions in the early 1970s in order to exert pressure on the Soviet authorities. As a result of this, activist organizations in the West such as Amnesty were now becoming an intimate and integral part of the political activism of dissidents in the Soviet Union.94 Group 73 were deeply enamoured with Amnesty and its ethos of supporting the forgotten prisoner of conscience, something that rang true with their own experiences of state persecution. As Nathans has aptly noted, Amnesty’s ethos did not represent a new form of morality for the dissidents, but instead offered ‘a new way of deploying familiar, in fact intimately familiar, moral ideas in decidedly non-intimate settings’.95 The chance to interact with others who held similar beliefs was a strong appeal for the founding members of Group 73, who in October 1973 began to call themselves an Amnesty group. This was part of a wider plan by a group of dissidents to create non-state organizations to engage in peaceful human rights activism. The dissident physicist Yuri Orlov, one of the early members of the group, claimed that it had between 25 and 30 members in its early years, comprised mainly of writers and scientists from the major cities in the western Soviet Union.96 They were led by Andrei Tverdokhlebov, who acted as the group’s secretary, and Valentin Turchin, who dealt with the administrative formalities of founding the group and its relationship with Amnesty in London as the group’s president. Tverdokhlebov had experience in

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the foundation of this type of group following his involvement in the formation of the Moscow Human Rights Committee in 1970 alongside Andrei Sakharov and Valery Chalidze. He had also been the editor of the samizdat publication Mezhdunarodnaya Amnestiya (Amnesty International) which reproduced Amnesty’s reports on political persecution for circulation in the Soviet Union, reiterating how important the group’s work was considered by the dissidents.97 In September 1974, Group 73 were recognized as an affiliated Amnesty group rather than a designated national section given the logistical complications that this would cause. Interestingly, Amnesty only made brief mention of this development in its 1974 Annual Report, scantly stating that the Moscow group had been ‘formally recognized in the autumn of 1974 and was assigned three prisoners for adoption’.98 Amnesty’s recognition of this Moscow group was noted in the Chronicle in December 1974, which described them as an ‘adoption group’ which aimed to ‘aid people whose freedom is restricted in contravention of articles 5, 9, 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to ease their circumstances and to seek their release’. Somewhat surprisingly, this article also included telephone numbers for both Tverdokhlebov and Turchin, so that those who wanted to support Amnesty in the Soviet Union could contact them.99 This is particularly revealing of how the members of Amnesty’s Moscow group were not intimidated by the Soviet authorities, and sought to conduct their activism in as open a form as possible. Like other Amnesty groups, the Moscow group were assigned prisoners of conscience to campaign for in Spain, Sri Lanka, Uruguay and Yugoslavia.100 However the difficulties that the IS had in maintaining sufficient contact with its Moscow members meant that its activism was limited. Following the adoption of Group 73 as an affiliated Amnesty group, the organization’s concerns about the quality of their Soviet research were calmed after it appointed Clayton Yeo as a Soviet researcher in September 1974, initially on a part time basis until January 1975 when he became a full time researcher after Ward’s departure. Ward left her position at Amnesty in order to travel, but maintained her involvement with the organization by working for its India section on a voluntary basis.101 Alongside his appointment as a Soviet researcher, much like Laird and Ward before, Yeo was also involved in Amnesty’s hierarchy, acting as its Head of European Research.102 His appointment coincided with a period when Amnesty were considering the impact of its published translations of the Chronicle, something that had been brought into focus by the hiatus in its publication between October 1972 and September 1974 due to KGB pressure on its editors. Amnesty had been playing close attention to the attacks on those affiliated to the production of the Chronicle, noting in its 1972 Annual Report that nearly 100 people had been interrogated in connection with the arrest of Pyotr Yakir, something the group attributed to the wider attacks on the Chronicle. It noted in this report that the latest edition was four months overdue, and outlined its fear that the journal was unlikely to ‘appear again in its current form because of the threats of further arrest’.103 The break in the production of the Chronicle brought to the fore a number of concerns about Amnesty’s support of the translation of this samizdat journal. Members of the IEC had been concerned about the publication of the early editions of the Chronicle from 1971 to 1973, which had reputedly aroused ‘mild controversy’.104

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It was noted that such a close institutional affiliation with the Chronicle might violate the organization’s important impartiality, and a suggestion was made at the ICM in September 1972 that each translated edition should contain a reference stating that its contents should not be considered as official Amnesty material.105 This suggestion was overlooked, and such a clause was not published in Amnesty’s early editions of the Chronicle, which were produced as verbatim translations of the original samizdat. However, this initial concern for impartiality was reiterated by International Council members in September 1974, who felt that by publishing the Chronicle, there was a risk that Amnesty would be linked directly with the Soviet dissident movement, something that would impact on its campaigns both in the Soviet Union and further afield, and would threaten the organization’s much desired political impartiality.106 Another suggestion for dealing with the issue of the Chronicle and Amnesty’s impartiality was raised at the September 1974 ICM, when it was noted that the group should to ‘try to find a similar document published regularly by an underground civil rights movement in another country, and reprint it as a “balance” to the Chronicle’.107 The response to this suggestion was clear and concise – ‘there is, in fact, no other regular publication like the Chronicle: it is unique’.108 The information contained within the Chronicle, and its impartial and unemotive style made it stand out from all other material that Amnesty was receiving about human rights violations from around the world, and as a result it had no counterpart. It is also important to highlight that Amnesty’s publication of the Chronicle was in itself a political balancing act, demonstrating the group’s commitment to reporting human rights violation in left-wing regimes alongside campaigns against right-wing governments which dominated Amnesty’s work – something that was recognized by some members of the International Council.109 In the context of the Cold War, Amnesty was forced to walk a narrow tightrope between outright support for dissidents in the Soviet Union, something that could have been construed as a political action, and maintaining a politically neutrality that would afford its reports a greater sense of legitimacy and authority. This was a particularly difficult balancing act as the bulk of information on the Soviet abuses came in the form of samizdat which, in itself, had to be treated with a great deal of caution given the manner in which it was produced. Despite concerns from a number of areas, Amnesty pressed forward with the publication of the Chronicle, with the International Council in unanimous agreement that it should support the translations ‘at as reasonable a cost as possible’.110 Reflecting on Amnesty’s support for the Chronicle, Reddaway highlighted the efforts of Zeman in persuading the organization to press forward with this publication.111 Amnesty’s backing of the Chronicle was a long-term policy, with the group going on to support its translation and publication for over a decade. The longevity of this support was confirmed in 1974 when Amnesty invested heavily in its publishing capabilities, purchasing a computer in order to typeset the Chronicle and other publications such as its Annual Report.112 The first edition of the Chronicle was produced by this new computer in May 1975 and comprised editions No. 28 to No. 31, which had made their way from the Soviet Union after years of silence, and covered events that had taken place during this hiatus. Not only did this edition mark a return of the

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Chronicle to Western activists, but it also demonstrated Amnesty commitment to the journal. However, in response to concerns that its publication of the Chronicle was aligning the organization too closely with the dissident movement, Amnesty began to subtly distance themselves from a full affirmation of their contents. From May 1975 onwards, its translations of the Chronicle contained a reoccurring paragraph in its preface which stated that, ‘since Amnesty International has no control over the writing of A Chronicle of Current Events, we cannot guarantee the veracity of all its contents. Nor do we take responsibility for any opinions or judgements which may appear or be implied in its contents’.113 Such a statement outlined Amnesty’s confused relationship with the Chronicle clearly and concisely; highlighting how important it thought this material was, yet distancing itself from a full confirmation of its content. This was a confusing statement to include in this publication, which was of great importance to Amnesty’s Soviet research and wider activism for Soviet dissidents. In an internal Amnesty report from July 1975, Yeo noted that the Chronicle was a ‘very important publication for Amnesty’, and ‘a key element in our support for Soviet prisoners of conscience, for whom it is difficult to work effectively on an individual prisoner basis’.114 Concerns for the group’s impartiality stood at odds with the direction of its researchers, who relied on material in their campaigns that Amnesty refused to officially endorse. In an attempt to offer a balance to its publication of translations of the Chronicle, Amnesty published a report on the Soviet Union in November 1975 entitled Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR.115 This lengthy report collated the substantial detail that Amnesty had on conditions for dissidents in the Soviet Union, ranging from the intricacies of Soviet law and how it applied to political opponents, through to reports of the trials of individual prisoners of conscience. It also offered extensive detail about the treatment of prisoners once they entered the Soviet penal system, detailing how they were transported, what their accommodation was like, and the quality of food that they were given.116 The scope and detail offered in this report is a testament to the amount of information that Amnesty compiled on the Soviet Union in this period, and the expertise that it had developed on the Soviet abuses. While this report was officially written by Amnesty’s Research Department, Reddaway recalled being informed that Yeo was the sole author of this edition, a remarkable feat given that it was published just over a year after he had joined Amnesty.117 Unlike its translations of samizdat material, the contents of Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR were written, researched and fully endorsed by Amnesty, and as a result they can be seen as its official comment on the Soviet Union and its human rights violations. The publication of Prisoners of Conscience adjusted Amnesty’s reliance on publishing the Chronicle as a form of a political balance and in a report to the IEC in June 1976, Yeo noted that after its production of this report Amnesty’s ‘need to have the Chronicle to “balance” our publications list is of far less political importance to the organization than it was in the past’.118 Prisoners of Conscience made Amnesty’s position on the Soviet Union much clearer, and as a result, the organization had to stand fully behind its conclusions and any comments made in this publication. This made it an ideal piece for local Amnesty groups to use in their campaigns for Soviet prisoners of conscience, giving them extensive detail on the position of human

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rights and individual prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union in an approachable format. Members of Amnesty’s local groups, who were in no sense specialists on the political context of the prisoners of conscience they supported, had to rely entirely on Amnesty’s publications in their course of their activism, relying on the expertise of its researchers as a measure of the reliability. This is where Prisoners of Conscience came into its own for Amnesty, as local groups could utilize the material within this publication, considering it as accurate and reliable. While the Chronicle was undoubtedly useful to local activists, using it required a detailed awareness of the political situation in the Soviet Union for it to be an effective source. Amnesty’s new report clarified this, utilizing the information provided by samizdat pieces such as the Chronicle, and repackaging it for wider consumption. Prisoners of Conscience was utilized by a variety of journalists in their reports on the Soviet Union. In an article on Soviet labour camps in November 1975, Bernard Levin was extremely complementary about the quality of Amnesty’s report, devoting a substantial amount of his column in The Times to discussing its merits. Levin recognized the attention to detail and reliance upon accurate and reliable information in this report, noting that ‘the work of compiling, checking and presenting the details of the appalling persecution of those in the Soviet Union who wish to criticize its rulers or institutions, or who simply wish to leave the place, has been done to an exceptionally high standard.’119 Given the clear concern from Amnesty’s researchers about the reliability of source material, this would have been much welcomed praise for their efforts and scholarship. The impact that the contents of this report had on Levin is clear, as he also dedicated a second column to discussion of its contents. In this second account, he described Prisoners of Conscience as ‘the kind of document that almost defies quotation, because the journalist who wants to give his readers some idea of its contents stands before it like Buridan’s ass before the bundles of hay, unable to select a suitable excerpt from the vast number of equally telling passages that jostle for inclusion’. Levin concluded this article recommending ‘purchase and perusal of the whole book’, reiterating his positive impression of its contents.120 Amnesty’s 1975 report on the Soviet Union coincided with a flood of interest in its work in this area, highlighting some of the shifts that were taking place in public awareness of the group’s work during the rush to expertise of the mid-1970s. Amnesty’s 1975–1976 Annual Report noted that Prisoners of Conscience proved to offer an ‘unparalleled attraction [to] political commentators in all major languages’. In part, this was due to the approachable nature of this report, in which information on Soviet dissidents is provided with much greater clarity than the somewhat intimidating detail offered by editions of the Chronicle. It was also due to the group’s wider exposure in this period, during which Amnesty noted that ‘the name of the organization has in the past year been referred to by all the media more often than during the preceding five years put together’.121 Given the major events that occurred in 1975, including the end of the Vietnam War in April and the signing of the Helsinki Accords in August, Amnesty’s activism was beginning to be seen as increasingly important as the concept of human rights gained political salience. Much like other NGOs working to support Soviet dissidents in this period, it was the shift in

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international relations that allowed for a flourishing of interest in Amnesty’s work on the Soviet Union, rather than a cumulative effect of its campaigns persuading the public that this was an important issue. The importance of Amnesty’s 1975 report was also recognized by dissenters within the Soviet Union, who were complementary about its quality. No. 41 of the Chronicle included a short review of the report, noting that it was ‘packed with facts’ which included references to sources such as the Chronicle, and even included an extract from Amnesty’s Secretary General Martin Ennals’ introduction from the report itself.122 Such an article made it clear that the editors of the Chronicle had access to a copy of Prisoners of Conscience, highlighting that the flow of samizdat material from the Soviet Union to the West was not a oneway affair, but that activist material was also making its way through the iron curtain. As a result of this, and the comments made in the report itself, the Soviet authorities were far from complementary towards Amnesty’s work. The claims of human rights abuses in this report were attributed by the Soviet authorities to Amnesty’s ‘anti-Soviet’ underpinnings as an organization.123 Yet, somewhat revealing the accuracy of Amnesty’s claims, the Soviet criticisms of Prisoners of Conscience do not refer to any specific cases, implicitly noting the truth behind the organization’s concerns. While reports such as Prisoners of Conscience were integral to Amnesty’s long-term efforts for Soviet dissidents, in order to effectively deal with reports of abuse in the Soviet Union the organization had to conduct its activism in a rapid manner. As part of the organization’s Campaign Against Torture – which brought Amnesty’s disparate campaigns against the use of torture together into a more coherent international effort – Amnesty’s leadership recognized that in order for its letter writing campaigns to have the greatest effect for individual prisoners of conscience, they needed to be mobilized quickly. This was particularly important for cases relating to torture, as they frequently took place in the immediate period following detention.124 In order to respond to reports of abuse as soon as possible, Amnesty developed an ‘Urgent Action’ network in the mid-1970s, where participating members would receive bulletins about abuse and send immediate correspondence to protest about cases of abuse. Ann Marie Clark has noted that this method bypassed the ‘potentially timeconsuming process of investigating a case for potential group adoption’ in order to allow for a prompt protest.125 Given the widespread use of torture by the Soviet authorities, including the notorious system of labour camps and the political abuse of psychiatric treatment, Urgent Action reports from this period contained an array of cases from the Soviet Union. What is notable about Urgent Action reports on Soviet dissidents is their coverage of lesser known figures such as Mikhail Leviev, who had been sentenced to death in December 1974 for economic malpractice, and Yakov Suslensky, who had been incarcerated in a labour colony for criticizing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.126 Their plight was reported in Urgent Action reports alongside more prominent dissenters such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Podrabinek, suggesting that Amnesty approached reports of torture from the Soviet Union equally, making no concession for an individual dissident’s reputation in the West.127 This fits in with the organization’s broader desire throughout

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its history to present itself as an apolitical organization, concerned with the plight of individual human beings rather than wider geopolitical concerns. Central to Urgent Action reports on Soviet prisoners of conscience was the quality information that Amnesty researchers provided. This was an essential part of its activism for Soviet dissidents, and one that helped to build the organization’s profile as an authority on human rights issues in the 1970s. As Barbara Keys has noted in an article on Amnesty’s activism against the Greek Junta, ‘Amnesty officials learned that reports were perceived as credible when they provided names, dates, and firsthand testimony. Meticulous details and a clinically detached style became a form of prophylaxis against the charges of propagandizing that inevitably greeted criticisms of right wing regimes’.128 This approach was likewise replicated throughout Amnesty’s campaigns for Soviet dissidents, which are laden with detailed information about the individuals in question, allowing the organization to present itself as an authority on the issue impartially representing the facts, rather than participation in the ideological conflict of the period. Although the detail provided by Prisoners of Conscience, which was supplemented by an array of Urgent Action reports, clarified Amnesty’s position on the Soviet Union, it did not mean that it could give up its support for the Chronicle. The impact that its translations of this journal had on Amnesty’s image was profound, reputedly putting the organization ‘on the map’ within Soviet dissident circles.129 In a report to the IEC Yeo noted that if Amnesty were to stop publication of the Chronicle there would be a ‘severe drop in A[mnesty] I[nternational]’s prestige within the human rights movement in the USSR’. This prestige could not be maintained solely through the publication of Amnesty’s own reports, and as a result the organization was compelled to continue publishing its translations of the Chronicle regardless of the success of its own reports on the Soviet Union. This pressure was further exacerbated by Yeo’s assessment that any decision to stop publishing translations would ‘probably damage the journal, its editors and its supporters within the USSR’. As a result, Amnesty were compelled to maintain publication of translations of the samizdat journal in order to support the efforts of the dissidents, unwittingly dragging themselves further into Cold War politics; something that severely affected its relations with the Soviet authorities.130 Amnesty had taken part in attempts to engage with the Soviet government, meeting with a group of high-profile Soviet lawyers at a meeting of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in 1975.131 This meeting was an attempt to enter into dialogue with the Soviet authorities regarding prisoners of conscience, hoping to lead to an improvement in their treatment.132 This is a relationship that the Soviet authorities may also have wanted to develop, potentially so that they could have some influence on Amnesty’s activism, limiting their criticisms of Soviet policy in the West. In reports of early Amnesty meetings with representatives of the Soviet government it is apparent that efforts were made to persuade Amnesty to stop its support for the Chronicle, with Soviet officials reacting strongly against the publication.133 This, however, only served to strain a relationship that was unlikely to produce substantial results. Some of the Amnesty hierarchy noted prior to the meetings with Soviet officials that they ‘do not appear likely to become fruitful’.134 Even in countries where Amnesty maintained a

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good relationship with the authorities, the organization’s opinions could be easily dismissed or ignored, and often were.135 The publication of the Chronicle was one of the main steps that put Amnesty in direct conflict with the Soviet authorities, falling into active support of dissidents. It is perhaps unsurprising that propaganda attacks against Amnesty by the Soviet authorities, which culminated in the more literal attacks on members of its Moscow group, occurred with increased frequency after Amnesty’s renewed commitment to publish the Chronicle in the mid-1970s. Attacks on Amnesty by the Soviet authorities ranged from criticisms of the group in the Soviet press – which had accused the organization of spreading ‘falsified materials in capitalist countries which are expected to convince the public that believers are persecuted in the USSR’ – through to more physical attacks.136 Most at threat from the Soviet authorities’ ire towards Amnesty were the members of its Moscow group. Yuri Orlov’s account of the group’s foundation in his memoirs Dangerous Thoughts gives a sense of the danger that members of this group faced. Orlov noted that ‘it would have been natural for the Soviet authorities to arrest us immediately. After all, they hated peaceful pluralism even more than they hated any hostile ideology’.137 This was a concern heightened by the assertion of Soviet officials that Amnesty was ‘an agency of the American CIA’, something that, although without foundation, publicly demarcated the group as an ideological enemy to the Soviet public.138 The foundation of the Moscow group, which directly challenged the actions of the Soviet authorities, clearly brought many risks for the individuals involved, many of whom had been active dissidents in other organizations such as Andrei Sakharov’s Moscow Human Rights Committee.139 Orlov notes that the only reason that members of the group were not immediately targeted for persecution after its foundation was because of a forthcoming visit by Sean MacBride to a Congress of Peace-Loving Forces which was held in Moscow shortly after the group’s formation in 1973. MacBride was deeply respected by the Soviet authorities for his activism against British rule in Ireland, and was an individual they did not want to alienate.140 By not immediately arresting individuals involved with the Moscow group, the Soviet authorities were clearly attempting to utilize their relationship with Amnesty and figures such as MacBride for their own political aims. Despite this brief hiatus, dissidents involved with the Moscow group were targeted for persecution due to their association with Amnesty from the mid-1970s onwards. As one of the key members of the group, Andrei Tverdokhlebov was one of the first to be attacked for his association with Amnesty. In November 1974, Tverdokhlebov’s house was subjected to an eleven-hour search and he was unofficially interrogated by the Lithuanian KGB as part of their campaign to stop the publication of the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church. As part of this search, he was taken to the infamous Lefortovo prison in Moscow – renowned for the abuse of dissidents that took place there at the hands of the KGB – and although not arrested or charged with any offence, he was required to attend a series of interviews with KGB interrogators.141 Tverdokhlebov was later arrested on 18 April 1975, accused of anti-Soviet slander.142 His arrest was part of a wider coordinated Soviet attack on Amnesty as Mykola Rudenko, a colleague of Tverdokhlebov involved with the Moscow group, was also arrested on the same day.143 Rudenko was later referred to a psychiatric institution in February 1976, with

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a psychiatrist allegedly noting that ‘the patient needs more thorough psychiatric examination’ because ‘he thinks he is a famous writer’ and ‘he has not experienced a psychiatric trauma as a result of his expulsion from the Writers’ Union’.144 After his arrest in April 1975, Tverdokhlebov was held without trial for over a year, longer than the nine month period allowed in Soviet law suggesting that there was political intervention in his case. His eventual trial, where he was sentenced to five years in internal exile, was described by an Amnesty report as ‘one of the few overtly political trials in Moscow in recent years’, a chilling statement given the history of political trials in the Soviet Union, especially in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin.145 Even more unusually Tverdokhlebov’s case was made public via the Soviet Novosti press agency, which noted that he had been charged with ‘dissemination of fabrications known to be false which defame the Soviet state and social system’.146 This was an attempt to destroy his credibility in the Soviet Union by portraying him as a national traitor. There were a number of protests both within the Soviet Union and around the world about the treatment of Tverdokhlebov.147 Amnesty issued a press release on 21 March 1976 in response to Tverdokhlebov’s treatment, urging that the details of his case be released to the public and that the organization be allowed to send a lawyer to observe his trial.148 The noted scholar of Russian history Leonard Schapiro headed a letter to The Times in March 1976, protesting against Tverdokhlebov’s treatment. Schapiro’s letter was signed by a series of noted intellectuals and activists including Michael Bourdeaux, Robert Conquest, Edward Crankshaw and Peter Reddaway.149 A series of prominent Soviet Jews also protested against the arrest of Tverdokhlebov, an unusual instance due the relative isolation of Soviet Jewry from broader human rights activism. This protest was the subject of a letter written to The New York Review of Books by Reddaway who noted that such an appeal by Soviet Jewry had previously been reserved solely to ‘world-famous’ figures such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, illustrating the compassion felt for Tverdokhlebov by Soviet Jewry. They noted in their appeal that due to Tverdokhlebov’s close association with Amnesty ‘his arrest can be interpreted only as a slap in the face to world public opinion’.150 Sergei Kovalyov, a prominent member of the Moscow group and later human rights advisor to the Russian President Boris Yeltsin after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was also persecuted by the Soviet authorities due to his links with Amnesty, and sentenced to seven years hard labour in December 1975 for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’.151 Kovalyov’s sentence brought about a series of protests and open letters criticizing its severity.152 Sakharov attended Kovalyov’s trial, which coincided with the ceremony conferring the Nobel Peace Prize on Sakharov, a clash that he described as a ‘disturbing portent’.153 Sakharov had invited Kovalyov, Tverdokhlebov, Turchin and Orlov as his guests to this ceremony, fully in the knowledge that they would not have been granted visas to attend.154 This was an attempt to put pressure on the Soviet authorities, utilizing the international attention that the Nobel Prize had given Sakharov to cast a light on their actions. Sakharov wrote at length about his experiences at the trial in his memoirs, highlighting the nature of justice handed out by Soviet courts.155 At a press conference held in Moscow shortly after Kovalyov’s trial, Sakharov stated ‘I should like to emphasize that Kovalyov has been condemned

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because his conscience moved him to defend other people, who, he was firmly convinced, were the victims of injustice … The arrest and condemnation of Kovalyov constitute a challenge to public opinion in the Soviet Union and the world.’156 This reasserted Kovalyov’s status as a prisoner of conscience arrested for his political thought, and placed his treatment in an international context. Sakharov’s challenge to public opinion was a clear call for action, both from citizens of the Soviet Union, but also further afield. He went further in an open letter to note that one of the main reasons for the arrests of Tverdokhlebov and Kovalyov was their affiliation to Amnesty.157 Amnesty’s presence in Moscow was seen as a threat by the Soviet authorities, who were putting explicit pressure on those affiliated to the organization in an attempt to eradicate its influence. After the initial attacks on Kovalyov and Tverdokhlebov, Amnesty’s Moscow group was headed by Vladimir Turchin and Vladimir Albrecht, both of whom were invited to the attend Amnesty’s 1976 ICM. Unsurprisingly given the attacks on Kovalyov and Tverdokhlebov, they were refused permission to leave by the Soviet authorities and could not attend the meeting. Like their counterparts, following this request Turchin and Albrecht were subjected to sustained harassment from KGB agents, who followed both individuals throughout Moscow. They were warned by anonymous agents that they would be thrown onto the tracks of the Metro, and that if ordered, they would be killed.158 Attacks on Amnesty extended beyond the Moscow group, often in an attempt to disrupt the activities of the organization and its activism against the Soviet authorities. This was most obvious in seemingly trivial matters such as the granting of visas to activists visiting the Soviet bloc, which were either refused or granted at such a late date to make travel impossible and cause great inconvenience. For example, Martin Ennals, Amnesty’s Secretary General, was refused a visa to attend a meeting of the World Federation of United Nations Associations conference in Moscow in October 1975. This was a politically motivated refusal which coincided with a low point in relations between Amnesty and the Soviet authorities.159 It was an attempt by the Soviet authorities to affect the relationship between Amnesty and the United Nations, which had become increasingly close in the mid-1970s due to Amnesty’s Campaign Against Torture. Amnesty reported several incidents of torture in the Soviet Union in relationship to this campaign, particularly the political abuse of psychiatry, with a June 1972 report on torture noting the names of several leading Soviet psychiatrists and directly labelling them as ‘known torturers’.160 Visa restrictions were commonly used by the Soviet authorities to deal with human rights activists who had become an irritant in the 1970s. Many of the activists from this period experienced difficulties in travelling within the Soviet bloc, and in extreme cases were refused entry and blacklisted for many years, something that could be immensely challenging for an area specialist. Amnesty’s Moscow branch kept infrequent contact with the IS in the mid-1970s, due in part to their continued harassment by the Soviet authorities. In an open letter dated 4 September 1975, Valentin Turchin noted that in its first year, the Moscow group had ‘encountered serious obstacles to our work’ and that ‘letters we send abroad and letters sent to us from abroad are being quite arbitrarily blocked’.161 The Soviet

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authorities’ restrictions hampered the work of this group which, like other Amnesty groups, was reliant on letter sending campaigns as a major part of their activism. The inability of this group to send letters to prisoners of conscience was ostensibly due to restrictions put in place by the Soviet authorities, who wanted to cut the group’s ability to interact with the international community, thereby limiting its ability to draw attention to the regime’s human rights violations. When messages about the activities of the group did manage to make their way out of the Soviet Union, they often carried bleak news. In the minutes of Amnesty’s ninth ICM held in September 1976, there was a message from the dissident Andrei Amalrik that outlined the activity of the Moscow group. Amalrik’s message described how their efforts for prisoners of conscience were particularly poignant ‘since many of our fellow citizens including members of our own group have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and exile for expressing their opinions’.162 This message can be read as both an update on the group’s efforts for prisoners of conscience, and also a call for international assistance for their own plight. In this context, Amnesty’s decision to maintain publication of the Chronicle from the mid-1970s onwards was not just an exercise in reproducing samizdat material, it was an important part of the activism of Soviet dissidents, bolstering their position internationally in the face of increased persecution by the Soviet authorities. Alongside this ideological complexity, the pressure on Amnesty to continue its publication of the Chronicle was also being driven by internal concerns as like many human rights organizations, by the mid-1970s the group had become increasingly concerned with its financial situation. In particular, the British section of Amnesty had been saved from a ‘disastrous cash crisis’ in September 1975 by a number of large donations from several individuals.163 The British section was one of the most supported national Amnesty sections, suggesting that other national groups were in more pressing financial circumstances. Amnesty had been aware of its potential financial issues in the early 1970s. At its September 1973 ICM Amnesty’s leadership had discussed a document written by Dirk Börner, the chairman of Amnesty’s German section who later went on to become the chairman of the IEC, entitled ‘Development of Amnesty International Including National Sections and Fundraising’.164 This document discussed a number of ways in which Amnesty could develop its fundraising strategies, including Christmas card campaigns, the development of a fundraising manual to be sent to local groups and taking steps to ‘obtain tax-privileges’.165 While Börner’s suggestions are perhaps obvious developments for an organization such as Amnesty to have considered, the language used in this document is particularly jarring when it is put into the context of its campaigns. Alongside suggestions for developments in this document, Börner asks several questions that appear very out of place for members of an organization such as Amnesty, including: What do we sell? What is our product? Who is our customer? What is our sales-force?166

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Business concepts such as ‘customer’ and ‘product’ do not sit easily alongside Amnesty’s efforts to assist prisoners of conscience from around the world, something that Börner himself recognized, apologizing in the conclusion of this report for using such terminology and ‘business thinking’.167 This document highlights the financial considerations that Amnesty’s leadership had addressed at this time, something that undoubtedly impacted on the way it approached its reproduction of the Chronicle. It is also indicative of the wider changes Amnesty made to the way it thought about its work in the mid-1970s in the process of becoming a more professional and efficient organization. This is a broad process common to many NGOs that Stephen Hopgood has discussed with aplomb in The Endtimes of Human Rights, in which he has outlined how money and fundraising has become essential to human rights organizations, somewhat masking the initial reasons for their foundation.168 Financial issues affected Amnesty’s direct support for the publication of later editions of the Chronicle, as the inclusion of photographs and the increasing length of the samizdat journal doubtless increased production costs, and it is unclear whether Amnesty was covering its costs of producing the Chronicle, let alone making any money out of this publication which it was increasingly compelled to produce.169 Despite Amnesty’s investment in the facilities needed to reproduce the Chronicle in the early 1970s, by the mid-1970s it sought to transfer responsibility for the publication of this journal to another organization. In an internal report circulated to the IEC meeting in June 1976 Mark Grantham of Amnesty’s Publication Department and Yeo noted that the Chronicle had become a ‘burden’ on Amnesty, something that became ‘particularly acute’ following Reddaway’s announcement that he would no longer be able to devote his time to editing this publication. Responsibility for editing the Chronicle’s translations was to fall on Yeo, who edited No. 34 and 35. However, due to his ever-increasing research commitments and his administrative role in the Research Department as the Head of European research, Yeo was under too much pressure to take this extra work on and plans for Amnesty to take explicit control of the editing of the Chronicle, never came to fruition.170 The increasing pressure that Amnesty was experiencing in this period highlight both the growing public interest in its work, and the extent that its researchers were stretched even before the rush to expertise occurred in full from 1977 onwards. In order to alleviate some of the pressures that it faced, Amnesty entered into an arrangement with Writers and Scholars International (WSI), the group behind the free speech publication Index on Censorship, to produce the Chronicle on their behalf.171 WSI had been born out of the appeal to world public opinion that appeared in an open letter by the dissidents Pavel Litvinov and Larisa Bogoraza which was published in The Times in January 1968.172 The noted British poet Stephen Spender responded to Litvinov’s call for support, and during their subsequent correspondence Litvinov asked Spender whether it would be possible to form a group of concerned intellectuals in England to publish dissident literature and to report on the position of imprisoned intellectuals in both the Soviet Union and around the world. It was out of this request that WSI and the Index on Censorship were born.173 WSI’s concern with freedom of speech issues, and its interest in the position of dissenters in the Soviet Union meant that it was in an ideal position to take control

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of the translations of the Chronicle. Editions No. 32 and 33 of the Chronicle were printed by WSI in Amnesty’s name, but from the compiled edition containing No. 34, 35 and 36 onwards, which used the two editions edited by Yeo and No. 36 edited by Reddaway who had returned to his editorial duties, WSI’s involvement in the publication of the Chronicle was made explicit on its inside covers.174 From No. 34–36 onwards, translations of Chronicles were noted to be ‘published’ by Amnesty, and ‘produced’ by Index on Censorship, possibly in an attempt to raise the reputation of Index to an audience that may have been unaware of it. Aside from this small note and subtle shift in the design of the cover, the shift in publisher is all but impossible to discern from the copies of the Chronicle itself, which were still branded as being published by Amnesty International Publications, and which carried Amnesty’s name on the front cover until its final edition in 1984.175 This seamless transition is explained by Philip Spender, Stephen’s nephew and a trustee of WSI, who noted in a letter to Grantham in June 1976 that ‘the endorsement of the Chronicle by Amnesty seems to us very important because of the general esteem in which Amnesty is held … We think removal of all connection with Amnesty is bound to raise questions in the minds (and perhaps the mouths too) of the public at large.’176 This illustrates not only Amnesty’s own developing position in Britain in this period, but also how WSI felt that its reputation was essential in order to maintain the public trust in the contents of the Chronicle. The success of the translated versions of the Chronicle was directly related to its relationship with Amnesty. This association doubtless spread the contents of the Chronicle to a wider field, including Amnesty’s many local organizations who would have found its information of much use in their letter writing campaigns. Amnesty’s support of the Chronicle’s publication was also warmly supported by dissidents in the Soviet Union. Spender’s letter to Grantham notes that the editors of the Chronicle in Moscow attached ‘great importance to Amnesty’s endorsement’, something that was linked to the high regard that Amnesty was held in by a number of dissidents.177 There was also a sense that Amnesty’s support for the Chronicle offered protection to figures associated to the publication threatened by KGB persecution. Spender hypothesized that the KGB would have been ‘inhibited from attacking too carelessly a journal explicitly or unambiguously connected with Amnesty, whom they know to be capable of effective protest’.178 Spender’s argument suggests that Amnesty’s reputation for efficient and widespread protest was well noted around the world, and might have made the Soviet authorities think twice before targeting dissidents affiliated to the organization, no matter how tenuously. International reputation protected a number of dissidents from the harshest of persecution by the Soviet authorities, who wanted to protect their international prestige. This can be seen explicitly in the treatment of prominent dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who although suffering greatly at the hands of the Soviet authorities, would have been subjected to far worse persecution had they not been well known globally. Aryeh Neier has discussed the symbiotic relationship of reputation between smaller organizations like WSI and those with a global reputation such as Amnesty, arguing that ‘the main role of a global body is to validate the findings of national or local

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human rights organizations’.179 Although WSI and Amnesty’s relationship was based on slightly different foundations from Neier’s model, the publication of the Chronicle significantly benefitted the agendas of both organizations. Amnesty’s support for the Chronicle was about more than just reproducing important material on Soviet human rights violation, and may have gone some way to protect a number of figures from the worst of the Soviet oppression. This was one of the major benefits of the Chronicle’s reproduction in English for dissidents, increasing knowledge in the West of lesser known individuals and offering them a sense of protection from the excesses of Soviet abuse. Alongside this, WSI’s insistence that Amnesty’s name be associated to its editions of the Chronicle highlighted the reputation that the organization had established by the mid-1970s. Something that was to be of utmost importance during the rush to expertise. By the mid-1970s, Amnesty had changed dramatically from the organization that was formed in 1961. This transition was brought into sharp focus during 1977, when two events occurred that have come to shape the direction of the group’s work. In February, staff at Amnesty’s IS offices in London were notified of a change in circumstances that could have brought the group to its knees. A memo from Sean MacBride and Eric Baker to all staff stated that if Amnesty’s inspirational founder came to their offices, they were to inform Peter Benenson that ‘he has no authority to act, speak or issue any instructions on behalf of Amnesty International’ before asking him to leave.180 This was a dramatic fall from grace and a personal embarrassment for Benenson. Despite the veneration of his efforts and vision in founding Amnesty, his use for the organization had expired. Amnesty did not need the personal involvement of Benenson any longer, only the martyring of his initial vision to give strength to its defining ethos. Following Benenson’s expulsion, the developing strength of Amnesty’s ethos, and the successes that it had in campaigning for victims of human rights violations around the world went a long way to ensure that it would continue to play an important role in the discussion of human rights issues. Later that year, Amnesty’s profile reached new international heights when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee had decided in 1976 that none of that year’s nominations met the criteria to be granted an award, and reserved this award until the following year. As a result, two Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded in 1977, one to Amnesty and the other jointly to Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, who had founded the Ulster peace campaign. This should have been the crowning moment of Amnesty’s efforts for the forgotten prisoner, yet it was overlooked by the British media. Corrigan and Williams’ activism dominated the press coverage of the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded in 1977, with the Daily Mirror proclaiming that this award was ‘their noblest hour’ on 11 October in a front page article accompanying two photographs of the activists. Despite being awarded the prestigious prize at the same time, Amnesty were not mentioned on the front page of the paper, instead buried in the article’s extension in the small print on page 3.181 The Guardian followed suit, focusing its front page attention on the ‘Nobel prize for peace women’ over Amnesty.182 This relative dismissal of Amnesty’s award was repeated by the Daily Express, who again focused attention on the Ulster activists. The Express dedicated a significant part of its front page, and two articles

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within the paper documenting the activism of Corrigan and Williams. On the other hand, the news of Amnesty’s award was limited to two sentences on page 2, which, in full, noted: The 1977 Nobel Peace Prize went to Amnesty International, London-based, which works for political prisoners around the world and against torture. ‘We are’, said secretary-general Mr Martin Ennals, ‘delighted’.183

Being overlooked in this manner clearly affected the morale of Amnesty’s researchers. In an article entitled ‘Amnesty’s quiet prize’ in The Observer, Andrew Stephen noted that ‘staff at Amnesty felt hurt at being virtually forgotten, even if the £83,000 was a consolation. To add to the let-down, the victory telegram was sent to a hopelessly out-of-date address. It arrived more than a day late.’184 It seems fitting that the paper who launched Amnesty’s efforts should come to its defence, but even more extraordinary that it needed to. Given its current high profile in international politics, acting as an unchallengeable authority on human rights issues for many, it seems astonishing that the announcement that Amnesty would be receiving this prestigious award was virtually ignored at the time by the British press. Nevertheless, it reiterates that before human rights became broadly known as an important political issue by the start of the 1980s, Amnesty’s work was a relatively niche interest rather than a widespread public concern. Although Amnesty’s receipt of the Nobel Prize was overlooked, public awareness of the plight of Soviet dissidents was reaching new heights following Vladimir Bukovsky’s exchange in December 1976. Like other groups working to support Soviet dissidents, Amnesty had to deal with the new complications that this increased awareness brought. Benenson highlighted his desire that Amnesty should not focus solely on the high-profile ‘celebrity dissident’ in an article reflecting on Amnesty’s early years entitled ‘The “Forgotten Prisoners”, … 16 years later’, in which he recalled being approached by a producer who wanted to create a television programme about the work of Amnesty, and hoped to film a local adoption group working for ‘some prisoner as near the like to Vladimir Bukovsky’. Bukovsky, a young and charismatic dissident, had come to symbolize Soviet prisoners of conscience for many, but Benenson was concerned that activism on his behalf did not accurately reflect Amnesty’s work, noting that ‘if that programme was to give a true reflection of the work of “Amnesty International”, it should have shown a group working for the release of some ugly old man in a country most people have never heard of ’.185 The illustration of Amnesty members working for the ‘ugly old man’ rather than the clean cut young dissident reiterates Amnesty’s desire for impartial activism. The organization was working for prisoners of conscience due to the moral stance that it had taken to protect human rights, rather than in defence of the ‘celebrities’ of the dissident movement. This rather crude reference to a ‘celebrity dissident’ demonstrates that by the late 1970s, Soviet human rights violations were becoming increasingly well known in British public consciousness. Amnesty’s efforts for dissidents such as Bukovsky had done much to raise their public profile in the West, but it was only in the late 1970s that they had obtained this celebrity status, highlighting that it was not the efforts of activists alone

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that raised awareness of their plight.186 Amnesty had become experts on the issue of Soviet dissent during the period when the matter did not concern international politics. When human rights became a salient political issue, Amnesty was thrust into the political limelight due to its established expertise on this issue, and it was left to tell the story of dissidents that had previously been ignored. As a result of the increased public interest in Soviet prisoners of conscience during the rush to expertise, the day to day working of Amnesty’s Soviet researchers in the late 1970s was exceptionally busy. A report by Yeo to the IEC’s subcommittee on research planning and priorities from August 1979 outlines the vast amount of work that he, a Secretary and an Executive Assistant had to complete, including: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

●

●

Writing about 100 case sheets a year. Servicing about 600 adoption groups or more and about 20 coordination groups. Producing very many external papers (probably about 75 in the past three years). Preparing second edition of the report on the Soviet Union. Preparing material for a Soviet campaign. Producing an average of five new releases per year. Producing Urgent Actions (about 20 so far in 1979). Supplying articles for issues of Amnesty’s various newsletters. Initiating and preparing action materials which are not on the Action Calendar and which may not involve National Section participation. Preparing material (in Death Penalty report) and guidelines for Death penalty campaign. Writing Annual Report entries.187

Yeo noted that this report ‘only cover[ed] highlights’, and omitted the ‘routine work’ of Amnesty’s researchers, including responding to numerous letters, telephone calls, and all internal matters that dealt with the Soviet Union. During this period Amnesty’s researchers were receiving between 20 and 30 letters a day on the Soviet Union, which they had to respond to alongside the translation of thousands of pages of samizdat a year, work that was exceptionally time-consuming but essential for their research. Of even more concern for the overall quality of Amnesty’s output on the Soviet Union was the time that its researchers had to spend completing administrative work in this period, with Yeo estimated that he only spent around 15 per cent of his working time ‘actually doing research’.188 On top of their internal commitments, Amnesty’s researchers also regularly wrote articles for journals such as Index on Censorship, publicizing the work that the organization was doing in this area.189 While the work of Amnesty’s researchers such as Laird and Ward was pressurized in the early 1970s, the deluge of work in the late 1970s was relentless, sapping both their creativity and their ability to engage in effective research. Yeo’s August 1979 report highlighted the pressures and frustrations that he and his colleagues experienced due to the sheer scale of work involved in their research, noting that ‘everything we do (every adoption, campaign, external paper etc.,) creates additional work subsequently (queries, followup action, servicing the action potential engendered)’.190 Any efforts that researchers made in developing their work on the Soviet Union in turn increased their workload

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further, discouraging them from taking new and innovative approaches to their campaigning efforts. Amnesty’s Soviet researchers were so burdened with their dayto-day work that any attempt to develop new avenues of research or innovation were all but impossible. In this climate, Yeo noted that research on the Soviet Union became ‘the poor sister’, relegated to being completed in overtime, rather than in working hours. This hurried approach to research, which favoured the skim reading of material rather than detailed assessment, led to a great deal of frustration. It was this half-measured approach to studying the Soviet abuses that created ‘considerable emotional drain’ among Amnesty’s researchers, rather than the substantial workload with which they were faced.191 Yeo’s final remark in his report to the IEC is perhaps the most telling about the frustration that he and his colleagues experienced. He noted that working in ‘half measures’ was more emotionally draining than the long hours required, reiterating the personal investment that Amnesty’s researchers were putting into their work. Such shortcomings affected them emotionally, something that was tied to the subject matter of their research, and they struggled with being held back from fully assisting dissidents and victims of Soviet abuses by clerical and logistical demands. Working long hours for an organization such as Amnesty in this period necessitated a personal and moral obligation to the prisoners of conscience that its researchers were involved with. They were not working for Amnesty for financial gain or benefits that such an organization could offer, but instead out of loyalty for the secular religion central to Amnesty’s work that Stephen Hopgood has described in detail in Keepers of the Flame. This religiosity was built out of the group’s ethos to protect persecuted prisoners of conscience, for whom working long hours in testing circumstances was a sacrifice considered worth taking.192 Although it was under sustained pressure, Amnesty maintained its central desire to be apolitical in this period. One way through which Amnesty sought to highlight its impartiality during the rush to its expertise was through the appointment of Derek Roebuck as its Head of Research in 1979. Roebuck, formerly the Dean of Faculty of Law of the University of Tasmania and a former member of the Communist Party of Australia, was appointed by Amnesty in part to illustrate its apolitical approach to documenting human rights violation. This appointment was met with much criticism from high ranking figures within Amnesty, especially given Roebuck’s previous attacks on the US in articles published in the North Korean press.193 Roebuck had previously endorsed the use of capital punishment in The Whores of War, a piece discussing the role of mercenaries in Angola that he had co-authored with Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist with communist sympathies. Given Amnesty’s staunch campaigning to abolish the death penalty and its clear stance against the use of violence, this position ran counter to many of the group’s core beliefs. The prominent American human rights activist Edward Kline recalled his pride at discovering the comments made by Burchett and Roebuck, noting that when this matter was brought to the attention of the IEC, it was a cause of ‘distress and embarrassment because A[mnesty] I[nternational]’s opposition to the death penalty was absolute and an essential part of their mandate’.194 Roebuck’s appointment was the trigger for Kline to leave his position on the board of directors of Amnesty’s American section. In a

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letter confirming his departure, Kline noted that his resignation was explicitly due to Roebuck’s appointment, stating that ‘I believe that dedication to the ideology of human rights and not a partisan political approach is the proper qualification for the post of Head of Research of A[mnesty] I[nternational]’.195 Such a statement echoes the arguments put forward by Samuel Moyn in The Last Utopia; human rights were increasingly becoming seen as an ideological position that was challenging the existing political order to the day.196 Kline went on to develop strong links with Sakharov, one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents, and would have been a great asset to Amnesty’s Soviet campaigns. Kline’s protests at Roebuck’s appointment was not universally echoed by Amnesty’s supporters. In contrast, the board of the Finnish Amnesty section strongly supported his appointment, noting in a letter to Amnesty’s Secretary General Martin Ennals that ‘it is of tremendous importance, trying to make people in this country realize that A[mnesty] I[nternational] is politically independent, to be able to say that the Head of Research is a communist’.197 The differing perspectives of Roebuck’s appointment demonstrates how Amnesty’s desire to stay politically impartial had to be tactfully navigated in order to please all of its members – something that was an impossible task in the context of the Cold War. *** From its foundation, Amnesty’s ethos of supporting the forgotten prisoner in an impartial manner gave the organization a great deal of prestige from its supporters around the world. However, it also caused many complications for the group’s work in the context of the Cold War, especially in the case of its campaigns for Soviet prisoners of conscience. Amnesty’s decision to maintain institutional support for translations of the Chronicle was a complex issue, and one that speaks volumes about the complications for NGOs attempting to maintain an impartial position. The very act of publishing dissident material, no matter how rich or useful for its campaigning efforts, politicized Amnesty’s work. Despite the attempts to distance itself from the Chronicle in order to assert its political impartiality, Amnesty’s support for the publication inextricably linked the organization with the samizdat journal, something that could not be severed without severe consequences. Once its support for the Chronicle had been established, it could not withdraw it without severely impacting the lives of those it was working to support. While Amnesty’s attempts at impartiality have become a great institutional strength for the organization, it also caused the group significant difficulties in its campaigns for Soviet dissidents. The organization’s appointment of a communist with a dubious background as its Head of Research highlights the delicate balancing act that Amnesty was attempting in the Cold War. In the end, all Amnesty could do was attempt impartiality. The political landscape that they were operating in meant that its attempts to toe a neutral line often dragged the group further into the political conflict that they were trying to avoid.

Conclusion – The Rush to Expertise

The campaigns of activists working to support Soviet dissidents had little initial impact on the broader public awareness of their plight. Had this been the case, the persecution of the Soviet dissidents would have been a major political issue in the early 1970s, when the oppression of these prisoners of conscience, often in the most extreme and unethical manner, was known in the West. Activist organizations devoted themselves to extensive campaigning efforts to emphasize the plight of Soviet dissidents, adopting a myriad of different techniques to ensure that a broad section of the British public were made aware of the persecution that they were subjected to. However, without broader political consensus supporting this activism, the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union could not become a major issue. The shift in international relations, and the rise of human rights as a politically important concept in the mid-1970s, was essential in the success of activist campaigns in support of Soviet dissidents. As Stephen Hopgood has aptly noted, ‘international nongovernment organisations and Human Rights advocates gain political traction internationally only when they serve the functional requirement of powerful states’.1 Activists working to publicize the human rights violations occurring in the Soviet Union only obtained the ability to influence political power and public opinion when they were allowed to once powerful states, such as the United States and Britain, began to make adjustments in their foreign policy that led to major developments in international relations. During the bewildering ideological climate of the Cold War, the increasingly important politics of expertise allowed activists, and the organizations they founded, to play an integral role in presenting Soviet dissidents to the world. They did this through utilizing the expertise they had developed on the Soviet Union in the 1960s, something that gave them a great deal of authority, in order to inform journalists, politicians and other individuals in prominent positions about the Soviet abuses. The rush to expertise that took place in the mid-1970s grabbed organizations that had little impact in their efforts earlier that decade and dragged their campaign’s efforts to the front pages of national newspapers and into the corridors of power. It was this rush to expertise that profoundly affected the direction of activist organizations working to support Soviet dissidents, shaping their impact and ultimately their legacy.

Phase 1 – Establishment The first phase of this development occurred between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, when aside from a few high-profile cases such as Evgeny Belov and Zhores Medvedev,

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the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union was a minor political issue in Britain. Although largely overlooked, a few individuals became deeply concerned about the reports of abuse that were emanating from the Soviet Union in this period and began to form activist organizations. This early activism conducted by individuals such as Peter Reddaway, Michael Sherbourne and Michael Bourdeaux was largely ad hoc and amateurish in composition, but it allowed activists to develop their knowledge of the situation in the Soviet Union, and put into place important channels for the flow of information from behind the iron curtain to make their way to the West. As James McKay and Matthew Hilton have noted, ‘wherever politics has gone, NGOs have been there first, signposting and shaping the issues of the future’.2 This was doubtless the case for these pioneering activist groups in Britain who sought to publicize Soviet human rights violations in this period. During their early years, all organizations discussed in the course of this book developed their own mythology in order to justify their efforts and, in some cases, to explain their motivations in the face of a broader lack of concern. This is perhaps most explicit in the case of Amnesty International, whose foundation myth has been discussed in detail by Tom Buchanan.3 The martyring of Benenson’s ethos of impartiality gave Amnesty’s reputation much credibility, which was further bolstered when human rights began to challenge communism and capitalism as an alternative apolitical ideological framework. The relative ignorance of the group’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 by the British press has perhaps been overlooked because of the attraction of the group’s ethos from the late 1970s onwards, something that has masked the previously limited interest in its work. The Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals was born out of the documents that Vladimir Bukovsky sent to the West in 1971, but its foundation can arguably be traced back to Peter Reddaway’s concern at the abuse of psychiatry that began after he read a personal account of abuse in Valery Tarsis’ Ward 7 in the mid-1960s. Harold Merskey’s efforts against the Soviet abuses, although beginning with a concern for the plight of Soviet Jewry, took a more intimate turn after his efforts for Yan Krylsky and his first-hand experience of engaging with cases of psychiatric abuse. The activism of the 35’s is dominated by the group’s use of imagery, something that is particularly clear in the story of its foundation where a group of individuals who were frustrated at the lack of action in support of the refuseniks began their own campaign. The passion and urgency of their efforts, which were in part motivated by a fear of a new wave of anti-Semitic persecution in the Soviet bloc, again highlights the empathetic nature of the 35’s efforts. Keston too was driven by Michael Bourdeaux’s desire to ‘be the voice’ of persecuted religious believers, something that was frustrated by his perceptions of a lack of sufficient response to their plight in the West. The mythology surrounding his chancing upon the Russian language, his experiences in the Soviet Union and his meeting with the Ukrainian women who had appealed for support is enshrined in his belief that he had been divinely guided to a life of supporting prisoners of conscience in the Soviet bloc. The stories about the foundation of activist organizations are all ways in which activists have justified their efforts and are all based on the desire to help prisoners of conscience in their hour of need. While the rhetoric of human rights lacked political salience during the period in

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which activists began their efforts to publicize the persecution of Soviet dissidents in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the ideals of the last utopia resonated with their concerns even if the terminology was not widely understood or respected.

Phase 2 – Recognition By the mid-1970s, the short second phase of the rush to expertise began, with the early activism of a few individuals, which was predominantly based on the collation and distribution of information collected via underground channels, becoming recognized. The increasing importance of human rights issues in international relations from the late 1970s onwards had a profound effect on the composition and activism of organizations working to promote their concerns about Soviet dissidents. The interest in the work being conducted by activists became increasingly reported in the British press, and as a result the position of Soviet dissidents became increasingly known among the wider British public. By the time human rights became a politically salient matter in international relations following the end of the Vietnam War, the signing of the Helsinki Accords and the exchanging of Bukovsky, activists were ready placed to become established authorities on the issue of dissent. Thus, when the dissidents themselves became front-page news in Britain, there was a network of activists with expertise on the issue ready to supply information both to the press and politicians alike. Prior to 1971, the political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet authorities to persecute political dissidents was seen as a largely ephemeral issue by British psychiatrists. While it was well known, through the reporting of the cases of Evgeny Belov, Petro Grigorenko and Zhores Medvedev, and the actions of groups such as the Working Group, the seeming inaction from the Royal College of Psychiatrists before 1973 is remarkable given the wide scale of ethical abuses that were present in the Soviet Union. Even the Royal College’s resolution denouncing the Soviet actions in 1973 was relatively timid, and it only came about after much pressure from the British media and concerned activists for the organization to take a stance on the matter. Yet after Bukovsky’s exchange in December 1976, and the establishment of the SCPAP in 1978, the Royal College played a leading role in putting pressure on the AUSNP to reform its ways, something that eventually led to it leaving the WPA in embarrassing circumstances. Similar developments occurred in the case of the 35’s: with Doreen Gainsford and Barbara Oberman’s emigration, and Rita Eker and Margaret Rigal’s assuming leadership of the group, the organization took a notably different direction. The naïve response to its demonstrations became a thing of the past, with the lobbying of Parliament and the establishment of a regular news circular becoming the norm. This was much more in line with other activist organizations in this period and a far cry away from the group’s founding persona. It is perhaps of no coincidence that in 1977 the 35’s attempted to deliver a petition condemning the treatment of the refuseniks to the Soviet Embassy in London with over 100,000 signatures and Michael Sherbourne published his venomous open letter accusing the Jewish leadership in Britain of

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‘cowardice, blindness, ineptitude, [and] complacency’ in their efforts for Soviet Jewry.4 The 35’s stood out as an authority that 100,000 people could trust both for reliable information on the refuseniks and for effective campaigning on this issue. Keston College also underwent dramatic changes during the mid-1970s, acquiring substantial premises in order to house both its growing archive and its researchers in 1974. But perhaps more importantly the wider recognition of the group’s work rapidly grew from 1977 onwards. The British media began to make increasing use of Keston’s publications on religious belief in the Soviet Union, with Michael Bourdeaux and the researchers that worked alongside him contributing to an array of news reports on developments behind the iron curtain. This increase in recognition did not come without consequences, as the financial pressure that Keston was under became particularly acute in this period, to the extent that its college premises began to physically crumble. Nevertheless, the quality of the material produced and collated by Keston was recognized by the highest echelons of political power in Britain, and Bourdeaux’s receipt of the Templeton Prize cemented the group’s reputation on the international stage. This is in marked contrast to the mid-1960s, when the response to Opium of the People was far from what Bourdeaux had anticipated. Amnesty’s campaigns for Soviet prisoners of conscience also received increased interest in the mid-1970s following the publication of Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR. Following this report, and its re-established support for the translated editions of the important samizdat publication the Chronicle of Current Events, Amnesty’s support for political dissidents in the Soviet Union became entrenched despite its desire to remain apolitical and impartial. As a result of this, and the increased authority that the group received in the late 1970s following its receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize – despite the muted response to its initial award – Amnesty’s Soviet researchers struggled to cope with the ever-growing demand for information on Soviet prisoners of conscience and they became so overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks that they could not expand their campaign efforts.

Phase 3 – Reassessment The speed with which this increased public recognition for organizations working to support Soviet dissidents occurred, transitioning from being largely ignored and struggling to survive through to making the front-page headlines, brought about new and increasingly complex issues, ushering in the third phase of the rush to expertise. In this phase, activist groups were forced to reassess both the purpose and workings of their campaigns due to the increased public interest in their work, needing to restructure themselves in a remarkably short period of time. Some, such as the 35’s, required a subtle shift in direction from gaining publicity through to using their expertise to influence positions of political power. Others, such as Keston, required more substantial changes that led to huge amounts of strain being placed on the security of the organization and its activists. This phase is perhaps the most complex and has had the longest lasting effect on the composition and direction of activist

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organizations, exposing their frailties which range from financial difficulties through to more deep-seated issues of institutional purpose. Following the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, and his wide-ranging reformist policies that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, activist organizations have had to undergo a period of reassessment and re-evaluation. The extent that this affected each organization is inextricably linked to its initial campaigning purpose. Groups formed to campaign against the political abuse of psychiatry being conducted in the Soviet Union changed markedly following the withdrawal of the AUSNP from the WPA in 1983. The Working Group and CAPA, which merged with other concerned bodies across Europe to form IAPUP, continued their activism to promote ethical psychiatry, but both the organizations ceased to function as originally founded, partly because their efforts to put pressure on the Soviet authorities had been successful and taken on by national and international psychiatric organizations, who were better placed to lead efforts against the reported abuses. After 1983, the activity of the Working Group also receded. It appears to have maintained its relationship with the Royal College, continuing to correspond in early 1984, but following this its public activism virtually ceased.5 The decline in the Working Group’s activism was also linked to the fact that more prominent and influential bodies, such as the Royal College and the WPA, had recognized the extent of the abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and were working to combat it. After the AUSNP withdrew from the WPA in 1983, there was little that the Working Group could do to speed up this process other than maintaining links with organizations and sharing any information that it received. Indeed, it could be argued that after the Soviet resignation from the WPA, and its world congress in Vienna in 1983, the purpose of the Working Group ceased to exist. Reddaway’s emigration to the United States in 1985 to take up a position at the Kennan Institute in Washington D.C. effectively brought an end to the group. His efforts had allowed the organization to flourish in the mid-1970s, and although he was very rarely mentioned in the Working Group publications, it is clear that he was the major driving force behind the group’s work. The SCPAP were also forced to reorganize and rethink their role following the AUSNP’s withdrawal from the WPA. It was clear that the official work conducted by the committee in working against Soviet psychiatric abuse had largely come to an end following this event. Without the threat of expulsion from the WPA, the Royal College lacked the outright political clout needed to exert explicit pressure on the Soviet authorities. It could be argued that given the efforts of the SCPAP in campaigning for the expulsion of the AUSNP from the WPA, once it had been completed, there was little that the SCPAP could officially do to put pressure on the Soviet Union. This was something that its members recognized in a meeting on 24 May 1983, where a lengthy discussion took place on the remit of the committee. It was agreed that the scope of the SCPAP should be extended, and that ‘the Russian issue’ would ‘have to be left to a certain extent’, highlighting that there was little more the Royal College could do on this matter following the AUSNP’s resignation from the WPA. It was noted that the committee could not open itself up to consider all reports of human rights abuse, doubtless due to a concern that the group would

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be inundated with requests for action, and the committee agreed that all cases it considered should, in some way, concern the abuse of psychiatry.6 After the 1983 WPA congress, the role of the SCPAP appears to be diluted and less urgent. SCPAP minutes from 1983 to 1985 highlight that the committee’s work had shifted to focus on building relations with other bodies, such as the American Psychiatric Association, IAPUP and Amnesty. In accordance with its new position, it more extensively considered the reports of psychiatric abuse from other countries such as Japan, South Africa and Uruguay.7 The SCPAP even took up issues of alleged psychiatric abuse in Britain, including the case of the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, Peter Sutcliffe.8 But by 1985, the SCPAP were still questioning their purpose and direction, with Sidney Levine asking whether the committee should simply react to reports of abuse that it received or if it should be more pragmatic and adopt a ‘grander strategy’.9 Once the AUSNP had left the WPA, the role of the SCPAP in the fight against psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union was all but over, leaving a hole in the centre of the committee’s raison d’etre. Soviet psychiatry itself went through a series of changes from the mid-1980s onwards, with the introduction of legislation to end the use of the special psychiatric hospitals where abuse was widespread. These hospitals, which had been run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were brought under the control of the Ministry of Health. The permanent registration of those who had been released from psychiatric care was abolished, and anyone found guilty of medically treating a mentally healthy person risked imprisonment. Psychiatrists were also legally required to give their identity to any patient that they treated, ending years of anonymous treatment that had facilitated unethical practice.10 The changes that took place in Soviet psychiatric hospitals aimed at significantly reducing the potential for abuses to take place. That said, the reforms were not perfect and the potential for abuse remained. Anatoly Koryagin, a Soviet psychiatrist who had campaigned against the abuses, stated provocatively in a lecture to the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Autumn quarterly meeting on 29 October 1987, after his exile from the Soviet Union, that ‘there are doctors like [Joseph] Mengele in the Soviet Gulag today’.11 By the early 1990s, the quality of Soviet psychiatric treatment was still remarkably poor in some areas. During a WPA visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 to check whether the political abuse of psychiatry had ended, the delegation came across a psycho-gerontology department in Kiev, but they were denied entry to it. Robert Van Voren later managed to visit this department and was appalled by the poor conditions in which patients were being kept.12 While this did not suggest outright political abuse, it did highlight the poor state of psychiatric treatment that still existed in the Soviet Union shortly before its collapse. The structure that allowed the political abuse of psychiatry to occur was built up institutionally over a long period time, and it does not appear to have fully collapsed along with the Soviet Union. There have been suggestions that the abuse of psychiatry to persecution political opponents has continued in the post-Soviet era. In The New Cold War, Edward Lucas has suggested that the psychiatric incarceration of political dissenters continues in contemporary Russia in a remarkably similar fashion to Soviet practices.13 Although he recognized that new accusations of abuse were ‘not a carefully calibrated means of repression’ as in the Soviet Union, it is still

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alarming that, in principle, ‘everything is in place for a return to Soviet style punitive psychiatry’.14 Reports in the British press of the detention of the journalist Larisa Arap in a psychiatric institution near Murmansk in 2007 show concern that her detention was directly linked to the articles that she had written criticizing the quality of mental healthcare for children in the region.15 In October 2013, Amnesty reported that Mikhail Kosenko, who was arrested after taking part in a protest on Bolotnaya Square in May 2012, had been ‘forcibly hospitalized after the judge refused to allow an independent examination of the state of his health’.16 Amnesty made comparisons between Kosenko’s treatment and the Soviet abuses, noting that his case ‘smacks of the worst excesses of the now defunct Soviet era when dissidents were languishing in mental institutions, treated as mental patients only because they dared to speak their mind’.17 The relationship between the Soviet past and the Russian present is remarkably interlinked in issues of psychiatric abuse, and contemporary dissenters are taking a stand in theatres all too familiar to their predecessors. Pyotr Pavlensky, the controversial performance artist who made his name by nailing his scrotum to Moscow’s Red Square in November 2013, has been particularly vocal in his criticisms of contemporary psychiatric abuse. On 19 October 2014 Pavlensky cut off his earlobe with a large kitchen knife while sitting naked on top of the Serbsky Institute in Moscow – an institute intertwined with the Soviet abuses. Speaking to the press about his actions, Pavlensky noted ‘like the knife separates the earlobe, this wall separates the society of “normal people” from “crazy patients” … The question is – where is this wall, where is this threshold, who establishes it?’18 Such comments would not have been out of place in the 1970s at the height of the Soviet psychiatric persecution of dissidents, something that is equally true of human rights NGOs commenting on contemporary reports of abuse. The structures that allowed this abuse, such as the centralization of power within the Soviet healthcare system, have arguably carried across into the post-Soviet nations and are still in need of reform. Regardless of the will of the Russian government, allegations of abuse suggest that psychiatric treatment is still in need of much needed reforms to prevent horrific abuses from happening in the future. The structural nature of the Soviet abuses suggests that they can occur even if the explicit political will to persecute dissidents en masse in this manner is not present. In this context, there is still ample need for activism, and the legacy of the Working Group, CAPA and IAPUP is today carried on by its successor organization, Human Rights in Mental Health-Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry (FGIP).19 While it was born out of the struggle against abuses in the Soviet bloc, FGIP has shifted markedly to take a global approach to its activism as one of the many human rights organizations active in this field. Like IAPUP, the 35’s are another organization that have managed to effectively shift their activism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their support for the refuseniks has been redirected towards aid work in the form of the One-to-One charity. Although the organization has continued under the impetus of many 35ers, it is far away from the group that conducted stage invasions and public demonstrations with a hint of pantomime. Indeed, a detailed analysis of One-to-One’s website fails to mention the organization’s link to the 35’s, something that is only betrayed by

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its charity commission report, which denotes Margaret Rigal and Rita Eker as its trustees.20 Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plight of the refuseniks shifted markedly as the state they sought to emigrate from no longer existed. As a result, the 35’s have reinvented themselves as a charity focused on creating a world ‘where every child, even one whose life has been affected by trauma, disease or disability, has the opportunity to realise their potential, lead a fulfilling life and feel valued’.21 This was doubtless born out of a desire to help those refuseniks who had settled in Israel, something that can be seen in its work in the Middle East.22 This has maintained some of the original ethos behind the work of the 35’s and has allowed the organization to develop into a different form of activism while maintaining the commitment of its frontliners. Not all activist organizations covered in this book have managed to respond to the collapse of the Soviet Union in such a seamless manner, perhaps most notably Keston College, which has suffered severe institutional issues following the end of the Cold War. The biggest issue that faced Keston was the evaporation of its financial support and the question of how it would maintain and house its substantial archive and college premises. Initially, the group relocated to Oxford in 1994 and renamed itself ‘Keston Institute’ to distance itself from the numerous colleges in the city affiliated to the University of Oxford.23 Despite moving to smaller premises, it was apparent that Keston could not afford to keep the vast amount of material that it had collected throughout its existence, something that was exacerbated by its failure to obtain financial support to house its collections. Michael Bourdeaux noted that ‘the death knell was rung when the Heritage Lottery Fund had turned us down’, and in 2007, the group was forced to reassign the lease of its property in Oxford to another organization in order to save money. As part of this agreement, space was sublet back to Keston to house its collections for a year while it explored opportunities to move the archive, signalling the end of Keston’s attempts to maintain this collection themselves.24 Keston held an Extraordinary General Meeting of its members on 24 March 2007 to discuss the options that were available regarding its archive, and universities across Britain, Europe and the United States were approached about housing this collection, but none offered suitable premises or came forward to house both the archive and Keston’s library – something the Council of Management insisted upon. Unlike other institutions, staff from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, led by Christopher Marsh, approached Keston and offered to house the complete collection, engage in preservation work and to start a digitization project of the archive. It was agreed at this meeting that the archive should be given to Baylor, and the process of shipping to the United States began in August 2007.25 After the move to Baylor, Keston has become a svelter organization, focusing on the preservation of its archive and assisting the work of others, which later led it to support the work of the Russian scholar Sergei Filatov in creating an encyclopaedia of religious belief in Russia.26 Keston has supported this work both financially and through a series of exploratory visits, often to the periphery of the Russian Federation including trips to Kalmykia, Astrakhan and Petrozavodsk.27 Keston’s support for this project was clearly linked to its work in the 1970s and 1980s, seeing the collapse of the Soviet Union as a good opportunity to document the position of religion in

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Russia, something that the current Russian regime could restrict in the near future. In an article outlining the near-completion of Keston’s encyclopaedia, Xenia Dennen noted ‘Putin’s authoritarian regime is clearly closing doors, we know that we took an opportunity which may not now reappear for generations’.28 After many years of being unable to study religion during the Soviet period, when the vast majority of Keston’s leading researchers were blacklisted by the Soviet authorities, the opportunity to document religion first-hand is one that the group clearly relished. Despite supporting research into religious life in contemporary Russia, Keston is a shadow of its former self. The sole English output from the organization is the Keston Newsletter, which contains articles about the activity of the Encyclopaedia project in Russia, the latest news on the position of the group and articles by authors working in fields of interest to Keston.29 Since April 2005, Keston has also produced an online periodical Russian Review, which contains essays by a variety of scholars working on religion in contemporary Russia.30 Russian Review is only available in Russian, something that is telling both of the publication’s intended audience but also on the current direction of Keston’s work predominantly focusing on Russia. While Keston no longer produces its own news service, the KNS has continued in a slightly different form in the post-Soviet era through groups such as Forum 18, which produces regular bulletins on the position of religious belief in the countries of the former Soviet Union, but also material on Central Asia and China.31 Interestingly, a number of researchers previously affiliated with Keston, including Felix Corley and Geraldine Fagan, are now producing reports for Forum 18.32 This somewhat highlights the continuation of this aspect of Keston’s earlier work and how, although the group is no longer directly involved in regular reporting on human rights issues, others have taken up that role.33 Keston’s main efforts now focus on the preservation of its legacy through supporting research in its archive, rather than actively seeking new research opportunities. In complete contrast to Keston, Amnesty International has thrived in the post– Cold War ‘last utopia’ and has come to dominate the discourses surrounding human rights in international relations. Despite a number of controversies surrounding the organization in recent years – including the £500,000 payout made to Irene Khan, the group’s secretary general, when she left her position in 2009, which led The Observer’s Nick Cohen question ‘is Amnesty still fit to fight on anyone’s behalf?’ – Amnesty has maintained its position as one of the most prominent human rights organizations in the world.34 This reputation has allowed it criticize the US government’s use of its detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to detain those suspected of involvement with terrorist organizations, with Irene Khan describing it in Amnesty’s 2005 Annual Report as ‘the Gulag of our times’.35 Discussing this controversial comparison, Hopgood has noted that ‘it is a sign of Amnesty’s moral authority that it can name and shame this way’.36 This is a strength, however, that does not come without potential dangers. Much like its efforts for the Soviet Union, Amnesty’s sometimes controversial proclamations on human rights issues drag the organization from the apolitical position that has allowed it to build up substantial support and respect. Although Amnesty has positioned itself as an integral organization in contemporary international relations, and one that will doubtless be

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subjected to further scholarly attention in the future, the apolitical ethos from which it draws its strength is regularly under strain – a concern that it has had to grapple with since the 1970s.

Why the ‘Rush to Expertise’? The rising authority of organizations working to support Soviet dissidents did not occur in a vacuum. Political developments in the Cold War in the mid-1970s, particularly the great need for America to reassert itself morally in its foreign policy which has been deftly assessed by Barbara Keys, allowed for human rights issues to take centre stage in international relations.37 Rosemary Foot has also highlighted the impact that the repositioning of human rights into the centre of the US government’s foreign policy aims in the mid-1970s has had on contemporary international relations, stating that ‘by the late twentieth century … the promotion and protection of human rights had become a major part of the fabric of a modern and legitimate state’.38 This is something that looks very unlikely to change in the near future. The role played by NGOs in the promotion of human rights in global politics is complex. Aryeh Neier’s assertion that NGOs were the ‘driving force behind the protection of human rights worldwide’ is only partially correct in the case of campaigns for Soviet dissidents in the 1970s.39 While activist organizations provided the expertise that informed many of the campaigns against the Soviet authorities, their rapid rise to prominence in the late 1970s indicates that wider international relations played a significant role in opening the opportunity for their efforts to gain political traction. Had NGOs really played this leading role, then the plight of the Soviet dissidents would have been more widely recognized in the early 1970s. As a result, Matthew Connelly’s insistence that scholars try to remove the Cold War lens when assessing the history of the twentieth century is all but impossible in the case of the international campaigns on behalf of Soviet dissidents.40 It was only in the late 1970s that the efforts of activists in Britain gained political traction in a remarkably rapid fashion, highlighting how intertwined their efforts were with the broader ideological conflict of the period. Without the shifts in the Cold War in favour of human rights, it is likely that recognition of the plight of dissidents would not have become the mainstream issue that it was. Perhaps the main reason that activists and the organizations that they formed came to occupy positions of authority regarding the Soviet dissidents, rather than more traditional political bodies, is because of their attempts to present themselves in an impartial manner in the increasingly tired ideological conflict of the Cold War. This is not to suggest that activist groups were as truly apolitical as they often suggest, but by attempting to stand apart from political considerations and focusing the empirical information that they had obtained, these groups transcended the bipolarity of the international conflict. Through their gathering and presentation of reliable and accurate information, activists became trusted authorities on the issue of Soviet dissent, allowing them to obtain substantial influence over positions of political power.

Conclusion – The Rush to Expertise

189

James McKay and Matthew Hilton have argued that the influence of NGOs ‘can be detected at the heart of every major socio-political initiative of the post-war period’.41 In the case of the broader awareness of Soviet dissidents in Britain in the late 1970s, their influence was not only detectable, but an essential part of the distribution of knowledge of life behind the iron curtain. It is, however, important to stress that one of the major reasons that activist organizations had such an impact was because the conditions in international relations altered in the mid-1970s to allow them to do so. Had the birth of human rights as a salient political issue not occurred in this period, it is unlikely that activist groups working to highlight the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union would have been widely recognized, let alone had the influence that they did. This has particular ramifications for contemporary reports of human rights violations and political in the territory of the former Soviet Union, which are being reported on an increasingly regular basis. The political opposition to the leadership of Vladimir Putin in the Russian Federation makes scholarship on the dissident movement particularly important, as prominent political activists such as Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have taken much influence from their Soviet predecessors. Tolokonnikova has publicly cited Vladimir Bukovsky’s memoir To Build a Castle as an inspiration for her own activism, and she asked for a copy of Anatoly Marchenko’s memoir My Testimony to be sent to her in late 2012 while she was being held in a penal colony in Mordovia.42 The work of activist organizations working to highlight contemporary human rights violations and report on this new generation of dissidents will be largely ignored until it becomes politically important to highlight such abuses. This is not to dissuade activists, but to highlight that their time in the limelight will only come following a rush to expertise similar to that of the late 1970s. Given the increasingly frosty nature of relations between Britain and Russia in recent years, this might not be something we have to wait long for.

Notes Introduction 1

2 3 4

5

6 7

For an example of this voluminous literature, see Afshari, R. (2007), ‘On historiography of human rights reflections on Paul Gordon Lauren’s the evolution of international human rights: visions seen’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 1–67; Cmiel, K. (2004), ‘ The recent history of human rights’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 1, pp. 117–135; Dembour, M. (2010), ‘What are human rights? Four schools of thought’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 1–20; Donnelly, J. (2003), Universal Human Rights: In Theory & Practice, New York: Cornell University Press; Dudai, R. (2008), ‘ The long view: human rights activism, past and present’, Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 299–309; Eckel, J., and Moyn, S. (2014), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Foot, R. (2010), ‘ The Cold War and human rights’, in Leffler, M., and Westad, O. A. (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume 3 – Endings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Gordon Lauren, P. (2008), ‘History and human rights: people and forces in paradoxical interaction’, Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 91–103; Hertel, S., Scruggs, L. and Patrick Heidkamp, C. (2009), ‘Human rights and public opinion: from attitudes to action’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 124, No. 3, pp. 443–459; Hoffman, S. L. (2011), Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Hopgood, S. (2013), The Endtimes of Human Rights, Ithaca: Cornell University Press; Moyn, S. (2012), ‘Substance, scale, and salience: the recent historiography of human rights’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 8, pp. 123–140; Moyn, S. (2014), Human Rights and the Uses of History, London: Verso; Peterson, C. (2012), Globalizing Human Rights: Private Citizens, the Soviet Union, and the West, London: Routledge; and Redhead, R. and Turnbull, N. (2011), ‘ Towards a study of human rights practitioners’, Human Rights Review, Vol. 12. Kerber, L. K. (October 2006), ‘We are all historians of human rights’, Perspectives, Vol. 44, No. 3. Hunt, L. (2007), Inventing Human Rights: A History, New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Moyn, S. (2014), ‘The return of the prodigal the 1970s as a turning point in human rights history’, in Eckel, J., and Moyn, S. (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 13. Mazower, M. (2011), ‘The end of civilisation and the rise of human rights: the midtwentieth century disjuncture’, in Hoffman, S. L. (ed.), Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 29. Moyn, S., (2010), The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Eckel, J. (2014), ‘The rebirth of politics from the spirit of morality: explaining the human rights revolution of the 1970s’, in Eckel, J., and Moyn, S. (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Notes 8

9

10

11

12 13

14

15

191

For example, see Boobbyer, P. (2005), Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia, London: Routledge; English, R. D. (2000), Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War, New York: Columbia University Press; Hornsby, R. (2013), Protest, Reform and Repression in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Horvath, R. (2005), The Legacy of Soviet Dissent: Dissidents, Democratisation and Radical Nationalism in Russia, London: Routledge; Nathans, B. (2014), ‘The disenchantment of socialism: soviet dissidents, human rights and the new global morality’, in Eckel, J., and Moyn, S. (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; and Nathans, B. (Winter, 2007), ‘The dictatorship of reason: Aleksandr Vol’pin and the idea of rights under “Developed Socialism”’, Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 4, pp. 630–663. Throughout this book, the phrase ‘Soviet dissident movement’ is utilized as an umbrella term to encompass the variety of political dissident in the Soviet Union. While it is incorrect to describe a ‘typical’ dissident, given the multitude of political viewpoints that they held, this phrase allows for discussion of the broad activism in both the Soviet Union and in the West on their behalf. Bloch, S., and Reddaway, P. (1977), Russia’s Political Hospitals: The Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union, London: Victor Gollancz; Bloch, S., and Reddaway, P. (1984), Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry, London: Victor Gollancz; Gerlis, D. (1996), Those Wonderful Women in Black: The Story of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, London: Minerva Press; and Wynn, A. (1987), Notes of a Non Conspirator: Working with Russian Dissidents, London: André Deutsch. Hilton, M. (2011), ‘Politics is ordinary: non-governmental organisations and political participation in contemporary Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 22, No. 2. Hilton, M., McKay, J., Crowson, N., and Mouhot, J., (2013), The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs Shaped Modern Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press. For more on issues of contemporary political dissent in Russia see Bennetts, M. (2014), Kicking the Kremlin: Russia’s New Dissidents and the Battle to Topple Putin, London: OneWorld Publications; Bullough, M. (2013), The Last Man in Russia: And the Struggle to Save a Dying Nation, London, Penguin; Gessen, M. (2014), Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, London: Granta; Khodorkovsky, M. (2014), My Fellow Prisoners, London, Penguin; Lucas, E. (2008), The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West, London: Bloomsbury ; Sakwa, R. (2009), The Quality of Freedom: Khodorkovsky, Putin and the Yukos Affair, Oxford: Oxford University Press; and Tolokonnikova, N., and Žižek, S., Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj, London: Verso. Sakharov, A. (1990), Memoirs, New York: Alfred Knopf; Sakharov, A. (1991), Moscow and Beyond 1986 to 1989, New York: Alfred A. Knopf; Shcharansky, A. (1988), Fear No Evil: A Memoir, New York: Weidenfeld and Nicholson; and Solzhenitsyn, A. (1980), The Oak and the Calf: A Memoir, London: Collins and Harvill Press. Shcharansky is also referred to as Natan Sharansky, a spelling that he adopted after immigrating to Israel. To aid readability, he is referred to as Shcharansky throughout. Bukovsky, V. (1978), To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, London: André Deutsch; Grigorenko, P. (1983), Memoirs, London: Harvill Press; Marchenko, A. (1969), My Testimony, London: Pall Mall; Nekipelov, V. (1980), Institute of Fools: Notes from the Serbsky, London: Victor Gollancz; Nudel, I. (1990), A Hand in the Darkness: The Autobiography of a Refusenik, New York: Warner Books; and Plyushch, L. (1979), History’s Carnival: A Dissident’s Autobiography, London: Collins and Harvill Press.

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16 Bergman, J. (2009), Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov, Ithaca: Cornell University Press; De Wolf, K. (2012), Dissident for Life: Alexander Ogorodnikov and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Russia, Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans; Gilligan, E. L. (2004), Defending Human Rights in Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner 1969–2003, London: Routledge; Gilbert, M. (1986), Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time, London: Macmillan; Lourie, R. (2002), Sakharov: A Biography, Hanover : Brandeis University Press; and Scammell, M. (1984), Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, London: Hutchinson & Co. 17 Shatz, M. (1980), Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 128–130. For a detailed piece on the process of Soviet censorship, see Vladimirov, L. (1972), ‘How the Soviet censor works’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 1, No. 3/4. For more on the issue of samizdat and its legality see Loeber, D. A. (1973), ‘Samizdat under Soviet law’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 3–26. 18 Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 115. 19 Molty, A. (1978), ‘USSR’s alternative press’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 22. 20 Bulgakov, M. (2008), The Master and Margarita, London: OneWorld Classics, and B. Pasternak, B. (1958), Doctor Zhivago, London: Harvill Press. For more on the context of the publication of Doctor Zhivago, see Finn, P., and Couvée, P. (2014), The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book, London: Harvill Secker. 21 For more on the publication of religious material in the Soviet Union see Ellis, J. (1986), The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History, London: Croom Helm, pp. 149–171; and Bourdeaux, M. (1990), The Gospel’s Triumph over Communism, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 115–118. 22 Keck, M., and Sikkink, K. (1998), Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 13. 23 Keys, B. (2014), Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 24 Ibid., p. 3. 25 Snyder, S. (2011), Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 244. 26 Murphy, T. (6 October 1990), ‘Heroes and Villains’, The Times, p. 28. 27 Solzhenitsyn, A. (1970), ‘Nobel Lecture in Literature’, in Labedz, L. (1974) Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, p. 322. 28 Foot, ‘The Cold War and human rights’, p. 445.

Chapter 1 1

The definitive account on the Gulag is Solzhenitsyn, A. (1974), The Gulag Archipelago, London: Collins and Harvill Press, which outlined the scale of abuse in the Gulag in substantial detail. See also Applebaum, A. (2004), Gulag: A History, London: Penguin; Figes, O. (2007), The Whisperers: Private Life in Stain’s Russia, London: Allen Lane; and Tzouliadis, T. (2009), The Forsaken, From the Great Depression to the Gulags: Hope and Betrayal in Stalin’s Russia, London: Abacus.

Notes 2 3 4

5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23

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Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 155. Hornsby, Protest, Reform and Repression in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, pp. 211–212. See Demoskoff, A. J. (2014), ‘Monastic incarceration in Imperial Russia’, in Coleman, H. J. (ed.), Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 34–35. See Ibid., pp. 48–49; Boobbyer, Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia, p. 15; Shaw, D., Bloch, S. and Vickers, A. (2 November 1972), ‘Psychiatry and the state’, New Scientist, p. 258; Hosking, G. (2001), Russia and the Russians: From Earliest Times to 2001, London: Penguin, pp. 274–277; and Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, p. 1. The Slavophile versus Westernizer debate of the early nineteenth century has strong parallels with debates among dissidents in the Soviet period, particularly the differing stances of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, arguably the two most prominent Soviet dissidents. For more on this debate, see Kelley, D. (1982), The Solzhenitsyn-Sakharov Dialogue: Politics, Society and the Future, Connecticut: Greenwood. Deacon, R. (1972), A History of the Russian Secret Service, London: Fredrick Muller, p. 61. Medvedev, R., and Medvedev, Z. (1971), A Question of Madness, New York: Alfred Knopf, p. 196. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 36. Ibid., p. 37. Szasz, T. (1961), The Myth of Mental Illness, London: Secker and Warburg. Foucault, M. (2001), Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Abingdon: Routledge, and Foucault, M. (2003), The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, Abingdon: Routledge. For a good introduction to the anti-psychiatry movement see Burns, T. (2006), Psychiatry: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press; and Bracken, P., and Thomas, P. (2010), ‘From Szasz to Foucault: On the role of critical psychiatry’, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 219–228. Calloway, P. (1992), Soviet and Western Psychiatry: A Comparative Study, Keighley : Moor Press, p. 229. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 220. Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 171. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 230–234. Ibid., pp. 220–223. Merskey, H., and Shafran, B. (1986), ‘Political hazards in the diagnosis of “sluggish schizophrenia”’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 148, No. 3, pp. 247–256. Plyushch, History’s Carnival, pp. 275–297. Insulin shock therapy was pioneered by Manfred Sakel in the 1930s, and it effectively involves bringing patients in and out of hypoglycaemic comas. The historical background of this treatment and the disturbing side effects are neatly described in Jones, K. (2000), ‘Insulin coma therapy in schizophrenia’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 93, pp. 147–149. Adler N., and Gluzman, S. (1993), ‘Soviet special psychiatric hospitals: where the system was criminal and the inmates were sane’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 163, p. 715. Plyushch, History’s Carnival, p. 305. Ibid., p. 305.

194

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24 Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 283. Haloperidol is more commonly known in the West as Haldol, and it is used in the treatment of schizophrenia, psychosis and delirium. For more information on the use of these treatments in Britain, see Royal College of Psychiatrists article on antipsychotics, available at http://www.rcpsych .ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/treatments/antipsychoticmedication.aspx. 25 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 202–209. For current British NHS guidelines on the use of psychiatric drugs in the treatment of schizophrenia see National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline 82 (March 2009) available at http://www.nice.org.uk/CG82. These guidelines note the possible side effects of using antipsychotic drugs, including akathisia (uncontrollable muscular movement or restlessness), weight gain and ‘unpleasant subjective experiences’. 26 Medvedev and Medvedev, A Question of Madness, pp. 89–90. 27 Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, pp. 165–168. 28 Crankshaw, E. (17 February 1963), ‘Another Russian “rebel” author put in asylum’, The Observer, p. 9; and Stafford, R. (3 November 1965), ‘Angry anti-Red’, Daily Express, p. 15. 29 Tarsis, V. (1962), The Bluebottle, London: Collins and Harvill Press. See also Szasz, T. (31 March 1978), ‘The politics of mental illness’, The Spectator; and Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 65–68. 30 Despite a number of acquisitions and mergers throughout the twentieth and twentyfirst century, the Harvill name is still a prominent publisher in its current incarnation as Harvill Secker, an imprint owned by the Random House Group. See http://www .vintage-books.co.uk/about-us/harvill-secker/ 31 Rolo, P. J. V (2004), ‘Harari, Manya (1905–1969)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33688. For more on Manya Harari, see Harari, M. (1972), Memoirs, 1906–1969, Harvill Press: London. 32 Original editions of The Bluebottle were published under the pseudonym ‘Ivan Valeriy’, but were soon changed to Tarsis’ actual name due to his vocal opposition about concealing his identity. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 65. 33 Crankshaw, ‘Another Russian “rebel” author put in asylum’, p. 9. 34 Stafford, ‘Angry anti-Red’. 35 Chekhov, A. (1892) Ward No. 6 available at http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/w6-01 .html. 36 Tarsis, V. (1965), Ward 7: An Autobiographical Novel, London: Collins and Harvill Press, p. 28. Professor Andrey Nezhevsky bares striking resemblance to the leading Soviet psychiatrist Professor Andrei Snezhnevsky. 37 Ivan Denisovich Shukov is the main character in Solzhenitsyn, A. (1963), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, London: Victor Gollancz. Gleb Vikentich Nerzhin is one of the lead characters in Solzhenitsyn, A. (1969), The First Circle, London: Collins and Harvill Press. Both are considered to be autobiographical characters depicting sections from Solzhenitsyn’s life. 38 See (2 May 1965), ‘Sent to the asylum’, The Observer, p. 21; (9 May 1965), ‘Inside Noah’s Ark’, The Observer, p. 21; and (16 May 1965), ‘University of Hatred’, The Observer, p. 21. 39 Crankshaw, E. (9 May 1965), ‘Mad north-north-west’, The Observer, p. 26. 40 (13 May 1965), ‘Russia with the lid off ’, The Times, p. 15. 41 (21 May 1965), ‘Novel of Rebellion’, Church Times, p. 5. 42 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010.

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43 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 66. 44 Hoey, E., Poole, S., Beckley, M. and Dwyer, R. (6 October 1965), ‘The student who suddenly went “mad”: an open letter to the Kremlin’, The Guardian, p. 12. 45 Ibid.; and Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 68–70. 46 Hoey, et al., ‘The student who suddenly went “mad”’, p. 12 47 Amnesty International (1966), Annual Report June 1, 1965 – May 31, 1966, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 14. 48 Zorza, V. (7 October 1965), ‘Moscow silent on the case of Zhenya Belov’, The Guardian, p. 12. 49 Amnesty, Annual Report June 1, 1965 – May 31, 1966, p. 14. 50 (6 October 1965), ‘Zhenya Belov’, The Guardian, p. 1. 51 Zorza, V. (8 October 1965), ‘Dramatist writes to Kosygin on Zhenya Belov case’, The Guardian, p. 19. 52 (14 October 1965), ‘Protest to Kremlin on Belov’, The Guardian, p. 7. 53 Zorza, ‘Dramatist writes to Kosygin on Zhenya Belov case’, p. 19. 54 Zorza, V. (11 October 1965), ‘Zhenya Belov: a denial’, The Guardian, p. 1. 55 (11 October 1965), ‘Mr Belov writes to deny reports’, The Guardian, p. 11 56 Ibid. 57 (8 November 1965), ‘Belov appeal committee to resume its campaign’, The Guardian, p. 9. 58 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 69–70. 59 Ibid., p. 106. For an account of the speech in which Grigorenko publicly voiced his concerns about the direction of the Soviet government under Khrushchev see Grigorenko, Memoirs, pp. 237–261. 60 Grigorenko, Memoirs, pp. 260–261; Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 105–106. 61 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 106 62 Grigorenko, Memoirs, p. 294. 63 Ibid., pp. 347–357. 64 Tidmarsh, K. (10 January 1968), ‘Ex-general in Moscow trial protest’, The Times, p. 1. 65 Ibid., p. 5. 66 Grigorenko, Memoirs, pp. 391–395. 67 Blackman, R. (9 May 1969), ‘General who dared to speak out’, Daily Express, p. 2. 68 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 110–113. 69 (13 December 1969), ‘General insane says Russia’, Daily Express, p. 2; (13 December 1969), ‘Soviet general “insane”’, The Guardian, p. 2. 70 Dickie, J. (10 July 1970), ‘The mind murderers’, Daily Mail, p. 2. 71 Grigorenko, Memoirs, p. 391. Grigorenko mistakenly refers to ‘Leslie Wood’ as the filmmaker in his memoirs. 72 Woodhouse, L. (1970), ‘Grigorenko: the man who wouldn’t keep quiet’, Granada Television; email to author from L. Woodhouse, 26 October 2010; Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 120, footnote 31 detail on p. 471. 73 Malone, M. (25 November 1970), ‘Russian rebel in the Monty mould’, Daily Mirror, p. 18. 74 This was published in the West as Medvedev, Z. (1969), The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko, New York: Columbia University Press. 75 Grosvenor, P. (18 September 1970), ‘Smuggled book tells of Soviet “seductivity” tests on scientists’, Daily Express, p. 15. 76 For a broad account of Medvedev’s incarceration, see Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 170–185.

196 77 78 79

80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

Notes Medvedev and Medvedev, A Question of Madness, pp. 115–117, 130 and 134–137. Sakharov, Memoirs, pp. 310–312. Labedz, L. (1974), Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 236–237. Emphasis from original source. This statement was also published in The Chronicle of Current Events (hereafter Chronicle), No. 14. See Clarity, J. F. (5 June 1970), ‘New Inquisition on Soviet biologist’, The Times, p. 7; (6 June 1970), ‘No release for Soviet geneticist’, The Times, p. 4; (18 June 1970), ‘Detained Soviet biologist freed’, The Times, p. 7; and Astrachan, A. (2 June 1970), ‘Soviet experts’ plea to free friend’, The Guardian, p. 2. (18 June 1970), ‘Doctor released’, Daily Express, p. 1. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 181. Zorza, V. (18 June 1970), ‘Protests lead to release of scientist’, The Guardian, p. 2. Zorza, V. (8 June 1970), ‘Madhouse for opponents’, The Guardian, p. 3. Ibid. Boobbyer, P. (2009), ‘Vladimir Bukovskii and Soviet communism’, Slavonic and East European Review Vol. 87, No. 3, pp. 453–456. See Litvinov, P. (1969) The Demonstration in Pushkin Square, London: Harvill Press, pp. 47–102 for an account of Bukovsky’s 1967 trial. Details of Bukovsky’s activism and persecution can be found in Chronicle No. 19, pp. 169–171; Chronicle, No. 22, 23, pp. 4–6, 50–63; and Chronicle, No. 24, pp. 115–119. Keck, and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, p. 13. For a copy of Bukovsky’s letter see Mee, The Internment of Soviet Dissenters in Mental Hospitals, Appendix I. Interview with Vladimir Bukovsky, 18 January 2011. Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 289. Sakharov, A. (1968), Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, Penguin; Harmondsworth. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 79. Ibid., pp. 79–80. Referred to from here on as the ‘Working Group’, not to be confused with the ‘Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes’, a Moscow-based group founded in 1977 to campaign against psychiatric abuse. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 17. Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 99. Ibid., p. 99. Reddaway, P., and Bukovsky, V. (12 March 1971), ‘Plea to West on Soviet “madhouse” jails’, The Times, p. 8. Richter, D. (1971), ‘Political dissenters in mental hospitals’, The British Journal of Psychiatry, No. 119, pp. 225–226. Jenner, F. A., et al. (16 September 1971), ‘Dissenters in Soviet mental hospitals’, The Times, p. 17. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 84. Mee, The Internment of Soviet Dissenters in Mental Hospitals. Chronicle, No. 24, pp. 153–154. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 86. Ibid., p. 87. Van Voren, R. (2010), ‘Abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR: a casestudy and personal account of the efforts to bring them to an end’, in Helmchen, H., and Sartorius, N. N. (eds.), Ethics in Psychiatry: European Contributions, London: Springer, p. 497.

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108 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 84 109 Ibid., pp. 86–92. 110 (7 January 1973), ‘Asylums’, The Guardian, p. 44; and Smith, A. (30 December 1972), ‘End of Term’, The Guardian, p. 13. 111 Markham, D. (1971), ‘Political dissenters in mental hospitals’, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 119, No. 551, p. 471. 112 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 94. 113 Fainberg, V. (1975), ‘My five years in mental hospital’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 68. 114 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 94. 115 (12 January 1972), ‘Bukovsky trial “a travesty”’, The Guardian, p. 2; and Van Voren, ‘Abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR’, p. 497. 116 Bloch, S. et al. (20 March 1972), ‘Vladimir Bukovsky’, The Times, p. 17. 117 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 94. 118 Available in an English translation in Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, Appendix VI, pp. 419–440. For details about the Manual, see Chronicle, No. 34, 35, 36, pp., 145–146. 119 Chronicle, No. 34, 35, 36, pp. 129–130. 120 Ibid., pp. 130–131. 121 Ibid., pp. 130–131. 122 Janner, G. (2006), To Life! The Memoirs of Greville Janner, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, pp. 231–246; (11 October 1972), ‘Russian tortured in “Iron Maiden” says MP’, Daily Mail, p. 4; (12 February 1973), ‘Russian is accused of spying for Britain’, Daily Mail, p. 3; Greig, G. (4 March 1975), ‘Jenkins told: Bar KGB man’, Daily Mail, p. 1; and (1 April 1975), ‘You’re not welcome comrade’, Daily Mail, p. 1. 123 For example see Hansard, House of Commons (24 February 1976), ‘Foreign Affairs (East-West Relations)’, Vol. 906, cc. 201–340, available at http://hansard .millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/feb/24/foreign-affairs-east-westrelations#S5CV0906P0_19760224_HOC_323. 124 Zorza, V. (23 June 1970), ‘The phoney hijack’, The Guardian, p. 11. 125 Bonavia, D. (31 December 1970), ‘Western press excluded from hijack appeal’, The Times, p. 6. 126 Bonavia, D. (1 January 1971), ‘Leningrad sentences of death commuted’, The Times, p. 1. 127 For further details of the Leningrad plot see Amnesty International (1980), Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR, Their Treatment and Conditions (Second Edition), London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 87; Gilbert, M. (1986), Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time, London: Macmillan, pp. 18–20; Azbel, M. (1982), Refusenik: Trapped in the Soviet Union, London: Hamish Hamilton, pp. 234–238; and Beckerman, G. (2010), When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 172–207. 128 Interview with Harold Merskey, 22 October 2010. 129 Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 101. 130 Interview with Harold Merskey, 22 October 2010. 131 Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry (exact date unknown, estimated late 1972), ‘First Report of the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry’. Copy of report sent to author by Harold Merskey. 132 ‘First Report of the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry’, p. 1; and ‘Professor Lerner Receives his “Spare Part” ’, press release from Greville Janner (Undated), MS 254/1/2/53, Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, University of Southampton, Hartley Library Special Collections, (hereafter WCSJA).

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133 Merskey, H. (9 January 2008), ‘Letter to Marie Girard’. Marie Girard is a French student based in Paris who had inquired about Merskey’s work on Soviet psychiatric abuse. Copy of letter sent to author. 134 Interview with Harold Merskey 22 October 2010; Merskey, ‘Letter to Marie Girard’; and Letter from Harold Merskey to David Brager (21 March 1973), MS254/1/2/37, WCSJA. 135 Merskey, ‘Letter to Marie Girard’. 136 ‘Pyrexia’ is the medical term for controlled hypothermia or fever. See Marieb, E. N. (2004), Human Anatomy and Physiology (Sixth Edition), San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings, p. 989; Merskey, H. (9 January 2008), ‘Letter to Marie Girard; and ‘First Report of the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry” ’, p. 3. 137 Letter from Merskey to Brager, 21 March 1973. 138 For details on the case of Yan Krylsky see Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 369 139 ‘First Report of the Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry’, p. 3. 140 Merskey, H. (9 December 1972), ‘Diagnosis of Schizophrenia’, The Lancet; Merskey, H. (1973), ‘Political dissenters in mental hospitals’, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 122, No. 567, pp. 237–238; Merskey and Shafran, ‘Political hazards in the diagnosis of “sluggish schizophrenia”’; and Merskey, H. (1978), ‘Political neutrality and international cooperation in medicine’, Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 74–77. 141 Shafur, S. (1 January 1972), ‘Misuses of psychiatry’, The Lancet, p. 45; Low-Beer, G. (30 November 1972), ‘Schizophrenia: an instrument of politics’, The Guardian, p. 16; and Reddaway, P. (9 December 1972), ‘Russian’s call to psychiatrists’, The Times, p. 5. 142 For example, see Cranston, M. et al. (31 January 1972), ‘The trial of Vladimir Bukovsky’, The Times, p. 13; Bloch, S. et al. (30 March 1972), ‘Vladimir Bukovsky’, The Times, p. 17; and Ferguson, J. et al. (11 September 1972), ‘Cases of inhuman punishment’, The Times, p. 13. 143 Levin, B. (14 June 1973), ‘Cries for help that go unheeded’, The Times, p. 16. 144 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 298–299; and Levin, ‘Cries for help that go unheeded’. 145 Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (1977), The Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union, p. 12. 146 Levin, B. (12 June 1973), ‘Russia’s political asylums’, The Times, p. 16. 147 Levin, ‘Cries for help that go unheeded’, p. 16. 148 Carver, D. (27 August 1973), ‘Soviet writers in mental hospitals’, The Times, p. 7. 149 Markowe, M. (30 August 1973), ‘Soviet writers in mental hospitals’, The Times, p. 15. 150 Roth, M. (4 September 1973), ‘Political abuse of psychiatry’, The Times, p. 15. 151 Dacre, P. (10 September 1973), ‘Speak your minds!’, Daily Express, p. 10. 152 Stevenson, J. (8 September 1973), ‘Why doctors refuse to snub the Russians’, Daily Mail, p. 8. 153 Low-Beer, ‘G. (11 September 1973), “Sinister twist in psychiatry”’, The Guardian, p. 12. 154 Niesewand, P. (24 August 1973), ‘Scientist insists “go to Russia”’, The Guardian, p. 26. 155 (4 October 1973), ‘Challenge from Sakharov’, The Guardian, p. 2. 156 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 315–316. 157 (16 October 1973), ‘Western Psychiatrists pay visit to Gen. Grigorenko’, The Times, p. 11. 158 Ibid.

Notes

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159 Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (SCPAP) doc. (9 November 1973), ‘Copy of telegram sent to Dr A. Freedman of the APA and Prof. A. Snezhnevsky of the AUNSP’, Special Committee on Unethical Psychiatric Practices papers, Royal College of Psychiatrists, London (hereafter SCOUPP). 160 (17 November 1973), ‘Psychiatric watchdog in politics’, The Guardian, p. 5. 161 Hawkes, N. (18 November 1973), ‘Soviet doctors condemned’, The Observer, p. 6. 162 Levin, B. (7 May 1974), ‘Soviet repression: Western scientists are now at a crossroads of conscience’, The Times.

Chapter 2 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22

(18 December 1976), ‘Heaviest snow for 6 years’, The Guardian, p. 1; Wills, F. (18 December 1976), ‘Freedom for a Russian Rebel’, Daily Mirror, p. 8. For more details of the background to the exchange, see Ulianova, O. (2014), ‘Corvalán for Bukovsky: A real exchange of prisoners during an imaginary way. The Chilean dictatorship, the Soviet Union, and US mediation, 1973–1976’, Cold War History, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 315–336. Pick, H., and Gott, R. (18 December 1976), ‘Sides swap thorns’, The Guardian, p. 1. Watts, D. (18 December 1976), ‘Bukovsky exchange for chilean communist’, The Times, p. 1. Cochrane, A., and Buzek, A. (18 December 1976), ‘Escape from the mind-benders’, Daily Express, p. 1. Ibid. Cunningham, P. (29 December 1976), ‘The lonely campaigners who freed Vladimir Bukovsky’, The Guardian, p. 9. Andrews, J. (26 August 1976), ‘Writers seek Bukovsky’s release’, The Guardian, p. 6. Chronicle No. 43, 44, 45, p. 4. Pick and Gott, ‘Sides swap thorns’, p. 1. Wills, ‘Freedom for a Russian Rebel’, p. 8. Cochrane and Buzek, ‘Escape from the mind-benders’, p. 1. (20 December 1976), ‘Prisoners in the Kremlin’, Daily Mirror, p. 2. Coss, D. (14 January 1977), ‘Bukovsky slams Jim over snub’, Daily Mail, p. 2; (13 January 1977), ‘TUC’, Hansard, HC Vol. 923, cc.1636–9, available at http:// hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1977/jan/13/tuc#S5CV0923P0_19770113 _HOC_110. Coss, ‘Bukovsky slams Jim over snub’, p. 2. Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p. 345. Wynn, Notes of A Non Conspirator, pp. 101–102. (5 January 1977), ‘Soviet rebel to meet Amnesty’, The Guardian, p. 20. Horvath, R. (February 2014), ‘Breaking the totalitarian ice: The initiative group for the defence of human rights in the USSR’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, p. 148. Chronicle 28, 29, 30, 31, p. 60; (21 April 1975), ‘Amnesty’s man arrested’, The Guardian, p. 12. Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 205–208. Chronicle 28, 29, 30, 31, p. 103. Boobbyer, Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia, p. 117.

200

Notes

23 Carynnyk, M. (1979), ‘Marxist metanoia’, in Plyushch, L. (ed.), History’s Carnival: A Dissident’s Autobiography, London: Collins and Harvill Press, p. xii. 24 Amnesty International (1980), Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR: Their Treatment and Conditions, Amnesty International: London, p. 14. 25 (4 February 1976), ‘Dissident’s “hospital horror”’, The Guardian, p. 4. 26 Brown, M. (14 May 1976), ‘Smiles and red roses – for Plyushch the real taste of freedom’, Daily Express, p. 12. 27 Alongside Fainberg, the dissidents at this protest were Larisa Bogoroz, Vadim Delone, Pavel Litvinov, Konstantin Babitsky, Vladimir Dremlyuga and Natalia Gorbanevskaya. Boobbyer, Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia, pp. 80–81. 28 Craig, T. (16 January 1975), ‘Terror business as usual for real victims’, Daily Express, p. 8 29 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 231. For more on Voikhanskaya’s experiences in the Soviet Union, see Voikhanskaya, M. (31 July 1975), ‘Psychiatry betrayed’, New Psychiatry; and Alexeyeva, L. et al. (1977), ‘The Orlov tribunal’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 52–60. 30 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 289. 31 Voikhanskaya, M. (1977), ‘Life in an ordinary mental hospital: the view of a Soviet psychiatrist’, in Bloch, S., and Reddaway, P. (eds.), Russia’s Political Hospitals: The Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union, London: Victor Gollancz, p. 461; and (5 March 1975), ‘To emigrate from the USSR’, p. 2, CAPA Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, (International Institute of Social History) Amsterdam, Netherlands (hereafter CAPA Collection IISG). 32 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 208; ‘To Emigrate from the USSR’, p. 3. 33 Amnesty (1980), Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR, pp. 14–15. 34 Chronicle No. 40, 41, p. 62–63; (19 May 1976), ‘Dissident moved’, The Guardian, p. 2. 35 (30 August 1974), ‘Hunger strike’, The Guardian, p. 2; (29 October 1974), ‘Litvinov pleads for Moroz’, The Guardian, p. 6; and (5 November 1974), ‘Wife gets gaol call’, The Guardian, p. 4. Moroz was later exchanged alongside Mark Dymshits, Alexander Ginzberg, Eduard Kuznetsov and Georgi Vins in April 1979 for the two Soviet spies Valvik Enger and Rudolf Chernyayev. See Jackson, H., and Pick, H. (28 April 1979), ‘Russia releases dissidents in US spy swap’, The Guardian, p. 1. 36 Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, p. 339. 37 (30 December 1976), ‘Russia accused over arrest’, Daily Mail, p. 9. 38 Membership leaflet enclosed in CAPA (Spring 1977), ‘News’, No. 2, CAPA collection, IISG. 39 CAPA (date unknown), ‘CAPA NEEDS YOU!! publicity leaflet’, CAPA collection, IISG. 40 Ibid. 41 Stuart, M. (14 April 1975), ‘Reunited – the couple that beat Russia’s mind-benders’, Daily Mail, p. 19. 42 (5 March 1975), ‘To Emigrate from the USSR’, p. 4, CAPA collection, IISG. 43 (14 March 1975), ‘Group sets up fight for woman doctor’s freedom’, The Guardian, p. 7. 44 Stuart, M. (15 April 1975), ‘Marina flies in’, Daily Mail, p. 16; and Karpf, A. (31 March 2007), ‘Obituary: Olive Dehn’, The Guardian, available at http://www.theguardian .com/news/2007/mar/31/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries. 45 (18 April 1975), ‘Russian to put case for dissidents’, The Guardian, p. 4.

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46 Stuart, ‘Reunited – the couple that beat Russia’s mind-benders’, p. 19; and Stuart, M. (2 September 1977), ‘The smear victim’, Daily Mail, p. 4. 47 Shafar, S. (17 July 1975), ‘The disease of dissent’, New Psychiatry. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Wynn, Notes of a Non-Conspirator, pp. 99–100. 51 Podrabinek, A, (1980), Punitive Medicine Ann Arbour, MI: Caroline House Publishers. 52 Stoppard, T. (1978), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul, London: Faber and Faber 53 Stoppard, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul, p. v. 54 Ibid., p. 9. 55 Ibid., p. 11. 56 Stoppard, T. (1977), ‘Unpublished account of 1977 Moscow trip’, File 38.1, Tom Stoppard Papers, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA hereafter, Stoppard Papers. 57 Stoppard, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul, p. v–vi. 58 Ibid., p. vi. 59 Ibid., p. vii. 60 McKellen, I. (2 August 1977), ‘Letter to Tom Stoppard’, File 10.4 Every Good Boy Deserves Favour Correspondence and Production, 1976–1979, Stoppard Papers. Emphasis from original letter. McKellen also notes on a page of his website referring to EGBDF that ‘When Bukovsky slipped into our rehearsals one afternoon in London, the juxtaposition of dramatic fiction and actual fact, rendered me speechless and we abandoned rehearsals for tea.’ McKellen, I. (April 2008), ‘Words from Ian McKellen’ available at http://www.mckellen.com/stage/00071.htm. 61 Spencer, C. (14 January 2010), ‘Every good boy deserves favour at the national theatre, review’, The Telegraph; and Interview with Vladimir Bukovsky, 18 January 2011. 62 Chaillet, N. (15 June 1978), ‘Every good boy deserves favour, mermaid’, The Times, p. 15. 63 Stoppard, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul, p. 38. 64 Huckerby, M. (17 August 1978), ‘KGB to blame in the end’, The Times, p. 12. 65 (19 July 1978), ‘Shakespearian plays start programme’, The Times, p. 19. 66 Church, M. (15 November 1979), ‘Balance supreme’, The Times, p. 21. 67 (2 September 1977), ‘Soviet psychiatric abuse condemned’, The Guardian, p. 6. 68 (31 August 1977), ‘Soviet “no” to ethics standard in psychiatry’, The Times, p. 6. 69 (31 August 1977), ‘Psychiatric abuses condemned’, The Guardian, p. 6. 70 Working Group, The Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union, p. 1. 71 Ibid., p. 14. 72 Wynn, Notes of a Non-Conspirator, p. 116. 73 Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (June 1977), News Bulletin on Psychiatric Abuse in the Soviet Union, No. 1, pp. 16–19. 74 Ibid., p. 11. 75 Ibid., p. 8. The name of the French Committee that collaborated with the Working Group is not given in this bulletin, although it is noted as being headed by Dr J. P. Descombey and as being organized by the group’s secretary Martine Le Guay. 76 Ibid., p. 8. 77 Bloch, S., and Reddaway, P. (1984), Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry, London: Victor Gollancz, pp. 51–52.

202 78

79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107

Notes Bukovsky, V. (17 August 1977), ‘Letter to Dr Howard Rome, President of the WPA’, Box 31, file 5, Peter Reddaway’s Papers, Global Resource Center, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA (hereafter PRP). Ibid. ‘Psychiatric abuses condemned’, p. 6; Bell, I. (2 September 1977), ‘Russia censured for state abuses of psychiatry’, The Daily Telegraph, p. 15; and ‘Soviet “no” to ethics standard in psychiatry’, p. 6. Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (1980), News Bulletin on Psychiatric Abuse in the Soviet Union, No. 3, p. 14. (2 September 1977), ‘Psychiatry and political oppression’, The Times, p. 11. Merskey, H. (12 July 1983), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, Box 31, File 5, PRP. Wynn, Notes of a Non-Conspirator, p. 102. Bell, ‘Russia censured for state abuses of psychiatry’, p. 15. Wynn, Notes of a Non-Conspirator, p. 102. Bell, ‘Russia censured for state abuses of psychiatry’, p. 15. Pick, H. (1 September 1977), ‘Defector on Soviet mental abuse’, The Guardian, p. 5. ‘Psychiatry and political oppression’, p. 11. Bell, ‘Russia censured for state abuses of psychiatry’, p. 15. News Bulletin on Psychiatric Abuse in the Soviet Union, No. 3, p. 14. (November 2010), ‘Soviets left WPA under expulsion threat’, Psychiatric News, Vol. 45, No. 22, p. 11. See Van Voren, R. (2010), Cold War in Psychiatry: Human Factors, Secret Actors, New York: Rodopi, pp. 198–223; and Scammell, M. (12 March 1980), ‘Psychiatric watchdogs face Russian pressure’, The Times, p. 7. News Bulletin on Psychiatric Abuse in the Soviet Union, No. 3, p. 14; and Van Voren, Cold War in Psychiatry, p. 202. Van Voren, Cold War in Psychiatry, p. 201. For more on the complex foundation of the WPA Review Committee, see Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 111–133. World Psychiatric Association (June 1978), ‘Declaration of Hawaii’, Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 71. Jenkins, J. (24 February 2004), ‘Obituary: Peter Sainsbury’, The Guardian, available at http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries; and Rathod, R. (2004), ‘Peter Sainsbury’, British Medical Journal, No. 328. SCPAP Minutes (26 July 1978), SCOUPP. Ibid. The two initial representatives from the Public Policy Committee were Philip Henry Connell and Sidney Levine. Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 135–136. SCPAP Minutes (26 July 1978), SCOUPP. Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 142–143. Ibid., p. 123. For examples of this correspondence see Berner, P. (15 February 1983), ‘Letter to Royal College of Psychiatrists’, SCOUPP; Rawnsley, K. (13 December 1982), ‘Letter to Professor Berner, WPA Review Committee’, SCOUPP; WPA Review Committee (October 1981), ‘Letter to Royal College of Psychiatrists, SCOUPP; Gosselin, J. (30 January 1981), ‘Letter to Professor Pond’, SCOUPP. Levine, S. (1981), ‘The special committee on the political abuse of psychiatry’, Psychiatric Bulletin, Vol. 5, p. 94. SCPAP Minutes (26 July 1978), SCOUPP. Low-Beer, G. (7 July 1973), ‘Torture by psychiatry’, The Observer, p. 10. Low-Beer, ‘Sinister twist in psychiatry’, p. 12.

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108 Watkins, L., et al. (26 November 1973), ‘Moscow’s voices of fear’, Daily Mail, pp. 20–21. 109 Low-Beer, G. (6 February 1975), ‘Bukovsky: act of betrayal’, The Guardian, p. 12. 110 Dicks, H., and Low-Beer, G. (1 March 1976), ‘Spiteful slanders and scientific truth in the Soviet Union’, The Guardian, p. 10. 111 Low-Beer, G. (14 July 1976), ‘Letter to Professor Linford Rees’, Box 31, File 5, PRP. 112 Chronicle No. 49, pp. 90–91. 113 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 136–140; and Chronicle No. 49, pp. 90–91. 114 (28 May 1978), ‘KGB’s “punitive medicine” probed’, The Observer, p. 8. 115 Chronicle No. 49, pp. 37–38. 116 Ibid. 117 (18 April 1978), ‘Visit banned’, The Guardian, p. 6; and Chronicle No. 51, p. 227. 118 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 136–137. 119 Taylor, J. (21 April 1978), ‘Dissident or disordered?’, The Guardian, p. 13. 120 ‘KGB’s “punitive medicine” probed’, p. 8. 121 (29 May 1978), ‘Tough talking is no danger to peace’, The Guardian, p. 10. 122 SCPAP Minutes (25 October 1978), SCOUPP. 123 SCPAP Minutes (14 November 1979), SCOUPP. 124 Sainsbury, P. (31 October 1980), ‘Letter to Professor Desmond Pond’, SCOUPP. 125 For examples of this correspondence see Manley, J. (15 May 1980), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’; Reddaway, P. (20 March 1980), ‘Letter to Jane Manley (Royal College Secretary); Reddaway, P. (19 February 1980), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’; and Sainsbury, P. (6 September 1979), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, all SCOUPP. 126 Reddaway, P. (14 March 1978), ‘Letter to Linford Rees’, SCOUPP. 127 Sainsbury, P. (20 November 1978), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, SCOUPP; and SCPAP Minutes (25 October 1979), SCOUPP. 128 Reddaway described Low-Beer as a ‘particularly good friend of mine’, and worked closely with Bloch in producing two books on the Soviet abuses. Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010. 129 Reddaway, P. (26 March 1979), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. 130 Ibid. 131 Reddaway, P. (20 August 1979), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. 132 Sainsbury, P. (6 September 1979), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, SCOUPP. 133 Berner, P. (7 October 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, SCOUPP. 134 For example, see Sainsbury, P. (8 April 1980), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, SCOUPP. 135 For example see Amnesty International (February 1978), ‘Recent information on Boris Fvdokimov, inmate of USSR psychiatric hospital’, SCOUPP; and Amnesty International (1 March 1978), ‘Psychiatric Abuses Document by Workers’ Group in the USSR’, SCOUPP. 136 Farquharson, M. (5 May 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. 137 Nussbaum, E. (15 September 1980), ‘Letter to Dr. Galla’, SCOUPP. 138 Galla, T. (22 September 1980), ‘Letter to Khadim Hussain’, SCOUPP; and Hussain, K. (3 October 1980), Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. 139 Nussbaum, E. (9 January 1981), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’; Nussbaum, E. (12 October 1981), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’; Sainsbury, P. (8 March 1982), ‘Letter to Enid Nussbaum’; Nussbaum, E. (17 March 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’; Nussbaum, E. (4 February 1983), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’; and Nussbaum, E. (24 October 1983), ‘Letter to SCPAP’, all SCOUPP.

204 140 141 142 143 144 145

146 147

148 149 150 151 152 153

154 155 156 157

158 159 160 161 162 163 164

165

Notes Nussbaum, E. (9 October 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. Golding, J. (24 September 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. Sainsbury, P. (9 October 1981), ‘Letter to Elena Moiseeva-Baranova’, SCOUPP. Nussbaum, E. (12 October 1981), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. Levine, ‘The Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry’, p. 94. CAPA (Date unknown, presumed late 1970s), ‘I’m Misha, Help me! – campaign leaflet’, CAPA Collection, IISG. Other supporters of CAPA’s work included Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Lord Bethell, Edward Crankshaw and Alan Sillitoe. Stoppard, T., (Spring 1977), ‘A meeting with Misha’, Straitjacket, p. 3, CAPA Collection, IISG. Nobile, P. (1 May 1978), ‘From lonely exile, Soviet Dissident Marina Voikhanskaya begs, “please give me back my son”’, People, Vol. 9, No. 17, available at http://www .people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20070731,00.html. CAPA (May 1979), ‘Newsletter’, CAPA Collection, IISG. (26 March 1979), ‘My son, my son’, Daily Express, p. 10. O’Flaherty, M., McCormick, J., and Masterman, S. (26 April 1979), ‘The cat’s whiskers’, Daily Express, pp. 24–25. Cummings, M. (27 April 1979), ‘Welcome! But you must be sure of a victory for Mrs Thatcher!’, Daily Express, p. 9. (3 May 1979), ‘Welcome for the new boy’, The Guardian, p. 3. For details of these events see CAPA (June/July 1978), ‘Newsletter’; CAPA (April/ May 1978), ‘Newsletter’; and CAPA (May 1979), ‘Newsletter’, all from CAPA Collection, IISG. CAPA (September 1978), ‘Newsletter’, CAPA Collection, IISG; and CAPA (February 1979), ‘Newsletter’, CAPA Collection, IISG. For details of this vigil see ‘CAPA Vigil December 10–December 25 1977’, CAPA Collection, IISG. CAPA (date unknown, presumed early 1980s), ‘New Year Cards for Prisoners of Conscience in Mental Hospitals’, CAPA Collection, IISG. Yeo, C. (1975), ‘The evidence’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 61; and Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 92–93, 184, 220–223, 227–229, 240 and 308–313. SCPAP Minutes (28 March 1979), SCOUPP; and Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 158–59. Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 158–59; and SCPAP Minutes (16 April 1980), SCOUPP. SCPAP Minutes (29 October 1980), SCOUPP. Ibid. Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp.158–159. Sainsbury, P. (8 April 1980), ‘Letter to Peter Reddaway’, SCOUPP. Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (15 May 1980), ‘Report on London Meetings on Soviet Psychiatric Abuse’, SCOUPP. Translated statements by Irina Grivnina, Yuri Yarym-Agayev, Lyudmila Ternovskyaya, Feliks Serebrov and 23 other citizens, and Serebrov, Sofia Kalistratova and Maria PetrenkoPodyapolskaya (jointly) were read at this public hearing. Alexander Voloshanovich was a Soviet psychiatrist who had emigrated from the Soviet Union and had been heavily involved with the Moscow ‘Working Commission’.

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166 Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (15 May 1980), ‘Report on London Meetings on Soviet Psychiatric Abuse’, SCOUPP. 167 (16 May 1980), ‘General Grigorenko tells of Soviet wave of arrests’, The Times, p. 7. 168 Rich, V. (22 May 1980), ‘Soviet psychiatry: mock trial in London’, Nature, Vol. 285. 169 Van Voren, (2009) On Dissidents and Madness: From the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev to the ‘Soviet Union’ of Vladimir Putin, New York: Rodopi, p. 44; and IAPUP (May 1981), Information Bulletin, No. 1 (English edition). The founding organizations that merged to form IAPUP were the Swiss Association against Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, the Working Group, the Committee of French Psychiatrists against the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, the German Association against Political Abuse of Psychiatry, and the International Podrabinek fund (Netherlands). 170 Jacob, L. (August 1982), ‘Letter to CAPA members and friends’, CAPA Collection, IISG. 171 Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 114. 172 Van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness, p. 63. 173 Ibid., p. 63. 174 Reddaway, P., and Forster, I. (June 1981), ‘Letter to Supporters of the Working Group’, SCOUPP. 175 IAPUP (October 1981), Information Bulletin, No. 2 (English edition), pp. 11–14. 176 Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 116. 177 IAPUP (June 1982), Information Bulletin, No. 4 (English edition), p. 7. 178 Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 105. 179 See IAPUP (March 1982), Information Bulletin, No. 3 (English edition); IAPUP (June 1982), Information Bulletin, No. 4 (English edition), p.7; and IAPUP (October 1982), Information Bulletin, No. 5 (English edition), p. 9. 180 Van Voren, ‘Abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR’, p. 499, and Van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness, p. 61. 181 SCPAP Minutes, (18 February 1981), SCOUPP. 182 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 171–172. 183 For example see Sainsbury, P. (13 April 1981), ‘Letter to Dr. Paradnov’, SCOUPP. 184 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 172–173. 185 Sainsbury, P. (6 January 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Berner’, SCOUPP. 186 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 173–178. 187 Rawnsley, K. (24 November 1981), ‘Letter to Peter Berner’, SCOUPP. 188 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, p. 178 189 Ibid., pp. 178–179. 190 Sainsbury, P., ‘Visit to Russian Embassy – 9 September 1981, Report to Special Committee on Political Abuse of Psychiatry’, SCPAP Minutes, (3 March 1982), SCOUPP. 191 Levine, S., ‘Memorandum on the Visit of Mr Ivanov 2nd Secretary to the Russian Embassy, on 27 April 1982’, SCPAP Minutes, (19 May 1982), SCOUPP. 192 SCPAP Minutes (19 May 1982), SCOUPP. 193 Reddaway, P. (11 July 1982), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. 194 Aarkrog, T. (9 December 1981), ‘Letter to Kenneth Rawnsley’, SCOUPP; and Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, pp. 183–187. 195 Van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness, p. 63. 196 Reddaway, P. (3 January 1983), ‘Russians facing solitary’, The Guardian, p. 5. 197 AUSNP (31 January 1983), ‘Letter to the Executive Committee of the WPA’, SCOUPP.

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198 Van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness, p. 63. 199 Bloch and Reddaway, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse, p. 197. 200 Hewson, D. (10 February 1983), ‘Russia quits world psychiatric body to avoid expulsion’, The Times, p. 6; Owen, R. (12 February 1983), ‘Russia confirms it has left psychiatric body’, The Times, p. 4; and Reddaway, P. (13 February 1983), ‘Why Russia quit psychiatric body’, The Observer, p. 14. 201 Wynn, Notes of a Non Conspirator, p. 121. 202 Wynn, A. (19 February 1983), ‘The Soviet Union and the world psychiatric association’ The Lancet, pp. 406–408. 203 SCPAP Minutes (24 February 1983), SCOUPP.

Chapter 3 1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19

Windsor, J. (1 May 1972), ‘Putting hope on the line’, The Guardian, p. 13. Windsor, ‘Putting hope on the line’, p. 13. (Date unknown, presumed 1981) ‘The First Ten Years’, MS 254/1/3/2, Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, University of Southampton, Hartley Library Special Collections (hereafter WCSJA). Shcharansky, A. (1988), Fear No Evil. New York: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, p. xiv. Ida Nudel succinctly defined a refusenik as ‘a Jew who had been denied an exit visa’. Nudel, A Hand in the Darkness, p. 24. Gerlis, D. (1996), Those Wonderful Women in Black: The Story of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, London: Minerva Press, pp. 24–28; Rager was also known as Yitzhack I Rager, and also had a distinguished career in the Israeli military, media and politics. See (16 June 1997), ‘Paid Notice: Deaths RAGER, MAYOR YITZHACK I.’, The New York Times, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/16/classified /paid-notice-deaths-rager-mayor-yitzhack-i.html. For more details on Raiza Palatnik, see Chronicle No. 19, 20, pp. 230–232. Windsor, ‘Putting hope on the line’, p. 13. (3 May 1971), ‘Jewish women in protest’, The Guardian, p. 4. Craig, T. (5 March 1978), ‘The exodus of Mrs Gainsford’, The Observer, p. 26. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010; and Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, pp. 26–31. Gerlis notes that Gainsford purposely exaggerated the length of the protest from 24 to 35 hours in order to make a better story. ‘Jewish women in protest’, p. 4. Clark, E. (9 May 1971), ‘Woman’s message from jail’, The Observer, p. 5. Hilton, M. et al. (2013), The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs Shaped Modern Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 59. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 30. Ibid., p. 223. Barker, D. (29 March 1973), ‘Ingrid has a taste of prison’, The Guardian, p. 8. (15 November 1972), ‘200 Jews picket Libyan Embassy over terrorists’, The Times, p. 6. For a photograph of this event, see Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black photograph section between pp. 208–209. (5 June 1973), ‘Picture Gallery’, The Times, p. 2. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. This demonstration was also briefly reported, along with discussion of the history of the bolt croppers used, in (19 November 1973), ‘The Times Diary’, The Times, p. 14.

Notes 20 21 22 23

24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56

207

Kent, A. (19 November 1973), ‘A PC’s giant bolt-cutters end women’s chain gang protest at Russian art exhibition’, Daily Mail, p. 9. (13 June 1974), ‘Sex star at the Bolshoi’, Daily Mirror, p. 1. Young, R. (21 June 1974), ‘Dying Swan’, The Spectator, p. 25. Thompson, F. (10 June 1974), ‘Red carnations for the Bolshoi before they face up to the demo’, Daily Mail, p. 3; and Hall, M. (13 June 1974), ‘The toy gun demo’, Daily Mirror, p. 3. (20 February 1973), ‘Protestors stop Russian sale’, The Times, p. 1. Palmer, J., and Thompson, D. (29 October 1976), ‘The unwanted guest’, Daily Mirror, p. 5; Lyte, C. (2 November 1976), ‘Boris fumes over a gift’, Daily Mirror, p. 10; and (2 November 1976), ‘Boris in scene at the House’, Daily Mail, p. 2. (3 November 1976), ‘Marx’s “ghost” in protest to Mr Ponomaryov’, The Times p. 2; and (3 November 1976), ‘The Haunting of Red Boris’, Daily Mirror, p. 5. Stuart, M. (11 February 1972), ‘Katia’s day of decision’, The Guardian, p. 4. Barker, D. (13 January 1973), ‘Raiza’s Freedom Ride’, The Guardian, p. 13. Merskey, H. (19 March 1975), ‘Letter to Doreen Gainsford’, MS 254/1/3/4, WCSJA. (6 July 1973), ‘Attempt to throw letters at Soviet diplomat’, The Times, p. 5. (15 February 1977), ‘Russians reject petition on Jews’, Daily Mail, p. 17. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Simpson, J. (12 September 1994), ‘Letter to the 35’s’, MS 254/1/3/9, WCSJA. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Ibid. Ibid. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 181. (3 April 1975), ‘The Retreat to Moscow’, Daily Mail, p. 1. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Letter from Margaret Thatcher to Doreen Gainsford, 10 February 1978, MS 254/1/1/31 WCSJA. Craig, ‘The exodus of Mrs Gainsford’. LBC/IRN (8 November 1978), ‘Barbara Oberman on decision to emigrate’, available at http://bufvc.ac.uk/tvandradio/lbc/index.php/segment/0013300399010. Craig, ‘The exodus of Mrs Gainsford’, p. 26. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 39. Ibid., pp. 54–58. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, pp. 54–56. 35’s Circular (8 December 1981), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 35’s Circular (8 December 1981), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 54. Ibid., p. 41. Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, pp. 218–222; Admin files of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, MS 254/1/3/1, and MS 254/1/3/2, WCSJA. For details of regional 35’s activity, see MS 254/1/3/1, WCSJA, which contains details of regional and overseas 35’s groups. For an example of regional activism, see MS 254/1/3/10, WCSJA, which contains calendars produced by the Leeds 35’s, listing the birthdays of a number of refuseniks. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010.

208

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57 35’s Circular (5 June 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 4; 35’s Circular (22 April 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 4; and 35’s Circular (8 January 1980) Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3. 58 35’s Circular (2 January 1979) Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3; 35’s Circular (24 April 1979) Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3; and 35’s Circular (1 May 1979) Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 11. 59 See Leeds 35’s Group Calendars from 1981 to 1985, MS 254/1/3/10, WCSJA. 60 (June 1988), ‘International contacts’, MS 254/1/4/1, WCSJA. 61 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 43. 62 35’s Circular (27 June 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP. 63 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010. 64 A collection of the 35’s circular is available from June 1978 through to December 1985 in Box 25, PRP. 65 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010. 66 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 39. 67 (Date unknown – presumed 1981), ‘The First Ten Years’, MS 254/1/3/2, WCSJA. 68 35’s Circular (11 September 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. 69 35’s Circular (17 July 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 2. Emphasis from original. 70 (2 August 1978), ‘The Moscow Olympics’, The Times, p. 15. 71 Eker, R. (23 October 1979), ‘Shadow over the Olympics’, The Guardian, p. 16. 72 35’s Circular (15 August 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1; and 35’s Circular (19 September 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. 73 35’s Circular (15 January 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1; and 35’s Circular (11 September 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. 74 35’s Circular (25 September 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3. 75 35’s Circular (8 July 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, pp. 1–3. 76 35’s Circular (15 July 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 2. 77 Jeffreys, K. (2012), ‘Britain and the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics’, Sport in History, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 279–301. 78 Eker, R., and Rigal, M. (19 July 1980), ‘Refuseniks’ Olympiad’, The Guardian, p. 6. 79 35’s Circular (22 July 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 4. 80 35’s Circular (5 August 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. Emphasis from original. 81 35’s Circular (16 December 1980), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 2. 82 (20 April 1983), ‘Moscow trip to arrange a new show’, Daily Mail, p. 11. 83 (28 March 1983), ‘New group joins fight to show the “other” Russia’, Daily Mail, p. 9; and (10 November 1983), ‘Soviet Jewry Group to Answer Back’, Daily Mail, p. 11. The Daily Mail also ran a campaign against the exhibition, including a series of articles against the event taking place. See Bethell, N. (29 June 1983), ‘The truth Red Ken won’t let you see’, Daily Mail, p. 6; and (2 April 1983), ‘New bid to beat Soviet show hitch’, Daily Mail, p. 11. 84 Doran, A. (20 February 1984), ‘GLC says sorry for Russian show’, Daily Mail, p. 9. 85 (15 May 1984), ‘News in Brief ’, The Guardian, p. 1. 86 Gillard, D. (17 May 1984), ‘Demo battle halts Soviet ballet’, Daily Mail; and (17 May 1984), ‘Demonstrators disrupt visiting Moscow ballet’, The Times, p. 32. See also 35’s Circular (22 May 1984), Box 25, File 4, PRP, p. 2. 87 Mac (18 May 1984), ‘Looks as if they’re expecting another demo’, Daily Mail, p. 19. 88 35’s Circular (22 May 1984) No. 33, Box 25, File 4, PRP. 89 Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. 90 Ibid. 91 35’s Circular (27 March 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 4. Emphasis from original. 92 35’s Circular (10 May 1983), Box 25, File 4, PRP, p. 6.

Notes 93 94 95 96

97

98

99

100 101

102

103

104

105 106 107 108 109 110

209

Adley, R. (13 July 1978), ‘Letter to Margaret Rigal’, MS 254/1/1/1, WCSJA. Rigal, M. (2 August 1978), ‘Letter to Robert Adley’, MS 254/1/1/1, WCSJA. See 35’s correspondence with the Parliamentary Wives for the Release of Soviet Jewry, MS 254/1/1/37, WCSJA. For details of this correspondence, see the extensive collection of correspondence with MPs and members of the House of Lords available in MS 254/1/1/1–MS 254/1/1/50, WCSJA. Hansard, House of Lords (29 June 1977), Vol. 384, cc 1212–1214, available at http:// hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1977/jun/29/yugoslavia-expulsion -of-british-citizens#S5LV0384P0_19770629_LWA_6. For more details of this case see Anderson, D., and MacDonald, I. (16 June 1977), ‘Get out of town!’, Daily Mail, p. 4. Hansard, House of Commons (28 June 1978), Vol. 952, cc1378-80, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1978/jun/28/dr-yuri -orlov#S5CV0952P0_19780628_HOC_78. For details of these references, see USSR (Exit Visas), Hansard, House of Commons (28 July 1976) Vol. 916 cc627-31, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com /commons/1976/jul/28/ussr-exit-visas#S5CV0916P1_19760728_HOC_38;USSR (Trials) Hansard, House of Commons (3 July 1978), Vol. 953, cc83-4W, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1978 /jul/03/ussr-trials#S5CV0953P0_19780703_CWA_383; Engagements, Hansard, House of Commons (8 December 1981) Vol. 14, cc719-24, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/dec/08 /engagements#S6CV0014P0_19811208_HOC_143; and Ida Nudel, Hansard, House of Commons (7 December 1983) Vol. 50, cc307-8, available at http://hansard .millbanksystems.com/commons/1983/dec/07/ida-nudel#S6CV0050P0_19831207 _HOC_46. This appears to be a typing error in Hansard, referring to the refusenik Iosif Begun. Hansard, House of Commons (11 May 1983), Vol. 42, c317W, available at http:// hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1983/may/11/soviet-union-human -rights#S6CV0042P0_19830511_CWA_172. See 35’s doc. (11 February 1986), ‘Release of Shcharansky’, MS 254/1/3/23, WCSJA; Sherbourne, M. (28 June 1977), ‘THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION SHEET. IT IS AN ACCUSATION’, MS 254/1/3/9, WCSJA; and 35’s doc. ‘Draft of Albert Hall Leaflet’, MS 254/1/3/46, WCSJA. Computer Sales Policy and TASS Agency, Hansard, House of Lords (30 November 1978), Vol. 396, cc1400-5, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com /lords/1978/nov/30/computer-sales-policy-and-tass-agency#S5LV0396P0_19781130 _HOL_22; and 35’s Circular (27 November 1978) Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 6. Olympic Games, Hansard, House of Commons (17 March 1980), Vol. 981, cc31-168, available at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1980/mar/17/olympic -games#S5CV0981P0_19800317_HOC_362. Boobbyer, ‘Vladimir Bukovskii and Soviet Communism’, p. 465. Thatcher, M. (1993), The Downing Street Years, London: HarperCollins, p. 452. Ratushinskaya refers to Irina Ratushinskaya, a dissident and poet. Ibid., p. 460. Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. For example ‘Correspondence with Margaret Thatcher’, MS 254/1/1/29, WCSJA. Thatcher, M. (2 August 1982), ‘Letter to Rita Eker’, MS 254/1/1/31, WCSJA.

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111 Eker, R., and Rigal, M. (13 December 1984), ‘Letter to Margaret Thatcher’, MS 254/1/1/30, WCSJA. Other attempts to deliver petitions to leading members of the Soviet authorities had been successful, but were infrequent. See Simpson, J. (24 November 1990), ‘Gulag prisoner’, The Times, p. 13. 112 (14 December 1984), ‘Home news’, The Guardian, p. 4. 113 (5 January 1989), ‘Thatcher shifts on human rights’, The Times, p. 1. 114 Eker, R. (18 March 1992), ‘Letter from Rita Eker to Margaret Thatcher’, MS 254/1/1/31, WCSJA. 115 (29 April 1985), ‘Refuseniks’s jail transfer’, The Times, p. 8; and (28 November 1985), ‘The Waitnik Test’, The Times, p. 13. For other examples of this, see (6 January 1989), ‘Romania throws Vienna security talks into turmoil’, The Times, p. 8; and (21 April 1989), ‘Georgia mirrors the power tussle between old and new’, The Times, p. 10. 116 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. See also Dietsch, J. (2006), Making Sense of Suffering: Holocaust and Holodomor in Ukrainian Culture, Lund: Lund University Press. 117 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 19; interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 123 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. For more details of this, see Frumkin, S. (1993), ‘A hero for our Seder: Michael Sherbourne’, available at http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/soviet_jews_exodus/English/WhoHelped_s /WhoHelpedSherbourne.shtml. 124 A few examples of the misuse of ‘refusenik’ in the recent British press: ‘[Theo Walcott] found himself the target for some supporters who, unhappy with the general malaise at Arsenal then, focused their anger on the contract refusenik’ – Wallace, S. (7 January 2014), ‘Why Arsenal’s Theo Walcott can bounce back from injury and World Cup 2014 heartache’, Evening Standard, 7 January 2014; (23 December 2013), ‘Why you should never date a Christmas refusenik’, Huffington Post, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/the-guyliner/christmas -dating_b_4488394.html; ‘Microsoft has also finally relented on a long-standing refusenik position and brought its Office Mobile software to the iPhone’; Price, D. (2 July 2013), ‘Apple and Microsoft: the new tech coalition’, Macworld, available at http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-business/news/?newsid=3455743; ‘If Ono was made famous by writing YES on a ceiling in London’s Indica Gallery in 1966, her very name is refusenik: ONO. Tensile strands of feminist and environmentalist activism run through her programme, not least the timely focus on Pussy Riot, two of whom still languish in Russian detention camps.’ – Empire, K. (23 June 2013), ‘Yoko Ono’s Meltdown – review’, The Guardian. 125 (16 July 1971), ‘Police break up Soviet Jews’ sit-in’, The Times, p. 6. 126 Sherbourne, M. (13 January 1978), ‘Translation of “A. Podrabinek, Open Letter” ’, Box 38, file 1, PRP. 127 35’s Circular (2 April 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 6. 128 Beckerman, When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone, pp. 355–356. 129 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 39. 130 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011.

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131 Beckerman, When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone, p. 356 132 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 133 See Easterman, D. (24 December 2013), ‘Sharansky gives Jewish Agency award to Michael Sherbourne’, The Jewish Chronicle Online, available at http://www.thejc.com /news/uk-news/114315/video-update-sharansky-pays-moving-tribute-uk-man-who -aided-refusniks. 134 Nudel, A Hand in the Darkness, p. 94. 135 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 136 Ibid. 137 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, pp. 20–21. 138 Elgot, J. (27 September 2011), ‘Cable Street memories: the day that every horse went down’, The Jewish Chronicle Online, available at http://www.thejc.com/news /uk-news/55464/cable-street-memories-the-day-every-horse-went-down (accessed 1 July 2015). 139 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 140 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 18. 141 Sherbourne, ‘THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION SHEET’. Emphasis from original. 142 (16 July 1971), ‘Police break up Soviet Jews’ sit-in’. 143 Nathans, B. (2014), ‘The disenchantment of socialism: Soviet dissidents, human rights and the new global morality’, in Eckel, J., and Moyn, S. (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 36. 144 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. 145 (16 July 1971), ‘Police break up Soviet Jews’ sit-in’. 146 Interview with Michael Sherbourne, 9 May 2011. Sherbourne recalled that this event took place in either 1971 or 1972. 147 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 20. 148 For an example of these articles see Levin, B. (15 January 1981), ‘Try a logical phone call to Moscow’, The Times, p. 14; and Levin, B. (3 July 1975), ‘Will British psychiatrists take actions against the torturers of the Soviet Union?’, The Times, p. 14. 149 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 June 2010. 150 Sherbourne, ‘THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION SHEET’. In the original, this section is in block capitals. It has been reproduced in lowercase to aid readability. 151 Windsor, ‘Putting hope on the line’, p. 13. 152 Eker, R., and Rigal, M. (3 April 1981), ‘Persecution in Russia’, The Spectator, p. 18. 153 Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. Viktor’s surname is unknown. 154 See 35’s photographs of meetings with refuseniks, MS 254/4/1-18, WCSJA. 155 35’s Circular (15 May 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3. 156 Gerlis, Those Wonderful Women in Black, p. 45. 157 Lambroza, S. (October 1987), ‘The Tsarist government and the pogroms of 1903–06’, Modern Judaism, Vol. 7, No. 3, p. 287. 158 Interview with George and Margaret Rigal, 25 February 2010. 159 Letter from Doreen Gainsford to Margaret Thatcher dared 9 February 1978, MS 254/1/1/31 WCSJA. 160 LBC/IRN (8 November 1978), ‘Barbara Oberman on decision to emigrate’. 161 35’s Circular (12 September 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 2. 162 35’s Circular (19 September 1978), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 4. 163 35’s Circular (2 April 1979), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 3.

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164 35’s Circular (19 April 1983), Box 25, File 3, PRP, p. 1. 165 Sherbourne, ‘THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION SHEET’. Block capitals and underlining by Sherbourne replicated in this quotation to show emphasis. Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French Army who in 1894 was convicted on dubious evidence of spying for Prussia. This case exposed widespread anti-Semitism within French society and led to the official separation of Church and State. See Schultheiss, K. (June 2012), ‘The Dreyfus affair and history’, Journal of the Historical Society, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 189–203. Mendel Beilis was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy in 1911. The charges against Beilis were later dismissed, and they were clearly fabricated. See Weinberg, R. (2014), Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder of Mendel Beilis, Bloomington: Indian University Press. In July 1976, Israeli soldiers rescued a group of hostages held by pro-Palestinian hijackers at Entebbe airport in Uganda. For details of this raid, see Berg, R. (2 July 2006), ‘Recollections of Entebbe, 30 years on’, BBC News Online, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5101412.stm. 166 Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, p. viii. 167 Neier, A. (2012), The International Human Rights Movement: A History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 53. 168 Daniel Cohen, G. (2012), ‘The Holocaust and the “human rights revolution”: a reassessment’, in Iriye, A., Goedde, P., and Hitchcock, W. I. (eds.), The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 55. 169 Volkogonov, D. (1999), The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: Political Leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, London: HarperCollins, p. 110 170 Simpson, ‘Letter to the 35’s’.

Chapter 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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9 10

Bourdeaux, M. (1987), Risen Indeed: Lessons in Faith from the USSR, Purley : Darton, Longman and Todd, p. 2. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010; and Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, pp. 1–3. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. See Keeble, C. (1990), Britain and the Soviet Union, 1917–1989, London: Macmillan, pp. 258–260. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. For more on dissent in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, see Hornsby, Protest, Reform and Repression in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. For more on French’s academic career see ‘Tony French, 1929–2012’, available at http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/news/news-archive-2012 /november-2012/death-of-tony-french. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010; and Zorza, V. (30 May 1970), ‘A spy story – Soviet style’, The Guardian, p. 1. For more on Boris Pasternak and the publication of Doctor Zhivago, see Finn and Couvée, The Zhivago Affair. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. Bourdeaux, M. (2009), ‘Ringing the Changes, Keston at Forty (1969–2009)’, Keston Newsletter, p. 2; and Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010.

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11 Solzhenitsyn, A. (1963), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, London: Victor Gollancz; and Service, R. (2003), A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin, pp. 368–370. For more on Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaigns, see Davis, N. (1991), ‘The number of Orthodox Churches before and after the Khrushchev antireligious Drive’, Slavic Review Vol. 50, No. 3; Delaney Grossman, J. (1973), ‘Khrushchev’s anti-religious policy and the campaign of 1954’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 374–386; Ellis, J. (1986), The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History, London: Croon Helm; Stone, A. B. (2008), ‘“Overcoming peasant backwardness”: the Khrushchev antireligious campaign and the rural Soviet Union’, The Russian Review, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 296–320. 12 For more on the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War see Merritt Miner, S. (2003), Stalin’s Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 13 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. 14 Bourdeaux, M. (29 January 1961), ‘Russia’s Young Christians’, The Observer, p. 25. 15 Russian Orthodox Cleric (5 February 1961), ‘Russian Christians’, The Observer, p. 22. 16 Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, pp. 5–6. 17 Ibid., p. 6. 18 Keston College … The First 20 Years Keston College Archive, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA (hereafter Baylor), pp. 2–3; and Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, p. 9. 19 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010; and Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, p. 6. 20 See Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010 and Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 2. 21 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. 22 Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, pp. 4–5. 23 Bourdeaux, M. (1965), Opium of the People: The Christian religion in the USSR, London: Faber and Faber. 24 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. 25 (4 June 1965), ‘Summary of the News’, Church Times, p. 3. 26 See Bourdeaux, M. (18 June 1965), ‘Commandeering and closure of the Russian churches: testimony of a monk’, Church Times, pp. 8–9. 27 (9 July 1965), ‘Letters to the Editor’, Church Times, p. 12. 28 Pospielovsky, D. (1966), ‘Reviewed work: Opium of the People by Michael Bourdeaux’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 514–515. 29 Crankshaw, E. (18 July 1965), ‘Looking for God in Russia’, The Observer, p. 23. 30 Alexandrov, Y. (2 December 1966), ‘Baptists in Russia’, The Times, p. 5. 31 Extract from Chapter 9 of Bourdeaux’s unpublished memoirs, sent to author in January 2014. 32 Ibid. 33 Interview with Xenia Dennen, 21 May 2010; and Keston doc. (Date unknown, presumed 1989), Keston College … The First 20 Years, Baylor, p. 3. 34 In order to maintain readability, this chapter will refer to Howard-Johnston as Dennen throughout. 35 Extract from chapter 9 of Bourdeaux’s unpublished memoirs, sent to author in January 2014. 36 For more on the Congress for Cultural Freedom see Saunders, F. S. (1999), Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, London: Granta Books. 37 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010.

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38 Keston doc. (Date unknown, presumed mid-2000s), ‘Keston Institute publicity leaflet’, author’s collection. 39 Keston College … The First 20 Years, p. 1 40 Burden, G. (12 January 1972), ‘Church war secrets leak out’, Daily Mail, p. 4. 41 For more on the case of Aida Skripnikova see Bourdeaux, M., and Howard-Johnston, X. (1972), Aida of Leningrad: The Story of Aida Skripnikova, Oxford: Mowbrays. For details on Keston’s archive see Keston Institute, ‘Archive and Library’, available at http://www.keston.org.uk/archive.php, and a catalogue of the collection held at Baylor University at http://www.baylor.edu/kestoncenter/index.php?id=54192. 42 See Bourdeaux, M. (2007), ‘To Lithuania with Love’, Keston Newsletter, No. 4; and Dennen, X. (23 May 2013), ‘The KGB’s Bête Noire’, Public lecture given at Gresham College. Transcript available at http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the -kgbs-b%C3%AAte-noire, p. 4. 43 Bourdeaux, M. (2008), ‘The Price of Freedom: The Church’, Lituanus, Vol. 54, No. 1, available at http://www.lituanus.org/2008/08_1_01-c%20Bourdeaux.htm. For an English translation of this document, along with a copy of the letter written to Michael Bourdeaux asking for the return of the Memorandum, written by Anthony Packer the Honorary Consul for Lithuania in Wales, see Keston (2007), ‘Lithuania Petition returns to Kaunas’, Keston Newsletter, No. 3. For an overview of the Memorandum, see Bourdeaux, M. (7 July 2007), ‘The Voices the KGB failed to silence’, The Times, p. 67. 44 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 2. 45 Ibid. 46 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 2. 47 Matchett, K., ‘Recent Events in the Lithuanian Catholic Church’; Murray, K., ‘The Council of Baptist Prisoners’ Relatives: 1964–1972’; Documents: Atheist Education (Pravda 15 September, 1972); Documents: The Teaching of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk; and Documents: A Christmas Message from the Russian Baptists, all from (1973) Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1. 48 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 2–3. 49 Ibid., p. 3. 50 Wurmbrand, R. (1967), Tortured for Christ, Bartlesville: Living Sacrifice Book Company. 51 Fahy, P. (1974), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 1; and Keston College … The First 20 Years, p. 4. 52 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 2. 53 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 29. 54 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 4+5, p. 57. 55 Fahy, P. (1974), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 22. 56 Bourdeaux, ‘Ringing the Changes, Keston at Forty (1969–2009)’. 57 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 4+5, p. 57; and Keston College … The First 20 Years, p.5.

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58 Bourdeaux, M. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 54–55. ‘Keston College’ is referred to in Religion in Communist Lands from 1974 onwards, shortly after the organization moved into the old school buildings. See Fahy, P. (1974), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 4+5, p. 49. 59 Bourdeaux, M. (1974), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 6, p. 26. 60 Ibid. 61 Fahy, P. (1974), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 27. 62 Bourdeaux, M. (1975), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 1–3, p. 31, and Bourdeaux, M. (1975), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 4+5, p. 42. 63 Bourdeaux, M. (17 May 1974), ‘Editorial’, Keston News Service (hereafter KNS), No. 1 (Trial number), p. 2. 64 Ibid. 65 A complete list of the titles of all articles published in KNS from 17 May 1974 through to 24 December 1984 is available from the author on request. 66 Bourdeaux, M. (17 May 1974), ‘Editorial’, KNS, No. 1 (Trial number), p. 2. 67 Interview with Philip Walters, 19 May 2010. 68 Reddaway, P. (1975) ‘The Georgian Orthodox Church: Corruption and Renewal’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 4–5. Coverage of the debate between Reddaway and Lang, which mainly occurred in The Times can be found in Editorial (1975), ‘The Georgian Church: A Controversy’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 6. 69 Lang, D. (11 August 1975) ‘Church of Soviet Georgia’, The Times, p. 11. 70 Reddaway, P. (16 August 1975), ‘Church of Soviet Georgia’, The Times, p. 16. 71 Lang, D. (21 August 1975), ‘Church of Soviet Georgia’, The Times, p. 13. 72 Longley, C. (15 March 1976), ‘New evidence in Georgian church affair’, The Times, p. 14. 73 Bourdeaux, M. (1973), ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 4. 74 Bourdeaux, M. (1975), ‘Director’s Visit to Russia’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 1–3, pp. 33–35. 75 Ibid., pp. 33–35. 76 Interview with Xenia Dennen, 21 May 2010. 77 Ibid. 78 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. 79 Ibid. 80 Interview with Xenia Dennen, 21 May 2010. 81 For example, see Bourdeaux, M. (1974), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 2, No. 6; Bourdeaux, M. (1975), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 4–5; and Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 2. 82 Bourdeaux, M. (1976), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 51. 83 Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. 84 Bourdeaux, M. (1976), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 52.

216 85 86 87

88 89

90 91

92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

105

Notes Dunn, D. (1977), The Catholic Church and the Soviet Government, 1939–1949, New York: Columbia University Press. Bourdeaux, M. (1975), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 3, No. 6, p. 55. Levin, B. (20 February 1976), ‘Christian voices in the Soviet wilderness’, The Times, p. 14. Also see Vins, G. (1976), Three Generations of Suffering, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Hickman, B. (8 July 1976), ‘Tougher life for Soviet believer’, The Guardian, p. 5. See Levin, B. (2 August 1977), ‘A revolution in the territory of the mind that even Soviet might cannot stop’, The Times, p. 10; Levin, B. (3 August 1977), ‘Why the rulers of the Soviet Empire dare not move to crush the opposition from within’, The Times, p. 14; and Levin, B. (5 August 1977), ‘The fuse of revolution is laid, now only the match is needed’, The Times, p. 12. Levin, ‘The fuse of revolution is laid, now only the match is needed’. For example, see (10 August 1976), ‘Study on religious freedom seeks Soviet law reform’, The Times, p. 5; (14 December 1976), ‘Russian faith’, The Guardian, p. 7; Beeson, T. (19 September 1978), ‘Dr Lucjan Blit’, The Times, p. 19; Steele, J. (20 November 1979), ‘Churches are seen but not heard’, The Guardian, p. 21; Todd, R. (9 April 1980), ‘Olga’s a boozing bride’, Daily Mirror, p. 5; and Mark, R. (6 January 1982), ‘Reagan warns of Poland backlash’, Daily Express, p. 8. Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 193; and (27 May 1977), ‘Long Live the Snowdrops’, KNS, No. 39, p. 4. For details of this, see Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 193; Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 267; Rowe, M. (1979), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 55; and Tidball, B. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 142. Hickman, B., Simmons, M., and Pick, H. (17 October 1978), ‘Cardinals turn to Poland for new Pope’, The Guardian, p. 1. Tidball, B. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 141. (7 February 1980), ‘For your information’, KNS, No. 91, p. 5; and Tidball, B. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 142. Bourdeaux, M. (1976), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 51. ‘Reading and processing of Soviet samizdat documents and publications’, March 1977, Baylor, p. 1. Ibid., p. 2. Ibid., Appendix – ‘Research Department Structure’. Minutes of Council of Management Meeting (25 November 1976), Keston Minutes, Baylor. Radford, T. (5 August 1997), ‘Know thine enemy’, The Guardian, p. 22. Interview with Xenia Dennen, 21 May 2010. ‘Reading and processing of Soviet samizdat documents and publications’, March 1977, Baylor, Appendix – ‘Research Department Structure’; and Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. Bourdeaux, M. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 266–267.

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106 Tidball, B. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 1, p. 41. 107 Tidball, B. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 2, p. 131. 108 Tidball, B. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 2, p. 131; Keston College … The First 20 Years, p. 7. 109 Tidball, B. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 1, p. 41. 110 Keston College (25 January 1979), ‘Minutes of Finance and General Purposes Committee’, Baylor. 111 Tidball, B. (1979), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 7, No. 4, p. 264. 112 Bourdeaux, M. (1978), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 6, No. 4, p. 266. 113 Bourdeaux, M. (1979), Land of Crosses: Struggle for Religious Freedom in Lithuania, 1939–1978, London: Augustine. 114 Bourdeaux, M. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 54–55. 115 Paton, D. M. (18 January 1980), ‘Heroic faith’, Church Times, p. 7. 116 Bourdeaux, M. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 318. 117 Bourdeaux, M. (1980), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 233. 118 Bourdeaux, M. (1981), ‘Letter from the Director’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 1–2, pp. 2–3. 119 Howard-Johnston, X. (1981), ‘Editorial’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 1–2, p. 5. 120 Ellis, J. (1981), ‘Editorial’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 3–4, pp. 90–91. 121 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 3–4, p. 146. 122 Bourdeaux, M. (1981), ‘Letter from the Director’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 1–2, pp. 2–3. 123 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 9, No. 3–4, pp. 146–147. 124 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 120. 125 Ibid. 126 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 1, p. 119; and Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 2, p. 239. 127 Tomsky, A. (1982), Catholic Poland, Keston: Keston College. 128 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 359–360. 129 Bourdeaux, M. (1982), ‘International Department’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 2, p. 240. 130 Walters, P. (1982), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 359–360. 131 Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, pp. 450–452. 132 Ibid., p. 451. Emphasis from original.

218 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142

143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

Notes Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, p. 451. Ibid., p. 452. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. For more details about the Templeton Prize, see http://www.templetonprize.org /abouttheprize.html. (2 March 1984), ‘Templeton Prize for Bourdeaux’, Church Times, p. 1. (19 March 1984), ‘The Hammer and the Cross’, The Times, p. 13. (21 April 1984), ‘To believe is to suffer: the plight of Christians under communism’, The Times, p. 8. (17 May 1984), ‘Prime Minister attends Keston Reception’, KNS, No. 199, p. 4. The role played by the WCC in the Cold War has been discussed at length by a number of scholars. For example, see Linn, G. (1997), ‘The World Council of Churches and the Churches in Eastern Europe’, Religion, State & Society, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 69–72; and Vischer, L. (1997), ‘The World Council of Churches and the churches in Eastern Europe during the time of the communist regimes: a first attempt at an assessment’, Religion, State & Society, Vol. 25, No. 1. Bourdeaux, M. (1985), ‘The Russian church, religious liberty and the World Council of Churches’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 26. Ibid. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. (2 November 1984), ‘WCC challenged to stop appeasing Soviet churches’, Church Times, p. 1. Ellis, J. (1985), ‘Editorial’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 1. Ibid., p. 1. Longley, C. (25 March 1985), ‘Unease on human rights issue’, The Times, p. 12. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 19 May 2010. Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 48. Bourdeaux, M. (1977), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 193. Interview with Michael Bourdeaux, 24 February 2010. Bourdeaux, Risen Indeed, p.1. The two events that Bourdeaux is referring to here are his placing on the Russian language course during National Service and his meeting with the two Ukrainian women in Moscow in 1964. Bourdeaux, M. (1973) ‘News from the Centre’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 2. Dennen, ‘The KGB’s Bête Noire’, p. 1. Runcie, R. (26 June 1981), ‘Letter to Rev. Bernard Tidball’, Baylor. Keston College Charity Commission report available at http://beta .charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=314103&subid=0. Interview with Xenia Dennen, 21 May 2010. Keston College (1987), Religious Prisoners in the USSR: A Study by Keston College, London: Greenfire, pp. 70–149. Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 154. Bourdeaux, M. (22 April 1983), ‘Some Personal Reflections’, KNS, No. 147. Bourdeaux, M. (1976), ‘News from Keston College’, Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 52.

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165 Gledhill, R. (24 August 1990), ‘Keston’s triumph is almost its undoing’, The Times, p. 12. 166 Stricker, G. and Sawatsky, W. (2003), ‘Postscript – Keston Institute in transition’, Religion in Eastern Europe, Vol. 23, No. 3, p. 6. 167 (1 July 1990), ‘Glasnost cuts cash to religion watchdog’, The Observer, p. 11. 168 Dennen, ‘The KGB’s Bête Noire’. 169 See (2006), ‘Home News’, Keston Newsletter, No. 1, p. 9; and interview with Philip Walters 19 May 2010. 170 For current details of the publication of Religion, State and Society see http://www .tandfonline.com/toc/crss20/current. 171 Radford, T. (5 August 1997), ‘Know thine enemy’, p. 22.

Chapter 5 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

Power, J. (2002), Like Water on Stone: The Story of Amnesty International, London: Penguin, pp. 119–120. Ibid., p. 120; and Benenson, P. (28 May 1961) ‘The forgotten prisoners’, The Observer, p. 23. Power, Like Water on Stone, p. 121. Buchanan, T., (2009) ‘Human rights campaigns in modern Britain’, in Crowson, N., Hilton, M., and McKay, J. (eds.), NGOs in Contemporary Britain: Non-State Actors in Society and Politics since 1945, Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, p. 121. For example, see https://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/. Buchanan, T. (2002), ‘“The truth will set you free”: the making of Amnesty International’, The Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 4, p. 587. Power, Like Water on Stone, pp. 120–121. Benenson, ‘The forgotten prisoners’. Hopgood, S. (2006), Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International, London: Cornell University Press, p. 56; Power, Like Water on Stone, p. 120. Power, Like Water on Stone, p. 125. For more on Amnesty’s involvement in supporting members of the Baader-Meinhoff group see Power, Like Water on Stone, pp. 182–190. For example, in the concluding comments of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels note ‘The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains’. Marx, K., and Engels, F. (2002), The Communist Manifesto, London: Penguin Classics, p. 258. Grigorenko, Memoirs, p. x. For more on the nomenklatura, see Djilas, M. (1957), The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System, London: Thames and Hudson. Amnesty doc. (September 1962), ‘Relief of the Persecuted 1962’ conference outline, and ‘Persecution in the Marxist-Leninist States, Summary of Lecture by Sean MacBride, 28th September 1962’, both Amnesty International Council Meeting (ICM) no. 3, [No Ref] Amnesty International Papers Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, (International Institute of Social History) Amsterdam, Netherlands (hereafter IISG).

220

Notes

16 Details of this meeting were later published in Amnesty International (1962), Personal Freedom in the Marxist-Leninist Countries London, Amnesty International Publications. 17 Benenson, P. (May 1964), ‘Communist “Prisoners of Conscience”’, Amnesty Indexed Documents no. 427, [POL 30/64] IISG. 18 Buchanan, T. (2004), ‘Amnesty International in crisis, 1966–7’, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 271–283. 19 Ibid., p. 275. 20 Ibid., pp. 275–276. 21 Ibid., p. 279. 22 For more on the Congress for Cultural Freedom see Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? 23 For criticism of Western-based human rights organizations, see Mutua, M. (2002), Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 24 Amnesty doc. (November 1975), ‘London – Positive and Negative’, IEC doc. 97, [ORG 06/IEC 75] IISG. 25 For more on the composition of Amnesty International see the ‘Statute of Amnesty International’ available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/accountability /statute-of-amnesty-international. 26 Power, Like Water on Stone, p. 135. 27 Ibid., p. 120. 28 Ibid., p. 134. 29 Plyushch, History’s Carnival, p. xvii and p. 324. 30 See Bukovsky, To Build a Castle; and Shcharansky, Fear No Evil, especially pp. 334–352. 31 Amnesty doc. (September 1966), ‘Committee II, Resolution 3, ICM no. 7, [No Ref] IISG; and Reddaway, P. (1972), Uncensored Russia, The Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 19. 32 Amnesty doc. (September 1966), ‘Committee II, Resolution 3’, ICM no. 7, [No Ref] IISG. 33 Amnesty doc. (1967), ‘Staff Salaries as at April 1967’, IEC doc. 40, [No Ref] IISG. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Amnesty doc. (1970), ‘The Present State and Future Development of the Research Department, Appendix A The Present Establishment’, IEC no. 50, [No Ref] IISG; Amnesty doc. (April 1971), ‘An outline of the staffing and work of the London Office’, IEC no. 52, [No Ref] IISG. Hilary Sternberg was also involved in the translation of several prominent dissident works into English, including Litvinov, P. (1972) The Trial of the Four: The Case of Galanskov, Ginzburg, Dobrovolsky and Lashkova, New York: Viking; Medvedev, Z. (1973), Ten Years After Ivan Denisovich, London: Macmillan; and Solzhenitsyn, A. (1974), Letter to Soviet Leaders, London: Index on Censorship. See also Scammell, M. (1973), ‘The Long View’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 26–27. 38 Amnesty doc. (September 1971), ‘International Council and Assembly Meeting 1971, Working Parties’, ICM doc. 11, [No Ref] IISG. 39 Amnesty doc. ‘Staff Salaries as at April 1967’. 40 Amnesty doc. (1971), ‘Amnesty International 1961–1971, Amnesty Research’, ICM no. 11, [No Ref] IISG.

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41 Cornwall, M. (11 August 2011), ‘Zbynek Zeman obituary’, The Guardian, available at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/11/zbynek-zeman-obituary ; and Zeman, Z. (1969), Prague Spring: A report on Czechoslovakia, London: Penguin. 42 Amnesty doc. (1970), ‘The Present State and Future Development of the Research Department’, 28–29 November, IEC no. 50, [No Ref] IISG. 43 Ibid. 44 Amnesty doc. ‘Amnesty International 1961–1971, Amnesty Research’. 45 Amnesty doc. ‘The Present State and Future Development of the Research Department’. 46 For more on this issue see Hopgood, S. (2013), The Endtimes of Human Rights, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 47 The Chronicle of Current Events is referred to as the Chronicle throughout. 48 ‘News in Brief ’, Chronicle No. 37, 38, 39, p. 143. 49 For more information on Gorbanevskaya, including extensive details on her incarceration in psychiatric institutions see Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals, pp. 127–147. 50 For example see Amalrik, A. (1970), Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? London: Allen Lane; and Solzhenitsyn, Letter to Soviet Leaders. 51 Rubenstein, J. (1980), Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle for Human Rights, London: Wildwood House, p. 100. 52 Reddaway, Uncensored Russia pp. 72–94 53 For example of this approach, see Levin, ‘Russia’s Political Asylums’. 54 As noted in Chronicle No. 25, 26, p. 50. 55 Szamuely, T. (21 July 1972), ‘The future of Soviet dissent’, The Spectator, p. 12. 56 Reddaway, Uncensored Russia p. 15. 57 Malia, M. (2000), Russia Under Western Eyes: From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum, London: Belknap, p. 394. 58 Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, especially pp. 12 – 63. 59 For more on this comparison, see Kelley, The Solzhenitsyn-Sakharov Dialogue. 60 For more on Tsarist censorship and Russian nonconformism see Aksyonov, V. (1982), ‘Looking for colour’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 4, p. 3. 61 Boobbyer, Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia, p. 85. 62 For more on the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church and other samizdat publications from Lithuania, see Sapiets, M. (1980), ‘Lithuania’s Unofficial Press’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.35–38. 63 Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, p. 132. 64 For more on the role of radio transmissions into the Soviet Union in this period see Nelson, M. (1997), War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War, London: Brassey’s. 65 Gorbanevskaya, N. (1977), ‘Writing for “Samizdat”’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 6, No. 1. 66 Labedz, L. (1 August 1969), ‘The strains of intellectual life in Russia; Why Soviet writers may think of leaving’, The Times, p. 6. For an excellent and concise account of the conditions that dissidents were subjected to in prison see Alexeyeva, L. (1982), ‘USSR: prisoners’ rights denied’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 31–32. 67 Chronicle No. 37, 38, 39, p. 144. Gorbanevskaya was released in February 1972. 68 Chronicle No. 28, 29, 30, 31, p. 8. 69 See Wishnevsky, J. (1984), ‘The trial of Yurii Shikhanovich’, Index on Censorship, Vol.13, No. 6, pp. 33–34. 70 Chronicle No. 49, p. 103.

222 71

Notes

Email to author from Peter Reddaway, 15 May 2013; and Interview with Peter Reddaway dated 5 July 2010. 72 Interview with Peter Reddaway dated 5 July 2010. 73 Email to author from Peter Reddaway dated 15 May 2013. 74 Chronicle No. 32, 33, p. 178. 75 Interview with Peter Reddaway dated 5 July 2010. 76 Ibid. 77 Amnesty International (1971), Amnesty International Annual Report 1970–1971, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 70. 78 Nathans, ‘The Disenchantment of Socialism’, p. 42. 79 Amnesty International Annual Report 1970–1971, p. 70. 80 Electronic copies of each edition of the Chronicle produced by Amnesty are available on the Library section of the International Secretariat’s website. See http://www .amnesty.org/en/library. Nathans has claimed that the first Amnesty translation of the Chronicle appeared in October 1970, whereas Amnesty note in later editions of the Chronicle that they began this practice in February 1971. See Nathans, ‘The Disenchantment of Socialism’, p. 42; and Chronicle, No. 62, preface. 81 Amnesty International Annual Report 1970–1971, p. 70. 82 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010. 83 Reddaway, Uncensored Russia. 84 Szamuely, ‘The future of Soviet dissent’, p. 12. 85 Interview with Peter Reddaway dated 5 July 2010. 86 Chronicle, No. 28, 29, 30, 31, p. 64. For more on the case of Superfin see Chronicle No. 32, 33, pp. 14–17, and 102. 87 Amnesty doc. (1973), ‘Staff list as at 1st January 1973’, IEC doc. 62, [ORG 61/IEC 73] IISG. 88 Zeman, Z. (19 January 1973), Letter to Eric Baker, IEC doc. 62, [No Ref] IISG. 89 Amnesty doc. (September 1973), ‘East European Research Post’, IEC doc. 71, [ORG63/IEC73] IISG. 90 Ibid. 91 Amnesty doc. (September 1973), ‘Soviet Human Rights Committee Sends Message to Amnesty International’, ICM no. 13, [No Ref] IISG. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Nathans, ‘The disenchantment of socialism’, p. 38. 95 Ibid., p. 41. 96 Orlov, Y. (1991), Dangerous Thoughts Memoirs of a Russian Life, New York: William Morrow and Company, p. 168. 97 Tverdokhlebov, A. (1975), ‘Two searches & four interrogations’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 4, No. 3, p. 56. For more details about the samizdat publication ‘Amnesty International’ see Chronicle, No. 28, 29, 30, 31, pp. 117–120. 98 (1975), Amnesty International Annual Report 1974–1975, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 14. 99 Chronicle, No. 34, 35, 36, p. 66. 100 Kowalewski, D. (1987), ‘The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’, in Donnelly, J., and Howard, R. (eds), International Handbook of Human Rights, Connecticut: Greenwood, p. 416; Amnesty doc. (18 October 1976), ‘Amnesty International asks Soviet Authorities to investigate harassment complaint from Moscow group member’, IDC fiche no. C4 [No Ref]; and email to author from Edward Kline, 29 May 2013.

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101 Amnesty doc. (18 October 1974), ‘Staff Departures’, IEC doc 86, [ORG 63/IEC74] IISG. For more details on Amnesty’s staffing in this period, see Amnesty doc. (1 November 1974), ‘Confidential, Amnesty International Salaries – International Secretariat’, IEC doc. 85, [FIN03/IEC74] IISG; and Amnesty doc. (4 November 1974), ‘Researcher on the USSR’, IEC doc. 86, [ORG63/IEC74] IISG. 102 Amnesty International Annual Report, 1974–1975, p. 144. 103 (1973), Amnesty International Annual Report 1972–1973, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 70; Chronicle No. 28, 29, 30, 31, p. 8; and Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective, p. 132. 104 Amnesty doc. (September 1974), ‘The Chronicle of Current Events, Note from Herbart Ruitenberg and George Siemensma’, ICM no. 15, [No Ref] IISG. 105 Amnesty doc. (1972), ‘Report and Decisions of the 5th International Council Meeting’, 8–10 September 1972, ICM doc. no. 26 [No Ref] IISG, p. 11 – see point 41 in particular. 106 Amnesty doc.‘The Chronicle of Current Events, Note from Herbart Ruitenberg and George Siemensma’. 107 Amnesty doc. (September 1974), ‘A Chronicle of Current Events’, ICM no. 15, [No Ref] IISG. 108 Ibid. Emphasis from original document. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 July 2010. 112 Amnesty International Annual Report 1974–1975, p. 34. 113 See Chronicle No. 28, 29, 30 and 31, p. 5. This paragraph continues ‘Yet Amnesty International continues to regard A Chronicle of Current Events as an authentic and reliable source of information on matters of direct concern to our own work for the worldwide observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’. 114 Amnesty doc. (July 1975), ‘Amnesty International’s publishing of A Chronicle of Current Events’, IEC doc. 94, [No Ref] IISG. 115 Amnesty International (1975), Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR, Their Treatment and Conditions (First Edition), London: Amnesty International Publications. 116 Ibid. For explicit details of this, see pp. 54–81. 117 Reddaway recalled conversations with Yeo in which he confirmed that he was effectively the sole author of Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR. Email to author from Peter Reddaway, 15 May 2013. 118 Grantham, M., and Yeo, C. (June 1976), ‘Resolution for Council – A Chronicle of Current Events’, IEC doc. 107, [ACT81/IEC76] IISG. Mark Grantham was involved with Amnesty’s publication department. 119 Levin, B. (18 November 1975), ‘In detail, Amnesty’s guide to the vileness of Russia’s camps’, The Times. 120 Levin, B. (19 November 1975), ‘Soviet resistance: A harsh catalogue of suffering’, The Times. 121 Amnesty International (1976), Amnesty International Annual Report 1975–1976, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. 10. 122 Chronicle, No. 40, 41, 42, pp. 154–156. 123 Amnesty International, Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR, Their Treatment and Conditions, p. 1. 124 Clark, A. M. (2001), Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 48.

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125 Ibid., p. 48. 126 See Amnesty doc. (7 February 1975), ‘Urgent Action Campaign – Death Penalty’, Urgent Action (UA) doc. 929, [No Ref] IISG; Amnesty doc. (5 August 1976), ‘Urgent Action: Prisoner in Bad Health Condition’, UA doc. 930, [UA 71/76] IISG; and Amnesty doc. (8 January 1982), ‘USSR: Ivan Svitlychny’, UA doc. 937, [EUR 46/02/82] IISG. 127 Amnesty doc. (15 June 1983), ‘USSR: Andrei Sakharov’, UA doc. 938, [EUR 46/19/83] IISG; and Amnesty doc. (25 November 1982), ‘USSR: Alexander Podrabinek’, UA doc. 937, [EUR 46/34/82] IISG. 128 Keys, B. (2012), ‘Anti-torture politics: Amnesty International, the Greek Junta, and the origins of the human rights “Boom” in the United States’, in Iriye, A., Goedde, P., and Hitchcock, W. I. (eds.) The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 203. 129 Amnesty doc. ‘The Chronicle of Current Events, Note from Herbart Ruitenberg and George Siemensma’. 130 Yeo, C. (June 1975), ‘Amnesty International’s publishing of A Chronicle of Current Events’, IEC no. 94, [No Ref] IISG. 131 Amnesty doc. (1975), ‘Report on a meeting with Soviet Lawyers at the Tenth Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), 6 April 1975, Algiers’, IEC doc. 91, [No Ref] IISG. 132 Grant, S. (July 1975), ‘Amnesty International’s Relations with Governments, Case Study: The Soviet Union’, IEC doc. 92, [No Ref] IISG. 133 Ibid. 134 Amnesty doc. ‘The Chronicle of Current Events, Note from Herbart Ruitenberg and George Siemensma’. 135 For examples of this see Power, Like Water on Stone pp. 165–181, and 252–280. 136 ‘Wrong Address, Gentlemen’, Pravda Ukrainy, 1 November 1970, quoted in Amnesty International (1973), Amnesty International in Quotes, London: Amnesty International Publications, p.15. 137 Orlov, Dangerous Thoughts, p. 168. 138 Ibid., p. 168. This assertion doubtless plays on Amnesty’s difficult period of 1966–1967. 139 Ibid., p. 168. Tverdokhlebov was also a member and cofounder of this group. 140 Ibid., p. 168. 141 A detailed account of the searches that Tverdokhlebov was subjected to at his questioning in Lefortovo can be found in Tverdokhlebov, ‘Two Searches & Four Interrogations’, p. 56; and Chronicle, No. 34, 35, 36, pp. 26–27. 142 For details of this arrest see Tverdokhlebov, ‘Two Searches & Four Interrogations’, p. 56; and Chronicle, no. 34, 35, 36, pp. 164–165. 143 For details of these joint raids, and the protests against them, see Chronicle, no. 34, 35, 36, pp. 165–168. 144 Chronicle No. 37, 38, 39, p. 221. 145 Amnesty doc. (21 March 1976), ‘Amnesty International asks Soviet to reveal details of trial of one of its Moscow members’, IDC fiche no. C2 [No Ref]. For details about Tverdokhlebov’s trial and his time in exile see Chronicle, No. 40, 41, 42, pp. 4–21, 141–142. 146 See Tverdokhlebov, ‘Two Searches & four interrogations’, p. 56. 147 For example, see Daily Mail (1 May 1975), “World Protest” call by Soviet’s top dissidents’, Daily Mail, p. 4.

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148 Amnesty doc. (21 March 1976), ‘Amnesty International asks Soviets to reveal details of trial of one of its Moscow members’, IDC fiche no. C2 [No Ref]. 149 Schapiro, L. et al. (25 March 1976), ‘Detained in Russia’, The Times, p. 17. 150 Reddaway, P. (12 June 1975), ‘An appeal from Moscow’, The New York Review of Books, available at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1975/jun/12/an -appeal-from-moscow/. 151 For detail of his trial, see Chronicle, No. 37, 38, 39, pp. 80–91. For more on the activism of Kovalyov see Gilligan, Defending Human Rights in Russia. 152 For example, see Chronicle, No. 37, 38, 39, pp. 211–214. 153 Sakharov, Memoirs, p. 434. 154 Ibid., pp. 433–434. 155 Ibid., pp. 434–438. 156 Chronicle, No. 37, 38, 39, pp. 90–91. 157 Chronicle, No. 37, 38, 39, p. 79. 158 Amnesty doc. ‘Amnesty International asks Soviet Authorities to investigate harassment complaint from Moscow group member’. 159 Amnesty doc. (November 1975), ‘Report on Europe’, IEC doc. 97, [No Ref] IISG. 160 Amnesty doc. (June 1972), ‘List of Known Torturers’, IEC doc. 58, [No Ref] IISG. 161 Chronicle, No. 37, 38, 39, pp.57–58. 162 Amnesty doc. (date unknown), ‘Report and Decisions of the 9th International Council Meeting’, ICM doc. 28, [No Ref] IISG, p. 101. 163 Amnesty International British Section (1975), ‘Director’s report for Executive Committee Meeting on 11th November 1975’ British Section Documents no. 1278, [No Ref] IISG. 164 Amnesty doc. (September 1973), ‘Development of Amnesty International Including National Sections and Fundraising’, ICM no. 13, [No Ref] IISG. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid., pp. 2–5. 167 Ibid., p. 11. 168 Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights, in particular, see chapter 5 – ‘Human Rights and American Power’. 169 Email to author from Peter Reddaway, 15 May 2013. 170 Grantham and Yeo, ‘Resolution for Council – A Chronicle of Current Events’. 171 WSI was originally known as the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust. 172 Bogoroza, L., and Litvinov, P. (13 January 1968), ‘Appeal to world opinion over Russian writers’, The Times, p. 8. 173 For more on this, including a reprint of Litvinov and Bogoraz’s Open Letter to The Times and Litvinov’s response to Spender see, Litvinov, P. (1981), ‘Pavel Litvinov and Index on Censorship’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 6–10; and Scammell, M. (1981), ‘How Index on Censorship started’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 10, No. 6, pp. 6–7. 174 Email to Author from Peter Reddaway, dated 15 May 2013; and Amnesty doc. (June 1976), ‘Resolution for Council – A Chronicle of Current Events’, IEC doc. 107 [ACT81/IEC76] IISG. 175 Chronicle, No. 32 & 33, and Chronicle, No. 34, 35 & 36. 176 Spender, P. (18 June 1976), ‘Letter to Mark Grantham: THE CHRONICLE No. 39 and following’, IEC doc. 107, [No Ref] IISG. 177 Ibid. 178 Ibid.

226

Notes

179 Neier, The International Human Rights Movement, p. 12 180 MacBride, S. (27 February 1967), ‘To All Staff ’, IEC doc. 39, [No Ref] IISG. 181 McCarthy, M. and Hicks, J. (11 October 1977), ‘Their noblest hour’, Daily Mirror, p. 1. 182 De Jongh, N. and Leigh D. (11 October 1977), ‘Nobel prize for peace women’, The Guardian, p. 1. 183 Coolican, D. (11 October 1977), ‘Thanks, in the name of peace’, The Daily Express, p. 1; (11 October 1977), ‘Out of sorrow … hope’, The Daily Express, p. 2; Levy, G. (11 October 1977), ‘The noblest Peace Prize of them all’, The Daily Express, p. 11. 184 Stephen, A. (16 October 1977), ‘Amnesty’s quiet prize’, The Observer, p. 4. 185 Benenson, P. (exact date of publication unknown although likely to be from mid1977), ‘The “Forgotten Prisoners” … 16 years later’, Amnesty Press doc. 952, [No Ref] IISG. 186 For example see Amnesty doc. (21 December 1976), ‘Amnesty welcomes release of Vladimir Bukovsky and Luis Corvalan’, IDC fiche no. C5,[NR 36/76]; and Amnesty doc. (November 1976), ‘Europe – Campaigns report’, IEC doc. 111,[EUR 01/IEC76] IISG. 187 Amnesty doc. (August 1979), ‘Report to IEC subcommittee on Research Planning and Priorities’, IEC doc. 151, [EUR01/IEC02/79] IISG. 188 Ibid. 189 For example, Yeo, ‘The evidence’. 190 Amnesty doc. ‘Report to IEC subcommittee on Research Planning and Priorities’, IEC doc. 151, [EUR01/IEC02/79] IISG. This is probably a self-reference as although anonymous, Yeo is likely to have been the author of the majority of the reports. Interview with Peter Reddaway, 5 September 2011. 191 Amnesty doc. ‘Report to IEC subcommittee on Research Planning and Priorities’, IEC doc. 151, [EUR01/IEC02/79] IISG. 192 Hopgood, Keepers of the Flame, especially pp. 62–63 and 216–217. 193 Benenson, M. (22 November 1978), ‘Letter to Thomas Hammarberg re: Derek Roebuck’, IEC no. 144, [No Ref] IISG. 194 See Burchett, W., and Roebuck, D. (1977), The Whores of War: Mercenaries Today, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Email to author from Edward Kline, 29 May 2013. 195 Kline, E. (30 January 1979), ‘Letter to David Hinkley’, IEC no. 144, [No Ref] IISG. Kline later noted that Roebuck’s Communist political leaning made his appointment as Amnesty’s director of research unwise, and his comments on North Korea and the death penalty made it unacceptable. Email to author from Edward Kline, 29 May 2013. 196 Moyn, The Last Utopia. 197 Amnesty doc. (16 December 1978), ‘Letter to Martin Ennals from the Board of the Finnish section of Amnesty’, IEC no. 144, [No Ref] IISG.

Conclusion 1 2

Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights, p. 3. McKay, J., and Hilton, M. (2009), ‘Introduction’, in Crowson, N., Hilton, M., and McKay, J. (eds.) NGOs in Contemporary Britain: Non-State Actors in Society and Politics since 1945, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Notes 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15

16

17 18

19 20 21 22

23 24 25

227

Buchanan, ‘The truth will set you free’. ‘Russians reject petition on Jews’, p. 17; and Sherbourne, ‘THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION SHEET’. Anderson, F. (26 January 1984), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP; and Anderson, F. (10 February 1984), ‘Letter to Peter Sainsbury’, SCOUPP. SCPAP Minutes (24 May 1983), SCOUPP. Section E contains a report of the discussion of SCPAP’s remit. See SCPAP Minutes (2 October 1985), SCOUPP; and SCPAP Minutes (21 September 1983), SCOUPP. SCPAP Minutes (11 January 1984), SCOUPP. Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of the murder of 13 women in 1981, and one of the most infamous British serial killers. SCPAP Minutes (27 February 1985), SCOUPP. Trend, M. (3 June 1988), ‘… punishing Perestroika’, The Spectator. Koryagin, A. (1989), ‘The involvement of Soviet psychiatry in the persecution of dissenters’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 154, p. 339. Joseph Mengele was a Nazi doctor who was infamous for his medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness, pp. 143–144. See Lucas, The New Cold War, pp. 74–77. Ibid., p.77. Gee, A. (30 July 2007), ‘Russian dissident “forcibly detained in mental hospital”’, The Independent, p. 19; and Bukovsky, V., Kasparov, G., Bindman, G. and Reddaway, P. (12 September 2007), ‘Political Psychiatry’, The Times, p. 18. Amnesty International (8 October 2013), ‘Russia: Abhorrent use of punitive psychiatry to silence dissent’, available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/russia -abhorrent-use-punitive-psychiatry-silence-dissent-2013-10-08. Ibid. Volchek, D. (28 October 2014), ‘Self-mutilating Russian artists says “there’s no greater evil than law-abiding citizens”’, Radio Free Europe, available at http://www .rferl.org/content/russia-pyotr-pavlensky-interview-protest-earlobe/26663128.html; and Luhn, A. (20 October 2014), ‘Russian artist cuts off earlobe in protest at use of forced psychiatry on dissidents’, The Guardian, available at http://www.theguardian .com/world/2014/oct/20/russian-artist-cuts-off-earlobe-protest-forced-psychiatric -treatment-dissidents. For more information, see http://www.gip-global.org/news/. One to One Charity Commission Report, April 2014, available at http://beta .charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=1135254&subid=0. See One To One ‘Vision statement’ available at http://www.onetoonechildrensfund .org/objectives. For example, One to One has been engaged in a ‘Child Resilience Initiative’, which aims to aid those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in Israel. See http:// www.onetoonechildrensfund.org/Child_Resilience. Stricker, and Sawatsky, ‘Postscript – Keston Institute in Transition’, p. 2; and Peterlin, ‘An Analysis of the Publishing Activity of Keston Institute’, p. 2. (2007), Home News, Keston Newsletter, No. 2, p. 8, and No. 3, p. 5. (2007), Home News, Keston Newsletter, No. 3, pp. 5–6. For more details of the move of Keston’s collections see Marsh, C. (2008), ‘Relocation the Keston archive and library, how we moved 10,000 books and 120 file drawers across the pond’, Keston Newsletter, No. 5, pp. 15–17.

228

Notes

26 Dennen, X. (2006), ‘Keston’s Encyclopaedia Nears Completion’, Keston Newsletter, No. 1. 27 Dennen has written a number of unpublished accounts of her encyclopaedia trips to Russia, of which extracts often appear in Keston Newsletter. For example, see Dennen, X. (2010), ‘Where Nightingales Sing’, Keston Newsletter, No. 12; and Dennen, X. (2012), ‘Fieldtrip to Kalmykia’, Keston Newsletter, No. 16. 28 Dennen, ‘Keston’s Encyclopaedia Nears Completion’. 29 The Keston Newsletter is distributed to its members in print, and it is available online, including a back catalogue, at http://www.keston.org.uk/newsletter.php. The newsletter was initially produced three times a year, before reducing to twice yearly since 2010. See Dennen, ‘The KGB’s Bête Noire’, pp. 5–7. 30 For more on Russian Review [Russian], see http://www.keston.org.uk /russianreview.php. 31 For more on Forum 18 see http://www.forum18.org/forum18.php. 32 For example see Corley, F. (28 June 2013), ‘Azerbaijan: Conscientious objectors amnestied, imam and driver not freed’, Forum 18 News Service available at http:// www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1852; and Fagan, G. (24 June 2013), ‘Russia: Eight readers of Islamic theologian arrested’, Forum 18 News Service available at http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1850. 33 See also, interview with Philip Walters, 19 May 2010. 34 (11 October 2009), ‘Irene Khan: banged to rights’, The Independent, p. 26; and Cohen, N. (11 November 2012), ‘Is Amnesty still fit to fight on anyone’s behalf ’, The Observer, available at, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/11/nick-cohen -is-amnesty-fit-fight. 35 Amnesty International (2005), Amnesty International Report 2005, London: Amnesty International Publications, p. i. 36 Hopgood, Keepers of the Flame, p. 204. For an excellent discussion of the issues facing Amnesty using its impartial reputation to gain political influence, see chapter 8 – Amnesty in Practice. 37 Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue. 38 Foot, ‘The Cold War and human rights’, p. 446. 39 Neier, A., (2012) The International Human Rights Movement: A History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 7. 40 Connelly, M. (2000), ‘Taking off the Cold War lens, visions of north-south conflict during the Algerian war for independence’, American Historical Review, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 739–769. 41 McKay and Hilton, ‘Introduction’, p. 1. 42 Harding, L (13 November 2014), ‘Russian activists Pussy Riot visit UK to talk politics, prison reform, and punk’, The Guardian, available at http://www.theguardian.com /world/2014/nov/13/pussy-riot-in-london-on-protest-prison-and-putin; Gessen, M. (4 November 2013), ‘Where is Nadya of Pussy Riot’, The New York Times, available at http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/where-is-nadya/?_r=0.

Bibliography Archival Material Amnesty International Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (International Institute of Social History) Amsterdam, Netherlands (IISG). Amnesty International Documents use an internal coding system which is added to references where available. If not present, documents are noted [No Ref]. CAPA Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (International Institute of Social History) Amsterdam, Netherlands (CAPA Collection IISG). IDC Amnesty International Microfiche Collection, 1962–2008 Marylebone Information Service, Marylebone Library, London (IDC). Keston College Archive, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA (Baylor). Peter Reddaway’s Papers, Global Resource Center, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA (PRP). Special Committee on Unethical Psychiatric Practices papers, Royal College of Psychiatrists, London (SCOUPP). The Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (SCPAP) was later renamed SCOUPP, and archival material for this committee is held under its later name. Tom Stoppard Papers, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA (Stoppard Papers). Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Archive, University of Southampton, Hartley Library Special Collections (WCSJA).

Newspapers and Periodicals ● ●

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Church Times (UK) The Chronicle of Current Events (English Translation). All references to this journal refer to the translation produced by Amnesty International. Daily Express (UK) The Daily Telegraph (UK) Daily Mail (UK) Daily Mirror (UK) The Guardian (UK) The Independent (UK) The Lancet (UK) The Observer (UK) The Times (UK) The Spectator (UK)

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Interviews ●

●

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●

●

●

●

●

●

●

Michael Bourdeaux ● 24 February 2010, London, UK. ● 19 May 2010, Oxford, UK. Vladimir Bukovsky ● 18 January 2011, Cambridge, UK. Xenia Dennen ● 21 May 2010, London, UK. Greville Janner ● 25 May 2010, London, UK. Harold Merskey ● 22 October 2010, via telephone. Peter Reddaway ● 5 July 2010, Maclean, Virginia, USA. ● 8 September 2011, Maclean, Virginia, USA. Margaret Rigal and George Rigal ● 25 February 2010, London, UK. Michael Sherbourne ● 9 May 2011, London, UK. Tom Stoppard ● 5 January 2011, via telephone. Robert Van Voren ● 11 January 2011, London, UK. Philip Walters ● 19 May 2010, Oxford, UK.

Transcripts and recordings available from author on request.

Memoirs and Published Archival Sources Adler, N., and Gluzman, S. (1993), ‘Soviet special psychiatric hospitals: where the system was criminal and the inmates were sane’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 163, pp. 713–720. Aksyonov, V. (1982), ‘Looking for colour’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 4, p. 3. Alexeyeva, L. (1982), ‘USSR: prisoners’ rights denied’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 31–32. Alexeyeva, L. et al. (1977), ‘The Orlov tribunal’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 52–60. Altshuler, M. (1987), Soviet Jewry since the Second World War, New York: Greenwood. Amalrik, A. (1970), Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? London: Allen Lane. Amnesty International (1962), Personal Freedom in the Marxist-Leninist Countries, London: Amnesty International Publications. ———. (1966), Annual Report June 1, 1965–May 31, 1966, London: Amnesty International Publications.

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Index Adley, Robert 99 Aga Pova, Ludimila 64 Albrecht, Vladimir 52, 161, 170 Aldermaston 81 Alexandrov, Yuri 120–1 All-Party Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry 99 All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions 88 All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists (AUSNP) 13, 30, 36, 40, 59, 63, 73, 74, 76–8, 181, 183–4 Amalrik, Andrei 154, 171 American Psychiatric Association (APA) 40, 59, 76, 184 American Psychoanalytical Association 31 Amnesty International 8, 19–21, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 55, 66–7, 71, 75, 97, 105, 132, 148–50, 151–2, 164–5, 166–7, 174–5, 176, 180, 182, 184, 185, 187 ethos 161, 174, 177, 180, 187–8 expertise 152, 154, 160–1 impartiality 21, 147, 150, 163, 167, 177, 178 International Council Meeting (ICM) 152, 161, 163, 171 International Executive Committee (IEC) 149, 151, 153, 160, 162, 164, 167, 171, 172, 176–7 International Secretariat (IS) 150–1, 152, 161, 162, 170, 174 Moscow group 161, 168–70, 170–1 publication of the Chronicle of Current Events 158–9, 163–5, 167–8, 172–4, 178, 182 Research Department 152–4, 159, 160, 164, 172 Arap, Larisa 185 Archangelsky, Vladimir 161 Archbishop of Canterbury 122, 143

Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius 123 Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain 122 Archbishop of Westminster 122 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 131 Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 58 Baader-Meinhoff group 148 Babayan, Eduard 58 Baker, Eric 148, 160, 174 Bakhmin, Vyacheslav 51, 71 Barker, Dennis 86 Baylor University 186–7 Beckerman, Gal 105–6 Begun, Iosif 93, 100, 102 Beilina, Dina 93 Belgian Television 131 Belov, Evgeny 7, 18–21, 25, 142, 158, 179, 181 Belov, Konstanti 20 Benenson, Peter 19–21, 147–9, 150, 151, 174, 175, 180 Bergman, Ingrid 82–3 Bergman, Jay 4 Berner, Peter 65–6, 74 Blackburn, John 100 Blackman, Roy 23 Blakeley, Dennis 157 Bloch, Sidney 2, 54–5, 57, 58, 59, 70, 73, 74–5, 77, 78 Russia’s Political Hospitals (1977) 13–14, 18, 21–2, 24, 25, 28, 30–2, 36, 39–40, 60, 61, 62–5 Blomberg, Harold 71 Blom-Cooper, Louis 71 Blomquist, Clarence 59 Board of Deputies 33, 80, 103, 107 Bogoraza, Larisa 172 Boll, Heinrich 44 Bolshoi Ballet 84, 97

Index Bond, James 96, 123 Boobbyer, Philip 155 Borisov, Vladimir 27, 31–2, 36, 48, 49, 52 Börner, Dirk 171 Bourdeaux, Michael 8, 115–17, 118–19, 123, 125–6, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133–4, 135–6, 137–41, 142–3, 144, 146, 169, 180, 181, 182, 186 Opium of the People (1965) 119–21, 122, 124, 135, 182 Bowles, Stan 43 Brezhnev, Leonid 19, 44, 93, 95, 138 Brind, Yuli 79–80 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 53, 87, 114, 122, 124, 131–2, 135, 137, 138, 157 British Council 116 British Council of Churches 141 British Dental Association 86 Brown, Michael 46 Brown, Ronald 100 Buchanan, Tom 148, 180 Bukovsky, Vladimir 4, 7, 9, 11, 15–16, 26–30, 31–2, 36, 37, 41, 43–5, 49, 50, 51, 52–3, 55, 57, 64, 71, 75, 78, 89, 100, 142, 175, 180, 181, 189 Bulgakov, Mikhail 5 Burchett, Wilfred 177–8 Callaghan, James 45, 69 Calloway, Paul 13 Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA) 48–50, 52, 68–70, 71, 72, 183–5 Canadian Psychiatrists Against Psychiatric Abuse 73 Cannon Row 83 Cape, Jonathan 159 Carver, David 38 Cavendish Hotel 83 ‘celebrity dissident’ 175 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 37, 58, 121, 129, 168 Centre de Recherches et d’Etude des Institutions Religieuses 121 Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism. See Keston College Chaadayev, Pyotr 12, 22 Chaillet, Ned 53 Chalidze, Valery 162

243

Chekhov, Anton 17 Cherkassky, Vladimir 93 Chief Rabbi of Great Britain 122 Christian Aid 130 Chronicle of Current Events 8, 25, 29, 32, 44, 48, 154–60, 162, 163–4, 165–6, 167–8, 171–4, 178, 182 Church House, Westminster 139–40 Churchill, Winston 100 Clark, Ann Marie 166 Coe, Sebastian 97 Cohen, Gerald Daniel 113 Cohen, Jonathan. See Sherbourne, Michael Cohen, Nick 187–8 Coliseum Theatre 83, 84 Collins and Harvill Press 16–17, 18 Congress for Cultural Freedom 121, 150 Congress of Peace Loving Forces 168 Connelly, Matthew 188 Conquest, Robert 169 Corley, Felix 187 Corrigan, Mairead 174–5 Corvalan, Luis 7, 43–5, 78 Council of Baptist Prisoners’ Relatives 124 Craig, Tony 89 Crankshaw, Edward 17, 18, 120, 169 Crystal Palace 83 Cummings, Michael 69 Cunningham, Peter 43 Dacre, Paul 38–9 Daniel, Yuli 152 Danish Psychiatric Association 76 Declaration of Hawaii (1977) 59–60 Dehn, Olive 43–4, 50 de la Fuente, Ramos 30 Dennen, Xenia 121, 129, 133, 136, 143, 145, 158, 187 Dewhirst, Martin 116–17 Dicks, Henry 48, 63 Djilas, Milovan 26 Doctors’ Plot 113 Dominion Theatre 97 Dornan, Peter 132 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 155 Dubinin, Nikolai 25 Dunn, Dennis 130 Dymshits-Kuznetsov affair 33–4, 80, 83 Dymshits, Mark 34, 200

244 Eckel, Jan 2 Edelman, Maurice 88 Eker, Rita 89–91, 93, 95–6, 97, 101–2, 110, 114, 181, 186 Ellis, Jane 136, 141 Ennals, Martin 166, 170, 175, 178 Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977). See Stoppard, Tom expertise 2–3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 28, 29, 36, 54–6, 57, 60–1, 64–7, 71, 75–6, 78, 95, 98, 102, 119, 122, 130–1, 132, 135, 138, 139, 141, 145, 150, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164–5, 167, 175, 176, 179, 182, 188–9 Fagan, Geraldine 187 Fainberg, Victor 27, 31, 32, 36, 44, 47, 49–53, 63, 69 Farquharson, Marjorie 66 Fédération Dentaire International 35 Feldman, Riva 93 Filatov, Sergei 186 Fletcher, William 121 Fookes, Janet 45 Foot, Rosemary 9, 188 Ford Foundation 130 Forum 18, 187 Foucault, Michel 13 French, Tony 116 Friedlender, Leah 68–9 Gainsford, Doreen 80, 81, 86, 89, 91, 111–12, 114, 181 Galanskov, Yuri 22, 155 Georgian Orthodox Church 128 Georgian State Dance Company 83 Gerlis, Daphne 2, 81, 88, 91, 107, 111 German Association Against the Political Abuse of Psychiatry 73 Gilbert, Martin 4 Gilligan, Emma 4 Ginzburg, Alexander 155 Gledhill, Ruth 145 Gluzman, Semyon 15, 32, 38, 49, 57, 65 Golding, John 67 Goldstein, Gregory 93 Gorbachev, Mikhail 3, 100, 102, 183 Gorbanevskaya, Natalya 27, 29, 154, 156 Gosselin, Jean-Yves 59, 73

Index Grantham, Mark 172–3, 223 Greater London Council 97 Grigorenko, Petro 4, 7, 21–4, 25, 26–7, 29, 32, 37, 38, 40, 44, 46, 62, 71, 149, 181 Grigorenko, Zinaida 32 Group 73. See Amnesty International; Moscow Group Guantanamo Bay 187–8 Gulag 11, 16, 184, 187, 192 Harari, Manya 16–17 Hari, Mata 96 Havel, Vaclav 52 Hawson, Alex 152 Hayward, Max 16 Helsinki Accords (1975) 1, 6, 9, 51, 85, 165, 181 Helsinki Monitoring Group 112 Heritage Lottery Fund 186 Hilton, Matthew 3, 82, 180, 189 Holocaust 25, 111–13 Holodomor 103 Homo Sovieticus 5 Hopgood, Stephen 172, 177, 179, 187–8 Horvath, Robert 46 Hosking, Geoffrey 12 House of Commons 33, 45, 82, 85 Howard-Johnston, Xenia. See Dennen, Xenia Huckerby, Martin 53 human rights history of 1–6, 9, 44, 45, 77, 147 political traction in 1970s 5–6, 46, 51, 60, 108, 113, 121, 165–6, 176, 178, 179, 181, 188–9 Human Rights in Mental HealthFederation Global Initiative on Psychiatry (FGIP). See International Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (IAPUP) Hunt, Lynn 1 Hussain, Khadim 67 impartiality 2, 8, 20, 37, 40, 58–9, 67, 76, 121–2, 128, 143–4, 147, 150–1, 158, 163–4, 167, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 188–9, 228 Independent Television (ITV) 131

Index Index on Censorship 172–3, 176 Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR 46 International Association of Democratic Lawyers 167 International Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (IAPUP) 72, 73, 183–5 International Committee for the Defence of Human Rights 27 International PEN 38 Intourist 97 Isakov, Mikhail 48 Ivanov, Sergei 75–6 Ivanov, Yuri 47 Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974) 1 Jakobovits, Immanuel 104, 136 Janner, Greville 33, 85, 100, 104 Janner, Myra 104 Jenner, Alec 29, 50 Jolliffe, Raymond (Lord Hylton) 99 Joyce, Stella 153 Juenger, James 157 Keck, Margaret 5, 27, 113 Kemp, Julia 160 Kennan Institute 183 Kerber, Linda 1 Keston College 8, 122, 127–8, 132–4, 134–6, 143, 144, 146, 158, 180, 182, 186–7 expertise of 130–41, 145 finance and fundraising 125–6, 129–30, 135–7, 139, 142, 145 Keston Institute. See Keston College Keston Newsletter 187 Keston News Service (KNS) 126–8, 131, 133–4, 135, 187 Keys, Barbara 6, 167, 188 Khan, Irene 187–8 Khodorkovsky, Mikhail 3 Khodorovich, Tatiana 46 Khrushchev, Nikita 11, 16–17, 21, 24, 116–17, 119–20 Kline, Edward 177–8, 225 Kojevnikov, Alyona 135 Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) 1, 5, 11–12, 14, 22–3, 33, 37, 49, 52–3, 57, 68, 71, 81, 84, 88, 96,

245

98, 106, 107–8, 143, 156–7, 160, 162, 168–9, 170, 173 Korenfield, Lydia 35 Korneyev, Ilya 161 Koryagin, Anatoly 51, 184 Kosenko, Mikhail 185 Kosygin, Anatoly 19–20 Kovalyov, Sergei 4, 48, 169–70 Krasivsky, Andrei 49 Krylsky, Yan 35–6, 37, 180 Kuznetsov, Eduard 34 Kuznetsov, Viktor 27 Labedz, Leopold 156 Ladbrokes 105–6 Laird, Bruce 153, 154, 160, 162, 176 Lambeth Palace 128 Lambroza, Shlomo 111 The Lancet 36, 77 Lander, Susan 112 Lang, David 128 Lawrence, Ivan 100 Lawrence, John 122 Lefortovo Prison 168 Leigh, Denis 27, 30, 36–7, 40 Leningrad plot. See Dymshits-Kuznetsov affair Leningrad Zenit 83, 85 Lenin, Vladimir 21–2 Lerner, Alexander 35, 100 Levich, Benjamin 35 Leviev, Mikhail 166 Levin, Bernard 37–8, 40–1, 108–9, 131, 165 Levine, Sidney 61, 67, 75, 77, 184 Leyland-Naylor, Colin 153 Liberation 155 Lithuanian Catholic Church 124 Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church 156, 168–9 Litvinov, Maxim 22 Litvinov, Pavel 22, 46, 48, 157, 172 Locke, Philip 53 London School of Economics and Political Science 18, 120, 122, 157 London Symphony Orchestra 53 Lovelace, Linda 84 Low Beer, Gery 28, 36, 37, 39, 40, 60, 62–5, 72, 76, 77, 78

246

Index

Luard, Evan 99 Lubbock, Eric (Lord Avebury) 100 Lubyanka Prison 22 Lucas, Edward 184 Luff, Peter 52 Lunkov, Nikolai 87 Lunts, Daniil 13, 23, 55 Lyons, Edward 99 Lysenko, Trofim 24 MacBride, Sean 149, 150, 168, 174 Macmillan, Harold 116 Maddox, John 24 Magna Carta 85 Makeyeva, Valeria 66 Malia, Martin 155 Malone, Mary 23 Mandela, Nelson 148 Marchenko Anatoly 4, 189 Markham, David 31, 43–4, 50 Markowe, Morris 38 Marsh, Christel 153 Marsh, Christopher 186 Marx, Karl 21, 85, 148–9, 219 Maximova, Ekaterina 97 Mazower, Mark 1–2 McKay, James 3, 180, 189 McKellen, Ian 53 McMurty, Stan (Mac) 98 Medical and Scientific Committee for Soviet Jewry (MSCSJ) 33, 34–6, 37, 86 Medvedev, Roy 24–6 Medvedev, Zhores 7, 15–16, 24–6, 27, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 46, 142, 179, 181 Meiman, Naum 105 Memorandum to the Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 123 Mengele, Joseph 184, 227 Menuhin, Yehudi 68 Mermaid Theatre 53 Merskey, Harold 14, 33, 34, 35–6, 37, 40, 86, 180 Mezhdunarodnaya Amnestiya 162 Milk Race 93 Moiseeva-Baranova, Elena 67 Moonman, Eric 71, 100 Morozov, Georgi 13, 23, 39, 55 Moroz, Valentin 48

Moscow Classical Ballet 97–8 Moscow Human Rights Committee 162 Mosley, Oswald 107 Moyn, Samuel 1–2 The Last Utopia (2010) 2, 113, 178, 181, 187, 189 Murdoch, Iris 44 Nadzharov, Ruben 75 Nathans, Benjamin 108, 158, 161 National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) 131 National Theatre 53 Nature 24, 71 Nazi persecution 25, 48, 64, 111–13 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 103 Neier, Aryeh 113, 173–4, 188 Nekipelov, Victor 4, 71 Nicholas I 12 Nikolayev, Evgeny 63 1968 Red Square protest, Moscow 47, 154, 200 Nobel Prize 117, 139, 169, 174–5, 180, 182 non-governmental organization (NGO) 2–3, 50, 100, 111, 145, 165, 172, 178, 179, 180, 185, 188–9 empirical approach of 94–5, 127–9 foundation myths 82, 118–19, 147–8 Nudel, Ida 4, 93, 95, 96, 100, 106–7, 111 ‘nudging’ 61, 67, 68 Nussbaum, Enid 67 Oberman, Barbara 80, 81–2, 89, 112, 114, 181 Olympic Games 95–7, 100, 111, 112 One-to-One. See Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry Orlov, Yuri 44, 46, 47, 98, 99, 105, 112, 161, 168, 169–70 otkaznik. See refusenik Ovett, Steve 97 Owens, David 89 Palatnik, Katia 86 Palatnik, Raiza 81–2, 85–6, 108 Panov, Galina 101–2 Paraftaev, Andrei 87 Parliamentary Wives for the Release of Soviet Jewry 99

Index

247

Pasternak, Boris 5, 16, 116–17 Paton, David M. 135 Pavlensky, Pyotr 3, 185 Perris, Carl 40 Peter the Great 11 Pinter, Harold 44, 68 Plyushch, Leonid 4, 15, 46–8, 49, 51, 142, 151 Pochaev Monastery 118 Podrabinek, Alexander 47, 51, 56, 57, 63, 65, 105, 166 Podrabinek, Kirill 105 Podyapolsky, Grigory 46 Pollock, John (J.C.) 120 Pond, Desmond 60, 61, 65 Ponomarev, Anatoly 49 Ponomarev, Boris 85 Pope John Paul II 132, 137 Pospielovsky, Dmitry 120 Power, Jonathon 151 Previn, André 51–3 Prusakov, Valentin 109 Pussy Riot 3, 189 Putin, Vladimir 187, 189

Rifkind, Malcolm 100 Rigal, George 87–8, 89 Rigal, Margaret 87–8, 89–91, 93, 94–6, 97–9, 101–2, 110, 111, 114, 181, 186 Roberts, Goronwy (Lord GoronwyRoberts) 99 Roebuck, Derek 177–8 Rolls Royce 82, 102 Rome, Howard 57 Roth, Martin 38, 40 Royal College of Psychiatrists 7, 14, 36–41, 48, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60–1, 62, 63, 64, 65–7, 70–1, 73–7, 78, 181, 183–4 Royal Institute of International Affairs 141 Royal Medico-Psychological Association 48 Rubenstein, Joshua 155 Rudenko, Mykola 168–9 Runcie, Robert 143 ‘rush to expertise’ 3, 5–6, 8, 9, 57, 131, 132, 141, 146, 172, 174, 175, 177, 179–189 Russell, Bertrand 20 Russian Orthodox Church 117, 119, 120, 124

Radford, Tim 146 Rager, Ijo 80, 206 Ratushinskaya, Irina 100, 209 Rawnsley, Kenneth 60, 74 Raymond, Therese 152 Reagan, Ronald 140 Reddaway, Peter 2, 18, 27, 28–9, 36, 55–6, 71, 72, 78, 105, 109, 122, 132, 164, 169, 180, 183 Chronicle of Current Events 155, 157–60, 163, 172–3 expertise of 57, 65–6, 73, 75–6, 94, 128 Russia’s Political Hospitals (1977) (see Bloch, Sidney) Rees, Linford 36, 63 refusenik 7–8, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 89, 94, 105–6, 110, 113–14, 180, 181, 185–6, 206, 210 Religion in Communist Lands (RCL) 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136–7, 141, 142, 143, 145 Religion, State and Society. See Religion in Communist Lands Richter, Derek 29

Sainsbury, Peter 60, 65–7, 71, 74–6 Sakharov, Andrei 4, 24–5, 27, 36, 39, 44, 46, 52, 62, 97–8, 100, 105, 157, 162, 166, 168, 169–70, 173, 178, 193 Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira 62, 147 samizdat 4–5, 8, 24, 26–7, 29–30, 31, 32, 94, 116, 122, 123, 127, 132–4, 135, 153, 154–6, 158, 162, 163, 165, 171, 176, 178, 182 Sapiets, Janis 132 Sawatsky, Walter 131 Scammell, Michael 4 Schapiro, Leonard 122, 169 School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS) 128 School of Slavonic and East European Studies 103 Selhurst Park 83 Serbsky Institute 13, 22–3, 31, 32, 38, 39–40, 48, 70, 185 Serebrov, Feliks 51, 71 Service, Robert 117 Shafur, Suzanne 36, 50–1 Shapiro, Gabriel 105

248

Index

Shatz, Marshall 155 Shaw, Bernard 103 Shaw, Christine 55, 73 Shcharansky, Anatoly 4, 80, 96, 98, 99–101, 102, 105, 106–7, 109, 111, 112, 191 Shcharansky, Leonid 108 Shelepin, Alexander 33, 88 Sherbourne, Michael 102–10, 111, 112, 180, 181 Cohen, Jonathon 79–81, 103 Shikhanovich, Yuri 46 Sikkink, Kathryn. See Margaret Keck Simpson, John 87, 114 Sinyavsky, Andrei 17, 152 Six Day War (1967) 80 Skripnikova, Aida 123 Slepak, Vladimir 93, 95, 100, 110, 111 sluggish schizophrenia 13, 14, 32, 38, 40 Snezhnevsky, Andrei 13–14, 29, 31, 39, 55, 57, 61 Resignation from Royal College of Psychiatrists 70–1 Snyder, Sarah 6 solidarity 132 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 4, 8, 11, 17, 18, 25, 44, 100, 117, 139, 154, 155, 169, 173, 192, 193 Sotheby’s 84 South Bank Centre 97 Soviet Union dissident movement 191 fellow travellers 103 London embassy 36, 69, 75–6, 81, 85, 86–8, 101–2, 104, 109–10 nomenklatura 149 Novosti 169 TASS 108 Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (SCPAP) 7, 60–8, 70–1, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77–8, 181, 183–4 Spender, Philip 173 Spender, Stephen 172–3 Spier, Annette 87 Stafford, Robin 17 Stalin, Joseph 11, 16–17, 21–2, 117, 119, 169 Starchik, Pyotr 48 Steel, David 44–5

Stefanis, Costas 59 Stein, Cyril 105–6 Steiner, George 160 Stephen, Andrew 175 Sternberg, Hilary 153, 160, 220 Stevenson, John 39 Stewart, Patrick 53 Stoppard, Tom 44, 51–4, 68 Struve, Pyotr 155 Stuart, Malcom 50, 86 Superfin, Gabriel 160 Suslensky, Yakov 166 Sutcliffe, Peter 184, 227 Swiss Association Against Psychiatric Abuse for Political Purposes 73 Szamuely, Tibor 155, 159 Szasz, Thomas 12–13, 51 tachlis 102, 104, 110 Tarsis, Valery 7, 16, 17–18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 180 Taylor and Francis 145 ‘Teach Yourself ’ 103, 116 Tebbit, Norman 33 Ternovsky, Leonard 32, 71 Thatcher, Margaret 8, 44–5, 69, 89, 96, 100–2, 111, 138, 139–41 Tolokonnikova, Nadezhda 189 Tolstoy, Leo 155 Tomsky, Alexander 137 Tortured for Christ. See Richard Wurmbrand Trades Union Congress 95 Trial of the Four 22 Turchin, Valentin 52, 161–2, 169–71 Tverdokhlebov, Andrei 47, 161–2, 168–9, 170, 224 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 1, 113, 162, 223 University College London 103, 116, 153 University of Oxford 186 Valentinov, Viktor 96 Van Voren, Robert 30, 59, 72, 77, 184 Vartanyan, Marat 57, 75 Vietnam War 5–6, 9, 165, 181 Villiers, Marjorie 16 Vins, Georgi 131

Index Voice of the Martyrs. See Richard Wurmbrand Voikhanskaya, Levquist 68 Voikhanskaya, Marina 47, 49–51, 56–7, 68–9 Voikhanskaya, Misha 49, 57, 68–9 Voloshanovich, Alexander 51, 71, 204 Waldheim, Kurt 46 Walters, Philip 127, 136–7, 145 Ward, Jane 160, 162, 176 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney 103 Wells, H. G. 103 Wembley Stadium 69 Wesker, Arnold 20 Wigmore Hall 69 Williams, Betty. See Corrigan, Mairead Windsor, John 79–81, 103, 110 Wing, John 40 Winterton, Nicholas 100 Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry (the 35’s) 7–8, 80–2, 83, 84–9, 91–2, 92–3, 95–8, 100–2, 102–3, 106, 108–11, 113–14, 131, 180, 181, 182, 185–6 News Circular 93–4, 97, 99–100, 105, 111, 112, 127 Woodall, Alec 100 Woodhouse, Leslie 23 Wood, John 53 Wootliff, Gerald 35 Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes in the USSR 51, 56, 57, 63, 65, 71, 196 Working Group on the Internment of Dissenters in Mental Hospitals (Working Group) 7, 28–30, 31, 33,

249

34, 36, 37, 45, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55–7, 58, 60, 62, 64–7, 71–3, 77, 180–1, 183–5, 196 World Council of Churches (WCC) 141, 143, 218 World Federation of United Nations Associations 170 World Psychiatric Association (WPA) 7, 13, 33, 38, 40, 63, 64, 72, 76–8, 141, 181 Honolulu Congress (1977) 54–60, 68, 73–4, 78 Mexico City Congress (1971) 27, 30–2, 36–7, 41 Review Committee 59, 60, 61, 65–6, 73, 74, 78 Vienna Congress (1983) 67, 73, 183–4 Writers and Scholars International (WSI) 172–4, 225 Wurmbrand, Richard 124 Wynn, Allan 2, 28, 34, 45, 58, 72, 73, 77 Yakhimovich, Ivan 27 Yakir, Pyotr 157, 162 Yelistratov, Victor 105 Yeltsin, Boris 169 Yeo, Clayton 133, 162, 164–5, 167, 172–3, 176–7, 223, 226 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 17 Young, Robin 84 Zalmanson, Sylvia 83, 85–6 Zaochnaya, Tyan 63 Zeman, Zbynek 153–4, 160, 163 Zernov, Nicholas 118 Zorza, Victor 21, 25–6 33–4