SOVIET HISTORY LESSONS

SPEECH OF PROSECUTOR A. BOBRUSHKO

The trial of defendant Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky, born in 1942, Russian, has ended. The prosecution classifies the acts of defendant Bukovsky as a crime, the responsibility for which is specified by Art. 70 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. But, to start with, I will describe the situation that has developed in the world arena at the present time, while this trial is taking place.

The rapid growth of the material and spiritual strength of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the successes of the world communist movement have led to an unprecedented spread of the great ideas of communism throughout our planet. There is no force that could contain their revolutionary influence on the fate of humanity.

The pace of the worldwide revolutionary process is deeply alarming for the imperialist reaction, so it employs all means of fight against the forces of social and national liberation, against the world of socialism. The creative work of the Soviet people and the working people of the fraternal socialist countries serves as an inspiring example to the peoples of all continents. Bourgeois propaganda is waging a fierce struggle against the ideas of socialism, striving first of all to discredit the Soviet system, to slander the historical achievements of our people. One campaign of slander replaces another, some critics and "oracles" replace others, but the essence of anti-communism as the main direction of policy and ideology of the imperialist reaction remains unchanged. Now we are witnessing another round of whipping up of anti-Sovietism.

At the same time, Misters Imperialists and their servants do not shun all kinds of methods — from theorizing about the "aggressiveness of communism," the "Soviet military threat," writing fables about the "lack of freedom," about the "persecution of Jews" in the Soviet Union and similar nonsense — to the most arrogant and cynical subversive actions, in which the agents of imperialist intelligence services, venerable professors of disinformation and the corrupt hacks from the bourgeois press are all acting together.

But no matter how these anti-Soviet gentlemen try, the achievement of the goal they are pursuing — to undermine the people's faith in the ideas of socialism and communism — is beyond their reach, it is unrealizable. And it is no accident that in the very camping ground of reaction we hear voices admitting the failures of anti-communist propaganda increasingly more often. The American weekly Time cites through clenched teeth: "A third of humanity believes in Marxism... The attractiveness of the Marxist vision of the world will persist until modern bourgeois society finds more effective means of explaining its own essence and direction to the masses.”

In search of these "more effective means," modern imperialism uses a colossal propaganda apparatus, the maintenance of which spares no expense. The press, radio, television, the so-called "research institutes," propaganda departments and special services day and night spread the poison of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism on all meridians, trying to poison the minds of people.

Recently, there has been an intensification of disinformation and of slanderous activities of the Western centers of ideological sabotage, which are tasked with compromising Soviet reality in every possible way, perverting the meaning the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR, and slandering the Soviet people and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Even the New York Times columnist Salisbury, who can hardly be suspected of sympathizing with the USSR, referring to the "fibs" about Soviet reality published in the American press recently. In fact, he admits that these disinformation materials were concocted in one of the Western centers of anti-Soviet forgeries.

While slandering the world of socialism, imperialist propaganda, at the same time, is trying with all its might to cover up the exploitative, anti-popular essence of the bourgeois system. The ideologists of imperialism are aware that against the background of the achievements of the worldwide revolutionary process, and against the background of the undeniable successes of the countries of the socialist community, the "image of the free world" which they are painting, is crumbling, and the prestige of the capitalist governments is tumbling downhill.

How can the apologists of imperialism cover up this lynched, gunned down "image of the free world"? Lacking any positive ideals or constructive programs, they, like a drowning man clutching at a straw, cling to the poisoned weapon of anti-communism. The intensification of anti-communist, and primarily anti-Soviet, propaganda is clearly aimed at darkening and dimming the consciousness of the alarmed public in the Western countries, trying to push the public away from the attractive ideas of progress and freedom, and making it accept the leadweight abominations of imperialism.

These are the goals of our ideological enemies. But what are their means?

Entire groups of pseudoscientific "sovietologists" are composing "works" filled with "schemes" and "models" for destruction of socialism. The propaganda servants of imperialism have been mobilized to help them. In close cooperation with the intelligence services, they seek with dogged determination materials in our country to be used for slandering the socialist system. The task is thankless and clearly overwhelming. Imperialism and all its intrigues are opposed by the monolithic Soviet people, proud of their achievements, their unity and confidence in the triumph of the lofty ideals that they defend. The enemies of the Soviet people are left with only one thing to do: to rummage through the waste, to look for prey among the corrupt loners, ready to sell everything and everyone for a foreign bowl of lentil soup.

One of the bosses of the American propaganda, the chairman of the "political information committee" General Jackson, once with cynical frankness told what "sources" the anti-communists resort to: "In the ideological struggle against communism, we do not need truth, but subversive action: such a war will require all the thugs and gangsters that we can get our hands on in one way or another." As you can see, the affairs of the opponents of communism were in such a sad shape that, in order to seek out anti-Sovietism, they have to resort to the services of criminal elements, all sorts of criminals, parasites, crooks and swindlers, and even persons who can be of interest only to a psychiatrist.

In the absence of suitable "material," Western propaganda for a long time has been belaboring the names of Tarsis and others like him, passing off their mediocre anti-Soviet filth for "masterpieces of Russian literature." Having not received recognition at home, these spiteful mudslingers readily forwarded their slander against the Soviet people to the capitalist countries, where it was being published. The British reactionary press tried to create a "sensation" around the appearance in London of the hack Tarsis, a mentally ill man. "Sovietologists" warmly recommended him to the English public as "a persecuted Soviet writer." Very soon the sensation died down, since after two ludicrous appearances of Tarsis on television and in print, his patrons embarrassedly admitted that he was not a writer, but a candidate for a psychiatric hospital. The British immediately, quietly, transported him to the United States...

The masters of professional anti-communists demand of them a continuous supply of raw materials for the manufacture of disinformation. And for several years now, a number of Western newspapers and magazines have been trying to convince readers that "in scientific and literary circles" in Moscow there are some "rebellious intellectuals" who, moreover, act as "reliable sources" systematically informing some foreign correspondents about Soviet realities. Reports from Moscow, which are regularly being published in newspapers such as the Washington Post, are often accompanied by references to these "sources." An inexperienced reader remains unaware that under the guise of "scientists and writers who disagree with the system" venal ignoramuses are hiding.

Take, for example, a certain A. Amalrik, whom the Washington Post calls a "historian" and the author of "exciting, brilliant" creations. In fact, he is involved not so much in history as in scandalous criminal stories. In 1961 he was expelled from the Moscow University for absenteeism and academic failure. This was the end of Amalrik's "academic career": he did not want to study or work. Having started with selling his father's library, he soon became a complete parasite. Official bodies representing Soviet justice system had to get involved, and he had to make, in his words, "an involuntary journey." Having returned to Moscow, Amalrik decided to start making a living... in the offices of the press corps of certain Western publications. Almost every day Amalrik pounded the doorsteps of foreign press corps offices, passing on dirty rumors and gossip to their owners; it is out of this material that "reliable reports" were subsequently moulded. 

The outcasts, begging for whiskey and cigarettes in exchange for dirty fabrications, are a pitiful handful. This is what their benefactors themselves need to acknowledge. For example, the correspondent of the Associated Press agency Holger Jensen notes: they are "a tiny minority." Former New York Times Moscow correspondent Henry Kamm admits that each of the outcasts is opposed by hundreds of thousands of loyal Soviet patriots. And nevertheless, day after day, the thousand-handed imperialist propaganda focuses not on the great and wonderful life of the great nation, but on an insignificant handful of sell-out skins. Well, this has its own logic. The penchant for fabricating fakes and forgeries, and bias in favor or the outcasts of society have long become second nature to militant anti-communists.

While suffering a fiasco with these kinds of crooks and schizophrenics, the spokespeople of anti-communism decided to resort to a provocation on a larger scale and raise a fuss around the name of A. Solzhenitsyn, with his own tacit consent. A. Solzhenitsyn's libels against the Soviet people, which denigrate the heroic deeds and achievements of our homeland, which denigrate the dignity of the Soviet people, turned out to be suitable material for the next anti-Soviet campaign fanning up in the West.

A spiritual émigré, alien and hostile to the entire life of the Soviet people, Solzhenitsyn was elevated by imperialist propaganda to the rank of a "great" Russian writer, and recently he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee followed the lead of anti-socialist profiteers, who elevated Solzhenitsyn not for his "talent," but purely for the fact that he was discrediting Soviet realities.

Forgeries and vagrant insinuations of lonely renegades are the propaganda weapons used by our ideological opponents.

Another slanderer and ardent anti-Soviet, Bukovsky, was brought to trial today. Western patrons are trying to present Bukovsky as an authority on Soviet life. In real life, this impudent young man is indeed an authority, but he only knows the backstreets of houses where Western correspondents live in Moscow. A dropout, expelled from the university for academic failure, he was listed as working, but he has only one job — to dangle around the apartments of foreign correspondents, to trade in anti-Soviet nonsense in exchange for cheap gifts.

In an effort to curry favor with his Western patrons, Bukovsky invents a slanderous аccount claiming that in the Soviet Union representatives of intelligentsia are being sent without any trial to psychiatric hospitals for their "democratic" views, where inhumane treatment is applied to them. With the aim of spreading these anti-Soviet fabrications, Bukovsky gives, as he himself admitted to the court, an interview to the head of the Moscow bureau of the CBS television company William Cole, who is currently expelled from our country for activities incompatible with journalistic profession, as well as to the Associated Press correspondent Holger Jensen.

Next, as it had been anticipated in advance, this slander was picked up by foreign anti-Soviet newspapers, such as The Washington Post, The Daily News, and others, as well as Radio Liberty, the BBC, and the Voice of America, well-known for their rabid anti-communism. The court reviewed the comments which accompanied Bukovsky's public statements contained in these newspapers and in the broadcasts of these radio stations. Who are they really talking about in these interviews and accompanying comments? They are talking about persons who have committed socially dangerous acts in a state of insanity or those who fell ill with a mental illness during an investigation or a trial, which deprived them of their ability to be accountable for their own actions. In accordance with existing laws, such persons, following conclusions of competent forensic psychiatric examinations and in accordance with court decisions, are subject to referral for treatment to psychiatric hospitals of general or special types.

A dropout, completely ignorant of medicine, Bukovsky is not even able to recognize what an absurd position he puts himself in, because he undertakes to teach and refute medical specialists, representatives of the Soviet psychiatric school, which has won respect and recognition all over the world. A well-known Soviet scientist, the Director of the Institute of Psychiatry of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Academician A. V. Snezhnevsky, in an interview with an "Izvestia" correspondent K. Bryantsev, said: "Soviet psychiatry has always been distinguished by its high humanism and the desire to help patients not to feel cut off from society. Therefore, the absurd reports that healthy people are being placed in psychiatric hospitals in the USSR are nothing but rabid fiction, which cannot but cause deep indignation.”

During this trial, all counts of the indictment based on the preliminary investigation were studied with all possible thoroughness. The court was presented with irrefutable evidence of the guilt of defendant Bukovsky on all charges.

I am asking the court to pay attention to the personality of the defendant. Bukovsky was previously tried under Art. 1903 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (for organizing or actively participating in group actions that violate public order). After serving his sentence (three years), he continued his anti-Soviet activities, systematically disseminated slanderous materials discrediting the Soviet state and its social system, despite repeated warnings from the Prosecutor's office.

I am drawing the court’s attention to the person who contributed to the commission of this crime. It is the mother of the defendant, Nina Ivanovna Bukovskaya. It was she who created in her home an environment conducive to receiving foreign correspondents, encouraging her son's criminal activities. For this Bukovskaya received 100 rubles from the Western masters of her son. One hundred rubles — this is the price paid by Western anti-Soviets for the services of their zealous assistant.

During the investigation, Bukovsky behaved belligerently, refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Considering all of the above, I ask the court to sentence Bukovsky under Art. 70 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic — to deprive him of liberty for a period of 7 years in a corrective labor camp with a strict regime, with the first two years to be served in prison, followed by exile for a period of 5 years.

SPEECH OF DEFENSE COUNCIL V. Ya. SHVEISKI

In the beginning of his speech, defense council V. Ya. Shveiski cited Art. 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which, in particular, states that no innocent person can be convicted and punished. Defense council noted that Art. 70 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, under which Bukovsky is being tried, can be applied only if he had set as his goal the undermining or weakening of the Soviet state.

"I dispute," said defense council Shveiski, "that Vladimir Bukovsky pursued precisely this goal.”

But, before setting out my arguments, I consider it necessary to draw the court's attention to one very important contradiction in the indictment materials. As can be seen from the materials of the case, Bukovsky was placed in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital in 1963. He was diagnosed with "psychopathy of the paranoid type." However, he received no treatment with psychotropic drugs, as can be seen from the expert opinion.

But if one were to assume that during that period he had indeed been mentally ill, then everything that he now says about his impressions during his stay in the special mental hospital are the impressions he had received during an unhealthy  state of mind and which have remained since then in his consciousness. Therefore, if the prosecution believes that Bukovsky had been mentally ill while in the hospital, then everything he tells about the situation in psychiatric hospitals should be explained not by his desire to undermine or weaken the Soviet state, but as consequences of his misperception of the facts, which he had been observing at that time.

Therefore, the position of the prosecution on this issue is clearly inconsistent. I am talking about this only in order, — explained Shveiski, — to show the contradictory position of the prosecution.

In the opinion of the defense, the prosecution has not produced convincing evidence confirming that Bukovsky had sought to undermine or weaken the Soviet state. In a TV interview that Bukovsky gave to Cole, and in his interview to the American correspondent Jensen, Bukovsky spoke about the facts that he, according to him, had observed during his time at the Leningrad special mental hospital. In order to verify those facts, Bukovsky petitioned to summon a number of witnesses, but this was refused by you.

These interviews and conversations do not contain any statements about the Soviet system, about the political or economic foundations of the Soviet state, which could be viewed as a desire to undermine or weaken the Soviet state.

Moreover, there were no such statements on the part of Bukovsky in his conversations with Nikitinsky and Shushpanov. Witness Shushpanov has not confirmed that Bukovsky had conducted anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda with him or that he had promised to help him send his anti-Soviet novel abroad. He also testified that the conversation about the copying machine, which is being incriminated to Bukovsky, arose on his, Shushpanov's, initiative and remained just a one-off conversation.

The accusation of intending to organize an underground printing house cannot be considered proven, since there is no evidence that Bukovsky was going to distribute materials of anti-Soviet slanderous content.

The testimony of Bychkov and Tarasov — in particular, the phrase incriminated to Bukovsky "the USSR does not have the social system that the Soviet people need" — I believe, should be attributed to the area of ​​generalizations Bukovsky's interlocutors are making themselves, which do not follow from the statements Bukovsky had been actually making to those witnesses.

The fact that that their testimony was influenced by the peculiarities of their own individual perception is confirmed by the discrepancies in their testimonies, which, of course, the court has noticed.

The defense council further stated that he considers unproven the accusation that Bukovsky had passed on materials to Sebreghts. Bukovsky himself categorically denies this fact. "V. Chalidze and A. Volpin, in whose presence the materials had allegedly been handed over, were not interrogated by the investigation," Shveiski said. "You also refused Bukovsky's petition to summon them to court. Therefore, this episode essentially remains untested."

"All this leads me to conclude," said defense council Shveiski in summing up, "that the court has not established the existence of evidence that would indicate that Bukovsky had really wished to undermine or weaken the Soviet state. Therefore Bukovsky cannot be held criminally liable under Art. 70 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Therefore, I ask you to acquit him.”

VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY'S FINAL STATEMENT TO THE COURT ON JANUARY 5, 1972

Judges, 

I will not touch on the legal side of the indictment, because I have already proven in this courtroom its complete unfoundedness. The defense council in his speech has also proven the complete unfoundedness of the inditement, and I agree with him on all points of his defense.

But I will say something else: the reprisal against me had been in the works for a long time, and I knew about it. On June 9, Prosecutor Vankovich had summoned me and threatened me with reprisals. Then an article appeared in Pravda newspaper under the headline "The Poverty of Anti-Communism," which the prosecutor quoted here almost in its entirety in her speech. The article accuses me of selling slanderous information to foreign correspondents in the alleyways in exchange for small handouts. 

And, finally, the "Political Self-Education" magazine in its issue no. 2 for 1971, ran an article by the Deputy Chairman of the KGB S. Tsvigun, which also accuses me of being engaged in anti-Soviet activities. And it is quite clear that the small investigating officer, conducting the investigation in my case, could not have gone against his boss and had to try at all costs to prove my guilt. 

Before my arrest, I had been under constant surveillance. I had been persecuted, threatened with murder, and one of those following me had at one point become so unhinged that he threatened me with his service weapon. While under investigation, I filed a petition that a criminal case be initiated against those persons. I even gave the plate number of the on-duty vehicle in which those people followed me, and relayed other facts which made it fully possible to identify them. However, I did not receive a response to this petition from the authorities to which I sent it. On the other hand, a very telling answer was received from the investigator: "Bukovsky's behavior during the investigation gives grounds for examining his mental state.”

The investigation was conducted with countless procedural violations. It is safe to say that there hasn’t been a single article in the Criminal Procedure Code that has not been violated. The investigation even employed such a shameful measure as placing a stool pigeon in my prison cell — a certain Trofimov, who himself confessed to me that he had been instructed to conduct provocative anti-Soviet conversations with me in order to provoke me into making similar kinds of statements — actions for which he had been promised an early release. As you can see, what is being incriminated to me as a crime, some people are allowed to engage in, provided it is in the "interests of the case.”

I have been sending complaints about this to various authorities and I have demanded just now, during the trial, to attach them to the case file, but the court felt “too awkward" to do this.

As for the investigating officer, instead of considering my complaint and providing me with an answer, he sent me for an in-patient medical examination at the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry. 

The investigations department of the KGB really wanted to have me declared insane. How convenient! After all, there is no case on me, there is nothing to build the accusation on, and here you don't have to prove the fact of a crime having been committed, you can just say that you are simply dealing with a sick individual, a mentally ill person. 

And things could have happened exactly this way. And there would not have been this trial now, and there would not have been my final statement: I would have been convicted in absentia, without being present... If not for the hard-driving public intervention that took place. Indeed, following the initial examination period — in mid-September — the medical commission discovered in me an ominous ambiguity of the clinical picture. And judging by the questions the doctors were posing to me after that, I realized that they were intending to declare me insane. And only on November 5, as a result of the pressure from the public, the new medical commission declared me sane. This is a reliable proof to my statements (which here, in court, are being called libelous) regarding how, on the instructions of the KGB, psychiatric reprisals are being carried out against dissidents.

I also have another proof of this. In 1966, for eight months without trial and investigation and despite medical indications regarding my mental health, I was being kept in psychiatric hospitals, being transferred from one hospital to another, as and when doctors were discharging me. 

So, on November 5, I was declared sane, and I was again put in prison, and the procedural violations continued. Provisions of Article 201 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were grossly violated at the end of the investigation. I demanded that a lawyer of my choice be provided to me. But the investigating officer refused this request of mine and signed documents required under Аrticle 201 by himself. 

(Art. 201 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ensures the right of the accused person to review all the materials of his / her case file both personally and with a help from defense council following the completion of the preliminary investigation. In Bukovsky’s case the investigator put his own signature on the document which by law required Bukovsky’s signature certifying that the accused had reviewed his case file. -- Translator). 

He also made a note stating I had refused to review the case file.

In accordance with my right to legal defense, provided for in Art. 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, I demanded to engage a defense lawyer — Dina Isaakovna Kaminskaya — to defend me in court.

I turned to the chairman of the Presidium of the Moscow Bar Association with this request and received his refusal accompanied by the following resolution: "Defense council Kaminskaya cannot be appointed to this case because she does not have access permit for secret paperwork." The question is, what kind of "secret paperwork" can one talk about when I am on trial for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. And, in general, where, in what Soviet law is this notorious "access permit" ever mentioned? Nowhere.

Thus, I was not provided with a defense council. Moreover, the aforementioned reply from the Bar Association, which I was given to read and which bears my signature, was later withdrawn from the case file and returned to the Bar Association, about which there is a certificate in the case file. Instead of it, another, completely innocent answer from the Chairman of the Board was inserted in the case file, which was never given to me to read. How can this be viewed? Only as official forgery.

It took 12 days of me being on a hunger strike, as well as complaints to the Prosecutor General of the USSR, to the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, and to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as a fresh active intervention of the public for my legal right to defense to be finally granted. I was provided with defense council Shveiski whom my mother engaged.

Today's trial has also been conducted with numerous procedural violations. The indictment, which uses the word "slanderous" 33 times and the word "anti-Soviet" 18 times, does not contain exact indications as to which specific facts among those I had communicated to the Western correspondents are considered libelous and which materials out of those taken from me during the search and allegedly distributed by me are considered anti-Soviet.

Of the nine motions I have filed at the beginning of the trial which have been supported by my lawyer, eight were rejected. None of the witnesses whom I indicated as able to refute the various points of the indictment were summoned by the court.

I was charged, among other things, with handing over anti-Soviet materials to a Flemish man who visited Moscow, Hugo Sebreghts. These materials were allegedly given to him by me in the presence of Volpin and Chalidze. However, my demand to call these two people as witnesses was not granted. Furthermore, not a single person out of the eight I named who could confirm the truth of my statements regarding the facts of people being placed in special psychiatric hospitals and the conditions in those hospitals was summoned by the court. The court rejected my request to summon these witnesses, arguing that these people were mentally ill and could not testify. However, among these people there are two — Z. M. Grigorenko and A. A. Fainberg — who have never been placed in special psychiatric hospitals, but have visited these hospitals only as relatives and could confirm my testimony about the conditions of detention in these hospitals.

Only the prosecution witnesses were summoned by the court. But what kind of witnesses are they? Before my arrest, an individual with a mission had been sent over to me, most likely by the KGB employees, who is a serviceman of the state security forces, now working at the customs inspection department of the Sheremetyevo airfield, who had once been my school friend — a certain Nikitinsky, who had instructions to provoke me into committing a crime of organizing an export from abroad of equipment for a clandestine printing press. But the hapless provocateur was unable to succeed. Then the investigation, and then the court, tried to make him a witness on this charge. As we have seen here, Nikitinsky could not perform this task either.

What all these provocations and gross procedural violations have been for? This stream of slander and false, unsubstantiated accusations? Why has this trial been necessary? Just to punish one person?

No, a certain "principle" is at work here, a kind of "philosophy." Something else lies behind the declared indictment, something that has not been presented. By condemning me, the authorities are pursuing one goal here: to cover up their own crimes — the psychiatric abuse employed in retribution against dissidents. 

The aim of this retribution directed at me is to intimidate those who are trying to tell the rest of the world about these crimes. They do not want to "wash dirty linen in public" in order to look like such impeccable defenders of the oppressed on the world stage!

Our society is still sick. It is sick with fear that came to us from the time of Stalinism. But the process of spiritual enlightenment of our society has already begun, and it is impossible to put a stop to it. Our society already understands that the criminal is not the one who "launders the dirty linen in public," but the one who stains the linen. No matter how long I would have to remain in prison, I will never give up my convictions. And using the right granted to me by Article 125 of the Soviet Constitution, I will express them to everyone who wants to listen. I will fight for legality and justice.

And I only regret that during this short period — one year, two months and three days that I have been a free man — I have managed to do too little toward achieving this goal.

SENTENCING VERDICT

The court carefully examined the case file of defendant Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky, born in 1942, Russian, residing at the following address: Moscow, Furmanov Street 3/5, apt. 59. During the trial, the court questioned witnesses and the defendant himself and found V. K. Bukovsky guilty of the following:

1. During 1970-1971 V. K. Bukovsky had been engaged in systematic dissemination of anti-Soviet materials of slanderous content, discrediting the Soviet state and its social system, transmitting slanderous information to foreign correspondents, claiming that in the Soviet Union healthy people are placed in prison-type psychiatric hospitals where various torture methods are applied to them, as well as keeping in his apartment various anti-Soviet materials of slanderous content.

This is evidenced by:

A) Clippings from foreign newspapers The Washington Post, The San Francisco Examiner, and The Daily News containing articles of slanderous contents defaming the Soviet state and its social order and titled as follows: "A Russian who fights against the system," "A Soviet dissenter speaks," "A Russian dissident talks about the horrors of psychiatric prisons for dissidents." 

B) A film reel, which had been shown by the American TV company CBS as part of a TV show on July 28, 1970, titled "Voices of the Russian underground," and commentaries accompanying this film, publicized in various foreign newspapers, as well as in radio broadcasts of radiostations "Liberty," "The Voice of America," and "The BBC."

C) Anti-Soviet materials of slanderous content, seized during the search at Bukovsky's apartment: Issue no. 17 of the "Chronicle of Current Events"; "An open letter to the XXIV Congress" by P. Yakir; Feinberg and Borisov's "Appeal of Political Prisoners Declared Insane”; a handwritten draft titled "An Open Letter to the 24th Party Congress" by an unknown author.

D) V. K. Bukovsky's notebook seized from him during the search containing telephone numbers of foreign correspondents.

2. V. K. Bukovsky is guilty of the fact that during repeated meetings with citizen V. A. Shushpanov, a former employee of the Department of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, he conducted anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda with him, claiming that in the USSR healthy people are placed in psychiatric hospitals, where inhumane treatment is applied to them, claiming that in the Soviet Union there is no personal freedom, no freedom of speech, press, assembly, and also conducting conversations with him in order to persuade Shushpanov to use a business trip abroad to smuggle in a copying machine in order to organize an underground printing house and reproduce anti-Soviet Samizdat materials. The evidence of this is the testimony of V. A. Shushpanov, given during the preliminary investigation and trial.

​

3. V. K. Bukovsky is guilty of meeting with Arnold Iosifovich Nikitinsky, an employee of the checkpoint of the Sheremetyevo airfield, and conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda with him, declaring that there is no personal freedom in the USSR, that healthy people are placed in psychiatric hospitals for their dissent, and also persuading Nikitinsky to use the official position of the latter to help him carry out the illegal import of a portable printing house into the USSR, bypassing the customs inspection at the Sheremetyevo airfield. At the same time, V. K. Bukovsky had a goal of organizing an underground printing house for the dissemination of anti-Soviet materials of slanderous content.

V. K. Bukovsky is also guilty of illegally keeping in his apartment two issues of the anti-Soviet magazine Possev, the contents of which he showed to Nikitinsky.

This is evidenced by Nikitinsky's own handwritten testimony at the preliminary investigation, a tape recording of his face-to-face interrogation with Bukovsky, and Nikitinsky's testimony given by him in court.

4. V. K Bukovsky is guilty of the fact that, when meeting members of the armed forces Bychkov and Tarasov, previously unknown to him, in a cafe at the Kursk railway station, he conducted anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda with them, declaring that the USSR does not have the social order that the Soviet people need, and also gave them his telephone number and the address and telephone number of the Associated Press correspondent Astrakhan, inviting Bychkov and Tarasov to report slanderous information by calling these telephones numbers.

This is evidenced by the telephone numbers of of V. K. Bukovsky and Astrakhan found in Bychkov's notebook, and the testimony of Bychkov and Tarasov given by them during the preliminary investigation and in court.

5. V. K. Bukovsky is guilty of the fact that on March 28, 1971 at the apartment of V. N. Chalidze he had a meeting with the citizen of Belgium Sebreghts Hugo, who came to the Soviet Union as a tourist on the instructions of the anti-Soviet Flemish Committee. Sebreghts Hugo had an assignment to meet with V. K. Bukovsky, for which he had been given Bukovsky's phone number by the Flemish Committee, which he had written down in his notebook using code. During the meeting in Chalidze's apartment, V. K. Bukovsky handed over to Sebreghts two slanderous anti-Soviet documents: issue no. 18 of the "Chronicle of Current Events" and the "Open Letter to the 24th Party Congress" by P. Yakir, which were then seized from Sebreghts during a search.

This is evidenced by the conclusion of the forensic examination, which established that the documents seized from Sebreghts, and documents of a similar content, seized at Bukovsky's apartment during the search, were typed on the same typewriter, as well as the testimony of Sebreghts given by him during the preliminary investigation. The court considers it proven that Bukovsky pursued the goal of undermining and weakening the Soviet state. V. K. Bukovsky is guilty of committing crimes under Art. 70 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

The court, when deciding on the sentence, took into account the fact that V. K. Bukovsky had been previously convicted under Art. 1903 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after serving his sentence (3 years in the corrective labor camp), he continued to engage in criminal activity, despite repeated warnings from the Prosecutor's office, and the court also took into account that during the investigation V. K. Bukovsky was behaving belligerently, refusing to cooperate with the investigation and refusing to acknowledge his guilt during the preliminary investigation and during the court trial.

In the name of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich, born in 1942, ... is hereby sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 7 years in corrective labor camps, the first 2 years to be served in prison, and to subsequent exile for a period of 5 years. The court also decrees to recover from V. K. Bukovsky costs in the amount of 100 rubles.

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Translated from Russian by Alissa Ordabai.