Cracking Down

Andropov vs. free thought

At the conclusion of Soviet Historian Roy Medvedev's monumental 1971 study of the Stalin era, Let History Judge, the author sounded a warning note: "Not everything connected with Stalinism is behind us, by no means everything. The process of purifying the Communist movement, of washing out all the layers of Stalinist filth, is not yet finished." Those words rang true last week when the Soviet Union's top law enforcement agency warned Medvedev to "cease hostile activities" or face criminal charges.

The move against Medvedev added weight to evidence that Party Leader Yuri Andropov has stepped up the campaign against independent thought that he had begun as head of the KGB. Said Medvedev, who had predicted as early as 1978 that Andropov would succeed Leonid Brezhnev as party leader: "People have been asking me about the new Andropov government, and I've been saying that it's going to be strict on the one hand and appear to be intellectual on the other. However, we've seen plenty of examples of its being strict and so far little intellect."

Medvedev, 57, was summoned to the office of the Soviet Prosecutor General in Moscow and accused of producing "mockingly hostile scribblings that have slandered the Soviet Union," referring to Medvedev's 19 books that have been published only abroad. Deputy Prosecutor Oleg Soroka told Medvedev, "Either you stop writing such books and articles, or we will put you in jail." The nonconformist Marxist historian, who cannot properly be called a dissident, pointed out that he had been writing for two decades with no interference from the authorities. Replied Soroka: "The fact that we have not called you in for 20 years is a reflection of our great patience. But that patience is coming to an end. It may run out in 1983."

Medvedev then refused to sign a copy of the official warning. Instead, he gave the prosecutor a statement saying that "any honorable historian" must continue writing whether his work is pleasing to those in power or not. "I am scarcely troubled by the prosecutor's and the KGB's opinion of my work. Any honest and independent historian should be concerned with only one thing: the search for truth." Medvedev later said that he would not go into voluntary exile. "I have absolutely no desire to leave the Soviet Union, and no one is pressuring me into doing so."

Medvedev described the threat against him as part of a widespread crackdown. To the friends and foreign correspondents who flocked to his home after he returned from the prosecutor's office, the historian described police sweeps that are going on throughout the Moscow area and elsewhere in the country under Andropov's new Minister of Internal Affairs, Vitali Fedorchuk, who became notorious for brutal methods when he was KGB chief in the Ukraine. "You can't imagine the scale of these sweeps at stores, restaurants, movie houses and even the public baths," said Medvedev. The purpose of the raids is to root out individuals who do not possess residence permits to live in the capital and other major cities or who have taken time off from their jobs. Medvedev described one operation at the Univermag supermarket near his home. Two busloads of uniformed police swept down upon the shoppers and demanded to examine the internal passports every Soviet citizen must carry. Those whose papers were not in order, or who looked as if they should be at work, were herded into the buses and driven to the local police station. "These are actions that have no legal justification," Medvedev pointed out. "The police have a right to check a person's documents, but only if they suspect he or she has committed a crime."

In line with Andropov's determination to impose better labor discipline, the daily Sovietskaya Rossiya announced a new drive to round up alcoholics, tramps, drug addicts and other "social parasites" for treatment in special camps, to be followed by "corrective labor." The newspaper Trud (Labor) said that industrial managers would be held responsible for reporting alcoholics to the authorities.

In particular jeopardy were members of the small but active unofficial peace organization that sprang up last June under the name Group to Establish Trust Between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. Its members have been harassed by the KGB for spontaneously forming a pacifist group outside the ranks of the official Soviet Peace Committee. Then, late last year, TASS launched a strong anti-Semitic attack on the pacifists, several of whom are Jewish. Though there is no evidence that the peace group members have a pro-Israeli bias, TASS made the claim that "while supposedly fighting for peace, they openly regret that they did not have an opportunity to take part in the bloody slaughter organized by the Zionists in occupied Lebanon." There is a fear that the current campaign characterizing the peace group as an anti-Soviet "Trojan horse" is intended to prepare public opinion for a trial of its members. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.