| Native name | Процесс четырех |
|---|---|
| Date | January 8–12, 1968 (1968-01-08 –1968-01-12) |
| Location | Moscow |
| Also known as | Galanskov–Ginzburg trial |
| Cause | Samizdat publications |
| Participants | Yuri Galanskov Alexander Ginzburg Alexey Dobrovolsky Vera Lashkova |
| Charges | Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code) |
| Verdict | Sentenced tolabour camps: Galanskov (7 years); Ginzburg (5 years); Dobrovolsky (2 years); Lashkova (1 year) |
TheTrial of the Four, alsoGalanskov–Ginzburg trial, was the 1968 trial ofYuri Galanskov,Alexander Ginzburg,Alexey Dobrovolsky and Vera Lahkova for their involvement insamizdat publications. The trial took place inMoscow City Court on January 8–12. All four defendants were sentenced to terms inlabour camps. The trial played a major part in consolidating the emerginghuman rights movement in the Soviet Union.[1]
Yury Galanskov was a second-year student at the Historical Archives Institute and worked at the State Literary Museum inMoscow. From 1959 onwards he took part inreadings by young poets in Mayakovsky Square. His poems were published inSintaksis, a typescript poetry anthology edited byAlexander Ginzburg. In 1966, Galanskov compiled and issued the typewritten literary collectionPhoenix-66.[2]: 5–9
Alexander Ginzburg was a first-year student at the Historical Archives Institute who also worked at the State Literary Museum. In 1959–1960 he helped to organize severalunofficial exhibitions of young artists. In 1960, Ginzburg had been sentenced to two years inlabour camps in connection with issuing three issues of hisSintaksis poetry collections. Ginzburg put together a collection of materials on the case and trial of writersSinyavsky and Daniel (later calledWhite Book), and in November 1966 sent copies to deputies of theUSSR Supreme Soviet and to theKGB.[2]: 9–11
Alexey Dobrovolsky was a first-year student at theMoscow State Institute of Culture, working in the State Literary Museum. In 1957 he had been sentenced underarticle 58-10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code to three years' corrective labour.[3]: 74 In 1964, he again faced criminal charges but, after a forensic psychiatric examination, was sent to aspecial psychiatric prison hospital in Leningrad. Galanskov's literary almanacPhoenix-66 published an article by Dobrovolsky on "Relations between knowledge and faith".[2]: 11–14
Vera Lashkova worked as a typist at Moscow University and was a second-year student at the Institute of Culture.[4] She typed part of the material forPhoenix andThe White Book.[2]: 14–15
In February 1966, writersYuli Daniel andAndrei Sinyavsky were sentenced to labour camps on charges ofAnti-Soviet agitation and propaganda for having published their satirical writings abroad. Regarding the sentence as unjust and the information on the trial as inadequate, Alexander Ginzburg decided to produce a collection of known materials on the trial. This included reconstructed trial transcripts and protest letters by intellectuals and citizens across the USSR which were not published in the official press.
The collection, which became known asThe White Book, was complete at the end of November 1966. Ginzburg produced five typewritten copies of the collection and sent them signed with his own name to deputies of theUSSR Supreme Soviet, and to theKGB.[2]: 9–11 He was summoned to the KGB in December and urged to repudiate the collection, to stop its circulation and to state who had helped him compile it. Ginzburg refused, and was informed that he would soon be arrested.[2]: 9
In December 1966Yuri Galanskov had finished work on a typewritten literary magazine titledPhoenix-66. In this miscellany, he included material in samizdat circulation among the Moscowintelligentsia, such as his own letter to writerMikhail Sholokokhov, in which he condemned the writer for his position on the Daniel–Sinyavsky case.[2]: 11
In January 1967 the place of Vera Lashkova, who had helped typePhoenix-66 andThe White Book, was searched and documents confiscated. This was followed by the arrest of Galanskov and Alexey Dobrovolsky, who also had published inPhoenix-66, on 19 January 1967. Vera Lashkova herself was arrested on 21 January 1967. Alexander Ginzburg was arrested on 23 January 1967.[2]: 16
The arrested spent the next twelve months in pre-trial detention in Moscow'sLefortovo Prison.[3]: 73
All four defendants were charged with Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda):[2]: 53
All four were additionally accused of "criminal association" with the emigre anti-Soviet organizationNational Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a charge that was stressed in thepropaganda campaign around the trial.[4]
The hearings took place between 8 January and 12 January 1968 inMoscow City Court.
While the trial was formally public, admission to it was by permit issued by district committees of the Communist Party.[3]: 74 As a sign of protest, supporters of the accused stood on the street in front of the court during the hearings.[5]
The case of the defendants was taken up by three prominent Moscow defence lawyers:Dina Kaminskaya,Sofiya Kalistratova, and Boris Zolotukhin. Uncommonly for Soviet trials, they did not disassociate themselves from the politically accused defendants.[6]: 75 Zolotukhin opened his defence with the words "I have the honor to defend Aleksander Ginzburg." Stating that "I need not dwell on Ginzburg's moral virtues, as, whether he is a good or an evil man, I can confidently state that he is not a guilty one," he called for his complete acquittal.[6]: 75 Zolotukhin's final statement widely circulated insamizdat.[4] All three lawyers were subsequently barred from legal cases, and Zolotukhin was removed from the Collegium of Lawyers and from his post as head of a legal consultation office.[6]: 75
Yuri Galanskov and Alexander Ginzburg disputed the criminal nature of their activity and plead not guilty. Vera Lashkova plead not guilty to anti-Soviet agitation under article 70. She asked to reclassify her offence under the less severe article 190-1 which does not stipulate intent to subvert the Soviet system.[2]: 183 Alexey Dobrovolsky had worked with the prosecution and plead guilty to the charges.[2]: 216
On 12 January 1968, the court found all defendants guilty. The four were sentenced to forced labour:[7][2]: 220
The lawyers of all four convicted individuals entered appeals. The appeals were heard in the Russian Supreme Court on 16 April 1968. The sentence of the Moscow City Court was upheld.[2]
Vera Lashkova had spent her entire sentence in pre-trial detention and was released.[7] Yuri Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg and Alexey Dobrovolsky were sent to camps inMordovia.[8] Yuri Galanskov died in the camps after an unsuccessful operation for astomach ulcer in 1972.[9]
In January 1967, a protest followed against the arrest of Ginzburg and Galanskov, and against the introduction of new articles to the Criminal Code that restricted the right to protest.[10] StudentsVladimir Bukovsky,Vadim Delaunay, Victor Khaustov and Evgeny Kushev were arrested for organizing and taking part. Delaunay and Kushev received suspended sentences. Vladimir Bukovsky was sentenced to three years hard labour.[6]: 74–75 Bukovsky attacked the legal conduct of the case in his final words, which circulated in samizdat and as part of materials about the demonstration compiled byPavel Litvinov.[11]
Over the course of 1967 and 1968, the Trial of the Four motivated a renewed wave ofpodpisanty (signatories), individuals who signed a series of petitions against repression and re-Stalinization.[12]: 177–95 At this time, such protest was made at risk of expulsions from education or hindered careers.[6]: 151 The dissident periodicalChronicle of Current Events lists 91 names of people subject to extrajudicial reprisals in connection with protesting the trial.[13]
Andrei Sakharov sent a letter to theCentral Committee of the Communist Party in February 1967, asking that the case be closed.[14] He was deemed an "unstable politician", and his salary was cut by half.[15]
Dissident generalPyotr Grigorenko warned in an "Open Letter to the Budapest Conference of Communist Parties" that "the possibility of a renewal of Stalinism exists as long as there is no glasnost of the judicial process, which was not present in Stalinist times.".[6]: 48
In November 1967, 116 Soviet intellectuals, including mathematician and initiator of the1965 glasnost rallyAlexander Esenin-Volpin,Larisa Bogoraz andPavel Litvinov, signed an appeal to the Court in which they demanded to be able attend the trial as formally guaranteed by the constitution, and criticized the practice of admitting people according to special lists and passes.[16]: 37 [6]: 48
The judicial trial of [Yuri] Galanskov, [Aleksandr] Ginzburg, [Aleksei] Dobrovolsky and [Vera] Lashkova, which is taking place at present in the Moscow City Court, is being carried out in violation of the most important principles of Soviet law. [...] We pass this appeal to the Western progressive press, and ask for it to be published and broadcast by radio as soon as possible. We are not sending this request to Soviet newspapers because that is hopeless.
As the trial was underway, physics teacherPavel Litvinov and linguistLarisa Bogoraz issued a famous one-page "appeal to world public opinion". In it, they protested against the closed hearings in which "the courtroom is filled with specially selected people, officials of the KGB and volunteer militia, who give the appearance of an open public trial". Reminding readers of "the celebrated trials of the 1930s," Bogoraz and Litvinov listed in detail the violations of law and justice committed during the trial, and asked the Soviet and world public to demand that the prisoners be released from custody and that the trial be repeated in the presence of international observers.[6]: 48 The appeal was notable for departing from the accepted tradition of addressing appeals to Soviet officials, and became the first direct appeal by dissidents to the international public.[5] The document was signed with their full names and addresses and was transmitted on foreign radio stations broadcasting in the Soviet Union on 11 January 1968.[5]
Following the tradition of the convicted Ginzburg'sWhite Book, a samizdat account of the "trial of the four" was in turn compiled byPavel Litvinov. It included transcripts of the hearings (reconstructed from notes taken during the trial and eyewitness accounts), coverage of the trial in theSoviet press as well as the texts of the numerous protest letters and appeals that were sent by dissenting citizens. It circulated in samizdat and was published in London and New York asThe Trial of the Four.[2]