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A New Generation of Political Prisoners: "Anti-Sdviet" Students, 1956-1957

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A New Generation of Political Prisoners: KATHLEEN E. SMITH (Washington, DC, USA) A NEW GENERATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS: "ANTI-SDVIET" STUDENTS, 1956-1957 The year 1956 is associated with new freedoms in the Soviet Union. One need only recall Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Joseph Stalin at that February's XX Party Congress and the _release of GULag prisoners that fol- lowed. Rehabilitation of cultural icons purged or silenced under Stalin took place alongside new literary and artistic sensations, including the publication of Vladimir Dudintsev's anti-bureaucratic novel Not by Bread Alone and the first exhibition of Pablo Picasso's works in the USSR. Young people from the East bloc began to study in Soviet universities, while preparations got un- derway for the arrival of guests from all over the world for 1957's Interna- tional Youth Festival. Yet behind the atmosphere of greater openness lurked uncodified, inconsistent limitations on speech with punishments for those The of limits on be- who transgressed. importance disarray regarding speech - comes clear when one looks at 1956 as also a year of protest and repression. Khrushchev's reversal of the official deification of Stalin shocked the populace and provoked daring outbursts from those who would defend Stalin as well as from those who found the Secret Speech insufficiently radical. In Georgia, officials had to cope with street protests against the reevaluation of Stalin. Though they decisively quashed the pro-Stalin demonstrations in Georgia, Soviet authorities seemed tacitly at least to support growing political and artistic liberalism in the months following the denunciation of the cult of personality In late 1956, however, events in Hungary led to a change in atti- tude at the top. In December, the Central Committee issued a classified letter to Party organizations instructing them to strengthen political work among the masses i1-1light of a spate of anti-Soviet outbursts. This letter identified writers and artists as the most likely offenders, but also targeted students as vulnerable to foreign propaganda.2 At the same time, the KGB seems to have 1. Other republicsalso experiencedconfusion as to what constitutedanti-Soviet speech in light of Khrushchev'sspeech. On Georgia,see V. A. Kozlov,Massovye bespo?iadki v SSSRpri Khrushchevei Brezhneve(Ivovosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograf, 1999), pp. 155-83;on the RSFSR, see Polly Jones, "From Stalinismto Post-Stalinism:De-Mythologising Stalin, 1953-56 ;"Totali- tarian Movementsand Political Regimes,4, no. 1 (2003),127-48. , 2. "Pis'mo TsK KPSS 'ob usileniipoliticheskoi raboty partiinykhorganizatsii v massakhi peresecheniivylazok antisovetskikh vrazhdebnykh e1erilentov'," in DokladN. S. Khrusheheva'o 192 stepped up its investigations of suspicious types, especially among liberal. students. The subsequent crackdown on free thinkers [vol'nodumisy] in late 1956-1957 cut short with free and created many youthful experiments ' speech dozens of new political prisoners. This essay examines two cases of young people who suffered for their words or deeds in late 1956. The focus is on those subject to the most ex- treme measure-arrest, trial and prison camp. 1956 was a year of great turmoil in Soviet universities; debates about the state of the Komsomol, de- Stalinization, literary canons, and even student life culminated in many scan- dals, but few arrests.3 An in-depth study of two extraordinary cases of the first political prisoners of a new generation reveals the regime's limits on tol- erance. It also addresses numerous questions about the nature of "freethink- ing" among young elites at the start of the thaw: what interested students in 1956? How did some become political actors? Did those who landed in prison feel themselves out of step with their fellow students? Lastly, what . was the relation of the "generation of 1956" to later dissident groups? Official figures for anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation convictions for 1956 and 1957 show a remarkable jump from 384 in 1956 to 1,964 in 1957. Indeed, 1957 and '1958 were by far the peak years for article 58 (anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation) trials for the whole post-Stalin period of Soviet history.4 My goal, however, is not to breakdown these statistics to classify the " nature of convictions or the demographics of offenders.5 Rather I focus on kul'ie lichnostiStalina na XXs"ezde KPSS:dokumenty (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002), pp. 393- 401. 3. Gennadii Kuzovkin argues persuasivelythat "traditionalrepression" - that is criminal charges,trial, and jailsentence - wereby no meansthe dominanttactic for dealingwith inappro- priate student behavior. "Partiino-Komsomol'skiepresledovaniia po politicheskimmotivam v period rannei 'ottepeli'," in L. S. Eremina and E. B. Zhemkovaeds., Korni Travy (Moscow: Zven"ia,1996), pp. 88-93. On unrest and Party reactionsat MoscowState University, see Evge- nii Taranov,"'Raskachaem Leninskie gori!': Iz istorii 'vol'nodumstva'v Moskovskomuniver- sitete (1955-1956gg.)" Svobodnaiamysl', no. 10 (1993),pp. 94-103 and '''Volno'dumstvo' v MGU: Dokumental'noepovestvovanie po protokolampartkoma. 1951-1959,"Istochnik, no. 3 (2002),pp. 84-96. 1 4. 1958saw 1,416convictions dropping to 750 in 1959and muchlower figures thereon after. These statisticscome from a classifiedreport preparedfor Gorbachevand reprintedin Vestnik ArkhivaPrezideflta Rossiskoi Federatsii, no. 6 (1995),p. 147. .sjGosudarstvennyi Arkhiv RossiiskoiFederatsii (hereafter GARF) archivists have cataloged article5810 convictions for the post-Stalinperiod (0. V. Edel'man,ed., 5810:Nadzornye proiz- _ vodstvaProkuratury SSSRpo delam ob antisovetskoiagitatsii i propagande.Annotirovannyi kntalogmart 1953-1991[Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond 'Demokratiia,'1999]). Compilers es- timatethey have informationon 60% of cases. Their data, from the files of the Prosecutor'sof- fice for oversight,<allows for samplingby age, residence,and nationalityof offendersas well as by form and nature of "anti-Soviet"action. A recent effort in this directionis V. A. Kozlov, . _ . , . .
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