"Chatterboxes" and "writers"

Author and Presenter Vladimir Tolts

"Chatterboxes" and "writers"

"... He always expressed dissatisfaction with the existing order in the country. He called the workers slaves, the boss a master, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev “Tsar Nikita.”

“Flikov said that in the 40th year of Soviet power, the government could not come up with anything more stupid than to issue a Decree on petty hooliganism. I hear poorly, so I heard in fragments.”

As one of our characters said: “In my letters I depicted reality, but I had no idea that this reality was anti-Soviet.”

Vladimir Tolts:

“Chatterboxes” and “Writers” is the third and final program from the “Sedition” series.

Let me remind you: some time ago in this program we began a story about a book being prepared in the USA, at Yale University Press, about Soviet sedition from Stalin to Yeltsin. This is a collection of previously secret documents of the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR from the early 1950s to 1982.

Today’s program, the final one of this cycle, dedicated to the most common type of Russian sedition - the so-called “chatter” - that is, manifestations in conversations and statements of public consciousness that the authorities regarded as criminal, dangerous for it, as well as seditious “writing”, I want to start today’s program with a recording of my conversation in Moscow by one of the editors and the author of the introduction to the mentioned volume, Vladimir Kozlov, and one of the compilers and commentators of the collection Olga Eidelman.

Over the centuries-old history of Russia, over the long history of our, many of us, common lost homeland - the Soviet Union - many smart and well-spoken people who were born here and love their homeland long ago with the poetically canonized “strange love” have said many precise words, noticed many features, features, details that, no matter how offensive it may be to us, are a figurative expression of the constants of our sad history. This is the catchphrase about fools and roads, and the biting “they steal in Russia,” and the relatively recent “they wanted the best, but it turned out as always,” a formula that, I think, will outlive the author in history, like the well-known formula of the Roman emperor “money has no smell,” whose name and deeds are now remembered only by a few educated people and history students. Some of these winged definitions of stable phenomena of Russian and Soviet history were given to us by collective folk art, a living folk language. Some of it is a harsh, axe-like legal practice and no softer everyday lawlessness. I want to talk to you now about one of them, about the definition and essence of a phenomenon that is constant in Russian life yesterday, today, tomorrow and very characteristic of Russian Soviet sedition - about “talkers” and punishments for chatter.

In the collection you compiled, a lot of space was devoted to “talkers” and the government’s struggle with them. We know that even before the Bolshevik revolution, some topics in conversations, in drunken chatter, were the subject of criminal proceedings and punishment. All this, and chatter, and punishment for it, if you like, is one of the constants of Russian history that I mentioned. And so you studied the affairs of the “talkers” during the reign of late Stalin, during the Khrushchev decade, during the reign of Brezhnev and the subsequent short-lived “crown bearers”. And first of all, I want to ask about your general impression: how do the motives, punishable by the authorities, of the chatter of the era you examined, and the punishment for these conversations differ from what happened before - before October 17th and after, until the 50s.

Olga Eidelman:

I risk speaking somewhat generally and not quite factually accurately, I think, because anything has happened in our history and what I will say now will be a rather crude schematism. But I would say, first of all, that under Khrushchev, as under Stalin, people were probably imprisoned for chatter, so to speak, unintentionally. That is, before the revolution, as well as during the dissident period, in order to simply earn a term in language, it was necessary, firstly, to work very long and hard, to make it almost the goal of one’s life, and, secondly, some kind of specific self-identification of these people was needed. They had to consider themselves fighters against power. From this point of view, if you like, the case of the Decembrists is not chatter? - Pure chatter in most of its manifestations! But they considered themselves a secret society, they believed that they were developing ways and means of changing state power, that is, they considered themselves enemies of the regime. As for the talkers who are present in our book (I think the Stalinist period should also be mentioned, although there is also a separate story), these are people who did not consider themselves enemies of the authorities. Which did not mean absolutely, not all of them of course, many of them, a large number, did not mean an absolutely directed conscious struggle against the authorities. They didn’t even consider themselves anti-Soviet, it was just talk, just opinions, everyday, ordinary. These were not even necessarily political opinions, they could be conversations in which everyday circumstances were stated - hard life, low wages, the lack of the proclaimed prosperity of the Soviet people in practice.

Vladimir Tolts:

From the documents cited in the collection “Sedition”:

“Panfilov F.N., a railway controller, on March 5, 1953, at the Kursk station in Moscow, told a colleague about the death of Stalin that “a holy place is never empty,” and that, probably, there are already candidates for this place and may be no worse than Stalin. In 1948-1953, in conversations he criticized Soviet leaders, collective farms, said that people live better abroad, and so on. He listened and retold Voice of America broadcasts.

“Sychev N.D., Komsomol member, machinist of the Kuibyshev Construction Department, having heard about Stalin’s illness, said: “Since Comrade Stalin’s urine test was abnormal, perhaps Comrade Stalin had a venereal disease, maybe he had something like the clap.”

“Levin Z.E., party member, assistant station chief of the Moscow Circular Railway, on March 6, 1953, during a conversation about how many people go to the Hall of Columns to bid farewell to Stalin’s body and how difficult it is to get there, said: “Our people are compassionate. Even if the scoundrel dies, his family is shown regret, but this is still the leader.” According to another version: “What’s surprising, the dog is run over, and then the people are going to watch, but this is the leader being buried.” On the same day, he recounted rumors “that Comrade Stalin’s son is not his own, that he drinks vodka by force, his wife complains about him to Comrade Stalin and he is put in the guardhouse.”

This is all 1953 - the year of Stalin's death. And here’s what they said (and why they imprisoned) later. - From the testimony of witness Telgerekov in the case of miner, war veteran Flikov: “On February 24, 1957, already at 9 o’clock in the evening, I was returning home with my wife and citizen Svechnikova. I boarded the N3 tram at a stop in Kuibyshevo. When the tram stopped at one of the stops, I heard a conversation about the Decree of December 19, 1956 (Decree on strengthening the fight against hooliganism). I came up and also intervened in the conversation, during which Flikov said that the Decree was stupid, this is not how we should be educated, and said that he had just arrived from the city of Kemerovo, and there was nothing in the stores there. When they started talking about the financial situation, he said that we have a lot of beggars on the tram, they are poorly paid for old age, that there was a riot in Budapest, and they are sending our bread there, and they are also sending bread to China. Korea. When I inquired about where he worked, he replied that I was not speaking for myself, but for the cleaners who received little. He also said in the argument that the students are rebelling, and you are here, they say, sit and be silent."

Witness in the same Svechnikov case:

“Flikov said that in the 40th year of Soviet power, the government could not come up with anything more stupid than to issue a Decree on petty hooliganism. I can’t hear well, so I heard in fragments. He said something that they steal from us because there are many beggars, we need to create better conditions for the people, that they say, in Kemerovo they are on strike, but here they are silent.”

Witness Nesterov:

“When we (that is, Flikov) brought him to the police station, where we reported everything to the duty officer, who invited him from the committee, and in response to his question, Flikov began to say: “I’m not afraid to speak, I’ll tell the whole truth,” and began to say that he is an engineer, but walks in tarpaulin boots, the government is just sitting, holding meetings, and how many beggars there are in our country! He began to list in which cities students rebelled, created discontent. Mentioned such cities as Kiev, Tomsk, Omsk" .

Based on this testimony, Flikov was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

Another example. 1958 Novikov, a 39-year-old duty officer at the sea station of the Petropavlovsk port, is being tried. Testimony of witness Baev:

“I have known Novikov from working together for several years... he always expressed dissatisfaction with the existing order in the country. He called the workers slaves, the boss a master, members of the Communist Party - surals. Khrushchev - “Tsar Nikita”, the Kremlin is a lair, and the party meeting is a gathering ... He never stayed after work. When asked why you were in a hurry, he said that you need to listen to the Voice of America program, it’s hard to hear during the day, but at night - well, when one day our bathhouse was burning, he thought it was none of his business, and did not even want to take measures to extinguish the fire, and in fact he did not take care of the electric stove, which was the cause of the fire... Novikov saw three “America” magazines in my possession and asked me for them. Afterwards, I repeatedly asked Novikov to return them to me... and he said that the children tore the magazines, but the magazines were intact, and he said that when the Americans come, he will take them. By this he supposedly wanted to prove to them that he had been interested in America for a long time. In addition, he stated that if the Americans came to Kamchatka, they would give him the first chair, the communists would be hanged... He also said that the Americans would bomb the lair of Moscow, we have nothing, there is nothing to fight with, saying that if it were not for our troops, the same system would be established in the country as in Austria. spoke out about the events in Egypt and was entirely on the side of the British. Novikov did not like our system... He told me that the American radio tells me that we have an unstable government, the truth can only be learned from the broadcasts. From the broadcasts, he also learned that there would be no Bulganin in the government, that the American radio ridicules the collective farm system, he suggested that I buy a receiver, since I have a separate apartment, I can listen to the Voice of America freely... I told him. Novikov about America, since I myself was in this country, but I did not praise it... I explained to him that the Voice of America was conveying lies. He said that America is a country of wonders...”

Witness in the same case Onikienko:

“... I have known Novikov since 1952 at work... He wondered how this could be? Churchill called for strangling Soviet power in the cradle, and said at the same time: “It’s bad that Churchill was not supported, then there would be no slavery.” He attributed the merit of the Russian people in the Patriotic War to America and England... He called Kochegarov slaves, the boss - a master... Regarding the Rosenberg spouses, he said that they sold the secret atomic energy, if not for this, then we would not have an atomic bomb. He expressed his opinion against the admission of China to the UN and said that the legal representatives are the Chiang Kai-shekists... He said that Russia was getting involved in the affairs of Hungary and its people, allegedly strangling the will of the people... He approved all the speeches of the capitalist bosses, and vice versa, all the speeches of our leaders... in particular Comrade Khrushchev - he decried... Novikov said that what kind of democracy we have, we have. after all, there is only one party, and in America there are many... If the Americans had come here, he would not have spared his puppies, that is, children, and would have gone against the Red Book, that is, the communists"

In general, citizen Novikov spoke anti-Soviet sedition for 6 years in the camps...

Olga Eidelman, who examined the cases of the “chatterboxes,” notes:

Olga Eidelman:

As one of our characters said: “In my letters I reflected reality, but I had no idea that this reality was anti-Soviet.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Well, besides, I remark to Olga Eidelman about her comparison of Soviet talkers with the Decembrists, the latter nevertheless went to Senate Square, and your heroes did not go anywhere further than the teahouse, where they drunkenly blurted out their thoughts... However, Olga’s co-author Vladimir Kozlov, a researcher of mass unrest in the Soviet era, does not agree with me.

Vladimir Kozlov:

This is not entirely true. The fact is that similar statements are recorded during mass riots, that is, such practical actions directed against the authorities. And from this point of view, what was passed around behind a glass, behind a glass, behind a bottle, in a tea room, at home or somewhere in the entrance, all this accumulated was spontaneously pronounced during times of mass unrest. That is, it turned out that there already existed a certain ideological program, well, with a big stretch, of course, we use the word ideological, but nevertheless there was a certain rhetorical set that would definitely be voiced during unrest and unrest.

Vladimir Tolts:

- Now we have given several excerpts from your collection - documents from the last year of Stalin’s life (and the year of death) and materials from the period of Khrushchev’s rule. How did these times differ from each other, if we talk about the persecution of “talkers”?

Vladimir Kozlov:

- The fact is that the Khrushchev era is called what they called the restoration of socialist legality. There are many known cases when the prosecutor's office simply dropped cases or lodged a protest against already passed sentences, without detecting anti-Soviet intent in the actions of the "talkers". This means that if you got drunk and said that Khrushchev is a “pig”, if there are no witnesses confirming that you said this while sober 5 days ago, then in this case it is not an anti-Soviet act and usually it is reclassified, for example, as hooliganism. The presence of anti-Soviet intent is a fundamentally important difference between Khrushchev’s repressive policies compared to the Stalin period.

Vladimir Tolts:

- I understand that it was this approach that subsequently gave rise to Article 190-1, which was previously absent in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which differed from the old 58-10 (in the new edition it was the 70th article of the Criminal Code), in the absence of anti-Soviet intent.

But now I want to ask you, just so that it would be clearer to our listeners what we are talking about more specifically, about, so to speak, the typology of blasphemy against the authorities. Actually, why was she scolded and scolded? As far as I, reading your documents, understood - for living conditions, for rising prices, for the domestic and foreign policies of the government, personal vices and unworthy behavior of leaders, and so on. How could you sort these motives into cells, into categories, perhaps somewhat artificially?

Olga Eidelman:

- That's about what you listed, that's why they scolded me and for everything else too. By way of general observations, we can say that everyday criticism, of what concerned simply the empirics of life, was of course present. She probably did not always lead to the initiation of criminal cases. Because in the general mass of criminal cases that we read, one still gets the impression that Soviet people loved to talk about politics and scolded the authorities precisely for politics. Let’s say that Khrushchev’s foreign policy demarches, which seemed to have no direct relation directly to people’s lives, were evoked in criminal cases, we must remember the difference between criminal cases and what people said throughout the country, because they were imprisoned for one thing, but not for another, in criminal cases some foreign policy demarches were reflected much more strongly than the actions of the government, which clearly should have greatly offended people.

Vladimir Tolts:

I continue my conversation with historian-archivists who prepared a collection of documents about Soviet troublemaker for publication in the United States - with Olga Eidelman and Vladimir Kozlov. Discussing the typology of seditious “chatter,” Vladimir Aleksandrovich highlights the following point:

Vladimir Kozlov:

This transference has always occurred: a person in power is, as a rule, bad simply because, in a certain environment and for a certain type of mentality, he is bad because he is in power. It is enough to lose this power, and he immediately turns from a devil into an angel and is endowed with all conceivable and inconceivable virtues.

Vladimir Tolts:

Here, to illustrate the statements of Yaroslavl Automobile Plant worker Kazachenko, for which he received 7 years in prison in 1954:

“Who is now satisfied with their life? Is it only Malenkov, who killed the same Beria, this irreplaceable assistant of Stalin, from around the corner. In a word, all are good butchers!”

And this is “written chatter” - from anonymous letters sent to Pravda and Soviet Russia about the so-called “anti-party group”:

“The entire press and radio are pouring buckets of dirt and foul language against Comrade Molotov.

But everywhere you hear only the indignation of ordinary Soviet people. Do blind people like Khrushchev and others like him seriously think that they enjoy the trust of the people more than Comrade Molotov, the only surviving faithful comrade-in-arms of Lenin, the most prominent leader of our party and people. Of course not. These pygmies Khrushchev and Furtseva and others, they are not worth the fingernails of Comrade Molotov. Everyone is saying how it could happen that Comrade Molotov spent more than 50 years of his life fighting for the people, and now he came out against the people. No, no one believes this dirty slander against Comrade Molotov.

“The Khrushchev clique is forced to masquerade as Lenin. But facts are a stubborn thing. All people say, why are they hiding the true statements of comrades Molotov, Kaganovich and others from the people? Yes, because the Trotskyist Khrushchev and his clique are afraid of the truth. But you cannot hide the truth. History will pillory the Trotskyist Khrushchev and his clique.

The people at heart are on the side of the most prominent Leninists, comrades Molotov and Kaganovich, and let the Trotskyist Khrushchev not console himself that he can deceive the masses for a long time under the guise of a Leninist. People don't believe it."

Continuing his reasoning about the nature of Soviet seditious chatter, its researcher Vladimir Kozlov says:

Vladimir Kozlov:

As for specific connections, they really are the course of life, and what exactly provokes a person to criticize Khrushchev, the expulsion of an anti-party group from the CPSU Central Committee, or, this irritated everyone terribly, by the way, it still irritates, it irritated even the participants in the fight against late communism, this is our help to developing countries. This was terribly indignant, because all this was built in contrast to the rather low standard of living here in the country, despite all Khrushchev’s efforts to create a different situation here. But if we take it more broadly, we need to return to the idea that is quite obvious and, perhaps, constructive, that Russian identity may not be of ethnic origin. And in order to recognize oneself as Russian, a person must identify himself with the state. Identifying himself with the state, he still experiences the most complex psychological complexes, and this abuse of the authorities, to some extent, is the realization of this identity, hence the increased resentment. And so I remember the beginning of the 90s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was this feeling even among the intelligentsia, a feeling of loss of identity along with the collapse of the Soviet Union and everything connected with it, national humiliation and so on, so on, so on. The new government is now playing very well on this.

Vladimir Tolts:

- Is it possible for our program to sketch such an average portrait of seditious talkers? Who are they?

Olga Eidelman:

Ordinary Soviet people in the fullness of this phenomenon. Using our material, we can trace several categories of “chatterboxes,” as well as several categories of other anti-Sovietists, and these will be completely ordinary workers, with a secondary, incomplete secondary or primary education characteristic of him and a range of concepts corresponding to his social status and education. A collective farmer with the same parameters may have a lower educational level and, again, with his own range of concepts. An urban intelligent person or even a person somehow involved in ideological structures, a university teacher, has his own discourse, there will be more talk about the corruption of the original Leninist ideas, say, while collective farmers talk less about the corruption of the original ideas, they have their own interests. But there is nothing that can be distinguished from the general mass of the population and said that this is such a social portrait of a seditious person. We can talk, perhaps, about a slightly different psychological type of these people, because some speak out loud, and some do not speak out loud, some drink more, some drink less and, accordingly, behave differently. But if we talk about general social and mental parameters, then nothing special, ordinary people.

Vladimir Tolts:

Olga Eidelman is complemented by Vladimir Kozlov.

Vladimir Kozlov:

We must also keep in mind that in this case we are dealing not with those who chatted, but with those who got caught.

Vladimir Tolts:

- But this is an interesting question! On the one hand, our Soviet experience, memory, and memoir sources suggest that everyone was “talking” then - workers and collective farmers, party members and non-party members, intellectuals and military men... But on the other hand, the materials you prepared tell us that it was mostly ordinary people who ended up in prison for chattering. There are few intellectuals. What's the matter? - After all, we know that, say, at the Academy of Sciences they also talked all sorts of things and knocked on the “talkers”, just like they knocked!...

Vladimir Kozlov:

- From the very beginning, we had to clearly say that in the 60s, no one, let’s say, was prosecuted for chatter, so to speak, this is the first thing. This does not mean that they were not reported on, that they were not followed, and so on. By the way, we simply published these documents in other sections. For example, “On the mood of the intelligentsia”, it seems that it was the 20th anniversary of the Victory or the 25th anniversary of the Victory, when for the first time in a positive context they said kind words about Stalin from the party rostrum. There was quite a big storm among the intelligentsia. Well, there is a selection of all these operational reports with statements from intellectuals on this matter. The fact is that we singled out our “talkers” because they are the spontaneous utterance of certain ritual formulas, almost spells, so this is largely connected, really connected with drinking alcohol and so on. Further: my sadness, as a historian, was that as a citizen I am satisfied that they stopped imprisoning them in the 60s, but we lost the brilliant sources in which it was recorded, you understand, as Jack London says, “a piece of life”, “a picture is a piece of life”, we have these “pieces of life” in the 40s and 50s, but in the 60s we no longer have them. I’m happy for those people who didn’t go to jail for this, but as a historian, of course, I really lacked these materials. Therefore, I, in fact, wanted to draw attention to the fact that this chapter about “chatterboxes” is not devoted to all chatter. Still, this is really something spontaneous and common to a large extent.

And what concerned the intelligentsia ended up in other places. Besides, there was still a certain code of honor.

Vladimir Tolts:

- Existed, I don’t argue! And besides, I think that the mass of people, so to speak “ordinary”, had a much weaker restraining mechanism - self-censorship, if you like. And besides, they more often found themselves in, so to speak, “extraordinary situations” (in conflicts with the police over a “drunk case,” for example) and then they slandered “to the fullest”...

Just one example based on the materials in the collection. In August 1957, at the Vapnyarka station of the Odessa railway, a certain Batula, who did not have any documents with him, was detained to check his identity. Judging by the protocols, at the line police station he immediately spoke out “in full force”:

“Batula said that he would go to Moscow and kill Khrushchev, that it would be better for him to live under the Americans and Germans... He would kill Khrushchev the bureaucrat, if war had broken out, the Kremlin would have been defeated, that it was better to go to America, since in the Soviet Union people were dying of hunger, he said that Comrade Khrushchev should be killed with a stone, that Khrushchev took the portfolio, and I will not work for him, and the decision of the Plenum on the removal of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Shepilov was wrong, but they were simply fighting for the portfolio...

During Stalin's life I.V. foreigners did not come to us, and life was better under Stalin, but now Khrushchev has opened his doors to everyone, treats them, but the workers have nothing to eat... He expressed his intention to go to America and even work as a spy.

During further interrogations, Batula explained: “I actually said that I was going to Moscow for N.S. Khrushchev’s name day, and when the police officer became interested again where I was going, I told him that I was going to Moscow to kill Khrushchev. In fact, I was returning from Moscow to Stalino and at the Vapnyarka station I was waiting for the Lvov-Stalino train. Being without documents, I could not get a job anywhere. I have repeatedly addressed the issue of obtaining documents to the police, the prosecutor’s office of the Stalin region, in Moscow I have contacted the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but nowhere have I received any assistance in obtaining documents. In connection with this, I personally developed anger against the Soviet government, and became dissatisfied with the living conditions in the Soviet Union. I expressed all this during my arrest at the police station at Vapnyarka station.”

Vladimir Tolts:

Another thing that is just as common as criminal chatter in Russia is the writing of all kinds of seditious works in which the authorities are denounced and castigated. Another type of writing is criticism of individual shortcomings of power, proposals for improving its activities. The authorities often regard both as sedition. The result, as can be seen from the collection "Sedition", is clear - the authors (both "slanderers" and "improvers") often ended up behind bars.

Here are just a few examples.

An anonymous letter sent to the newspaper Pravda:

“In Pravda for December 1 of last year, that is, 1952, there is a photograph of a charming child with the subtitle: “This child lives in a Greek prison.” .... Patriots are being persecuted in Greece, we learn this from Pravda. And what is happening here? Why is Pravda hypocritically silent about our reality. Doesn’t Pravda know that no less charming children are being held in our prisons and colonies. Our modern democracy, reinforced 58th article of the Criminal Code, creates excellent conditions for the restoration of the bureaucratic plutocracy, which is greedily enriching itself and creating conditions for the manifestation of voluntary and involuntary crime. Not to mention the fact that completely innocent people are placed in the camps for reasons of suppressing unofficial activity."

In less than six months, vigilant authorities found the author-“slanderer” - an accountant of a forced labor camp in the Sverdlovsk region, Yarushevich (He knew what he was writing about). For his knowledge he was awarded 7 years in prison in 1957. Excerpts from another anonymous message to the main party newspaper:

"To the editor of the newspaper "Pravda".

“Every day we, the working people, have to read the so-called communist chatter published in your and other newspapers about the “good”, “happy” life here in the USSR. It’s sickening to read such lines when you see crowds of unemployed people appearing eating horse meat. And a worker earning 500-600 rubles cannot buy horse meat. And here millions of people receive a salary of 200-300 rubles.

Newspapers talk a lot about freedom, about freedom of speech and press. This is all nonsense. What kind of “freedom” can we talk about when we know what kind of Jesuitism is going on among members of the government; such a situation can only exist under fascist and communist regimes. They brought the country to beggary, and now they talk day and night about virgin lands and corn.

You explain that we have a shortage of food and that there is a large increase in population. It’s a shame to listen to such chatter (it turns out that Malthus is right). A great agricultural power that cannot feed its population is a shame!

The same life was imposed on other countries. You see, Tito is bad, he doesn’t dance to our tune.

But in the USA and other countries, it’s “bad” there. There is unemployment there, the only difference is that in these countries they pay money to the unemployed, but here we do not. They push people to commit crimes, and then put them in already overcrowded prisons.

The mood of the people is terrible. Nowadays you can very often hear reviews about a “happy” life at every step. People are no longer shy. And there is no one to be ashamed of, because 80% of the country’s people eke out a miserable existence.

No, dear friends! Although your newspaper talks about the patriotism of our people and their love for the CPSU and the worthless government. This is chatter. Nonsense. Listen to how many jokes there are among people about such love.

Well, we have “freedom” of the press. Please publish my speech in your newspaper. No, you will cowardly pass this speech on to state security, saying that such a criminal must be found.

No need to search. Any 100 to 80 Russian citizens will sign my letter. And, alas, there are too many letters to find everyone. Death to communism, freedom to the people!

Kalinsky.

P.S. What I wrote is well known to you, the editorial staff. Even more than me. But I wrote not to convince you, but to add my voice to the suffering people.

In connection with the above, I ask you to make proposals to the Central Committee to rename your newspaper and call it “Brekhnya” instead of “Pravda”, then everything will be in order.”

Vladimir Tolts:

The author was right: he was found. This was a member of the CPSU from war times, a commodity expert from Rostov-on-Don Dudchenko. Sentence: 6 years.

But these are all anti-communists. But a supporter of communism, a worker from the Stalin region Pushkarev (signed “Sobolev”) wrote in 1957 to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Voroshilov:

“The people are very offended that you are losing to Russia, and ask you to inform the government that it is not far-sighted for communism, but only for itself.”

Working for the interests of communism, pseudo-Sobolev offers:

“We don’t need to disarm, because we will die.
There is no need to give away MTS and nuclear power plants for nothing.
Tito must be driven out of the USSR.
Give a good life to the Russians."

Despite such a “positive” approach, the author faced the same fate as the anti-Soviet activists - they were tracked down and given 5 years in prison.

In general, often the proposals of the “improvers” were not much different from what they came up with at the top. (There was a lot of nonsense here and there.) But some were imprisoned for this, while others got nothing. What's the matter?

Olga Eidelman:

- It is absolutely true that these phenomena are not different from each other in principle. Because the basis of both and, in fact, the triumph of the communist idea on the territory of Russia lies a certain latent conviction that emerging problems can be solved once and for all and the desire to one day achieve this resolution of all problems and further, so that they do not arise. Actually, this latent, strange utopian thinking, which does not want to come to terms with the fact that life is always a series of problems that are resolved one way or another, is the basis of both the communist utopia and all the others. As for why some can do it and others can’t, precisely because they are in power.

Vladimir Kozlov:

- No, not like that. It was possible to get rid of the punishment with a simple trick. The rhetorical formulas that were used for justifications and motivations had to be borrowed from the correct sources, as is the case with Lenin or Marx; in the last plenum there was a source of wisdom and grace. And the most important thing, in fact, is not the project, but the motivational part, that is, the analysis of the situation. And in analyzing the situation, it is impossible not to fall into opposition to the authorities. That is, we must first say: why, in fact, it is necessary to improve, it means that this, that and that are bad, the result is the dissemination of information discrediting state power. This means that representatives of the authorities, officials, expressed it in a different language. And, by the way, many of the projectors could rewrite their document, boldly send it to the CPSU Central Committee and everything would go great. But there are several mandatory ritual formulas that indicate that you belong. And if you prayed correctly at the beginning of your message, then at least they will read you, maybe even read it, but at least they won’t put you in prison.

Vladimir Tolts:

In general, under the influence of reading the soon-to-be-published collection of documents “Sedition,” I come to the idea that ideas of improvement, as well as dissatisfaction with the authorities, are constantly spreading in Russian society (it doesn’t matter even in which one - Soviet, pre-Soviet, post-Soviet). And the disapproving, often punitive attitude of the authorities towards this kind of manifestation, the perception of them as sedition, also remains. What's next?

Olga Eidelman:

Wait and see.

Vladimir Kozlov:

In general, I don’t know, our people, not our people, all tend to treat history as a kind of aspiration to an ultimate state, to the resolution of all problems and contradictions. And when people appear who are at least able to promise this, it is impossible to promise, but this is often done, they have a huge number of supporters who are ready to support them.

What could happen is another terrible disappointment could happen. It may suddenly turn out that even 8 districts will not save the vertical of power, for example. You understand what I mean: don’t make too big promises, they will be impossible to keep. I believe that the authorities should be more pragmatic. This, by the way, is the only thing that encourages me, and I don’t feel much anxiety here from the point of view of the pragmatism of modern power, with all the ritual formulas and spells that it so willingly uses. I personally do not see any motive now for returning to previous methods, repressive methods of suppressing dissent. Moreover, we discovered that there are other, more sophisticated ways to do this.

Vladimir Tolts:

But this is a topic for other programs. The current one has come to an end. I thank its participants - the authors and compilers of the documentary collection "Sedition" published in the USA, Russian archivists Olga Eidelman and Vladimir Kozlov.