Code language

The experience of dissidents for opposition

“Now, after the adoption of the new law on rallies in conversations, we will have to use the encoded language,” says Gennady Gudkov, deputy of the State Duma from FSB, Gennady Gudkov. Today's oppositions must learn to be “encrypted”, as dissidents did in Soviet times

“We knew that all our conversations were eavesdropping and listening to at home also, so we didn’t discuss anything significant on the phone, sometimes they specifically said something supposedly important to report the misinformation. They wrote really important things on special boards, which were called the“ Russian-Russian phrasebook, ”recalls the famous dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. They were also called "pissers", and in the USSR they fell abroad. On these boards you can write with special sticks or just handles - everything written later was easily erased. “It was better to use such boards than to write on paper, and then run to burn paper in the toilet,” says Alexander Podrabinek, who spent the “anti -Soviet” article in Soviet camps.
Conspirators
“The conspirators we were fig, not adapted to this encoded life,” says the famous anthropologist Natalya Sadomskaya, whose husband philosopher Boris Shragin in 1968 was fired from work for signing letters in defense of Alexander Ginzburg and other political faces. They invented code words and forgot them very quickly. Here is a textbook story: “For example, we agreed that if someone read the Samizdat book and we must transfer it to another, then I call and ask:“ Do you have a herring on the window? ” And this meant that the book was read and you can transfer it to another. But people forgot that this was a conspiracy, and now, it happened, you ask: "Herring on the window?" And the person replies: "I have not read it yet ..."
Or, for example, another typical conversation: “I brought you a pie the other day. Have you eaten it? " Answer: "Yes, I ate it, gave it to eat my husband, now his mother is eating, and then I will give you."
Journalist Vladimir Tolts says that the telephone conspiracy about the pies and other treats in conversations about Samizdat seemed to many naive and easily guessed, so the names of the books were encoded and the interlocutor could not always understand what was meant, but guessed by intonation.
“Chronicle of current events” (samizdat collections, where the month after the month was printed information about repressions) was called the “Tale of Bygone Years”. “The Gulag Archipelago” was called either “Archipus”, then “Islands”, then “Textbook of Geography”.
“If on the phone they reported a search, they said:“ Such and such have been guests today, ”Tolz recalls. “If they found a lot of“ criminal ”, they said something like this:“ They were amazed at the abundance of treats, they didn’t eat everything, but they took a lot with them. ” This meant that all the anti -Soviets were not found, but they still seized a lot. About interrogations in Lubyanka: “NN visited the“ Children's World ”. I liked it. It will go again on Tuesday. ”
When the physicist was arrested by Andrei Tverdokhlebov, one of the founders of the Human Rights Committee *** in April 1976 was sentenced to 5 years of exile for the distribution of Books of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn., They reported in an arrest by telephone: "They took callous buns."
New codes *
“Any of you, regardless of how you call people to gather - on social networks or disperse the information with pigeon mail, in leaflets or using agitators, if you want to recognize the organizer, will be fined or put. These are wild formulations outside the legal field, ”says Gennady Gudkov about the new law on rallies.
The politician is sure that this does not frighten people, but only make you resort to all kinds of tricks and tricks. “For example, I already said today how I will“ call ”on the rally:“ I am going to walk along Tverskaya at three o’clock, no one with me, please. ”
“Of course, for everyone it will be clear what I really mean,” Gennady Gudkov laughs. - Come to Tverskaya support me! I do not exclude that in court these words can be evaluated as a veiled call to riots and I will be recognized as their organizer with all the ensuing consequences. ”