1984: A LOOK BACK: Repression in Ukraine (12/30/84)

1984: A LOOK BACK

Repression in Ukraine

1984, the Orwellian year, was characterized by continued suffering and repression for dissidents and religious activists in the Soviet Union, which the author almost certainly used as a model in his scathing indictment of totalitarianism. In Ukraine, the year was marked by the deaths of six prominent activists, public recantations by at least two others, death sentences for four former members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and new charges against several leading figures in the human-rights movement. A number of imprisoned activists completed their terms and were released. The year also saw the adoption of several new laws aimed at making life more difficult for dissidents and their families.

Perhaps the most disheartening news concerned the deaths of Ukrainian activists. In May, word reached the West about the death of imprisoned Helsinki monitor Oleksiy Tykhy, who died at age 57 following surgery for stomach ulcers. At the time of his death, Mr. Tykhy, a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, was serving a 15-year labor camp and exile term he received in 1977. He was incarcerated in labor camp No. 36-1 near Perm in the Urals.

Another Ukrainian dissident to perish in Soviet custody was 37-year-old Valeriy Marchenko, who died of kidney failure on October 6. Mr. Marchenko, who had been ill since serving an eight-year term in a labor camp from 1973 to 1981, was sentenced on March 14 to another term, this time to 10 years.

On October 22, the State Department announced the grim news that imprisoned Ukrainian activist Yuriy Lytvyn, 50, had committed suicide in labor camp No. 36-1. A member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, Mr. Lytvyn had spent 20 years in Soviet penal institutions.

Other prominent Ukrainian activists to die during the year were author Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, who was 84, and Volodymyr Horbovy, 85, an attorney who defended Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera following the assassination of a Polish official in 1934. Mr. Antonenko-Davydovych, best known for his 1928 masterpiece "Smert" (Death), was considered by many to be the spiritual godfather to the dissident movement and a guiding force for many younger Ukrainian intellectuals.

Another activist who died in 1984 was Aleksei Nikitin, who succumbed to stomach cancer at age 47 shortly after being released from a Soviet mental hospital. Though not a Ukrainian, Mr. Nikitin first gained prominence for exposing unsafe working conditions in the Donbas mining region of Ukraine. For his efforts on behalf of the miners, as well as his advocacy of independent trade unions, Mr. Nikitin served a total of 10 years in psychiatric institutions.

Late in the year, the Soviet newspaper News From Ukraine, a propaganda organ available only outside the USSR, announced that four former members of the OUN were sentenced to death for alleged atrocities against civilians during World War II. The four were identified as Oleksander Palyha, Mykhailo Levytsky, Nil Yakulchuk and Vasyl Bondar. The three-week trial reportedly took place in the village of Marianivtsi in the Horokhiv area of the Volhynia oblast, an area where the OUN was particularly active.

The paper did not say when the trial took place or give the date the sentences would be carried out.

If the rash of deaths and executions was not dispiriting enough, 1984 also saw recantations by two of the most prominent members of the dissident movement in Ukraine, author Oles Berdnyk and activist Ivan Sokulsky.

Mr. Sokulsky, a 44-year-old poet and member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, reportedly confessed that his political activism was the product of "egoism" and self-aggrandizement. His alleged remarks were published in a March issue of News From Ukraine, which did not disclose any details about the interview. Mr. Sokulsky, who in 1980 was sentenced to a total of 15 years' imprisonment, was one of the defendants in a celebrated 1970 case in Dnipropetrovske. He was sentenced to three years for a letter defending Ukrainian culture against Russification.

Two months after Mr. Sokulsky's alleged recantation, the paper Literaturna Ukraina, the official organ of the Ukrainian Writers' Union, published a 1,700-word statement attributed to Mr. Berdnyk, a 56-year-old science fiction writer and co-founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

In an introduction to the statement, the paper said that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR had ruled to "pardon" Mr. Berdnyk, who in 1979 was sentenced to nine years' labor camp and exile. In his alleged recantation, Mr. Berdnyk referred to his dissident activities as "crimes against the fatherland," and labeled the human-rights movement in the USSR as little more than a front organized by Western intelligence agencies to stir up what he called "anti-Soviet hysteria."

It should be noted that both recantations echoed themes common in recent such renunciations. The official Soviet line on dissidents is that they are motivated by selfishness and ego, and that they are encouraged by forces outside the country.

While two well-known activists supposedly renounced their actions, others continued to face hardship and persecution.

In July, news reached the West that 34-year-old Stepan Sapeliak, who spent five years in a labor camp in the 1970s for flying the outlawed blue-and-gold Ukrainian flag in a small village in western Ukraine, was facing new criminal charges. By year's end, nothing more was heard about the case.

More recently, sources in Ukraine reported the arrest on October 19 of Yosyf Zisels, a 37-year-old engineer and former political prisoner who is a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Another member of the group, Mykola Horbal, 43, is also said to be facing fresh charges. Mr. Horbal, who was due to complete a five-year labor camp term on October 23, was moved the day before to an investigative prison in Nikolayev, site of the labor camp where he had been imprisoned since being convicted of a trumped-up charge of "attempted rape." Mr. Horbal was apparently charged with "anti-Soviet slander." It was also reported that his wife was recently detained by authorities.

Some political prisoners completed their sentences in 1984, while others began terms of exile after serving their labor camp terms. Yosyp Terelia, an activist in the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church, completed a one-year sentence for "parasitism." Members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group Iryna Senyk and Bohdan Rebryk both completed exile terms and returned to Ukraine. Writer Yevhen Sverstiuk was released from exile in late 1983, but confirmation did not reach the West until early in 1984.

Mykola Rudenko, one of the 10 original co-founders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, completed his labor camp term in early February and was transferred into exile in Gorno-Altayskaya Autonomous ObIast, a remote and mountainous region on the Mongolian border.

Last week, it was reported that Ukrainian Helsinki monitor and poet Vasyl Stus was in extremely poor health with tuberculosis and a heart ailment. Friends of the 46-year-old activist fear that he may not live out the harsh winter in a Perm labor camp, where he has been since being sentenced in 1980 to 10 years' imprisonment and five years' exile for "anti-Soviet activities."

In addition to the personal travails of dissident activists, the year also saw the adoption of several measures aimed at tightening official control over Soviet citizens. In March, it was reported that a new amendment to a Soviet law made it illegal for Soviet citizens to receive material aid or goods from foreign organizations. The amendment concerned Article 7 of the USSR Code of Law, "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda," better known as Article 70 in the Russian SFSR Criminal Code and Article 62 of the Ukrainian one, under which many dissidents are tried.

The decree, which prescribed a 10-year labor camp term for violators, has broad political implications, since many families of political prisoners depend on aid from private sources in the West or from philanthropic organizations.

Later in the year, the Soviet Union implemented a change in its policy on the shipment of parcels to the USSR, no longer accepting prepaid packages sent through private companies after August 1. The Soviet decision seriously jeopardized the small parcel businesses in Ukrainian neighborhoods whose business depended on packages being sent to Ukraine. Under the new arrangement, goods from the West would have to be sent through the mail, and the duty and other costs would have to be paid by those receiving the goods in the Soviet Union.

The new arrangement makes it difficult for hard-pressed Soviet citizens, many of whom cannot afford the high duty and handling charges, which often run into hundreds of dollars.

Over all, the situation of Ukrainian dissidents and activists in 1984 was grim. The heart of the human-rights movement - the members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group - remained, for the most part, in labor camps or exile. Messrs. Tykhy and Lytvyn died, while Mr. Rebryk and Mrs. Senyk were released. Religious activists from the Ukrainian Catholic Church or from the many Protestant denominations continued to be harassed or imprisoned. In 1984, the news from Ukraine was particularly sorrowful, indicating that the nation continues to suffer terribly under Soviet domination.