[With this issue, we begin serialization of the complete transcript of the trial of Vladimir Bukovsky, which was held in Moscow January 5, 1972. Bukovsky was sentenced by the court to seven years imprisonment and five years in exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." His real "crime" was to have exposed to the world the bureaucratic regime's policy of interning political dissidents in insane asylums.
[According to Amnesty International, Bukovsky's subsequent appeal to a higher court was rejected, and he was transferred in late February to Vladimir prison, notorious for its harsh regime. His friends fear for his life because of the heart condition from which he suffers.
[The full Russian transcript of the trial first appeared in the West in the March 9 issue of the Paris publication Russkaya mysl. Although long excerpts appeared in the London Times on February 7, and shorter excerpts have appeared in numerous other publications, this is the first complete English translation, as far as we know. For an English translation of Bukovsky's final statement to the court, which supplements and summarizes the present document, see Intercontinental Press, January 31, p. 111.
[Great credit is due Aleksei Tumerman, the Soviet dissident who has openly proclaimed responsibility for compiling this transcript — at obvious risk to himself.
[The difficulties in making this record can be judged from the following description by New York Times Moscow correspondent Hedrick Smith:
["Officially (Bukovsky's) trial was an open one, but his friends were barred and only his lawyer and sister were given access. His mother was called by the prosecution as a witness, preventing her from hearing the other proceedings. Under such conditions, Mr. Bukovsky's dissident friends acknowledged omissions in the transcript they compiled. But they insist that it faithfully conveys the trial's flavor and general proceedings."
[Smith, who apparently had a look at a copy of the transcript being circulated in Moscow, refers to its compiler in the plural. Perhaps others aided Tumerman, while he agreed to take responsibility alone.
[Tumerman's name is a relatively new one among Soviet dissidents. The first mention of him we have seen was in the Chronicle of Current Events, Number 19, dated April 30, 1971. He was one of a group of Soviet Jews who conducted a sit-in in the offices of the Soviet attorney general in March 1971, demanding an open trial for groups of Soviet Jews then under arrest in four cities.
[In April 1971, Tumerman was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he was held for several weeks until being released under his parents' guardianship. On April 28, 1971, he wrote an open letter from the hospital, naming the doctors who were forcibly detaining him.
[Tumerman was also one of the forty-three Soviet citizens who in early January endorsed an appeal in Bukovsky's behalf from the Initiative Group in Defense of Human Rights in the USSR to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. An English translation of that document appeared in Intercontinental Press (April 24, p. 472), in which A. Tumerman was mistakenly listed as Yu. Tumerman.
[Readers will find much of interest in the trial transcript. First, there is a close-up view of Stalinist frame-up techniques in operation.
[Second, there appears a statement of the Kremlin's latest theory to justify repression. As socialism advances and grows stronger worldwide, the prosecutor argues, it is more and more necessary to suppress differences at home, since "anti-Soviet propaganda" is the last desperate recourse of expiring imperialism. Such "propaganda" must appear even more dangerous than the imperialist bombs in Indochina, for the Kremlin has tolerated those more easily than it does Bukovsky.
[A picture also emerges of the life of oppositionists in Moscow and the atmosphere of Bukovsky's circle. Most notable is their sharp interest and awareness of developments elsewhere in the "socialist fraternity" — Poland, China, Czechoslovakia.
[Finally, the ambivalent behavior of the witnesses speaks volumes as to the moral pressure exerted by the activists struggling for real Soviet democracy. The prosecutor is so anxious to dismiss these activists as a "pitiful handful" that she even quotes from "anti-Soviet" bourgeois sources. But the witnesses who represent the "Soviet average citizen" in this drama are often plainly embarrassed and eager not to implicate Bukovsky, even though he speaks for only a "pitiful handful."
[The translation of this transcript was done for Intercontinental Press by Marilyn Vogt. Footnotes and explanatory material in brackets are by the translator.]
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On Compilation of the Transcript
This document constitutes a stenographic record of the trial of Vladimir Bukovsky, which took place in Moscow on January 5, 1972.
The possibilities open to me in composing this document were such that I cannot assert that this document is a verbatim record of the trial. In particular, the indictment, the statements of the prosecutor and the defense attorney, and the text of the verdict are presented here in abbreviated form.
It is my conviction, however, that there are no errors of substance in this document that would distort what was said in the courtroom to even the slightest degree.
Since, in compiling this document, I did not inform anyone of my intention to send it to the International Association of Jurists, as well as to Western news correspondents and press agencies for publication, I alone bear full responsibility for it.
I feel that there is no need for me to comment on this document in any way.
Aleksei Tumerman 4 Gubkin Street, Apt. 52 Moscow
The trial of V. K. Bukovsky took place on January 5, 1972, in Moscow in the Lyublino District Court (14 Yegoryevskaya Street).
The judicial inquiry was held as part of the regular session of the Moscow City Court: the judge was [Valentina] Lubentsova; the prosecutor, [Aza] Bobrushko; the people's assessors [Nikolai] Kondakov [a fitter] and [Lev] Shlykov [an engineer]; the defense attorney, [Vladimir] Ya. Shveisky; and the court stenographer, Osina.
The following witnesses were summoned to the court by the defense:
1. J. Peipert [James A., of Associated Press]
2. A. Waller [Andrew, Reuters bureau chief]
It turned out that subpoenas had not been sent to these two persons. During the pretrial investigation, they had given testimony favorable to Bukovsky.
Witnesses called by the prosecution were:
3. V. A. Shushpanov
4. A. E. Nikitinsky
5. Bychkov
6. Tarasov
7. N. I. Bukovskaya
(On several occasions prior to the trial, N. Bukovskaya had requested that she not be asked to serve as a witness since she knew nothing about the affairs of her son and she preferred to be present in the courtroom throughout the proceedings. But, it was precisely her presence in the courtroom that the judicial authorities did not want.)
INDICTMENT returned after preliminary investigation into the case of V. K. Bukovsky, born 1942, resident at 3/5 Furmanov Street, apartment 59, Moscow
1. During 1970-71, V. K. Bukovsky engaged in systematic distribution of anti-Soviet material of a slanderous nature, gave foreign correspondents slanderous information defaming our state and social system, namely that in the Soviet Union sane people are placed in prisonlike psychiatric hospitals where they are subjected to various types of torture. He also had in his apartment various anti-Soviet materials of a slanderous nature.
Evidence of these charges is as follows:
a) Clippings from the foreign newspapers Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, and Daily News, found in Bukovsky's apartment with articles of slanderous nature defaming the state and social system of the USSR and having headings "A Russian Who Fights Against the System," "Soviet Dissident Speaks," "Russian Heretic Tells of Horrors of Madhouses — Prisons for Dissenters."[1]
b) A film, which was shown by the American television company CBS on July 28, 1970 entitled "Voices of the Russian Underground" and the commentary on this film, featured in various foreign newspapers ("Film Secretly Shot Shows Struggle is Possible Inside Russia" and others); and also radio broadcasts on Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and BBC in Russian with commentary on this film.
c) A notebook belonging to V. K. Bukovsky, in which the telephone numbers of foreign correspondents accredited in Moscow were listed.
2. On the basis of testimony by V. A. Shushpanov, a former employee of the department for foreign relations of the Moscow Patriarchy, V. K. Bukovsky is accused of having conducted anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda during several meetings with Shushpanov; of having asserted that in the USSR sane people are confined in mental hospitals, where inhuman treatment is administered to them; also of having asserted that personal freedom and freedom of speech and the press do not exist in the Soviet Union; also of having had conversations with Shushpanov for the purpose of persuading the latter to utilize his official missions abroad for the illegal importation of a duplicating machine in order to set up an underground press and print anti-Soviet samizdat materials.
3. On the basis of testimony of [Arnold Eduardovich] Nikitinsky, a customs inspector at Sheremetyevo Airport and a former schoolmate of V. K. Bukovsky, Bukovsky is accused of carrying on anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, declaring that in the Soviet Union there is no personal freedom and that sane people are confined in mental hospitals in our country because they are dissenters; he also tried to persuade Nikitinsky to take advantage of his official position to help him arrange the illegal importation into the USSR of portable printing equipment by getting it through customs inspection at Sheremetyevo Airport. Bukovsky's intention in this regard was to organize an underground press for the distribution of anti-Soviet samizdat materials. On the basis of the testimony of Nikitinsky, Bukovsky is accused of illegal possession of two issues of the anti-Soviet newspaper Possev which he showed to Nikitinsky. (Proof: the handwritten testimony of Nikitinsky and the taped record of Bukovsky's juridical confrontation with him.)
4. On the basis of testimony by the servicemen Bychkov and Tarasov, Bukovsky is accused of conducting anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda in February (March) 1971 in a cafe at the Kursk railroad station; of declaring that the existing system in the USSR does not serve the needs of the Soviet people; and also of giving them his phone number and the telephone number and address of A. P. Astrachan, and of proposing to Bychkov and Tarasov to pass on information by means of these numbers. (Proof: telephone numbers of Bukovsky and Astrachan in the notebooks of Bychkov and Tarasov.)
5. V. K. Bukovsky is accused of having met with the Belgian citizen Hugo Sebreghts on March 28, 1971, at the apartment of V. Chalidze, Sebreghts having come to the Soviet Union as a tourist on the instructions of the anti-Soviet Flemish Committee. Hugo Sebreghts had instructions to meet with Bukovsky, for which purpose the Flemish Committee gave him Bukovsky's telephone number, which he had written in his notebook in conventional symbols. At the meeting at Chalidze's, Bukovsky gave Sebreghts two anti-Soviet documents of a slanderous nature — the Chronicle of Current Events Number 17 and (Yakir's) Open Letter to the Twenty-fourth Congress, which were found on Sebreghts when he was searched. (Proof: the finding by criminal-investigation specialists in comparative printing and lettering that the document found in Sebreghts's possession and the documents of an analogous nature found in Bukovsky's possession were typed on the same machine.)
Bukovsky's Motions to the Court at the Opening of the Trial
1. The first point of the indictment has not been defined concretely, that is, there is no indication of exactly what materials of an anti-Soviet and slanderous nature were distributed nor of how they were distributed; nor of which materials found in Bukovsky's apartment are considered anti-Soviet and slanderous. In addition, there are no documents involved in this case that support the charge of systematic distribution of slanderous materials. None of my friends or acquantances have been questioned in this matter. Nor is there any basis for considering any of the materials sent to the West as being slanderous or anti-Soviet. In view of the foregoing, I request the court to define Point One of the indictment concretely if it finds sufficient basis for this in the materials of the preliminary investigation. Otherwise, the case should be sent back for investigation.
2. If the first motion is denied, I request the court to summon the following persons as witnesses who can confirm the truth of my statements to Western correspondents — consisting of my [filmed] interview which I gave to correspondents Holger [Jensen] and [William] Cole about the illegal confinment of sane people in mental institutions. These persons are [Sergei] Pisarev, Parkhunov, Petrov, Schults, [Zinaida M.] Grigorenko, [Ivan] Yakhimovich, [Mikhail] Naritsa, and A. Fainberg.
3. I declare that the comments on my interview, those cited under Point One of the indictment and which were written not by me but by various Western correspondents, cannot be used to incriminate me because I cannot be made responsible for what these correspondents chose to say in their commentaries. For example, in the indictment the word "torture" was used, whereas I have never used this word either in writing or in speech.
In view of the above, I request the court to remove the commentaries referred to from the indictment.
4. I request the court to remove from the indictment the episode involving the Belgian citizen Hugo Sebreghts because the latter is not at the present time in the Soviet Union and cannot be summoned to testify in the court, while his testimony in the preliminary investigation is extremely contradictory. For example, among the materials in this case are two records of interrogation of Hugo Sebreghts, the contents of which contradict one another.
In one of them H. Sebreghts states that the two documents found in his possession when he was searched — the Chronicle of Current Events and the Open Letter to the Twenty-fourth Congress — were given to him by someone he did not know. In the other he states that I gave them to him. Both statements of interrogation were written, not by Sebreghts, but by the investigator, in Russian, which Sebreghts does not know. But his signature is on both of these documents. I was not allowed a personal confrontation with Sebreghts. Therefore, in my opinion, the investigation has not established sufficient grounds for asserting that I am guilty on this point.[2]
6. Since, on the basis of Article 18 of the Procedural Code of the RSFSR [Russkaya Sovyetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika — Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic] all court examinations are to be open and since my case does not involve the criteria stipulated by this article as the basis for a closed trial, I ask the court to immediately allow into the courtroom all my friends and acquaintances, and also all other citizens who wish to be present at the proceedings.
7. During the investigation, when a gross violation of Article 201 of the RSFSR Procedural Code was committed by the investigator, citizen V. Korkach, and I was not granted a lawyer, I appealed to the chairman of the [Moscow] lawyers' collegium, Apraksin, requesting that they assign me attorney D. I. Kaminskaya in accordance with Article 201. To this I received a negative reply, with the statement: "Attorney D. I. Kaminskaya cannot be assigned to the defense since she does not have clearance for secret judicial proceedings." I was informed of this statement and it had my signature on it. However, subsequently, this document was removed from the evidence and replaced by another, which no one brought to my attention and which does not have my signature on it. This fact verges on official fraudulence and I request the court to have the original document restored and kept with the records of this case.
8. During the investigation, I sent nearly twenty complaints to various official bodies. (He lists the offices addressed and the dates of mailing.) Fifteen of these were never answered, and the complaints are not on file among the records in this case. I request the court to make these complaints public and include them in the documents of this case.
The judge addresses the prosecutor and defense attorney: Do you regard the defendant's motions as justified and in order?
Prosecutor: I consider Bukovsky's motions either to be unjustified or to have no direct bearing on the case.
Defense: I support the motions of my client and I have two additional motions which I ask the court's permission to present.
Judge: Proceed.
Defense: First of all, I ask the court to summon as a character witness for my client Comrade [Vladimir] Maksimov, for whom Bukovsky recently worked as a literary secretary.
Second, I ask the court to summon Comrade G. Podyapolsky as a witness. This witness was questioned in the preliminary investigation in regard to whether Bukovsky had distributed certain materials, and can give testimony on this subject that is important for my client.
The court deliberates.
The following decision is then rendered.
The court denies all of the motions except one, Bukovsky's eighth, which is partially granted. Seven of the fifteen complaints cited by Bukovsky are hereby entered as documents in the case.
The court cannot summon Petrov, Pisarov, Parkhunov, Naritsa, Yakhimovich, Schults, Z. M. Grigorenko, and A. Fainberg as witnesses because these are mentally ill persons and their testimony could not be considered valid.
The court considers that the first point in the prosecution's case is sufficiently concrete.
The court denies Bukovsky's motion that Chalidze and Volpin be summoned as witnesses as they have no connection with the case.
The court did not consider Bukovsky's motion about the public nature of the trial since the proceedings are open to the public — there are people in the courtroom. Consequently, the motion is not valid.
The court does not consider it necessary to file the reply written by Apraksin, chairman of the lawyers' collegium, since this document has no bearing on the case.
The court grants in part the motion by Bukovsky that his complaints be brought in as evidence for the defense and hereby orders seven of the complaints to be added to the case records.
The court denies the request to summon V. Maksimov as a witness because V. Bukovsky did very little work for him, and views it as unnecessary to summon G. S. Podyapolsky as a witness since he has no bearing on the case.
[To be continued.]
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Notes
[1] It has not been possible to locate the English-language originals of these articles. The titles are therefore retranslated from the Russian.
[2] Presumably because of a technical error, Bukovsky's fifth motion does not appear in the transcript. It is apparent from the text below, however, that the motion asked the calling of Valery Chalidze and Aleksandr Yesenin-Volpin as witnesses.