[This is the third installment of the transcript of the trial of Vladimir Bukovsky, held in Moscow January 5, 1972. Serialization of the transcript began in our May 22 issue.
[The previous installment gave Bukovsky's reply to the first count of the indictment, which charged him with "slandering" the Soviet Union in interviews with foreign reporters.
[The present installment contains Bukovsky's reply to the four other counts in the indictment. These were that he had conducted "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" in conversations with one V. A. Shushpanov; that he had attempted to persuade a former schoolmate, V. K. Nikitinsky, to help him illegally import duplicating equipment; that he had engaged in "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and opposed the Soviet system in the presence of two military servicemen in March 1971; and that he had provided a Belgian citizen, Hugo Sebreghts, with "anti-Soviet documents of a slanderous nature."
[Footnotes and explanatory material in brackets are by the translator.]
* * *
Judge: Proceed to the testimony relating to the second part of the charges.
Bukovsky: I became acquainted with the witness V. A. Shushpanov in the spring of 1970. We met a total of four times at my apartment. Once I went to his apartment with one of my friends. As to our conversations, they concerned questions of religion (Shushpanov acknowledged himself to be a believer.) and it is possible that we also discussed social problems. In the indictment it is stated that I told him what I saw in the psychiatric hospitals. I admit that. It is possible I also spoke to him at that time about the kinds of violations that are tolerated by the judicial authorities and certain doctors.
As to anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, which I allegedly conducted with him, I can only say that our conversations were a mutual exchange. Shushpanov admits that at that time he shared my views. And if in our conversations I spoke about my beliefs, in particular about the fact that in my view freedom of speech and press do not actually exist in the Soviet Union — that is, the civil rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the USSR are infringed upon — such things, I repeat, were neither anti-Soviet agitation nor propaganda, for the conversation was a mutual exchange. I simply stated my views.
Shushpanov indicated in the investigation that I promised to help him transport abroad a tape of his "anti-Soviet" novel, as he now calls it, if he were to record it. I remember the conversation. Shushpanov asked me what he should do if he wrote the novel and wanted to send it abroad. I answered that if he began printing and circulating his novel here, sooner or later, regardless of whether he wanted it or not, the novel would find its way abroad. The talk was in no way about my help in the matter and Shushpanov was only intending to do the novel.
In regard to the duplicator that I allegedly asked Shushpanov to bring from abroad, I can say the following: I recall that I did actually ask him whether or not he could, while on a mission abroad, bring back a duplicator of some sort, to which he answered that they had long since stopped sending him on missions abroad, and, therefore, he could not do it. That's all I can say about that episode.
Prosecutor: What purpose did you have in mind in asking Shushpanov to get you a duplicator?
Bukovsky: I did not pose the question in that way, but the possibility of having such duplicating equipment interested me.
Prosecutor: Why did you need such a duplicator?
Bukovsky: I might have needed one for duplicating some sort of materials.
Prosecutor: What kind specifically?
Bukovsky: I didn't have any specific documents in mind, but in principle I might have a need to duplicate some sort of document containing a statement of my personal beliefs. Every citizen in the USSR has this right according to the constitution. Perhaps I might want to duplicate some literary work that was difficult to obtain like the poems of Mandelshtam or Akhmatova.
Prosecutor: Why would you want to duplicate those materials?
Bukovsky: For friends, for people who are interested in them.
Prosecutor: I have no further questions.
Judge: Does the defense have any questions on this point?
Defense lawyer: No.
Judge: Will the accused please move on to the next episode?
Bukovsky: The third episode in the indictment is based on the testimony of my former schoolmate Nikitinsky. After we got out of school, we didn't see each other for many years. We met for the first time after a long interval when I got out of prison, in the spring of 1970, it would seem. We met quite by accident on the street near my house. I was glad to see him, invited him inside, and we talked about how things had gone for us both in the past years, what kind of life we'd had and so forth.
He said that after he finished school, he had served in the army near Moscow. Later, at the time of the Chinese-Soviet border clashes, he was transferred there and included in the Tamen Division, which was one of the five divisions transferred there at that time. He said that these forces were placed under the command of the KGB. He told me various things which he had to know as an officer in the Frontier Guard. And as proof of his story, he gave me a Russian-Chinese phrase book for military use, which allegedly was provided to every member of the officer corps among the forces deployed at that time along the Chinese border.
Nikitinsky said that because of illness (a stomach ulcer) he had now been transferred to Moscow where he works in the customs inspection section at Sheremetyevo Airport, where he checks the baggage of Aeroflot passengers entering or leaving the Soviet Union. Subsequently, we met several times, always at my apartment. I told Nikitinsky that he ought not to visit me, that I was under surveillance and that he could get into trouble, to which he replied that he did not want to serve in the army anyway.
Once he brought me a whole pile of assorted foreign magazines, allegedly taken from someone by the customs officials. Subsequently, my mother burned them. At these meetings we had long discussions. I told him about what I had been forced to experience and that what in the charges against me were called "slanderous fabrications" were simply facts I had experienced personally and observed during these years. I have already spoken about them here. And that which the indictment called anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda was simply a statement of my views and beliefs, which I am even now prepared to set forth in court if the court so requires.
In these meetings Nikitinsky told me many times that he could let someone go through his customs post without checking his effects and he proposed that I take advantage of this opportunity to send some material abroad or receive some from abroad. Being interested in such a possibility, I told him that if I could find a person who would agree to bring me a duplicating machine from abroad, then, possibly, I would need his help. Afterward, I spoke with several people about this matter but didn't find anyone who would agree to it.
Nikitinsky offered his assistance very eagerly and at every meeting he asked when I would need his help. His strange persistence put me on my guard. I wondered whether Nikitinsky wasn't trying to provoke me into a rash action on orders from the KGB (because it is precisely the departments in which Nikitinsky has worked that are under the jurisdiction of these organs). And so, on December 31, 1970, at my home, in the presence of my mother, I told him that I did not need his help, that the plan was too risky, and that, anyway, there was no one who would agree to bring in a duplicator for me. Nikitinsky was disappointed by my rejection and assured me that the whole business was absolutely safe. But I categorically refused. After this conversation, Nikitinsky abruptly lost interest in me and we didn't see each other again.
In Nikitinsky's testimony during the preliminary investigation, there are many things which are unclear. For example, Nikitinsky states that while visiting my home, he heard from me and my friends statements deeply disturbing to him as a member of the CPSU and as an upstanding Communist by conviction. And that once in my home, he heard a lampoon on our leaders which troubled him to the depths of his soul, and that only with great difficulty did he keep himself from punching the Moscow University student who was allegedly reading it to him.
One might ask, why did Nikitinsky restrain himself? Why didn't he even once say that our statements troubled him and that he disagreed with my views? Why, instead of this, did he confide in me various "official secrets," as for example the information about the arrest, at Sheremetyevo Airport, of a man named Mikheev, who allegedly tried to pretend he was a Swiss citizen and thus escape abroad. Isn't the reason that he restrained his "party conscience" for so long that he didn't want to scare me off, still hoping to carry through the provocation formulated by the KGB?
Finally, why did he, by his own testimony, take part with me and a certain mythical "Sasha" in planning to smuggle what he calls "an underground press" past his own customs post? And why did he even conduct, as he admits, a kind of rehearsal of this plot, showing a certain young man how it could all be implemented?
Nikitinsky asserts that on October 13 a certain "Sasha" was at my apartment, allegedly a worker at the Moscow Concert Hall, who was planning to go abroad on an assignment and had promised to bring back some printing equipment, and that he, Nikitinsky, discussed the plan with us. Allegedly in his presence, "Sasha" outlined the arrangement of the service entrances and exits of Sheremetyevo Airport and the customs inspection section.
I ask the court to note the absurdity of this statement. Really, how could Sasha, allegedly a worker at the Moscow Concert Hall, know the plan of the service premises of the airport? Indeed, it would be more logical to suppose that Nikitinsky knew this plan. And that, in fact, is how it was. Nikitinsky brought such a plan, which he had sketched himself, to one of our meetings, and it lay around my house for a long time until it got lost. I also ask the court to note the absence of logic in the following statement by Nikitinsky. He states: "On October 13, I finally understood that they wanted to use me in an anti-Soviet conspiracy and decided to report their activities and wrote a statement to the KGB."
At the same time Nikitinsky states that on the following day he conducted a kind of rehearsal. Isn't this rather strange? Meanwhile, his statement to the KGB relevant to this case is dated February 8, 1971. What compelled this upstanding Communist to keep silent about the preparation of an "anti-Soviet plot" for almost four months and to conduct rehearsals of the plot, and what prompted him to make this overdue report? One cannot help but suppose that my rejection of his proposal was what occasioned them to decide to use the unsuccessful provocateur as a witness whenever the opportunity offered itself.
It is on the basis of the same witness's testimony that I am charged with having in my apartment two issues of the journal Posev, and that I showed them to people. However, in the preliminary investigations Nikitinsky did not indicate this. In his testimony it is stated that in his presence I brought out these two magazines and in five minutes put them away, when Nikitinsky expressed no desire to look them over.
Judge: Is that all you have to say about this episode?
Bukovsky: That's all.
Judge: Does anyone have any questions for the defendant?
There were none.
Bukovsky: Concerning the episode covered in the testimony of the servicemen Bychkov and Tarasov, I can say that in March 1971, I was in fact in the cafe at the Kursk Station with one of my acquaintances. The waitress seated us at a table where two men in military uniform, who we now know to be Bychkov and Tarasov, were already seated.
I didn't know these people before and I never saw them again. In the cafe, at our table, a conversation did indeed begin. It began, as I recall, with a discussion of the events in Poland, since I learned from their conversation that they had been eyewitnesses to the events or had heard about them from their fellow servicemen. In our discussion of these events, we had a difference of opinion. It is my view, and I told them so, that armed suppression of actions by representatives of the people struggling for their economic and political rights was an intolerable measure and that our army exists not to suppress popular movements but for the defense of the country from foreign enemies. They held that as servicemen they were obliged to carry out any order, including an order to fire into a crowd, if such a command were given.
Such a readiness to fire at anyone you were ordered to fire on seemed strange to me and I asked them: "Imagine if a situation arose like this: Say that tomorrow prices went up sharply in our country and there was an increase in popular dissatisfaction. Suppose, for example, that among the people demonstrating against these high prices you saw me — with whom you are now having a peaceful, even friendly, conversation. What would you do — Would you fire at me if ordered to?" "Yes," they said. "And would you kill me?" I asked. "Yes, we would kill you if we were ordered to," they said, and they asked what I would do in their place. I answered that if I found myself in such a situation, and I were in their place, I would, at least, try to shoot over the heads of the crowd so as not to hit anyone. They asked me why I felt I might find myself among the dissatisfied. I answered that I had already been persecuted for my beliefs more than once. I told them that my experiences had been publicized in the West and that I was acquainted with several foreign correspondents.
They didn't believe me, so I showed them the page of my notebook on which I had listed the telephone numbers of Western correspondents. Bychkov wrote down one of the numbers and said jokingly that he would check it out. I suggested that they write down my name and phone number. Bychkov did. After this we parted and I never saw them again.
Judge: Are there any questions for Bukovsky?
Prosecutor: Did you tell these people that in our country sane people are placed in mental institutions?
Bukovsky: It's possible I did.
Prosecutor: Is it just possible or did you actually say it?
Bukovsky: It's possible that I said it. I don't remember exactly.
Prosecutor: Did you say to them that there is no personal freedom in this country?
Bukovsky: As I have already stated, that is my belief and it's possible that I stated my beliefs to these people. Regarding the charge that I asserted that the system existing in this country is not the one we need, that falls completely into the category of an emotional generalization. It's possible that they remembered it that way. But I have never opposed the soviet system as a political form of government and could not have said this to anyone.
Prosecutor: Why did you give Bychkov and Tarasov your phone number and address?
Bukovsky: Why do people usually exchange phone numbers?
Judge: (Rebukes Bukovsky.) Answer the question.
Bukovsky: They were interested in knowing who I was; and I told them and gave them my phone number.
Prosecutor: Why did you give Bychkov and Tarasov the phone numbers of foreign correspondents?
Bukovsky: I already explained that in the course of the conversation they stated that they didn't believe I knew any foreign correspondents and I showed them the phone numbers. In general, we were just joking around.
Judge: Are there any further questions for the defendant?
There were none.
Judge: Defendant, proceed to the final point in the indictment.
Bukovsky: Concerning the final episode I can say the following: On March 28, 1971, Chalidze [Valery Chalidze of the Human Rights Committee] called me and asked me to come over to see him. I did. The Belgian citizen Hugo Sebreghts, whom I had never met before, was there. This meeting I had with him was the only one we had. Besides him and Chalidze, Volpin was there. A conversation took place between Sebreghts and Chalidze about the activities of the Human Rights Committee and they needed me as a translator because Chalidze does not know English or French and Sebreghts did not know Russian. After the conversation was over, I left. I did not pass along any sort of documents to Sebreghts, and to prove this I have asked that Volpin and Chalidze be summoned as witnesses, but the court has refused to do this.
Judge: Have you told everything?
Bukovsky: Yes, everything.
Judge: Are there any questions?
Prosecutor: I ask that Sebreghts's final testimony in the preliminary investigation be read aloud (volume such and such, page such and such of the case record).
The judge reads aloud the report, which states that on March 28, 1971, in Chalidze's apartment he, Sebreghts, in the presence of Chalidze and Volpin, received two typewritten documents from Bukovsky — The Chronicle of Current Events and An Open Letter to the Twenty-fourth Congress by P. Yakir — and that Bukovsky asked him to say, in the event that these documents were found on him, that he had received them from an unknown person in one of the museums in Moscow.
Judge: Does anyone have any questions for the defendant regarding this episode?
Prosecutor: I ask the court to review the conclusion of the handwriting and printing analysts that the documents found on Sebreghts and analogous documents taken from Bukovsky's apartment at the time of the search were typed on the same typewriter.
Judge: The court has reviewed these documents.
[The court is recessed.]
[To be continued.]