The Kremlin and the Jews: The Shcharansky Affair
Cohen, Steven M.
the Kremlin The Sbcfaaransky Affair Steven M. Cohen On June 2, 1977, Ida Milgram Shcharansky received an alarming letter from the Moscow Procurator, the Soviet capital's chief prosecuting...
...Whatever the actual motives of the Soviet government, the outcome of the Shcharansky case will have profound implications for the activists and for the dissident movement in general...
...Yet the Soviets have persisted...
...By blurring the distinction between far-reaching insistence on the liberalization of Soviet society which is the aim of the dissidents and the narrower goals—freer emigration, equal status with other minorities—of the Jewish activists, both groups become vulnerable to new accusations and repression...
...an openly publicized Jewish cultural symposium in Moscow was disrupted...
...And what to do...
...In recent months, Shcharansky has become one of the best known Jewish activists...
...It is possible that Brezhnev's ascendance required him to make some concessions to the hard-liners in the Kremlin, but it is equally possible, and a measure of how little we understand these things, that Brezhnev himself is the hard-liner, now free to pursue his preferred course of behavior...
...The message of the Soviet leadership may well, however, be intended for a foreign audience...
...Speculation also focuses on the coincidence in timing between the Shcharansky arrest and recent changes in the internal politics of the Soviet Politburo...
...Soviet leaders, for example, are very sensitive to dissident rumblings throughout Eastern Europe, and must be concerned with the possibility that their own citizens will be tempted to dissidence...
...the Kremlin The Sbcfaaransky Affair Steven M. Cohen On June 2, 1977, Ida Milgram Shcharansky received an alarming letter from the Moscow Procurator, the Soviet capital's chief prosecuting attorney...
...If convicted, Shcharansky could be sentenced to death...
...In December of that year, two of twelve Soviet Jews tried in the notorious Leningrad I trials were sentenced to death...
...This special status, the theory goes, is the result of an exaggerated Soviet perception of Jewish influence in Washington...
...Or, more particularly, the leadership may be concerned that the average Russian now has more opportunity than ever for a contact with American and European businesspeople, journalists, cultural figures, and tourists—and, if Soviet-Western relations take a turn for the better, could have considerably more still...
...an even more vituperative anti-Semitic film was shown at military training centers throughout the USSR...
...President Carter's stand on human rights in general, and on the Shcharansky case in particular, means that the outcome will also bear directly on Soviet-American relations...
...On that day, as we emerged from the apartment house of famed Soviet Jewish activist Vladimir Slepak, Mr...
...Embassy...
...Most generally, the arrest may be the Kremlin's way of responding to the world-wide criticism of its human rights violations and its treatment of the Jews, criticism which comes not only from President Carter but from many European countries as well...
...The subsequent interrogation of Robert Toth of the Los Angeles Times demonstrates that this new departure reflects a serious commitment on the part of the Soviet authorities, since Toth was accused specifically of receiving state secrets...
...As a key person among those who expose denials of basic human rights in the USSR, especially regarding Jews, he could have been charged with "anti-Soviet slander...
...One set of theories focuses on domestic problems within the USSR...
...But some analysts suggest exactly the opposite: the arrest is an effort to create a bargaining chip, so that a Soviet concession can then be traded for American concessions in other areas, such as arms limitation or the provision of high-technology goods...
...Moreover, the KGB clearly had alternative ways of "dealing" with Shcharansky...
...Natalia Shcharansky, who left for Israel on July 5, 1974, one day after she and Anatoly were married, has aroused interest and support in major European and American cities...
...That is the central dilemma, and the continuing challenge as well...
...That is something the Soviets haven't done since the U-2 episode, and it would indicate an astonishing readiness to risk real damage to American-Soviet relations...
...Perhaps the most distressing explanation—and the one that raises directly the question of our response—suggests that Soviet Jews have in fact been a rather protected minority in the Soviet Union, routinely granted greater latitude than others in staging public protests, meeting foreigners, and issuing appeals to the international community...
...Many—including Vladimir Slepak, Dina Beilina, Alexander Lerner, and Ida Nudel—fear that their days of relative freedom are numbered, especially if their friend and colleague Anatoly is actually brought to trial...
...Two days after Shcharansky's arrest, Izvestia charged that he and a number of other well known Jewish activists had conspired to pass Soviet military secrets to the U.S...
...The Shcharansky episode climaxes nine months of unusually severe repression of Jewish activists throughout the Soviet Union...
...Indeed, there are many instances where the Kremlin, under much less pressure than it has faced in this instance, has seen fit to drop charges and cease formal proceedings...
...In fact, the explanations that have been put forward by such leading analysts as the New York Times' Hendrick Smith (former Moscow bureau chief), Professor Yoram Dinstein of the Tel Aviv Law School and Professor Shmuel Ettinger of the Hebrew University, are sometimes at odds with each other...
...They remain, as Churchill proposed, "a dilemma within an enigma wrapped in a mystery...
...Not since 1970 has a Jewish activist been charged with treason...
...and arrested...
...The world-wide Soviet Jewry support movement has focused increasingly on Shcharansky, and history's largest Soviet Jewry rally— Solidarity Sunday, May 1, 1977—was dedicated to his cause...
...During this period, at least two activists were imprisoned (after nearly a year witu no such arrests...
...At the same time, the pressure and publicity must be finely calibrated, lest the Soviets not be permitted to retrench without intolerable loss of face...
...a lengthy anti-Semitic "documentary" was shown on prime-time nation-wide television...
...One useful way to search for an explanation is to assume that so severe a charge of so visible an activist makes "sense" only if the Soviets are interested in sending a message...
...At the same time, especially in light of the severity of the charge and the publicity it has attracted, the Soviets risk loss of face if they release Shcharansky...
...Central Intelligence Agency, allegedly through such American correspondents as Peter Osnos of the Washington Post and Newsweek's Alfred Friendly and through officials at the U.S...
...That may, in fact, be why they have thus far failed to file formal charges...
...A more elaborate explanation suggests that the Soviets may be trying to merge Jewish activists and Soviet dissidents, thereby attempting to discredit both...
...If Western pressure and publicity are kept up, the Soviet authorities may conclude that the price of the message they are trying to send—whatever its content—is simply too high...
...In the past, the Soviets have generally shied away from prosecuting well-known figures and have often relented when Western reaction was particularly intense...
...Then, ten days later, President Carter himself, responding to a press conference question, declared flatly that "contrary to allegations . . . Mr...
...Or he could have met with an "accident," as did Ilya Levin of Leningrad, who was hospitalized for burns over most of his body after a cannister of mustard gas exploded under his seat at a public concert...
...Jewish cultural seminars, prayer services, scientific seminars, and religious commemorations have been assaulted in unusual number...
...On June 3, 1977, one day after the treason charge was entered, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell stated that the Administration was "deeply concerned" about Shcharansky—a clear signal to the Soviets that the Administration viewed the matter as one of major importance...
...Still, the Shcharansky case stands by itself, and is significant in several respects...
...In this view, the Shcharansky case is a specific warning against contact with foreigners, who may, the Soviets are saying, be CIA agents...
...Shcharansky was hustled into a waiting automobile by half a dozen KGB agents...
...Were the Soviets to press the charge, they would, in effect, be calling the President of the United States a liar...
...They could claim that Shcharansky had merely been held for investigation, and then either release him or indict him on less serious charges...
...Instead, he has been charged with treason and espionage, a far more serious indictment and one certain to focus dramatic attention on the case—especially in light of the apparent substance of SHCHARANSKY Continued from page 48 the charges and of Shcharansky's special visibility...
...Shcharansky had never had any sort of relationship, to our knowledge, with the C.I.A...
...Hence the Shcharansky arrest becomes a highly visible warning to the Soviet people...
...What kind of a message, and to whom...
...participants in sit-ins at Moscow's Supreme Soviet building, demanding to know why they had been denied exit visas, were beaten Steven M. Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College...
...Soviet motives are rarely certain...
...He was taken to the Special Investigation Section of Moscow's Lefortovo Prison, an institution specializing in the incarceration of those whose views differ from those of the State...
...Or it may be a way of informing the United States' president that he should not expect any softening of the Soviet stance on human rights, that from the Soviet perspective there are no tradeoffs between human rights and other matters of bilateral concern...
...following world-wide protests, the sentences were reduced to lengthy prison terms...
...Indeed, some of them were mentioned in the same infamous Iz-vestia articles which detailed the alleged CIA connection...
...Bat in the light of recent American pressure on Israel, difficulties in Congress with anti-boycott legislation, and other evidence of a weakening of Jewish influence, the Soviets have revised their calculation, have decided they can crack down hard on the Jews without fear of retaliation...
...A recent Tass commentary accused the dissidents of being "prepared to sell their motherland for 30 shekels" —implying, of course, that classic anti-Semitic stereotypes were appropriate rebuffs to the dissidents...
...The activists themselves, and most analysts, view continuing pressure and publicity as essential, not only for Shcharansky himself, but for the entire Jewish movement...
...While applications for exit visas have increased by some 30 percent in recent months, a number of top activists report that they have become more circumspect in the wake of the arrest and indictment...
...Why Shcharansky, why now, why this way...
...He could have been set up to collide with KGB agents in a busy Moscow street and then charged with "hooliganism...
...Why...
...Or, because Shcharansky was fired from his job when he applied for a visa to emigrate four years ago, he could have been arrested for "parasitism" (even though he has repeatedly sought employment...
...If they had wanted merely to remove him from circulation, they could have used any of a variety of criminal charges that have been used to silence other activists...
...they must have known the publicity the case would attract, and perhaps that is exactly what they wanted...
...For, as they point out, their activities have been no different from his...
...The Soviets could not have been unaware of the publicity the Shcharansky arrest and indictment would generate, nor do they seem to have cared much about it...
...Since March 15, eleven weeks earlier, the elderly mother had neither seen nor heard from her 30-year-old son, a computer specialist...
...The central dilemma for the Soviet Jewry movement, which is as close to a genuine grass-roots movement as the American Jewish community knows, is how to behave with effective precision, how to ensure that its actions are productive and not merely cathartic...
...This, finally, means that there is no substitute for continuing pressure...
...His name appeared frequently in press reports in leading Western newspapers...
...She was informed that her son, Anatoly, would be charged with treason and espionage under Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR...
...He served as the regular contact with the Western diplomatic and press corps in Moscow, and acted as a spokesman and interpreter for Soviet Jewish activists...
Vol. 2 • October 1977 • No. 10
