Soviet dissidents

Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them.[1] The term dissident was used in the Soviet Union (USSR) in the period from the mid-1960s until the Fall of Communism.[2] It was used to refer to small groups of marginalized intellectuals whose challenges, from modest to radical to the Soviet regime, met protection and encouragement from correspondents,[3] and typically criminal prosecution or other forms of silencing by the authorities. Following the etymology of the term, a dissident is considered to "sit apart" from the regime.[4] As dissenters began self-identifying as dissidents, the term came to refer to an individual whose non-conformism was perceived to be for the good of a society.[5][6][7] The most influential subset of the dissidents is known as the Soviet human rights movement.

Political opposition in the USSR was barely visible, and apart from rare exceptions, it had little consequence,[8] primarily because it was instantly crushed with brute force. Instead, an important element of dissident activity in the Soviet Union was informing society (both inside the USSR and in foreign countries) about violation of laws and human rights and organizing in defense of those rights. Over time, the dissident movement created vivid awareness of Soviet Communist abuses.[9]

Soviet dissidents who criticized the state in most cases faced legal sanctions under the Soviet Criminal Code[10] and the choice between exile abroad (with revocation of their Soviet citizenship), the mental hospital, or the labor camp.[11] Anti-Soviet political behavior, in particular, being outspoken in opposition to the authorities, demonstrating for reform, writing books critical of the USSR were defined in some persons as being simultaneously a criminal act (e.g. violation of Articles 70 or 190-1), a symptom (e.g. "delusion of reformism"), and a diagnosis (e.g. "sluggish schizophrenia").[12]

  1. ^ Carlisle, Rodney; Golson, Geoffrey (2008). The Reagan era from the Iran crisis to Kosovo. ABC-CLIO. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-85109-885-9.
  2. ^ Chronicle of Current Events (samizdat) Archived 2011-03-16 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian)
  3. ^ Smith, Stephen (2014). The Oxford handbook of the history of communism. OUP Oxford. p. 379. ISBN 978-0-19-960205-6.
  4. ^ Taras, Raymond, ed. (2015) [1992]. The road to disillusion: from critical Marxism to post-communism in Eastern Europe (2 ed.). Routledge. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-317-45479-3.
  5. ^ Universal Declaration of Human Rights General Assembly resolution 217 A (III), United Nations, 10 December 1948
  6. ^ Proclamation of Tehran, Final Act of the International Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 22 April to 13 May 1968, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 32/41 at 3 (1968), United Nations, May 1968
  7. ^ CONFERENCE ON SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE FINAL ACT. Helsinki, 1 aug. 1975 Archived 2011-05-31 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Barber, John (October 1997). "Opposition in Russia". Government and Opposition. 32 (4): 598–613. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.1997.tb00448.x. S2CID 145793949.
  9. ^ Rosenthal, Abe (2 June 1989). "Soviet dissenters used to die for speaking out". The Dispatch. p. 5.
  10. ^ Stone, Alan (1985). Law, psychiatry, and morality: essays and analysis. American Psychiatric Pub. pp. 5. ISBN 978-0-88048-209-7.
  11. ^ Singer, Daniel (2 January 1998). "Socialism and the Soviet Bloc". The Nation. Archived from the original on 27 September 2018. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  12. ^ "Report of the U.S. Delegation to Assess Recent Changes in Soviet Psychiatry". Schizophrenia Bulletin. 15 (4 Suppl): 1–219. 1989. doi:10.1093/schbul/15.suppl_1.1. PMID 2638045.