The Six-Day War created serious problems for the Soviet regime not only in the international arena but also on the domestic scene. The traditional role of scapegoat, which Soviet Jews had played more or less submissively until then, no longer suited them nor was it applicable to the new situation. Anti-Jewish jokes disappeared ─ they were no longer amusing. The vociferous anti-Israel propaganda was venomous but it was not much more than a reflection of the regime’s impotence, an attempt to cover up its own policy failures.

The strong motivation and uncompromising position of thousands of deeply committed Zionists as well as their growing support from abroad meant that the Jewish national renaissance could not be repressed by the traditional forceful methods. It was well known in the West that the Jews were demanding only their rights that were guaranteed in the Constitution and in international agreements ratified by the Soviet Union.

The Politburo not only was well informed about the domestic situation but also it regularly received information about the activities of Jewish organizations abroad. A secret note sent by Alexander Yakovlev, then deputy secretary of the Propaganda Department of the CPSU Central Committee, to the secretaries of the Central Committee on April 22, 1970 contained a selection of the appeals that Jewish Soviet citizens addressed to the editorial boards of central newspapers:

You are slinging mud at the State of Israel. You slander its small but courageous people…. You and your newspaper are exposing Israeli leaders to ridicule. But do not forget that they are popular not only at home in the motherland but also among many Soviet Jews. ….

………………..

It was with a feeling of vexation that I read in your newspaper the letters of several individuals of Jewish identity…. I have no desire whatsoever to enter into polemics with these modern-day degenerates who have turned away from their own people and raised their criminal hand against them.

The author goes on to demand that he be granted the possibility to leave for Israel.

…………………….

Why do you keep silent about the fact that it was not Israel that planned to destroy the U[nited] A[rab] R[epublic] but Nasser, like Hitler in his hatred toward us, who vowed to exterminate the women and children of Israel?

………………………

Why don’t you write that Israel, with its courageous resistance in 1967, did what we were unable to do in 1941-42, i.e., it saved millions of Jewish women, children, and men from physical annihilation?

………………………

Why do you provide grist for the mill of antisemites here by accusing Israel of bloodthirstiness, insolence, robbery, service to imperialism, etc., etc., but you are unwilling to acknowledge Israel’s right to self-defense and a secure existence that we recognize for ourselves?

Why do you, with your unjust, one-sided and misleading information, deprive millions of Jews among us of the joy of life, aggravate relations at the workplace, and deprive them of their desire for scientific and technical creativity?[1]

 

The regime was aware that a significant segment of Soviet Jewry expressed solidarity with the Jewish state after the Six-Day War and wanted to immigrate to it.

The Soviet Union was opposed in general to any emigration from the country, but it did not have a consistent policy on the matter. Permission to emigrate was given to various groups in the population under the pressure of circumstances in an impulsive and unconsidered manner.

Given the competition between the two socio-political systems, the problem of emigration from the USSR offered the West an effective propaganda tool and caused the Soviet leadership considerable aggravation.

On the one hand, “Communist parties in capitalist countries, with whom Soviet relations were complex in any case, reacted strongly to discrimination against Soviet Jews and restrictions on Jewish emigration. The International Department [of the CPSU] and the Department for Ties with Communist Parties regularly had to provide explanations on this issue to the leadership of the communist parties of Italy, France, Great Britain, and others, showing that the rights of Jews in the USSR were not being violated.”[2]

On the other hand, the documents in Morozov’s book indicate that the Soviet Union’s Arab clients frequently raised the issue before the Soviet leadership in an effort to limit if not completely halt the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. Morozov comments:

As to the mechanisms by means of which decisions were made, a study of the Central Committee documents clearly demonstrates that, in fact, its decisions concerning Jewish emigration did not reflect a uniform, considered and confirmed course handed down from above. On the contrary, the documents tend to point to a reverse trend, based on initiative from below. [3] According to this scheme, the KGB, the Foreign Ministry, and in some cases the Interior Ministry encountered problems that arose in connection with the emigration of Soviet Jews and transmitted this information to the CPSU Central Committee. In several cases the documents… easily enable one to follow the logical chain: a report of the KGB and/or the Foreign Ministry about problems that often also contained suggestions about what measures ought to be taken; a discussion of this issue in the Central Committee apparatus; a decision; and practical implementation of the decision.[4]

The Soviet leadership had weighty reasons for their negative attitude toward emigration. First, the Soviet Union was striving to spread its ideology around the world. It portrayed the Soviet order as a regime of victorious socialism that had solved all of the basic social problems and it castigated the “social ills of capitalism” in contrast. To uphold the veracity of this picture, it was important that people from all over the world were seeking to move to the Soviet Union or, at least, were not fleeing from it. The very possibility of Soviet citizens’ emigrating was therefore rejected as such. “The existence of large numbers of people willing to give up this ‘paradise’ challenged the official, idyllic representation of the Soviet reality. For this reason, exit visas for all Soviet citizens (not only Jews) were always granted on the basis of repatriation or the reunification of families. In the case of Jews wishing to depart for Israel, only reunification was regarded by the Soviet authorities as legitimate grounds for emigration.”[5] The relevant Soviet authorities did not insist on proof of family ties; in their eyes, the desire to rejoin close relatives modified the element of protest against Soviet living conditions.

Second, Soviet propaganda asserted that national barriers and discrimination on the basis of nationality had been eliminated and a new community, the Soviet people, was in the process of formation. Jewish emigration and the activity of Zionists who informed the West about the true situation caused irreparable harm to such assertions.

Third, the authorities feared that by permitting some people to emigrate, they would create a dangerous and infectious precedent for others. Leon Onikov, a consultant for the propaganda department of the Central Committee, wrote in a secret memorandum: “The departure of some of the Jews to Israel has a negative effect on the attitudes of other nationalities ─ some of the Germans, the Baltic peoples, the Crimean Tatars, etc. ─ who pose the question, ‘Why are Jews permitted to leave for other countries while we are not?’”[6] Indeed, that is what happened by and large when the Soviet Union collapsed ─ the various peoples separated along their national lines as soon as the central authority weakened. The break up of the Soviet Union blatantly exposed the complete failure of the Soviet nationalities policy.

Fourth, the leaders, who were aware of the essential role of Jews in Soviet science and industry, tried to prevent a brain drain that could seriously harm the Soviet economy.

From a legal point of view, emigration from the USSR was not considered a crime. It was regulated by legislation at the republic and all-union levels, by decrees of the Council of Ministers, and by departmental instructions.

The “Principles of Civil Legislation,” paragraph 9, affirms that “citizens may, in accordance with the law,…choose the nature of their activity and their place of residence.” According to Decree No. 660 of the Council of Ministers from June 19, 1959, Soviet citizens were able to travel abroad with a special foreign passport or a substitute document and exit visa. Foreign passports and exit visas were granted on the basis of a written request from the respective ministries, institutes or organizations, and also on the basis of written requests from individual citizens who desired to travel abroad for private matters.

The departmental instructions of the Interior Ministry stated that Soviet citizens wishing to depart to capitalist countries had to present the following documents to OVIR (Department of Visas and Registration) of the Interior Ministry:

1. An invitation from relatives living abroad certified by authorized official representatives or another organization of the country of residence (with a translation into Russian).
2. A standard questionnaire in two copies. All questions had to be answered. The thirteenth question, for example, required naming all close relatives, including parents, wife, husband, children, brothers, and sisters, whether living or dead, in the Soviet Union and abroad. The seventeenth question asked whether the relative ever lived on Soviet territory and when and under what circumstances he left the country.
3. A document from the place of residence certifying the names of other members of the family who shared living space with the applicant. (If several members of a family applied to leave simultaneously, they had to present one joint document.)
4. A reference from the work place for those who were working or from the place of study for students. The reference had to indicate that it was given in connection with departure abroad and it was obligatory to indicate the destination to which a person was traveling. The reference was signed by a triumvirate (the head of the administration, the secretary of the party organization, and the head of the labor union) of the institution or enterprise. (Party members had to present a reference from the party’s district committee and Komsomol members ─ from the district Komsomol committee. Dependants and pensioners had to present the respective document from the house administration.)
5. A detailed autobiography explaining whether the relative to whom the applicant was traveling had lived in the Soviet Union and if so, when and under what circumstances did he/she leave.
6. Those who were leaving a spouse or parents behind in the Soviet Union had to present their consent to the departure certified by the work place of the remaining relative.
7. Soviet citizens married to foreigners had to present evidence of the marriage and in the case of offspring, birth certificates.[7]

In addition, it was necessary to present OVIR with six photographs, an internal passport, a signed postcard with a return address, and 40 rubles. That sum was quickly increased more than twenty-fold, a significant expense by Soviet standards. “From January 1971 each person who was departing had to pay 500 rubles for the loss of Soviet citizenship, which was denied automatically, and also 400 rubles for a new passport and exit visa.”[8]

Four offices ─ the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the KGB, and the Defense Ministry all had to approve the request for an exit visa. The criteria for decision making lacked clarity, leaving room for uncertainty, arbitrariness, and endless humiliating procedures. For example, refusals on the basis of secrecy could drag on for dozens of years or there were informal refusals “for reasons of inexpediency,” the “undesirability of leaving,” and so forth.

A totalitarian state may have excellent laws that are not implemented or rendered meaningless by certain instructions. “In accordance with the document submitted by the Soviet Union to the UN subcommission on preventing discrimination and defending national minorities…restrictions on leaving the country were permitted in only three cases ─ when the applicant was charged with a criminal act and was awaiting trial; when he was in prison in accordance with a court sentence, or had to fulfill the duty of army service.”[9]

Upon starting to work at the Automation Institute in 1964, I signed onto access to secret material of the second level, which entailed a three-year quarantine on contacts with foreigners or leaving the country. I was denied an exit visa on the grounds of secrecy for eighteen  years after the expiration of this document!

A dictatorial regime has practically an unlimited repertoire against people who want to leave. These people were branded as traitors, hirelings of Zionism or foreign intelligence agencies, and they were isolated and subject to arbitrary treatment. They were given unmotivated refusals for exit visas, dismissed from work and deprived of a means of existence, subjected to searches and confiscation of property, pressure was exerted on their relatives, and they were detained, arrested, and thrown into prison. A field of fear and uncertainty was created around the issue of departure.

“It was then, in essence, that the struggle began for the right of Soviet Jews to leave for Israel. This struggle, which would continue for almost 40 years, pitted individual citizens against a state with one of the most powerful and notorious political police apparatuses in the world. In the years that followed, the Soviet leadership did everything possible to keep emigration to a minimum.”[10]

The impulsive and fluctuating emigration process was a result of the play between two opposing factors ─ the Soviet leadership’s desire to deflate the wave of pro-emigration attitudes and suppress the Zionist movement, on the one hand, and on the other, the ever-increasing pressure from within and without demanding permission for emigration. The KGB and the Foreign Ministry, reacting to the external and domestic pressures, offered recommendations to the political leadership, which, in turn, slightly opened or closed the emigration tap and either released or arrested the most prominent activists and refuseniks.

Even in the Stalinist period there was a thin stream of emigration. “In 1948, exit visas were granted in two cases (out of six applications) and in 1949 infour cases (out of 20 applications).” At that time the Commission on Departures attached to the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided issues of emigration. All of these cases concerned elderly people who had received Soviet citizenship in 1940 and whose children were residing in Israel.[11]

“From 1948 to 1953 only eighteen people went to Israel on Soviet visas.”[12]

From 1953 to 1964, 2,064 people left directly to Israel. In those years other emigrants included 18,630 Germans, 6,000 Armenians, 260,000 Poles, 6,000 Spaniards, and 500 Greeks.[13] Acceptable forms of emigration were found for some of these national minorities as stipulated in certain agreements. But for Germans and Armenians the sole official reason for emigration was “family reunification.” “To fulfill these requirements, Germans, whose ancestors had come to Russia for the most part in the 18^th century, were forced, as were Jews, to obtain fictitious invitations from non-existent relatives abroad.”[14]

Apparently, a decision was made in 1965 to permit the emigration of a larger number of Jews than previously. Assessing that the overwhelming majority of Soviet Jews were integrated into Soviet society and were not contemplating emigration ─ Soviet Jews had a total of about ten thousand invitations from Israel in hand ─ the regime concluded that the departure of those who did not fit into Soviet society was even desirable. In two and a half years (from 1965-1967), 4,498 people immigrated to Israel on Soviet visas.[15] Thus from May 1948 until June 1967, 6,480 Soviet citizens immigrated to Israel.

After the Six-Day War the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel and emigration stopped completely. But a year later, on June 10,1968, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko issued a joint proposal to renew Jewish emigration:

                                                                      Moscow, 10 June, 1968

                                                                      No. 1365-A; 5/4-1251

Secret.

CPSU Central Committee

In connection with Israeli aggression against the Arab countries, departures of Soviet citizens of Jewish nationality for permanent residence in Israel were halted in June 1967, on the initiative of the Committee for State Security, with the agreement of the CPSU Central Committee.

This was interpreted by foreign Zionist centres, and by the reactionary bourgeois press and radio, as a manifestation of antisemitism on the part of Soviet authorities in response to the events that had arisen in the Middle East. Zionist leaders in Israel, the U.S. and France continue to draw world public attention to the issue of discrimination allegedly existing in the Soviet Union against individuals of Jewish nationality while agitating for the departure of Soviet citizens of Jewish nationality to Israel. In order to contain the slanderous assertions of Western propaganda concerning discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union, it would seem expedient, along with other measures, to renew in the coming year departures of Soviet citizens for permanent residence in Israel (up to 1500).[16]  Visas will be granted to individuals of advanced age without higher or specialized education. The matter of quotas for departures of individuals of Jewish nationality in subsequent years can be dealt with later.

Renewing departures of Soviet citizens to Israel for the purpose of reuniting families separated by the war could be evaluated positively in the eyes of world public opinion as a humanitarian act, and will permit the elimination of nationalistically inclined individuals and religious fanatics who exert a harmful influence on their surroundings.

For these same considerations, until the restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel, it would be best to permit private visits to Israel of Soviet citizens in exceptional cases (in the event of death, serious illness of close relatives, etc.). We request examination of this question.[17]

Soon after the Central Committee approved the proposal, activists such as Leah and Boris Slovin, Dov Shperling, Yasha Kazakov, and many others received exit visas. Thus began the saga of a new wave of Jewish emigration, starting after the Six-Day War and continuing over thirty years. The KGB, however, began to utilize the aliya for its own operative goals; that is, it sent spies to Israel and the West under the guise of immigrants.

The Israeli secret services regarded a few of the first Zionist activists (especially those who were particularly striking and unusual in manner) with some mistrust. At the time public condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was much stronger than criticism of the restrictive emigration policy. Considering in these circumstances that the Soviets were more likely to carry out reprisals against activists than offer them freedom of departure, Nativ thus suspected that excessive activism could be a cover for dispatching another Soviet agent.

For its part the Soviet leadership presumed that, by having created an atmosphere of fear, suffering and uncertainly around the issue of departure on the one hand, and having released a small group of “fanatics” on the other, it had relatively successfully solved the emigration problem. It was assumed that in the absence of “inciters” few would be willing to put themselves and their dear ones at risk for the sake of a dubious departure. The Soviet leadership was mistaken. The breakthrough of the veteran activists strengthened those remaining ─ the dream began to seem realizable. The Zionists reinforced their activity and openly challenged the regime. The number of applications for exit visas began to snowball. The Soviet leadership was unable to stop this chain reaction without resorting to mass repressions.

In 1968, 1,550 invitations were sent from Israel and 379 people left the Soviet Union. In 1969 10,267 invitations were sent and 2,902 arrived. In 1970 there were 4,307 invitations and 999 who left. In those years there was no drop-out phenomenon (“neshira” in Hebrew, or departure on an Israeli visa to some other Western country).

In 1970-1971 Soviet authorities attempted to suppress the organized Zionist movement by a campaign of arrests and harassment in connection with the Leningrad Trial (this included the second Leningrad trial and trials in Riga, Kishinev, Sverdlovsk, and Odessa) and by permitting the departure of some activists and movement leaders who were well known in the West. Instead of producing the desired results; these measures evoked a powerful wave of protests in the West and inside the Soviet Union and an even larger stream of applications for exit visas.

This time several western communist parties took part in the open protests. In connection with the acute ideological struggle against Chinese communists, the Soviet Union was interested in effecting a rapprochement with the western parties. Preparations for the Twenty-fourth Party Congress made a policy of rapprochement even more urgent. On February 23, 1971, aweek before the opening of the congress, the first worldwide conference in support of Soviet Jewry opened in Brussels, evoking an enormous public response.[18]

 

The Soviet Jewry struggle became a factor in international policy and began to impede the development of Soviet relations with the West. Assuming that the majority of assimilated and educated Jews of the central part of the country did not intend to emigrate, the regime considered that  “expanding emigration…seemed like the lesser evil.”[19] Hoping to isolate educated Jews further from the emigration process, the authorities issued a significant number of refusals to precisely this category of people.

Beginning in 1970 the number of people who were refused exit visas constantly increased. Refuseniks, who had been rejected by society yet were forced to continue living in the Soviet Union, had to conduct a constant struggle for survival, for human dignity, for the right to lead a Jewish way of life, and ultimately, to leave.

Soviet Interior Minister Nikolai Shchelokov explained the situation to a group of Jewish movement activists at a meeting in March 1971: a person whose work entailed direct access to state secrets had to leave this work three to five years before submitting documents to leave; a refusal could be given to a person whose professional knowledge was needed by the country. A person who had received a higher education had to work for several years in order to repay his debt to the country before he could apply for an exit visa.[20] The minister also explained that if, for example, too many doctors from one region wanted to emigrate, some of them would receive refusals. The Soviet Union would prevent a brain drain.

The more the regime issued refusals, however, the harder the refuseniks fought and the more help they received from the Jewish world and the West. The number of invitations from Israel constantly increased and with it the number of requests for exit visas.

In 1971 for the first time in the history of the emigration, dropouts appeared (this included, in fact, dissidents who were expelled from the country via the Israeli channel). Of 12,819 who left for Israel that year, 58 dropped out en route. In 1972, 31,681 people succeeded in leaving; 251 of them dropped out along the way.

In order to restrict further the departure of specialists, the regime decided to introduce a tax on education. A precedent existed: Israel had paid the Romanian government for every departing Jew in accordance with age, profession, and education. The Soviet authorities, perhaps, were counting on this because the tax was beyond the means of most Soviet Jews.

“The decision on the tax was adopted on August 3, 1972 and the corresponding decree was published on December 27^th of that year…but already in mid-August, OVIR workers declared that those who received exit visas had to pay for their higher education.”[21]

At the time, the listed amounts represented the salary for several years of specialists with higher degrees. If hard currency from abroad were used for these payments, the state treasury would receive tens of millions of dollars. The tax payment for 1,438 qualified people yielded the Soviet treasury about seven million rubles.

After a discussion and analysis of the situation, the Israeli government decided not to pay the tax and to begin a struggle for its revocation. There were sound reasons for this: the Soviets’ timing on the tax decision was unfortuitous. As Eduard Kuznetsov remarked so pointedly, the Soviet Union had “degenerated” to the point of détente and was extremely interested in limiting the arms race that was weakening its already declining economy. In May 1972, on the eve of the adoption of the unfortunate decision, U.S. President Richard Nixon visited Moscow. During his stay he signed two agreements concerning limitations on strategic offensive weapons and on trade that required Congressional confirmation. Moreover, for the trade agreement to be effective, the Soviet Union needed to receive the “most favored nation” status that bestowed customs and credit benefits. Brezhnev considered the signing of these agreements as a great personal achievement and began preparing for a reciprocal visit to the U.S., which was supposed to take place in June 1973.[22] The circumstances afforded Israel and the American Jewish community a powerful lever for an effective struggle.

A storm of protests arose in the U.S. in connection with the Soviet “education tax.” In this context the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which linked the bestowing of the most favored nation status to the Soviet Union with freedom of emigration from that country, was introduced. The USSR consequently appeared in a foolish and humiliating position. The Jackson-Vanik amendment raised Jewish emigration to the plane of strategic relations between two superpowers. Brezhnev considered the issue of emigration secondary in the given context and insisted that the education tax not be levied but that is a separate story.

The following table sums up the results of emigration in the first years of the new wave:

Table 1

Year	Invitations	Emigrants	Olim	Dropouts
1968	1,550	231	231
1969	10,267	3,033	3,033
1970	4,307	999	999
1971	22,933	12,897	12,839	58
1972	40,546	31,903	31,652	251
1973	40,576	34,733	33,277	1,456

 

Jews from Georgia and Bukhara were the most active in trying to emigrate. In the first five years of the emigration wave of the 1970s (1971-1976), 37.3 percent of the total community left for Israel ─ forty-one thousand people. The next in number were the Jews of the Baltic States, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina, areas that the Soviet Union had annexed before and during World War II: twenty one percent of their total population made aliya ─ fifty-one thousand people. In the last place were Ashkenazi Jews residing within the prewar borders of the Soviet Union. Two percent of this group left in those years, a total of thirty-six thousand people.

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