The Zionist movement arose on the soil of Soviet realities with all its complexities. It was preceded by the rise of the general democratic movement, in which many Jews actively participated. Some of them later joined the Zionist movement, introducing general democratic values into it. The Zionist movement, however, especially at the beginning, posited a very limited goal─immigration toIsrael.

In the general consciousness, dissidents were seen as a small group of representatives of the liberal intelligentsia striving to democratize the Soviet regime. In fact, that was not the case.

The term “dissidents” is much broader, including a multitude of opponents of the regime, of which a segment was far from democratic strivings, and some of whom were deeply antisemitic. After many years of the Cold War, the West understood this side of Soviet reality better because various religious and national groups there supported corresponding formations in theSoviet Union.

The KGB’s Fifth Directorate, created for the struggle against domestic opposition, was divided into subsections for combating anti-governmental activity on nationalist, ideological, or political grounds. “For those whose state was abroad,” Yakov Kedmi told me, “Jewish, German, and Chinese divisions were established. Then there were divisions for nationalists of all stripes who were not attached to a foreign state. The religious divisions included Pentecostalists, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, the White Church [that separated from the Soviet Orthodox Church after the Revolution], and so forth. In addition, there were ideological sections: Trotskyists, anarchists, dissidents, liberals….”[1]

It was difficult for a simple Soviet citizen who decided to immigrate toIsraelto sort all this out. Likewise, activists of the Zionist movement did not always distinguish among the differing dissident groups. Activists who came from the democratic milieu regarded cooperation with the democratic movement as natural although they determined for themselves the measure of cooperation. Those in whom Zionist sentiments awakened earlier than dissident ones and were more dominant generally considered participation in the democratic movement and even cooperation with it as a waste of effort and resources. The varied approaches engendered discussions and disputes that required a complex political and moral evaluation of the situation.

By definition, the Zionist movement occupied a certain niche in the general democratic movement because freedom of emigration and national revival were important parts of the democrats’ program, and they naturally aided the Zionists in those issues.

Should the Zionists reciprocate by helping the democrats in all the remaining aspects of their activity, if not from conviction, at leave from a feeling of ordinary human decency? On the other hand, however, after two thousand years of dispersal, could we risk the future of our movement for the sake of what seemed like the completely unreal idea of democratizing a totalitarian state at a time when our own Jewish state desperately needed an influx of fresh forces?

Many considered that in successfully focusing our efforts on the resolution of attainable emigration problems, we would be more effective in facilitating the general democratization of the regime by serving as an example to other minorities and by activating considerable forces in the West on behalf of the struggle.

Our disagreements crossed borders and frequently evoked disputes among our supporters inIsraeland the West. The Liaison Bureau emissaries tried to convince activists not to engage in general democratic activity inside theSoviet Union. The Bureau thought that with properly organized work, it would be possible to convince theSoviet Unionto release some of its Jews but that there was no chance of forcing it to agree to liberalization of the regime. The officials in the Bureau were also convinced that participation in the democratic movement was not only fraught with serious reprisals against directly involved activists but also was dangerous for the entire Zionist movement. The experience of the 1950s had taught them that the arrests of individual activists were always followed by a wave of searches, interrogations, intensified anti-Zionist propaganda and a general crack-down.

The overwhelming majority of Jewish activists were focused on the aliya struggle, teaching and studying Hebrew, Jewish samizdat, and a national and cultural revival. The Bureau’s apprehensions thus concerned an insignificant number of leading activists whose example could influence others. Convinced by the Bureau’s logic, the Western Jewish establishment supported its effort not to antagonize the “Russian bear.” Independent Jewish groups in the West were more skeptical, often demonstratively supporting those who evoked the establishment’s dissatisfaction.

Former democratic dissidents who decided to emigrate─and there were many of them─regarded cooperation between the democratic and Jewish movements as a natural continuation of their own earlier activity but with a change in emphasis. They were now fighting in particular for freedom of emigration.

Vitalii Rubin, the founder and ongoing leader of the humanitarian seminar until his departure toIsrael(from 1972 to 1976), and his wife Inna undoubtedly belonged to that category. After surviving Soviet labor camps, Vitalii became one of the founders of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group in 1976. Inna Rubina (née Akselrod) came from a family of “enemies of the people.” Her father, a Soviet intelligence agent, was arrested in 1938 and shot in 1939.

Did the Six-Day War affect you? I asked Inna Rubin.

It was the first thing that truly shook us up. We naturally listened to the BBC, but when first we heard all that horror from the Soviets, I simply felt terrible. And that is precisely when I first felt that I was a part of Israel. It was decisive. And then, of course, the Hijacking Trial.[2]

You signed letters already during the Hijacking Trial?

We wrote and signed and then, closer to our departure, Vitalii joined the Helsinki Watch Group─on Jewish matters.

Among the leading activists, Vladimir Slepak, who replaced Rubin in the Helsinki Watch Group, and Eitan Finkelshtein, a member of the group inVilnius, adhered to a similar position of cooperation with the democrats on Jewish matters.

How did you relate to the human rights advocates and the democrats? I asked Eitan.

We had the same basic platform. I am also a democrat and individual rights are important to me. The difficulty lay elsewhere. I knew that many in the Jewish movement opposed close contacts with dissidents. The Bureau was against it and so was Nehemiah Levanon, but I didn’t like to follow the orders of anyone in particular and I acted on the basis of personal relations.[3]

The democrats, after all, set out to reform Russia.

That’s the point. I could never directly participate in the dissident movement for two reasons. The second concerns what you just said. I was born inSverdlovskand was more or less quite familiar with the Russian people. That nation has many positive characteristics but, unlike the Westerner, the Russian has no notion of individual freedom or the personality. Considerable time must pass for this to catch on as present events confirm. The second reason appeared already inLithuania: any Lithuanian democratic movement boiled down to a struggle for Lithuanian independence. At my request, we specified that the Lithuanian Helsinki Watch Group should not include anyone who was conducting an armed struggle against the Soviet regime. When this restriction was violated, I declared that I was withdrawing from it. Until then I was the representative of the Jewish movement in the group but, of course, I participated in discussions and voting on all issues.

Did you have any moral problems in connection with the fact that you intended to make a democracy out of a country that you yourself were leaving?

That’s not exactly what was going on. Neither I nor they wanted to remake anything. It is, after all, a human rights organization. A person is arrested, generally for no reason. And the Helsinki Watch Group informs the public at large and political circles about the human rights violation. Our rights, the rights of Jews, were also violated. In general, human rights have a universal value. When our work in the Helsinki Watch Group extended beyond the human rights framework, I always protested, got up, and left.

The most striking symbiosis of a Zionist and democrat of the 1970s was Natan (Anatolii) Shcharansky (b. 1948). Born into the family of a Soviet journalist, he graduated high school inDonetskwith a gold medal (1966) and succeeded (which was not easy for a Jew at that time) in entering the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He dreamt of working in the fields of physics and mathematics, and in his student years he worshiped Andrei Sakharov as a scientist and courageous dissident. At the age of nineteen, he developed an interest inIsraeland Zionism. With his strong mastery of English, he soon became the press secretary of the Zionist movement, but he also became a leading dissident. He felt equally comfortable in both hypostases despite the pressure from the Israeli establishment to halt his active participation in the democratic movement. He was one of the founders of the Helsinki Watch Group and often worked personally with Sakharov. “As a Jewish activist,” he explained, “I naturally represented the interests of our movement there and spent considerable time preparing documents on the situation of refuseniks. At the same time, I was an official speaker of the Helsinki Watch Group, in which capacity I also dealt with documents on the problems of Pentecostalists, Crimean Tatars, prisoners of conscience, and so forth.” Arrested in March 1977 on charges of espionage, treason, and other crimes against the regime, Shcharansky was sentenced to thirteen years of imprisonment. Released early after nine difficult years in the framework of an exchange deal, he went toIsrael, where he has become an important public figure.

You were a first-year student, still a thoroughly Soviet man, when the Six-Day War started. How did it influence you? I asked Shcharansky.

First we should understand the meaning of “a thoroughly Soviet man.” Like the majority of Jews, I was rather cynical regarding Soviet reality. I also was aware of the prevalent antisemitism─I was one of the last Jews to be accepted at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. My acceptance was considered a great success for a Jew. At the time, I was sufficiently critical of the system, that is, I was potentially ripe for dissidence. But I lacked the courage to speak out against the regime. And there was no hope of changing anything. I felt that the sole path to change was through science.[4]

Was there a certain feeling of shame because you were a Jew?

It was rather discomfort from the feeling that you weren’t living a genuine life. You would try to live genuinely when studying mathematics or playing chess─there you didn’t lie, everything was clear, and you weren’t deceiving anyone. But in order to pursue a career, all the time you would say something different from what you were thinking. Or rather you would say what you were thinking, but much of what you were thinking, you would not say.

Several things happened in connection with the Six-Day War. It made me consider that perhaps some kind of respect would derive from a connection withIsrael, some kind of strength, whether you wanted it or not, and that you couldn’t avoid that link, and, perhaps, one shouldn’t avoid it. That connection is determined by the non-Jews, not by yourself.

At the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology everyone knew very well what kind of person Sakharov was. He had received the most awards─at the age of twenty-nine he became a most important scientist, combining theoretical physics with nuclear discoveries, and he provided a theoretical basis for the development of the hydrogen bomb. He was thus a person at the summit of the scientific hierarchy. I, who was trying just to enter this ivory tower in order to escape from the external world, from all the lies, saw before me a person who had succeeded in his career in a way that I never would. And this person at the summit understood that the scientific “ivory tower” was no salvation; if you wanted to remain an honest person, you had to start telling the truth. I began to realize the illusoriness of my attempts to adapt. If you feel the lies now, you will feel them even more strongly later on. Sakahrov’s example influenced me for many years. Therefore, having become a Jewish activist and dissident, I was immeasurably happy when I succeeded in associating with Sakharov and helping him. The third influence on me was August 1968, when the Soviet Union invadedCzechoslovakia.

Even before I finished the Institute, from time to time, I would visit the synagogue.

The first time that I went was on Simhat Torah in 1968. It was, however, a slow process. It wasn’t so easy to make the acquaintance of the first families who were planning to immigrate toIsrael. At the beginning of1972, inthe last months at the Institute, I received my first invitation fromIsrael.

Now, I meet people in all parts of the world who tell me how when they were still in theUSSR, they used to listen to the BBC and Voice of America about what was happening to me. It was important because it helped them to make their own move.

InIsraelthere are figures who assert that the refuseniks’ struggle has nothing to do with the aliya of the million from theUSSR, that the refuseniks, of course, were great heroes, but no one knew about them. Idiots! That is totally removed from reality. The Liaison Bureau was completely convinced that aliya was proceeding only because of it’s skill in conducting negotiations with the Soviet authorities with American help and that they were the ones who made heroes out of the refuseniks because heroes are necessary. They said to me, “If you don’t stop your dissident activity, we’ll replace you and make someone else a hero.”

Was the invitation from Israel for you alone?

Yes. My parents were terribly fearful. My mother said, “Of course you have my blessing,” and my father said, “Tolia, you don’t know what they are like, you don’t know what the KGB is like, how dangerous this might be.”

Natan, for rather a long time you were with the Hunveibins.

Yes, and rather quickly I began to understand that Hunveibins are fine but the entire process is much broader. Here Sasha Lunts played a major role. He was the only one of the “big shots” who supported good relations with the Hunveibins, and we developed a good personal relationship. He suggested gathering information from the various cities. You remember, there were arrests….

I recall that Lunts participated in writing analytic reports for the West and Israel. Was this part of the preparation for the reports?

Correct. Insofar as I participated in the preparation of all four analytical reports, I can confirm this. I wrote the first report together with him in September-October 1974. Then we did them every half a year.

Did you travel around the cities before every report?

No, not in such an organized fashion because in that case, the KGB would easily catch us. Around that time serious suspicions about Tsypin arose.

Who traveled?

I, Volodia Davydov, Zakhar Tesker, Tolia Malkin, Yosif Beilin, and Leva Gendin.

Did you also have telephone links?

Yes. But a telephone conversation is one thing and documents are another. You yourself know that people loved to transmit them personally, with signatures. This was done not only for our analytical letter but also for the purpose of transmitting documents to the West.

I remember that you used to visit Lerner’s seminar

In 1973-74, I began to attend Voronel’s seminar, then Lerner’s and finally, Rubin’s; this was also an important aspect of becoming part of refusenik life.

Were the seminars part of the arena for discussions with foreigners and correspondents or did you have an academic interest?

Don’t forget that I was from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. I thought that I would return to science; therefore, the opportunity to continue some kind of scientific-related association was a kind of safety valve like, for example, playing chess with myself in a solitary cell.

You quickly entered the sphere of relations with foreign correspondents; you even, it seems, became friendly with them.

Through the introduction of Lunts and others, I began to meet more often with foreign tourists and journalists. I then met Robert Toth for the first time [the correspondent for The Los Angeles Times who figured in the case against Shcharansky]. I had very good relations with journalists but they were professionals, which meant that we provided them with information and they helped us in some way. There was a certain group of journalists and diplomats─American and English─who received literature for us and forwarded our letters.

The spectrum of your activity constantly expanded. You worked with central figures in the Zionist movement, actively contacted foreign correspondents and diplomats, began to cooperate closely with Sakharov, and then the Helsinki Watch Group. Wasn’t that a lot?

If you want to understand why I was arrested, I think it had to do with my position as a figure that was rather central and very irritating to the KGB. I think their annoyance peaked when I gave an interview to theGranadatelevision company. If you recall, the film was made when foreign tourists arrived in theUSSR, conducted extensive interviews, sneaked the cassette out of the country, deceiving the KGB, and then the forty-minute film made the rounds of all the Western television stations.

Was that when you gave an interview in a car?

Yes. Then I arranged for an interview of Slepak in a car. It was an entire operation, planned in advance in the summer of 1976. The film was shown in the fall. The KGB could never forgive me for this as I saw later in the material of my case file.

The tourists drove around with me for several days. Of course we couldn’t help but be noticed. Other tourists then arrived from a different country, according to our plan; we crossed paths with them somewhere, and they took out the filmed interviews. After that, our guests continued to film. Naturally, they were detained when they left and all the film was confiscated, but the main films had already arrived in the West. Granadamade the movie A Calculated Risk. As the first filmed interview directly from the center ofMoscow with refuseniks and dissidents, it made a powerful impression. On the one hand, I seriously annoyed the KGB; on the other hand, I didn’t carry the weight of, say, Lerner, Levich, or Slepak.

Your case was unique in that Sakharov’s personal and professional qualities served as a striking example. But, in principle, the majority of activists favored very limited relations with the dissidents as they did  not want to deal with issues of reforming that country, all the more so because in Russian history nothing good for the Jews ever came out of this.

With my assistance, the Zionist movement actively used Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov’s authority numerous times, and Sakharov would issue a fitting statement. As you know, he always went to the court building where the Prisoners of Zion were being tried. He thus was a thousand times more effective in attracting public attention than all of us put together.

Did you bring him there?

I brought him there in the period when I was working with him; but that’s unimportant. He did it because of his convictions, not because of his good relations with me. And now I am jumping forward many years: in 1986 I was released and when I attended my first congress on Soviet Jewry─the Bureau would hold them every two years─Sakharov was still in exile. I delivered a very popular speech and everyone loved me. In addition to speaking about our affairs, I said: “There are people sitting here who frequently asked me to obtain letters of support from Sakharov. He never refused anyone and we know how important that support was. Now that relations with theSoviet Unionare beginning to improve, I was released, and so forth, let’s appeal to them on humanitarian grounds to release Sakharov from exile.” And one after the other jumped up─I don’t want to name them now as they are still alive─and they started to say that, of course, Sakharov is a great man, but no one is going to teach us human rights. “It will be a severe mistake if we permit ourselves to interfere in domestic Soviet affairs and ask for Sakharov’s release.” First of all, I regard that stance as morally indefensible and second, it worked to our detriment. It was very beneficial for us to cooperate with the forces for peace and freedom. I admit that there can be various opinions, but the fact that the Liaison Bureau adopted the position that if you are not with us in this issue then we’ll destroy you was very problematic and dangerous.

It seems to me that the Liaison Bureau was worried not only about the personality of Shcharansky himself but at the possibility that dozens would follow him. The Bureau was interested in the movement. Its personnel had already come up against the arrest of dozens and hundreds of people at the very start of their work in the Soviet Union. One can’t deny, of course, that some had a rather shtetl-like mentality.

I don’t think that they were worried that many people would follow me. They thought that they had some kind of unwritten agreement with the KGB that as long as we didn’t interfere in its internal affairs, the KGB would let us leave little by little. And now because of Shcharansky, they will get angry and not let us go. That’s a super-shtetl mentality.

In addition to everything else, Israel always tried to stay in the background because of the Soviet Union’s pronounced pro-Arab position. Any move on Israel’s part would have probably evoked an inverse reaction. Israel always tried to operate via Western countries. Indeed, in one speech you, in my opinion, precisely formulated the alignment: “The stimulating role of Israel for Jewish activists and the united power of the West for Soviet authorities.”

Very true. But let’s admit that the fact that at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, the Bureau did not permit publications about Soviet Jewry was simply ridiculous and it hindered the mobilization of public opinion. They simply wanted to control everything. For me, theIsraelthat inspired and attracted us was not the Liaison Bureau but something much greater. Now, too, we have plenty of poor politicians, but our state, thank God, is much greater than all those politicians.

In an interview to Laura Bialis in September 2004, Shcharansky described rather precisely the stages of his inner transformation:

 

My attachment to the dissident movement and break with doublethink became possible only after I felt the power of Jewish national identification and the strength of the link with my people, when I felt myself a proud Jew. That gave me the inner strength to become a free person in a totalitarian country… However, having acquired inner freedom and overcome the fear, I naturally began to speak out also on other aspects of Soviet life and to express solidarity with other people who were suffering under the heel of the totalitarian regime. That is why my joining the more general dissident movement and my participation in founding the Helsinki Watch Group was a natural continuation of my activity as a Jewish human rights defender…. The Zionist movement represented an enormous challenge to the totalitarian regime; it insisted on the implementation of one of the most fundamental human rights and as such was, of course, also a human rights movement…although several of our leaders, especially in Israel, did not like that definition.[5]

 

It should be noted that there is a great difference between the Zionist movement and the Jewish human rights movement. One set the goal of the revival and development of Jewish statehood, whereas the other, even if we take only one aspect of its activity, aimed at guaranteeing the Jews’ right to free emigration from a totalitarian state. The innocent and seemingly natural transition from a Zionist platform to a human rights one was significant in terms of content and entailed certain patent anti-Zionist facets. We shall mention this in greater detail when we touch upon another issue that evoked ideological differences─the issue of neshira [dropping out].

Professor Aleksandr Lerner was more circumspect with regard to cooperation with the dissidents. Aleksandr Yakovlevich recalled that he met with Sakharov in 1972 and they discussed the division of spheres of activity. “I agreed with him that we would deal only with issues of emigration, without going into domestic affairs, and they would support us only in issues of emigration and nothing else, and that we would establish contact between our prisoners so that they and we could mutually help each other in places of incarceration.” [6]

The democrats headed by Sakharov supported free emigration, often spoke up in defense of Prisoners ofZion, and helped us with their authority in the international arena. I personally turned twice to Sakharov for help─in connection with the cases of Valera Kukui (1971) and Volodia Markman (1972). Both times he received me warmly, listened to the arguments, took material, and wrote letters in their defense. We were helped considerably by Valerii Chalidze. More than one generation of refuseniks learned how to conduct themselves at interrogations, searches, and in detention based on the system of Vladimir Albrecht. Vladimir Prestin recounted that after the signing of the Helsinki Accords, legal seminars were organized all around the country that helped refuseniks to fight for their rights more effectively. Albrecht traveled to those seminars and explained his system.

The issue of cooperation with the dissidents evoked many disputes in our circles. The majority of activists, myself included, considered that the Jews had already spilled enough of their blood on alien fields and altars and in revolutions in return for which they had received stark ingratitude and renewed antisemitism.

Our generation regarded the revival of national independence after two millennia of dispersion as a gift from the heavens. A real chance finally appeared to break the chain of endless persecutions and to take our fate in our own hands. The struggle for aliya toIsrael, Hebrew lessons and instruction, the study of our nation’s history and culture, a Zionist education, and a link with Jewry inIsraeland the West facilitated the realization of this noble goal. While aware of our own limited forces, we understood that only we Zionists could carry out our tasks. The human resources of the democratic movement were incomparably greater and included a significant number of Jews.

Our desire to focus on our specific problems did not exclude contacts with the democrats and mutual aid on certain issues as mentioned above. It is worth noting that the authorities’ treatment of the democrats was harsher than their treatment of the Jewish movement activists. They were particularly nervous about the members of the Jewish movement who established coordination between the two movements or took part in both, as the following events graphically confirmed.