At the end of June 1975, a month before the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, a group of U.S.Senators headed by the former Vice President Hubert Humphrey arrived in Moscowon an official trip. Others in the group included Jacob Javits, Patrick Leahy, Abe Ribicoff, and Charles Percy. The senators expressed a desire also to meet refuseniks, and Natan Shcharansky arranged the meeting. One group of refuseniks that included Vladimir Prestin, Pavel Abramovich, and Ilia Essas demanded a separate meeting. The ongoing rivalry between the activist groups led to a kind of diplomatic scandal that Shcharansky managed to avert. From that time, however, Prestin’s group was called kulturniki and the Lerner-Lunts group politiki.

How did you manage to seat next to each other two groups that had been opposing each other for over a year and a half? I asked Shcharansky.[1]

Oh, I remember that meeting very well. It was described in detail in my criminal file under the heading “Treason.” We had to arrange everything in strict secrecy so that the authorities would not disrupt the meeting. I therefore did not mention anything to anyone until the last moment. A day before the senators’ arrival, I said that we needed to pick seven people from one group and seven from the other. At the time, relations were already so tense that many were not on talking terms with each other, but I spoke with everyone.

You mean the groups of Prestin and Lerner?

Yes, Lerner, Slepak, Rubin, Lunts, Nudel, Beilina, Ovsishcher, and Levich on one hand, and Prestin, Abramovich, Essas, Brailovskii, and Azbel on the other. I met them near the synagogue to reach an agreement. At first, it seemed as if everything was all right, but then it became clear that they wanted a separate meeting.

Prestin demanded a separate meeting?

Yes. Our group did not object. I say “our group” but I tried to be neutral. I tried to do everything as quietly as possible so that the KGB wouldn’t know until the last moment and in order to assure the arrival of the necessary number of people. Then suddenly I was told, perhaps by Volodia Prestin─he always spoke nicely, not in an insulting manner─that they wanted a separate meeting. I sighed and said to him, “You don’t understand what you are talking about. This isn’t a visit by Rabbi Lookstein who gives a lecture here, there, and elsewhere─he could go to ten homes…. For him it’s a mitzvah. These are not Jewish activists who came especially to visit us. These are senators who have a detailed schedule by the hour: end of the meeting with Brezhnev, beginning of the meeting with Kosygin, and so forth. They, without explaining anything to anyone, are keeping this hour especially for a meeting with us. And we suddenly declare that we want two different meetings?” And then, if I recall, Essas explained to me: “We have an entirely different issue to discuss. You will speak about emigration, the Jackson Amendment, and quotas, and we shall speak about the situation of Jewish culture in the country.”

Essas always spoke about the religious aspect of culture. Indeed, this was before the signing of the Helsinki Accords; preparation for the cultural symposium had not started, and even the idea of holding the symposium did not exist.

I exploded and said, “You know what, then make your own arrangements.” “Yes, yes, we’ll arrange it ourselves,” he replied.

Fortunately, Javits had a good sense of humor. When he was informed of the request, he said, “They want a separate meeting but we don’t have a separate time; we do, however, have a second room. Let them sit in a separate room and we shall go from one room to the other.” In the end, everyone arrived at the designated time and sat peacefully; I played the modest role of translator. The meeting was extremely important because it occurred before the senators’ meetings with Brezhnev. The informative part wasn’t as important because they could obtain the information from Jewish organizations; rather, it was the powerful motivation of the refuseniks. The senators were charged up and given added confidence. I must say that during the meeting itself, just as I thought, no one would even have noticed a schism. Prestin and Essas, indeed, spoke about culture and our side spoke about quotas.

And you sat in the aisle in between?

I stood near the wall and translated. A scandal broke out after the meeting. The next day Robert Toth came to me─my good old friend Robert Toth, whom I helped with various things and who helped us unbelievably…. To this day, people don’t know that considerable literature reached the periphery with his help. But he is, after all, a journalist. He said, “There’s a scandal. There’s a group of refuseniks who demanded a separate meeting; there’s a schism in the aliya movement and I plan to write an article about it.” I said to him, “Robert, you are our friend and ally. The KGB will utilize this.” He responded, “I am a friend but I’m also a journalist. In the presence of the correspondent Friendly,[2] Senator Javits laughingly told someone about this situation. Friendly – that’s Newsweek – he could write about this momentarily. So should I wait and be the last to write about it? I’m writing an article. If you want, give me an interview; if you don’t want, don’t give it.” I refused to give an interview. Sasha Lunts answered his questions and I think that Essas said a few words. Minimal from each side. Essas, it seems to me, even repeated the sentence: “We are concerned with an entirely different topic and therefore we asked for a separate meeting”.

Literally a few days later, an article appeared saying that a split amongst the aliya activists came out in the open during the visit of American senators. Toth wrote two articles a week. On the whole, he was right to say that I shouldn’t take it so hard. I truly took it as almost a betrayal on his part. “First of all,” he said, “You don’t understand our work; and second, you are taking it too much to heart. If it is not a serious ideological split, the article will only speed up the healing process but if it is a serious split, then better that we should bring the matter to its conclusion”.  At the time, however, I thought he was wrong. I was afraid that the KGB would exploit this article in its constant efforts to compromise our movement. In fact, however, it didn’t create a big stir and it increased the pressure on both sides to act more reasonably in the future.

I remember that after the article’s appearance, Joseph Smukler came to Moscow to reconcile the sides.

My old friend Joe Smukler always prided himself that like a lawyer, he went to talk first with one group and then with the other.[3]

He showed initiative as a result of the article?

No. The article aroused awareness in the Jewish community that something needed to be done and that the split should not be allowed to develop further, and people began to act more responsibly. But, from my point of view, the situation was absurd. We were all on the verge of arrests, participating in a historic struggle yet busying ourselves, to put it mildly, with some kind of nonsense, demanding separate meetings and so forth. I always tried to maintain good relations with everyone. I always had a certain sympathy for Abramovich and Prestin, less so for Essas. It’s no coincidence that they turned to me when they conducted a cultural seminar, and I helped bring in journalists and so forth.

After the adoption of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1975, the regime began to tighten the screws, each side raised the stakes, and many people simply were afraid to apply for visas. I recall that we used to monitor the line of applicants and there was a period when the line was very small. Nevertheless, the lists of refuseniks kept growing.

The kulturniki’s impression that whoever wanted to leave─left was mistaken. Nevertheless, there were sufficient grounds for dealing with culture as well. No matter how you evaluate it, everything worked in the same direction. I personally had a positive view of those kinds of activity.

The division of activists into kulturniki and politiki was rather arbitrary. Both actively participated in the struggle to emigrate and in the struggle to revive Jewish culture; yet the terms stuck. There was a certain validity to them that was expressed both in the emphasis of the activity and in the ideological tendencies of the two influential groups.

 

Politiki

Professor Aleksandr Lerner, Dr. Aleksandr Lunts, and Vladimir Slepak headed the politiki. They asserted that the basis of the Zionist movement in the USSR was the struggle to emigrate. “I headed the segment of the movement,” recalled Aleksandr Lerner,[4] “that considered one must first escape from the Soviet Union to Israel and one could master Jewish culture there. Each would take as much of it as he or she could.” The politiki did not think it was possible to achieve significant results in disseminating Jewish culture in the conditions of the hostile totalitarian environment. Moreover, in their opinion, cultural activity would divert considerable forces from the aliya struggle and would enable the regime to offer insignificant concessions in that area at the expense of emigration.

The group of politiki was formed and consolidated in the struggle for the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1972-75), in the analytic monitoring of the emigration situation throughout the country (1974-75), in the writing of letters of protests, and in meetings with influential public and political figures from the West.

At the same time, many politiki studied Hebrew, read and disseminated samizdat, and utilized the recently-opened channels of communication with the West to obtain and distribute Jewish literature. They displayed notable activism and independence and utilized all accessible─occasionally extremely dangerous─levers of pressure on the regime. Shcharansky, Rubin, and Slepak cooperated closely with the democrats, and the first two became founders of the Helsinki Group. I reiterate, however, that they actively engaged also in various cultural activities. Shcharansky told me:

The journalist Robert Toth, for example, agreed every few months to receive a package for us that had been put together in the West. There would be 100 to 150 books in the package such as Exodus. We ordered the books via small organizations because the journalists didn’t want many people to know about this. There were about five to six such journalists and we would receive a serious package practically every month.

Did you order books through such organizations as “The 35”?

Not “The35”but from Michael Sherbourne personally. He was part of the group but he was the only one who knew about the order. It was done through specific individuals in the U.S. through the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. We also ordered some books through our old connections, for example via Volodia Koslovskii, from whom we received a couple of packages. We tried to keep these matters strictly secret, and I must say that occasionally the journalists were very dissatisfied with us. Once a package was wrapped carelessly and when the journalist arrived at the embassy to pick it up, it fell apart and the books were scattered around. He made a terrible fuss. I said to him: “It’s your embassy, after all.” “Well, so what?” he said. “The secretaries see and discuss matters among themselves, and the embassy is bugged.” Of course, they were right. It was a delicate matter, but it was not easy to communicate to the West that they ought to pack things properly. You couldn’t explain it to a tourist either and you couldn’t say such things over the phone.

Were the journalists who helped Jewish?

One of them was a Jew but neither Robert Toth nor David Shipler nor the others were. First of all, they sympathized with us and, second, I also did them favors. It was not easy for a journalist to penetrate inside Soviet society and figure out what was going on there. I brought people to them, established contacts, and suggested topics for articles. In such matters not everything was based on nobleness but on mutual interests.

The meetings with western public and political leaders were particular significant. as the Kremlin listened to their opinion. It was thus extremely important that Jewish activists directly provide them with an analysis of the emigration situation on the eve of their meetings with Soviet leaders. Professor Lerner recounts:

 

The first American official to meet with refuseniks was New York Congressman James Scheuer, a Democrat. When Mr. Scheuer came toMoscow, he asked to meet refuseniks in my house on Tuesday, December 16, 1971. …

For the meeting with Scheuer I invited several leaders of our movement, including Vladimir Slepak and Victor Polsky. …

The congressman was late. After more than an hour of waiting, we began to doubt that he would come at all. Then the doorbell rang and a tall, imposing man came in. …

The doorbell rang again, and two men broke in. One wore a police lieutenant’s uniform and the other that of a precinct officer. They said they were hunting a dangerous criminal disguised as a foreigner. They demanded Mr. Scheuer’s documents. His passport had been taken for registration at the Intourist hotel and the papers he showed did not satisfy the “policemen.” They demanded that the suspect go with them to his hotel. My protests had no effect. The only thing we managed to get out of the intruders was consent that one of us accompany Mr. Scheuer. My son Vladimir went with them. …

Five minutes after our guest had been taken away, Genia Intrator, an active member of the Toronto movement for Soviet Jewry, phoned. I took advantage of the opportunity to tell her what had just happened. Fifteen minutes after my phone conversation withCanada, American radio stations broadcast the “arrest in Moscow of United States Congressman Scheuer.” It was headline news.

Now foreign correspondents in Moscowand news offices in Americabegan calling, asking for details of the incident and further developments. As for the developments, instead of going to the Intourist hotel as promised, the “policemen” had taken Scheuer to the 110^th police precinct, and from there phoned their chiefs. By now the chiefs knew about the terrible mistake that had been made and the threat of international repercussions. The would-be detectives grew afraid and, worried about possible consequences, decided to get rid of their unwanted captive as quickly as possible. They told him he was free to go whenever he pleased.

Vladimirtook Scheuer to his hotel. Waiting there were theUnited Statesconsul and correspondents. After Scheuer had told his story,Vladimirbrought him back to my house. Throughout the evening, the press kept phoning, asking for details. Scheuer stayed until late at night. Upon parting, he said that now he had had enough publicity to run for president. …

The next day, the government’s national daily Izvestia published an article clumsily blaming the congressman for what had taken place. The paper mentioned me, using unflattering names and expressions. …

One consequence of the Scheuer incident was that now every United Statessenator and congressman who came to Moscowmade it a point to meet with refuseniks. As a rule the meetings took place in my house. …[5]

 

Usually three or four people prepared the meetings with visiting politicians: Professor Lerner himself, Viktor Polskii, and Aleksandr Lunts. Sometimes the noted physicist Veniamin Levich joined them. Lerner would invite ten to fifteen people to a meeting. I often participated in those meetings. Aleksandr Yakovlevich knew how to create an genial atmosphere that, at the same time, was befitting the guests’ high-ranking diplomatic status. We kept in mind that these important guests would be holding meetings with the country’s leadership and they were trying to delve deeper into the essence of the problems that we faced.

 

Kulturniki

vol. 11, #3, 1981,

The cultural direction developed in the course of the intermittently successful struggle to legalize Hebrew; in ardent discussions at Vitalii Rubin’s humanitarian seminar; through the publication of samizdat journals of various persuasions; and in the struggle against neshira. The revival of national culture was always one of the chief components of the Zionist movement’s program. In addition to satisfying the Jews’ natural striving for knowledge, it enhanced the activists’ motivation; helped create a normal national milieu; and facilitated a return to our common roots with Western Jewry, thus enabling us to reach beyond the bounds of the Iron Curtain. The campaign for Jewish culture was utilized also as an effective tool in the aliya struggle because the regime, reacting nervously to any influx of cultural knowledge that was not under its control, strove to be rid of those who showed skill in this enterprise. Editors of journals, prominent Hebrew teachers, and seminar leaders frequently emigrated more quickly than others. But, just as in the direct struggle for emigration, it was a kind of Russian roulette in which it was impossible to predict in advance whether activism would lead to an exit visa or to many years in the GULAG.

The kulturniki, of course, also participated in the struggle for passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, in the meetings with leading foreigners, in demonstrations, and in protest letters. Many of them were sincerely surprised by the term “kulturniki.” Among the outstanding leaders of this trend were Vladimir Prestin, Pavel Abramovich, Yosif Begun, Veniamin Fain, Mikhail Chlenov, Viktor Brailovskii, Feliks Kandel, Eliahu Essas, and Leonid Volvovskii.

Vladimir Prestin reflected on the illusions that prevailed in the period up to 1974, until the departure of Polskii:[6]

We thought it was sufficient to open the door and millions would pour out, i.e., that the problem was opening the door. That was an illusion, not reality because the door, in fact, was practically open but there were no millions.

Volodia! I objected. The regime had dozens of levers by which they regulated the process: thousands of refusals, the unpredictability and complexity of submitting documents, the related dangers of losing one’s job and ostracism, the general anti-Israeli hysteria, the education tax, and judicial and non-judicial harassment. The door was only slightly open.

I have a completely different view about this. The door was open practically completely toward the end of 1973. What happened in 1974 is clear proof of that.

The decline in the number of applications was also a result of the Yom Kippur War and the stream of negative letters from Israel….

There were enclaves in which Jewish communal life was preserved: the Baltics,Georgia,Bukhara, andBessarabia. Although the regime set up obstacles on the path to aliya such as work references and meetings of condemnation and so forth, in those enclaves, people overcame them.

And in Moscow they also overcame them.….

Yes, the Zionists who were born in a certain period like you and I passed through but their number was very limited. Toward the end of 1974 I said simple things: the reservoir is empty and the door is open. The reason that I said that was because the number of refuseniks did not increase. I’m not speaking of five to ten new ones; that doesn’t count. Those who were prepared to leave─left.

And those who remained needed to be prepared?

Correct. Toward the end of 1974 there was a colossal break-through. We were obsessed with the desire just to open the door; we pushed it, opened it a little, and it seemed like we were almost there…. The Jackson Amendment hung over all of us. You remember the basic points in the negotiations: fifty thousand exit visas a year; no one should be delayed for more than five years; and the release of everyone who had been in refusal longer.

Polskii’s trial was in the fall. He ran over a woman pedestrian who testified that he was not guilty but she later changed her testimony. Western correspondents and Sakharov attended the trial. Polskii was sentenced to a fine of 100 rubles. That’s because it was hoped that the negotiations would be successful. Two months later was the trial of Mikhail Stern, a neurologist fromVinnitsa; he received eight years for speculating in medicines and taking bribes. Here’s the difference: Polskii, an active participant in the aliya struggle, was fined 100 rubles and Stern─for the contrived “bribes” in Vinnitsa─eight years. During those two months, the talks broke down. In the recesses between court sessions in Polskii’s trial, the correspondents would call their offices to find out about the course of the negotiations. Polskii left and Voronel left. They were leaders of the movement. The rector of Tel Aviv University Yoram Dinstein came toMoscow. I gave him an earful: the reserve is used up, no one is prepared to leave, and the approach must be changed. This analysis was rather obvious. The number of refuseniks did not grow at all!

Jewish culture was supposed to serve the Jews’ exodus?

I never said such a thing. I never said the word “Zionism.” My language was entirely different, and in my head was Jewish enlightenment – that’s a tradition. I didn’t understand why we had to curtail that tradition at the Soviets’ dictate.

What did you mean by Jewish enlightenment?

Everything! History, literature, religion─everything that is part of Jewish culture. The tradition should be continued; that’s natural.

In your head you thought that the door is open and there is no one who wants to leave?

That’s part of it. We thought that even if we didn’t motivate people to leave but only imparted some knowledge to them, that also would be worthwhile. I am speaking seriously. That is, it was broader than aliya. Look at how much is invested today in education in the West and the former Soviet Union! Are all of them leaving? Why did we start with the little journal Tarbut (Hebrew for culture)? Because it was “kosher.” The word Zionism was absent. At first we didn’t go beyond the little journal. And the whole publication was ours….

“In those days I was most concerned with the problem of the ‘drop-outs,’ who caused harm to the exodus of Jews from the USSR,” wrote Professor Veniamin Fain.[7] “At first I naively decided that one should appeal to the conscience of those Jews, to explain that it was not right to immigrate to another country when, finally, after two thousand years of wandering, it was possible to return to our historic motherland. Together with Grisha Rozenshtein, who was gifted linguistically, I composed an appeal that was published inIsrael. I quickly understood, however, that such appeals have a very limited effect and more fundamental measures were necessary.”

How did you hope to influence your stiff-necked people? I asked Professor Fain.[8]

Recalling that Einstein wrote several articles about Zionism, I located them, and Rozenshtein and I translated about fifteen articles into Russian. I then went to the printing press near the main telegraph agency and asked them to bind twenty copies. I also purchased photographs of Mikhoels and Einstein, which I placed on the title page. After I paid for the bound copies, the binder said to me, “Don’t come here again.” He was a Jew and when he read it all, he became frightened. I then began to make copies of the collection without a binding. Around that time I made the acquaintance of Yosif Begun, who dealt with the distribution of the collections.

Gradually I elaborated the viewpoint that our movement was lacking a most important and essential aspect─the spiritual and cultural. I concluded that we needed to work systemically in that direction.

At the end of 1974, I made the acquaintance of Volodia Prestin, who supported those views. … Later, we did everything together.

The kulturniki’s multifaceted activity that encompassed samizdat, seminars, Hebrew instruction, and aspects of Jewish culture and religion helped create a social milieu that facilitated a national revival in the difficult conditions of social outcasts in a totalitarian country. At the same time the kulturniki viewed their efforts as part of the aliya struggle and also participated in various forms of protests, press conferences, and briefings for foreigners.

 

The Polskii Trial

The story of Viktor Polskii’s departure is directly related to the topic of this chapter. Polskii marvelously combined the qualities of a politician, activist, and disseminator of Jewish culture. He stood between the two developing groups, and by the force of his authority maintained a balance between them. His departure was preceded by a personal drama that lasted for almost a year.

Some girl decided to commit suicide by throwing herself under a car. This car happened to be Polskii’s personalVolgacar. Viktor miraculously managed to stop his car and the girl was not killed, suffering only a broken hip bone. In the first minutes after the accident, she told the ambulance doctor that she had jumped in front of the car on her own. It was thus recorded in the hospital form as “attempted suicide.” Later on, however, she was persuaded to change her testimony, and the case was termed a “hit,” which threatened Polskii with a serious prison term.

Lena, I asked Polskii’s widow, did you have the feeling that she changed her testimony under KGB pressure?[9]

Her father worked in the prosecutor’s office and her mother was a secretary in the regional party committee – very Soviet people with good jobs. When the authorities realized who Viktor was, they worked her over in their usual manner.

Mara Balaskinskaia-Abramovich and her husband Pavel Abramovich were very close colleagues of Polskii. With the help of friends, Mara succeeded in photographing the report of this girl’s illness in which her words “attempted suicide” were written in black on white. Polskii sent the story of the case to the West and it appeared in newspapers.

Can a lawyer really make an official demand to see the history of an illness? I asked Lena.

I think so but then they would have had time to “fix” matters and who knows what would be written. The first publication was inChicago, where a doctor friend of ours lived. She translated the medical history into English.

The Western press showed great interest in Viktor’s trial, which began to look like another trumped-up charge by the regime. On October 16, the day of the trial, people crowded into the corridors of the court building. Polskii’s considerable popularity among aliya activists was much in evidence. When they started to read the verdict, at first it seemed as if the court completely ignored the fact of a suicide attempt and accepted the version of “running her over.” Polskii was acknowledged as guilty of violating driving rules leading to serious consequences. Viktor even looked around to see whether the guards were approaching to take him directly from the court to prison. But he was sentenced to a one hundred ruble fine, an admission that, in fact, he was not guilty in this incident. At the height of the struggle against the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the regime couldn’t afford to look like petty falsifiers in the case of a Zionist leader. That’s Soviet justice.

Two or three weeks after the trial, the Polskiis received exit visas toIsrael. The extensive attention that Viktor received as a result of the trial played an important role in this.

Polskii left forIsraelwith his family on December 22, 1974, handing the reins over to Vladimir Prestin. Polskii’s influence in the refusenik milieu was so great, however, that his departure created a certain power vacuum. Moreover, while possessing undisputed leadership qualities, Vladimir Prestin had a decided preference for cultural activity.

The Polskii family’s pre-departure drama and their departure itself served as a prelude to one of the most unpleasant episodes in the aliya struggle: a split appeared in the movement.