Zionist groups arose in many locations in the Soviet Union. In addition to the cities mentioned in the previous chapter, Zionists were active in places such as Kiev, Kishinev, Bendery, Odessa, Novosibirsk, Tbilisi, and Bukhara. Activists gradually contacted each other and exchanged opinions on the forms and methods of struggle and intensified the exchange of samizdat literature. This literature went from Riga to Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk and other cities, from Vilnius to Sverdlovsk, from Leningrad to Kishinev, and from Moscow to Kiev, Riga, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, and Sverdlovsk.

Moscow was a clearing-house for samizdat distribution. Some books and printed material, for example Leon Uris’ famous novel Exodus, were produced simultaneously in a few places. The quality of the translations and of the production work and the scope of samizdat distribution differed noticeably. The movement was ripe for more effective coordination and division of labor.

In the summer of 1969 Svechinskii and Khavkin convened activists from several cities in Moscow and proposed creating some kind of coordinating organ. Mogiliver and Dreizner arrived from Leningrad; Valk and Maftser from Riga; and Efim Spivakovskii from Kharkov. Khavkin and Svechinskii represented Moscow. There were also representatives from Kiev, Minsk, Kharkov, Odessa, Novosibirsk, and Tbilisi. Two items on the agenda were the exchange of information and the signing of collective letters of protest. Mogilever and Dreizner suggested forming an all-Russia Zionist organization similar to the Leningrad model, but the other participants reacted coolly to the idea. Zionist leaders who had been through prisons and labor camps were not eager to create a rigid organizational structure. They preferred flexible ties that were suitable for coordinating certain spheres and solving common problems without a formal leadership. This kind of vague body was indeed created at a meeting that took place in the forest near Moscow from August 16 to 17, 1969. It was called the All-Union Coordinating Committee (known by the Russian initials as the VKK).

Vilia, I ask Svechinskii,[1] who initiated the VKK?

Some people who considered themselves—I would not say leaders—activists gathered informally at Meir Gel’fond’s apartment. Lenia Rutshtein, David Khavkin, Meir himself, and Karl Malkin were there.

Karl Malkin was a Hebrew teacher….

Malkin was not only a teacher; he was responsible for the links between cities.

You already had divided up functions?

Yes. We decided that something needed to be done and sent the word to all the cities: Riga, Vilnius, Kharkov, Kiev, Leningrad, Odessa, Novosibirsk, even Rostov, where there was Karl Frusin. Everyone came on his own account. We met secretly in the forest near Moscow and put sentries at a kilometer’s distance. Our gathering received the name VKK. There was no list of participants but we knew who they were. We decided many matters there. People in each city were assigned responsibility for various spheres such as samizdat and intercity links were established. This work entailed money, material, paper, an exchange of literature and so forth. Samizdat represented a large part of our work. Karl Malkin was responsible for it in Moscow and Mendelevich in Riga. Boria Maftser also worked actively in Riga …. Perhaps it was even foolish, but we didn’t suffer from suspiciousness. Those who had financial problems were given money—not for trips but for work. At that time we already had a public fund that was rather solid.

Was this from overseas help?

Not yet. That began later. In the meantime we collected money from the public. Khavkin sold copies of Exodus for ten rubles. I said to him, “David, aren’t you ashamed to take ten rubles from a Jew?” But he said, “Let them pay; let them read and pay.” We also got money from the Georgian Jews. They had millionaires who gave us rather large donations. We were very careful in dealing with money….

Khavkin participated only in the first meeting of the VKK. Several weeks later he received an exit visa. It is not known whether the KGB already knew at that time about the first meeting but no one doubted that Khavkin received the visa because of his activism; the KGB saw that he was playing a key role in the movement.

Hundreds of people from various areas of the Soviet Union came to the farewell party for Khavkin and around five hundred people accompanied him to Sheremetovo airport.

David, I asked Khavkin,[2] did the Leningrad underground organization arise earlier than the Moscow one?

Yes, Mogilever…everything there was according to a hierarchal order, according to cells. They collected membership dues.

Was the VKK a Moscow initiative or the result of the pressure of groups from other cities?

It was a Moscow initiative. I remember our first meeting in the forest near Moscow and our disputes. Boria Maftser, as far as I recall, proposed writing a “White Book  (survey on the situation in refusal).” I said that the forum that we had then was important to me and I valued its safety. If the publication of a “White Book” would diminish that safety by even one percent, I didn’t want it. I preferred having a mass movement without formal lines of subordination and without individual leaders.

There really wasn’t an individual leader?

The Leningrad activists reproached me for that, saying that in Moscow everything was disorganized whereas in Leningrad they had organized everything. I said to them, “Everything here is disorganized and it won’t be organized. We won’t have leaders…THEY [the KGB] are always looking for instigators. It must look like a completely spontaneous movement that is dividing like cells…infinitely. In this movement each person acts in accordance with his possibilities.”

The problem of leadership didn’t arise in Moscow? I asked Vitalii Svechinskii.[3]

You know, no. We never had that kind of problem. I wrote about this in an article “On the History of Zionism in the USSR”…at the time they began talking about “the Jews of silence”…honestly speaking, I don’t know whether to give you this article. I don’t want it to influence you.

I was there so long that it’s hard to influence me; don’t worry.

Texts can influence…after all now you’re dealing with texts.

With texts, with other people’s reminiscences and my own, and with documents. I am not bothered by various points of view. They seem to me to be a natural reflection of a process: we all joined the movement having come from different life trajectories with differing personal baggage. There were different, even diametrically opposed, points of view on the very same issues. In your time there were several recognized leaders: Khavkin, Drabkin, Gel’fond, Zand, you…. How were your mutual relations?

I want to read you an excerpt from that article: “Vanity and the thirst for personal success were not characteristic of the movement at this stage because of the danger of repression. A struggle for leadership, typical of any normal public movement in a normal situation, was also lacking because the reward for zealousness could be only a long prison sentence. All this came somewhat later, during the following stages of the movement, after breaking through the Iron Curtain.”

After Khavkin received a visa, did you become a leader?

It’s hard to say; things varied. I know only that I expended an enormous effort on the movement. Before Khavkin’s departure everyone gathered at his place on Serpukhov Street. It was a kind of recognized headquarters to which people flocked. After his departure I declared that everyone could come to our apartment. Khavkin’s departure was a sensitive moment for us: I was afraid that people would disperse and it would be difficult to bring them back together. Everyone began to come to me and it was very difficult for my wife: our place turned into an open house. Just at the time our daughter was born and our son was nine years old…and all this together.

I remember one time that we gathered in the forest for Israel Independence Day. I think that Viktor Pol’skii was there and even photographed it. When we assembled we saw policemen and people in civvies looming at about fifty meters from us, officially in sight, without hiding. Nevertheless we hung out the Israeli flag. The women began to get upset and the public at large… it was rather unpleasant. I understood that it was necessary to dispel this uncertainty no matter that the police and KGB were all around. I am no longer capable of doing this but then it was different. I got up and said, “In [the labor] camp we had a saying: ‘We don’t need any imposters; I’ll be the brigadier.’ Now listen, I want to say something.” And I began to speak about Independence Day, about the Jews and what it means, and so forth, and the KGB men were listening and the policemen were listening.

About a year later, when I was summoned to the Lubianka prison to testify in the case of Ruth Aleksandrovich and other Riga activists—I am running ahead here in the matter of leadership—the investigator placed a paper on the table: “Particular determination of the investigative board of Riga and the Riga region.” This paper stated that the case concerning the VKK headed by Vitalii Lazarevich Svechinskii should be dealt with in a separate criminal investigation. The investigator said to me: “You see, you have everything ahead of you, Vitalii Lazarevich.”

 The ordinary prosecutor’s office decided such things?

At one time the State Security Committee had its own prosecutors’ office but Khrushchev cancelled this and gave the State Security a dressing down so that it had already lost its power around that time and was forced to turn to the separate state prosecutors’ office But the subordination was maintained nevertheless because there were certain people in the prosecutor’s office who dealt only with State Security matters.

What about the methods of conducting interrogations? In the Stalinist period the investigators were able to drum out of anyone whatever they wanted. What about in the 1970s?

Really, how can you compare. In our time – and I was arrested in 1950—an investigator could come and sock you in the mug…and they shot at me from a TT pistol [a police officer’s personal weapon] in order to intimidate me…. At the beginning of the 1970s this was already a different KGB. Of course it was easier for me than for the others. When the fellows were summoned for interrogations, I understood how hard it was for them because it was still the KGB after all, and they didn’t know any other. I went around like a big shot because I knew… I had already been through this grinder, I already had information, and not because I really was such a hero….

How were decisions made in the VKK?

It did not take a lot of time. Someone would make a proposal and if everyone agreed, that was it. Good proposals passed quickly and questionable ones were not debated for long. The main thing was to act. It was a wonderful time. The idea was to establish links and organize coordination among Jews of various cities. It was the best project of my life. I am an architect and have drafted many projects but this was the best. The KGB, of course, manipulated the VKK. When arrests began, many testified, particularly Maftser. He wrote four volumes naming people and details.

Did they also drag in Eli Valk?

He was summoned as a witness; he had heart problems and he stood there like an old partisan.

Valk didn’t break down?

What are you talking about; Iliusha [Eli] is our joy… Vladik Mogilever proposed calling our organization the VKK. I wasn’t very happy with the name; it sounded too typically Soviet: “all-Union” and “committee” but it was approved. Later the KGB was already in full swing… This VKK worked well…it did a lot.

After you received a visa, did Viktor Pol’skii replace you?

He replaced me after our departure.

You handed matters over to him, somehow “anointed” him to the leadership?

We worked together with him but no one handed anything over to anyone.

Boris Maftser became involved in Zionist activity at the age of nineteen. He was talented and very active. When he was thrown behind bars on August 4th 1970, a month and a half after the start of a wave of arrests, he was twenty-three years old. He lost his father at the age of five; his diabetic mother raised him and his brother. She died at the time of his investigation. He was told about her death when they brought him to the Leningrad hijacking trial to give testimony.

What happened to you when you were arrested? I asked him.[4]

My world collapsed. For about a month and a half I didn’t testify. Then they broke me; they broke me twice. First by saying that others were speaking and I wasn’t. And the second time when my mother died. They accused me of organizing the samizdat journal Iton. At the time they arrested me they already know practically everything about this. They had corroborating testimony. Of course they didn’t know all the details but they knew “who, where, and when.”

The second meeting of the VKK took place from November 8 to 9, 1969 in Riga at a specially prepared dacha. Those present included Vitalii Svechinskii (Moscow), Anatoli Gerenrot (Kiev), David Chernoglaz (Leningrad), Gershon Tsitsuashvili (Tbilisi), Aron Shpil’berg and Boris Maftser (Riga) and others. The participants reported on the state of Zionist activity in their locale and decided to publish a periodical collection called Iton (Hebrew for newspaper). The editorial board was to include representatives from Moscow, Riga, and Leningrad. Its task was to select the material and edit it. The publication was supposed to be produced in turn in each of the above cities. At the meeting at Levin’s apartment on November 9th the participants decided which addresses and telephones would be used to obtain the necessary literature and information. The names of the cities were encoded for purposes of communication: Riga was Roman, Moscow—Misha, and Leningrad—Leonid.

The first meeting of the Iton editorial board took place in Leningrad on January 10, 1970. Mendelevich, who was chosen editor-in-chief, received five rubles for expenses and set off for Leningrad with material from the Riga group in order to discuss the first issue. The typing and copying of Iton took place in Riga. Silva Zalmanson did the typing. The first issue consisted of one hundred copies. More were produced later.[5]

Do you think that the KGB knew about the VKK before the hijacking case? I asked Svechinskii.[6]

They would have found out anyway because they knew about the Leningrad Zionist organization. We also knew well all the members of the Leningrad committee.

Had any of the Leningrad people served terms before this?

Not one of them. They paid dues; they were divided into groups of three and five so that others would not suffer if someone was arrested—they followed all the rules of the underground. One fine day Meir Gel’fond said to me, “Vilia, this can’t be. They’ll crash and drag all of us after them.” But that was just the period when Meir and I had our first falling out; however, I am running ahead….

Did you organize any summer camps?

Yes, they were in the south and in the Baltics. I wasn’t involved in that; mainly young people gathered there.

Did Eitan Finkel’shtein take part in this?

Eitan was very active and vital; he was everywhere.

And when did the younger ones—Slepak, Pol’skii, Prestin, Abramovich—join in?

It was around 1969. Everyone became involved via Slepak; he had such a hospitable home. It was also connected later to the petition campaign.

Coordination within the VKK itself was rather flexible. At each meeting representatives from one of the five cities were entrusted with organizing the next meeting. Those who came to the meeting comprised the next VKK. In 1970 Kiev became the third city. The last meeting took place in Leningrad on June 13-14 of the same year at which time the Zionist groups of Minsk, Vilnius, and Kishinev became full-fledged members of the VKK. The meeting took place a day before the arrests in the Leningrad hijacking trial.[7]

At the time the movement leaders could only speculate to what degree the KGB knew about the activity of the VKK. Now we have access to the documents showing that the KGB was operatively familiar with the VKK before the start of arrests in the Leningrad case. This is evident, for example, from excerpts of KGB Chairman Yurii Andropov’s report to the CPSU Central Committee of May 17, 1971:

In contrast to the Leningrad underground Zionist organization, groups of Jewish nationalists exposed in Moscow, Kiev, and other cities were not strictly organized, but used similar methods and procedures. At the same time, it should be noted that between 1969 and 1970 illegal Zionist groups and organizations which had emerged in various regions of the country were gradually unifying into an underground Zionist party. However, as a result of the liquidation of the Zionist groups in Leningrad, Riga and Kishinev, this process was thwarted.

Through operational and investigative methods, it was established that in August 1969 a meeting of representatives of Zionist groups from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Riga and Tbilisi took place in Moscow, at which an agreement was reached on the creation of a so-called All-Union Coordinating Committee for coordination of Zionist activities. Subsequently three conferences of the committee were held, in November 1969 in Riga, in January 1970 in Kiev and in June 1970 in Leningrad. At these conferences an exchange of information took place about the activities of various groups, the main trends of nationalistic operations were noted and methods of conspiratorial communication were discussed.

In order to exert ideological influence on individuals of Jewish nationality and draw them into Zionist activity, active nationalists have been organizing ul’pany, i.e. they have been creating a network of circles for the study of Hebrew, Jewish history and culture similar to those that exist in Israel. There are also special summer camps for individuals of Jewish nationality only. In 1970, a camp was organized on the Black Sea coast near Karolino-Bugas, which was attended by pro-Zionist elements from Kiev, Odessa Minsk, Kishinev, Riga, Moscow and Sverdlovsk.

The dissemination of the ideology of Jewish bourgeois national in verbal and printed form is carried out by [the Zionists] in holiday resorts, at family celebrations and holidays and at professional meetings and gatherings of regional groups (zemliachestva).

Synagogues and minyanim (prayer houses)[8] are also used for the ideological indoctrination of Jewish youth, particularly during religious holidays. Taking advantage of the large gatherings of youth on those occasions, the Zionists organize dancing and the performance of nationalist songs as well as private discussions about Israel, etc. On the eve of the Simhat Tora holiday (22 October 1970) in Moscow, a group of pro-Israel individuals from among college students was prevented from distributing the text from the Declaration of Human Rights, intended to stir up a mood conducive to emigration. At the synagogue on the day of the holiday, a crowd of twelve thousand assembled, primarily young people.[9]

Andropov, of course, exaggerated with regard to the underground Zionist party. “The concept of a ‘party,’ and especially an ‘underground’ party presupposes the postulation of clearly determined political tasks for changing the existing order, the presence of a program, an organizational structure and the observance of conspiratorial rules.”[10] This was not the case. The Jews, whose goal was to leave the Soviet Union, were not striving to change the existing order. It was the democrats, many of whom were, indeed, Jewish, who were interested in domestic reform.

The VKK was not nor did it try to become the sole Zionist party of the Soviet Union. VKK members held the most varied views on the development of the movement. “The groups from Leningrad and Kiev insisted on an organizational structure with corresponding disciplinary demands. The other groups considered this unsuitable.”[11] Neither succeeded in convincing the other.

The coordination nevertheless produced serious practical results. Tasks were allocated to those who could best handle them. Riga and Leningrad activists took on the publication of the journal, which was dispatched to activists in various cities. They copied it and disseminated it further. Participants in the summer camps, which were open to all, were primarily young people who knew of their existence and could afford to come. Samizdat reached a new qualitative and quantitative level.

The VKK’s most important achievement was the transition to open forms of struggle, to public protests, and the mobilization of international society. A group of activists in Moscow began to issue a periodical journal Iskhod (Russian for Exodus) that published open protest letters and documents related to judicial and out of court harassment. Svechinskii would gather the material, Viktor and Alia Fedoseev edited it and composed the journal, Alia’s mother Dora Koliabitskaia typed it, and Yasha Ronenson was in charge of storing and distributing it. After the Fedoseevs and Svechinskii emigrated, Isai Averbukh dealt with producing the journal.[12] According to Svechinskii, this journal became a Jewish Chronicle of Current Events.[13]

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