Anger the Soviet State, and You're Never Forgiven (12/31/77)

Anger the Soviet State, and You're Never Forgiven

Lev Lukianenko's second arrest 12 days ago proves that once you anger the Soviet government by making human rights demands, or living up to the provisions of the Soviet Constitution, you will never be forgiven by the Kremlin.

Lukianenko was born August 24, 1928, in Khrypivka, in the Chernihiv oblast. He served in the Red Army from 1944 to 1953, during which time he completed the equivalent of a Soviet high school. At his discharge he was accepted into the Communist Party. Lukianenko was drafted into the Red Army a year before his time because his mother lost his birth certificate.

In 1961, Lukianenko, then 33, and Ivan Kandyba, then 31, were arrested and charged with treason, membership in an anti-Soviet organization, and anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. The two made up what became known as the "jurists," a group of Ukrainian lawyers that proposed that the Ukrainian SSR be given its constitutional right to secede from the Soviet Union.

During the trial, the defendants argued that they did not commit any treasonous acts. They said that what they proposed was guaranteed by Soviet law.

According to them, if a vote was taken in Ukraine, and a majority of the people favored secession from the USSR, then based on Soviet law, Ukraine should be accorded that right.

The prosecution did not produce any anti-Soviet material and the defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges. Nevertheless, the Lviv oblast court found them guilty of all offenses. Lukianenko and Kandyba were initially sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was later commuted to 15 years in prison.

Lukianenko spent his sentence in the Mordovian and Perm region concentration camps and also in the Vladimir Prison. During his confinement in the Mordovian camp no. 3. Lukianenko, documented the facts surrounding his trial and they were subsequently published in the West. As a disciplinary move, he was incarcerated in the Vladimir Prison from 1968 to 1971.

He was transferred again to the Vladimir Prison on June 28, 1974, along with Simas Kudirka and Davyd Chornohlaz. They were accused by the camp authorities of taking part in a demonstration against the beating of a fellow prisoner, Stepan Sapeliak, by a prison officer.

Lukianenko was frequently sequestered for disciplinary reasons after participating in protest actions. Reports also testify that Lukianenko never gave into Soviet pressures to recant.

Lukianenko is a graduate of the Moscow State University Law School. He first practiced law in the Lviv oblast, where he advised many religious believers of their rights under the law. During his incarceration, Lukianenko became a fervent Orthodox believer.

He was released sometime in the spring of 1976, according to Ukrainian news services in the West. Life on the other side of the barbed wire fence did not mean freedom for Lukianenko. He continued to face overt and covert KGB harassment.

After his release, Lukianenko settled in Chernihiv, where he was under close surveillance, and was ordered to report regularly to the local parole officer.

In May 1976, Lukianenko was detained by the KGB after escorting his wife to a local airport. He was told that he violated his parole.

These charges of violating parole persisted until Lukianenko was reprimanded by the KGB and threatened with arrest. All the charges were fabricated, said Ukrainian news services.

Lukianenko worked as an electrician at a local hospital until his second arrest.

At one time, Lukianenko telephoned his parole officer that he would be late for his meeting with the parole board. Reportedly, Lukianenko was told then that his interview was postponed until the next day, when a Havrylenko would meet with him. When he appeared the next day, he was told that no one canceled his appointment, and he was fined 30 karbovantsi for violating his parole.

On November 26, 1976, Lukianenko was again late for an appointment with the parole board because an illness kept him too long in the hospital. He was threatened with arrest if he would be late again.

Last November, Lukianenko joined the Kiev Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords.

On March 18, 1977, Lukianenko's father could not bear the harassment he was enduring and fired off a protest letter to the presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, demanding that the harassment stop. The letter was signed by the Lukianenko family and 12 friends.

His father wrote that Lukianenko "was educated by the army, school, and university in the spirit of the ideology of the Marist-Leninist party, which teaches and propagates the notion that all nations have the right to."

"Therefore, being a sincere and straightforward man, he understood the meaning of the right of nations to self-determination as an ideology and Article 14 of the Soviet Ukrainian Constitution as the law in their literal contest," wrote the elder Lukianenko.

His father said that while his views are not shred by many persons, "they are the views of a mentally normal person."

Lukianenko was not allowed to go outside after dark, could not go to the theater without permission, his apartment was frequently ransacked by the police, his employment opportunities were limited, and his pension curtailed.

"Lukianenko, L.H., never committed and never considered committing any crimes, since childhood he only cared about the happiness of others. Because he demanded the implementation of Soviet laws and international accords of which the Soviet Union is a signatory, he cannot be considered an enemy of the Soviet state," wrote the elder Lukianenko.

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