Thirty-five years ago, on January 12, 1984, the West observed the annual Day of Solidarity with Ukrainian Political Prisoners.
The annual event began with imprisoned Ukrainian journalist and dissident, Vycheslav Chornovil, on January 12, 1974, when he announced a hunger strike on the second anniversary of his arrest and the huge KGB crackdown on the Ukrainian intelligentsia that resulted.
In 1984 it was unknown how many Ukrainians were serving time in the Gulag or in exile for political charges. At the time it was known that a disproportionate number of all Soviet political prisoners were Ukrainians. In 1983, six prominent dissidents were re-arrested, some while still serving previous terms.
Ukrainian political prisoners ranged from human rights activists (including 26 of the original 37 members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group), religious activists or former members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, while other prisoners included ordinary men and women from all social and educational backgrounds – most arrested for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” or “slandering the Soviet state,” while others were framed on criminal charges to make it appear that they were common criminals rather than prisoners of conscience.
The Weekly’s editorial of that issue reminded that some Ukrainians had been incarcerated in the many labor camps dotting the remote regions of the Soviet Union, while others had been thrown into prisons or locked away in the nightmare world of Soviet lunatic asylums.
As is the case with the closed nature of the Soviet Union, like all totalitarian systems, the opponents to the system suffered far outside the spotlight of international attention. With the few known names and faces of some of these prisoners, many suffered in anonymity and isolation, with no campaigns to free them, no calls by Western leaders for their release.
However, there were ways even then, to help these men and women – to rededicate ourselves to reminding the media and elected public officials of the plight of Ukrainian political prisoners. The Soviets would have had us believe that the Gulag, the labor camps, the Siberian watch towers, the barbed wire and other means were abuses particular to the bygone days of Stalinist excess – exceptions to the norm rather than an indispensible part of Soviet totalitarianism.
Ukrainians and all lovers and defenders of freedom and liberty, the editorial urged, should expose the true nature of the Soviet system by bringing public attention to the thousands of political prisoners the Soviets kept shackled and isolated for such “crimes” as writing petitions, putting up posters, writing critiques or demanding the basic human rights and freedoms that we in the West take for granted.
The editorial, in its final plea, concluded, “We must continue to speak up for those whose courageous voices may not be able to penetrate the thick walls of isolation cells, labor camp compounds or the padded cells of psychiatric hospitals.”
Source: “Day of Solidarity with Ukrainian Political Prisoners,” The Ukrainian Weekly, January 8, 1984.