of "Nedelja," the Sunday supplement of the central "He is...Vladimir Yurasov, a traitor to his zhizn', Sept., 1971. "Before the war Zhabinsky busied himself with activities that are punishable under the Soviet Criminal Code. A Soviet court sentenced him to 8 years of corrective labor. He succeeded in escaping. For a while he concealed himself under a false identity, and during the war he defected to the West, where he lost no time in offering his services to the reactionary segment of the emigration. In the yellow press he told the tale of his long-suffering life in the Soviet Union and pictured himself as a victim of Communist terror." A. Belov & A. Shilkin: "Diversion Without Dynamite." Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1972. to "Before the war Yurasov was sentenced for criminal activity. During the occupation he escaped the Germans; he was employed in the special commando groups and hanged Soviet patriots with his own hands." Literaturnaia Gazeta (central organ of the Union of Soviet Writers), Sept. 5, 1973; Austrian Communist newspaper Volkstimme cited as source. Also Krasnaia zvezda (central newspaper of Soviet Army), Nov. 23, 1973 (Volkstimme not cited). "Vladimir Ivanovich Zhabinsky, alias Yurasov, deserted from the Soviet Army in 1947." A.F. Panfilov: Behind the Scenes at Radio Liberty. Moscow: International Relations Publishing House, 1974. 192 p. "...A certain Yurasov, a criminal before the war, once served in fascist punitive detachments; he now publicly calls for war against the Soviet Union." Journal Novyi mir, March, 1978, and Radio Moscow, March 21, 1978. These and similar stories, with the most preposterous variations, have appeared and continue to appear in dozens of newspapers in all the Soviet republics, and in dozens of languages--Velorussian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Uzbek....I might also add publications like the English-language brochure that KGB - 8 agents hand out to American businessmen, Congressmen, and tourists "Red Arrow" express train. In that on the Moscow-Leningrad brochure, I am described as a war criminal. My treatment, cited above, is normal for many defectors who have to face both official and unofficial threats by Soviet agents who harass them by telephone, deliver letters from their children, mothers, friends, in the USSR; try to drive them to drink, frighten, spread rumors among the local people where the defector resides or among emigres that the defector is a "KGB" agent, and in the Soviet newspapers and magazines, they print that the defector is a "military criminal," "Nazi follower" (even the Jewish defector, Filkinshtein, a journalist who escaped in England in the '60s, was accused of this!). The agents act in various ways in order to make it difficult for the defectors to adapt in their new country. In my own case, I have for many years received phone calls in Russian calling me "an enemy of the people" and recently encouraging me to return to the USSR under Gorbochov's rule of "openness." Many of the defectors I have known live in constant fear (a former Soviet General ended with a persecution mania complex). Many look for an outlet in alcohol. Others, led to despair, want to return to the U.S.S.R., where they are used for anti-American, anti-Western propaganda, and afterward, are sent to labor camps (as was with the sailors of the steamship "TUAPSE"). - 9 Why does the Soviet Government give so much importance to its defectors? the From the point of view of the Communist authorities, defectors are deserters. The escape itself to a country of the free world, especially to the U.S.A., from the Soviet point of view is considered to be a violation of Party, military, social disciplines--which are the basis of the Soviet militarized form of government. The Soviet leadership is wary of desertion by Soviet citizens, as the escapes of a few may turn into a massive escape. More so because the requirements of international Soviet politics is connected with a large number of Soviet personnel sent abroad--soldiers, diplomats, specialists, sailors, tourists, etc. The Soviet leadership was especially frightened with the desertion during World War II, when more than one million deserters fled to the Hitler Germany, and only the treachery and barbarism of the Hitler regime, put a stop to this massive desertion of Soviet military men. Another vital reason for the Soviet leadership's fear of defectors is that they "open slightly" the closed Soviet Union, and in this way, they become a source of information of the Soviet Union's plans and the inner-workings of its military industrial complex; i.e., its industrial, agricultural, transport, Army, merchant marine, Party, and Government apparatus. The holders of such information are the defectors of the U.S.S.R. Many of them do not have any knowledge of the secret Soviet agents abroad, of the new weapons of the Soviet military, of the internal relations in the Soviet leadership, i.e., information about which the Intelligence Service of the United States and countries of NATO are most interested in. The majority of the defectors are specialists, industrial and agricultural workers, Government officials, mid-level Party members, merchant marine sailors, military personnel, soldiers and officers, and to a lesser extent--actors, musicians, sportsmen, journalists. All of them have their own experience of Soviet life which the Soviet Government conceals with great care from world opinion and from the governments of the Free World. It is not a coincidence that the emigration policies are set up in such a way that those who are allowed to leave would not have the kind of experience which the defectors have. Those who are allowed to exit from the undergo careful U.S.S.R. must This is done in order information which the screening by the KGB and other departments. to hold back people with experience and majority of the defectors have. Were the defectors to ask permission for exit abroad from the authorities, they not only would not be allowed to exit, but they immediately would be fired from their jobs, if not placed in psychiatric clinic or sent away in exile (labor camp). Visas for emigration are issued mainly to the intellectuals: poets, - 11 writers, artists, legal counsellors, minor official employees, physicians; and if visas are given to engineers and workers, then only to those who are with small business enterprises and research institutes. Has the condition and handling of the defector improved since the 1950's? The answer is unfortunately no. of At the end of the 1950, with the assistance of the U.S. Government in Munich, Germany, the Central Organization Post-War Emigrants (COPE) was organized with an office also in the U.S.A. This organization lasted only a few years. The important aspect of this experience was that the defectors from the U.S.S.R. had their own organization where they met with their own kind; helped them with counselling and provided assistance; the organization had its own publication in Russian. Russian-Americans In the U.S.A., the defectors held conferences, published books about their escape from the U.S.S.R., wrote articles in American magazines and newspapers, the defectors provided interviews for American journalists and writers (Max Eastman, Jean Lyons, Don Levine, Arthur Kestler, and others), and with American veterans. All of this assisted the defectors in their adaptation in an American society and familiarized the American society with the situation in the U.S.S.R. But, as a result of some mistakes, organization was discontinued. There is no similar organization in existence today which serves this function. the |