by Julius Telesin, Encounter 40(2), pages 25-33, February 1973.
THE WORD "SAMIZDAT" occurs in the vocabulary of the Russian intellectual no less often than the words "Stalinist" and stukach (police informer). Nevertheless, you will not find this word (or the other two) in any Soviet dictionary.1 This is especially interesting as, before our very eyes, it is beginning to enter other languages, following the trail of historic Russian words that have already become international: samovar, knout, bolshevik, pogrom, kolkhoz, vodka, sputnik. Before misunderstandings set in and meanings harden, I should like to go into what I personally know about the phenomenon designated by this word.
Some time towards the end of the 1950s a Moscow poet, without waiting to be published (or, perhaps, in despair), bound together the typewritten sheets of his poems and wrote SAMSEBYAIZDAT where the name of the publishing house normally appears in a book. The word was invented on the model of the names of many Soviet publishing houses: POLITIZDAT (publishing house for political literature), VOYENIZDAT (military literature), YURIZDAT (legal literature), and so forth. Well, SAMSEBYAIZDAT means "publishing house for oneself." This was seen as something of a joke at the time, and I do not know what the poet's attitude was to duplicating his samsebyaizdat collections, or whether they circulated at all widely. Indeed, even before this, poets had published themselves without the use of a printing-press. Thus, Marina Tsvetayeva recalls the year 1921 in Moscow:
I copy out poems sewn together in notebooks and sell them. We call this "overcoming Gutenberg" (B. K. Zaitsev's expression).
Our Moscow samsebyaizdatchik also used, in the same sense, a shorter word - samizdat (self-publishing house). But, once shortened, the word subsequently changed and extended its original meaning. What became important was not that "I publish myself" but that "I myself do the publishing" - not necessarily of my own work, but of my own free will, without begging for anyone's permission. I "publish" means that I prepare a text by the method available to me, naturally without using a printing-press, since printing-presses in our most democratic society "belong to the people."
It is known that in the 1920s unofficial so-called "Underwood" (after the make of typewriter) and even mimeographed magazines, devoted to questions of literature, art, and philosophy, were in circulation in Moscow and Leningrad. One could go even further back into the past in search of the roots of samizdat. Thus, the poet A. Galich speaks in one of his songs of the continuity between the modern samizdatchiki and the Old Russian annalists, Nestor and Pimen. However, "real" samizdat, as a Russian phenomenon for which a new Russian word was needed, could come into existence in the U.S.S.R. only when, on the one hand, everything had been almost strangled to death by the tentacles of censorship and, on the other, there occurred a rare chance to breathe.
Today many people "publish" themselves and others - in typescript, for instance. There are many "self-publishing houses" but there is only one name for them all - SAMIZDAT. And all the output from this SAMIZDAT is also called samizdat. This is why the word is not in the same philological category as those on which it was modelled. A work can "circulate in samizdat" or "be distributed in samizdat" and the author can "put it into samizdat." But if an article were said to be "circulating in Yurizdat", this could only be understood to mean that it was being read in the legal establishment.
SAMIZDAT, AS OUTPUT, consists of all kinds of texts which are produced unofficially and circulate through unofficial channels. The main virtue of this literature is that it is a free literature which does not pass through the censorship. Samizdat frequently "reprints" old official texts. I know, for instance, that there are reports in samizdat (reprinted from the newspaper Sovetskaya Sibir for 1938) of the trial of a group of high local heads of the NKVD and procuracy who carried out repressive measures against 160 children. The actual newspapers for these years can be read only in the spetskhrany (special collections) of libraries, after obtaining special permission; the U.S.S.R. is, after all, a state which (to quote Leszek Kolakowski's remark), "does not like its citizens to read old newspapers." Reprinted or photographed Russian-language foreign publications also circulate in samizdat, as well as translations from foreign publications in other languages. This part of samizdat is naturally called TAMIZDAT (i.e., "tam" = "over there"). However, a consistent usage has not yet been worked out, and sometimes foreign publications in, so to speak, their original form are ranked as tamizdat whereas they are already becoming "typical" samizdat by the simple fact of being suppressed. The lack of an established terminology affects the very concept of samizdat as well. Thus, it is unclear whether any typewritten text is samizdat or whether it becomes samizdat only after it has started to be duplicated. When, during one of the searches that took place at my flat in Moscow, the investigator suggested that I "hand over samizdat voluntarily", I replied that if it had been a question of weapons or drugs I should have understood what he wanted from me, but that I was not familiar with the precise juridical meaning of the concept of samizdat and so I simply could not know exactly what he was interested in. . . .
THE TIME HAS evidently come for the Soviet legal experts, too, to make this vague and ambiguous concept more precise. It was with good reason that at the first "purely samizdat" show-trial - of I. Burmistrovich in May 1969 - Judge Lavrova asked nearly every witness the question: What do you understand by samizdat? Burmistrovich was accused of distributing works which "defame the Soviet state and social system", that is to say, he was charged with giving people books by Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel to read. In general, the whole preparation and conduct of this trial revealed that samizdat has not yet been "properly interpreted" by the Soviet authorities. The trial had originally been set for February, and it was apparently because of gaps in legal theory that the exercise in legal practice had to be postponed for three months. Indeed, at the time the last word in sound theoretical thinking about samizdat was an observation made by Major-General A. Malygin (Molodoy Kommunist, no. 1, 1969):
There are also instances when certain politically immature young people commit acts which would not seem to be illegal, but which, in their aggregate, may do great damage to our society. For instance, all kinds of manuscript works with ideologically harmful contents have recently begun to circulate. Advice on this activity is received from abroad. And so-called Samizdat comes into being at the direct instigation of Western intelligence and is actively supported by it." (p. 59)
One must suppose that in postponing Burmistrovich's trial the ninety days were mainly used to devise a penalty for "acts which would not seem to be illegal" and so to find a practical way out of the situation. A penalty was indeed found - three years in a corrective labour camp. But theory lagged behind, and the judge found himself compelled to elucidate the concept of samizdat at the trial itself, curiously using the various witnesses as court experts. General Malygin's version of samizdat's link with Western intelligence somehow failed to arise, and nothing was said about it at the trial.
HERE IS A LIST of samizdat genres, although I do not claim it to be absolutely complete:
All of these items circulate separately, or in collections made according to one or another principle. They are sometimes signed (with addresses of the signatories often given), sometimes pseudonymous or anonymous. Once in a while they appear to be "apocryphal". There is, of course, no announcement of works-in-progress or of any "publishing plans." They appear unexpectedly for most readers. The Chronicle of Current Events tries to follow new samizdat and gives brief summaries of it in the section SAMIZDAT NEWS.
The quality of what circulates in samizdat varies. The number "printed" of a particular samizdat work can be correlated approximately with its "use value." (Approximately, as samizdat is not only interesting but dangerous too.) Obviously a work that is of little or no interest to anybody will not be retyped; a work that interests only a relatively few people will not be widely circulated while many interesting works would undoubtedly be far more widely circulated if people were not discouraged by the danger - real or imagined.
IT IS VERY DIFFICULT in Russia to delimit an imagined from a real danger. The fact that a piece of samizdat is confiscated during a raid signifies in itself little in comparison with what will happen afterwards - how the person searched (and his friends) will behave during interrogations, and the ensuing consequences, both judicial and extra-judicial. For someone who is not sure of himself (or his friends) the safest thing, generally speaking, would be to keep well away from samizdat, from a certain kind of samizdat, in any case. But even timid persons have dealings with samizdat, although with deep apprehension: still they want to read something about what's happening. Thus, samizdat is differentiated according to degrees and shades of danger. A man develops, consciously or intuitively, his own notion of the risk he is taking when he types out, gives people to read, or keeps at home, pieces of samizdat or tamizdat literature.
One of the psychological barriers to distributing samizdat is the so-called "Fear of Abroad." The government's attempt to link any independent action inside the country with "Western Intelligence", or with the emigré NTS (as at the trial of Ginzburg and Galanskov in 1968), arouses in many a certain aversion to anything that could involve them in such accusations. For this reason books published in the West (especially by the Possev Publishing House, in West Germany), even an edition of genuine samizdat texts (not to mention programmatic political materials), have a considerably smaller circulation than works without "trade-marks." An "anti-Soviet" preface is felt to "spoil" a book of poetry, and is often torn out.
Among other "samizdat complexes" that affect the circulation of samizdat may be noted: the "fear of several copies", the "fear of the first copy" (identification of the typewriter!) and the "fear of the typewriter's tap" (there may be a sharp-eared KGB man behind the wall!), and also persecution mania when the person in question thinks that all searchlights are beamed on him, that he is "in the public eye" and therefore could not, should not, would not keep any samizdat at his home. He should "be clean." Meanwhile, any routine and quite harmless shadowing makes his position - or so he tends to think - particularly dangerous.
The amount of samizdat in circulation obviously increases when it is courageously reproduced, and it decreases during periods of intensified police searches when it is hidden away, or even destroyed, by readers who have been frightened by the latest rumour of "indiscriminate raids."
All this literature possesses varying degrees of "criminality", real or imagined. (The notions of "criminality" and "danger" do not coincide, especially in a State which does not exactly respect the law.) The "anti-Sovietism" of certain works may be formally corroborated by trials of their authors or distributors, for instance, in the case of certain works by Sinyavsky and Daniel. The "criminality" of these works was "proved" by quoting several phrases from them in court. When investigators who carry out searches find a work like this they ascertain with deep satisfaction that the "criminal" phrase is just in the right place. A system of accounts exists in the KGB, as in any Soviet enterprise. If, for example, the quality of work of a teapot-producing factory is rated by the overall weight of its output (which is why our Russian teapots are so heavy), then, apparently, the number of "criminal" phrases is one of the indices for measuring the efficiency of the KGB (which, after all, "produces" prisoners, not teapots). What is most interesting is that these same phrases have been circulated in millions of copies, as they are quoted in official Soviet newspaper reports of the trial. It would be intriguing to publish one of these works in samizdat without these ill-fated phrases and then simply to attach the newspaper cuttings as explanatory appendices.
THE REASON WHY a person becomes an author is simple. As Andrei Amalrik said, "Once these thoughts had entered my mind I naturally wanted to write them." It is well-known that many writers in the Soviet Union "write for the desk-drawer", often without even trying to offer their works to official publishing houses, since they know that works of this kind will not be printed anyway. Some people give their works to friends to read but are categorically opposed to their being circulated without some kind of control over distribution. They hope that in the future they will still manage to get into print, and know that the appearance of their works in samizdat might, by angering the authorities, prevent this hypothetical possibility. There are those, however, who are not waiting for "better times" but want to reach Russian readers immediately. They put their works into samizdat, perhaps with the understanding that better times do not come automatically and that the existence of a free literature which is actually being read will itself promote a change for the better.
What I have said here concerning authors in the strict sense of the word also applies to compilers of collections of documents, witnesses of important events, scholars - to all who consider that their "written output" (an expression from the official report of a psychiatric examination) has social significance. The desire for publicity - glasnost, in Russian, embracing the notions of both openness and freedom of information and expression - is the main motive force behind documentary samizdat.
AND SO IT IS THAT a work is put into samizdat and Russians give it to one another to read. Let us assume that this work, whether of information or of art, a scholarly article or an open letter, has come my way for reading and is of special interest to me. It is natural that I should want to keep this work for myself. But I have to return the copy I was given, perhaps very soon, as someone else is waiting his turn to read it. Consqeuently, I have to start looking for a way to copy the work. If it were small - say five typed pages - there would be no problem. I would sit down at a typewriter and tap it out in three hours, just as I am tapping out this article now. But if the work is large, say 40 pages, i would have to waste an enormous amount of time. (I do, however, know of an instance when someone copied out half of Solzhenitsyn's novel The First Circle by hand!) Therefore, I have to consider which of my friends can type or have friends who can type and who would agree to take on the job. Let us assume that I have managed to find a typist. Now I must (1) get agreement in principle to the copying from the person who gave me the work (if, however, for some reason it was not intended for circulation, I should most likely have been told about this from the very beginning); and (2) get him to allow me more time, longer than the period of 2-3 days for which the work was originally lent to me.
At this point a certain amount of bargaining usually begins. It emerges that, as a "fee", I must return the work plus three copies. The person who gave it to me wants one copy for himself; he will give another one to the person who gave it to him, but as the work belongs to a third person (as a rule names are not mentioned) the last wants an extra copy for himself (perhaps he will give it to someone as a birthday present). Then I declare that I am being "overcharged." My friend's typist can only do five copies - her old typewriter won't "take" more. At the same time she wants a copy for herself, and my friend wants one too. Thus, if I give away three copies here and two there, what will be left for me? We agree on two copies. Meanwhile, I hope to manage to limit myself to one copy for the "producers"; I shall give the copy I saved to a person who is very much interested in the subject; besides, this person may be useful in getting hold of other things for me to read.
When making an agreement with the typist, the size of the work has to be taken into account - not every typist has enough free time. Her psychology must be taken account of too: Will she think the work "too hot to handle"? There are different kinds of samizdat typists: some do it for money, some out of sheer enthusiasm; but all regard what they type with sensitive interest.
What paper to type on - ordinary or tissue paper? Four to five copies can be made on ordinary paper while as many as fifteen can sometimes be managed on tissue paper. This is better because it can satisfy more fully the growing spiritual demands of new Soviet man. Besides, if the typist has to be paid, each tissue-paper copy of a bulky publication is half the price of one on ordinary paper - particularly significant when it is a matter of a long novel.
A word about the "technical base" of samizdat. It is simple: typewriter, paper, and carbon paper. The Stalinist time has passed when typewriters were all officially registered. Many people have machines, and they can be bought at a reasonable price in the shops. The shops also usually have paper and carbon paper - of good or bad quality - which are not expensive. Sometimes supplies of paper are irregular, but experienced people keep a stock. All this "activity" - buying paper, typing - is quite normal for most literary and scientific and technical workers; after all, works and reviews for publishing houses (dissertations, academic articles, scientific and technical translations) have to be typed. It is hard to say how much of all that is typed will then start - and continue - to be copied without control as samizdat. Obviously, it is doubtful that this will happen with a specialised technical translation; but it may very well happen to an interesting novella which has been rejected by the publishing houses.
THE OTHER METHOD of reproducing texts - by photography - is technically more complex. Film and paper for this can be obtained, although sometimes with difficulty, but not everyone knows how to take, develop, and print photographs. Moreover, the text that is being photographed has to be clear; and the eighth carbon copy of a typed version is of no use. One other drawback: photographic paper is thicker than ordinary paper, and a large photocopied work takes up much more room than a typescript. Once a photocopy of the huge (over 1000 pages) historical work on Stalin by Roy Medvedev came my way. This extraordinary work occupied several cardboard boxes. The advantages of the photographic method are its greater speed (in skilful hands), and the absence of errors and distortions. To be sure, there are a large number of photocopying machines in the Soviet Union but they are not sold to private persons, hired out, or set up for public use. They belong to state organizations and their entire output is strictly controlled. Each of them is guarded like a military object by special persons who protect it vigilantly from any "ideological diversion."
Obviously the next extension of the technical base of samizdat lies in developing the home technology of manufacturing duplicating machines in conformity with Soviet conditions. "In conformity with Soviet conditions" means fulfilling two needs: (1) the materials and components for the apparatus should be so cheap and its manufacture so simple that its confiscation during a search would not be much more appreciable a loss than the confiscation of a typewriter; and (2) that everything needed can be bought or borrowed. The apparatus should demonstrably be "home-made" so that no one could say it was made from parts stolen from a factory or brought from abroad in a "spy's belt"2 with the aim of Restoring the Power of the Landlords & Capitalists. Of course, what can be made cheaply and quickly by an amateur will not be capable of producing a large number of copies, giving high-quality reproduction, or a long term of service. But it is clear that these will be sacrificed for the sake of realising the two principles I have stated above.
READERS OF samizdat are not exactly spoilt by typographical luxury. Frequently, they have to read barely legible tenth-carbon copies, typed in single spacing, when one or two letters of the typewriter were "not articulating" into the bargain. Here the conveniences of "preparation, distribution, and keeping" on the one hand (terms taken from articles 70 and 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code) clash with legibility. A work is, of course, easier to read when it is not typed very closely and when the text is not on both sides of the page with the type showing through. Some readers have poor sight; and, obviously, mistakes multiply when additional copies are made from already illegible texts. On the other hand, single-space typing creates its own conveniences - less work for the person typing it out (fewer sheets of paper need to be inserted into the typewriter), less paper is used, and the finished work takes up less space. Simple arithmetic reveals that a novel is approximately four times thinner if, instead of being typed in double spacing on one side of the paper only, it is typed in single spacing on both sides. In each specific instance all these "typographical" problems are resolved in "the best way possible", for example by typing with one-and-a-half-line spacing, or in various other ways, depending on the circumstances.
The pile of sheets of paper received after copying may be bound, or not. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. A bound work is more durable but it can only be read by one person at a time - unless it is read aloud. Although separate sheets get worn out, dirty, or lost, an unbound work can be read simultaneously by a large number of people who pass the single sheets to one another. This "total" absorption in information is quite a usual Russian pastime. Scattered about on sofas, armchairs, at a table, on the floor, people are rustling pages. . . . Someone arrives and demands to be given the first pages that the others have already read. Someone else takes the owner of the manuscript to one side and starts negotiating to copy it. . . . It is obviously most convenient to "publish" thick works in samizdat bound into several booklets - then the work is better preserved and there is no need to wait a long time for the previous reader to finish it: it can be handed over in parts. But only manuscripts made up of separate sheets are suitable for the mass reading I have described.
PEOPLE ARE USUALLY shy of reading samizdat in public places - on public transport for example - as they fear the undesirable vigilance of some neighbouring person. Sometimes, however, the tradition of reading in private (or in an intimate circle of friends) is broken. As an example I offer the appeal hearing in the case of Kvechevsky and others which took place in the RSFSR Supreme Court. About two dozen friends and acquaintances of the accused were not admitted to this "open" session and were lounging around in the corridor together with several Chekists (KGB men). Then someone brought some samizdat - five pages or so. The excluded "audience" occupied a row of benches along the corridor wall and plunged into reading, passing the sheets along the line. The Chekists for some reason took no part in this reading; but neither did they molest anyone.
The postal service is not normally used for distributing samizdat, as the Soviet post has no secrets from Soviet Power.3 In the event of interception, even if there is not sufficient material to bring a criminal charge, the "appropriate organs" may become interested and this may lead to shadowing and searches. Besides, it is a crying shame if a literary work is lost. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1967 I sent from Moscow to my mother at a seaside resort Solzhenitsyn's famous letter to the Fourth Writers' Congress (1964). I put it in the envelope of an official letter which had arrived for her while she was away, and I then put this envelope inside an ordinary one with the note: "I'm forwarding an official letter. . . ." The letter arrived safely and was much appreciated.
HOW WIDESPREAD is samizdat? There is a well-known anecdote: the mother of a schoolboy brings Tolstoy's War and Peace to be copied, and she explains to the surprised typist that her son is required to read this work according to the school curriculum and that there is simply no other way of making him read it! . . . Of course, samizdat circulates (like this anecdote) only among the thinking part of society, among those who, in search of high quality information (including artistic information), turn away in disgust from the putrid stuff that is offered officially. Clearly, someone who has no time at all to read, whether because of cares about his daily bread or because of vodka or television, will not start reading samizdat either.
Various attmepts made by the KGB, although not under its own name, to use this "publishing house" are indirect proof of public recognition of samizdat. For instance, not long before the arrest of ex-General Grigorenko, some Crimean Tatars (who had invited Grigorenko to be public counsel for the defence at a trial of 10 of their number) found a typewritten anonymous text in their letter-boxes, full of slanders about him. The text was typed in triple spacing ("real" samizdat is never typed so uneconomically), on "too good" a typewriter, on "too good" paper and, in general, "too professionally." But, most important: it contained information that could not be known to anybody but the KGB.
Is samizdat an "Illegal" or "Underground" literature? In no sense, and Major-General Malygin's opinion cited above confirms that. There is no "black list" of banned literary works in Soviet legislation. There are some lists of books which are supposed to be liable to confiscation, and they are distributed to bookshops and libraries; still, these are intra-departmental circulars which in no way oblige Soviet citizens to "purge" their personal libraries. Moreover, even if I wished to display super-loyalty as a loyal Soviet subject and wanted to be guided by these lists, I should quite simply not be given them - they are secret, "for official use only."
As for "conspiracy", most samizdat works are signed and the addresses of the signatories given, so that here again there can be no question of any "illegality."
Besides, the U.S.S.R. has always spoken with warmth in its official press of the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"; and especially of Article 19 which reads:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
The fact that the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (usually available only in a samizdat edition) is not always taken away during searches is an indirect confirmation of the Soviet Union's remarkable respect for this document. And if, during these very searches, the same officials confiscate large quantities of samizdat which afterwards does not figure as "material evidence" in any criminal case, but which is not returned to its owners, then this surely is a violation of Soviet law.
It is because he knows of this illegal practise that the normal reader of samizdat will not say to his friend over the phone (which is often tapped): "Do come round, I've got hold of Cancer Ward. . . ." Generally speaking, a sense of self-preservation is a human characteristic. But if I am afraid to go out of my house because there is a mad dog outside, this does not mean that my walk would have been "illegal." We come across all kinds of "undergrounds" in Western press references to Soviet samizdat, or we find large headlines such as "SONGS OF THE SOVIET UNDERGROUND." This use of the word is justified in the following way. What are "laws" anyway in the Soviet Union? They exist only on paper, and in practice the authorities always do what they want. But this is the whole point: one of the main reasons for violation of the laws by the authorities is the readiness of citizens to agree to these violations beforehand, their readiness to recognise as "underground" - even in terminology - any activity which, although not contradictory to Soviet law, is objectionable to the rulers of the day.
Some samizdat is anonymous (or pseudonymous), but the words of the Chronicle of Current Events apply to these works too:
The Chronicle is in no sense an illegal publication, but its conditions of work are hampered by the peculiar concepts of legality and freedom of information which have become established in the course of long years in certain Soviet institutions. For this reason the Chronicle cannot, like any other journal, give its postal address on the last page.
But most samizdat, I repeat, consists of signed works. There are even regular typewritten collections which come out openly, for instance Social Problems, put out by V. N. Chalidze. The permanent postal address of the compiler is given on each typewritten copy of this collection. And the main significance of activity concerned with fulfilling the promise of freedom of speech in samizdat lies in what I must call overcoming the subjective sense of a virtual lack of rights: this was inherited from the bloodbath of recent times in the country and, perhaps, from even earlier Russian times.
Nevertheless, since understanding must always be preceded by knowledge, it would be a bit much to expect Western specialists on the so-called Soviet "underground" to see all this in its proper perspective.
1 It has, however, appeared several times in the Soviet press: in no. 1 for 1969 of the journals Oktyabr, Novy Mir, Molodoy Kommunist (pp. 62, 241 and 59 respectively); in Ogonyok (1971, nos. 35, 36, 37, "The Voyage of François de Perrégaux"); and in Literaturnaya Gazeta (28.1.70, "A Lofty and Noble Purpose"). Not being able to refer to a dictionary caused the author of the last article to spell it samoizdat.
2 I refer here to the "spy's belt" of Brocks-Sokolov from Venezuela who was presented as a "witness" in the Trial of the Four in 1968.
3 See, for details, Zhores A. Medvedev, "Secrecy of Correspondence is Protected by Law", in The Medvedev Papers (Macmillan, 1971).
On 26 October the Soviet Vice-Minister of the Interior, Boris Shumilin, granted an interview to about a hundred Jewish Soviet citizens who wanted to emigrate to Israel but had so far failed to obtain exit visas. Victor Perelman, ex-correspondent of the "Literary Gazette", recorded the conversation in shorthand. Esther Markish, widow of Perez Markish, the Jewish writer who was executed in 1952, telephoned Perelman's stenographic notes to the West, although Jewish activists have been barred from using telephones since 31 August.
SHUMILIN: The question of emigration to Israel is thoroughly and individually checked - we don't consider collective applications. . . . Emigration to Israel is restricted in the case of citizens who have done their military service in the Soviet Army or who have recently completed a course of advance professional training. Those employed in concerns connected with national defence must seek a transfer to another concern if they wish to emigrate from the Soviet Union. What questions did you wish to ask me?
VORONEL (professor of physics and mathematics): You mentioned certain restrictions, but total obscurity surrounds the nature of these restrictions and their mode of application. They aren't publicised.
SHUMILIN: Nor will they be.
VORONEL: But the position is this: we don't know, any more than the head of the Visa Department, which jobs can be left by emigrants and which cannot.
SHUMILIN: The relevant concerns cover a fairly wide range. We can't specify any time-limits. Everything depends on the nature of the products involved. If they are commodities of national importance, the delay will not be one, two, or three years only, but a considerably longer period.
SLEPAK (electronic engineer): Nobody has ever told us exactly how much longer we'll be detained.
SHUMILIN: You won't be given any precise dates, either.
SLEPAK: Why not? If someone submits an application, everyone knows exactly where he works and what he produces. On that basis, the commission ought to be perfectly capable of setting a deadline.
SHUMILIN: Waiting-times vary, as you must realise. They can turn out to be shorter than expected as well as longer. However, we won't argue the point with you. The national interest comes first. We're not holding anyone back, you understand, merely retaining those who are connected with matters of national importance.
PERELMAN (journalist): What do you mean by the national interest? Does the Ministry of the Interior have any objective criteria for that term? For instance, is a textile factory or a large store a concern of major national importance? Who decides? Only the head of the Visa Department? If not, how else are the guide-lines determined?
SHUMILIN: We must not dismiss the idea of "national importance", even when speaking of stores and businesses. We shall not debate the matter further during the present discussion. One thing I can tell you, however: 93 per cent of applicants will leave the Soviet Union.
POLSKI (physicist): You know full well that the people present here today have been waiting years for an exit visa. Why haven't we been granted visas, and when shall we get them? On what grounds are we being kept here?
SHUMILIN: No one is keeping you here.
OVTCHINNIKOV (Deputy Director, the Visa Department): I think you have all had your applications turned down in the proper way, that is to say, by agreement with senior authorities at the Ministry of the Interior. These are the bodies which have to decide on the group you refer to. They decided that you should not be permitted to emigrate. You mustn't let their decision upset you. You all received a reply.
VOICE FROM THE HALL: We received no reply.
SHUMILIN: Aren't you satisifed with the substance of the reply?
VOICE FROM THE HALL: It didn't have any substance.
SHUMILIN: But you were told "no". That is a perfectly good and intelligible reply.
VORONEL: As a lawyer, you must know that any reply - any reply that is submitted and can be objected to - takes the form of a document. None of us has received such a document, so we can't lodge an objection.
SLEPAK: I spoke to Vereyin, the head of the Visa Department. All he told me was, my departure would not be in the national interest - he made no bones about it. He also said I was a traitor.
VORONEL: You expect us to rely on your good intentions and those of other officials. We would prefer to rely on the law.
SHUMILIN: There is a basic law covering this question. We decide how long someone should be retained if his departure conflicts with the national interest.
VOICE FROM THE HALL: That's tyranny.
LERNER (professor of cybernetics): The people who have been detained here for years include physicians, miners, artists, and charwomen. What secrets do they have access to?
SHUMILIN: Will the charwoman please step forward?
MARIA SLEPAK: My son is a haulier. Why won't you release him?
SHUMILIN: How long has he been employed as a haulier?
MARIA SLEPAK: Three years.
SHUMILIN: Where did he work before that?
MARIA SLEPAK: He was at school.
SHUMILIN: Has he done his military service?
MARIA SLEPAK: He's exempt.
SHUMILIN: In that case, let's have a look at his papers.
TOCKER (skilled worker): I'm an electrical fitter in a factory. My wife hasn't worked at all for three-and-a-half years. My application was turned down with references to my job and safeguarding the national interest. Whichever way you turn, nothing does any good.
SHUMILIN: Re-submit you application. You'll get a reply by 15 November. Wait a little longer.
ESTHER MARKISH: We've been waiting a year and seven months. My son and I have no connection with State secrets of any kind. I'm a French translator.
LARISSA VOLOCH (engineer): When you spoke of restrictions, you didn't mention whether parental objections were an obstacle to emigration.
SHUMILIN: That's a difficult question. Sometimes, family tragedies occur. My own view is, if one's mother thinks one ought to stay, one should stay.
LARISSA VOLOCH: But we're talking about adults - people who have families of their own.
SHUMILIN: I think that, to a dutiful daughter, her parents' wish to remain should be reason enough not to emigrate. I can spare another five minutes, I've already devoted half-an-hour to you. There are other citizens waiting to see me, apart from you.
SIMES (scientific assistant): You've listened to us for half-an-hour. A great deal has been said about safeguarding the national interest, but it's also your duty to protect the rights of citizens. I don't understand you and your associates. You've been approached by a group of citizens, many of whom are in a difficult position. Thank you for spending your time on us, but you've wasted it. Goodbye.
VOICE FROM THE HALL: Quite right, let's go.