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Human Rights Movement In The Soviet Union
In 1965 a human rights movement emerged in the USSR. Those actively involved did not share a single set of beliefs. Many wanted a variety of civil rights — freedom of expression, of religious belief, of national self-determination. To some it was crucial to provide a truthful record of what was happening in the country, not the heavily censored version provided in official media outlets. Others still were "reform Communists" who thought it possible to change the Soviet system for the better. Gradually, under the pressure of official actions and responses these groups and interests coalesced in the dissident milieu. The fight for civil and human rights focused on issues of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom to emigrate, punitive psychiatry, and the plight of political prisoners. It was characterized by a new openness of dissent, a concern for legality, the rejection of any 'underground' and violent struggle. Like other dissidents in the post-Stalin Soviet Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil And Political Rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the State (polity), state. Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity, right to life, life, and safety, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy, the freedom of freedom of thought, thought, freedom of speech, speech, freedom of religion, religion, freedom of the press, press, freedom of assembly, assembly, and freedom of movement, movement. Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of Participation (decision making), participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galanskov–Ginzburg Trial
The Trial of the Four, also Galanskov–Ginzburg trial, was the 1968 trial of Yuri Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg, Alexey Dobrovolsky and Vera Lahkova for their involvement in samizdat publications. The trial took place in Moscow City Court on January 8–12. All four defendants were sentenced to terms in labour camps. The trial played a major part in consolidating the emerging human rights movement in the Soviet Union. Defendants Yury Galanskov was a second-year student at the Historical Archives Institute and worked at the State Literary Museum in Moscow. From 1959 onwards he took part in readings by young poets in Mayakovsky Square. His poems were published in '' Sintaksis'', a typescript poetry anthology edited by Alexander Ginzburg. In 1966, Galanskov compiled and issued the typewritten literary collection '' Phoenix-66''. Alexander Ginzburg was a first-year student at the Historical Archives Institute who also worked at the State Literary Museum. In 1959–1960 he helped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solzhenitsyn Aid Fund
The Solzhenitsyn Aid Fund (officially Russian Public Fund to Aid Political Prisoners and their Families, also Fund for the Aid of Political Prisoners, Public Aid Fund) was a charity foundation and support network set up by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Alexander Ginzburg that distributed funds and material support to Political prisoner, political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Founding The fund was formed on the initiative of writer and political prisoner Alexander Ginzburg. Families of arrested Soviet dissidents, dissidents often suffered repercussions such as the loss of jobs and opportunities to study. During his time in labor camps, Ginzburg managed to coordinate relatives and friends to help other inmates and their families. This included support such as donating household goods for those in exile, helping relatives who faced expulsion from work, or offering places to stay in Moscow for wives who journeyed to visit their husban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitution Of The Soviet Union
During its existence, the Soviet Union had three different constitutions enforced individually at different times between 31 January 1924 to 26 December 1991. Chronology of Soviet constitutions These three constitutions were: * 1918 Constitution of Soviet Russia – adopted 10 July 1918 (''De facto'' Constitution of the USSR from 1922 to 1924) * 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union – adopted 31 January 1924 ("Vladimir Lenin, Lenin Constitution") * 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union – adopted 5 December 1936 ("Joseph Stalin, Stalin Constitution") * 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union – adopted 7 October 1977 ("Leonid Brezhnev, Brezhnev Constitution") The Constitutions of the Soviet Union were modeled after the Soviet Russia Constitution of 1918, 1918 Russian Constitution established by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the immediate predecessor and a Constituent republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union. These cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Although he spent his career in physics in the Soviet atomic bomb project, Soviet program of nuclear weapons, overseeing the development of thermonuclear weapons, Sakharov also did fundamental work in understanding particle physics, magnetism, and physical cosmology. Sakharov is mostly known for his political activism for Individual and group rights, individual freedom, Human rights in Russia, human rights, civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he was deemed a Soviet dissident, dissident and faced persecution from the Soviet establishment. In his memory, the Sakharov Prize was established and is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms. Biography F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Action Group For The Defense Of Human Rights In The USSR
The Initiative or Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR () was the first civic organization of the Soviet human rights movement. Founded in 1969 by 15 dissidents, the unsanctioned group functioned for over six years as a public platform for Soviet dissidents concerned with violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. The main work of the group consisted in documenting abuses and preparing appeals. The letters focused on persecution of people for their convictions in the USSR, with particular attention being given to the use of punitive psychiatry and to political prisoners. Unusually for the dissident movement at the time, the appeals were directed to international organizations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights. The documents of the Initiative Group were circulated in ''samizdat'', and published by the Western press, as well as being broadcast back into the USSR by radio stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1968 Red Square Demonstration
The 1968 Red Square demonstration () took place in Moscow on 25 August 1968. It was a protest by eight demonstrators against the invasion of Czechoslovakia on the night of 20–21 August 1968 by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, crushing the Prague Spring, the challenge to centralised planning and censorship by communist leader Alexander Dubček. The protest took place at the Lobnoye Mesto (Place of Proclamation) on Red Square next to the Kremlin, to avoid any accusation of a violation of public order. It was a nonviolent, sit-down demonstration. However, all but one of the protestors was quickly and roughly arrested by police and plainclothes KGB men. The protest, 25 August The protest began at noon as eight protesters (Larisa Bogoraz, Konstantin Babitsky, Vadim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, and Tatiana Baeva) sat at the Lobnoye Mesto and held a small Czechoslovak flag and placards bearing various slogans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warsaw Pact Invasion Of Czechoslovakia
On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four fellow Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the Hungarian People's Republic. The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). About 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops (afterwards rising to about 500,000), supported by thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, participated in the overnight operation, which was code-named Operation Danube. The Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania refused to participate. East German forces, except for a small number of specialists, were ordered by Moscow not to cross the Czechoslovak border just hours before the invasion, because of fears of greater resistance if German troops were involved, due to public perception of the previous German oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glasnost Meeting
The glasnost meeting (), also known as the glasnost rally, was the first spontaneous public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. It took place in Moscow on 5 December 1965 as a response to the trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel. The demonstration is considered to mark the beginning of a movement for civil rights in the Soviet Union. Demonstration Background In September 1965, writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel were arrested and accused of having published anti-Soviet material in foreign editorials. The prosecution argued that the writings amounted to the criminal offense codified in Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal code, anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. While most Russian critics of the trial emphasized issues of conscience and creative freedom, a small minority headed by mathematician Alexander Esenin-Volpin took another position. They were convinced that legitimate criticism should focus on the fact that the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, ) was one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and to report to the West on Soviet human rights abuses. It had been forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but was revived in 1989 and continued to operate in Russia. In the 1970s, Moscow Helsinki Group inspired the formation of similar groups in other Warsaw Pact countries and support groups in the West. Within the former Soviet Union Helsinki Watch Groups were founded in Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia, as well as in the United States ( Helsinki Watch, later Human Rights Watch). Similar initiatives sprung up in countries such as Czechoslovakia, with Charter 77. Eventually, the Helsinki monitoring groups inspired by the Moscow Helsinki Group formed the International Helsinki Federation. In late December 2022 the Russian Ministry of Justice file ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Committee On Human Rights In The USSR
The Committee on Human Rights in the USSR () was founded in 1970 by dissident Valery Chalidze together with Andrei Sakharov and Andrei Tverdokhlebov. Members Valery Chalidze was a writer and dissident who published the samizdat journal ''Social Problems''. Andrei Sakharov was an eminent Soviet nuclear physicist who had publicly opposed the Soviet plans for atmospheric nuclear tests. In 1968, Sakharov had published "Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom," a plea for nuclear disarmament emphasizing the role of human rights. As a result, his professorship was revoked by Soviet authorities. He became a spokesman for the human rights in the Soviet Union. The third founding member was physicist Andrey Tverdokhlebov. Later the Committee was joined by Igor Shafarevich, a mathematician and corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. Mathematician Aleksandr Yesenin-Volpin and physicist Boris Zukerman became legal experts for the group. Writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initiative Group For The Defense Of Human Rights In The USSR
The Initiative or Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR () was the first civic organization of the Soviet human rights movement. Founded in 1969 by 15 dissidents, the unsanctioned group functioned for over six years as a public platform for Soviet dissidents concerned with violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. The main work of the group consisted in documenting abuses and preparing appeals. The letters focused on persecution of people for their convictions in the USSR, with particular attention being given to the use of punitive psychiatry and to political prisoners. Unusually for the dissident movement at the time, the appeals were directed to international organizations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights. The documents of the Initiative Group were circulated in ''samizdat'', and published by the Western press, as well as being broadcast back into the USSR by radio stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
