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
The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...
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
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
countries and support groups in the West. Within the former Soviet Union Helsinki Watch Groups were founded in
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States
Georgia may also refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
and
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
, as well as in the United States (
Helsinki Watch, later
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
). Similar initiatives sprung up in countries such as Czechoslovakia, with
Charter 77
Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members ...
. 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 filed a court order to dissolve the organization.
On 25 January 2023, during the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, the Moscow City Court ruled that the Moscow Helsinki Group must be dissolved citing group's activities outside of its region,
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
.
["Moscow Helsinki Group Ordered To Shut Down As Campaign Against Civil Society Continues"](_blank)
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 25 January 2023
Founding and goals
On 1 August 1975, the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
became one of the 35 nations to sign the
Helsinki Accords
The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...
during the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in
Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...
,
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
. Although the Soviet Union had signed the Accords primarily due to foreign policy considerations, it ultimately accepted a text containing unprecedented human rights provisions. The so-called "Third Basket" of the Accords obliged the signatories to "respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief." The signatories also confirmed "the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights and duties in this field."
The "Public Group to Promote Fulfillment of the Helsinki Accords in the USSR" was the idea of physicist
Yuri Orlov, based on previous one-and-a-half-decade-old experience of dissent. Taking advantage of international publicity of the Helsinki Accords and contacts to Western journalists, on 12 May 1976 Orlov announced the formation of the Moscow Helsinki Group at a
press-conference held at the apartment of
Andrei Sakharov.
The newly inaugurated Moscow Helsinki Group was to monitor
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act. In its founding statement, the Group announced its goal to inform the heads of the signatory states as well as the world public "about cases of direct violations" of the Helsinki Accords. It announced that it would accept information on violations of these articles from citizens and compile documents on them.
Apart from Yuri Orlov, the Group's founding members were
Anatoly Shcharansky,
Lyudmila Alekseeva, Alexander Korchak, Malva Landa, Vitaly Rubin,
Yelena Bonner,
Alexander Ginzburg,
Anatoly Marchenko,
Petro Grigorenko, and Mikhail Bernshtam.
Ten other people, including
Sofia Kalistratova,
Naum Meiman, Yuri Mnyukh,
Viktor Nekipelov, Tatiana Osipova, ,
Vladimir Slepak, Leonard Ternovsky, and Yuri Yarym-Agaev joined the Group later.
The composition of the Moscow Helsinki Group was a deliberate attempt to bring together a diverse set of leading dissidents, and worked as a bridge between human rights activists, those focused on the rights of
refuseniks and national minorities or on
religious
Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...
and economic issues, as well as between workers and intellectuals.
Activities
Western radio stations such
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...
and
Radio Liberty helped disseminate news about the creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group, leading to relatively broad awareness throughout the Soviet Union. Soviet citizens who learned about the existence of the group passed on written complaints to members, or in many cases found a group member in person to report a firsthand case of abuse when in Moscow. The members of the Helsinki group also traveled throughout the Soviet Union to conduct research on compliance with the Helsinki Final Act.
After verifying the complaint, when possible, the Group would issue reports on the violations they observed. The reports typically included a survey of a specific case, followed by a discussion of the human rights violations relevant to the Helsinki and other international accords as well as the
Soviet constitution and law. The documents closed with a call for action by the signatory states.
The Helsinki Group would then campaign internationally by passing on the reports on the violations for publication abroad, calling for intervention by the other signatory states. The Group's strategy was to make thirty-five copies of each document and send them by registered mail to the thirty-four Moscow embassies affiliated with the
CSCE and directly to
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...
. Moscow Helsinki Group members also met with foreign correspondents to reach audiences beyond the Soviet Union. Western journalists, in particular those posted to Moscow bureaus or working for the
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...
or
Radio Liberty, also disseminated the information and were essential to the development of a broader Helsinki network.
The CSCE translated all documents it received and forwarded them to other CSCE states and interested groups.
The Group's complaints would also be forwarded for review at the international follow-up meetings to Helsinki, including the 1977 Belgrade meeting and the 1980 meeting in Madrid.
In addition, the documents and appeals were circulated via
samizdat. Many documents that reached the West were republished in periodicals such as the ''Cahiers du Samizdat'' and the ''Samizdat Bulletin''.

Over time, the Group's documents focused on a wide range of issues, including national self-determination, the right to choose one's residence, emigration and the right of return, freedom of belief, the right to monitor human rights, the right to a fair trial, the rights of political prisoners, and the abuse of psychiatry.
In the six years of its existence in the Soviet Union, the Moscow Helsinki Group compiled a total of 195 such reports. Between 12 May 1976 and 6 September 1982, when the last three members who were not imprisoned announced the Group would discontinue its work, the Group also compiled numerous appeals to the signatory states, trade unions in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
,
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
, and the world public.
Working Commission on Psychiatry for Political Purposes
In January 1977,
Alexander Podrabinek along with a 47-year-old self-educated worker Feliks Serebrov, a 30-year-old computer programmer Vyacheslav Bakhmin and Irina Kuplun established the
Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes.
The Commission was formally linked to
and constituted as an offshoot of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
It was composed of five open members and several anonymous ones, including a few psychiatrists who, at great danger to themselves, conducted their own independent examinations of cases of alleged psychiatric abuse.
The members of the Working Commission were subjected to various terms and types of punishments.
Alexander Podrabinek was sentenced to five years' internal exile, Irina Grivnina to five years' internal exile, Vyacheslav Bakhmin to three years in a labour camp, Dr Leonard Ternovsky to three years' labour camp, Dr
Anatoly Koryagin to eight years’ imprisonment and labour camp and four years’ internal exile, Dr Alexander Voloshanovich was sent to voluntary exile.
Persecution
Members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were threatened by the
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
, imprisoned, exiled or forced to emigrate.
In 1977, KGB head
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...
said: "The need has thus emerged to terminate the actions of
Orlov, fellow Helsinki monitor
Alexander Ginzburg and others once and for all, on the basis of existing law."
The first arrests of members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were carried out by Soviet authorities in early 1977. They followed an explosion in the
Moscow metro
The Moscow Metro) is a rapid transit system in the Moscow Oblast of Russia. It serves the capital city of Moscow and the neighbouring cities of Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, Krasnogorsk, Reutov, Lyubertsy, and Kotelniki. Opened in 1935 with one l ...
on 8 January, after the Soviet press linked dissidents to the attack. Following the attack,
Andrei Sakharov accused the KGB of a deliberate attempt to discredit dissidents in order to facilitate their persecution. The Moscow and Ukrainian Helsinki Groups and the Russian section of
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
issued a joint statement denying any participation in the attack and emphasized their adherence to the principle of non-violent protest.
During the following year, a number of members were sentenced to prison camps, incarcerated in psychiatric institutions, and sent into internal exile within the USSR:
*
Yuri Orlov - sentenced on 18 May 1978 to seven years in strict-regime camps followed by five years of internal exile for "
anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70, RSFSR Criminal Code);
*
Vladimir Slepak - sentenced on 21 June 1978 to five years' internal exile for "malicious hooliganism" (Article 206);
*
Anatoly Shcharansky - sentenced on 14 July 1978 to three years in prison and 10 years in strict-regime camps for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70) and "Treason" (Article 64-a). In October 1981 he was sentenced to return to prison for a further three years;
*
Malva Landa - sentenced on 26 March 1980 to five years' internal exile for "anti-Soviet fabrications" (Article 190-1);
*
Viktor Nekipelov - sentenced on 13 June 1980 to seven years in labour camps and five years' internal exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70);
* Leonard Ternovsky (also a member of the Psychiatric Working Group) - sentenced on 30 December 1980 to three years in ordinary-regime camps for "anti-Soviet fabrications" (Article 190-1);
* Feliks Serebrov (also a member of the Psychiatric Working Group) - sentenced on 21 July 1981, to four years in strict-regime camps plus five years' exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70). Earlier sentenced in 1977 to one year in the camps;
* Tatiana Osipova - sentenced on 2 April 1981 to five years in strict-regime camps and five years' internal exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70);
*
Anatoly Marchenko - sentenced on 4 September 1981 to ten years in special-regime camps plus five years' internal exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70);
* Ivan Kovalev was sentenced on 2 April 1982, to five years of strict-regime camps plus five years' internal exile for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70).
The Soviet authorities encouraged other activists to emigrate.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva left the Soviet Union in February 1977. Founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group emigrated - Mikhail Bernshtam, Alexander Korchak and Vitaly Rubin.
Pyotr Grigorenko was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in November 1977 while seeking medical treatment abroad.
By the early 1980s, the members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were scattered between prisons, camps and exile in the USSR, while others lived abroad.
At the end of 1981 only
Elena Bonner,
Sofia Kalistratova and
Naum Meiman remained free. The dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group was officially announced by Elena Bonner on 8 September 1982.
At this time, legal action had already been taken against the 75-year-old Sofia Kalistratova and there was a direct threat of her arrest.
Helsinki network
The Moscow Helsinki Group became the center of the new network of humanitarian protest in the USSR.
Following the formation of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Helsinki watch groups were formed in
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
(November 1976),
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
(November 1976), Georgia (January 1977) and Armenia (April 1977). Other protest groups announced their formation at press conferences held by the Moscow Helsinki Group, such as the
Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, the Christian Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Religious Believers, and other associations.
In June 1976, the group's appeal to U.S.
congresswoman Millicent Fenwick persuaded her to lead the creation of the
U.S. Helsinki Commission (see the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe), which included senators, congress members, and representatives from the State, Defense, and Commerce Departments.
In 1978,
Helsinki Watch was founded in the U.S. The private NGO became the most influential Western NGO devoted to Helsinki monitoring.
Its mandate was to produce reports on human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the United States, first of all for the next meeting of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) which was due to open in Madrid in 1980.
In 1988, Helsinki Watch evolved into
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
.
In 1982, the Helsinki monitoring groups of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States formed the
International Helsinki Federation.
Rebirth
In July 1989, the Moscow Helsinki Group was re-established by human rights activists Vyacheslav Bakhmin,
Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz (, full name: Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz-Brukhman, Bogoraz was her father's last name, Brukhman her mother's, August 8, 1929 – April 6, 2004) was a Soviet dissidents, dissident in the Soviet Union.
Biography
Born in ...
,
Sergei Kovalev, Alexey Smirnov,
Lev Timofeev, and Boris Zolotukhin.
[ Other prominent members are Yuri Orlov, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Henri Reznik, Lev Ponomarev, and Aleksei Simonov.]
The chair of the re-established Moscow Helsinki Group was Larisa Bogoraz, followed in 1994 by Kronid Lubarsky. In May 1996, Lyudmila Alexeyeva (who returned from emigration in 1993) became its head, leading it until her death in 2018. In November 1998, she was also elected president of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.
2010s and 2020s
In 2012, the Moscow Helsinki Group renounced foreign funding and connections in order avoid being labeled as a foreign agent in compliance with the Russian foreign agent law
The Russian foreign agent law requires any person or organization receiving any form of support from outside Russia or deemed to be under foreign influence to register as a "foreign agent". Unlike the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act ...
.
In 2015, the Moscow Helsinki Group continued fighting against being labeled as a "foreign agent".
, MHG is co-chaired by two participants of the Soviet-era dissident movement - Vyacheslav Bakhmin (political prisoner in 1980-84) and Valery Borshchev (formerly Duma deputy from the opposition Yabloko party). Two of its main projects include: annual reports on the human rights situation in Russia; monitoring police activities; and educational programs. In September 2021, MHG issued a statement denouncing the non-transparency of electronic voting used in the preceding elections to the Duma and urging Russia's board of elections to cancel electronic voting results.
Dissolution
On 20 December 2022 the Russian Justice Ministry filed a court order seeking to dissolve the organization. The Justice Ministry claimed that the organization's own charters do not meet the requirements of the law and authorities alleged that they also prohibit it from defending human rights outside of Moscow, which co-chair Valery Borshchev dismissed as "nonsense". Borshchev described the dissolution, which was ordered on 25 January, as "a serious blow to the human rights movement not only in Russia but also the world".
Criticism
Opinions differed as to the effectiveness and impact of the revived Moscow Helsinki Group. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was no longer alone, but one among a variety of new organisations (Memorial
A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...
, For Human Rights, the Glasnost Defence Foundation) that were engaged in defending human rights and freedom of expression, and carrying out missions to hot-spots in different parts of the USSR and, later, in Russia (above all, Chechnya).
Human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants, founder of the ''Glasnost'' periodical, was particularly scathing. Instead of the heroic and sacrificial traditions of the original Helsinki Groups, the re-established body was an intelligentsia-oriented elite club, forgotten by all. In 2001 he described it as "the most servile and pro-government" among NGOs then existing in Russia.
References
Publications
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Further reading
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publicly available unabridged Russian text
External links
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{{Authority control
Organizations established in 1976
1976 establishments in the Soviet Union
1976 establishments in Russia
1982 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
1982 disestablishments in Russia
2023 disestablishments in Russia
Organizations disestablished in 2023
Organizations based in Moscow
Defunct organizations based in Russia