Andoropov's Suppression of Dissidents: Who Were They?

Question 1

When did Andropov begin heading the KGB?

Answer 1

1967

Question 2

One of the most important changes that developed under the KGB, in the words of poet Anna Akhmatova?

Answer 2

People were no longer arrested “for nothing”; now they were at least arrested “for something”

Question 3

What is a dissident?

Answer 3

Someone who criticises the (Soviet) state

Diverse range of people in soviet Russia

Question 4

Why were intellectuals targeted under Andropov?

Answer 4

High status in Society
Independent ways of thinking
Came up against restrictions

Question 5

If you’re an intellectual and you want a promotion, what are you expected to do?

Answer 5

Participate in politics

Question 6

What was Andrei Sakharov’s job?

What element of this needed restricting?

Answer 6

Nuclear scientist

Science = foreign contact important (people, news, equipment)

Question 7

When did Sakharov (and other scientists) write a letter to Brezhnev detailing their irritations?

What happened as a result?

Answer 7

1970

Banned from further military research

Question 8

Three Soviet writers that complained about restrictions on their freedom as professionals?

What did they find?

Answer 8

Historian Roy Medvedev, Zhores Medvedev
Novelist Solzhenitsyn

Their ability to work and travel restricted by the government

Question 9

What did political dissidents do (under Andropov) that made them a threat?

Answer 9

Tried to hold the government to account of their own laws, usually HUMAN RIGHTS concerned
(Abuses that broke Soviet law and international agreements)

Question 10

What two agreements did groups of political dissidents monitor the Soviet Union for?

Answer 10

UN Declaration on Human Rights, 1948

Helsinki Accords, 1975

Question 11

UN Declaration on Human Rights:

When?

What?

USSR involvement?

Answer 11

1948

Promote human rights and fundamental freedoms for all (speech & religion)

DID NOT SUPPORT THE DECLARATION but was a member of the UN

Question 12

Helsinki Accords:

When?

What?

USSR involvement?

Answer 12

1975

Agreement to respect basic human rights (speech, movement)

USSR signed up

Question 13

Nationalist dissidents under Andropov: VOCAL

Who?

Answer 13

Groups of Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians

Question 14

Nationalist dissidents under Andropov: VOCAL

What did they call for?

Answer 14

Greater status for their own national languages and cultures— some independence

Question 15

What alarmed authorities, under Andropov, about Ukrainians?

Answer 15

They had a growing awareness of their own culture

Question 16

Ukrainians (under Andropov) has a growing awareness of their own culture.

What did the USSR try to ban?

Answer 16

150th anniversary of Ukrainian poet Shevchenko celebrations— 1964

Question 17

At the same time as the Soviet Union tried to ban the 1964 celebrations of the anniversary of Shevchenko, what happened in Ukraine?

Answer 17

A mysterious fire destroyed the Ukrainian archives as the Academy of Sciences in Kiev

Police arrested 20 leading nationalists to deter further displays of dissent.

Question 18

ANDROPOV what did 4 Lithuanian groups join to form?

When?

Answer 18

a National Popular Front

1974

Question 19

What did Lithuanians aim to achieve with their National Popular Front?

Answer 19

Lithuanian recognised as the language of their republic

An end to soviet colonisation

Question 20

What did the Lithuanian National Popular Front trigger?

Answer 20

Further arrests

Question 21

Which group of dissidents often received encouragement from abroad?

Answer 21

Nationalists

Question 22

Religious dissidents under Andropov:

Who?

Why?

Where were Catholic dissidents often prominent?

Answer 22

Baptists and Catholics

Faced restriction on their worship/ religious practices

Baltic republics, such as Lithuania

Question 23

What was the name of one of the most prominent groups of dissidents— Soviet Jews who were denied their wish to emigrate to Israel?

Answer 23

Refuseniks

Question 24

What was the wish of the refuseniks?

Answer 24

To emigrate to Israel

Question 25

Where did refuseniks have strong support?

Answer 25

US Congress

Question 26

Where did refuseniks remain a difficult issue?

Answer 26

At international summits between leaders of US and USSR

Question 27

What were the concern that all the groups of dissidents shared?

Answer 27

Human rights

Freedom of expression

Question 28

Many dissidents were communists, they just wanted

Answer 28

The system to work better for them

Question 29

What was the main action of Andropov’s dissidents?

Answer 29

To produce material that shared their concerns

Question 30

Samizdat:

What?

When popular?

Answer 30

Illegal, self published, often hand written notes

Their production was a popular hobby in the 1960s

Question 31

What did samizdat include?

Answer 31

Poems
Newsletters
Voice of America transcripts

Question 32

Name one of the most well known samizdat.

What was it?

Answer 32

“Chronicle of Current Events”

Underground newsletter
Highlighted human rights abuses and treatment of dissidents

Question 33

Dissidents by the 1970s

Answer 33

More diverse

BUT

bolder— using a range of methods to promote their views, including foreign press