6
THE TRIAL OF AIDA MIKHAILOVNA
SKRIPNIKOVA1
[The trial was held on 11, 12 and 15 July 1968 in Leningrad. The names of those composing the court were: Malinina (Judge), Otto, Varlamova (People's Assessors), and Timofeeva (Procurator).2 The judge opened the trial with the question:]
Defendant, do you accept the competence of the court to try your case?
Aida: Yes.
Judge: You have no objection to the composition of the court?
Aida: No, but I have a request to make to it.
Judge: What request?
Aida: I decline a defense counsel, and I request to be allowed to conduct my own defense.3
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1. The transcript of Aida's trial reached the West written out on twenty sheets of cloth, cut down from sheets or some other such article. Here we reproduce it almost in full, except for summarized passages in italics, or short omissions, marked thus " . . . "
2. The procuracy is responsible for ensuring the correct observance of legality and for prosecuting in most criminal cases. People's assessors in theory fulfill functions similar to those of the jury in a Western court, but in addition they can intervene in the proceedings.
3. It is common knowledge that only in the rarest cases will Soviet defense lawyers put a real case for their clients.
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Judge: What is your opinion, comrade procurator?
Procurator: I consider that the accused cannot conduct her own defense. She has been in a psychiatric hospital. I consider that a defense counsel should be present.
Judge: What is your opinion, defendant?
Aida: I have never been declared mentally ill. There was an examination — the investigator requested it4 — and the examination gave the conclusion that mentally I was completely healthy. And I have never suffered from any mental illness whatsoever. The results of the examination are here in court; you can look at them. If you find it possible to put me on trial, then that means you must give me the chance to defend myself.
Judge: For what reasons do you refuse a defense counsel? Perhaps you find it materially difficult to hire a lawyer?
Aida: No.
Judge: Perhaps you refuse a defense counsel because the participation of a lawyer in the case is against your religious convictions?
Aida: No.
Judge: Have you something personal against the lawyer Denisov, or do you refuse any defense counsel?
Aida: I have nothing personal against the lawyer Denisov; I refuse any defense.
Judge: Explain why you refuse a defense lawyer?
Aida: I am charged with distributing literature allegedly containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order. I know the content of this literature well, better than a lawyer could. I consider that because of the nature of the charge against me, I can
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4. In the last few years an increasing number of people, arrested for dissident views, have been designated as mentally ill, although in most cases psychiatrists outside the USSR can find no evidence for such a diagnosis. In this way the so-called patient can be put straight into a mental hospital and not brought to trial.
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conduct my own defense. I am categorically against a defense counsel in this case. I have never heard of a defense being forced on someone against his will.
Judge: What is your opinion, comrade lawyer?
Lawyer: The right to a defense is upheld by the Constitution, and every defendant can make use of this right and hire a lawyer. But it is not obligatory, a defendant can conduct his own defense. From what Skripnikova has said, it follows that she is familiar with the content of the literature which she distributed herself. I ask that her request be granted.
Procurator: I consider that Skripnikova's refusal of a defense counsel is unfounded. She is not well versed in law, and in addition her education does not make her able to conduct her own defense. The appointment of a defense counsel does not conflict with her religious convictions. I think that her request should be turned down.
Judge: The court has conferred and has decided that she be allowed to conduct her own defense.
(The defense lawyer leaves the courtroom.)
Judge: The witnesses Lyudmila Skripnikova, Zinaida Skripnikova, Yevseeva, Boiko, and Zvereva have not appeared in court. What is your opinion, comrade procurator, about this; do you think it is possible to begin the hearing in the absence of these witnesses?
Procurator: Yes, I do.
Judge: What is your opinion, defendant?
Aida: I do not object to the absence of the witnesses Yevseeva and Zvereva. But I would like the witnesses Yekaterina Boiko, Lyudmila Skripnikova, and particularly Zinaida Skripnikova to be present.
Judge: The court will inquire and find out why these witnesses have not appeared for the trial.
Judge: The indictment reads: —
Indictment in case no. 12010 against Aida Mikhailovna Skripnikova on commission of a crime covered by ar-
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ticle 190/1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The investigation in the present case established the following: Skripnikova, being a member of an unregistered so-called Evangelical Christian and Baptist Community in Leningrad, belonging to the illegally operating Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians and Baptists (CCECB), during 1967-68, living in Leningrad without a residence permit and being without regular work, systematically distributed among Soviet citizens and also among foreign subjects literature illegally published by the CCECB, such as the journals Fraternal Leaflet and Herald of Salvation, various reports and appeals, containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order.
Thus on 7 November 1967, in the flat of citizen Yevseeva at Flat 7, No. 21, Third Sovetsyaka Street, Skripnikova met the Swedish subject Miss Jursmar, who had come to Leningrad as a tourist, and handed over to her for distribution abroad the following illegal publications of the CCECB, containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order: one copy of the journal Herald of Salvation No. 19, eleven copies of the journal Fraternal Leaflet Nos. 9, 10, 11 for 1965, Nos. 5, 6, 11, 12 for 1966, Nos. 2, 5, 6 (two copies) for 1967, brochures with condensed transcripts of the trials of members of the unregistered so-called ECB community in Ryazan.
Jursmar tried to take the literature she had received out of the country, but at the customs inspection the above-mentioned literature was discovered and confiscated.
In January 1968 Skripnikova sent to her friend David in a foreign state a copy of the journal Herald of Salvation No. 20 containing deliberately false statements of slandering the Soviet State and social order. In the winter of 1968 Skripnikova sent her sister Zinaida Skripnikova at Flat
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38, 2A Bakhmeteva Street, for distribution among members of the unregistered ECB community two copies of the journal Fraternal Leaflet containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order. The above-mentioned journals were received by Zinaida Skripnikova and given to members of the community.
In the winter 1967-68 Skripnikova several times by book post sent her friend Shishkina at Ogorodnik village, Kiknursky District, Kirov Region, copies of the journal Herald of Salvation containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order. In particular, she sent Nos. 11, 15, 18, 19, and others.
When questioned as a defendant, Skripnikova did not admit her guilt, but explained that she had in fact given Jursmar and sent to David, her sister, and citizen Shishkina various CCECB publications, so in fact Skripnikova does not deny that she distributed literature published by the CCECB. At the same time, she declared that she considered that these publications contained no deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order, but as she put it, these statements only " . . . accurately reflect the situation of the Church in our country . . . " However, her guilt in distributing works containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order is fully established by the following evidence:
1. From the text of the literature given by Skripnikova to Jursmar and confiscated from the latter, from the text of Herald of Salvation No. 20 sent by Skripnikova to David (an identical copy was confiscated during a search at Skripnikova's home) and of others sent by Skripnikova to citizen Shishkina (identical copies were confiscated during the search), from the text of the journals Fraternal Leaflet sent by Skripnikova to her sister (identical copies were confiscated from Skripnikova during the search), it follows that in all these publications there are deliberately
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false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order.
2. The fact that it was Skripnikova who gave the literature to Jursmar and sent it to David, Shishkina, and Zinaida Skripnikova is established by the following evidence:
(a) the testimony of the witness Skurlova, who declared that she had brought Jursmar to meet Skripnikova.(b) the report on the confiscation of literature from Jursmar, given her by Skripnikova,
(c) the testimony of the witness Zinaida Skripnikova, who explained that she had received from Aida Skripnikova literature published by the CCECB,
(d) the letter of Aida Skripnikova of 15 January 1968 in which she mentions sending David the journal Herald of Salvation.
(e) the letter of Shishkina at Skripnikova's, from which it is evident that Skripnikova sent literature published by the CCECB to Shishkina,
(f) the testimony of Skripnikova herself.
Besides this, the guilt of Skripnikova in the systematic distribution of literature published by the CCECB and containing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order is confirmed also by the fact that at the search of Skripnikova's room a quantity of literature was confiscated, illegally published by the CCECB, including individual publications in several copies. In particular, the following were confiscated from her: twenty-five copies of the journal Fraternal Leaflet, including two copies of No. 10, 1966, two copies of No. 9-10, 1967; thirteen copies of the journal Herald of Salvation were confiscated, including three copies of the No. 11, two copies of No. 19 (a third copy was given to Jursmar), two copies of No. 20 (and a third was sent to David).
Besides this, the following brochures were confiscated from her during the search: a transcript of the trial of
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Kryuchkov and Vins5 (one copy of this was given to Jursmar), a transcript of the trial of Golev and others (a copy was given to Jursmar), a transcript of the trial of Bondar and others in Alma-Ata, a transcript of the trial of Klassen and others in Dzhambul, a transcript of the trial of Makhovitsky in two copies.
In addition, a large quantity of other literature illegally published by the CCECB was also confiscated from her.
The very fact that such a large quantity of literature was confiscated testifies that Skripnikova has for some time been systematically distributing this literature.
Judge: Defendant, do you understand the charge against you?
Aida: Yes.
Judge: Do you plead guilty?
Aida: No.
Judge: The court has conferred and has decided to commence the hearing with the cross-examination of the defendant.
Cross-examination
Judge: Defendant, do you wish to give the court an explanation concerning the charge against you?
Aida: Yes, I do. I admit the facts about distributing literature as mentioned in the indictment, and about the recipients as mentioned.
Judge: Name them.
Aida: I gave Miss Jursmar from Sweden a copy of the Herald of Salvation No. 19, several Fraternal Leaflets, transcripts of trials in Moscow and Ryazan; to my sister in Magnitogorsk I sent a copy of Herald of Salvation; to Shishkina at Ogorodnik village, Kirov Region, I sent copies of Herald of Salvation Nos. 11, 15, 18, 19. I may have sent her some other numbers. I don't remember. And
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5. See Michael Bourdeaux, Faith on Trial in Russia (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1971), chapter 5.
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I sent a copy of Herald of Salvation to David abroad.
Judge: To where exactly did you send David Herald of Salvation No. 20, to what country?
Aida: I sent it to Sweden. I'd like to make one remark about the indictment. In the indictment Fraternal Leaflet is called a journal. It's not a journal, it's a leaflet, usually two or three pages. There are copies of it among the evidence, which were taken from me during the search. I sent my sister in Magnitogorsk a copy of Herald of Salvation, not Fraternal Leaflets.
Judge: Everything else in the indictment is correct?
Aida: Yes. All the facts about the distribution of literature are correct. But this literature does not contain deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order; that is, this does not constitute a crime under article 190/1, and the distribution of literature in itself is not a crime; therefore, I plead not guilty.
Judge: Where and when did you get to know Jursmar?
Aida: I won't answer that question, because that's a private matter.
Judge: We're not asking you this question because we want to interfere in your private life. You're charged with giving Jursmar literature; therefore, the court is interested in your friendship with her.
Aida: All right, I'll tell you. I have a good Christian friend in Sweden, Bengt Person. And when Miss Jursmar came to Leningrad, Bengt gave her my address so that she could visit me. If I go to some other town, for example to Perm, then the believers in Leningrad can give me the addresses of their friends in Perm so that I can visit them. That's how it was in this case.
Judge: Before Jursmar came to see you, you didn't know her?
Aida: No.
Judge: Did Jursmar tell you where she works, what she does?
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Aida: She told me she works as a typist.
Judge: Where does she work as a typist, do you know?
Aida: She works at the Slavic Mission.
Judge: Indeed, the Slavic Mission.
Aida: Well? So what? The Slavic Mission is a religious organization, and no jurist in the world can ever call it anything else.
Judge: What did Jursmar bring you?
Aida: New Testaments.
Judge: How many?
Aida: Fifty. But the police took them from me.
Judge: Who did these New Testaments come from?
Aida: It's all the same to me.
Judge: What were you going to do with such a large number of New Testaments?
Aida: Give them out.
Judge: To whom?
Aida: To believers who do not have one.
Procurator: The New Testaments that Jursmar brought you, what was their content?
Aida: They were the same as any New Testament.
Procurator: The content of a New Testament depends on the edition. It depends on where it was published.
Aida: The content of a New Testament is never altered. They're always the same. If we had enough New Testaments, I wouldn't be getting them from abroad. It's all the same to me where they're printed, in Moscow or in Stockholm.
Judge: Why did you give Jursmar copies of the Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet, transcripts of trials in Moscow and Ryazan, and letters of Khorev and Makhovitsky?
Aida: So that she could read them and find out about the life of our church. The journal Herald of Salvation is my favorite journal. The Fraternal Leaflets speak about the life of our church. Trials have become so much a part of
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our church life that to know about the churches in Russia, you must know about the trials.
Judge: Was this literature intended only for Jursmar?
Aida: No, for other believers, too.
Judge: You were completely unacquainted with Jursmar until 7 November. And then you gave a foreign subject, a Swedish citizen, whom you hardly know, the journal Herald of Salvation and private letters. Were you sure that this unknown foreigner would not use the literature received from you for harmful purposes?
Aida: With believers, friendships develop more simply. I can go to a strange town, meet believers, whom I didn't know before, and after a few minutes we can become close friends.
Judge: You gave Jursmar copies of Fraternal Leaflet and transcripts of trials so that, as you put it, they could get to know about the life of your church there; but then why did you give her letters by Khorev and Makhovitsky?
Aida: They're interesting letters.
Judge: The letters of Khorev and Makhovitsky don't contain deliberately false statements. You're not charged with passing them on. But why did you give them? After all, they're private letters. Makhovitsky is writing to his wife and children. Who could be interested in this letter?
Aida: Believers are one big family, and we are interested in everything about each other.
Judge: Makhovitsky's letter in itself does not contain deliberately false statements, but when it is put with all the literature saying that in this country people are persecuted for their faith, then there must be a particular reason for sending it: to show Makhovitsky, the father of seven children, sentenced for his faith, is suffering in prison and longing for his children. Makhovitsky certainly was sentenced, but not for his faith — for illegal activity.
Procurator: Did Makhovitsky ask you to pass on his letter?
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Aida: No.
Procurator: How could you pass on a private letter without permission?
Judge: There is a law protecting the secrecy of private correspondence.
Procurator: You are breaking that law.
Aida: If Makhovitsky's wife brings a court case against me for violating the secrecy of her correspondence, well, then I'll have to answer before this law!
Procurator: (laughing) Of course she won't bring a court case against you.
Judge: When you gave the literature to Jursmar, did you consider how she might use it?
Aida: No, I didn't. She could dispose of it as she thought best.
Judge: But you didn't think of the fact that the literature could be used against our country?
Aida: Miss Jursmar is a believer like me. I trust her. The literature that I gave her is good. It could not in any way be used for harmful ends.
Procurator: The evidence includes a notebook confiscated from you during the search. Does it belong to you?
Aida: Yes.
Procurator: In your notebook there are a lot of foreign addresses: did you have correspondence with all of them?
Aida: With some of them. I don't know any law forbidding one to correspond with friends abroad.
[There follows a list of names with whom Aida was in contact.]
Procurator: What time did Jursmar come to you?
Aida: She came at about half past eight in the evening.
Procurator: Did you talk together?
Aida: Yes.
Procurator: What did you talk about?
Aida: We told each other about ourselves and about the
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church.
Procurator: A notebook was confiscated from Jursmar; did she make notes from what you said?
Aida: I saw Miss Jursmar's notebook and a translation of it among the evidence, but I don't understand all the notes.
Procurator: Jursmar's notebook is a short account of what happened that evening. A sort of consultation between Jursmar and Skripnikova. What questions did they discuss? A whole program of action was worked out. Stirring up foreign bodies to address letters and protests to members of the Soviet Government. Organize a series of broadcasts on the BBC and Voice of America. Tell us, defendant, what questions did you discuss with Jursmar?
Aida: I don't remember all our conversation. There's nothing in the notebook about a series of broadcasts on the BBC. She only wrote BBC — that's all.
Judge: In Jursmar's notebook there's this note: "Three awaiting trial in Leningrad: a man and two women." That's obviously about Zhukova, Lukas, and Semenova. They were under investigation at that time. Did you tell Jursmar about that?
Aida: I don't remember. I may have told her that three people had been arrested in Leningrad. I can't remember everything we talked about.
Judge: If three of your fellow believers had been arrested, surely you would have told her about that. It must have been worrying you at the time. It's hard to believe that in talking to Jursmar you wouldn't have mentioned it.
Aida: It looks as if I did tell her; of course, I must have done.
Judge: Jursmar has written: "One of the women is expecting a child." Who is meant here?
Aida: I don't know why that's written there; it's difficult to understand somebody else's notes. Neither Zhukova nor Semenova has any children; Lukas has six children.
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Judge: Jursmar has written a note about the amnesty,6 claiming that it didn't apply to believers. Did she write that down from what you said?
Aida: I don't know. Maybe I told her about the amnesty; I don't remember.
Procurator: But Jursmar didn't meet anybody else except you.
Aida: I don't remember talking to Miss Jursmar about the amnesty. She wrote, "Believers are considered dangerous criminals." She could have written that as her own conclusion, because believers have not been released under that amnesty. Of course I could have told Jursmar that the amnesty did not apply to believers. I simply can't remember all that we talked about. We probably did talk about the amnesty. Everybody was waiting for it, both we and our brothers and sisters abroad, but it hardly benefited believers.
Judge: The decree about the amnesty was issued on 31 October. You met Jursmar on 7 November. You realize that by that time no one could have been amnestied. The liberation committees were just beginning to function, but you were already telling people abroad that the amnesty didn't apply to believers.
Aida: My friends had written to me from prison camp and said that they had been called before the commission and that they hadn't been freed.
Judge: You're getting confused. They couldn't have written you that by 7 November.
Procurator: The amnesty was applied at the trials of Lukas, Zhukova, and Semenova. The court sentenced them to three years, but the decree on the amnesty was applied and cut it by one and a half years. But you were telling people abroad that the amnesty didn't affect believers.
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6. This refers to the amnesty declared in 1967 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution.
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Aida: I wrote to Persson later and told him that the amnesty had been applied to Lukas, Zhukova, and Semenova and one and a half years taken off. But in general they applied the amnesty to hardly any believers.
Judge: You were well acquainted with the contents of the literature you gave to Jursmar?
Aida: Yes.
Judge: Do you consider that the real situation is truly represented in the literature you passed on?
Aida: Yes.
Judge: You gave Jursmar a transcript of the trial in Ryazan. Are you sure that this transcript was accurate, that what was written down is what had been said at the trial? From here, you see, I can clearly note what is happening in the courtroom. Some people started to try and take it all down. But what can you note down in such conditions? A few words. Would this be a transcript of the trial?7
Aida: I was at the trial in Ryazan, and there the conditions for a transcript were better. It was done quite well, and the speech of the procurator was very well transcribed.
Judge: The journal Herald of Salvation No. 19 speaks of persecution. In the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering"8 it says that believers are victimized, dismissed from work, and excluded from educational institutions, but specific facts are not cited. It doesn't state who's been dismissed from work and expelled from educational institutions, nor where, nor when.
Aida: The article was written in general terms.
Judge: There must be facts. You can write what you will, but facts must be supported. You must have thought
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7. Several detailed accounts of trials such as Aida's have been made, despite the difficult conditions.
8. This article was written by Aida and others at the time of the centenary (1967) commemorating the founding of the Baptist Church in Russia
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about that when you sent the journal abroad.
Aida: To have cited the facts in the Herald of Salvation would have been out of place: the articles would then have turned out very long. When the Council of Prisoners' Relatives9 wrote to the General Secretary of the United Nations, U Thant, specific facts about persecutions were pointed out in the letter.
Procurator: In the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering" it says that there's persecution of believers in Soviet Union, people are dismissed from work and not allowed to study: but not one fact is cited. You send this journal abroad and there they will draw their own conclusions; that in general all believers in the Soviet Union are persecuted.10 You don't cite specific facts.
Aida: The Herald of Salvation isn't published for people abroad. All we believers know very well about persecution. The history of our church is described in the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering," and it's a true description. But the facts can't be enumerated; otherwise one article, such as this one, would take up the whole journal.
Procurator: Do you recognize other denominations?
Aida: What do you mean?
Procurator: In the Soviet Union there are various denominations. Do you recognize them?
Aida: I recognize them. I don't share their convictions, but I do recognize that they exist.
Procurator: You write about the persecution of believ-
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9. This organization, set up by a group of Baptist women, collects all information on ECB prisoners and periodically draws up lists containing each prisoner's name and other details.
10. For information on the recent difficulties and suffering undergone by the Russian Orthodox Church, see Michael Bourdeaux, Patriarch and Prophets (Macmillan, London, 1969); chapters 2, 3, and 4. On the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania, see for example, A Chronicle of Current Events, Amnesty International Publications, No. 21, pp. 287, 88, and No. 23, pp. 79-84.
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ers, but do you know about persecution of believers of other denominations?
Aida: I don't know about the persecution of believers of other denominations; we write only about the persecution of believers of the Evangelical Christian and Baptist Church.
Procurator: You write and don't point out the facts, but abroad surely, they could think that all believers in general are persecuted in this country?
Aida: I don't know.
Judge: You know there will be people who will read this in all sorts of ways. At the trial11 in Moscow, Vins said that there are believers there who are persecuted, and again he does not cite the facts.
Aida: Vins did cite facts.
Judge: Vins simply said that believers were being dismissed from their jobs. But he doesn't cite the facts.
Aida: Kryuchkov gave several names of believers who were taken straight from work and tried in accordance with the decree on parasites.12
Procurator: Kryuchkov said that prayer houses were being demolished by bulldozers.13 With urban replanning houses are sometimes demolished by bulldozers and among those are prayer houses. But this does not mean that believers are oppressed. In Leningrad in the Okhta District a prayer house was demolished.
Aida: In Leningrad a prayer house was demolished in the Okhta District, but a prayer house was given to a reg-
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11. The trial of Kryuchkov and Vins (leaders of the reform movement) was held on 29, 30 November 1966. See Michael Bourdeaux, Faith on Trial in Russia, pp. 110-130
12. The decree on the campaign against parasitism was introduced by Khrushchev in 1961.
13. See also Appeal II in Rosemary Harris and Xenia Howard-Johnston (eds.), Christian Appeal From Russia (London, 1969), p. 42, where two private houses, one in Barnaul and the other in Vladivostok, were demolished by bulldozers because prayer meetings were held there.
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istered community on Poklonnaya Hill, and no one said and no one wrote that they had taken away a prayer house. In Vladivostok, for example, a prayer house was demolished by a bulldozer and they didn't give them a replacement. When prayer houses are destroyed and they give you no replacement, then our people say that believers have been deprived of a prayer house. Kryuchkov did speak about this at his trial. He named towns where they took away prayer houses.
Procurator: In Leningrad when the prayer house was demolished in the Okhta District they also said that believers were being deprived of a prayer house and went and complained.
Aida: I never heard anything about this.
Procurator: In the Herald of Salvation No. 15 it is said that believers' children are persecuted in school.14 What's this persecution, what kind of persecution do these children undergo?
Aida: Children are taken away from their parents because of their Christian upbringing. Two such cases are described in the letter to U Thant. In Kazan a daughter was taken away from believers; the two children of the Christian Sloboda family15 in the Vitebsk Region were taken away from them. In Smolensk the son of Lidia Govorun was taken away; it's true that he was then returned after a time. I can't state other facts now, I simply don't remember names, but there were other cases as well when believers' children were taken away from them.
Procurator: You keep telling us about other towns, but let's talk about Leningrad. Have they taken away children from anyone in Leningrad?
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14. On the interrogation of children in school, see Christian Appeals from Russia, pp. 46, 47.
15. See the appeal written by Mr. and Mrs. Sloboda in Christian Appeals From Russia, pp. 87-89. The three younger children have also now been put in a State home and their mother imprisoned, according to a letter written by Mr. Sloboda in March, 1970.
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Aida: No, there have been so such cases in Leningrad.
Procurator: But is there persecution of children in schools? What sort of persecution is it?
Aida: They question children in schools.
Procurator: Who questions them?
Aida: The men from procurator's office. They take a child from a lesson and question him for several hours. Parents have reported this.
Procurator: By law men from the procurator's office can question those under age if it's essential for a case. Both believers' and unbelievers' children can be questioned. When they started the criminal case against Zhukova it was essential to question several children, because she was accused of organizing religious activities with children. The questioning of those under age does not contravene the law. This isn't persecution.
Aida: But they asked children about belief. Sometimes children are kept behind after lessons; they chat with them; they say that they mustn't go to the meetings, they mustn't listen to their parents when they talk about God.
Procurator: Provision is made by law for antireligious education in schools.
Aida: If a teacher at a lesson carries on an antireligious conversation with all the children, all right; but when they leave a child alone after lessons and carry on a conversation with him separately, it's a different matter. An adult can deal calmly with such conversations, but for a child this can cause a trauma. Children have lived under the fear that they would be taken to a State home.16 I could name such children in Leningrad, but I do not want to cause anxiety to these families.
Procurator: The law forbids the imposition of belief on those under age.
Aida: But the law does not forbid the imposition of
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16. This happened to all five children of the Sloboda family.
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atheism.
Procurator: Atheism isn't religion. A child grows up, and then he must himself decide his attitude toward belief. Atheism isn't imposed.
Aida: Then what does one say to a child? That one is forbidden, by law, to say that God exists, but to say that there is no God is allowed?
Judge: Will the defendant not digress from the main point.
Procurator: The Fraternal Leaflet Nos. 5-6 for 1965 states, "We shall pray that it should conform to the highest principle of goodness, peace, and justice." Here the Constitution is the subject. The Government had proposed to work out a project for a new constitution, and here in the Fraternal Leaflet they write: "We shall pray that the new constitution should conform to the highest principles of goodness, peace, and justice." Abroad they could conclude that the Constitution at present in force does not conform to these principles.
Aida: You can understand it in two ways.
Procurator: That's exactly the point — all your literature can be understood in two ways. What laws relating to religion do you know?
Aida: I know the Constitution, I know article 124 of it and the decree of 1929; I know the law on the separation of the Church from the State.17
Procurator: You know that a religious community must be registered?18
Aida: Yes.
Procurator: Your community did not register; therefore
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17. Article 124 in the Constitution guarantees Soviet citizens freedom of conscience. The 1929 Laws on Religious Association, referred to here as "the decree of 1929," were introduced by Stalin to restrict the Church's activity. The law on the separation of Church and State and of schools from the Church was adopted in 1918.
18. On registration, see chapter 2 "The Background."
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you are prevented from holding meetings, but not because there's persecution of believers in our country.
Aida: Our community requested registration. We put in an application but we were refused.
Procurator: You were refused because you refuse to observe the law.
Aida: Which laws do we not observe?
Procurator: You're demanding the creation of Sunday schools and to organize religious activities for children under age.
Aida: I don't remember that our community demanded a Sunday school. By law parents can bring up their children as they wish.
Procurator: No, they can't. It's forbidden by law to involve children under age in religious societies. But you refused to reckon with our laws.
Aida: We aren't asking for anything which is illegal. I cannot understand what it is we are doing which is illegal.
Judge: Haven't you understood yet?
Aida: No, I haven't. According to the Constitution we have freedom of religious belief. The word implies a confession of faith. It means that it is possible to tell everyone about God — that is, to profess one's belief freely. We don't say, of course, that we'll stand up in the middle of the shop floor at work during working hours and begin to preach. No one does that.
Judge: In a letter of 12 November 1967 addressed to Bengt, you write, "I was afraid that Lota would be tried for everything she took from us." You say that there are no deliberately false statements in the literature you passed on. In that case, why were you afraid she might be tried because of them?
Aida: Because persecutors don't like it when the fact of their persecution becomes known. I know that in the literature I gave Miss Jursmar there were no deliberately false statements. In the Herald of Salvation No. 19 and
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in the Fraternal Leaflets where the situation of believers is described, it's described as it really is. I agree with you that it's unattractive, but this is real life and it must be talked about. When I was handing over the literature to Miss Jursmar I knew that these persecutors could get me locked up. I understood that.
Procurator: In sending information abroad making out that in the Soviet Union believers are persecuted for their faith, and in handing over transcripts of trials, did you consider the fact that you would thus harm your country?
Aida: I knew that this wouldn't harm Russia. To bring disgrace on our persecutors is another matter; but shouldn't they perhaps be put to shame? Our country could be the most beautiful country in the world, were there no persecution here. Persecution only does harm. If there were no persecution, Russia would gain a great deal.
Procurator: We've got used to calling our country the Soviet Union. This denotes the state structure and is used also in the political sense. "Russia" is a geographical concept. What meaning do you attach to the word "Russia."?
Aida: I call our country "Russia" because this name is very dear to me. I include in the word "Russia" not only the geographical concept, but also the people and the customs which I love. As for the political meaning, I understand little about that.
Procurator: Whom do you mean by the word "persecutors"?
Aida: The atheists who've been given extensive rights to persecute believers.
Procurator: But why do they only persecute you, why don't they persecute other denominations?
Aida: I don't know about other denominations.
Procurator: But they'll come to the conclusion abroad that all believers are persecuted in the Soviet Union.
Aida: I don't know what conclusions people will come to there.
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Procurator: Do you read any other literature besides religious literature?
Aida: I read fiction.
Procurator: And do you read the newspaper?
Aida: I look through them.
Procurator: Do you read any newspapers other than the Herald of Salvation?
Aida: Sometimes.
Procurator: Exactly which newspapers?
Aida: I don't know what to say . . . those which come my way.
Procurator: And do you go to the cinema?
Aida: No.
Procurator: Do you watch television?
Aida: No.
Procurator: How do you find out about the life of the Soviet people? You don't watch television; you don't go to the cinema; you don't read Soviet fiction.
Aida: The life of the people is in front of my eyes.
Procurator: But you haven't worked for a year in a workers' collective; you haven't had contact with them. Where could you see the life of the people? You stayed at home. Boiko used to come and see you and Skurlova, and that was all.
Aida: I didn't stay at home all the time.
Procurator: I don't mean you didn't go out of the house. But all this time you went around in your own milieu. You couldn't know about the life of the people, and here you are introducing yourself to foreigners as a representative of the churches of Russia, and you yourself don't even know about the life of the people. How did you take on such a role?
Aida: I didn't introduce myself to foreigners as a representative of the churches of Russia. I'm an ordinary member of the community.
Procurator: I am not saying that you had any official au-
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thority. But foreigners saw you as a representative of Russian churches. How could you tell foreigners about the life of our people if you didn't know it yourself?
Aida: I spoke only about what I know well. I told them about the life of believers.
Procurator: You say that you're persecuted. But in our country there are other denominations; they aren't persecuted! Why is it just you who is persecuted?
Aida: I'm firmly convinced that a man who sincerely believes faithfully follows God and acts independently of what he is called — whether he's Baptist or Orthodox. But we write only about our church because we know it well.
The Interrogation of the Witnesses
[The witness Anatoli Lavrentev, a neighbor of Aida's from the communal flat where she lived, comes in and is warned under articles 181 and 182 about the responsibility of giving false evidence.
The judge begins the interrogation with the question:]
Do you know the defendant?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: What sort of relationship do you have with her?
Witness: A good relationship.
Judge: Have you known the defendant long?
Witness: About a year.
Judge: How did you get to know her?
Witness: Our neighbor Evseyeva left, and Aida remained living in her room.
Judge: What can you tell us about Aida?
Witness: Aida is a sensitive and sympathetic person.
Judge: What was Skripnikova's relationship with the other neighbors?
Witness: Skripnikova was on good terms with everyone. You could only speak good of her.
Judge: Were you interested in how Skripnikova managed
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to live?
Witness: We thought that she worked. She went out each morning.
Judge: Did Aida tell you where she worked?
Witness: Aida said she was employed in a printing works.
Judge: Who called on Skripnikova?
Witness: Maria — I don't know her surname — used to call on Skripnikova.
Judge: Did Aida tell you that she was a believer?
Witness: Aida didn't tell me, but I knew; I heard it from others.
Judge: Did you talk about this with her?
Witness: No. We had no conversations on this subject.
Judge: Did Aida give you any sort of literature?
Witness: No, Aida gave me no kind of literature.
Judge: (to the defendant) Was this, on your part, to ensure that attention was not drawn to you in the place where you lived?
Aida: No. Perhaps this was my mistake. We sometimes talked with the neighbors about faith, but they showed no interest and therefore I didn't offer them anything to read.
Procurator: How long did Skripnikova live in Evseyeva's room?
Witness: About a year.
Procurator: Did Evseyeva have a television?
Witness: No.
Procurator: A radio?
Witness: Yes, there was a radio,
Procurator: What programs did Aida listen to?
Witness: I don't know. I didn't go into the room.
Procurator: But surely you could hear in the corridor?
Witness: I could hear that the radio was switched on, but I couldn't hear what was being said.
Procurator: What do you think: did Aida live according to her means, or did you notice that she was not living
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according to her means?
Witness: No, Aida lived modestly.
Procurator: How did this show?
Witness: In her dress and in her food.
Judge: What did Aida eat?
Witness: Simple things.
Judge: Did she buy herself anything in the way of clothes?
Witness: No, I didn't see anything.
Judge: But perhaps at some point she showed off to the neighbors, like women do, that she had bought a new dress or something else?
Witness: No. That never happened.
Judge: Did you see any foreigners at Skripnikova's?
Witness: No.
Judge: (to the defendant) Do you have any question to ask the witness?
Aida: Yes. Tell me please, when did I come to live in Evseyeva's room?
Witness: Around June 1967.
Aida: Can you perhaps remember more exactly?
Witness: Perhaps it was earlier, in May or even April.
Aida: I began living in this room on 9 April 1967.
Witness: Yes, that's right.
Aida: Did I tell you that I was employed in a printing works?
Witness: Yes, I remember that you told us that.
Aida: (to the judge) When I came to live in Evseyeva's room I was still working there and said so to the neighbors. I was sacked on 21 April.
[The witness Alla Lavrenteva, a neighbor from the flat where Aida lived, is now questioned by the judge.]
Judge: Do you know the defendant?
Witness: I know her.
Judge: How do you get on with her?
Witness: Very well.
Judge: How did you get to know Skripnikova?
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Witness: About a year ago my neighbor Evseyeva was leaving and she said that a young girl would be living in her room.
Judge: What sort of impression did Aida make on you?
Witness: She seemed to me to be a nice girl; I saw Aida only in the kitchen.
Judge: Who used to call on Aida?
Witness: Aida's friend Maria used to.
Judge: Did you know that Aida was a believer?
Witness: Yes, I knew.
Judge: Did you have any conversations with her on this subject?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: Did you try to dissuade Aida?
Witness: Yes, I told her she ought not to believe.
Judge: Did you produce any arguments?
Witness: Yes, I told her that only the old believe in God.
Judge: But you had no serious conversations on this subject?
Witness: No, there were no serious conversations.
Judge: Did she offer you any sort of literature?
Witness: No.
Judge: How did Aida behave in the flat?
Witness: Very well.
Judge: She didn't quarrel with anyone?
Witness: No, in general we don't quarrel in the flat. We all get on well together.
Judge: A fortunate flat. How did Aida manage as regards money? How did she dress?
Witness: Modestly.
Judge: How did she eat?
Witness: Like us all.
Judge: What did she prepare in the kitchen?
Witness: Well, I'm not sure what to say. She cooked soup, cabbage soup, potatoes. Nothing special.
Judge: Were you interested in where Aida worked?
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Witness: Aida said it was at the printing works. She used to leave in the morning.
[The third witness to be questioned is called Emanuil Moiseyevich, also a neighbor of Aida's from the flat where she lived.]
Judge: Do you know the defendant?
Witness: Yes, I know her.
Judge: How do you know her?
Witness: Aida lived in our flat.
Judge: What did Skripnikova do?
Witness: I don't know. I leave for work in the morning and come back late in the evening. I saw Aida only in the evening.
Judge: What impression did Aida make on you?
Witness: Outwardly she made a very good impression. She is quiet, polite and modest.
Judge: Did Aida give any occasion for a quarrel in the flat?
Witness: No.
Judge: That means she was ideal as a neighbor.
Witness: Yes.
Judge: What did Aida eat, what did she cook?
Witness: I never used to interfere in these kitchen matters, you know; I rarely go into the kitchen.
Judge: Did you know what means Skripnikova had to live on?
Witness: We thought she worked.
Judge: Did Skripnikova tell you where she worked?
Witness: I heard it was at the printing works, but then she left there. I heard she was looking for work. I once had a chat with Aida about it. I work at the musical instrument factory in charge of production. Aida asked me whether it was possible for her to get a job at our place. I don't remember exactly whether Aida asked me or whether I myself suggested she get a job at our place. Then we somehow stopped talking about it and Aida
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said that she'd found a job.
[Marfa Akimovna Skurlova now enters for questioning. She is a believer and close friend of Aida's.]
Judge: Do you know the defendant?
Witness: I know her very well.
Judge: Have you known her long?
Witness: About five years.
Judge: How did you come to know the accused?
Witness: We got to know each other at the prayer house.
Judge: How did you get on with Skripnikova?
Witness: Very well. Aida stayed with me.
Judge: Tell us, what did Aida do when she was staying with you?
Witness: I knew that Aida had lost her job and her residence permit, and invited her to come and stay with me. Aida was looking for work; she walked and traveled about everywhere. She got a job at Sestroretsk. She worked there for three months and they promised to provide her with a residence permit, but then they refused, so we found an old woman who wanted to register Aida at her place. This old woman was ill and lived alone. She wanted Aida to live with her and help her. Aida wanted to register at her home and get a job, but the police again refused. Then they arrested Aida. We had a meeting in the woods, the police arrived and began chasing us off. They pushed and grabbed us by the hair. They took away several people: some they fined and some they imprisoned for a fortnight. Aida was arrested and brought to trial. They said that she was being tried for not having a residence permit. And what a trial they organized. It wasn't a good court. She was brought to some factory; they shouted and made a noise; Aida wasn't even given a chance to speak. When Aida left prison she came to Leningrad. She registered in Volkhovstroye and got a job, but when they found out that she was a believer she was dismissed. Then we found out that Aida had been taken
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off the register of inhabitants and the police were looking for her.
Judge: Skripnikova was without work for almost a year. On what money did she live?
Witness: Skripnikova worked all the time. If she didn't have enough money she went out and worked.
Judge: Where did she work?
Witness: Let her tell you herself where she worked.
Judge: Did you help Skripnikova materially?
Witness: I have my own kitchen garden, and sometimes I gave Aida vegetables.
Judge: You say that Aida was dismissed from her job because she was a believer. Why aren't you dismissed from your job; why is Boiko not dismissed? Surely you work.
Witness: My turn hasn't come yet.
Judge: Surely you don't think they would dismiss you from your work in dog breeding.
Witness: But you don't know how much people talk to me.
Judge: Did you have foreigners in on 7 November?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: Why did they call on you?
Witness: They wrote letters to Aida before and came along to our address.
Judge: They came to you, but what then?
Witness: They called and nothing more.
Judge: So they called and said nothing?
Witness: No, they spoke and said hello.
Judge: They said hello and that was all? "Hello, look, we've come?"
Witness: No, they asked for Aida.
Judge: What did you say to them?
Witness: I said that Aida didn't live here. They asked to be taken to Aida and we set off there.
Judge: Did you phone Aida beforehand? Did you ask for permission to call?
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Witness: Why should I ask her permission? I asked if she was at home and told her not to go out anywhere because we would arrive soon. Aida said, "All right, I'll wait for you."
Judge: What did the foreigners bring?
Witness: They brought 50 New Testaments. We don't have enough Bibles and New Testaments.
Judge: So you were brought 50 copies.
Witness: And these were taken away.
Judge: Were you present when Skripnikova talked to the foreigners?
Witness: No, I wasn't. I went off home immediately.
Judge: Did you know that Aida gave them some literature? Did she tell you about it?
Witness: No, Aida told me nothing. But what kind of literature could we have given them? We've got none.
Judge: And what about the literature lying on the table?
Witness: Surely that's not literature?
Judge: Oh! Has the defendant any questions to ask the witness?
Aida: Yes. After I was dismissed from the printing works what did I do?
Witness: After you were dismissed from the printing works you looked for a job.
Judge: Witness, you are to reply to the court. The defendant will ask you questions, but look this way as you reply to the court. Let the defendant continue.
Aida: Tell me, please, when did it become known that I had lost my residence permit?
Witness: I think it was in June.
Aida: When did they write to me about this from Volkhovstroye?
Witness: In September.
Aida: What happened in May 1967?
Witness: In May 1967 . . .
Aida: I mean what was it like in Leningrad in May
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1967? Did our meetings go off peacefully or not? And what else happened in our church?
Witness: In May 1967, believers were not allowed to meet; they were harassed. There were searches at Lukas' place and Protsenko's. I don't remember the names of the others who were searched. Believers were summoned to the procurator's offices as witnesses. Then they arrested Semenova, Lukas, and Zhukova.
Aida: In the procurator's office did they ask questions about me?
Judge: Defendant, you are not to ask questions in that form. You are suggesting the answer in that way. Formulate your questions in a different way.
Aida: Very well, I will try. I want to clear up one question with the witness. The witness is confused; she says that I lost my residence permit and then the police began taking an interest in me. But it was the other way around. The procurator's office began showing a lot of interest in May, and then I was crossed off the register.
Witness: Yes, I remember it well. They were asking about Aida in the procurator's office in May when believers were being called in for questioning.
Judge: Defendant, do you have any questions for the witness?
Aida: Yes. What do you know about the fines? Can you name the believers who were fined?
Witness: I know that believers were fined: Sukovitsyn was fined . . .
Procurator: Why was he fined?
Witness: Because he had prayed.
Procurator: Where he had prayed?
Witness: He led the prayers at Lukas' flat. There was a meeting there.
Procurator: That's right, a meeting in an unauthorized place. You have a prayer house; go and pray there.
Witness: We do not have a prayer house.
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Procurator: You have a prayer house on Poklonnaya Hill. Why don't you go there? You're forbidden to meet in a private house.
Aida: Do you remember which other believers were fined?
Witness: I remember many believers were fined. When we were standing on the platform after the meeting . . .
Judge: Where was this?
Witness: I forget what the station was called; from the Finland Station you go . . . (from the hall someone suggests Lavriki). Yes, at Lavriki Station we were standing on the platform waiting for the train, when suddenly some auxiliary police came up and took several of us away. They fined them all.
Procurator: What were you doing on the platform?
Witness: We were standing waiting for a train. We were returning from a meeting.
Procurator: It's forbidden to hold a service in a public place. That's why you were fined.
Witness: There was no one else in the woods; we were alone. We held our meeting and went away, but then some were picked up on the platform when we were already going home. Once the auxiliary police came to a meeting in Kuzmolovo. We met in Protsenko's house. They photographed us and then put the photographs up in the street. They photographed some drunks and put the photographs of us up beside theirs.
Judge: Defendant, do you have any further questions for the witness?
Aida: No.
Judge: Did you receive any presents from your foreign friends?
Aida: I'm surprised at this question. I've never heard that to give or receive presents is forbidden.
Judge: In the letter to Valya and Masha you write: "I've
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sent you a present on your release. It's from Margarita."
Aida: I sent Valya and Masha a New Testament, which Margarita had given me as a present.
[The next witness to be questioned is called Ilyina. She is warned, like the other witnesses, about the penalty for giving false evidence. The judge asks her whether she understands her responsibility, to which she answers:]
Witness: I understand, but I don't know why I was summoned. I haven't seen Skripnikova for five years. I don't remember anything; I could make a mistake. What can I say about her; I've forgotten everything. In 1963 I had a concussion.
Judge: Have you known the accused long?
Witness: We lived together in the same hostel in 1962.
Judge: What can you say about Skripnikova?
Witness: Aida was a good person.
Judge: In what sense?
Witness: She wasn't malicious. If you asked her to do something she would help.
Judge: How many of you were there in the room?
Witness: Three: Limonnikova lived with us as well.
Judge: How did you get on?
Witness: Very well.
Judge: Here you are, the three of you, living in the same room: Limonnikova is an unbeliever; you're an unbeliever . . .
Witness: But I'm not an unbeliever.
Judge: You're a believer?
Witness: How can I put it: my mother is Orthodox and believes in God, but I'm uncommitted.
Judge: Did you know Aida was a believer?
Witness: I knew that Aida was a believer — she explained it to us — but this didn't interest me much.
Judge: You knew how Aida came to be a believer.
Witness: I don't remember whether Aida told me herself or whether I heard it from others: at first she wasn't a be-
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liever, but then she began to believe after the death of her brother. I no longer remember anything exactly.
Judge: But look here, at the preliminary investigation you talked about Aida in detail.
Witness: At the preliminary investigation I said what I remembered, but the investigator wrote it down in his own way.
Judge: What do you mean? Did he not write down what you said?
Witness: Well, I don't know. We were just chatting and there were only the two of us.
Judge: But this is a different situation and you're getting flustered.
Witness: I haven't seen Aida for a long time now. It's difficult for me to remember everything.
Judge: What do you think: was Aida a very fervent believer then or not?
Witness: In my opinion, not very.
Judge: What else can you remember?
Witness: Aida was convicted by a Comrade's Court because she distributed religious cards.19 I wasn't at the Comrade's Court.
Judge: What is your opinion: was Aida a quiet person, or did she like attention paid to her, did she like being in the public eye? What do you think?
Witness: I don't know, it's difficult for me to say. In my opinion, the Comrade's Court had a bad effect on Aida. I'm simply giving my own opinion. But it seems to me that Aida liked the attention which was paid to her and she became worse.
Judge: Did you know anything about Skripnikova's acquaintance with foreigners?
Witness: I heard that she had a friend in Sweden.
———
19. This happened in April 1962. The poem which she distributed on postcards is printed in chapter 3.
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Procurator: How long did you live with Aida?
Witness: About a year.
Procurator: Was Aida persecuted for her belief?
Witness: No.
[The last witness to enter the courtroom for questioning is a friend of Aida's and also a believer. Her name is Yekaterina Andreyvna Boiko.]
Judge: Do you know the defendant?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: Is Aida your friend?
Witness: Yes.
Judge: What can you say about her?
Witness: She's good and kind.
Judge: Is this all you can say about her? Aida is your friend; you know her well. Perhaps you can speak about her in more detail? What sort of character has she?
(The witness remains silent).
Judge: Tell us then when you met Aida.
Witness: I got to know Aida well after her release.
Judge: What did Aida do for a living?
Witness: After her release Aida got a job. She was soon sacked. After some time some policemen came to my place and asked for Aida. I wasn't at home. The neighbors said that they didn't know Aida and that she didn't live there. The police came several times. They told the neighbors that Aida didn't work and had no residence permit. Once a neighbor said to me: "Tell Aida not to come here." I asked: "Why?" She replied: "Aida's a spy." After Aida was sacked from the printing works, she began looking for work in June (1967) when we discovered that they wanted to arrest her.
Judge: When the police came to you and started asking about Aida, did they tell you why they were interested in her?
Witness: The police came in my absence. They told the neighbors that Aida wasn't working and had no residence
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permit. The neighbors told me that they had sent for Aida — this must have been about June or July. At the preliminary investigation I said that I couldn't state the time exactly.
Judge: (to the defendant) The reason the police were interested in you was that you weren't working and had no residence permit. (to the witness) What money did Aida live on?
Witness: Ask her.
Judge: Did you ask Aida what money she lived on?
Witness: Once I asked her whether she had any money. She said that she had. But when I looked in her purse there was only one rouble there.
Judge: Did you help her on that occasion?
Witness: Myself, no.
Judge: But did you do something or tell others about it? (The witness remains silent).
Procurator: Was your flat searched?
Witness: Yes.
Procurator: Was anything removed from your flat during the search?
Witness: Some magazines were removed from my flat. The Herald of Salvation.
Procurator: From whom did you receive these magazines?
Witness: I didn't receive them from Aida.
Procurator: What did you know about the visit of the Swedish tourists to Skripnikova?
Witness: I knew nothing about it. I found out about it the next day. The police called on Aida at the flat. I was at Aida's then. A policeman said that some literature, which Aida had given them, had been taken from some foreigners.
Judge: What sort of literature was this?
Witness: I don't know what it all was, but he took out of his folder the journal Herald of Salvation, Fraternal Leaflet, and transcripts of trials. The policeman said that he
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knew that the foreigners had also handed over some literature, and he demanded that Aida should return it all. Aida said that she would do so. These were New Testaments.
Procurator: What sort of education have you had?
Witness: I reached the tenth class.
Procurator: Apart from religious literature, do you read anything else?
Witness: I read fiction as well.
Procurator: Why didn't you study any further?
Witness: I wanted to go to medical school, but in my character reference they wrote that I was a believer and a member of the schismatic Baptists, and so I didn't enter medical school. I would have been expelled in any case.
Procurator: And you didn't even try?
Witness: I knew from the example of others that they wouldn't let me study anyway.
Judge: Defendant, do you wish to question the witness?
Aida: Yes. Tell me, please, when the police called on you, did they only tell the neighbors that I wasn't working and had no residence permit, or did they mention the foreigners?
Judge: Defendant, you are not to ask questions in that form. You yourself are suggesting the answer.
Witness: My neighbors told me that Aida was meeting some foreigners. I remember it well.
Aida: In the summer of 1967 did you and I go to the legal-advice bureau?
Witness: Yes.
Aida: Why did we go there?
Witness: To find out about a residence permit. When they began saying that Aida's residence permit had been withdrawn, Aida and I went to the legal-advice bureau in order to find out after what period they could cross a person off, if he doesn't live in the place inscribed in his residence permit.
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Aida: What did they tell us?
Witness: They told us the law and showed us the article which said that if a person wasn't living in the place of his residence permit, then he can be crossed off after six months and no earlier. We were even told that if, after six months, one spends more night in the place of one's residence permit, then one needn't appear there again for six months and still won't be crossed off.
Judge: This law concerns a person with a residence permit giving him the right to living space, but not a person who has registered without the right to living space.
Aida: (to the witness) Do you know the name Tona from Sosnogorsk? (to the judge) There's a letter of Tona's from Sosnogorsk among the evidence, which is why I am asking her name.
Witness: Her surname is Khudyakova.
Aida: Can you name the believers whom they fined?
Witness: Maria Chendaruk, Sukovitsyn, Lukas, Semenova, and the Vezikovs.
Aida: What were they fined for?
Witness: For attending a prayer meeting.
Judge: Where did these meetings take place?
Witness: The prayer meetings took place in believers' homes and in the woods. I can tell you how they fined Maria Chendaruk. We were standing on the platform at Lavriki Station waiting for the train. Suddenly some auxiliary policemen came up to us and took Chendaruk. We were standing beside her. I watched her being led away. They took her to the police station and fined her there.
Judge: Did they simply come up to her like that and take her off?
Witness: Yes. We were standing waiting for the train to Leningrad; the auxiliary police came up and took a number of us.
Judge: Why were you at Lavriki Station?
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Witness: We had been having a prayer meeting in the woods, and when it was over we walked to the station and waited on the platform for the train.
Judge: Why do you hold prayer meetings in the woods? You have a prayer house at Poklonnaya Hill. Why don't you go there?
Witness: Christ said that the time would come when people would not worship on the holy hill, but wherever a man called on the name of the Lord he would be saved.
Judge: Your community isn't registered. You hold prayer meetings in an unauthorized place, you disrupt public order — that's why you're fined.
Witness: We applied for registration. Our meeting disturbed no one in Lavriki.
Procurator: You know that every community must be registered?
Witness: Yes.
Procurator: Do you consider yourself a citizen of the Soviet Union?
Witness: Yes, I do.
Procurator: Do you consider yourself obliged to observe Soviet laws?
Witness: I do observe the laws.
Procurator: You meet in Lukas's home, and your community isn't registered.
Witness: The prayer meetings at Lukas's are not against the law. Lenin said: "Only in (Tsarist) Russia and in Turkey, out of all European states, were there still shameful laws against people of other beliefs."
Procurator: Where did you live before?
Witness: In the Komi Autonomous Republic in the town of Sosnogorsk.
Procurator: Are there believers there?
[A number of witnesses had not appeared in court, but after consulting Aida, the court decides to continue with the trial in their absence. Aida at this point complains at
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the way the court had paid too much attention to irrelevant matters, such as her manner of dress, her food, instead of concentrating on the actual indictment, i.e. that she spread false information about the Church in Russia and thus slandered the Soviet State and social order.
Aida continues . . .]
I wish to ask the court to pay a little more attention to the essential aspect of the case. For example, I would like to explain why our community is not registered. Tell me please, for breaking exactly which laws are we refused registration?
Judge: Defendant, the court asks you the questions, not you the court.
Procurator: I cannot understand what the defendant wants.
Aida: I am asking the court to pay more attention to the essential questions of the indictment, and ask that the piling up of side issues should not obscure the essential aspect of the case for the court, to find out the exact date when my residence permit was removed.
Judge: Why do you need this?
Aida: I shall need this for my defense. I had a stamp for a permanent residence permit in my passport. No one has ever told me officially that I have been crossed off. There's not one scrap of paper about this matter. If they say I have no residence permit, then let them tell me the exact date on which my residence permit was canceled.
Judge: The court cannot understand why you need to know when you were crossed off. Why do you need this for your defense? Explain, so that the court may understand.
Aida: In the legal proceedings, they spoke about the fact that I wasn't working from 11 April 1967. I explained why I wasn't working. I wasn't working because since May 1967 criminal proceedings were being instituted
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against me and they were looking for me. Here they are trying to present the case as though the militia were looking for me, not because there were proceedings against me, but because I was not working and allegedly because I was without a residence permit. I wish to prove that this was not so. In the spring of 1967, proceedings were taken against a group of believers from our church. I was also included. They wanted to arrest me, but at that time I had just lost my job. If I had been working, it would have been simple and easy to arrest me at work, but on this occasion they had to search for me. The militia first came to Boiko's flat on 4 May. I was sacked from my job at the printing works on 21 April, on the pretext of a reduction of staff. I began looking for work. From 21 April to 4 May is too short a period for the militia to become interested in why a person isn't working, all the more so if she is out of work through no fault of her own. As regards a residence permit, they couldn't cancel it before 4 May. On 17 February I was permanently and clearly registered, and they couldn't possibly cross me off for two months. I suggest that this was done in July or August, but not in May, and certainly not before 4 May. My landlady only wrote to me in September. She wrote thus: "The procurator's office has begun looking for you, and the police have crossed you off." Up to this time I regularly sent money for the room. I am therefore asking the court to find out the exact date when they canceled my residence permit; then it will be perfectly clear that the militia were searching for me not because of my work situation and residence permit, but because proceedings were already then being taken; and that I did not think this up. I can even tell you why proceedings were started against me at that time. Twice in our prayer house I approached foreigners and asked them for a Bible. This became known to the authorities.
Judge: The question of a residence permit has nothing to
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do with the case. You're accused of distributing deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order.
Aida: But the question of work and a residence permit received a lot of attention in the judicial proceedings.
Judge: These questions interested the court not because you are being charged with this, but because the court must assess your personality. It may seem strange to you that the court even asks about your character. The court must know what sort of person you are. In passing sentence the court takes the personality of the defendant into account.
Aida: In that case it is all the more necessary to grant my petition. The court must form an objective opinion about my personality.
Judge: Do you still have a petition?
Aida: Yes, I still have one important petition. I wish to summon Miss Jursmar as a witness. At the preliminary investigation I was shown Miss Jursmar's notebook and was asked what the letters I.T. meant. I said that I didn't know; it was difficult for me to make it out in someone else's notebook. I was not asked any more questions about Miss Jursmar's notebook. However, yesterday in the judicial proceedings, Miss Jursmar's notebook was the center of attention. It was even alleged that Miss Jursmar and I had almost formed a conspiracy. I wish to summon Miss Jursmar to court, so that she herself can explain her notes and say for whom the Herald of Salvation and the Fraternal Leaflets were intended: for the BBC, for the Voice of America, or for believers. If it is difficult to summon Miss Jursmar to court, then one could write to the Swedish authorities, asking them to question Miss Jursmar on these points, just as, for example, they wrote to Magnitogorsk, asking them to question my sister.
Judge: This is a serious petition. We shall discuss it. What is your opinion, Mr. Procurator, with regard to this peti-
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tion by the defendant?
Procurator: Regarding the first petition by the defendant, this is not a petition, but simply dissatisfaction with the course of a trial. Clearly she would like to turn the trial into a forum for propagating or reading anti-Soviet literature. If Skripnikova considers that something has not been elucidated, she can write a memorandum for the judicial inquiry. Skripnikova's second petition is connected with her residence permit. I consider that this question has no significance with regard to the charge as stated. But I leave this question to be examined by the court. I also leave Skripnikova's third petition to be examined by the court. As for Skripnikova's request to summon Jursmar to court, as a witness, this petition cannot be carried out in practice. Jursmar is a foreign subject. Soviet jurisdiction does not extend to her. If Jursmar was in the territory of the USSR, we could make her appear in court, but we cannot summon her from Sweden, nor send a separate request that Jursmar be questioned.
Judge: What is your opinion, defendant?
Aida: If my petition to summon Miss Jursmar to court cannot be carried out in practice, then I don't insist on it. But in that case it will be difficult to make out what is written in Miss Jursmar's notebook. I ask the court to comply with my petition to find out the exact date when I lost my residence permit and to find the article in the Civil Code concerning the question of a residence permit.
Judge: After consultation the court has resolved that the defendant's petitions be turned down.
[The procurator then draws the attention of the court to the verdict given at the trial of the Baptist F.B. Makhovitsky in Leningrad on 25-28 November 1966 at the Kirov District court, and to the verdict given at the trial of the Baptists Lukas, Zhukova, and Semenova at the Leningrad city court. They were all accused of breaking Soviet legislation on the separation of Church and State
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and of schools from the Church and were sentenced under article 142 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. It appears that the procurator considers Aida also guilty of breaking this article of the Criminal Code, because she belonged to an unregistered Baptist community.]
Judge: Defendant Skripnikova, you don't object to this material being filed?
Aida: No, I don't object, but I request the opportunity to familiarize myself with it.
Judge: Would you like it now or during the adjournment?
Aida: During the adjournment.
Judge: Yesterday you told a lie. You said that the participation of a lawyer in the trial did not go against your religious convictions, but in Valya and Masha's letter you yourself write: "Three of us have been tried: Pavel Lukas, Valya Zhukova, Lida Semenova. Lida's father hired a lawyer, and in order not to offend her father, Lida did not refuse the lawyer. She felt slightly uncomfortable because all believers usually refuse a lawyer." Doesn't this mean that the participation of a lawyer in the trial goes against your religious convictions?
Aida: No, believers refuse lawyers because lawyers don't defend them. Why should I have a third accuser here?
Judge: There will be an adjournment for an hour.
AFTER THE ADJOURNMENT
Procurator: Defendant, tell us how many members there are in your community.
Aida: I cannot tell you exactly. There must be about 200.
Procurator: You know the laws which regulate the relationship between believers and the State?
Aida: Yes, I know the decree on the separation of the Church from the State and of schools from the Church.
Procurator: You know the rule for the registration of communities?
Aida: Yes, the community hands in an application and indicates what it is organized for. The authorities are
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obliged to register a community if the aims of the community do not contradict the law.
Judge: Did the search of your room20 happen in your presence?
Aida: Yes.
Judge: After the search of your room many illegal publications of the CCECB and a number of copies of several publications were taken away. For example, two or three copies of some issues of the Herald of Salvation. Why did you need several numbers of one and the same journal?
Aida: I always tried to take a few more copies of the Herald of Salvation in order to distribute them to my friends, because I myself love this journal.
Judge: The judicial inquiry is finished. Let us pass on to speeches of the two parties. Leave is now given to Procurator Timofeeva to proceed for the prosecution.
THE PROCURATOR'S SPEECH
Before I speak about the defendant, I wish to speak about the history of the Church of Evangelical Christians and Baptists (ECB) in Russia. The first communities of Evangelical Christians and Baptists appeared in Russia one hundred years ago. In the beginning communities of Baptists and Evangelical Christians were formed in St. Petersburg, in the Ukraine, and in the Caucasus, but gradually the new teaching spread into the depths of Russia. The state religion in Tsarist Russia was the Orthodox faith, and all other faiths were forbidden. The Orthodox Church occupied the dominant position. After the great October Socialist Revolution in our country the Church was separated from the State and believers of all faiths received the right to freedom of belief.
In 1944 the communities of Evangelical Christians and the communities of Baptists united and a governing
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20. This happened on 12 April 1968.
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body was set up — the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and Baptists — the AUCECB.
The achievements of socialist construction undermined the social roots of religion and promoted the mass secession of believers from religion. Church people had to adapt themselves in order to hold on to believers.
In 1961 there was a schism in the ECB Church. The so-called Action Group accused the AUCECB of deviating from doctrinal norms and conducted a struggle for the removal of the AUCECB from the leadership. Later the Action Group was called the Organizing Committee and then the Council of Churches. The Council of Churches drew some believers onto its side; this was an insignificant proportion.21 Taking refuge in religious dogma, the Council of Churches is fighting in fact for a change in the legislation on religious cults.22 The Council of Churches in its letters and appeals calls on believers not to submit to the law. The communities which support the Council of Churches are breaking the legislation relating to cults. These communities are not registered,23 their meetings take place in private homes and in public places. Some believers were convicted for breaking the legislation on cults. The Council of Churches presents this as persecution for the faith. For seven years already the Council of Churches has been carrying on this titanic struggle with the authorities. This struggle has had various stages. At present the Council of Churches is attempting to appeal to foreign countries in order to rouse public opinion there.
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21. The support for the CCECB was probably much greater then implied by these words.
22. This refers to the reformers' demand for changes in the 1929 Laws on Religious Associations, which in many ways contradicted the guarantee of freedom of conscience in the Constitution and the 1918 decree on separation of Church and State.
23. Many of these communities had in fact applied for registration but had been refused it and then met in private.
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The defendant, Skripnikova, is a member of the unregistered Leningrad ECB community which belongs to the Council of Churches. There are many addresses from various cities in the Soviet Union and abroad in Skripnikova's notebook. This is evidence that Skripnikova had links throughout the country, but her main task was to organize contacts abroad. It must be said that she measured up to this task well. It is not by chance that Skripnikova wanted so much to live in Leningrad itself. Many foreigners come there, and it is the most convenient place for making contacts. I do not know why the police gave her a residence permit. I consider that such a person ought not to have one.
Long ago Aida attracted the attention of the organs of the State security. Already in 1958 she wrote an anti-Soviet letter to the editor of Pravda. Several public organizations in Leningrad have had much to do with Aida. On the decision of the Comrade's Court she was given a job in a laboratory which did not correspond to her qualifications. She was helped in her studies. Aida's life began unfortunately in that she was born into a family of Baptists. Of course it's a pity that we let a person slip away, but we talked a lot to Aida and made the antisocial character of her actions clear. Skripnikova's education has gone only up to the eighth class. This is, of course, very little, though she is intelligent and capable. I don't know why she didn't complete studying at the technical school and left in the first year. I think she had the ability to finish the technical school course. Skripnikova distributed copies of the Herald of Salvation and other illegal publications of the Council of Churches. These publications contained deliberately false statements, slandering the Soviet State and social order.
For example, in the Herald of Salvation No. 19, there is the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering." I think that the defendant wrote this article herself. Of
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course, she didn't write it alone, but together with others. This article talks of believers being persecuted: that they are not allowed to study, that they are dismissed from their jobs, that they are fined and tried because of their belief. Kryuchkov said at his trial in Moscow: "Those brothers who are in prisons and camps do not suffer because they have broken Soviet laws; they suffer because they have remained faithful to the Lord." All this is a deliberately false statement which slanders the Soviet State and social order. In the Soviet Union there are various faiths, churches are open, and no one is persecuted for his faith. The State does not interfere in the activities of religious bodies, if these communities do not break the legislation on cults. The defendant Skripnikova's guilt of systematically distributing false statements which slander the Soviet State and social order is fully proved. These actions are rightly covered by article 190/1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. I request the court, according to article 190/1, to sentence the defendant, Skripnikova, to two and a half years of imprisonment.
AIDA SKRIPNIKOVA'S DEFENSE SPEECH
I was intending to speak on the substance of the charge brought against me, but other questions have been touched on here, so I must also deal with them, although, as has been said, they have no connection with this case. The procurator said that in 1958 I wrote a letter of anti-Soviet content to the editor of Pravda. In 1958, you will remember, the newspapers were fulminating against Pasternak for his Dr. Zhivago. At that time many critics were writing, condemning Pasternak. I also wrote. I wrote that I didn't understand how it was possible to condemn Pasternak if no one had read his novel. You shouldn't condemn something you don't know.
The procurator says that I got a job in a laboratory thanks to society, following the decision of the Comrades'
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Court. This does not fit the facts. It happened like this: I got a job in a construction firm, No. 16. After four months I discovered from a certain woman that they needed an assistant in the firm's laboratory. The work there was simple and did not require any qualifications or special training. I went to the laboratory, spoke to the head, who said she would take me on, I liked the work, and took the job there. I got the job myself, without any patronage. I'm telling you what happened. If you look carefully at the case materials you will be convinced of this. In the dossier there's a statement from the Museum of Religion and Atheism about the work for reeducating me, which I was given. The statement says that I was given a job in the laboratory following the decision of the Comrade's Court, but I began work in the laboratory in February 1961, whereas the Comrade's Court sat in April 1962. But that's not all. In the dossier there's the verbatim report of the Comrade's Court. If you look at it you'll see that the resolution of the Comrade's Court was precisely to transfer me from the laboratory to work in a construction team. They knew that I liked the work and wanted to punish me somehow. But then there was some disagreement among them; some said I should be transferred, others said I should not, and while they were arguing, I worked three years in the laboratory. No criticisms were made about me at work. Apart from me, there were six other people working in the laboratory; why did they have more right to work than I?
Now I will tell you how I was sacked from the printing works. This does have a certain bearing on the case, because when I say I was dismissed from my work for my faith, I am told, "That is a deliberately false statement." After my release from prison I was registered outside the city — I was registered permanently in Volkhovstroye. I found work in a printing works. A week after starting
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work I was at a prayer meeting. The police arrived and took down my name, along with several others. A policeman took my identity document and copied out from it the place of my residence permit. I knew that they would report me to my place of work. I had only been working five days, and they did not know at work that I was a believer. The next day I told the shift foreman that the police would phone because they had taken my name at a prayer meeting. Then the shift foreman told me that they had been phoning and were coming. I myself did not see any one, but this is what the shift foreman told me. Everyone at the printing works got alarmed when they found out that I was a believer, and began to chat to me. The secretary of the party organization chatted to me several times. She advised me to renounce my faith and said that I would then be sent to a proofreading course; "Our society is a humanitarian one," etc. But right from the start, they did not hide from me the fact that if I did not change my views, I would be sacked. They told me straight out, "The printing works is a political institution; not everybody can work here," although this printing works was under the management of the railways and nothing secret was printed there — only forms of all sorts, boarding permits and train timetables. I don't know what was there which I couldn't be trusted with. Things went on like this for three weeks. Then the shift foreman told me that a management commission was due to arrive to discuss production, and they would settle my question at the same time. The following day the commission arrived, and a day later I was summoned to the manager and told that I'd been dismissed. Of course, they didn't say that they were dismissing me because of my faith, because there is no such law that people can be dismissed for their faith, so they sacked me on the pretext of a staff reduction. When I went to the shop floor and said that I had been dismissed due to a staff reduction, the workers' eyes
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nearly popped out of their heads. One of the machines had been standing idle because there was no one to work on it.
After being sacked I started to look for work. I soon found a job. They promised to take me on at one particular factory, so I began to fill in the necessary forms. Then in the personnel department I was given a sheet of paper on which I had to sign a pledge not to disclose production secrets. This surprised me, and I decided that I ought to talk everything over immediately. If they had dismissed me from a simple printing works, they were even more likely to dismiss me from a factory where there were production secrets. I told them that I was a believer, that I'd been dismissed from a printing works, and told them to decide straight away whether or not to take me on, so that they would not have to sack me in a month's time due to a staff reduction. The woman who was attending to me asked me to wait a moment, and went off to the manager. About fifteen minutes later she returned and said, "We can't engage you because your permit is valid only outside the city." As if they hadn't previously seen that I had a noncity residence permit; as if the manager hadn't previously looked at my papers.
I began to look for work again and had already got a job as an orderly in a home for the disabled and even worked there for one day, although I was not yet officially registered, but I had to leave there, too — and here's the reason why. It was the middle of June, and about this time it became clear even to me that I would be arrested. From 4 May onward the police began to look for me. They went to the flats of believers and questioned neighbors. To begin with I didn't attribute any significance to this, thinking they intended only to warn me not to approach any foreigners in the prayer house. I therefore disregarded the fact that the police were looking for me, and got on with my own business — finding work. But then they
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started asking questions about me in the procurator's office. Searches were carried out in believers' flats, and many of them began to be summoned to this office. We knew that a case was being compiled on a group of believers. From the questions asked at the procurator's office we could surmise whom they wanted to try. When it became apparent that I was among them, I didn't attempt to register for work, because they would have arrested me immediately. Only six months had elapsed since my release, and I wanted to do something useful before going to prison again. I had work which I had to finish.
[At this point Aida asks for a break of ten minutes.]
Now I will speak specifically on the substance of the charge brought against me. I am charged under article 190/1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, which reads: "The systematic distribution of deliberately false statements, slandering the Soviet State and social order." I am charged with the distribution of the journals Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet and transcripts of trials, which are supposed to contain deliberately false statements slandering the Soviet State and social order. I am charged with distributing literature to four people in different places: to Miss Jursmar of Stockholm, Zinaida Skripnikova of Magnitogorsk, Shishkina of the Kirov Region, and David from Sweden. I do not deny these facts. The prosecution has no proof that I sent literature anywhere else, but I won't say anything about that.
The distribution of any publication is not in itself a crime, and if the prosecution hadn't found any deliberately false statements in the magazines Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet, there would be no grounds on which to try me. Therefore, I must talk about the contents of this literature.
I must bring in a bit of history. I shall not talk about the distant past, only from 1961 on. The procurator maintains that the Council of Churches and the communities
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which support it are struggling against the authorities and breaking the law. In 1961 an Action Group composed of ministers of the church was formed.24 I'm not going to talk about the activities of this Action Group or about why it broke away from the registered communities. Those are internal church affairs and should not be discussed here. I shall merely say how the activity of the Action Group appears in relation to the State. The Action Group addressed a letter to all believers, in which the position of the church was explained and the calling of a congress proposed. Simultaneously, the Action Group sent a letter to the authorities asking permission to hold a congress. These actions in no way contravene the law. The authorities should have given permission for the congress. Incidentally, in the law of 1929 it says that believers have the right to organize congresses. But instead of giving permission, the authorities began to persecute those who had asked for the congress, and prosecuted many of them. Here they say that the believers were tried not for their faith, but for antisocial activity, and that from 1961 the activities of the Action Group have been of an unlawful nature. But the prosecution passes over in silence the fact that in 1964-65 150 believers sentenced in 1961-63 were rehabilitated. Obviously this silence is not accidental. Rehabilitation is not the same as a reprieve or an amnesty; rehabilitation means that a man is recognized as not guilty.
In March 1966 the decree25 enforcing article 142 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR was passed, whereupon trials of believers were again instigated.
The magazine Herald of Salvation is a religious maga-
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24. See chapter 2 "The Background."
25. The text of this decree is contained in Michael Bourdeaux, Religious Ferment in Russia (Macmillan, London, 1968) pp. 159-60. This decree listed various types of activity punishable under article 142, and may well have been aimed specifically at the reform Baptists.
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zine. Fraternal Leaflet is published by the Council of Churches as an information leaflet. As I am charged with the distribution of this literature, I shall have to speak in detail about its contents. The investigator noted down 17 "seditious" phrases out of all the literature. This was during interrogation on 5 June; in the dossier there is a report of the interrogation, and these 17 phrases, according to the investigator, contain deliberately false statements, slandering the Soviet State and social order. I must say something about the articles from which these phrases are taken and read out certain phrases in context. Here are three phrases which the investigator noted down from Herald of Salvation No. 19:
1. "Atheism, having become the State religion in our land, began to persecute believers as zealously as the Orthodox clergy had done at the time of the autocracy, counting them as lambs for the slaughter."2. "In their places of work, study, and residence believers are subjected to varying methods of reeducation, to threats, exclusion from educational institutions, dismissal from work, etc."
3. "In March 1966 decrees directed against unregistered communities were published, with the aim of suppressing spiritual revival."
These sentences are taken from the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering." The Herald of Salvation No. 19 was a jubilee issue. In 1967 one hundred years had passed since the Evangelical Church arose in Russia, and Herald of Salvation No. 19 was devoted to this century. "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering" is a historical article in which the life of our church over the past one hundred years is recounted. When writing history one must write about things as they were without falsification. In the Herald of Salvation No. 19 the history of the church is recounted accurately. Things are recorded as they actually were. This wasn't written because
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someone was inimically disposed toward the Soviet authorities. I'll read out a description of the life of the church in Tsarist times:
"Neither fearing the Tsar's laws forbidding the preaching of the Gospel, nor dismayed by the pogroms carried out by whole crowds of the people stirred up by the Orthodox priests, the first witnesses to Christ in our country expressed His teaching. They endured the kind of persecution which only man's wickedness could devise.
"But from the very first moments of life of the Church of Christ in Russia, the enemy of human souls unleashed upon it harsh persecution, in response to its desire to live a new devout life. In the life of the church, the period of 1867-1905 could be called the period of the deprivation of rights and of persecution.
"The church and secular press did not shun any falsehood in presenting the life of the Stundists26 in the worst possible light.
"In the years 1912-13 circulars limiting the freedom of religion were issued by the Government."
This refers to Tsarist times. This persecution is described in even stronger colors than the persecution under the Soviet regime. From 1867 to 1905 there was persecution, and this fact is not disregarded in the article. From 1905 to 1914 there was freedom, and this too is stated. I'll read on: "Between 1914 and 1917 followers of Evangelical Baptist teaching were again subjected to persecution. All their places of worship were closed in St. Petersburg.
"But God set a limit on these persecutions, too. Religious freedom was proclaimed in a decree of the Soviet Government — "On the Separation of Church and State, and of Schools from the Church." Based on this decree, the thirteenth article of the Constitution concerning freedom of conscience recognized the freedom of religious
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26. An early name for the Evangelicals in Russia.
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and antireligious propaganda for all citizens. This is why the 1920s were years of favorable opportunities in the life of our fellowship." In the 1920s there was religious freedom. The believers carried on their public worship in freedom.
Witness Boiko began to quote Lenin; I'll complete the quotation: "Only in Russia and Turkey were shameful laws against religious people still in force. These laws either directly prohibited the open profession of faith or forbade its propagation. These laws are most unjust, shameful, and oppressive." I should like to draw your attention to the word "propagation." Lenin called the prohibition on the propagation of the faith unjust and shameful. In the 1920s there was freedom for missionary activities; preachers were able to travel about the whole country and organize missionary meetings; the State did not interfere in internal church affairs. Christian parents were free to bring up their own children themselves. In the decree "On the Separation of Church and State" it says, "Citizens may give and receive instruction in private." In those days this was taken literally, so that believers were permitted to open private Sunday schools, and these were opened in many parishes. There was no persecution in the 1920s — indeed, no one says that there was. And in the article life is recorded as it was. In the 1920s the Soviet authorities were already in power. In "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering" the church's history is written objectively. And if the article talks about persecution, this isn't with the aim of slandering about persecution, this isn't with the aim of slandering the Soviet authorities; there are no bad intentions here.
Now I can analyze these three sentences which the investigator took from the article "A Century's Path of Struggle and Suffering," to see whether what is said in them corresponds to reality.
1. "Atheism, having become the State religion in our land, began to persecute believers as zealously as the
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Orthodox clergy had done at the time of the autocracy, counting them as lambs for the slaughter." Here the writers have in mind the 1930s.27 This can be seen from the text of the article because there the description follows a chronological order. Well, what can one say about the 1930s? Does much need to be said? Everyone knows what they were like. I don't think even the most ardent atheist would dare say that there was no persecution of believers during those years. It's said that at one point even Christmas trees were forbidden because they were regarded as a reminder of religion. And if such a distant, dead reminder of religion was banned, one can imagine the fate of living witnesses to the faith. Sometimes within the space of one night half the members of one community would disappear. Thus, there is no deliberately false statement in this sentence. Everyone knows what things were like in the 1930s.
The next sentence reads: "In their places of work, study, and residence believers are subjected to varying methods of reeducation, to threats, exclusion from educational institutions, dismissal from work, etc." Dismissal from work and exclusion from educational institutions were applied with particular severity in 1956 and the years 1958-62. Now this happens less frequently, as far as I know. But I don't know exactly. It's impossible to talk about the history of our church without mentioning dismissal from work and exclusion from educational institutions, because believers have experienced these things and they have been quite widespread. I can quote certain facts. For example, Josif Bondarenko from Odessa was barred from a shipbuilding institute in 1962; he was not allowed to defend his diploma. I've already told you how I was sacked from the printing works. In the autumn of 1963 Nadezhda Ivanovna Vins28 was sacked. She used to
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27. These were the most oppressive years in Stalin's dictatorship.
28. The wife of Georgi Vins, leader of the reform Baptists.
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work in a school teaching English and was mentioned in the list of the city's best teachers, but when her husband was written about in the papers she was immediately sacked.
The third sentence reads: "In March 1966 decrees directed against unregistered communities were published, with the aim of suppressing spiritual revival." Following the decree of 18 March on the enforcement of article 142 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, persecution and arrests began anew, and again many believers were convicted. This is a fact, not a deliberately false statement. "We report that fines, pogroms, searches, trials, and shadowing of members of the awakened church continue in every area." The investigator noted this down from the Herald of Salvation No. 12, 1966. Trials of believers do take place; in more than 200 cases believers have been convicted. Believers are also shadowed. I will tell you how I was arrested. On 11 April I went to a prayer meeting. After the meeting, when we were returning home, we noticed that a man was looking at me very closely. From the meeting we all take the No. 32 bus as far as the terminus. There all the believers get out and some go to the No. 37 bus stop, others to the tram stop. Here, too, there was a shadow stationed, to see which believers were going to the prayer meeting. We noticed that I was being followed, but I didn't attach any importance to this. The next day they came to my flat and arrested me. Searches are also frequently carried out at believers' homes. In connection with my case alone there were eleven searches: three in Leningrad, four in Perm, three in Znamenka, Kirovograd Region, and one at my sister's home in Magnitogorsk. One can more or less understand the search at my flat and at Skurlova's and my sister's. But why make searches at other believers' places? They were only made because these addresses were found in my notebook. Nowhere did they find anything connected with my case.
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During the search of my room they found the address of the believers Dibrivnoi from Znamenka in Kirovograd Region. The Leningrad procurator's office sent an order for a search to be made at the Dibrivnois's house and decided to seize this opportunity of making searches at the homes of other believers. A letter like this was sent from the Znamenka procurator's office to Leningrad, along with the record of the interrogations and searches: "I must report that on our own initiative two searches were carried out at the homes of the Evangelical Baptist believers, N.B. Vdovchenko and G. Ya. Lunyachenko, and the religious literature removed from them is at the KGB office." Twenty-six tapes with recordings of sermons and hymns were taken from the Dibrivnois's place.
As far as fines are concerned, believers have been fined so much that if all this money were collected up, a spaceship could probably be built with it. Witnesses Boiko and Skurlova gave the surnames of believers who have been fined 20 roubles for attending a meeting at Lavriki. Lukas, the Vezinovois, Sukovitsyn, and Semenova were fined, and I know that Protsenko was fined. Prayer meetings take place at home and don't disturb anyone. If they take place in the woods they don't disturb anyone either. In 1965 we met in the woods all summer and didn't disturb anyone, and no one disturbed us there until the police began to come out and break up the meetings.
I don't know how prayer meetings can be called illegal; after all, they take place every day. We believers can account for the persecutions, but how can atheists possibly explain the breaking up of the meetings rationally to themselves? I should find it difficult in their position.
"The Organizing Committee has made continual petitions for the liberation of Evangelical Christian and Baptist believers, convicted because of their faith in God, and also for the termination of persecution of ECB believers
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in our country." When I asked the investigator why he had picked this out and what he found deliberately false about this — for the Organizing Committee did indeed petition for the liberation of prisoners — he replied, "In the Soviet Union we don't try people for their faith, but you write 'prisoners are tried for their faith'; that is a deliberately false statement." Here is another passage also selected by the investigator as anti-Soviet:
"Many church ministers who showed faithful and infatigable concern for the church's purity and that it should walk in the light before the Lord, have been taken from us and sent off to prisons and camps."
I don't think it's necessary to read out all the sentences noted down by the investigator, as they are all about the same thing — trials, arrests, persecution, and oppression in general. It's just these passages which the investigator picked out from the magazines Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet. And all these are called deliberately false statements.
The investigator picked three sentences from the legal proceedings against Vins and Kryuchkov:
"I must make it clear that the present case is a complete fabrication. I have been arrested as a minister of the Church." This was stated by Vins during the trial.
"Those brethren at present in prisons and camps are suffering not because they have broken Soviet laws, but because they have maintained their loyalty to the Lord and to His Church."
Kryuchkov stated this in his final speech. I don't know, either, why these sentences are interpreted as deliberately false, because you (the court) do not say: Vins and Kryuchkov didn't state this, you made it up yourself. No, once again you say, "No one is tried for his faith in the Soviet Union, the Vins Kryuchkov case confirms it, therefore these are deliberately false statements." I fail to see how such an interpretation is possible. The report of a
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trial is the transcript of what was said during it. We record the procurator's speech, although we don't agree with what he said.
And now the question arises about what we are being prosecuted for. We say, for our faith, but are told, "That's a deliberately false statement: you're being tried for infringing Soviet law." I'm a member of an unregistered community, which requested registration and put in an application. In the application, the purpose for which the society is being organized is indicated; its aims and purposes are enumerated. The authorities take this application, and if any of the society's proposed aims contravenes the law, they tell the society about this, specifically, pointing out which particular law it's infringing. All our communities have sent in these applications, which include our statutes. We're not told, "You mustn't do this or that, it's against the law." Instead we're told, "Sign a pledge that you won't break the law." This isn't the correct procedure for registration.
During the court sitting I have tried to explain why I belong to an unregistered community. Just which law is our community breaking, so that it can't be registered? I haven't received any definite answer. However, here they've been saying that our community is breaking the law by attracting children and by refusing to recognize the ban on missionary activity. They tell us that we have freedom of religion, yet we seem to break the law on purpose — as if we were such malicious citizens that we spend our time thinking how to annoy the Soviet authorities. But believers can't promise to fulfill a law which forbids them to talk about God and forbids parents to bring up their children in the faith. For all their loyalty to the authorities, believers won't subscribe to such a law. No Christian mother or father will accept a law which orders them to bring up their children as atheists. They would rather go through whatever sufferings you like, rather
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stand in the dock, than promise to abide by this law. Of course, there are parents for whom their faith is of secondary importance, although they call themselves believers; it's all the same to them what they promise. But those who really believe will break this law.
Christ said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature," and believers can't submit to a law forbidding them to talk about God and about salvation. Not a single believer will do this. Even if he's not a missionary or a preacher, even if he's incapable of preaching a sermon, it makes no difference — he won't submit to such a law because even a person incapable of preaching a sermon will sometimes be able to tell someone about salvation. Therefore believers won't promise to carry out such a law. Despite all their respect for the authorities, they'll break this law. There are believers sitting here in this courtroom. Are they really such embittered people? Look at them. The majority of them are simple working men and women, very quiet and peaceable people. Why then do they break the law? Surely you can't think they enjoy simply enduring oppression like that, or that they are bad citizens, set against the authorities. No, I'll repeat it once more, believers can't keep a law which forces them to deny the Gospel. When we're tried for breaking such laws, we're quite justified in saying that we're being tried for our faith.
We are not at all demanding. It's said that in Sweden believers have beautiful places of worship, equipped with every amenity, but we're not used to this. At the end of 1964 and in 1965 our prisoners were rehabilitated and the police stopped breaking up our meetings. As we had no places of worship, we met in the woods and wherever we could, but we weren't prevented from holding our meetings. And for us, this is freedom. In conversation, if we recall some event or other, we sometimes say, "That was when we were free." We wouldn't say we were perse-
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cuted if it weren't true. What good would it do us to invent persecutions? Surely you don't think I'd want to end up in prison for slandering the Soviet authorities? Persecution exists, that's a fact; but now I want to explain why this fact is talked about, why persecution is written about in the magazines and Fraternal Leaflet.
The investigator took the following sentence from Fraternal Leaflet No. 6 for 1966:
"In order to legalize illegalities committed against believers, the supreme authorities of our country passed a decree on 18 March 1966, by which people could be tried and fined for praying."
Why did the Council of Churches need to write that? Maybe the Council of Churches wants to say to believers, "Look how awful the Soviet authorities are"? Or had the Council of Churches some other motivation for writing those words? The sixth Fraternal Leaflet for 1966 was the June issue. What was June 1966 like for our church? On 17 May 1966 a delegation of believers was arrested just outside the Central Committee building of the Communist Party. When persecutions and arrests started up again after the March decree, believers from all parts of the country gathered and came to Moscow to petition the Government on behalf of our prisoners and to tell them about the persecutions, and this delegation was arrested, 400 people at one go. Apart from this, almost the whole leadership of the Council of Churches was arrested in May. This was a terrible blow for the church. Many believers were alarmed, and so in this complex situation the ministers of the Council of Churches wrote to believers in this Fraternal Leaflet. I'll read you the opening paragraphs of Leaflet No. 6:
"Let the groaning of the prisoner come before Thy face, and by the might of Thy right hand save those who are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Beloved, first of all we express our deep sorrow, in which we want to take
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comfort in the Lord and comfort all who share it with us. The Lord had led many of our ministers, including members of the CCECB which you elected, and also several sisters, along the way of prison and camps, for His glory . . . .
"To be comforted we need to understand the causes and the reason for our sufferings, praying to God and carrying out His will. In order to legalize illegalities committed against believers, the supreme authorities of our country passed a decree on 18 March 1966, by which people could be tried and fined for the open profession of their faith, for worshiping God and praying, as it was in the time of Daniel and Mordecai, of Christ and the apostles. Like Daniel and the apostles, the faithful carried on their service, regardless of threats, decrees, burning fiery furnaces, roaring lions, crosses, and prisons, but cried to God . . . ."
What do you hear in these words? Bitterness toward the authorities? I can hear only grief and weeping. The ministers of the Council of Churches are sharing the sorrow of the church, and want to comfort the believers. The organizational work of the Council of Churches is only a small part of its activities. Its members are spiritual ministers, and as true ministers of the church they share all its sorrows and sufferings, and encourage and comfort the believers. Notice that the sentence, "In order to legalize illegalities committed against believers, the supreme authorities of our country passed a decree on 18 March 1966, by which people could be tried and fined for the open profession of their faith, for worshipping God and praying," is followed by these words: "as it was in the time of Daniel and Mordecai, of Christ and the apostles." The words, "as it was," are extremely significant. Here the ministers of the Council of Churches are implying: do not be troubled because cruel persecutions beset us. Believers of other times have already gone through all
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this; there were also decrees then. Let us be courageous, like Daniel and Mordecai and the apostles, let us continue to serve God.
"People have told me — I was in prison at the time — people have told me that after the mass arrest all the believers were alarmed, and Fraternal Leaflet No. 6 says just what the believers needed to be told at that time. One believer told me that Fraternal Leaflet brought her peace and encouragement; it was especially welcome in those days. When the Council of Churches writes about persecution, it's not in order to slander the State, but because its ministers, as spiritual pastors, are bound to care about the state of the church and support the believers at a difficult time. The Fraternal Leaflets in which persecutions are mentioned do not end with a rallying call against the State, nor do they incite readers to disobey the State; they end with exhortations to the believers to continue faithful to the Lord.
Now it remains only for me to tell you why I sent my friends the magazines and Fraternal Leaflets. Although I'm charged with distributing Herald of Salvation and other publications both abroad and in this country, during the court sitting, I've been blamed most strongly for sending them abroad, so I'll tell you why I did this. I must make it clear that no one ordered me to send the magazines and Fraternal Leaflets abroad. I acted on my own initiative. For instance, at church they didn't find out till later that I had given Jursmar literature. This was when I received visits from police. I tried not to talk it over with anyone, so as to answer for everything alone. I know that Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet do not contain any deliberately false statements, but at the same time I know what it means to send them abroad. I know that it could bring me into the dock.
In atheist literature the church is portrayed as consisting solely of leaders and their meek subordinates. The
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leaders give orders which their subordinates carry out, ready to rush blindly wherever they are told. This is completely untrue. I don't know a more democratic organization than our church. All compulsion is excluded from it. I'm firmly convinced that every believer can find work to do in the church. Anyone who wants to work can find work suited to his strength and abilities. Absolutely everyone can be useful in the church. Believers often display their own initiative and do things of their own accord. Of course, there are also church standing orders, but in these no one forces anyone to do anything. Everything is done voluntarily. If a person doesn't want to do something, no one compels him to. The procurator says that I have links throughout the country and abroad. People say this because they don't understand the structure of the church. No one in the church could have ordered me to dispatch the Herald of Salvation abroad, because that's very dangerous and no one would suggest that I should expose myself to such danger. This could only be a question of individual initiative. I can ask one of the believers to do something, but I'd never ask anyone to go and send a Herald of Salvation abroad instead of me. I know it's dangerous; that's why I do it myself. And every believer would argue the same way. Each one will expose himself to danger before anyone else.
I didn't send Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet abroad because I'm ill-disposed toward the authorities. I'm an enthusiastic reader of Herald of Salvation. I sent this and Fraternal Leaflet abroad so that our brothers and sisters in the faith could find out about the life of our church in Russia. I love the Russian churches; they follow such a glorious path.
The Action Group, our movement within the church, is called various things. Some call it a schism, but it's more correct to call it an awakening. Yes, it is an awakening, and it hit me. Faith was growing weak, and suddenly
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there came an awakening. What I saw was quite miraculous. I saw the dead rising again — the spiritually dead, the weak, proved capable of great feats. Once I was attracted by impressive external greatness, but then I came to know the greatness of humility and patience, the kind of greatness of the church's struggle. This revival quickened my spirit, too, and from that time onward I have not been able to remain uninvolved. Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet give an account of the life of the awakened church. I wanted everyone to know about the awakening, and that's why I sent the magazines to my friends abroad. I gave Miss Jursmar the transcripts of the trials in Moscow and Ryazan for a different purpose from the magazines, although of course, trials are part of the life of our church and it is impossible not to mention them in talking about the churches in Russia. However, in handing over the transcripts of the trials to Jursmar, I was not only bearing this in mind but something else as well. I was thinking that maybe they could somehow be used in petitioning on behalf of the prisoners unjustly and unlawfully convicted. I didn't give Jursmar any instructions concerning the trials. I thought perhaps she herself would feel it necessary to use them to petition for their liberation. No one is forbidden to intercede for his friends. As a Christian, I'm free to do this. There are many instances in the Bible in which believers exposed illegalities, intervened on behalf of their friends, and petitioned the authorities. Esther went to the king to intercede for her people. Depending on the circumstances, the apostles endured beatings and persecutions silently in some cases, in others appealed to the law. To petition for prisoners unjustly convicted is not against Soviet law, nor is it against my own convictions.
I attended trials in Moscow and Ryazan. At the one in Ryazan four believers were being tried. One of the defendants was old (aged 71), ill, but an incredibly nice
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person. He talked to the procurator and the judge in an old-fashioned, good-natured way, in such a homely tone of voice. It was very moving and made the illegality of the whole trial the more repellent. Sitting there in the courtroom, I wanted the whole world to see what was going on there. Then perhaps those who were infringing the law would be ashamed of what they were doing and stop. Their actions were so repellent. An old man, quite innocent . . .
[At this point the procurator interrupts Aida, accusing her once again of pronouncing false and slanderous statements against the USSR. Aida strongly denies that anything she has said is either false or slanderous: she claims, therefore, that she is not guilty.
On Monday 15 July, the third and last day of her trial takes place. Here is what Aida said in her final speech:]
First of all I want to say — I started to talk about this on Friday, but for some reason I was not allowed to finish — I applied in writing to the city court, asking for permission to have a Bible with me. Then lawyer Denisov came to me and said I would be given a Bible after the trial. He said definitely that I would be given one, not that this question would be settled. Now I ask that this promised be fulfilled.
Citizen judges! Everyone knows what a joy it is to have a loving mother. People have different conceptions of happiness and joy in life. For some, happiness is a life free of cares; for others, their idea of joy is to go to the theater, etc. But none of this can be compared to the happiness of having a loving mother. This is a special, higher conception of happiness, as everybody knows. I'm telling you this so that you realize that I have the same kind of happiness in being able to call God and my Heavenly Father — and suddenly I have come to understand the meaning of this relationship more clearly than ever before. Heavenly Father — this means that I can turn to Him with my needs,
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tell Him everything, ask Him about everything, and entrust my life to Him. The fact that I can call God my Father is very precious to me . . . . We are God's slaves because we desire to serve God humbly and put ourselves at His disposal. Christ said, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have opened up the way for you. You are friends!" Yes, we are slaves and friends and children. Atheism, now there's a really evil slavery. Take this trial. What have I seen in this trial? Once again I have seen that people are increasingly losing an understanding of what is just and reasonable. I've already quoted Lenin's words in my defense speech: "Of the European countries, only in Russia and Turkey were shameful laws against religious people still in force. These laws either directly prohibited the open profession of faith or forbade its propagation. These laws are the most unjust, shameful, and oppressive." At one time people realized that it is unjust to forbid the propagation of a faith; now they don't understand this. Now they say, "Believe yourself and pray, but don't dare talk about God to anyone." To silence one's ideological opponent by force is no ideological victory. This has always been called barbarism.
Procurator: Apropos of what is she introducing this quotation from Lenin? Lenin was talking about Tsarist times.
[The judge banged the table with the palm of his hand, calling the procurator to order.]
Aida: I don't know whether any parents ever before used to be forbidden to bring up their children according to their convictions, or if so, when. Now they are even encroaching on this sacred right of parents. This trial is horrifying, but not because you're going to pass sentence on me and take me off to prison. It's horrifying because many of those sitting in the courtroom will not realize that it is unjust. I have been telling you why I sent the magazines Herald of Salvation and Fraternal Leaflet abroad.
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What is happening in the life of our church is a miracle. In the twentieth century, when atheists are shouting about the extinguishing of faith, a fire like this suddenly flares up. And I wanted everybody to know about this miracle of awakening.
The Church upholds truth and fights for the truth.
Judge: You are not to talk about the Church; talk about yourself.
Aida: I'll talk about myself in a minute. The Church's struggle is not to be understood as some political battle. The Church's struggle is to stand for truth and follow the Lord straightforwardly, regardless of everything else. When the Church is fighting I can't remain uninvolved. One can be a militant atheist or a nonmilitant atheist, one can be simply a nonbeliever, indifferent toward both faith and atheism, but for the Christian there is only one course. The Christian can't be anything but militant. Once you know the truth, this means following it, upholding it, and if necessary, suffering for it. I can't be different. I can't act any differently.
There has been talk here about the fact that we communicate with people abroad. The Council of Prisoners' Relatives sent a letter to U Thant at the United Nations organization. These were mothers and wives of prisoners, writing about their children and husbands, unjustly convicted. One can understand them; I don't know how anyone could decide to condemn them. I know one mother — her son's in prison — and when she spoke about him I saw tears in her eyes, such restrained tears, they were in the depths of her eyes. A week before her arrest I met another mother — a believer called Sloboda. You know, they wrote about her in the letter to U Thant; two of her daughters were taken away from her. The children had already been in a children's home for a year when they suddenly ran away quite unexpectedly. They had to take a train or a bus. I don't remember which, and then they ran for two
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kilometers. They ran home in such heavy frost that their mother was very frightened. "Weren't you really frozen?" she asked. But the children replied, "We kept on running and running, we stopped, rubbed our knees, and ran on again." The mother asked the younger girl, "Didn't you cry a bit from the cold?" "What are you thinking about, Mummy?" said the little girl, amazed. "How could we cry at such a happy time? After all, we were running home!" The children lived at home for a month and didn't want to go to bed without their mother, so all that time they slept in the same bed as their mother. But then they were taken away again to the children's home.
I'm not in any way an important figure, and I'm not a heroine. I love freedom and would very much like to be free now with my family and friends. But I can't buy freedom at any price; I don't want to act against my conscience. I love freedom, but what good is freedom to me if I can't call God my Father? In prison one particular verse became especially dear to me and precious:
"Oh no, no one in the whole universe can rob the faithful of freedom,
Though flesh fear the prisoner's chain and prison fill it with dismay,
For the God of love gave freedom to Thought enslaved by darkness,
And hitherto the world has not forged chains for her, the liberated one."
The knowledge that my soul and thoughts are free encourages and strengthens me. That is all I wanted to say to you.
Chapter Seven || Table of Contents
