Report card - civil rights offenses in Soviet Union

National Review, Jan 22, 1988

Report Card

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION'S estimable monthly, Policy Review, celebrated the seventieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution with a long essay by assistant editor Michael Johns, "Seventy Years of Evil," describing . . . just that. All the greatest hits are there, in handy compendium: Afghanistan, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary; Katyn Forest and the Hitler-Stalin pact; the Great Purge and the Ukraine famine; the death of Mandelstam and the murder of Czar Nicholas.

Just as interesting are some of the less familiar events, obscure only because of the bloodiness of the record to which they belong. ". . . January 13, 1918 --A decree denies churches all property and legal rights . . . September 30, 1918--A new code . . . bring[s] Communist class philosophies into schools . . . Its chief slogan is 'We do not need literacy without Communism.' . . . September 1920--Lenin demands that independent Armenian government surrender to Soviets. However, before deadline expires, Soviet army invades Armenian territory . . . 1932 --Stalin introduces South African-style internal passports to prevent workers from shifting residence . . . July 27, 1940--With their invasion of Rumania, the Soviets violate . . . Kellogg-Briand Pact for sixth time in less than a year. Previous invasions include Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. . . . June 17, 1953--Soviet tanks roll over protesting workers in East Berlin, killing five hundred. . . . June 26, 1954 --Three thousand soldiers armed in tanks crush a revolt of political and other prisoners at Kengir and Dzhezkazgan prison camps. . . . June 1, 1962--Soviet police shoot directly into crowds that are protesting higher meat and butter prices and lower wages in Novocherkassk. . . . March 1983--Soviet police arrest 28-year-old poet Irina Ratushinskaya for publishing poems in foreign journals. She is sentenced to seven years in strict prison camp . . ."

It is the tale of a state as brutal as it is petty; as unnatural as it is brutal; as enduring as it is unnatural. Thanks to Mr. Johns for the reminder.