The case of Vladimir Klebanov - fighter for union right Andropov's men say this mir

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VLADIMIR Klebanov and Alexei Nikitin are both miners from the Donbas Coalfeld in the Soviet Ukraine.

They are are also very brave men - they have to be, because for several years now they have been hounded and persecuted by Ithe Soviet authorities for speaking out against violations of workers' rights in the Soviet Union.

Klebanov was also involved in the formation of a shortlived Free Trade Union, which pre-dated the emergence of Solidarity in Poland.

Both men are currently detained in Psychiatric hospitals: there is no evidence that either is mentally ill.

In 1958, Klebanov Who was a foreman began to take ap his fellow miners' complaints plaints against the mine-management at Makeyevka.

I demand correct wage payments and in particular, m end to the concealment of industrial injuries in official reports; the correct definition of invalid categories and proper compensation for miners who suffered injuries through the fault of management. I demanded • prosecution of the crimisals who steal valuable materials - men in important industrial and soviet posibions - an end to bribery, the incorrect allocation of the Lousing fund and so on. (For 10 years) I was the instigator of collective complaints 79218A ::75 ToE.

Ukrainian miner Vladimir Klebanov tried to build a Solidarnosc-type trade union in the USSR. John Cunningham, a Yorkshire miner, reports on his fate Klebanov and collected the workers' signatures.' In 1959 he had been suspended for 20 days and in 1961 he was reported to the KGB by the mine managestatus - due to eye dam- In 1962 his invalid damage at work - was rescinded. He took his complaints to Moscow and complained in person to the highest authority, despite the fact that his complaints were 'upheld' the persecution did not stop. rest: jailed for five years by the Polish mare peed in release him if he is prepared "'""=..» Jo. Get vour union to send 5m i ardon, demanding his release.

When Klebanov went to Moscow again in 1964 he was arrested in the reception room of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Court. He was committed to Kashchenko City Psychiatric Hospital and kept there for 20 days. • He was diagnosed as having a •..paranoid development of the personality" On his release he returned to the Ukraine.

Back at Makeyevka, Klebanov found he had been sacked on the pretext that he 'left work on his own initiative... They were now armed with the 'diagnosis' from Kashchenko as well. A period of 3 years unemployment followed and in 1965 the police tried to throw Klebanov and his family out of their flat '. ...but miners from where I worked prevented this arbitary act...

Klebanov fought for reinstatement and eventually he was given a job as a design engineer with the mine administration, having qualified himself by correspondence course.

Not much is actually known about what happened next but it appears that unrest caused by the adverse conditions and a new wage system exploded in September 1968. There were protests, possibly strikes, by the miners at Makeyevka and probably other mines as well. In the following months large numbers of Ukranian miners were 'transferred' to other mines in the Soviet Union, some being forced to work in such bad conditions that they quit. On September 12th Klebanov was arrested and charged with slandering the Soviet State.

In February of the following year he was sent to Dnepropetrovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital for compulsory treatment'.

"The psychiatrist's job was to beat out of my head what was socially dangerous ... as a tradu union organiser, I came out with criticisms of the management. This was "undermining their authority". This is what they try to cure people of here!' From this time until his discharge in 1973 Klebanov was kept in a succession of Psychiatric Hospitals and Prisons. Such was his isolation from "the rest of the world that his wife thought he was dead. As a protest against his arrest Klebanov went on hunger strike. The authorities replied by throwing him in an isolation cell: -"There was no glass in the window. It was damp. The cold rose up to my ears. The late September wind blew in. On the second day I was beaten ... by a Junior Lieutenant of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Security) who first shackled my hands and feet, then threw me on the ground and kicked me.' After 20 days on hunger strike he was shackled and force-fed by having a tube pushed down his nose. Finally he came off. hunger strike because no one knew about it.

Not much is known of how Klebanov was treated inside Dnepropetrovsk, but the soviet dissident, Leonid Plyusch spent some 4 years there, 1973-76, and he had this to say of his experience there:"Most of the inhabitants of Dnepropetrovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital are mentally deranged - murderers, rapists, hooligans. There are about 60 political prisoners, in general mentally healthy people :.. the horror of the madhouse gripped me from the start. In the ward there were more patients than beds. I was put as a 3rd person on 2 beds that had been pushed together. One man's tongue was lolling out, another man was rolling his eyes, a 3rd walked around unnaturally bent over. Some lay and groaned with pain - they had been given injections of sulphur* As they explained to me, they were being punished for bad behaviour.

Finally in June 1973 the compulsory treatment' ceased. He went home, but, they wouldn't give him work. he was "blacklisted'. All Soviet workers have to carry a 'labour book which contains a history of the individual's work record. The mine-management at Makeyevka had written in his 'Dismissed in connection with arrest' Repeated appeals to State and Party institutions finally got him partial financial compensation for his period of unemployment. If it was intended as a bribe then it fail*Actually Sulfazine - a preparation of purified sulphur mixed with Peach Oil. It has not been used in the West since the 1930s. It has no theraputic value wh tsoever and is used solely for punishment. ed for he carried on.

Over the years 1975-78 Klebanov met more and more people like himself, who had make the . long and costly trip to Moscow in an attempt to seek justice. For all these endIs savings were exhausted and they then had to make the long trek home with nothing gained. Many, because they could not obtain resdient's permits, slept in railway stations.

On one occasion, according to an eye witness, before the eyes of hundreds of citizens from various cities across the country, one petitioner, driven to despair, committed suicide' in the waiting room of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

Finally a band of petitioners, among them Klebanov, came together and began to act collectively:'We are Soviet citizens from various towns of the Soviet Union - united in bitterness. We have been sacked and left without means of livelihood •. i for speaking out against wasters of socialist property, poor working conditions, low pay, high rates of injury at work, speed up and increased output norms ... the only response we get to our requests is continuous persecuțion a dog would not have the kind of humiliation and derision that we have suffered.' Vladimir Klebanov . was prominent amongst these pe pen Letter 2 man tional Opinion' was addressed to the West signed by 8 people, a further 'Open Letter' (from which the above extract is taken) was issued on 18th September 1977, this time signed by 25 people. Copies were sent to the press of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU but they were never acknowledged or printed.

Finally on lst February 1978 an 'Appeal to the International labour Organisation and the Trade Unions in the West' was issued and signed by 43 people -members of the newly formed Free Trade Union Association Soviet Union Popmongst the signatories WAS Vladimir Klebanov who played a leading role in its formation. According to one source Klebanov originally intended the FTUA to be a miners union, but changed his mind when other people showed an interest. The other factor was that many of the signatories, by the very fact of being in MosANDROPOV Ter, les

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