Democratic Union of Socialists

DEMOCRATIC UNION OF SOCIALISTS
Conceived as an underground political party, an alternative to the CPSU. It was active in the Odesa Oblast and the Moldavian SSR in 1964. The leader was a mathematics teacher, Mykola Fedorovych DRAGOSH. The organization included about 30 people, divided into “troikas.” Mykola Tarnavsky, who worked at a printing house, stole a font set, and in February 1964, the DUS set up an underground printing press in the village of Serpneve. They printed 1,500 copies of an “Appeal” in the form of a newspaper on behalf of the DUS, which criticized the policies of the CPSU and called for the creation of a democratic society. The newspaper was sent from various cities to other cities: Odesa, Chisinau, Sverdlovsk, Kyiv, Gorky, Chelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, and Leningrad. The organization was exposed on its very first operation: a student, Mykola Kucheryanu, gave his father in the village several copies of the “Appeal,” and his father mailed them to the local authorities. The arrests took place in mid-May 1964 (M. DRAGOSH on 05/16).
On 09/19/1964, the Supreme Court of the Moldavian SSR sentenced 6 individuals under Article 67, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the MSSR, Article 69 of the Criminal Code of the MSSR, and Article 81, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR: Dragosh, M.F. (b. 1932, Russian, son of a railway worker, higher education, a teacher from the village of Serpneve, Tarutyne Raion, Odesa Oblast), Tarnavsky, M.A. (b. 1940, Ukrainian, secondary pedagogical education, a carpenter, Kyiv, 7 years), Cherdyntsev, I.A. (b. 1938, Russian, incomplete higher education, a teacher, Odesa Oblast, 6.5 years), students of the Institute of Arts, Chisinau, Moldovans Postalaki, V.V. (b. 1934, 6 years), Chemyrtan, S.I. (b. 1942, 6 years), Kucheryanu, N.S. (b. 1941, 5 years – taken into custody in the courtroom).
In 2010, the acting President of Moldova, Mihai Ghimpu, opened the archives with materials on the persecution of dissidents, including the case of the DUS.

Compiled by Vasyl Ovsienko, 12/9/2010. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.