A student, and member of an underground workers’ organization.
His father, Hnat Hnatovych, fought in the Winter War and throughout the Second World War, which he finished in Manchuria in 1945. He returned in good health and worked as a driver. His mother, a kolkhoz worker, kept her children safe during the German occupation (Oleksiy was the third of four).
From 1947 to 1957, Oleksiy attended secondary school. After failing to get into the Dnipropetrovsk Mining Institute due to competition, he worked on a kolkhoz. In 1959, he enrolled in the Melitopol College of Agriculture and Mechanization. He was a good student but suffered from financial hardship, forcing him to earn money by unloading railcars. He listened to Radio Liberty and the BBC, and even then, he was critical of Soviet reality.
In his fourth year, Vorobyov befriended a fellow student, Volodymyr Chernyshov (b. 1939), who often initiated conversations about how things were not right in the USSR concerning the rights of workers and peasants. Later, Chernyshov invited Vorobyov to join the “Russian Workers’ and Peasants’ Organization,” which was founded in April 1961. Between September 1960 and March 1961, the young men who would later form the organization had already posted 127 leaflets and two posters in Melitopol calling on workers to fight for their rights: “Worker! You build, sow, and feed the whole of society with your labor. Why then do you yourself live in poverty? You earn your bread with your own sweat and blood. How long will you tolerate poverty and lack of rights? Is this the life the working class wanted to win in 1917? What awaits you tomorrow?!”
Vorobyov agreed to join this underground organization and was given the conspiratorial pseudonym “Hryshyn.” He knew only a few of its members, as the organization maintained strict secrecy, with members organized into cells of three, all operating under pseudonyms.
The organization produced printing plates and used them to print leaflets, mostly about the difficult economic situation of workers, with calls to fight for the rights of working people. They posted them in Melitopol, and later in Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas region. The organization was active for about 1.5 years.
The KGB uncovered the organization in the spring of 1962. The first to be arrested were its leaders, Valentyn Rynkovenko (b. 1940, Russian, 10 years of education, electrician) and Yuriy Pokrasenko (b. 1940, Ukrainian, 10 years of education, worker, disabled). The young underground members lacked experience and the necessary fortitude, so other members of the organization were also arrested, including, on April 13, 1962, fifth-year students V. Chernyshov and O. Vorobyov. A total of 6 young men were arrested (in addition to those named: Volodymyr Savchenko, b. 1942, Ukrainian, 9 years of education, worker; and Borys Nadtoka, b. 1941, Ukrainian, 10 years of education, driller), while several other young men served as witnesses. All of them were formally members of the Komsomol. The charges were “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,” under Article 62, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR; and “anti-Soviet organization” (Article 64). Since a dagger was confiscated from Vorobyov, pistols from others, and one student in Moscow was preparing explosives, they were also charged under Article 222, Part 2 (“manufacturing and possession of weapons”).
The investigation was conducted in Zaporizhzhia. On July 16, 1962, the regional court delivered the verdict: Y. Pokrasenko, V. Rynkovenko, and V. Savchenko received 6 years in strict-regime camps; O. Vorobyov and V. Chernyshov received 4.5 years; and B. Nadtoka received 3 years. By a ruling of the judicial collegium of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR on August 21, 1962, the conviction under Article 64 was removed from Vorobyov's verdict.
By October 1962, Vorobyov was already in camp No. 7 in Mordovia. This was a period of a relatively liberal regime. To broaden his knowledge, Vorobyov took an interest in his surroundings, particularly Vlasovites, UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) soldiers, and read literature. He was the captain of the “Dnipro” football team.
He was released on October 13, 1966.
By a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated January 31, 1992, the judicial decision regarding Vorobyov's conviction under Article 62 was annulled due to the absence of a crime, and he was rehabilitated in accordance with the Law of the Ukrainian SSR “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression in Ukraine” of April 17, 1991. However, the conviction under Article 222 (for 1 year) remains in force.
He lives in Dnipropetrovsk.
Bibliography:
O. Vorobyov. “Krotenka moya biohrafiya” [My Short Biography]. Manuscript. May 30, 2001.
5810. Nadzornye proizvodstva Prokuratury SSSR po delam ob antisovetskoy agitatsii i propagande. Mart 1953–1991. Annotirovannyy katalog [Supervisory Proceedings of the USSR Prosecutor's Office in Cases of Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda. March 1953–1991. An Annotated Catalog]. Edited by V.A. Kozlov and S.V. Mironenko; compiled by O.V. Edelman. Moscow: International Foundation “Democracy,” 1999. (Russia. XX Century. Documents). – P. 575.
May 25, 2008, Vasyl Ovsiyenko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
VOROBIOV OLEKSIJ HNATOVYCH