Vasyl LISOVYI
An Open Letter to the Deputies of the Councils of the Ukrainian SSR
(The letter was distributed in *samvydav* under the pseudonym Anton Koval.
It was first published in: *Suchasnist*, Year IX, No. 10, October 1969.)
Honorable Comrade Deputies of the Councils of the Ukrainian SSR!
“All power in the Ukrainian SSR belongs to the working people of town and country as represented by the Councils of Working People’s Deputies.”
(Article 3, “Constitution of the UkrSSR”)
The circumstances of our public life do not permit me to address you with a longer letter. But what is said here is so generally known, so obvious, that even in this brief account it should be understood.
The current Councils of the UkrSSR are ineffective; they decide almost nothing. The main reason for this is the existing parallelism of all governing bodies (party and state). Party organizations should fight for influence in the Councils, not replace them. To transform the Councils into organs of real power, into organs of popular self-government, is a great and honorable task for all deputies of the Councils of Working People of Soviet Ukraine.
The state of the economy, culture, science (especially the humanities), and art in the UkrSSR is so unsatisfactory that it requires all Councils (from the village to the Supreme Council) to seek solutions to at least the following issues:
In the field of economy:
1. At a session of the Supreme Council of the UkrSSR, to hear a candid report on the current economic situation of the UkrSSR and to take measures to increase the production of mass consumer goods (light industry, food industry, and other similar industries) and the means of production.
2. To carry out a radical economic reform, the main directions of which should be determined through the broadest possible discussion. This should include subordinating all enterprises of the national economy of Ukraine to the Government of the UkrSSR (currently, out of 33 industrial ministries in the UkrSSR, only 6 are fully under republican subordination, and these six ministries are quite secondary: automobile transport, road construction, communal services, local industry, consumer services, social security); implementing the distribution of the Republic’s national income by the Government of the UkrSSR (currently, about 50% of this income is used by the Council of Ministers of the USSR outside of Ukraine); introducing industrial self-government in enterprises.
3. To raise the wages of workers (currently, for 8 hours of labor, a worker is paid for only 3 hours, a collective farmer—for one hour).
4. To increase the wages of the main body of the intelligentsia (teachers, engineers, doctors, etc.) for greater opportunities for creative work.
5. To establish public deputy control over the distribution of the social product in the UkrSSR. To openly discuss the value of the aid provided by the UkrSSR to other republics of the USSR and foreign countries.
6. To not allow party positions to be paid from state funds.
7. To declassify the salaries of high state officials.
8. To achieve a significant reduction in the gap between the highest and lowest wages.
In the field of state and political life:
1. To adopt a new Constitution of the Republic, which would clearly define mechanisms that a) guarantee the Republic the status of a sovereign national state, in particular, by increasing the importance of contractual relations between the republics of the Union and transferring the current competencies of the union ministries of education, culture, and internal affairs to the respective republican bodies; b) guarantee popular representation through the democratization of elections (nomination of several candidates for one seat, broad discussion of them during the pre-election campaign); c) protect the Councils from the usurpation of their power by the bureaucracy.
To state in the new Constitution that the existence of different, equal parties does not contradict socialism, that this is one of the ways to realize freedom of political organization.
In the new Constitution, to also enact the following:
a) the creation of a Ministry of Defense of the UkrSSR, to which military units of the Armed Forces of the USSR, formed from the population of the Republic, would be subordinated;
b) to provide guarantees for the liberation of peasants from land dependence, to ensure the right of a peasant to voluntarily leave an agricultural artel with a land lease;
c) the creation of a Constitutional Court that would consider cases concerning the conformity of laws with the Constitution of the UkrSSR, as well as citizens’ complaints regarding violations of their rights and freedoms;
d) the Prosecutor General of the Republic to be elected by secret ballot at a session of the Supreme Council of the UkrSSR;
e) the early dismissal of judges to occur in a manner analogous to their nomination, that is, by general secret ballot;
f) decisions on laws and resolutions in all Councils (from village to Supreme) to be adopted by secret ballot in order to ensure free expression of will.
2. To conduct a nationwide discussion of the draft of the new Constitution and approve it by referendum (secret popular vote).
3. To create an institute of public opinion with a permanent printed organ.
4. To liquidate censorship (“Holovlit”), establishing responsibility only for the violation of specifically legally defined restrictions on freedom of speech (disclosure of military and state secrets, pornography, and the like).
5. To abolish laws that contradict the currently действующей Constitution (especially Articles 62 and 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR).
6. To release from camps and prisons all persons (thousands of whom are, in particular, in camps in the North, Siberia, and the Mordovian ASSR) deprived of their liberty for expressing and disseminating their political, philosophical, and religious beliefs.
7. To abolish the system of restricting the movement of the population (residence permits, etc.), to end social discrimination against peasants (first of all, at least by issuing them passports).
8. To not allow administrative persecution of students (expulsion from university, deprivation of scholarships or dormitory residence) for expressing and disseminating their views. To leave the right of administrative punishment of students only in case of poor academic performance. In all other cases, the measure of punishment should be determined by a general meeting of teachers and students (of a group, year, or faculty).
To recommend that student bodies create student courts of honor. To ensure the independence of these courts from the administration and public organizations of the university.
To guarantee students the free creation of literary, philosophical, cultural, and other circles and clubs.
9. To develop measures for the further democratization of university self-government (defining the competencies of university leadership, election of rectors by secret ballot with the participation of student delegates, etc.).
10. To deprive employees of state bodies and employees of political organizations of all “legalized” benefits and privileges, in particular, closed distributors of consumer goods, medical commissions, and other institutions that serve them exclusively.
11. To strengthen the responsibility before the law of employees of state bodies (including police and prosecutor’s office bodies) for actions that restrict the freedoms and rights of citizens, as well as for attempts to interfere in the activities of the court, etc.
12. To bring to justice the persons guilty of committing horrific crimes during the personality cult.
13. To dissolve the Committee for State Security (KGB) under the Council of Ministers of the UkrSSR, since the inertia that has developed in the activities of this body transforms it into a socially dangerous entity; the functions of the KGB related to combating foreign intelligence services should be transferred to the jurisdiction of the ministries of defense and internal affairs.
14. To prohibit state bodies from opening cases against citizens of the USSR for their political, philosophical views, statements, and the dissemination of these views.
In the field of culture:
1. To Ukrainize the educational and training institutions of the Republic (universities, technical schools, colleges, etc.), to ensure in practice that the paperwork of state institutions is conducted in the Ukrainian language (in the territories of national minorities—in the language of these minorities (It would have been more correct to say “and simultaneously also in the languages of national minorities” in the territories of their compact residence (this was an obvious error in my position at the time – V.L.).). In this connection, to restore the validity of the laws and government resolutions on Ukrainization from 1924–1928, which have never been officially repealed.
2. To abolish discriminatory measures concerning the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people (e.g., the ban on republishing the works of V. Vynnychenko, M. Khvylovy, M. Hrushevsky, and others; the distortion of the heritage of prominent cultural figures, e.g., the publication of the works of I. Franko, P. Kulish, and others, through their arbitrary selection, abridgment, censorship, etc.), including lifting the ban on the sale and distribution in the Dnipropetrovsk region of O. Honchar’s work “The Cathedral” and the recently published “Selected Works” of P. Kulish.
3. To actualize laws aimed against actions that hinder the development of the culture of national groups (Moldovans, Jews, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Greeks, etc.) that incite national and racial hostility (in particular, modern anti-Semitism—as an indicator of all chauvinism).
4. To abolish the existing unofficial instructions to limit the admission to universities of people from Western Ukraine (in the territory of Eastern Ukraine), as well as Jews.
5. To petition the Government of the RSFSR to grant the 5 million Ukrainians living on the territory of the RSFSR the same opportunities for national development (schools, theaters, press, etc.) that Russians have on the territory of the UkrSSR.
6. To pay special attention to fostering the national self-awareness of Ukrainians. Remembering that Ukrainization, carried out only by administrative measures, accumulates negative feelings.
7. To stop the persecution of Ukrainian cultural figures who have committed no state or social crimes and are subject to public restrictions (dismissal from work, deprivation of opportunities to publish, speak to the working people, etc.) only for their active public work in the interests of cultural development (there are hundreds of such people now, for example, Zinovia Franko, Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Ivan Svitlychny, Heorhiy Bachynsky, Viktor Bodnarchuk, Mykhailo Braichevsky, Ivan Dziuba, Mykhailo Osadchy, and others).
8. To achieve the full implementation of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR of December 1, 1917, “On the transfer of trophies to the Ukrainian people.”
9. Since the demographic situation in Ukraine is very alarming (the birth rate is one of the lowest in the world), to develop measures that would eliminate the trend toward population decline in the UkrSSR (undoubtedly, not at the expense of mass resettlement from other republics, a ban on abortions, or other similar methods).
These are the most important measures that, in my opinion, could heal our social organism. I do not claim here that they are perfectly formulated; I only wanted to put before you the obviously pressing problems so that you, in the course of subsequent discussion, might find their appropriate solution.
April 1969.
Respectfully, a citizen of the USSR, a voter,
Anton Koval