Interview with F. P. Anadenko
V. V. Ovsienko: On May 12, 2000, in the city of Kyiv, we are conducting a conversation with Mr. Fred Anadenko. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko.
F. P. Anadenko: I, Fred (Friedrich) Pylypovych Anadenko, was born in 1937—the very same year that the repressions in the USSR were in full swing. But I learned about this later, from Khrushchev's report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. This report was read aloud in Party and Komsomol organizations under the strictest secrecy. We were forbidden to take any notes during the report; we were even forbidden to discuss the report among ourselves.
V. V. Ovsienko: Interesting!
F. P. Anadenko: But it made a very strong impression on me. I was such a devout Komsomol member, constantly serving on some committee or another: the class bureau, the company bureau... (At that time, I was already studying at the naval school in Pushkin, near Leningrad). It struck me deeply. But, on the other hand, it was reassuring that since this “cult of personality” had been debunked, everything should be fine from then on; we would continue on the path to communism, and that was very pleasant. I began to study what this communism we were heading toward was, and how quickly we would get there. I was 19 or 20 years old then. On my own—I emphasize—I familiarized myself with Engels’s work “Principles of Communism” in the school library. I had a more or less clear idea of communism, and I knew more than my comrades.
In 1959, I graduated from the Sevastopol Higher Naval School (in 1956, some of the cadets, including me, were transferred to Sevastopol). As a missile weapons engineer, I was assigned to the cosmodrome. A year later, in 1960, I found myself at the cosmodrome.
V. V. Ovsienko: Where at the cosmodrome?
F. P. Anadenko: At Baikonur.
F. P. Anadenko: A year later, I was hired there as a test engineer, and for ten years, I tested strategic missiles. Next to us, they were launching Gagarin into space. That was while I was there, in 1961. But I didn't take part in that—I was involved purely in military missile tests.
And then the second event happened: Khrushchev was removed. That was in 1964. And before that, he had visited us. He was suddenly removed, sometime in October, two weeks after he had been with us. It was unexpected for us. It was also unexpected for me because I thought the “cult of personality” was over. But here was the cult of the man who had debunked a cult... This time, we were not forbidden to discuss the event; on the contrary. Almost all of us were communists, members of the CPSU, and we were supposed to convene meetings and support this decision. That was the norm of party life. The discussion caused great concern among the party youth at the cosmodrome: what is happening? How can this be? We fought and fought against the cult—and ran into it again.
I went back to the books. I started studying what this “cult of personality” was. This question really got to me, as they say. I delved into the literature and saw that philosophy alone did not provide an answer. And I had already been working with philosophy before that, as I was preparing for my candidate's minimum exams. I had to study a foreign language and philosophy. I had a list of works I was supposed to study. I read them because I needed to for the exam, but also with interest; it captivated me. I realized that philosophy alone wouldn't be enough, so I sat down with history. During a business trip to Moscow, I bought the ten-volume *World History* and began to study it. That also came to me.
And then the second stage: I realized that I also needed to know economics because the root of any state structure, any community, lies in economics. It's a Marxist idea that the economy is the base, and ideology is the superstructure. I took up the study of economics, meaning I read Marx's *Capital*—the first, second, and third volumes. I reread it, and then again.
I had comrades. A trio of us like-minded people came together. There was Vladimir Volkov—he was ten years older than me, an experienced, wise man, and I was drawn to him. And my near-peer, Yevhen Spichak. The three of us would meet. How did we meet? We would ride to work, sit next to each other, and discuss all these issues. All three of us were deeply absorbed in this. On one hand, there was the theoretical foundation, and on the other, we discussed it all. And then I came to the conclusion that we did not have socialism in our country. What we had was a pseudo-socialism. I won't spend time on this now, as it is written about in my works; it's in the materials.
This went on not for a month or two, but for a year, two, three, four, until 1968 arrived. That was Czechoslovakia. At first, we were happy that a restructuring was happening, that there was hope to see socialism, as they said, with a human face. And then, perhaps, this system would be adopted in our country, and that would be good; we were happy about that. But the resolution of the Czechoslovak question, when democracy was crushed by tanks, was another step for me. I decided I could no longer remain in the army because if the army ordered me to go to Czechoslovakia, I wouldn't be able to shoot people, I wouldn't be able to crush democracy. I had to leave.
By that time, I was already convinced that ours was not a socialist revolution, but an ordinary bourgeois revolution. It has three steps, like any bourgeois revolution, and the third step is pseudo-democratic. This was the case with Robespierre in France and Cromwell in England, and Lenin also took a similar third, leftist step. Since it was a bourgeois revolution, all this “socialism” was bound to collapse. I'm skipping this whole “socialist” part now because I have it more or less substantiated from my point of view. The KGB also considered it well-founded, because they gave me the full punishment for this work.
Let's move on. I believed that this was not socialism, so by remaining in the party, I was being a hypocrite. Party membership was a very unpleasant yoke for me. I started to behave very openly, without revealing the main thing—that I didn't recognize this socialism as socialism, because that could lead to a very severe punishment; for that, one could be immediately thrown in prison. But I had an internal task—to write a book where I would explain why this was not real socialism, but a pseudo-socialism, and why the communists and my party were deceiving my own people. I already knew this. That is, I had discarded self-censorship. To the *partorg* [party organizer], when they were discussing the personal case of one of the guys (and the *partorg* himself was conducting the investigation), I said that people like him should absolutely not be allowed to work with people. Because he used such vile methods and rejoiced at what he had achieved. He operated on the principle that the ends justify the means. I believed that if the goals are noble, then the methods must also be noble. I told him this, and he held a grudge against me and started nitpicking. At that time, I was already considered in the department, in the directorate, as one of the people who knew Marxism very well. He gave me the task of preparing a report on the events taking place in China. But I said that it was in the press, in the newspapers, and that it didn't interest me. This led to a personal case against me for not fulfilling a party assignment. I behaved very sharply at the party meeting, said that it was a personal attack against me, and took a very drastic step—I walked out of the meeting. I left the meeting.
V. V. Ovsienko: When did this happen?
F. P. Anadenko: It was 1968, October, right after the events in Czechoslovakia. It was an unprecedented event for a communist to walk out of a party meeting. The matter escalated, and I was summoned to the party commission. There was such a district-level structure in the army, a party commission. I walked out of the party commission too, saying, “You are handling this case poorly. I do not agree with you. I'm leaving.”
V. V. Ovsienko: This commission was at the district committee level?
F. P. Anadenko: It was an army structure. In the army structure, instead of district committees, there are party commissions. They are at the division and army levels.
Our work was highly classified; everyone had to have a security clearance. It was renewed from time to time. The situation was such that my clearance would probably not be renewed, because I was no longer a party member for not-so-clear reasons: I wasn't an alcoholic, I didn't drink, I hadn't committed a crime. And why did I so freely agree to be expelled from the party?
V. V. Ovsienko: So that commission did expel you?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, it did. Back in October.
V. V. Ovsienko: And what was their reasoning in the document?
F. P. Anadenko: The reasoning was very interesting. There were four points. The main point was that I was not complying with the requirements of the Party Statute. I walked out of the meeting and thus violated the Statute. The second was disrespect for the collective. They were probably right, because I felt that in that matter, the guys were somehow losing their voices. They were all scared, but I already felt like a free man: if I wanted to, I would walk out of a meeting. The third issue was... I probably need to look it up; it's written down somewhere in my archives. The main things: violation of the Party Statute, disrespect for the collective, and some other trifles. But the four points looked solid.
What happened next was this. They told me, “What are we to do with you? You have an opportunity to leave the army.” This was very convenient for me. It was a very rare case, because it was very difficult to leave the army, very difficult. You either had to drink yourself into a stupor, lose your health, or do something, like not show up for work... Go through a court of honor, and only then could you be discharged from the army.
V. V. Ovsienko: What was your rank at that time?
F. P. Anadenko: I was a major. And my position was test engineer. I was delighted with this opportunity. They offered me a benefit, like severance pay, and guaranteed that in about three months I would get an apartment in any city I chose.
While all these matters were being processed, this and that, in March 1970, I arrived in Kyiv with my family. I came to my parents' place.
V. V. Ovsienko: So long—since 1968?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, yes, yes. The paperwork, the discharge from the army—it's a very long procedure. By that time, I had a wife and two children.
V. V. Ovsienko: Please name your wife and children.
F. P. Anadenko: My wife was Halyna Ivanivna. We got married in 1960. So I had been married for ten years. We had two children. Both daughters, the elder one—Ulyana, she was born in the year Gagarin was launched at the cosmodrome, 1961. The second daughter—Polina, born in 1964. So they were six and nine years old when we arrived in Kyiv.
In Kyiv, I tried to find a job in my specialty. There are several enterprises in Kyiv—the Korolev plant and others, where they make rockets and where I could have worked. But the fact that I had been expelled from the party—that was a stain, it was worse than if I had been a criminal. So I was forced to find a job where they didn't ask too many questions about whether I had been in the party. I ended up in the metro system. I worked in the metro for six years, then there was a conflict with the management, and I left. I worked for another six years at the technical paper factory in Kyiv. So for twelve years, I was working for my family, to feed them.
But in reality, I was constantly working on the book in which I had to explain why this was not socialism, but pseudo-socialism.
What did I lack during this time? I lacked a good consultant or reviewer. Because I was stewing in my own juices, and I needed an outside perspective to see where I was repeating myself, where I might be jumping from one thing to another. And I had such a person. I turned again to Vladimir Volkov—the man from our trio. He had already retired from the army, having served his 25 years, and was working in Moscow at the Ministry of Communications. He was a communications specialist. He gladly agreed because he too had not abandoned these thoughts and was keeping a political diary, where he also took a critical approach to the authorities. That is, from the point of view of the Soviet government, we were completely spoiled; we were already independent people. We looked at reality critically.
V. V. Ovsienko: And did he remain in the party?
F. P. Anadenko: He remained in the party.
Our correspondence began in 1980. I would send him several finished chapters, fragments of chapters, key points. I set myself the task of writing the book in simple language, so that it would be accessible to a worker, to a person without a higher education, so that it would be interesting, so that you would open it and it would “grab you,” like a detective story, until you finished it. And the foundation was indeed like a detective story: they were passing off something completely different as socialism, as the best system in the world. I was interested in how the book read with a fresh eye: was it clear, did I need to spell something out somewhere, to throw something out? And Vladimir would reply to me. We had such a lively correspondence.
And suddenly—suddenly for us—on April 2, 1982, my apartment was searched. On the same day and at the same time in the morning—at my place and at Volkov's. It later turned out that for those two years, or maybe for about a year, we had another reader—as you might guess, the KGB was reading our correspondence.
Then began the daily routine in the pre-trial detention center.
V. V. Ovsienko: You were arrested that same day?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes.
V. V. Ovsienko: Describe the circumstances of your arrest.
F. P. Anadenko: Their team was six men strong.
V. V. Ovsienko: Where were you living then?
F. P. Anadenko: In Rusanivka. Six men conducted the search. They knew what they were looking for. They didn't go beyond my desk. And in the desk was all our correspondence. They “seized,” as they say, Volkov's letters, my diaries, the manuscript of the book. Several chapters had been typed on a typewriter. My sister typed them, and she was the third person in the USSR whose apartment was also searched that day. She lived right here, in Rusanivka, nearby. Her name is Natalia Pylypivna. Her last name then was Fedotova. She typed the first chapters for me.
V. V. Ovsienko: What was your work called?
F. P. Anadenko: It was called “The Normal Course.” Meaning, there is a normal course in history and there are deviations. So, I wanted to show that ours was a deviation. But there is also a normal course. In time, what is now passed off as socialism, this stage of the bourgeois revolution, will end with a transition to the normal path.
V. V. Ovsienko: You said the search was unexpected. But you obviously listened to Radio Liberty and knew how many people had been imprisoned for similar cases, and you didn't even hide anything? Why did you act so carelessly?
F. P. Anadenko: You know, it was probably our inner mood or “nastroi,” our mindset. Volkov suggested that in our correspondence, for example, we call Lenin something like Ivanov. In other words, to use some kind of conspiracy. And at first, I put a pseudonym on the book. But as the correspondence went on—no, I will not be afraid. I had an episode back at the cosmodrome when they told me: “You keep speaking out—you'll speak your way into trouble! You'll speak your way into trouble! You speak out, you speak out, and they'll get you!...” I said: “No, guys, you have to speak out in a way that you're not afraid of the political department, not afraid of the KGB, not afraid of the *opers* [operations officers], but so that they are afraid of you.” That was my mindset, that I shouldn't be afraid of them, I should say what I consider most important. And, you know, there was no premonition that I was about to be arrested.
V. V. Ovsienko: There were no signs that they might come?
F. P. Anadenko: In principle, almost none. But still...
V. V. Ovsienko: Some people were summoned by the KGB, they had talks with them, issued warnings.
F. P. Anadenko: No, that didn't happen. They didn't summon me, didn't talk to me. From that point of view, it was unexpected. There was one moment: they came to the school, asked about my younger daughter when she was in the tenth grade, how she was studying. They called her to the principal's office, talked with her a bit. When she asked why they were talking to her, they said they were from the film studio (and she was a very beautiful girl): “Maybe we'll invite you to be in a movie.” But the principal let me know that they weren't from the film studio, but from the KGB. But that didn't worry me. That is, I didn't connect it with a possible arrest. Only later did I recall it… There were no warnings of any kind.
V. V. Ovsienko: And the search—how long did it last?
F. P. Anadenko: From the morning until about four o'clock.
V. V. Ovsienko: And they took you away?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes. They didn't tell me they were arresting me. They said, “Would you like to come with us to the directorate?” I asked, “What for?” “We're taking your literature, maybe we'll give it back to you and you can pick it up from there.” I went with them to Rosa Luxemburg Street. That was the regional KGB directorate. I said goodbye to my family because I knew I wouldn't be coming back. I had the Criminal Code, I looked up the article. The article—up to seven years for a first offense. And the way the investigator treated me—he was very indignant: “How can you say such things about Lenin, how can you say such things about the country?”
V. V. Ovsienko: And what was that investigator's last name?
F. P. Anadenko: The investigator was Bereza.
V. V. Ovsienko: Bereza! Oh, I know him!
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, Oleksandr Fedorovych Bereza. I wouldn't mention his last name, because he was just a bureaucrat. He wasn't the one who decided the matter.
V. V. Ovsienko: They had a search warrant, of course?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, a warrant, of course. Everything went by the book. They brought the literature, made a submission to the prosecutor's office, and the prosecutor's office issued a warrant for my detention for three days. When they detained me, they took me to the pre-trial detention center. And the detention center was at 33 Volodymyrska Street. Within three days, I was already formally arrested.
There were no special events here, except that it was here, at 33 Volodymyrska, that I came to the conclusion that a new party had to be created, that this one could no longer be fixed, although I had met many good, honest people among the communists. But it could no longer be fixed, because it was all stained and completely rotten.
They brought my friend Volkov here to Kyiv as well. He became my co-defendant. The investigator and I developed a very interesting relationship—this same Bereza. After two days, I refused to give any testimony. And that was it. I would come to the interrogations with a book (he allowed me to read), and he would spend three or four hours copying from my drafts into his case file. He was building the case, asking questions. He had to ask them—I would nod my head at him and continue reading. To avoid sitting there for three or four hours, I read books. I read a great deal. Although I was very struck by the fact that they didn't give us newspapers. For all that time, almost a year, I was without newspapers and without a radio. I knew no news.
V. V. Ovsienko: When I was there in 1973, they gave us a newspaper. But it was: read it and give it back.
F. P. Anadenko: Here, without newspapers, without a radio, without news, we were completely cut off from life. And that was very unpleasant. When I finally got to the zone and heard music from a loudspeaker, I barely moved away for almost a day: I could hear speech, and music, it was so pleasant. I realized how much a person needs music, needs some lively, vital sounds.
There was nothing interesting about the investigation; my treatment was more or less normal. The only—I don't want to say diversion, but deviation from the norm—was that they took me to a psychiatric hospital for a month for an evaluation: whether I was, so to speak... I myself requested that Bereza send me, because somewhere in my soul I was wondering what the verdict would be. If they declared me mentally ill in that hospital, it would be very upsetting... I really didn't want to end up in a psychiatric hospital. So I immediately suggested they find out if I was sane. Was I going to trial, or were they going to fix me with drugs? He sent me for an evaluation. It was livelier there; there were sixty people in the ward.
V. V. Ovsienko: Do you remember if there was a doctor there named Natalka Maksymivna Vynarska? Or Livshits?
F. P. Anadenko: Livshits was there. And there was another one—Pervomaisky, who was later killed by criminals. Pervomaisky was the head of the psychiatric commission. I went to the commission very composed, but I was hit with this question: “Tell me, please, do you consider yourself smarter than Marx?” And right there I started thinking quickly, what should I tell them? If you say the wrong thing, you're guaranteed a diagnosis of “delusions of grandeur.” I told them that time flows, and maybe I see further than Marx, but I feel like a mouse on an elephant's head. They really liked that, I gathered, and they wrote that I was sane. I avoided the danger.
V. V. Ovsienko: What month was this?
F. P. Anadenko: It was July 1982. And the trial took place in October at the Kyiv City Court. The two of us were tried together. The trial lasted ten days. But that included a Saturday and Sunday, so it was seven or eight working days.
Bereza said they would arrange a show trial, but they got scared. From beginning to end, I maintained that I was not guilty. I was conducting scientific research, and it's not my fault that the results are what they are. What can you do, those are the results. They may not like them, but I believe that they were obtained using the correct methodology.
They called my wife and daughters as witnesses. Both daughters were there. And Yevhen Spichak testified as a witness. And that was it. There were four or five witnesses. No one said that I was engaged in anti-Soviet activities, and they didn't press the issue that sharply. But the fact that they involved the family in this case—that was their vileness from beginning to end.
They gave me the maximum—seven years of imprisonment plus five of exile, and they took Volkov and me to different camps: I went to Mordovia, and he went to Perm. That's it.
V. V. Ovsienko: And when were you taken away, when did you arrive in Mordovia?
F. P. Anadenko: We left Kyiv on December 22, 1982. I remember that because I thought: if I leave while the days are getting shorter, that will be bad, but if I leave when the days start getting longer, that's good. And on December 22, the days started getting longer, slowly, but they were getting longer. I was in the zone on the 30th. Via Moscow, via Lefortovo. I also considered it an honor: I got to see Lefortovo. Solzhenitsyn and others had been there before. On December 30, I was already in the camp.
V. V. Ovsienko: They got you there quite quickly.
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, yes. I was eagerly awaiting the camp because I knew from experienced zeks that it was very good: fresh air, not just one hour a day, but you could be outside almost as much as you wanted. And people. Vasyl Striltsiv was already there, as were Yuriy Badzio, Yuriy Melnyk, Dmytro Mazur. Of course, they gave us a very warm welcome, gave us tea; they were waiting for news from the outside world from us. But they knew more than we did because they received newspapers. And later, Volodymyr Deledivko arrived. Then they brought Hryhoriy Kutsenko. There was Yevhen Antsupov, who later went to Germany. These people were, one might say, the backbone of this camp.
What would I note from the events in the camp? I would note that there was a certain solidarity of normal moral forces. And there was a wing that gravitated toward criminal behavior. This was some spy, Stepanov, an active spy, you know the term. They tried to introduce their criminal rules in the camp, and we fought back. What else? It is imperative to note the legal climate. A young guy came to us—Mykhailo Malinin. He is a lawyer by the grace of God. It was his essence. He ignited in all of us a love for the law. Why ignited? We had no love for the law, because we believed that the law served the regime, that there was no such thing as pure law. He proved to us that no, the law is the law. If we demand that the authorities comply with their own laws, it will be a terrible thing for them. I took up the study of the history of state and law, criminal law, and procedural law with great pleasure, and I believe I have a certain solid education in this. Over time, we began to demand compliance with the requirements of the code. We had the Criminal-Correctional (Ugolovno-Ispravitelny) Code regarding detention in camps. And we demanded that the camp administration adhere to these norms. We wrote complaints about our sentences, conducted correspondence. A very high threshold of legal climate was established in the camp.
There were three main categories of prisoners in the camp.
F. P. Anadenko: In terms of proportion, it was like this: when I arrived, there were about one hundred fifty—one hundred twenty prisoners, and forty of them were dissidents. The majority were former *politsai* [collaborationist police]. The third group was former OUN members and former Vlasovites. A man named Dubynka was there.
V. V. Ovsienko: An old and portly man, right? Walked with a cane? I knew him from the 19th zone.
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, yes. Dubynka. He was a village elder in Ukraine. He was arrested, and then there was an amnesty for all *politsai* who had not participated in punitive actions. Until his retirement, he wrote: “Yes, I was a village elder.” As soon as he retired, he was arrested and, based on falsified testimony, accused of participating in punitive actions. He told me the name (I wrote a complaint for him to the Supreme Court) of Chornomorets. This Chornomorets testified: “We carried out the shootings together. He was standing one man away from me. We were shooting Komsomol members.” At the trial, Dubynka asked: “If he was shooting, why aren't you trying him?” And the judge said, “That's none of your business.” In other words, Chornomorets's task was to slander the man. What was the KGB doing? There were no cases in the district or region, and here a man retired, he could no longer work—that's it, off to the camp with him. And they have a case. They'd write in the newspaper: “We found him after thirty years!” And he wasn't even hiding.
V. V. Ovsienko: “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten!” They had to maintain a climate of fear in society.
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, yes, yes. That is, they were working for themselves; it's a disgusting situation. We wrote complaints for these people, but no one ever answered them. But the main thing is that the camp gave me a legal education, sufficient in my understanding. Not with a diploma, but it gave me one.
Furthermore, we constantly held such seminars there. We would gather on Sundays, and whoever could would talk about themselves, about their knowledge. We had a psychologist there, Manilovich, a guy from Leningrad.
V. V. Ovsienko: And where was Malinin from?
F. P. Anadenko: Malinin was from Moscow. Malinin would later create the World Association of Political Prisoners in New York. The All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners, headed by Proniuk, would join this association as a collective member. He is a very active person, Mykhailo Malinin.
What else should be said about this camp? Badzio had a book, “Western Philosophy,” and I also read it with great pleasure. The book didn't even list its print run, as it was supposedly published only for some closed institutions. Badzio carried it with him and let people read it, and I am very grateful to him for introducing me to those philosophers who were not widely published in our country.
V. V. Ovsienko: There was a library there, and you also, obviously, ordered books through the “Book by Mail” service?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, we subscribed through “Book by Mail,” and there was a library. But I took almost nothing from the library because I was studying law and corresponding with various authorities, helping those old men who were imprisoned for the war.
V. V. Ovsienko: You know, if an outsider listens to what you're saying, they might think it was just a school! But you worked there, you gave eight hours to work, didn't you? You sewed work gloves?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, we sewed gloves.
But here's the thing. I wouldn't say we had a very harsh regime.
V. V. Ovsienko: Was your warden Major Aleksandrov?
F. P. Anadenko: No, we had two wardens change.
V. V. Ovsienko: Was Pyatachenko there?
F. P. Anadenko: No, no, no. The name of our warden is in Irina Ratushinskaya's memoirs. It's all there; she described everything very truthfully, so I don't need to talk about the regime.
V. V. Ovsienko: “Gray Is the Color of Hope.”
F. P. Anadenko: “Gray Is the Color of Hope.”
V. V. Ovsienko: That was camp ZhKh-385/3. The women's section was the 4th, the hospital the 3rd, and yours the 5th.
F. P. Anadenko: The fifth. And the women were behind a fence nearby. We had one master glove-sewer, Sinitsyn. He would bring us these gloves from the women's zone to turn inside out, and the women would pass us notes in them. There was a connection between us. We knew how many of them there were and what was happening there. Not a constant connection, but it existed. We knew how many were on the meal roster; there was a common payroll sheet, so we knew their last names. We would sign the sheet ourselves and see their last names, how many of them there were.
V. V. Ovsienko: And was the food cooked in your zone and transported there, or what?
F. P. Anadenko: You know, I don't remember that detail. I think they cooked for themselves. As for the regime, I'm saying it wasn't very harsh. We were given this freedom: if I met my quota—and my quota was to sew one hundred pairs of gloves—as soon as I sewed them, I could leave work.
V. V. Ovsienko: One hundred? Because when I sewed them in the seventeenth camp in 1976, it was eighty.
F. P. Anadenko: The quota was one hundred pairs of gloves, and as soon as I made it, I could leave work. I was good at it, and I would sew my quota by about lunchtime.
V. V. Ovsienko: You were a good craftsman!
F. P. Anadenko: Not right away, not right away. There were guys who sewed a hundred pairs between eight and eleven in the morning. There was a guy named Kapayan.
The majority there, about 80–90 men, were imprisoned for the war. They were old and very weak people. And us, the dissidents, there were about 40–30 of us. And up to 20 were spies. But what kind of spy was he? He was a pilot who landed in Armenia. Some small plane—a U-2, or something like that. He wanted to fly across the border. That was “treason to the Motherland,” and he was automatically classified as a spy. So this Kapayan would sew his quota by 12 o'clock—and then do whatever he wanted. I would be busy with this sewing until lunch, and after lunch, I would study with great pleasure.
The second privilege we had was that we could subscribe to anything we wanted without restrictions. People on the outside couldn't subscribe to just any publication because there were limits on “Rabotnitsa,” on “Ogoniok.” I subscribed to “Sportyvna Hazeta” from Kyiv. By the way, we subscribed to many journals. Some subscribed to one set of journals, others to another, and then we would exchange them. We were up to date on all the literary news and legal materials. Constantly following the literature and newspapers filled our daily lives. I read new newspapers every day. Besides that, there were seminars, exchanges of ideas. That's probably about all.
And there was another thing. In the zone, it's like this: you can say whatever you want about yourself, but as the guys say, show us your verdict. For some reason, my verdict was in the zone's special department; it wasn't given to me to hold. Most people had their verdicts on hand, but I didn't. And for a while, I was under suspicion—was I a real dissident? Then we found a solution. I could get my verdict to write a complaint. And so I did. I write a complaint. They bring me the verdict, lock me in a separate room. The room's window faced the yard. We arranged with the guys that I would pass them the verdict through the small window pane into the zone, they would read it there and return it. Everything was fine. The zone already knew that I wasn't pretending to be someone I wasn't. I wasn't Napoleon. For the zone, it was very important whether I had pleaded guilty or not.
We started holding hunger strikes every year: a hunger strike on Political Prisoner's Day, October 30—and they would throw all of us into cells. There weren't enough cells for everyone, so they would throw us into the BUR [punishment block]—four or five men at a time. I ended up there every time.
V. V. Ovsienko: And the punishment cell was right there, on your territory? Because when I was in Mordovia before, they would take us from the 3rd and 17th zones to the punishment cell in the 19th.
F. P. Anadenko: It was already here, on our territory. We had everything here. This was a camp for especially dangerous state criminals. It was an autonomous zone. It had its own everything, and its own hospital.
Mykhailo Kozachkov came to us from the “krytka” [high-security prison] in Chistopol. He brought a spirit of resistance, and they immediately started “pressuring” him. They threw him into the BUR for no reason. This was 1986, sometime in the fall they threw him in the BUR. We were already such a cohesive collective that we decided to declare a strike. We didn't go to work. Well, as always, some people went. By the way, Melnyk went to work, which was very unexpected for us. It was time for him to be released to exile. The fact is the fact. And Kozachkov declared a dry hunger strike and brought himself to a coma. On the fifth or sixth day, they were already administering fluids to him rectally. They gave him water with medicine. Of course, they tricked us. As soon as the strike was declared, they threw the two of us, the main instigators, into the BUR with him. Me, and there was a guy named Papayan from Armenia. He was a pure literary man; he wasn't a politician. He was arrested for having a book by Nabokov, or something like that, a forbidden book. He was conducting some kind of literary research. But he had a very developed sense of justice. Kozachkov was a very stoic person; they were simply “pressuring” him. I don't even remember what they picked on him for. But Kozachkov was a very experienced guy; he didn't give them any reason for provocations to get him locked up. So they threw us into the BUR and didn't keep us long. Usually, they kept people for 15 days, but they held us for two or three days and released us both. And the zone called off the strike.
Why did they release us after two or three days? Because just a month later, they released us to freedom. But they started preparing a case to send me to the “krytka.” In December 1986, I had a trial, and they locked me in the PKT [cell-type confinement].
V. V. Ovsienko: What district is that—Tengushevsky?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, Tengushevsky district court. That was it. I began to wait for transport and started learning Morse code, because in the “krytka” you can only communicate with Morse code. For the first month, they keep you alone in a cell in quarantine, and you can only communicate with Morse code. Kozachkov was next to me; he would tap out the Morse code for me. We learned it quickly—because there was a need. I've forgotten it now.
In February 1987, instead of taking me to the “krytka,” they took me to Kyiv.
One more point. In that same year, 1986, Genrikh Altunyan came to the zone. He would later become a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. He came from the “krytka” in Chistopol. He also cheered us up a bit. An experienced man, from the “krytka.”
V. V. Ovsienko: Did you know where they were taking you? Or did you think you were going to Chistopol?
F. P. Anadenko: No, here's the thing. We knew because they took us as a group. Altunyan was in this group. And they transferred me there. And they were already gathered, sitting with their things. I asked, “Guys, what happened?” Altunian said two words: “The Bolsheviks are caving!”
V. V. Ovsienko: Yes. In January-February 1987, their release campaign began: break them and let them go.
F. P. Anadenko: They already knew that Sakharov had been released from Gorky, that Gorbachev had organized it, that, as Gorbachev said, “the process has begun.” But this was still a guess. They brought us all to Moscow together, and from Moscow in different directions...
V. V. Ovsienko: Were you transported to Moscow in a regular prisoner transport? Because some were transported by special convoy.
F. P. Anadenko: A regular transport. And they brought me to Kyiv quite peacefully to this new detention center. And that was it. Here I had to write something. They called me in: a KGB representative came to the detention center.
V. V. Ovsienko: Do you remember his last name? Did you come across Honchar, Ilkiv?
F. P. Anadenko: No. He was a transitional figure. Not a high rank. He came and said that I needed to write that I wouldn't do it anymore, that I repented, and they would release me. And this conversation took place in the presence of my father. They invited my father, invited my sister Natalia; there were two of them. By the way, my wife divorced me two years later. That happened.
V. V. Ovsienko: Was she pressured?
F. P. Anadenko: No, no, no. Here's what happened. She believed in the unshakable power of the state, that I would serve my 7 years and another 5 years in exile, making it 12 years, that I would return after 12 years, and she was a woman, she needed to live.
V. V. Ovsienko: There was such a provision: if one of the spouses is imprisoned for three years or more, that is sufficient grounds to dissolve the marriage.
F. P. Anadenko: She used this provision; she divorced me without my consent, in my absence. We maintained no contact; I did not receive a single letter from her in the five years, or rather, the four years I was in Barashevo. That's how it was.
So there was this conversation. I said I needed to think. I wrote that I did not consider myself guilty and that in the meantime, nothing had happened to make me consider myself guilty. I still do not consider myself guilty. But I welcome the abolition of the institution of political prisoners. I pledge to abide by the law and will demand that the authorities also comply with this law. I wrote that. I know that Yuriy Badzio and Hryhoriy Kutsenko wrote nothing at all and refused to speak with them. I wrote it, but it turned out they didn't care at all what was written there.
V. V. Ovsienko: As long as there was a piece of paper.
F. P. Anadenko: Yes. You could curse the authorities all you wanted. What was important to them was that a person had appealed to them. They needed a piece of paper. Whether they read it or not. A month or a month and a half later, on March 16, 1987, two weeks short of five years, they released me. Here in Kyiv, I started looking for a job.
V. V. Ovsienko: How was this procedure formalized—as a pardon, right? Through the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet? As someone who had gotten “on the path to correction”?
F. P. Anadenko: I don't have that document. I have a certificate of release. The certificate states that I served from such-and-such a date to such-and-such a date. That's all. The reason for release is not there. Whether it was a pardon or completion of my term.
I quickly found a job. I didn't want to stay in Kyiv, so I went just outside Kyiv and worked in a construction brigade at the “Bortnychi” state farm.
V. V. Ovsienko: But where did you live? You lost your apartment. Or was there housing there?
F. P. Anadenko: I lived with my parents in Kyiv and worked in Bortnychi. I took a bus; it wasn't far, thirty minutes and I was at work.
I needed to get some clothes. Immediately after my release, I went to Moscow and established contacts. I met with Mykhailo Gefter, a dissident scholar. I met with my former campmate, Mykhailo Rivkin. He's now a rabbi in Israel. Through him, I met the guys who were in his case, and a few others. I got to know Sergei Grigoryants. He published the journal “Glasnost.” I constantly maintained contact with them, about what could be done and how. But in Kyiv, there was nothing yet. Kyiv was quiet. Then in the fall of 1987, the Ukrainian Culturological Club was formed on the initiative of Serhiy Naboka. I maintained contact with him, with Leonid Miliavskyi. At first, we gathered at the Miliavskyi's apartment on Solomianka. We met in apartments. And then we started to officially rent premises for meetings, for rallies.
V. V. Ovsienko: And then at Dmytro Fedoriv's place at 10 Olehivska Street?
F. P. Anadenko: Yes, yes. But I was at Olehivska only once or twice. But here I maintained close contact with the Ukrainian Culturological Club.
In May of the following year, 1988, the Democratic Union was formed in Moscow. I immediately supported it, familiarized myself with its charter. In the summer, I was on a business trip for almost three months on the coast of the Sea of Azov with my construction brigade. And in the fall, I joined the Democratic Union, went there for meetings and conferences, and fully immersed myself in the work of the Democratic Union. Then again in November, Volkov secured our rehabilitation; we were almost the first among all dissidents to be rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the USSR. The first three people: myself, Volkov, and another person from Sochi, I believe.
In the fall, I went to Moscow to receive the rehabilitation document and at the Kyiv railway station, I met Nina, who has now been my partner for ten years. Such an event.
With the rehabilitation, I was supposed to get my housing back, to be paid compensation—this took a year. It seems like everything is there, but you need this, and that, and that... A certificate, then this, then that. A year after the rehabilitation, Nina and I get this apartment, and with the compensation money, we buy furniture, because we have nothing. Everything you see: the refrigerator, the washing machine—all of this was bought with the rehabilitation money. We also manage to buy a used, battered car, because there's a limit on cars; they can't sell me a new one. So I got an apartment, received compensation, and with this compensation, I bought certain things, including a car.
As for the Democratic Union, I took an active part in it; my knowledge of law, Marxism, economics, and history elevated me to the point where I participated in drafting the Program of the Democratic Union. Alongside Novodvorskaya, alongside such theorists of the Democratic Union as Sergei Skripnikov, Aleksandr Lvovich, Kateryna Podoltseva (Saint Petersburg), and Vladimir Osipov (Moscow). The six of us wrote this program.
V. V. Ovsienko: Vladimir Osipov—the DU Program? But isn't he a monarchist?
F. P. Anadenko: No, no. This is a different Vladimir Osipov. It's good you reminded me—Oleksandr Osipov. He was from the Institute of National Problems; he dealt with nationality issues. The DU takes up a lot of my time. I constantly collaborate with the editorial office of the newspaper “Svobodnoye Slovo” [Free Word]—the organ of the Democratic Union, and participate in the party's congresses. The second congress was held in Riga, the third in Tallinn, the fourth in Kyiv. We held a DU party congress in Kyiv. That was in 1991.
The DU set itself the task of being an icebreaker's bow, to break the totalitarian system. The first point of the DU Program was to change the social system. Not the state, but the social system. That is, it was necessary to move to a multi-party system, to democracy, to the power of the people, to a multi-party system, to a free press, to freedom of speech, to freedom of trade unions, to freedom of assembly and the creation of public organizations. And I think that by 1992, the DU had done its job. We already had several parties in the country; we had more or less freedom of speech, at least at the level of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
And then 1991 struck. The USSR collapsed, and the DU, as a unit that united all these countries, lost its significance. Therefore, the work of the Kyiv organization of the DU ended; it was not renewed after the coup. I thought that now the main tasks were not political. The main thing was economic restructuring. That is, there needed to be private property, and then everything would follow its own path.
Then the national problems began. For me, general democratic norms have always been more important. In any country where I might live—whether here, or in Israel, or in America—I would always pay more attention to general democratic trends. I think that's my "thing." And when the Ukrainian national state was finally formed, an interest arose in who we are, what we are. I sat down with history. I started with Hrushevsky, took up Drahomanov, and created a map of Ukraine by centuries. Here are the Cimmerians, here—the Goths, here—the Huns, here are already the Sarmatians. And so I go century by century. Who lived in Ukraine, what about the Roman settlements in Crimea—I need to figure it out. I became interested in what relation I have to Ukraine. It turned out that on my mother's side, my great-grandfather was Ananiy Serdiuchenko. He was a pure “Zaporozhian from beyond the Danube.” When my grandmother was born, they lived in Izmail, in a Cossack settlement. So that's that line. Besides this Ukrainian blood, I also have Belarusian blood, and a little bit of Romani. A normal, healthy mix of all kinds of blood. But there is a Ukrainian thread.
Now I believe that my book, for which I was arrested, should no longer be published because a different kind of literature has emerged. There is no need to debunk that regime anymore, because living practice has taken over, not theory.
We created a small private firm called “Mediana”—an information agency. It still exists, but it's not active. We just file the paperwork. But we did work, and I felt firsthand how the authorities pressure and suppress private property. Our small firm was crushed by exorbitant taxes and bureaucracy, and we had to shut it down.
Now I collaborate with the International Society for Human Rights, I am a member of the Ukrainian Section, and I maintain constant contact with Frankfurt. By the way, just today, a transport with humanitarian aid for the poorest—for political prisoners—is on its way. This time we are providing for political prisoners and the repressed in the Cherkasy region. Not just dissidents, but also OUN members. It's their turn. Aid is also going to large families, to orphanages. This is ongoing work.
I collaborate with a sort of gray, semi-shadowy firm that distributes Ukrainian literature—newspapers, magazines—all over the world.
That's a brief summary about myself. My parents are no longer with us. My father, Pylyp Mykolayovych Anadenko, was a military man. He was sent to develop the Far East.
V. V. Ovsienko: And where was he from?
F. P. Anadenko: He was from Belarus.
V. V. Ovsienko: And his years of life?
F. P. Anadenko: He was born in 1907. We buried him in 1994. My mother was born in 1913. Oleksandra Avraamivna. Her maiden name was Bezuhla. My grandfather was from Kuban, an industrial fisherman. He was also sent in the thirties to the Far East to establish fishing industries. My father and mother met there. And I was born in the Far East.
V. V. Ovsienko: And where exactly?
F. P. Anadenko: De-Kastri Bay. It was discovered by a Spanish coastal explorer, hence the strange name.
V. V. Ovsienko: And which region does it administratively belong to?
F. P. Anadenko: It's Khabarovsk Krai.
V. V. Ovsienko: You said you were born in 1937, but you didn't name the date of birth?
F. P. Anadenko: June 29. This, one could say, is almost my entire path—the main events, as I see them. I am planning to jot down some memoirs, because there are other, less important moments, but also some very interesting ones—in terms of everyday life, and concerning prison and the camp, and concerning relations with the authorities.
V. V. Ovsienko: So you are only planning, but you haven't written anything yet?
F. P. Anadenko: Well, I have written something. The Americans asked for three pages, so I wrote them. But taking into account that it would be read not by our people, but by Americans. So if you say “1937,” you have to explain that it was a time of mass arrests, that any person, from a marshal to a worker, could be turned into an “enemy of the people” without any grounds, that for picking up ears of grain on a collective farm field, a child could get ten years. That when a telegram came from Moscow: there are ten spies in your district, find them. And they are found and shot. People need to know what kind of time that was. Tell me what was happening in America in 1937—we don't know. We know that in 1933 there was a worldwide crisis.
V. V. Ovsienko: And have there been any autobiographical publications anywhere?
F. P. Anadenko: There haven't been any autobiographical ones. But the journal “Ogoniok” No. 4 for 1989 published an article about Volkov and me, “Time for Reflection”—three stories about dissidents. It talks about Aleksandr Bolonkin. The newspaper “Nedelya” No. 32 for 1988. And here, the deputy chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Filatov, talks about our rehabilitation. This was the first legal rehabilitation of dissidents in the USSR. Before that, they exchanged Natan Sharansky for someone. Here, they talk about us. It's a small article.
V. V. Ovsienko: “On the rehabilitation of September 27, 1987. Plenum of the Supreme Court.” This should be copied.
F. P. Anadenko: Please. “Nedelya,” No. 52—this is the verdict: “Approximately in 1980, in the content of this lampoon, in a document titled No. 9 ‘When Everything is Impossible,’ Anadenko denies the fact of the construction of socialism in the USSR, attempts to substantiate the impossibility of socialist transformations in the modern world, and thereby to undermine the authority of the communist movement. In this connection, he writes: ‘The more countries embark on the path of socialism, the more numerous the communist parties become, the deeper the crisis of the communist movement.’ Defining the goals of his hostile activity, he sets himself the task of theoretically proving that the current communist movement is supposedly a pseudo-socialism. He further insists on the absence of democratic freedoms in the USSR, compares the Soviet state to a fascist one, and predicts its demise, stating: ‘The monstrous mixture of a fascist attitude toward human rights, commodity production, and communist phraseology that prevails in the USSR will not be able to last long.’”
The court substantiates the intent to undermine Soviet power with a single sentence: “As is evident from the materials of the manuscript drafts.” During the rehabilitation, the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR uses the very same phrase: “He had no intent, as is evident from the materials of the manuscript.” So, if there had been a third turn of events, they would have tried me again, and the phrase would have been the same: “As is evident from the materials...”
Thank you. I'm giving you this, this...
V. V. Ovsienko: Good, I'll copy it.
This was Fred Anadenko. May 12, 2000. Recorded by Vasyl Ovsienko.
Recorded on 05.12.2000. Edited 02.12-13.2007. Corrections by F. Anadenko 07.04.2007.