THE STRUGGLE OF THE STATE SECURITY COMMITTEE UNDER THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR AGAINST UKRAINIAN DISSIDENTS AT LARGE DURING THE GENERAL POGROM OF 1972

Abstract

The aim of the article is a comprehensive and complex study of the struggle of the Committee for State Security (KGB) against Ukrainian dissidents at large during the large-scale wave of arrests in 1972. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, continuity, and historicism. The work uses methods of analysis and synthesis, problem-chronological, retrospective, typology, and comparison and collation of information from various sources. The scientific novelty is due to the introduction into scientific circulation of a set of little-known documents from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSA SSU), which allow us to reveal the course of the KGB's extrajudicial repressions against participants in the resistance movement at large in the midst of the general pogrom of Ukrainian dissidents. The author concludes that, along with the arrests of Ukrainian dissidents and their trials during 1972, the KGB organs actively exerted pressure on those representatives of the opposition who remained at large. Dissidents in the so-called "large zone" were under constant surveillance and supervision by intelligence informants. The pressure on representatives of the resistance movement especially intensified after the new first secretary of the republican party structure, V. Shcherbytsky, came to power in May 1972. The KGB's primary goal was to prevent open protests by dissidents, so special attention was paid to "preventive measures" during attempts to honor the memory of T. Shevchenko and the Sich Riflemen, after the political suicide of M. Hatala. The KGB targeted those circles of the Ukrainian intelligentsia that were considered the least loyal to the regime, in particular, writers, scientists, and journalists. During the summer and autumn of 1972, special services officers intensified the development of several dozen Ukrainian intellectuals, who most actively supported the arrested dissidents and allowed themselves to disagree with the regime's national policy. Numerous preventive interviews, searches, and administrative prosecutions were conducted among them.The repressive campaign of 1972 was accompanied by informational measures to discredit the dissident community, the main component of which was the publication of open letters of repentance.