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Documents

September 20, 1968

Yu. Andropov to the CPSU CC

This memorandum from KGB Chairman Andropov to the CPSU Politburo follows up on the initial report from Andropov, Shchelokov, and Malyarov. The document highlights the “malevolent views” of the group that held an unauthorized demonstration in Red Square on 25 August 1968, singling out Pavel Litvinov, Larisa Bogoraz, Viktor Fainberg, and Vadim Delaunay for particular opprobrium. Andropov stresses that the KGB will intensify its crackdown on opposition figures who try to “spread defamatory information about Soviet reality.”

September 5, 1968

Yurii Andropov, Nikolai Shchelokov, and Mikhail Malyarov to the CPSU CC

This memorandum, signed by Yurii Andropov, the chairman of the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB); Nikolai Shchelokov, the Minister of Public Order (whose ministry was renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs in late November 1968); and Mikhail Molyarov, the Procurator of the USSR, was sent to the ruling Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) eleven days after the demonstration in Red Square against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. The document lays out the basic facts of the case as viewed by the KGB and the CPSU. The document mentions the names of the eight activists who were in Red Square as well as two who helped with planning but were not actually in Red Square, Inna Korkhova and Maiya Rusakovskaya. Natal’ya Gorbanevskaya, one of the eight, was detained but released because she had recently given birth. However, a year later she was arrested in connection with her involvement and sentenced to a harsh term in a psychiatric prison.

April 11, 1969

Report to CPSU Central Committee on Visit of Czech Delegation to Discuss Countering Enemy Propaganda in Czechoslovakia

This document indicates the continuing influence of German-language and other Western media in Czechoslovakia nine months after the Soviet invasion of August 1968. Czechoslovak officials criticized the heavy-handed Soviet broadcasts of Radio Vltava, and viewed other Soviet proposals to counter Western influence as counterproductive.

December 16, 1968

KGB report to Central Committee on Radio Liberty Policy guidelines

The KGB informs the Central Committee of RL policy guidelines concerning programs dealing with the USSR. While the first paragraph indicates “Free Europe,” the content of the note makes clear that Radio Liberty is meant. The original memorandum on which the note was based [a copy could not be located in the RFE/RL archives for comparison] was probably taken from Radio Liberty headquarters in Munich.

March 30, 1969

Letter, Soviet Deputy Head of the Department of the Central Committee P. Ivanshutin, on Czechoslovak Protests following Czechoslovak-Soviet Hockey Game

Letter describing anti-Soviet protests in Czechoslovakia following the defeat of the Soviets in the Ice Hockey World Championships.

November 5, 1968

Report Relayed by Andropov to the CPSU Central Committee, 'Students and the Events in Czechoslovakia'

KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov presents a secret, 33-page report to the CPSU Central Committee about the mood of Soviet college students. The report had been completed sometime before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and had been circulating within the KGB. It is not clear precisely who drafted the report, but Andropov’s cover memorandum and the report itself indicate that the author was a college student in Odessa who had recently finished his degree.