Human rights movement in the Soviet Union

In the 1960s a human rights movement began to emerge in the USSR. Those actively involved did not share a single set of beliefs. Some were "reform Communists" who thought it possible to change the Soviet system for the better. Others wanted a variety of civil rights — freedom of expression, of religious belief, of national self-determination. To some it was crucial to provide a truthful record of what was happening in the country, not the heavily censored version provided in official media outlets.

Gradually, under the pressure of official actions and responses these groups and interests coalesced in the dissident milieu. The fight for civil and human rights focused on issues of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom to emigrate, punitive psychiatry, and the plight of political prisoners. It was characterized by a new openness of dissent, a concern for legality, the rejection of any 'underground' and violent struggle.

Like other dissidents in the post-Stalin Soviet Union, human rights activists were subjected to a broad range of repressive measures. They received warnings from the police and the KGB; some lost their jobs, others were imprisoned or incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals; dissidents were sent into exile within the country or encouraged to emigrate.

The documentation of political repressions as well as citizens' reactions to them through samizdat (unsanctioned self-publishing) methods played a key role in the formation of the human rights movement. Dissidents collected and distributed transcripts, open letters and appeals relating to specific cases of political repressions.

The prototype for this type of writing was journalist Frida Vigdorova's record of the trial of poet Joseph Brodsky (convicted for "social parasitism" in early 1964). Similar documenting activity was taken up by dissidents in publications such as Alexander Ginzburg's White Book (1967, on the Sinyavsky-Daniel case) and Pavel Litvinov's The Trial of the Four (1968, on the Galanskov–Ginzburg case).

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