Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter PDF
Preview Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter
Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter By Arkady Polishchuk © 2018 DoppelHouse Press, Los Angeles Photographs and documents from the archives of Arkady Polishchuk, unless otherwise noted. COVER IMAGE: Arkady Polishchuk with background image of his clandestine publication Why a Physician Was Tried, written following the show trial of Dr. Mikhail Stern. Moscow, 1975. COVER DESIGN: Kourosh Biegpour TYPESETTING: Jody Zellen and Carrie Paterson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. PUBLISHER’S CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Polishchuk, Arkady, author. Title: Dancing on thin ice: travails of a Russian dissenter / Arkady Polishchuk. Description: Includes index. | Los Angeles, CA: DoppelHouse Press, 2018. Identifiers: ISBN 9780998777047 (ebook) | LCCN 2018937174 Subjects: LCSH Polishchuk, Arkady. | Dissenters--Soviet Union--Biography. | Journalists--Soviet Union-- Biography. | Journalists--Soviet Union--Social conditions. | Soviet Union--Politics and government. | Human rights workers--Soviet Union--Biography. | Freedom of religion--Soviet Union. | BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers | HISTORY / Russia & the Former Soviet Union Classification: LCC DK510.763 .P65 2018 | DDC 070.92--dc23 Dedicated to Soviet human rights activists Vladimir Bukovsky and Alexander (Alik) Ginsburg, both imprisoned and exchanged — Vladimir, for the first secretary of the Chilean communist party, Alexander, as one of five political prisoners exchanged for five Soviet spies The past is never dead. It’s not even past. William Faulkner CONTENTS PROLOGUE A Prison for Hedonists ONE The Cliff Edge Where It All Began TWO The Life of the Blind THREE How to Become an Expert on Africa FOUR What to Do If You Know Many Russian Spies FIVE My Good Friends in the KGB SIX The Struggle for Purity in the Party Ranks SEVEN On the Horns of a Dilemma EIGHT The Unpredictable World of Dissent NINE The First Trial, December 1974 TEN Different Courts Without a Difference ELEVEN The Sweet Taste of Freedom TWELVE More Dangerous Than Jews THIRTEEN A Jewish Invasion of the Communist Sanctum FOURTEEN How to Catch an American Spy FIFTEEN The Assault on the American Embassy SIXTEEN In the Cultist’s Lair SEVENTEEN Send-Offs of Various Kinds EIGHTEEN New Life, Old Stars NINETEEN Russian Jews, a Russian Tiger, and Some Other Russians TWENTY Phantoms of the Past in the Shadow of Skyscrapers TWENTY-ONE A Jew Who Spoke in Tongues TWENTY-TWO My Russian Habitat in California APPENDICES Photographs and Documents Index Author Biography Acknowledgments PROLOGUE A Prison For Hedonists L OOK, BOYS! A JEW! were the first words I heard after two policemen opened the cell door to bring me in. The jailers smirked and left me facing my cellmates. Thirty-five pairs of eyes looked at me. I knew that my first reaction would determine my upcoming treatment. “Oh, Yisrael, is that you?!” I cried into the dim light. “It feels so good to find a cousin among these Russian thugs!” Raucous laughter flooded the stinky cell. A shaggy guy, outraged to the depths of his Slavic soul that I dared to call him a Jew, was climbing down from the upper berth to punish me. I turned back toward the peephole and affably waved my hand to the guards. I knew they stood there, in anticipation. To my horror, another inmate crawled out of his roomy den under the lower berth. He flicked a speck of dust from his battered jacket and, with a lazy gesture, stopped the swearing cellmate halfway to me. After that he shook my hand. The word “mama” was tattooed on his fleshy fingers. The bold exclamation mark on his thumb pointed to his strong filial attachment. “Political?” “Yes,” I said, “but only in Russia. Name me a country where the wish to move to a warmer land is a crime.” My wiry guardian angel did not react and on the path back to his wooden platform said to his cellmate, “Crawl back into your fucking nest, Birdie.” Judging by the dignity with which he carried himself, my angel had a criminal record that inspired respect. Only he and three other men had the privilege of occupying platforms under the lower bunks. From the center of the cell, about one and a half yards from the bunks on either side, I could see their unshaven faces only when they wanted me to; mostly, I saw their dirty shoes.
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