Intentions of Crimean Tatars to appeal to the United Nations. A memorandum passed to the Central Committee by the KGB concerning Pyotr GRIGORENKO’s remarks [R: 10 June 1968, 1342-A]. One page.

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USSR Committee for State Security [KGB] at the USSR Council of Ministers

10 June 1968, No. 1342-A
Moscow

Secret

To the CPSU Central Committee

The Committee for State Security has received information from its sources that [Pyotr] GRIGORENKO, in conversation with one of his acquaintances, declared that the Crimean “autonomists” intended to prepare an appeal to the United Nations.

They would gather the signatures of 250,000 Tatars, appealing for support of their demands. Expressing approval for this action, GRIGORENKO said that it would have a “colossal impact”. The Committee for State Security is taking measures to prevent possible hostile acts by nationalist-minded individuals from among the Crimean Tatars and other anti-social elements.

KGB CHAIRMAN

[signature] ANDROPOV

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NOTES

[1]  The Crimean Tatars were expelled overnight from Crimea on 17-18 May 1944 and banished to  Uzbekistan and other parts of the USSR. Unlike others banished during the war they were not permitted to return after Stalin’s death.

Campaigning peacefully for a return to their homeland, they were extraordinarily well organised and courageous (e.g. their Moscow demonstration in 1969: A Chronicle of Current Events (CCE 8.5, 30 June). When the Chronicle resumed publication in 1974, it devoted an entire issue to their plight, CCE 31 (31 May 1974).

General

• 1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
• 2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
• 3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted in a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation, George Sklyar;

Annotation, John Crowfoot

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