KGB report to Central Committee about uncovering and neutralising a “Club for Democracy” organized by high school students in the Krasnodar Region (2 pp). [R 19 March 1970, 699-A] Excerpt.

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[page one of two]

SECRET

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

19 March 1970, No. 699-A
Moscow

To the CPSU Central Committee

The KGB in the Krasnodar Region has uncovered an illegal “Club to Fight for Democracy” in the town of Tuapse. It is made up of 14 persons, for the most part school-children in the 8th and 9th classes of School No 3 [15-16-year-olds]. Seven of them are members of the Komsomol.

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[…] The participants have drawn up a programme and a constitution for the club, published hand-written magazines under the title “Democrat” and “Russian Contemporary” containing verse and articles written by members of the Club on the basis of reports by foreign radio stations. Each member has sworn an oath, has a pseudonym, a membership card, and has paid a subscription.

The Club’s programme envisaged the creation of a party of “democrats” and seizure of power when the members of that party grow up. Its immediate aim was the preparation and distribution of anti-Soviet documents and attraction of new participants to the organisation. Implementing this programme, […] in December 1969 the members wrote anti-Soviet texts in chalk on the asphalt and the fences in various parts of Tuapse to mark the 90th anniversary of Stalin’s birth. In February 1970 they prepared more than 40 leaflets, in the name of the “All-Russian Union of Democrats”, which called for the overthrow of the Soviet regime and the creation of illegal political organisations, and they distributed these texts in Tuapse.

All the participants of the “Club to Fight for Democracy” are juveniles. It was decided, therefore, not to charge them with criminal offences but limit the response to measures of a prophylactic nature. The Party Regional Committee supports this decision.

Chairman of the State Security Committee

[signed] Andropov

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NOTES

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, John Crowfoot