Yuri Galanskov

A Russian and Soviet poet. A participant in informal poetry readings on Mayakovsky Square in Moscow in 1959–1961. A dissident.

A defendant in the court case known as the ‘Trial of the Four.’ Arrested in January 1967, he was accused of assisting in the preparation of the collection The White Book (about the trial of A. Sinyavsky and Yu. Daniel) and of compiling the poetic samizdat almanac Phoenix. In January 1968 he was sentenced to seven years in labor camps. In November 1972 he died in a camp hospital from the consequences of a failed operation.

1960s

Dissidents Poets Trial of the Four

Reading time: 4 minutes.

The final statement

‘I do not at present see any reason to prove my innocence with regard to the charges brought against me, since the greater part of them are absolutely unfounded and do not correspond to reality.’

I want to begin my final statement by declaring that with regard to the part of the indictment concerning Article 88, Part One of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, I do not consider myself guilty.

There exists a tape recording of my conversation with the investigator. During this conversation I corrected the investigator when he said that I had sold dollars. I told him then, and I maintain now, that I wanted not to sell but to exchange dollars by official means. Incidentally, the testimony of both Entin and Borisova states that I personally had no need whatsoever to exchange dollars—Entin himself suggested that I do so. Since I did not spend the money obtained from the exchange, not even fifteen kopecks on a bun for myself, but handed it all over to Dobrovolsky, I do not consider myself guilty under Article 88.

With regard to the charge under Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, concerning connections with the anti-Soviet émigré organization NTS, I also do not consider myself guilty. Neither my testimony nor that of Dobrovolsky, on which this charge is based, in any way indicates that I am guilty of this. I thought so then, and I will continue to think so.

The prosecution has presented here much valuable and previously unknown information about the NTS. I understand that for the KGB authorities this information is of great interest. It was also interesting for me to hear all this. But, in my opinion, the first part of the prosecutor’s speech, devoted to the examination of this issue, has no substantial relation to the case and, I hope, is not capable of significantly influencing the court’s decision.

I have been charged with an accusation that is threatening in its socio-political scope. But it is difficult to intimidate me.

Indeed, my name has been known in the West for a long time. I am known as a poet, and also in connection with my demonstration at the American embassy concerning U.S. aggression in the Dominican Republic. But, first, I am not vain and never sought this notoriety, and second, this fact in itself does not testify to any connections whatsoever with any foreign anti-Soviet organization.

It is difficult to intimidate me because legal norms in our country are intensively acquiring their rightful character. The Marxist potential of the Party is increasingly being restored. The October Revolution, having endured, like any other revolution, a period of dictatorship, proved strong enough not to be defeated by that period and to preserve its revolutionary proletarian essence.

As for the purely legal aspects of the case, life and the investigation have taught me to distribute my forces correctly. I do not now see any reason to prove my innocence with regard to the charges brought against me, since most of them are absolutely unfounded and do not correspond to reality. I call upon the court to exercise restraint in its decisions concerning Dobrovolsky, myself, and Lashkova. As for Ginzburg, his innocence is so obvious that the court’s decision on this matter cannot raise any doubts.

In conclusion, I would like to speak about the social issues addressed by the journal Phoenix. Initially, Phoenix was conceived by me as a pacifist journal, and the decisive role in the subsequent change of my intentions was played by the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel.

In the materials that I asked to be attached to the case, my point of view regarding the course of that trial is presented. I asked that they be forwarded to the Central Committee of the CPSU and to the Ideological Commission. I think that the above-mentioned organizations will take an interest in these materials and that this will have a certain influence on the future fate of Sinyavsky and Daniel.

I believe that a review of this case will play a major role in proving that the moral potential of socialism is enormous.

12 January 1968

Moscow City Court, Moscow, USSR.

Source: ‘My final statement: Speeches of the Defendants at Court Trials of 1966–1974’.