Letter by RPK to the Anti-imperialist Camp
Following we publish a letter to the Anti-imperialist Camp by the Revolutionary Party of Communists, Russia on the situation of Russian political prisoners. We call upon all democratic and anti-imperialist forces to join the solidarity actions in support of the Russian political prisoners stated below.
To the International Chairman of the Anti-Imperialist Camp
Respected comrade!
For more than a year there have been kept in FSB (the Federal Service of Security) custody members of the Youth Communist League (Komsomol):
Nadezhda Raks (arrested on the 23rd of February 2000),
Tatiana Sokolova (arrested on the 3rd of March 2000),
Larisa Romanova (arrested on the 6th of March 2000),
Andrey Sokolov (arrested on the 20th of June 2000).
Yet before non-party activist Alexander Biriukov was arrested (on the 10th of July 1999), who adheres to the Communist views. This year (on the 2nd of March) an AKM (Vanguard of the Communist Youth) – Alexander Danilov was arrested. All of them are charged in an already standard way for illegal manufacturing and keeping of explosives and weapon as well as in terrorism.
Indeed the ruling bourgeois regime has unleashed repressions against the most dangerous part of society – the youth – for their Communist convictions, for their disagreement with the consequences of capitalist reform in the country, with the perspective for many of them to survive only at the expense of being involved in prostitution and becoming a hireling-killer or a bodyguard. The purpose of the repressions – to intimidate the youth, to prevent them from organizing for the struggle with the bourgeois regime. Even such an open apologists of the capitalist system as Egor Yakovlev (the editor of the Obshchaya Gazeta (the Common Newspaper) confessed, that left radicals are aquated to criminal bosses without any ground.
Under Putin the regime has strongly increased repressions against communists and Communist youth. It results in the increase of the number of persecuted people, in more cruel regime of their treatment in confinement under investigation, in using psychological and physical torture during investigation, in passing of too vigorous sentences upon them, that are inadequate to the degree of social danger of concrete actions of these charged (even if to admit, that they really made such actions). For instance, Andrey Sokolov was sentenced for 5,5 years imprisonment for a pistol and cartridges, which were put to him stealthily during his arrest. Alexander Biryukov was treated in yet more cruel way: he was qualified as psychologically ill”, a closed trial was held and he was sent for a treatment (read: crippling) to a psychic prison without any term at all. For a night explosion near the FSB office, which brought only some small damage, The FSB ascribed to the girls – members of the Komsomol such articles, that according to one of them they may be sentenced to an imprisonment lasting from 10 to 20 years. It is the prison-term, that even arrested Chechen field commanders, true organizers and performers of real terrorist acts and murders, were not honoured of.
This is in the main the situation with political prisoners – young communists in Russia. To their honour, they face these repressions, physical and moral sufferings staunchly and courageously, they did not fracture and did not give up to the FSB demands to slander themselves and to betray their comrades. It is clear from their letters addressed to the Committee, that they are not going to surrender and to repudiate from their Communist convictions, that they are ready to stand to the last in their struggle with the criminal regime, even if sentenced to long prison-terms.
The struggle for their liberation is organized by the Committee in Defence of Political Prisoners – Fighters for Socialism, created by the initiative of our Revolutionary Party of Communists (RPC) in the beginning of 1999. Representatives of 8 organizations cooperate in the committee: the RPC, the RCWP (Russian Communist Workers` Party), the ACPB (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), the RCP-CPSU (Russian Communist Party – the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), the CPU (Communist Party of the USSR), the RCyU(b) (Russian Communist Youth Union of Bolsheviks), the VCY (Vanguard of Communist Youth) and the MDC (Movement in Defence of Children). However, today the forces in the disposal of the Committee are absolutely insufficient to solve the problem of liberation of political prisoners. And here international support is of utmost importance. Therefore the Committee, to which your letter was reported, welcomes the readiness of the Anti-Imperialist Camp to help to the Russian Communist and, consequently, to the Communist youth.
We suggest to the participants of the Anti-Imperialist Camp the following:
– to make statements in protest against the repressions in respect of the Russian Communists and Communist Youth (it is willing, that the organizations, supporting the statement, must be indicated); to send it to the Russian President, and a copy to the Committee for control and publication in the Committee`s bulletin;
– to organize meetings of protest against the repressions of the above-mentioned political prisoners with the demands of their immediate release near the Russian embassies in your countries (we propose to hold them simultaneously with us on the 1st of August, i.e. three weeks before the end of yet another prolonged term of their confinement, that will increase our chance for success in the cause of their liberation). We would be most obliged, if you could manage to organize a collection of money for the fund of help to political prisoners and to send them to Russia.
We very much rely on the assistance of the Anti-Imperialist Camp in the cause of the struggle for the liberation of our comrades from captivity of our common class enemy.
A.V.Kryuchkov,
Chairman of the Political Council
of the Revolutionary Party of Communists
and of the Committee in Defence of Political Prisoners
21 June 2001.
Translated by Serguei A. Novikov.
