The Jurists' Group or Lukyanenko's Group or
The "Ukrainian Workers' And Peasants' Union"
Ukrainska Rolbitnycho-Selyanska Spilka--URSS

"The Jurists' Group"
Part Of An Article Written In 1977

"From the material and information available to the west about the existence of dissident groups in Ukraine during the last 15 years, the most remarkable may have been the so-called Jurists' Group, also known as Lukyanenko's group or the "Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Union" (Ukrainska Robitnycho-Selyanska Spilka--URSS). This group had an elaborate program which offers some insight into the aspirations of the young Ukrainian generation of the 1960's."

"The group itself was very small; it apparently had only seven members. Its program was principally prepared by Lev Lukyanenko, a graduate of the Moscow State Lenin University and a jurist by profession. In its original form the program included a demand for the secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the Soviet Union, accompanied by reasons for such a demand. The authors of the program gave as their ultimate objective the securing of independence for Ukraine. In their own words:

            'We are struggling for an independent Ukraine such that, while providing
             to a high degreed for the material and spiritual needs of her citizens on the              basis of a socialized economy, she would develop towards Communism;              and, secondly, (a Ukraine) in which all citizens would truly enjoy their              political freedoms in determining the direction of the economic and political              development of Ukraine--such is the ultimate purpose of the party.' (5)

Ivan Kandyba, as a leading member of this group and also a jurist by profession, explains:

            'Given the situation in Ukraine, it was concluded that, within the USSR,             Ukraine lacked the opportunity for normal political , economic, and cultural             development, that, in certain respects, her position was made worse now             than it had been under the Czarist regime, and that she actually was a             colony of Moscow or, at best, had only cultural autonomy" (6)

"Lev Lukyanenko himself provided the following information in a letter to Soviet Procurator-General R. A. Rudenko:

            'At the time I drafted the UWPU program (in the second half of 1959) I             regarded the independence of the Ukrainian Republic as the chief             requirement of the improvement of the living standards of the population of             the Ukrainian SSR. Neither I nor my comrades, however, considered             imposing our will on the people, and we, therefore, saw our task as             consisting only of agitation, which we intended to carry on until such time             as the secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR could be put for             decision before the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR or to the citizens             of the Ukrainian SSR by referendum.'

"Later, however, Lukyanenko and members of his group came to the conclusion that is was not the independence of the Ukrainian SSR that was essential for the improvement of the life of the people, but the liquidation of bureaucratism. According to Lukyanenko, this was to be achieved by widening the 'scope' of socialist democracy. As a result of this change the group rejected the original draft of the program which aimed at Ukraine's secession from the USSR. Lukanenko stated:

           'We rejected the incorrect description of the Ukrainian SSR as a colony;
            we rejected the idea of secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR as             the ultimate aim, etc. By May 1960, when Libovych introduced me to             Koltun, the idea of separating the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR was no             longer mentioned in any form." (7)

"In the same letter Lukyanenko explained in detail his point of view, emphasizing that 'we had no intention of combating the Soviet regime.' At the same time, however, he had developed a new goal for his group:

          'We regarded it as our duty to combat bureaucratism and the illegal            limitations on the democratic freedoms of the population; we described            these limitations as a yoke and promised to remove them. I thought that a            limitation such as, for example, collective farmers being prohibited from            moving to a different locality without the permission of the collective farm            administration contravened....the fundamental law of the republic." (8)

"As regards the social order of the USSR and Ukraine, Lukyanenko and his group advocated "a socialist economy at the present and a Communist one in the future."

Notwithstanding the fact that Lukyanenko and his group subsequently disavowed the idea of secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR, they continued to defend the legality of invoking a Union Republic's right to secede from the USSR, 'stating that this 'could not not be a crime, no more than Soviet law could be
anti-Soviet." (9)

All these statements by Lukyanenko were for the most part, supported by the other defendants in the Jurist's case, especially by Ivan Kandyba in his letter to Peter Shelest, first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In it, Kandyba heaped scorn on the 'rabid great-power Russian chauvinists and their Russified Ukrainian henchmen' who completely disregarded Soviet laws and flagrantly violated the rights of the Ukrainian people and those of the Ukrainian SSR as ' a sovereign state." (10) He even likened the policy of the Soviet regime to the colonial policy of Czarist Russia:

           "Our Fatherland is Ukraine, so if we have betrayed it, why are we not
            kept in Ukraine to be educated and re-educated by the Ukrainian people?             Perhaps Soviet Ukraine is not the (real) Ukraine, perhaps the rights granted             to citizens of Soviet Ukraine in accordance with its Constitution are not
            real rights, (but) rights which cannot be used in practice? And if anyone             should dare to take advantage of a right such as, for example, that of             Ukraine to secede from the USSR, he pays heavily for his intention of             putting this right into practice--he and other such people are immediately             labeled as traitors for many long years." (11)

"Lukyanenko later wrote to D. S. Korotchenko, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, refuting all the KGB charges, and stating that all of his activities were clearly within the framework of Soviet law. He again defended the right of the Ukrainian SSR to secede from the USSR:

            'Ukraine has the right to secede from the Union; a citizen of the Republic             has the right to a agitate for secession. ...The persecution of people who             wish to exercise the constitutional right of secession runs counter to             Marxist theory, which has always included the right of nations to their             self-determination. The right of nations to self- determination has always             been an integral part of the Program of the CPSU. And, if an individual is a             Communist in actual practice and not just a matter of form, he cannot             oppose the Ukrainian nation's right to self- determination." (12)

"However, Lukyanenko writes, the Soviet reality does not resemble its Constitution. Quoting a resolution of the Second Soviet Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Conference in Baku, he states that that resolution is "a real hymn to democracy and national independence!" But he adds:

            '...what is this hymn worth when Soviet prisons and camps also hold             fighters who have been imprisoned for struggling for independence and for             spreading democratic freedoms; when chauvinists persecute the fighters             for independence of Ukraine in the cruelest way and, in order to sap the             revival of the 'independence' idea at its roots, try to destroy the Ukrainian             nation's consciousness of history...leaving it to feel parentless.'

His letter to Korotchenko concludes with this appeal:

            'If you, Citizen Korotchenkok, together with the Russian chauvinists, do
            not want to serve as an obstacle on the road to development of the             Ukrainian  nation (you must) take steps to restore the rule of law in             Ukraine.' (13)

"The Defense of the Sovereignty of the Ukrainian SSR

The writings of Lukanenko and Kandyba have been quoted at length because their political philosophy and the literary output of the 'shestydesiatnyky' not only heralded the basic ideas of the Ukrainian dissidents of the later period (i.e. the second half of the 1960's), but also fixed the main ideological lines of 'defense' and 'attack' in the struggle against Russian imperialism and chauvinism. Later dissidents, particularly Ivan Dzyuba in his work, 'Internationalism or Russification?', further developed and refined these concepts."

(Footnote..As a footnote to this article written in 1977 is says, "Both Kandyba and Lev Lykyanenko have been recently released.")

Quotes (5, p. 60), (6, p. 59), (10, p. 64, 70), and (11, p. 69) I. Kandyba, "To The First Secretary of the CCCPU, Peter Yukhymovych Shelest." 'Ferment in te Ukraine: Documents by V. Chornovil, I. Kandyba, L. Lukyanenko, V. Moroz and others. Translated from the Ukrainian (Woodhaven, N.Y., Crisis Press, 1973)

Quotes (7, p. 37-38), (8, p. 39), (9, p. 42) L. Lukyanenko, "To the Procurator-General of the USSR, Councillor of Jurisprudence Rudenko," Ferment in the Ukraine

Quotes (12, p. 90), (13, p. 91) L. Lukyanenko, "To the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, D. S. Korotchenko," Ferment in the Ukraine

"Dissent In Contemporary Ukraine And The Idea Of
Secession of the Ukrainian SSR from the Soviet Union"
Article by Michael Sosnowsky (pages 131-144) in
"Ukraine In A Changing World"
Papers Presented at the Conference Dedicated To The
30th Anniversary of the Founding of The Ukrainian Quarterly
Walter Dushnyck, Ph.D., Editor
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
New York, New York, 1977