Soviet Union: Limited Leniency

OUTSIDE the Soviet Supreme Court building in Moscow last week, a passer-by sneered, "You bunch of yids!" at a handful of people who stood shivering in the snow. One of the group, Esfir Mostkova, told Western newsmen that she had been vainly seeking permission to go to Israel since 1948. As police began hauling her off for "talking to foreigners," she shouted a few final words to the newsmen, explaining that she has cancer and wants to see her son in Israel before she dies.

Esfir Mostkova and the rest of the desolate little group in Moscow were waiting to hear the court's ruling on the appeals of eleven Soviet citizens--nine of them Jews--who also wanted desperately to go to Israel. They were convicted in Leningrad on Christmas Eve of plotting to hijack a Soviet airliner. Two of the Jews were sentenced to death, and seven others, along with the two Gentiles, drew sentences of up to 15 years.

Incomprehensible Verdict. The harsh sentences were interpreted by many as an attempt to intimidate Russia's 3,000,000 Jews, particularly the estimated 40,000 who have vainly applied to emigrate to Israel. Chiefs of state and religious leaders of every persuasion in the West publicly pleaded for mercy for the eleven. Protest demonstrations were held in most major cities in the U.S. and Europe. Pope Paul VI, in an obvious allusion to both the Leningrad and Burgos trials, deplored "certain judicial proceedings" that "contribute to a sense of anxiety, lamentation and uneasiness in the world." In Washington, Secretary of State William Rogers personally wrote to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko urging clemency, and the Senate unanimously passed a resolution expressing grave concern about injustices to Soviet Jews. Most European governments made appeals through diplomatic channels.

Israel appeared seized by grief over the fate of the Leningrad eleven, and by fear of far wider repercussions for all Soviet Jewry. Tens of thousands came to weep at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, and, at 10:30 a.m. one day last week, the nation stood in silent prayer as air-raid sirens sounded for two electrifying minutes. On Israeli radio. Premier Golda Meir, in a low, emotion-choked voice, charged that "the present Russian regime is continuing in the tradition of murdering innocent Jews that was common in Czarist Russia."

Most Western Communist parties also registered shock. L'Unitd, official newspaper for Italy's 1,500,000-member party, headlined its editorial AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE VERDICT. The French Communist Party organ, L'Humanite, wondered "how a trial of such importance could take place virtually in secret," and "how an unsuccessful attempt could be sanctioned by capital punishment." The death sentences were the first that any nation ever meted out for attempted hijacking.

In the face of these protests, the Moscow high court opted for leniency, but of a very limited sort. After four days of deliberation, it overturned the death sentences and slightly reduced three of the prison terms. Instead of facing the firing squad, the two condemned Jews will serve 15 years at hard labor under the most severe prison regime imposed by Soviet law.

The fact that the crime literally never got off the ground underlined the harshness of the verdicts. According to official Soviet accounts, the defendants plotted to commandeer a single-engine AN2 in Leningrad last June 15, fly it to the Swedish town of Boden and ask for asylum in Israel. Many Sovietologists suspect that the eleven walked into a trap prepared by the KGB, the Soviet secret police. For one thing, they were arrested before they even set foot aboard the plane. Within an hour after their arrest, 40 Jewish homes from Riga to distant Kharkov were ransacked by policemen with search warrants. During the next six months, in several Soviet cities there were large-scale arrests of Jews, nine of whom are scheduled to be tried next month.

The Leningrad eleven were charged under Article 64 of the Russian criminal code dealing with treason. During the trial, the prosecutor spoke of their intent to kill the Soviet pilot--even though the two "pistols" found in their luggage were reportedly fakes made of brick and clay. To be sure, the defendants pleaded guilty of intent to hijack, an illegal act in almost every country. But their real crime apparently was their expressed desire to live in Israel. Significantly, eight of the defendants had previously been refused exit visas to Israel.

In an eloquent final statement at the trial, the 27-year-old wife of Eduard Kuznetsov, one of the two who were condemned to death, said: "Soviet law should not regard as treason a desire to live in another country. This desire, sanctified by 2,000 years of hope, will never leave me." Sentenced to ten years at hard labor, she concluded with a verse from Psalm 137, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!"

Spreading the Infection. If nothing else, the universal storm of protest that greeted the verdict seems to have embarrassed the Soviets, who like to project an image of a society where all people, whatever their race or religion, live in perfect contentment. Also, the Soviet leaders probably did not wish to appear more barbarous than Franco; the commutation of the two death sentences in Moscow came less than 24 hours after Franco's decision in Madrid to reverse the death sentences of the six Basque nationalists.

It seemed unlikely, though, that plans for three more trials of Russian Jews for "anti-Soviet propaganda" would be abandoned. Any such letup in the campaign to coerce Jews seeking to go to Israel would surely enrage Russia's Arab allies in the Middle East. More important, it might encourage hopes of emigration among the U.S.S.R.'s other restless minorities, such as the Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Central Asians, who are expected soon to outnumber Russians in total population.

Though other elements are involved in the trials of the Jews, it is almost inconceivable that anti-Semitism is not a common factor. That conclusion is reinforced by events in Czechoslovakia. Since the Soviet invasion in 1968, the Czechoslovak authorities have often resorted to blaming Jews for Alexander Dubcek's liberal "counterrevolution." Last week the Czechoslovak party expelled the widow and son of Rudolf Slansky, the Jewish party leader who was executed in 1952 after a blatantly anti-Semitic political trial.

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