Petro Grigorenko’s lessons

Petro Grigorenko, one of the most widely known Ukrainians of the second half of the twentieth century, was born in a peasant family. Petro’s father, George (Gregory) Grigorenko, never belonged to the Communist Party, but none the less was an enthusiast of rural cooperation. His three sons and a daughter were members of the Communist Party. Bolshevist’s repressions have not spared the family. Like most Ukrainian peasants the Grigorenkos experienced bloody collectivization as well as Holodomor. Older brother of Petro was arrested despite the merits of red guerrilla as well as veteran of the Civil and Second World Wars.

Young Petro became one of the organizers of the Komsomol in his native village. Later, he pursued a career of industrial worker and pursued university education in an effort to become an engineer, the bridge-builder. However, his civil career was interrupted by the mobilization of university students in the Military Engineering Academy. The life of Petro has been altered: he became a career army officer, and a highly decorated veteran of World War II. During the Second World War, he was twice seriously wounded. Fragmented as a result of the wound ankle joint left a lasting leg problem for the rest of his life.

The postwar period brought WWII veteran officer a new turn in life – Petro Grigorenko became a teacher, and later a professor and head of the department at the military academy.

It would seem that a successful academic career, high salary, dozens of scientific publications would have fully satisfy all general’s needs, but... Outside academic classrooms and a comfortable life was the life of ordinary people, and that life without invitation sometimes had broken into a cloudless world of Grigorenko.

For example. General Grigorenko wanted to hire a talented officer for the department he headed, but the personnel department says it is impossible. “Why?” – surprised Petro, and the answer he heard – “Because the officer is a Jew.” So suddenly it reveals to Grigorenko that allegedly international State practices state anti-Semitism. Spouses Grigorenko never divided people along ethnic or religious lines, but the state of “workers and peasants” not only has exposed the minorities to discrimination, but sometimes practiced open genocide, as in the case of the Crimean Tatars and thirteen other small peoples of the empire.

Certainly the case with the officer was not only the single fact of lawlessness and cynicism. Memory returned Grigorenko to other cases of injustice and maybe his soul got to a point of no return when on September 7, 1961 general spoke at a party conference. His historical speech has become a landmark in the public awakening of Soviet society and to arouse the rage of the communist establishment.

Years later, there was a speculation that if the government would have lowered the whole incident on the brakes, and not brought down on a hero the whole apparatus of repressions, then Grigorenko would’ve quietly pursue an academic career and never would become the leader of the Human Rights movement in the USSR. For the author of these lines such development appears to be doubtful. Let me give you a spacious quotation from Leonid Plustch speech at the Grigorenko hearing in the Scientific Society named after Taras Shevchenko in New York:

“In his ‘Memoirs’ Grigorenko often recalls how with his friend, the son of a priest, he wanted to become a bridge-builder. That dream did not ever happened.

“Petro’s friend chose a martyr priest profession, because it was time to save souls. Grigorenko also went the other way, to be exact – in ways that eventually led him to the path chosen by his friend. To save his own soul, Grigorenko entered the movement, which revived in totalitarian conditions responsible moral person.

“It is logical that on this way he eventually returned to Christianity. But in another, symbolic plane Grigorenko also realized the dream of building bridges. The Human Rights struggle was not only a bridge, but the path to independent Ukraine. And this work began when Grigorenko joined the movement of human rights defense with the Crimean Tatars national movement. This union increased the force of human rights defense as well as the Crimean Tatar national movement. Advocacy of Crimean Tatars indisputable rights led the national problem of the Crimean Tatars first on All-Union, and later the world stage. For Grigorenko himself this relationship has become a bridge to the Ukrainian national movement.”

It seems to me that Leonid who knew general firsthand, aptly remarked general’s ability to think out all through and not stop halfway.

Grigorenko’s speech in 1961 was his first step of an open challenge to the communist totalitarianism. Two years later, Petro led underground organization “Union of Struggle for the Revival of Leninism.” The organization was soon destroyed by the soviet secret service – the KGB, and the general himself was declared insane and contrary to law and elementary logic demoted to the rank of private.

General was released from imprisonment in the spring of 1965. During his imprisonment, he reevaluated his experiences and began to seek allies who were ready for an open confrontation with the regime. Popularity of Grigorenko was largely contributed by his pamphlet about the initial period of the Soviet-German clash in the Second World War, where general convincingly pointed out the inconsistency of the Soviet myth about this period of the war.

1965 was also a year of major changes in the social life of the communist dictatorship. The end of the same year, to be exact December 5, became the birthday of the Human Rights Movement in the USSR. On this day, a small group of people came out on a peaceful demonstration in Pushkin Square in Moscow and demanded the implementation of existing laws. The slogan of the demonstration, which has become the leitmotif of this movement, belonged to Alexander Esenin-Volpin. Demonstrators, among whom were Petro and Andrew Grigorenko, were just a tiny group, but they changed the psychological situation in the country and for the first time in the history of the Russian Empire set the legal, constitutional principles as a key stone of the straggle for liberty.

As noted above, the exposure by general Grigorenko of communist myth about the history of the Second World War and the role of the USSR in its preparation had and continues to have revolutionary implications for the understanding of the past, as well as the implications of the past to the present and the future.

Several public activities of Grigorenko are the key events in the evolution of the struggle for human dignity and civil liberty. These activities should include speech at the party conference in 1961, participation in the demonstration on December 5, 1965, his special role in the movement of the Crimean Tatars, the speech at the funeral of writer Alexei Kosterin, speech before representatives of the Crimean Tatar people in the celebration of the same Kosterin outlining a program for non-violent actions, protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, promoting problems of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, and active participation in the creation and work of the Moscow and the Ukrainian Helsinki Groups, as well as the Committee for Inquiry in cases of abuses of psychiatry.

Expulsion from the USSR and the revoking of his citizenship did not drown out the voice of Grigorenko. He is perhaps more than any other Soviet immigrants managed to obtain access to the highest offices of the world’s governments. His essays are widely published in international bodies and the emigre press, his interviews were broadcast on radio and television. BBC has created two full-length films about the fate of Grigorenko. Even during his lifetime several of his books were published in different languages, and a book of his memoirs In the underground one can meet only rats became a bestseller in many Western countries.

Once in exile Petro Grigorenko established Overseas Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. It should be noted that the appearance of Grigorenko in the West and his firm Ukrainian patriotic position played an invaluable role in the destruction of anti-Ukrainian myths cultivated by Russian and Soviet propaganda for decades. Moreover, Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group has become a kind of independent Ukrainian embassy long before the actual independence of his homeland.

Grigorenko never forgot the fate of the Crimean Tatar people. In particular, at one conference on human rights no time was allocated for the Crimean Tatars representative. Then the general refused his allotted time in favor of the Crimean Tatar representative.

It should be noted that Petro Grigorenko in exile continued to advocate for the legal rights of all ethnic and religious minorities, which sometimes led to conflict with the ultra-patriotic part of the Ukrainian diaspora. Nevertheless, General Petro Grigorenko until his death firmly stood on the principal that the true Ukrainian patriot must remember not only the fate of ethnic Ukrainians, but also never forget the suffering of his or her neighbor. He knew that if today they came for the Jews, or the Crimean Tatars, then tomorrow they will come for the Ukrainians as well. It is possible that in the conditions of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the attempt to deprive Ukraine of eastern regions, Grigorenko’s civil principals could serve as a wonderful example to all Ukrainian citizens.

Petro Grigorenko did not live to see the day when his country became independent at last. He has not lived up to the moment of democratic revival of his country. He did not have to live up to the current struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Russian aggression and necessity to defend its independence by force of arms. He did not have to worry about a second Russian annexation of Crimea and the repetition of the Crimean Tatar tragedy and a new attempt of occupational authorities erase these people from the face of the Earth. But the late General was an irredeemable optimist, and the day will come when the last aggressor will be expelled from Ukraine and Sevastopol will no longer be a base of the Russian Navy.

October 17, 2014

i   A collection of memoirs of Grigorenko’s contemporaries called The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent will be published in Ukraine in the near future. The collection compiled and edited by Andrew P. Grigorenko.