The soil on which the dissident movement in the Soviet Union grew up was the period of the thaw, which fell on the first decade after Stalin's death. The phenomenon of the dissident movement appeared in Medieval Europe, but Soviet dissidence became a special milestone in the history of Russia.
Instructions
Step 1
The personality cult ended with the natural death of Stalin, and was finally debunked at the historic XX Congress of the CPSU. The thaw period for some time gave the supporters of democratic transformations hope for the triumph of justice in the field of civil and human rights of the individual. But the socialist system, based on authoritarian methods of government, does not allow dissent. From the very beginning, the relations of the first secretary of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev with the creative intelligentsia. Although over the course of several years the censorship was weakened to such an extent that it became possible to publish publications denouncing the anti-popular regime of the dictatorship, there was no possibility of ensuring complete freedom of the individual under the conditions of a totalitarian state.
Step 2
The dissident movement has matured on the basis of the thaw. With the end of the temporary democratic upheaval, many human rights advocates have been outlawed. Unlike the few anti-Soviet groups that operated during the time of the personality cult, dissidents did not call for the destruction of the existing system, but advocated solely for the observance of human rights. The only acceptable method of dissidents was peaceful protest demonstrations. The reason for the first demonstration, which took place on December 5, 1065, was the arrest of the writers Yuri Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, who published their story "Walks with Pushkin" in the West - a work of a purely literary genre. The very fact of publication abroad was outrageous, which became the reason for accusing the writers of anti-Soviet activities. The authorities responded to the demonstration with an article of the USSR criminal law "on group actions that grossly violate public order." This was the only possible legal way to combat dissent, since the Soviet Union positioned itself in the international arena as a democratic state.
Step 3
Unspoken censorship and persecution of dissent in the Soviet Union led to such a unique phenomenon as “samizdat”. Initially, the subject of independent publishing was works of art, in particular the poems of Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Brodsky, later political messengers began to appear, such as "Veche", "Duel" and the like.
Step 4
Dissidence posed a serious threat not so much to the existing system as to the authority of the socialist state. The declared slogan of the absence of political repression and, consequently, of political prisoners, strongly shackled the hands of law enforcement agencies. In addition to the law on violation of public order, dissidents could be presented with an article on parasitism, as was the case with Joseph Brodsky, who was not a member of the Writers' Union and did not have official employment. Some were declared mentally ill and isolated from society in mental hospitals.
Step 5
It is not known what role the dissidents played in the collapse of the Soviet Union; most likely, socialism has outlived its usefulness as an ineffective economic system, but they made up a whole layer of Soviet culture that cannot go unnoticed.
