From: CDELL@VAX1.UMKC.EDU ("VALENTINE M. SMITH")
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Comments on Document ac2sakh.doc of the LC Archives
Date: 13 Aug 92 07:49:41 GMT
Reply-To: "talk.politics.soviet via ListServ" <TPS-L@indycms.iupui.edu>

>MINISTRY OF HEALTH
>Secret of the USSR
>Copy no. 1 March 16, 1971
>No.704c
>Moscow

>CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

>Not for publication

>I am sending for your familiarization the text of a telegram from
>Academician Sakharov that was received in the Ministry of Health of
>the USSR.

The background documemt says the telegram was to protest treatment of
two dissidents by "Psychiatrizing" them.

>Enclosure:  The aforementioned text.

>MINISTRY OF HEALTH OF THE USSR

>B. Petrovskii

>COPY

>MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATION OF THE USSR

>  TELEGRAM                                  MOSCOW 3502 71 15 1151

>NOTIFICATION BY TELEGRAM
>MOSCOW I-51 RAKHMANOV LANE 3
>MINISTRY OF HEALTH OF THE USSR
>TO THE MINISTER,
>ACADEMICIAN B.V. PETROVSKII

DEAR BORIS VASIL'EVICH:

>FAINBERG AND BORISOV, POLITICAL PRISONERS IN THE LENINGRAD
>PSYCHIATRIC PRISON, HAVE ANNOUNCED A HUNGER STRIKE AGAINST
>COMPULSORY THERAPEUTIC TREATMENT WITH MEDICATIONS INJURIOUS TO MENTAL
>ACTIVITY.  I AM ENDORSING THEIR DEMANDS.  I ASK YOU URGENTLY TO
>INTERVENE TO PRESERVE THE HEALTH [AND] DIGNITY OF PRISONERS IN THE
>PSYCHIATRIC PRISON.   PROMOTE THE REMOVAL OF EVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF
>VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND MEDICAL ETHICS IN THE RUNNING OF
>PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE CORRECTION OF OVERLOOKED VIOLATIONS-
>ACADEMICIAN SAKHAROV-

ONe of the darker behaviors of Soviet medicine in the past 25 years.
Some stood up to it, Sakharov was one.

>                               True copy: [signed] Krutova [?]
>                               MINISTRY OF HEALTH OF THE USSR
>March 25, 1971
>No. 828 c
>Moscow

>TO THE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND  EDUCATIONAL
>INSTITUTIONS

>CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

>                                  Comrade S.P. Trapeznikov

>In connection with the telegram to me from Academician Sakharov, in
>which he requests the adoption of measures against the alleged
>"compulsory therapeutic treatment with medications injurious to
>mental activity" of "political prisoners" Fainberg and Borisov in the
>"Leningrad Psychiatric Prison," the chief specialist for
>neuropsychiatry of the Ministry of Health of the USSR, candidate of
>medical science Z.N. Serebriakova, and the Deputy Director of the
>Scientific Department of the Institute for Psychiatry of the Academy
>of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Prof. R.A. Nadzharov, were sent to
>Leningrad.

What kind of reputation does either of these individuals have? Did
they acquiesce in the policy that had Failburg and Borisov in a
"psychiatric setting" rather than prison, the usual "reward" for
dissent prior the co-option of the Sovit psychiatric establishment?

>An investigation has established that the patients F.I. Fainberg and
>V. E. Borisov were sent for compulsory therapeutic treatment to the
>special psychiatric hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of
>the USSR by court order in compliance with existing legislation after
>they were found by forensic-psychiatric experts to be suffering from
>mental illness and mentally incompetent.

This WAS the early Seventies, wherein this behavior could be done
with more impunity than later on. The rhetoric is fascinating.

>In the patient V.I. Fainberg, are noted personality changes and
>persistent quasi-psychopathic disorders (paranoid development of the
>social reforming type), carried over from a schizophrenic condition
>in his youth, for which he has repeatedly been hospitalized in
>psychiatric clinics in Kharkov, Moscow, and Leningrad.

A repeat dissident, from the sound of his record. "Paranoid
development of the social reforming type?" Did not know there was
such a disease.

>In the patient V.E. Borisov, are also noted persistent, quasi-
>psychopathic personality changes (infantilism, paranoia) against a
>background of residual, organic neurological symptoms.  He has
>repeatedly undergone compulsory therapeutic treatment in the special
>psychiatric hospital in Leningrad in connection with anti-social
>behavior.

Anti-Soviet behavior is more like it, these poor men! We in the West
do not perhaps really understand the pain and suffering that doing
what was done to Borisov and Fainberg means, but this observer has an
inkling at least. What a criminal use of the already misused
psychiatric profession!

>An earlier transfer of the patient for treatment at a standard
>psychiatric hospital led to negative results.

His anti-Sovietism was not expunged is "negative results."

>The patient was returned to the special psychiatric hospital after an
>attempt to kidnap him by persons unknown who attacked the [hospital]
>personnel.

Too bad the efforts of "persons unknown" failed.

>[ ... ]

What was TOO sensitive to know here?

>Taking into account the origin of the situationally conditioned
>psychogenic reaction of the patients with refusal to eat and the
>limited possibilities for medical treatment, a change in the
>conditions of their custody in the given hospital was declared
>advisable, having in mind more active psychotherapeutic and
>readapting measures, but also the exclusion of undesirable influences
>from the outside that would lead to the reinforcement of their
>paranoid precepts.

Isolate and drug them more, and make security tighter, sounds like
the program adopted.

>                                           [ ... ]

>MINISTER OF HEALTH OF THE USSR
>[signed] B. PETROVSKII CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF
>THE SOVIET UNION

>                                        To No. 12065

>In a telegram addressed to the Minister of Health of the USSR,
>Comrade Petrovskii, Academician Sakharov reports that "political
>prisoners Fainberg and Borisov of the Leningrad Psychiatric Prison
>have announced a hunger strike against compulsory treatment with
>medications injurious to mental activity" and asks that measures be
>taken to correct overlooked violations.

Somehow, it would seem a hunger strike would be futile against a
state doing these kind of things to a person - that Fainberg and
Borisov would try is to their credit.

>The facts indicated in the telegram were investigated by the Ministry
>of Health of the USSR.  It has been determined that the patients V.I.
>Fainberg and V.E. Borisov were sent for compulsory  therapeutic
>treatment to the special psychiatric hospital of the Ministry of
>Internal Affairs of the USSR [MIA SSSR] in compliance with existing
>legislation after forensic-psychiatric experts declared them
>incompetent by reason of mental illness.

"Incompetent" by reason of "political disagreement" is more the
truth.

>                                     [ ... ]

>Both patients have had their symptoms treated in a way that has no
>effect on mental activity.

Sure.

>[ ... ]

Lots of gaps in this report!

>During the investigation, it was noticed that the internal regime of
>the special psychiatric hospitals of the MIA SSSR do not meet modern
>requirements for the rehabilitative treatment of the mentally ill in
>inpatient hospitals.

Ah, a way to scapegoat the behavior!

>The MIA USSR has now outlined a series of measures to improve medical
>service for the mentally ill in said hospitals.

Somehow, one doubts these "measures" improved the lot of Fainberg and
Borisov a bit.

>Comrade Sakharov has been informed of the results.

Sakharov was about to enter, or had already entered, the long "trail
of tears" HIS choices and stances evoked from the state, so that he
had energy and time to protest about the treatment of others is all
to his credit.

>Deputy Director of the Department
>of Science and Educational
>Institutions of the Central               [signed] V. Baltiiskii
>Committee of the Communist
>Party of the Soviet Union

>June 10, 1971
>320-A/7