THE IRON MAN OF HUMAN RIGHTSnby Gary KernnRemembering Anatoly Marchenkon\J^ don’t like it when someone from outsidenVV teaches us how to live.” Thus spake Sovietnspokesman Gennady Gerasimov in reaction to PresidentnReagan’s emphasis on human rights this summer in Moscow.nThe Soviet leaders were displeased by Reagan’sndecision to meet with dissidents during his free time awaynfrom the summit meetings with General Secretary MikhailnGorbachev, and they characterized the dissidents as “not thenbest representatives of Soviet society.” In this way theynbetrayed the old pxe-glasnost view that human rights in thenSoviet Union are entirely an internal afiFair. To be fullynhonest, Mr. Gerasimov should have added: “And we alsondon’t like it when someone from inside teaches us how tonlive.”nThis incident recalled the example of AnatolynMarchenko, who struggled from within the Gulag system tonteach the lesson that human rights are every human being’snaffair. There was another reminder of Marchenko at thensummit. Andrei Sakharov was present in Moscow to lend hisnsupport to Gorbachev’s program of glasnost, demokratizdtsiya,nand perestroika. Gorbachev, said Sakharov,ndeserved “a measure of trust in advance” for his program.nBut Sakharov himself was there in large measure because ofnMarchenko.nThe Marchenko story held the headlines for a few days innDecember 1986 and then was swept away by the onrush ofnGary Kern is a specialist in Soviet subjects. Hisntranslations from Russian include books by MikhailnZoshchenko, the Strugatsky brothers, and Lev Kopelev. Ancollection of articles on Evgeny Zamyatin’s We, edited bynKern, has recently been published by Ardis Press.nspectacular events. Obituaries and tributes appeared, but anfull summary of the case was never made in our media. Yetnthe example of his lonely struggle endures. The Russians, ofncourse, keep his memory alive. Both Soviet and emigrencontinue to speak of him, write about him, and argue aboutnhim, attesting to the fact that his life and death contain anmoral force which cannot be forgotten, denied, or smoothednover.nMarchenko began his sixth term of imprisonment inn1981. The sentence: 10 years strict labor-camp regime andnfive years internal exile under Article 70 of the USSRnGriminal Gode (“Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda”).nThe evidence against him: a book published in the Westnunder the title From Tarusa to Siberia, describing his 1975narrest, trial, and prolonged hunger strike, and his 1980 letternprotesting the exile of Andrei Sakharov to the city of Gorky.nEarlier he had supported the “Prague spring” of 1968nand warned the Gzech government of a possible Sovietninvasion. He was actually brought to trial on the day of theninvasion he predicted. In 1969 he wrote a powerful accountnof his labor-camp experiences, My Testimony.nMarchenko was sent to a labor camp in Perm (“Permn35”). In December 1983, he was punished for writing anletter to the USSR Procurator General, AleksandrnRekunkov, complaining about camp conditions. As othernprisoners watched, camp supervisors handcuffed him andnbeat his head against a concrete floor until he lost consciousness.nAfter this, Marchenko lost for a time the senses ofnsight, smell, and taste. For the remaining three years of hisnlife, he suffered head pains, dizziness, nausea, and audiblenhallucinations. He was permitted to see his wife, LarisanBogoraz, in April 1984, but never again thereafter. Therenwere later reports of beatings. Sometime in early 1986, henwas transferred from Perm 35 to Ghistopol Prison, 600nmiles east of Moscow, which has the strictest regime in thenSoviet penal system. Fearing for Marchenko’s life, Sakharovnappealed directly to Gorbachev in February. In May,nnnOCTOBER 19881 13n