Involuntary Journey to Siberia
Newton Abbot: Readers Union, 1971. Readers Union Edition. Hardcover. Format is approximately 5.5 inches by 8.75 inches. 282, [6] pages. Footnotes. Boards have some wear, soiling and corner bumping. Some edge soiling. Foreword by Max Hayward. Author's Preface, Note about the Author. Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik (12 May 1938, Moscow – 12 November 1980), alternatively spelled Andrei or Andrey, was a Russian writer and dissident. Amalrik was best known in the Western world for his 1970 essay, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?. For several months after the publication of Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (1970) and Involuntary Journey to Siberia (August 1970), abroad, a criminal offense under Soviet law. Inevitably, for "defaming the Soviet state", Amalrik was arrested on May 21, 1970 and convicted on November 12, receiving a sentence of three years in a labor camp in Kolyma. At the end of his term, he was given three more years, but because of his poor health and protests from the West, the sentence was commuted after one year to exile in the same region. After serving a five-year term, he returned to Moscow in 1975. On September 13, 1975, Amalrik was arrested again. The police captain told his wife that he was arrested for not having permission to live in Moscow; he could have faced a fine or up to one year in prison for violating Soviet passport regulations. In early 1976, Amalrik and other dissidents conceived the idea of the Moscow Helsinki Group; it was formed in May 1976. The KGB gave Amalrik an ultimatum: to emigrate or face another sentence. In 1976 his family got visas to go to the Netherlands. More