Outraged by this trick, DDR activists and many other people asked me to intercede and inform the Ministry of Russian Industry about Petrunin’s fraud. I couldn’t refuse and agreed to go there with Vyacheslav Agureev, another chemist.
Our trip couldn’t possibly have had a positive outcome, because the people from the former Ministry of Chemical Industry, who were working there, needed Petrunin more than anyone else, to survive.
The aides of our makeshift director and his deputy, who were closely watching my every step, decided to take advantage of our trip and had our absence classified as truancy. They immediately called a meeting of the employees’ collective, from the department to which I was formally assigned.
I went to the meeting purely out of curiosity. I wanted to know how people under the new conditions would react to their own blatant manipulation. In the past I had read in books and had heard a little from witnesses, that in the 1930s the “common people” made decisions at the workers’ meetings to savagely punish those with whom they had worked and been friends only the day before. As I expected, everything at the meeting evolved as it had in those earlier years.
On November 13, 1991, a meeting took place in Subdivision 45 that resolved to “abolish the position of the leading research scientist and to leave the question of the employment of Vil S. Mirzayanov, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, who occupied this position, to the directorate.” One more step was made towards getting rid of dissenters.
Members of the former Coordination Committee of the DDR issued a leaflet in my support for the occasion.[79]
The leaflet was a bold document for that time. Of course, everybody knew the members of the Coordination Committee, so they were taking a bold risk. The administration could start persecuting them, and could punish them in an exemplary manner along with me.
And this is exactly what happened. First a computer was taken away from Valery Morgunov, a research assistant at the Analytical Department, because he used it to type the text of the leaflet. Then the persecution of other former members of the Coordination Committee began. Many of them were quickly dismissed from their jobs because of “staff reductions.” This form of punishing disagreeable people was convenient, and it hardly ever failed.
I kept a copy of that leaflet. Every time I read this simple text, I feel a thrill and unbounded gratitude to my colleagues, who dared to perform a real civic feat when times got tough for me.
At that time, I was still hopeful that the leaders of the Democratic Russia movement would pay attention to the situation I described in my article “Inversion,” especially since I soon had a good chance to talk with them about it.
On November 8 of 1991, I was in the staff headquarters of the Democratic Russia movement. All day I was compiling packets of papers for the delegates to the second congress, which was to take place a few days later. I managed to meet with Lev Ponomarev and Gleb Yakunin there.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t read my article in Kuranty. Then I briefly summed up the publication for them and asked them to take steps to eliminate the danger created by GRNIIOKhT (GOSNIIOKhT was renamed when the USSR broke up), which threatened the lives of Muscovites.
In response, Ponomarev recommended I take a sample of air near GRNIIOKhT and analyze it somewhere. Then the documentary proof that GRNIIOKhT was really dangerous would make it possible to expose the evil chemists.
I don’t know what kind of dreadful advice this was – whether it was downright stupidity or just an ordinary provocation. If I had followed Ponomarev’s “advice”, I could have legally been arrested immediately on suspicion of espionage. I was reeling from the shock of such a crazy recommendation by one of our “leaders,” with whom I had sympathized until then. Truly, he had advised a stranger to commit a crime! This is why I never tried to talk with Ponomarev about it again.
However, at the urgent request of my lawyer, I met with Ponomarev again in January of 1993. By that time he was a deputy of the Russian Supreme Soviet. We hoped he would be a witness for the defense, and confirm that I had met with him in the “Democratic Russia” headquarters and tried to draw his attention to this imminent danger. At that time my lawyer, Aleksander Asnis, was looking at all the different options for defending me in court, and it was very difficult. He hoped that he would be able to prove that I had repeatedly tried to draw the attention of public figures, deputies, and representatives of power to the imminent danger, though in vain. It would mean, according to the Criminal Code of Russia, that I had exhausted all legal means of raising my concerns through the proper channels, and had a legitimate right to take steps, even if my actions violated the current law. My article “Poisoned Policies” could be qualified as one such action.
Asnis and I were received with hospitality when we came to see Lev Ponomarev in his office in Room 1609 in the White House on the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment. By that time, my “case” was widely known throughout the world and people recognized me everywhere, even in the subway. Many passers-by greeted me and thanked me for what I had done.
However, when Asnis briefly explained what we wanted, a thick silence fell over the room. It was clear that Ponomarev was dumbfounded and couldn’t find the words that would help extricate him from the situation. The deputy’s consultant Maximov saved him. According to him, Lev Aleksandrovich was a public figure, and his authority could be seriously damaged if he took part in the proceedings as a witness. “The investigator will certainly ask why there was no feedback and what actions Lev Ponomarev took regarding this issue” he continued. “Probably you, Vil Sultanovich, were not persistent enough and didn’t repeat your request,” Maximov the lawyer, insisted.
“Indeed, Vil Sultanovich, why didn’t you appeal to me again? I always try to help people when they appeal to me, if they can’t get an apartment or have problems with their pension, and with many other issues. I most certainly would have tried to help you, too,” said the DDR “leader”, happily grasping the idea put forth by his aide.
This time my lawyer Asnis and I were the astonished ones. Despite his constant imperturbability and incredible self-control, Asnis was deeply disappointed and couldn’t hide his feelings. There at the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment, I realized for the first time why people had long ago dubbed such politicians “Dermocrats.” (This translates literally as “Shitcrats”.) Still somehow I found the composure to blurt out that I didn’t want to distract him anymore from his great work.
I was really ashamed in front of Asnis about what was going on. I didn’t believe that politics was always such a dirty business, or that politicians were necessarily dishonorable people. I don’t think so now, either. It seems to me that almost any business can be pure and noble if you do it honestly and professionally. Can the profession of a sanitation worker be “dirty”, only because he is dealing with sewage? On the other hand, chemists, surgeons, and people from many other professions have to put up with a lot of unpleasant things too.
Back in 1991, all my bridges were burned behind me, and it was clear that I would soon be fired from GRNIIOKhT.
On January 5th 1992, I was sent to the Personnel Department, where they handed me an order about my termination, of course for “staff reduction” reasons. The Deputy Chief of the Department for the Security Regime, German Mosyakin, also came to see me. He was a short man, amazingly unpleasant and slippery. He asked me to sign an agreement about the non-disclosure of state secrets, which was already familiar to me from my first days at GOSNIIOKhT.
I said that I would be happy to do this if they showed me a Russian law or governmental decree with a clear definition of what the state secrets in our profession were. I explained to Mosyakin that after my dismissal from the institute I had no intention of living by rules invented by people like him. Of course he couldn’t show me any document that would explain all the subtle aspects regarding state secrets. He just obsequiously begged me to do him a favor because it was his job. We parted at that.
79
The leaflet of the Committee of Democratic Movement of Russia in GRNIIOKhT, “Witch Hunt” at GRNIIOKhT, September 1991.