The summer flew by without any special episodes. On the weekends I went to spend time with my children in Baranovskoe, and on other days I sat in the Investigation Department and copied my case materials, which already had bloated up to five volumes. At night I typed these materials and sent them off to Gale Colby and Irene Goldman in the U.S. Gale was anxious after she read the transcripts of the interrogation and search of Lev Fedorov,[199] because she thought my co-author might try to take some kind of action against me in the future. I didn’t suppose that Fedorov would dare to do it, because that would mean his final degradation in the eyes of the public. I don’t know how and with what pressure my co-author was persuaded, but at the end of August he applied to the Investigation Department to renounce his testimony.
In early September of 1993, one of the coordinators of the ad hoc international movement for my defense, Gale Colby, came to Moscow. She was a plump middle-aged woman with wavy chestnut hair and large brown eyes on her beautiful oval face, and she made a strong impression with her energy and American efficiency. It was a little unusual that she was so simply dressed. It didn’t fit in with my conception of American women. It turned out that she knew some Russian, but she was embarrassed about her pronunciation and constant difficulty with Russian grammar forms, genders, cases, etc. We dropped into a cafe on Old Arbat Street and talked for a long time about my case and all the possible scenarios of its development. Gale again expressed her concern about Fedorov’s behavior and wondered what he might try to pull at the upcoming trial. I comforted her, because I was certain that my co-author had already exhausted his potential for harmful action, and it made no sense for him to act openly against me. However, it was crucial, in my opinion, that there be an open trial. Gale had brought a selection of related news articles on my case and another invitation for Nuria, so that she could visit the U.S. and receive the prize money from the Cavallo Foundation.
At the end of September, Nuria went to the U.S. and on her way back, she spent a few days in Germany, at the invitation of the organization “Scientists for Global Responsibility.” The heads of this organization, Drs. Dieter Meissner and Reiner Braun, had organized a campaign among scientists in Europe for my defense. Their organization had also started providing some much needed financial assistance for my family.
By the end of September, the political situation became extremely edgy in Russia. The Communist opposition was using its typical tactics once more, causing mass disruptions, and they openly started organizing parallel power structures. Rutskoi and Khasbulatov, who were sitting in the Parliament building, started to establish an armed detachment, following the example of the Bolsheviks in 1917. Barannikov, one of the initiators of my case and the KGB chief, became their “Minister of Internal Affairs” and created a squadron of soldiers from the criminal element. Finally, at the beginning of October, when Rutskoi proclaimed himself “President” of Russia and openly called for “smashing” the existing power structure, Boris Yeltsin decided to act decisively against these mutineers. At the time it began, I was home with my two children watching everything that was happening on TV. I won’t describe the world famous scenes of the shootout at the White House and capture of the insurgents. Millions of TV-viewers around the world watched these scenes thanks to the courageous staff of CNN.
I was really suffering strongly about the fate of democracy in our country and was greatly pleased that the criminal adventurers were defeated. However, it never occurred to me or to millions of others, that less than a year later these same people would start their subversive activities again, taking advantage of the humanity of the Yeltsin regime. Finally, Rutskoi even became a regional governor…
Soon I saw with my own eyes what strict measures had been taken at the Investigation Department of Lefortovo Prison to reinforce security. Two military men, armed with small machine-guns, sat near the guard who checked the documents of people summoned to the Investigation Department. It was widely known that there were not enough people in the Lefortovo Investigation Department to investigate the coup. I asked Captain Shkarin if he was also in charge of the rebels’ case. He said he wasn’t.
Next, a lot of information about the rebels’ case appeared on television. It turned out that in contrast with ordinary prisoners, these gentlemen were treated with great indulgence. Their lawyers were allowed in to visit them immediately. They started receiving fresh newspapers, food parcels, and many other things. All of this sharply contrasted with the strict regime for ordinary inmates in Lefortovo, for example, for me and my cellmates. I spent 11 days there and never saw my lawyer once. He wasn’t even allowed to work on my case. However, the situation was completely different for the mutineers. When one of the frantic deputies was only considering going on a hunger-strike to protest his arrest, the whole country knew about it right away. His wife was shown on TV, with tears in her eyes, as she theatrically described how the health of her insurgent husband had deteriorated. As for the mustachioed Russian Air Force General, the newspapers were saying that this prisoner was about to die from despair and depression.
One of my well-informed acquaintances told me that a lot of these “former” criminals had psychotic fits just because there was no vodka in their food allowances. They had become so very addicted to vodka, while zealously “serving” the Russian people with their lavish drinking sprees in the White House. I am certain that even this “deprivation” was only a temporary inconvenience, because prisoners and jailers were, as they say, cut from the same cloth, and they couldn’t let their friends “suffer” too badly. I will return to this theme later, while describing my confinement in “Matrosskaya Tishina” Prison. Any mention of this maximum security facility makes a good many Russians tremble, because it is notorious for its inhumane conditions.
Intuitively I felt that despite all the protests and letters, my case would move along unchanged, because the old system of justice and investigation in Russia was still practically a separate function inside the state. Still, there was hope that the draft of the new Russian Constitution would be approved in the upcoming referendum, and would eliminate all the legal grounds for my case. Article 15 Clause 3 directly proclaimed, “Laws are subject to official publication. Unpublished laws are not to be applied. Any normative legal acts that touch upon the rights, freedom, and responsibilities of a person and citizen, cannot be applied unless they have officially been published for everyone’s information.”
This was a real hymn to the glory of human freedom. It seemed to me that we only had to wait a bit, and after the new Constitution was adopted, the Attorney General’s Office would have to dismiss my case because of the lack of “corpus delicti”. There were other pre-conditions for that as well. First, the law about state secrecy which the Supreme Soviet of Russia had adopted during the last days of its existence required that all lists of information of state secrecy be approved by the President of Russia. The law also abolished numerous departmental lists. Secondly, after the Supreme Soviet was dissolved, Valentin Stepankov, the Attorney General of Russia, who by that time had become a pawn in the hands of the leaders of the October coup, was finally dismissed from his position. Aleksei Kazannik, who was famous for his democratic views and honesty, was appointed in his place. Back in 1989 he did not falter in turning over his position in the former U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet, to the leader of the opposition and the future President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin.