Damn the Naysayers

“Are you Douglas Zipes?” the caller asked again, jolting me from 1977 to the Rossiya in 1982. “Who wants to know?” I responded. “My name is not important,” he replied. “Just that I am a refusenik. That’s all that matters. You know what that is?” “Yes, a Jew who has tried to get an exit visa to leave the USSR and has been refused.” “More than that—much more,” he said. He explained how they’d lost their jobs and incomes, could not attend meetings, do their research, or publish their papers. “We are in a jail without bars,” he said. “If we don't get some sort of job, the government labels us parasites or hooligans, and then they can do almost anything they want to us, like make us leave Moscow or put us in prison. So, we work in any position, cleaning toilets, sweeping streets, whatever.” “I’m sorry for that. But why are you calling me?” “How brave are you? We need someone with courage.I will explain,” he said. “Two years ago, we started the Sunday Seminars.” He looked at me to see if that registered. He continued when he saw my blank look. “About thirty of us, all scientists with various specialties, all refuseniks denied access to our jobs and laboratories. Some of us were even members of the Russian Academy of Science and had won the Stalin Prize. RAS only accepted the leading intellects. We could read no journals or newspapers. Admission to the public library was denied. We could not attend scientific meetings of any kind.” “Like this World Congress?” “Exactly. So, when a major scientific meeting was going to be held in Moscow, one of us would invite a visiting scientist to give us a private lecture. We usually did this on Sundays. The subject matter was unimportant—we’re all so starved for science, anything new would do. We did this in the apartment of my friend—” “And?” I prompted. “The apartment was pretty far out of town, in the—how do you say—outskirts?” I nodded. “In the outskirts of Moscow, and we thought we were safe. One evening during the lecture, a fierce pounding rattled the door, and the KGB burst in. They arrested us and took us to jail. They kept us in a jail cell overnight and then let us go. But the owner of the apartment—a well-known physicist—was sent to Siberia. He has not been seen since. That ended the Sunday Seminars.” "What has that got to do with me?" I asked. "Are you brave enough to restart the Sunday Seminars?" he said,