Interview

Abstract

The editor of the independent journal Referendum explains the role of his publication, and why the authorities are softer on him than they were. ‘On the one hand there are still several hundred political prisoners. On the other hand those of us who have been released are at present able to operate relatively freely.’ In February 1987 Lev Timofeev was prematurely released from camp as a result of a government decree, under which a large number of political prisoners were amnestied. Together with Sergei Grigoryants, another ex-political prisoner, he set up the unofficial bulletin Glasnost last summer. Grigoryants now edits Glasnost, while Timofeev has started his own journal, Referendum. He also leads the independent ‘Press Club Glasnost’, which organised an unofficial conference on human rights in December 1987. The Press Club is planning to set up a form of open university, using a number of highly-qualified ex-political prisoners as teachers. I interviewed Lev Timofeev in Moscow in January. As we talked in his study, a neat portable computer - which had come from abroad but quickly learned to speak fluent Russian - was printing out the fourth issue of Referendum. S.L.