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Exiled Russian journalist colorfully narrates his passage into dissent and his work on behalf of persecuted Christians in 1970s USSR.
List of contents
Prologue: A Prison for Hedonists 11
The Cliff Edge Where It All Began 36
The Life of the Blind 46
How to Become an Expert on Africa 67
What to Do If You Know Many Russian Spies 81
My Good Friends in the KGB 89
The Struggle for Purity in the Party Ranks 98
On the Horns of a Dilemma 108
The Unpredictable World of Dissent 118
The First Trial, December 1974 134
Different Courts Without a Difference 164
The Sweet Taste of Freedom 173
More Dangerous Than Jews 194
A Jewish Invasion of the Communist Sanctum 204
How to Catch an American Spy 214
The Assault on the American Embassy 222
In the Cultist’s Lair 232
Send-offs of Various Kinds 262
New Life, Old Stars 270
Russian Jews, a Russian Tiger, and Some Other Russians 281
Phantoms of the Past in the Shadow of Skyscrapers 289
A Jew Who Spoke in Tongues 306
My Russian Habitat in California 317
Photographs and Documents 329
Index 343
Acknowledgments 351
About the author
Arkady Polishchuk (1935–2020) was a Russian Jewish dissident and former journalist who authored articles, essays, and satires for leading Russian periodicals, as well as two books about Africa. He also wrote two books in English, Dancing on Thin Ice (DoppelHouse 2018) and While I Was Burying Comrade Stalin (MacFarland 2020). His writings appeared in many publications in Europe and the United States including the National Review, Chicago Tribune, and Witness. Polishchuk was a broadcaster and correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1985–2008 in Washington, D.C.; Munich; and Prague. For many years in Soviet Russian and later in the West, Polishchuk was heavily involved in human rights, including as a testimonial speaker for Amnesty International and working on behalf of 30,000 Russian Evangelicals trying to escape decades of persecution under communist rule. In 1981 he was awarded the British McWhirter Human Rights Foundation Award and, throughout his life, received numerous travel grants for his human rights activities as well as being covered by Life, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Nightline with Ted Koppel, and international publications.
Polishchuk became a dissident in 1973 and spent several weeks in prison as part of a four-year campaign in support of Jewish and Christian emigration. When the Christian Emigration Movement was born after the Helsinki Accords in 1975, Polishchuk concentrated his human rights efforts on helping persecuted Christians – which included the dangerous smuggling of witness testimonies out of the USSR. Over several years he successfully petitioned for the right of Russian Evangelicals to emigrate and traveled to many European countries, to Canada and across the United States on their behalf. For two years he was the managing editor and spokesman for Door of Hope International, an Evangelical human rights organization focusing on religious persecution. He held an advanced degree in Philosophy from Moscow University. Some of his experiences as a dissident in Moscow were covered internationally, for example, in this article by the New York Times from October 20, 1976.
Summary
Exiled Russian journalist colorfully narrates his passage into dissent and his work on behalf of persecuted Christians in 1970s USSR.
Foreword
Outreach to national radio and televisionDRC promotion through EdelweissAdvance Reader copiesPromotion to worldwide Evangelical Christian organizations associated with Door of Hope International (dohi.org) with a 10,000+ mailing listAuthor book signing at ALA New OrleansPublicity campaign targeting foreign policy, Jewish book, and current affairs media
Additional text
Polishchuk describes much of his life with a chuckle. He says that the book is, in part, meant to convey the absurdity of the Soviet experience. But he acknowledges the deadly serious stakes dissidents and religious groups — like the evangelical Christian community he came to sympathize with — faced under the Communist Party. [...] Polischuk became a vocal advocate for evangelical Christians in Russia through his career as a journalist and lecturer working with Radio Free Europe and Amnesty International.
– Washington Jewish Week
