DISSIDENT LEONID PLYUSHCH IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE SOVIET REGIME

Abstract

The aim of the article is to cover comprehensively the life path of dissident Leonid Plyushch, in particular his struggle against the Soviet repressive system, his period of imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital, and subsequent emigration to France. The article contributes to the understanding of the historical processes of the struggle for human rights in the USSR and the significance of L. Plyushch's contribution to the Ukrainian dissident movement. The methodological basis of the article was the principles of objectivity, historicism, comprehensiveness, continuity, as well as a complex of general scientific and special historical methods. The work used methods of analysis and synthesis, problem-chronological, retrospective, method of comparison of information from various sources. The basis of the source base is the memoirs and works of L. Plyushch himself, materials from the diaspora and foreign press, as well as reports of the State Security Committee (KGB) to the top party leadership of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSA SSU). The authors conclude that L. Plyushch joined the dissident movement in the mid-1960s, advocating for the democratization of the Soviet system. At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, he joined the circle of Moscow human rights activists and became one of the main communicators between Russian dissidents and representatives of the Ukrainian national movement. Leonid Plyushch's public activism was the key reason for his arrest during the implementation of the "Bloc" case by KGB officers in 1972 and subsequent confinement to a special psychiatric hospital. Having gone through repression, forced psychiatric confinement, and persecution, he did not break down, but, on the contrary, continued his struggle for human rights while abroad. Due to international outcry, the dissident was released from prison in January 1976; he emigrated to France. Once in the West, the former political prisoner actively collaborated with human rights organizations, the Ukrainian diaspora, and democratic forces, exposing the crimes of the Soviet regime. His activities contributed to increasing international pressure on the USSR and strengthening the resistance movement both among Ukrainians abroad and within the country.