Viktor Fainberg was born to the married couple of Isaac Fainberg and Sarah Dashevskaya. While attending school during an
antisemitic campaign of 1948-1952, he was subjected to harassment that, in his own words, he did not reconcile himself to, but entered the fray with an abuser. As the result of these frays, he got a referral to a psychiatrist. In 1957, in connection with antisemitic insult, he had a fight with a policeman and for this reason was sentenced to 1 year of corrective labor. In 1968, he graduated from the English unit of the philological department of
Leningrad University where he defended his diploma thesis about writer
Salinger with distinction. In the summer of 1968, Fainberg worked as a guide at
Pavlovsk Palace. During the demonstration and his arrest, he lost many teeth and in this unpresentable state was never presented for trial; instead, he was placed to a psychiatric hospital. Fainberg was examined by the
Serbsky Institute commission composed of G.V. Morozov,
D.R. Lunts and Y.L. Lindau. In their act No 35 / s dated 10 October 1968, they did not mention the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which gave rise to this demonstration, the action was merely described as 'disorderly conduct at Red Square,' and Fainberg's mental condition was described as follows: As a result, he was committed for compulsory treatment to the Special Psychiatric Hospital in
Leningrad where he was confined from January 1969 to February 1973. In emigration, Fainberg initiated the formation of "Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuses" (CAPA) to fight punitive psychiatry in the USSR. == Other ==