Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes

The commission was established on 5 January 1977 on the initiative of Alexandr Podrabinek along with a 47-year-old self-educated worker Feliks Serebrov, a 30-year-old computer programmer Vyacheslav Bakhmin and Irina Kuplun and was composed of five open members and several anonymous ones, including a few psychiatrists who, at great danger to themselves, conducted their own independent examinations of cases of alleged psychiatric abuse. The leader of the commission was Alexandr Podrabinek who published a book Punitive Medicine The psychiatric consultants to the Commission were Dr Alexander Voloshanovich and Dr Anatoly Koryagin. == Investigating activities ==

The task stated by the Commission was not primarily to diagnose persons or to declare people who sought help mentally ill or mentally healthy. However, in some instances individuals who came for help to the Commission were examined by a psychiatrist who provided help to the Commission and made a precise diagnosis of their mental condition. his work was continued by the Kharkov psychiatrist Anatoly Koryagin. For the four years of its existence, the Commission published more than 1,500 pages of documentation including 22 Information Bulletins in which over 400 cases of the political abuse of psychiatry were documented in great detail. == Foreign reactions ==

Over fifty victims examined by psychiatrists of the Moscow Working Commission between 1977 and 1981 and the files smuggled to the West by Vladimir Bukovsky in 1971 were the material which convinced most psychiatric associations that there was distinctly something wrong in the USSR. In the autumn of 1978, the British Royal College of Psychiatrists carried a resolution in which it reiterated its concern over the abuse of psychiatry for the suppression of dissent in the USSR and applauded the Soviet citizens who had taken an open stance against such abuse, by expressing its admiration and support especially for Semyon Gluzman, Alexander Podrabinek, Alexander Voloshanovich, and Vladimir Moskalkov. == Forcing shutdown ==

Members of the Working Commission have been stifled through exile and imprisonment. All of its members were arrested or forced to emigrate. The Working Commission ceased to exist on 21 July 1981 when its last member Feliks Serebrov was sentenced to 5 years of camps and 5 years of exile. Prior to that, members of the Working Commission were arrested and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and exile: Alexander Podrabinek was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment (convicted for the second time), Vyacheslav Bakhmin was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment, Leonard Ternovsky was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment, Irina Grivnina was sentenced to 5 years of exile, and Anatoly Koryagin was sentenced to particularly severe punishment under Part 1 of Article of 70 the RSFSR Criminal Code, 7 years in prison camps and 5 years of subsequent exile. On 5 April 1981, the Moscow Helsinki Group members Yelena Bonner, Sofiya Kalistratova, Ivan Kovalyov, Naum Meiman issued document No. 162 "The Arrest of Anatoly Koryagin" which stated, == References ==