Soviet dissidents were citizens of the Soviet Union (1917 — 1991) who disagreed with the policies and actions of their nation, and at the same time actively protested against these measures through non-violent means. Through such protests, Soviet dissidents would incur harassment, persecution and ultimate imprisonment by the KGB, NKVD, GRU, or some other Soviet state policing arm. The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for State Security Committee, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ... The NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del )(Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or Peoples Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Unions affairs of state. ... Emblem of GRU spetsnaz GRU is the English transliteration of the Russian acronym ГРУ, which stands for Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние (Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie), meaning Main Intelligence Directorate. ...

Below is a partial list:

Noted Dissidents

Scientists

• Zhores Medvedev
• Andrei Sakharov
• Natan Sharansky

Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (born in the former USSR on November 14, 1925) is a Russian biologist and dissident. ... Andrei Sakharov, 1943 Dr. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: , May 21, 1921 – December 14, 1989), was an eminent Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. ... Natan Sharansky (Hebrew: נתן שרנסקי, Russian: Натан Борисович Щаранский; born January 20, 1948) is a notable former Soviet anticommunist, Zionist, Israeli politician and writer. ...

Authors & Artists

• Vladimir Bukovsky
• Yuri Daniel aka "Nikolai Arzhak"
• Roy Medvedev
• Boris Pasternak
• Andrei Sinyavsky aka "Abram Tertz"
• Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Vladimir Bukovsky early photo Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: ; b. ... Yuri Daniel was a Russian writer who often criticised commmunism. ... Roi Medvedev, (b. ... Boris Pasternak (1890-1960). ... Andrei Sinyavsky Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (Russian language: Андрей Донатович Синявский) (1925 - 1997) was a Russian writer, dissident, gulag survivor, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher. ... Andrei Sinyavsky Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (Russian language: Андрей Донатович Синявский) (1925 - 1997) was a Russian writer, dissident, gulag survivor, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher. ... Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union for his book The Gulag Archipelago. ...

Journalists, Human Right and Political Activists

• Yelena Bonner
• Sergei Kovalev
• Volodya Slepak
• Mikhail Trepashkin

Yelena Georgiyevna Bonner (Russian language: Елена Георгиевна Боннер, born February 15, 1923) is a human rights activist in the former Soviet Union and wife of late Andrei Sakharov. ... Sergei Kovalev Sergei Adamovich Kovalev (Russian: ) (born March 2, 1930) is a notable dissident and political prisoner in the former Soviet Union, and a human rights activist and politician in post-Soviet Russia. ... Mikhail Trepashkin, a Moscow attorney and former FSB agent, was invited by MP Sergei Yushenkov to assist in an independent investigation of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 – the atrocities that provoked the war in Chechnya and skyrocketed Vladimir Putin to presidency. ...

See also

• Gulag