VSKhSON

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "VSKhSON" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (December 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Всероссийский социал-христианский союз освобождения народа]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Всероссийский социал-христианский союз освобождения народа}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (Russian: Всероссийский социал-христианский союз освобождения народа, romanized: Vserossiyskiy sotsial-khristianskiy soyuz osvobozhdeniya naroda), commonly known by the acronym VSKhSON (ВСХСОН), was an underground anti-Soviet organization operated in the Soviet Union between 1964 and 1967. The Union was founded by Leningrad State University alumni in February 1964, and counted 28 members and 30 candidates.^[1]

VSKhSON ideology was named "Social Christianity" and has its roots in the Third Position, of neither communism nor capitalism. It was aimed to project Christian ethics on a reformed social and economical structure of Soviet society. In order to achieve that goal, it was supposed to create the Supreme Council with the right to veto any government initiative, which should consist of one-third of members of the highest Russian Orthodox hierarchy, and two-thirds of life "outstanding representatives of the nation", while the head of the proposed "Christian state" should be elected by the Supreme Council, then approved by the public vote.^[2]

VSKhSON members stood for "the abolition of Soviet totalitarianism" and the resurrection of a "healthy balance between the individual, society, and government", and the resurrection of the individual (versus Soviet collectivism). As compared to other secret youth organizations of the 1960s–early 1970s, the bylaws of VSKhSON had stated that every member of the organization "is not only a propagandist and organizer, but a soldier". In many ways the organization can be compared to the white émigré National Alliance of Russian Solidarists.

In February 1967, after being denounced by an informant, the organization was designated as terrorist by the KGB.^[1] Twenty one of the organization's members were put on trial and received long terms of internment. Co-founder Igor Ogurtsov [ru] was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, eight years of labor camps and five years of exile.^[1] After returning to Russia in 1992 from exile in Germany, Ogurtsov continued a life of political activism.

The organization's founders, Igor Ogurtsov, Yevgeny Vagin, Mikhail Sado and Boris Averichkin, have not been rehabilitated. The Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia affirmed the validity of the guilty verdict and sentence of VSKhSON members on 20 November 1996.^[3]