Editing Refusenik (section)

{{short description|Soviet citizens denied permission to emigrate}}
{{Other uses}}
[[File:19730110 Soviet refuseniks demonstrate at MVD.jpg|thumb|January 10, 1973. Soviet Jewish refusenik demonstration in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the right to emigrate to Israel, before being broken up by Soviet authorities.]]
[[File:Soviet Exit Visa Forever.jpg|thumb|A rare type 2 USSR [[exit visa]]. This type of visa was issued to those who received permission to leave the USSR permanently and lost their Soviet citizenship. Many people who wanted to emigrate were unable to receive this kind of exit visa.]]
[[File:Ответ МВД СССР Дубровскому об отказе в выпуске из СССР 30 мая 1991 года.jpg|thumb|Letter from the [[Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs|MVD]] to a 76-year-old man from [[Yekaterinburg|Sverdlovsk]] refusing him permission to move to Israel due to "knowledge of state secrets",<br/>May 1991.]]
'''Refusenik'''  ({{langx|ru|отказник|otkaznik}}, {{ety||''отказ'' (otkaz)|refusal}}; alternatively spelled '''refusnik''') was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, [[History of the Jews in the Soviet Union|Soviet Jews]]—who were [[Travel visa|denied permission to emigrate]], primarily to [[Israel]], by the authorities of the [[Soviet Union]] and other countries of the [[Eastern Bloc|Soviet Bloc]].<ref>Mark Azbel' and Grace Pierce Forbes. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kGSAAAAAIAAJ&q=refusenik Refusenik, trapped in the Soviet Union.] [[Houghton Mifflin]], 1981. {{ISBN|0-395-30226-9}}</ref> The term ''refusenik'' is derived from the "refusal" handed down to a prospective emigrant from the Soviet authorities.

In addition to the Jews, broader categories included:
*Other ethnicities, such as [[Volga Germans]] attempting to leave for [[Germany]], [[Armenians]] wanting to join their [[diaspora]], and [[Greeks in Russia and the Soviet Union|Greeks]] [[Deportation of the Soviet Greeks|forcibly removed]] by Stalin from [[Crimea]] and other southern lands to Siberia.
*Members of [[Religion in the Soviet Union|persecuted religious groups]], such as the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Soviet Union|Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]], [[Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Russia|Baptists and other Protestant groups]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], and [[Russian Mennonites]].

A typical basis to deny emigration was the alleged association with Soviet [[state secrets]]. Some individuals were labelled as foreign [[spy|spies]] or potential [[seditionist]]s who purportedly wanted to abuse Israeli ''[[aliyah]]'' and [[Law of Return]] ([[right to return]]) as a means of escaping punishment for [[high treason]] or sedition from abroad.

Applying for an exit visa was a step noted by the [[KGB]], so that future career prospects, always uncertain for Soviet Jews, could be impaired.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Brezhnev and the Decline of the Soviet Union|last=Crump|first=Thomas|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-66922-6|series=Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe|pages=153}}</ref> As a rule, [[Soviet dissidents]] and refuseniks were fired from their workplaces and denied employment according to their major specialty. As a result, they had to find a [[menial job]], such as a street sweeper, or face imprisonment on charges of [[parasitism (social offense)|social parasitism]].<ref>[http://www.mhg.ru/history/14DA65B "Злоупотребления законодательством о труде"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502043018/http://www.mhg.ru/history/14DA65B |date=2015-05-02 }}, a document of the [[Moscow Helsinki Group]].</ref>

The ban on Jewish immigration to Israel was lifted in 1971, leading to the [[1970s Soviet Union aliyah]]. The coming to power of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, and his policies of [[glasnost]] and [[perestroika]], as well as a desire for better relations with the West, led to major changes, and most refuseniks were allowed to emigrate.