Klebanov, Vladimir

Klebanov, Vladimir [Клебанов, Владимир], b 14 June 1932 in Borisov, Belorussian SSR. Soviet workers’ rights activist and dissident. A foreman at the Blazhanova coal mine in the Donets Basin, in 1960 he tried to organize an independent trade union at his mine but was stopped by the authorities. For protesting against unsafe working conditions he was dismissed from his job and then confined in a special psychiatric hospital from 1968 to 1973. Upon his release he organized a workers’ group to protest the abuses and persecution suffered by workers. In January 1978 the group formed the Association of Free Trade Unions in Moscow and claimed to represent about 200 workers. Its leaders were detained immediately by the police, and Klebanov was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Donetsk. He was released from imprisonment in 1987 during the perestroika period.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]