Simis, Konstantin 1919-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born August 4, 1919, in Odessa, U.S.S.R. (now Ukraine); died December 14, 2006, in Falls Church, VA. Attorney, educator, and author. Simis was best known as a Soviet dissident who lived in exile in the United States because of his criticisms of Soviet Russia. Physical disability caused him to be discharged from military service as a young man, and so he attended law school during World War II. He studied in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, before completing a master’s degree at the Moscow Legal Institute. In 1944 he earned a Ph.D. at the Institute of Soviet Law at the academy of Science of the U.S.S.R. The Moscow State Institute of International Relations hired him to its faculty after he graduated, but he was later fired because of his Jewish background. Simis continued to experience prejudice at Rostov State University, where he also lost his teaching job because of anti-Semitism. He then practiced law in Moscow as a defense attorney before becoming a researcher for the Institute of Soviet Law at the Ministry of Justice, where he worked until 1977. Here, Simis helped to write the language for the revised Soviet constitution. Along with his wife, attorney Dina Kaminskaya, he often traveled the countryside, where he was shocked by widespread evidence of political corruption. Simis came to conclude that the Soviet Union’s corrupt government was also making its citizenry corrupt, and he began writing his thoughts down in book form. The KGB, the Soviet secret police, became suspicious of Simis and searched his home, discovering the manuscript and giving him two choices: remain in Russia and face trial, or leave the country. Simis and his wife decided to leave. Moving to the United States, in 1982 he released his book, USSR: The Corrupt Society; The Secret World of Soviet Capitalism.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, December 18, 2006, Section 1, p. 15.

Washington Post, December 17, 2006, p. C6.