Menachem, thanks for an interesting article. It confirms that Rebbe opposed demonstrations – but he was not a daas Yachid as I posted (this is from memoirs of one of those students). The article uses, well, somewhat convoluted logic to prove that Rebbe’s quiet help was useful and demonstrations were not. It is probably convincing to those who only read DerHer … Comparing dealing w/ Soviets with French …
Note that the article write about a little later times when Israelis started talking about the issue. The memoirs was about a little earlier times, I think 1960s, when Israelis hoped to improve relationships with USSR and thus advised (lied to) R Soloveitchik. As he put it later: I asked them what is better for Soviet Jews, and they answered what is better for Israel itself. All other rebbeim were concerned, as the article said, that traditional shatdlanus is better and also that KGB could hurt those naive students.
This is absolutely not to disrespect legacy of Chabad in respect to USSR Jews – his father died there in exile, so I am sure he did not have any illusions about the regime, like some other more progressive leaders did.
PS the article is also funny substituting “eretz isroel” for “Israel” even when it is clearly about the state: Soviet Russia cut ties with Eretz Yisroel.
Maybe an editor did find/replace.