Please read these PFD before write.
citation need chicago style
Need in 18 hours.
Roy A. Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy. 1975
How can we act to bring about democratization in the USSR? …
… In our conditions, the struggle for democratization must be a political one. It is unrealistic to suppose that neo-Stalinism, bureaucracy,
and dogmatism can be overcome without a political fight. This is the only way that democracy can be achieved. However, we must
make sure all our activities are strictly within the framework of the Constitution. In fact, the struggle has already begun at every level of
society, taking different forms according to circumstances. And what is more-, one can predict that with each extension of democratic
rights, the political struggle will gain momentum, often reaching acute proportions. The transition from any authoritarian regime to a
democratic one is always accompanied by an intensification of political passions and pressures.
There is no doubt about the fact that democratization is an objective necessity for our society. Its inevitability is related to economic and
technical progress, the scientific and technological revolution and changes that have taken place in the social structure. The country
cannot be governed in the old way, and this is beginning to be felt not only by many young government officials but also by certain
seemingly dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrats. Yet the fact remains that democratization will not come about automatically nor will it be
handed down “from above.” It will occur only as a response to objective demands and determined efforts.
It is also unrealistic to suppose that a limited amount of democracy can be introduced which would apply to only one or two “approved”
political trends or movements. Certainly all political groups, including all the conservative and reactionary ones, will try to use
democratic freedoms to increase their own influence. The more circumstances seem to be turning against them, the harder they will
struggle to maintain their political position. Therefore the presence of political conflict contains an element of risk, but risk is inevitable if
there is to be a transition to a new and higher stage. Only the experience of struggle can foster the political activism and initiative of the
masses and encourage democratic habits throughout the social fabric.
In democratic conditions, political struggle presupposes a comparatively free confrontation between different points of view, which
obviously would provide a much better education in civic responsibility than does the present show of ostensible unity. We must only
see to it that the political struggle is waged responsibly in forms that reasonable people can accept. Mutual destructiveness should be
avoided; there must be a basic tolerance for those with whom one disagrees. Only this kind of open political contest can offer our
people a proper political education, teaching them not only to express their own opinions but also to heed the views of others. This is
the only way to establish a convention of ethical behavior in politics, to eliminate uncompromising sectarianism, intolerance, and elitist
complacency. Only in conditions of overt political struggle will it be possible for genuine political figures to emerge, men who are
capable of guiding the construction of a developed socialist and communist society in an efficient way. Thoughtful foreign observers
who are sympathetic toward our country understand this very well. “Soviet society,” wrote G. Boffa, the Italian Communist, “stands in
need of the establishment of democratic methods. The experience of the post-Stalin decades has shown that this cannot come about
without political struggle, a struggle against those individuals and groups who openly or in secret have resisted and obstructed the
policies initiated at the Twentieth Congress, a struggle against their theories and attitudes. But at all times there must be scrupulous
regard for democratic principles. The words ‘political struggle’ evoke uneasiness in the Soviet Union, an out-of-date reaction, as if there
were some real threat to the unity of society. But surely periods of political struggle are the greatest source of progress in both thought
and action.” This is an entirely reasonable view. If socialist democracy is to be firmly established, it must be defended by the whole
people, possibly only after all have passed through the school of political struggle by actually participating in the fight to extend and
strengthen socialist democracy.
I speak of struggle and pressure coming from the people and particularly from the intelligentsia; however, this does not exclude the
possibility of initiative appearing at the top. If moves toward democratization were taken at the higher levels of party and state it would
be an important guarantee that subsequent controversy involving so many difficult Political problems would take place in the least
painful manner and would be kept within bounds. But for the time being we do not have such a leadership; fine words about socialist
democracy are not supported by actions. Yet the experience of Hungary, where over a period of years there has been a process of real
democratization directed from “above,” does show that cooperation between those “above” and those “below” is a perfectly viable
possibility. Something similar happened in Poland in 1971-72 but only after a very bitter and dangerous political crisis, which could have
been avoided by a more rational leadership. The Czechoslovak experience of 1968-69, its achievements and failures, must also be
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carefully studied …
Of course I know that democratization cannot come about automatically and have no illusions about the difficulty of the struggle. But all
the same, it is wrong to exclude the possibility of an alliance between the best of the intelligentsia supported by the people and the most
forward-looking individuals in the governing apparat …
The realization of a serious program of democratic change must be a comparatively slow and gradual process. The actual time period
will be determined by many factors, but it should take not less than ten or fifteen years. First of all, the democratic movement in our
country is still too weak and would be unable to achieve rapid political changes. Secondly, we are still very much in the process of
formulating political programs. Therefore as the democratic movement evolves, there must also be a development of socialist political
thought, the creation of new political doctrines on the basis of Marxism-Leninism which Will analyze our changed political and economic
circumstances. Without this kind of theoretical preparation, without a serious program–even if it is discussed only in a relatively narrow
circle any kind of rapid political change would inevitably create overwhelming contradictions and disarray. Overhasty reform can also
cause problems within the socialist bloc (as the experience of Czechoslovakia has shown). Improvisation in politics can easily result in
anarchy. But although diametrically opposed to authoritarian abuse of power, anarchy offers little prospect for elementary human rights
and freedoms.
Reform must also be gradual because of the peculiar nature of bureaucracy. As, Lenin often pointed out, there is no way to “lance the
bureaucratic boll, to wipe bureaucracy from the face of the earth”-the only possibility is cure. “Surgery in this case,” wrote Lenin, “is
absurd, it cannot work. There can only be a slow healing process-other alternatives are fraudulent or naive.” This advice should not be
forgotten. It is essential for us to work out a democratic platform. But at the same time we must make an effort to accumulate
information, educate people and win them over, step by step. And it all will take time.
There is now a very widespread feeling that the way we live and work has become untenable, and this applies not just to the
intelligentsia but also to much of the working class, white collar workers, and perhaps some of the peasantry. But there is still no mass
movement demanding change or democratic reform, and without this it is difficult to count on, any rapid transformation of our political
system or on a change of attitude at the top. governments that have signed the Final Act. It Is the intention of the “group” to request
that, in special cases, these countries form an international commission to investigate these matters. In addition, the “group” will rely oil
the pressure of Western public opinion Oil the Soviet government and does not-in the words of Orlov–“seek support among the people.”
Antisocial elements arc calling oil the heads of states participating in the Helsinki Conference to create in their countries unofficial
monitoring groups, which could subsequently be unified into an international committee …
The Committee for State Security is taking measures to compromise and put an end to the “group’s” hostile activities.
Source: Roy A. Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1975), pp. 310-15, 331-32.
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Andrei Sakharov, Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom. 1974
The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Civilization is imperiled by: a universal thermonuclear war, catastrophic hunger for
most of mankind, stupefaction from the narcotic of “mass culture,” and bureaucratized dogmatism, spreading of mass myths that put
entire peoples and continents under the power of cruel and treacherous demagogues, and destruction or degeneration from the
unforeseeable consequences of swift changes in the conditions of life on our planet.
In the face of these perils, any action increasing the division of mankind, an preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies and
nations is madness and crime. Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of
socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism. and pressures of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will
preserve civilization.
The reader will understand that ideological collaboration cannot apply to those fanatical, sectarian, and extremist ideologies that reject
all possibility of rapprochement, discussion, and compromise, for example, the ideologies of fascist, racist. militaristic, and Maoist
demagogy.
Millions of people throughout the world are striving to put an end to poverty. They despise oppression, dogmatism, and demagogy (and
their more extreme manifestations: racism, fascism, Stalinism, and Maoism). They believe in progress based on the use, under
conditions of social justice and intellectual freedom, of all the positive experience accumulated by mankind …
Intellectual freedom is essential to human society-freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and fearless
debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an
infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody
dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and
culture.
But freedom of thought is under a triple threat in modern society-from the deliberate opium of mass culture, from cowardly, egotistic,
and philistine ideologies, and from the ossified dogmatism of a bureaucratic oligarchy and its favorite weapon, ideological censorship.
Therefore, freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and honest people. This is a mission not only for the intelligentsia but
for all strata of society, particularly and organized stratum, the its most active working class. The worldwide dangers of war, famine,
cults of personality, and bureaucracy-these are perils for all of mankind.
Recognition by the working class and the intelligentsia of their common interests has been a striking phenomenon of the present day.
The most progressive, internationalist, and dedicated element of the intelligentsia is, in essence, part of the working class, and the most
advanced, educated, internationalist, and broadminded part of the working class is part of the intelligentsia.
This position of the intelligentsia in society renders senseless any loud demands that the intelligentsia subordinate its strivings to the will
and interests of the working class (in the Soviet Union, Poland, and other socialist countries). What these demands really mean is
subordination to the will of the Party or, even more specifically, to the Party’s central apparatus and its officials. Who will guarantee that
these officials always express the genuine interests of the working class as a whole and the genuine interest of progress rather than
their own caste interests? …
Fascism lasted twelve years in Germany. Stalinism lasted twice as long in the Soviet Union. There are many common features but also
certain differences. Stalinism exhibited a much more subtle kind of hypocrisy and demagogy, with reliance not on an openly
cannibalistic program like Hitler’s but on a progressive, scientific, and popular socialist ideology.
This served as a convenient screen for deceiving the working class, for weakening the vigilance of the intellectuals and other rivals in
the struggle for power, with the treacherous and sudden use of the machinery of torture, execution, and informants, intimidating and
making fools of millions of people, the majority of whom were neither cowards nor fools. As a consequence of this “specific feature” of
Stalinism, It was the Soviet people, its most active, talented, and honest representatives, who suffered the most terrible blow.
At least ten to fifteen million people perished in the torture chambers of the NKVD from torture and execution, in camps for exiled kulaks
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and so-called semi-kulaks and members of their families and in camps “without the right of correspondence” (which were in fact the
prototypes of the fascist death camps, where, for example, thousands of prisoners were machine gunned because of “overcrowding” or
as a result of “special orders”).
People perished in the mines of Norilsk and Vorkuta from freezing, starvation, and exhausting labor, at countless construction projects,
in timber-cutting, building of canals, or simply during transportation in prison trains, in the overcrowded holds of “death ships” in the Sea
of Okhotsk, and during the resettlement of entire peoples, the Crimean Tatars, the Volga Germans, the Kalmyks, and other Caucasus
peoples …
In conclusion, I will sum up a number of the concrete proposals of varying degrees of importance that have been discussed in the text.’
These proposals, addressed to the leadership of the country, do not exhaust the content of the article.
The strategy of peaceful coexistence and collaboration must be deepened in every way. Scientific methods and principles of
international policy will have to be worked out, based on scientific prediction of the immediate and more distant consequences.
The initiative must be -seized in working out a broad program of struggle against hunger.
A law on press and information must be drafted, widely discussed, and adopted, with the aim not only of ending irresponsible and
Irrational censorship, but also of encouraging self-study in our society, fearless discussion, and the search for truth. The law must
provide for the material resources of freedom of thought.
All anti-constitutional laws and decrees violating human rights must be abrogated.
Political prisoners must be amnestied and some of the recent political trials must be reviewed (for example, the Daniel -Siniavskii and
Ginzburg-Galanskov cases). The camp regime of political prisoners must be promptly relaxed.
The exposure of Stalin must be carried through to the end, to the complete truth, and not just to the carefully weighed half-truth dictated
by caste considerations. The influence of neo-Stalinists in our political life must be restricted in every way (the text mentioned, as an
example, the case of S. Trapeznikov, who enjoys too much influence).
The economic reform must be deepened in every way and the area of experimentation expanded, with conclusions based on the
results.
Source: Andrei Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks (New York: Knopf, 1974), pp. 58-61, 80-81, 112-13.
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Letter to the Soviet Leaders. 1974
Contributor: Translation by Hilary Sternberg
The murky whirlwind of Progressive Ideology swept in on us from the West at the end of the last century, and has tormented and
ravaged our soul quite enough …
A second danger is the multiple impasse in which Western civilization (which Russia long ago chose the honor of joining) finds itself, but
it is not so imminent; there are still two or three decades in reserve. We share this impasse with all the advanced countries, which are in
an even worse and more perilous predicament than we are, although people keep hoping for new scientific loopholes and inventions to
stave off the day of retribution. I would not mention this danger in this letter if the solutions to both problems were not identical in many
respects, if one and the same turnabout, a single decision, would not deliver us from both dangers. Such a happy coincidence is rare.
Let us value history’s gift and not miss these opportunities.
And all this has so “suddenly” come tumbling out at mankind’s feet, and at Russia’s! How fond our progressive publicists were, both
before and after the Revolution, of ridiculing those retrogrades (there were always so many of them in Russia): people who called upon
us to cherish and have pity on our past, even on the most Godforsaken hamlet with a couple of hovels, even on the paths that run
alongside the railroad track; who called upon us to keep horses even after the advent of the motorcar, not to abandon small factories for
enormous plants and combines, not to discard organic manure in favor of chemical fertilizers, not to mass by the million in cities, not to
clamber on top of one another in multistory apartment blocks. How they laughed, how they tormented those reactionary “Slavophiles”
(the jibe became the accepted term, the simpletons never managed to think up another name for themselves). They hounded the men
who said that it was perfectly feasible for a colossus like Russia, with all its spiritual peculiarities and folk traditions, to find its own
particular path; and that it could not be that the whole of mankind should follow a single, absolutely identical pattern of development.
No, we had to be dragged along the whole of the Western bourgeois-industrial and Marxist path in order to discover, toward the close of
the twentieth century, and again from progressive Western scholars, what any village graybeard in the Ukraine or Russia had
understood from time immemorial and could have explained to the progressive commentators ages ago, had the commentators ever
found the time in that dizzy fever of theirs to consult him: that a dozen worms can’t go on and on gnawing the same apple forever, that if
the earth is a finite object, then its expanses and resources are finite also, and the endless, infinite progress dinned into our heads by
the dreamers of the Enlightenment cannot be accomplished on it. No, we had to shuffle on and on behind other people, without knowing
what lay ahead of us, until suddenly we now hear the scouts calling to one another: We’ve blundered into a blind alley, we’ll have to turn
back. All that “endless progress” turned out to be an insane, ill-considered, furious dash into a blind alley. A civilization greedy for
“perpetual progress” has now choked and is on its last legs …
But what about us? Us, with our unwieldiness and our inertia, with our flinching and inability to change even a single letter, a single
syllable, of what Marx said in 1848 about industrial development? Economically and physically we are perfectly capable of saving
ourselves. But there is a roadblock on the path to our salvation-the sole Progressive World View. If we renounce industrial development,
what about the working class, socialism, communism, unlimited increase in productivity and all the rest? Marx is not to be corrected,
that’s revisionism …
But you are already being called “revisionists” anyway, whatever you may do in the future. So wouldn’t it be better to do your duty
soberly, responsibly and firmly, and give up the dead letter for the sake of a living people who are utterly dependent on your power and
your decisions? And you must do it without delay. Why dawdle if we shall have to snap out of it sometime anyway? Why repeat what
others have done and loop the agonizing loop right to the end, when we are not too far into it to turn back? If the man at the head of the
column cries, “I have lost my way,” do we absolutely have to plow right on to the spot where he realized his mistake and only there -turn
back? Why not turn and start on the right course from wherever we happen to be?
As it is, we have followed Western technology too long and too faithfully. We are supposed to be the “first socialist country in the world,”
one which sets an example to other peoples, in both the East and the West, and we are supposed to have been so “original” in
following various monstrous doctrines-on the peasantry, on small tradesmen-so why, then, have we been so dolefully unoriginal in
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technology, and why have we so unthinkingly, so blindly, copied Western civilization? (Why? From military haste, of course, and the
haste stems from our immense “international responsibilities,” and all this because of Marxism again.)
One might have thought that, with the central planning of which we are so proud, we of all people had the chance not to spoil Russia’s
natural beauty, not to create antihuman, multimillion concentrations of people. But we’ve done everything the other way round: we have
dirtied and defiled the wide Russian spaces and disfigured the heart of Russia, our beloved Moscow. (What crazed, unfilial hand
bulldozed the boulevards so that you can’t go along them now without diving down into degrading tunnels of stone? What evil, alien ax
broke up the tree-fined boulevards of the Sadovoe Kol’tso and replaced them with a poisoned zone of asphalt and gasoline?) The
irreplaceable face of the city and all the ancient city plan have been obliterated, and imitations of the West are being flung up, like the’
New Arbat; the city has been so squeezed, stretched and pushed upward that life has become intolerable-so what do we do now?
Reconstruct the former Moscow in a new place? That is probably impossible. Accept, then, that we have lost it completely?
We have squandered our resources foolishly without so much as a backward glance, sapped our soil, mutilated our vast expanses with
Idiotic “Inland seas” and contaminated belts of wasteland around our industrial centers-but for the moment, at least, far more still
remains untainted by us, which we haven’t had time to touch. So let us come to our senses in time, let us change our course! …
This Ideology that fell to us by inheritance is not only decrepit and hopelessly antiquated now; even during its best decades it was totally
mistaken in its predictions and was never a science.
A primitive, superficial economic theory, it declared that only the worker creates value and failed to take into account the contribution of
either organizers, engineers, transportation or marketing systems. It was mistaken when it forecast that the proletariat would be
endlessly oppressed and would never achieve anything in a bourgeois democracy-if only we could shower people with as much food,
clothing and leisure as they have gained under capitalism! It missed the point when it asserted that the prosperity of the European
countries depended on their colonies; it was only after they had shaken the colonies off that they began to accomplish their “economic
miracles.” It was mistaken through and through in its prediction that socialists could never come to power except through an armed
uprising. It miscalculated in thinking that the first uprisings would take place in the advanced industrial countries; quite the reverse. And
the picture of how the whole world would rapidly be overtaken by revolutions and how states would soon wither away was sheer
delusion, sheer ignorance of human nature. And as for wars being characteristic of capitalism alone and coming to an end when
capitalism did-we have already witnessed the longest war of the twentieth century so far, and it was not capitalism that rejected
negotiations and a truce for fifteen to twenty years; and God forbid that we should witness the bloodiest and most brutal of all mankind’s
wars-a war between two Communist superpowers. Then there was nationalism, which this theory also buried in 1848 as a “survival”-but
find a stronger force in the world today! And it’s the same with many other things too boring to list.
Marxism is not only not accurate, is not only not a science, has not only failed to predict a single event in terms of figures, quantities,
time-scales or locations (something that electronic computers today do with laughable ease in the course of social forecasting, although
never with the help of Marxism)-it absolutely astounds one by the economic and mechanistic crudity of its attempts to explain that most
subtle of creatures, the human being, and that even more complex synthesis of millions of people, society. Only the cupidity of some,
the blindness of others and a craving for faith on the part of still others can serve to explain this grim jest of the twentieth century: how
can such a discredited and bankrupt doctrine still have so many followers in the West! In our country are left the fewest of all! We who
have had a taste of it are only pretending willy-nilly …
Here in Russia, for sheer lack of practice, democracy survived for only eight months-from February to October, 1917. The �migr�
groups of Constitutional Democrats and Social Democrats still pride themselves on it to this very day and say that outside forces
brought about its collapse. But in reality that democracy was their disgrace; they invoked it and promised it so arrogantly, and then
created merely a chaotic caricature of democracy, because first of all they turned out to be ill-prepared for it themselves, and then
Russia was worse prepared still. Over the last half-century Russia’s preparedness for democracy, for a multiparty parliamentary system,
could only have diminished. I am inclined to think that its sudden reintroduction now would merely be a melancholy repetition of 1917
Should we record as our democratic tradition the Land Assemblies of Muscovite Russia, Novgorod, the early Cossacks, the village
commune? Or should we console ourselves with the thought that for a thousand years Russia lived with an authoritarian order-and at
the beginning of the twentieth century both the physical and spiritual health of her people were still intact?
However, in those days an important condition was fulfilled: that authoritarian order possessed a strong moral foundation, embryonic
and rudimentary though it was-not the ideology of universal violence, but Christian Orthodoxy, the ancient, seven-centuries-old
Orthodoxy of Sergei of Radonezh and Nil Sorsky, before it was battered by Patriarch Nikon and bureaucratized by Peter the Great.
From the end of the Moscow period and throughout the whole of the Petersburg period, once this moral principle was perverted and
weakened, the authoritarian order, despite the apparent external successes of the state, gradually went into a decline and eventually
perished.
But even the Russian intelligentsia, which for more than a century has invested all its strength in the struggle with an authoritarian
regime-what has it achieved for itself or the common people by its enormous losses? The opposite of what it intended, of course. So
should we not perhaps acknowledge that for Russia this path was either false or, premature? That for the foreseeable future, perhaps,
whether we like it or not, whether we intend it or not, Russia is nevertheless destined to have an authoritarian order? Perhaps this is all
that she is ripe for today? … Everything depends upon what sort of authoritarian order lies in store for us in the future.
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It is not authoritarianism itself that is intolerable, but the ideological lies that are daily foisted upon us. Not so much authoritarianism as
arbitrariness and illegality, the sheer illegality of having a single overlord in each district, each province and each sphere, often ignorant
and brutal, whose will alone decides all things. An authoritarian order does not necessarily mean that laws are unnecessary or that they
exist only on paper, or that they should not reflect the notions and will of the population. Nor does it mean that the legislative, executive
and judicial authorities are not independent, any of them, that they are in fact not authorities at all but utterly at the mercy of a telephone
call from the only true, self-appointed authority. May I remind you that the soviets, which gave their name to our system and existed until
July 6, 1918, were in no way dependent upon Ideology: Ideology or no Ideology, they always envisaged the widest possible consultation
with all working people.
Would it be still within the bounds of realism or a lapse daydreams if we were to propose that at least some of the real power of the
soviets be restored? I do not know what can be said on the subject of our Constitution: from 1936 It has not been observed for a single
day, and for that reason does not appear to be viable. But perhaps even the Constitution is not beyond all hope? …
So that the country and people do not suffocate, and so that they all have the chance to develop and enrich us with ideas, allow
competition on an equal and honorable basis not for power, but for truth between all ideological and moral currents, in particular
between all religions – there will be nobody to persecute them if their tormentor, Marxism, is deprived of its state privileges. But allow
competition honestly, not the way you do now, not by gagging people; allow it to religious youth organizations (which are totally
nonpolitical; let the Komsomol be the only political one), grant them the right to instruct and educate children, and the right to free parish
activity. (I myself see Christianity today as the only living spiritual force capable of undertaking the spiritual healing of Russia. But I
request and propose no special privileges for it, simply that it should be treated fairly and not suppressed.) Allow us a free art and
literature, the free publication not just of political books-God preserve us!-and exhortations and election leaflets; allow us philosophical,
ethical, economic and social studies, and you will see what a rich harvest it brings and how it bears fruit-for the good of Russia. Such an
abundant and free flowering of inspiration will rapidly absolve us of the need to keep on belatedly translating new ideas from Western
languages, as has been the case for the whole of the last fifty years-as you know.
What have you to fear? Is the idea really so terrible? Are you really so unsure of yourselves? You will still have absolute and
impregnable power, a separate, strong and exclusive Party, the army, the police force, industry, transportation, communications, mineral
wealth, a monopoly of foreign trade, an artificial rate of exchange for the ruble-but let the people breathe, let them think and develop! If
you belong to the people heart and soul, there can be nothing to hold you back!
After all, does the human heart not still feel the need to atone for the past?
Source: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Letter to the Soviet Leaders (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 19-21, 24-26, 41-43, 51-54, 56-57.
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Subject essay: James von Geldern
Dissidence arose among Soviet intellectuals in the 1960s and expanded in the early 1970s. Challenging official policies
became possible as Khrushchev loosened state controls, but the practice continued to grown when the boundaries of
permissible expression contracted under the Brezhnev administration. It reflected the contradiction between an increasingly
articulate and mobile society on the one hand and an increasingly sclerotic political order on the other. While never including
more than a few thousand individuals, dissidents exercised a moral and even political weight far exceeding their numbers,
and paralleled the self-proclaimed role of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia as the “conscience of society.”
Dissidence took a variety of forms: public protests and demonstrations, open letters to Soviet leaders, and the production
and circulation of manuscript copies (samizdat) of banned works of literature, social and political commentary. In addition,
from 1968 until the early 1980s, the samizdat journal, The Chronicle of Current Events, served as a clearing house of
information about human-rights violations in the Soviet Union. By the early 1970s, the dissident movement evinced three
main currents. Democratic socialism, couched in terms of “scrupulous regard for democratic principles” and “the possibility
of an alliance between the best of the intelligentsia supported by the people and the most forward-looking individuals in the
governing apparat,” was exemplified by the historian Roy Medvedev in his book, On Socialist Democracy (originally
published in Amsterdam in 1972). Political liberalism and a strong defense of freedom of expression and other human rights
was most famously articulated by the physicist, Andrei Sakharov in his essay, “Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual
Freedom,” which dates from 1968. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the novelist and author of GULAG Archipelago, embodied the
third current which condemned western ideologies including Marxism in the name of Russian Orthodox values. In addition,
human rights activities took up the cause of religious dissenters, Soviet Jews who had been denied permission to emigrate
(“refuseniks”), and nationalities such as the Crimean Tatars.
Soviet authorities attempted to repress these currents and activities by propaganda that discredited dissidents and their
claims, confiscation of dissident literature, removal of dissidents from their jobs, prosecution and incarceration in mental
institutions and prison, banishment to a provincial city or outlying region, or enforced exile with removal of Soviet citizenship.
In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was deported from the Soviet Union. The network of underground groups set up after the Helsinki
Accords of 1975 to monitor Soviet compliance with that agreement’s human-rights provisions was hounded and decimated
by arrests. Sakharov was stripped of his privileges as a member of the Academy of Sciences and, in 1980, consigned to
internal exile. But Roy Medvedev’s observation that “There is now a very widespread feeling that the way we live and work
has become untenable,” eventually would be repeated by Mikhail Gorbachev as justification for his policies of glasnost and
perestroika.
1973: The Dissident Movement
The Dissident Movement
The Dissident Movement http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID…
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