The Emigres Speak out; Is the Soviet Union Changing?

Chalidze, Valery, Yanov, Alexander, Katsenelinboigen, Aron, Kopelev, Lev, Orlov, Yuri, Maximov, Vladimir, Voinovich, Vladimir, Medvedev, Zhores Aleksandrovich, The Nation

The Emigres Speak Out

American publications rarely report that Mikhail Gorbachev'sreforms have thrown the Soviet emigre community into political disarray. The skeptics, who warn against succumbing to the allure of glasnost, continue to exercise an enormous influence on American perceptions of the Soviet Union.

For this special issue, we asked emigres working in differentprofessions and holding diverse political opinions to discuss whether the changes in various areas of domestic policy over the past two years suggest that a process of significant change is under way in the Soviet Union. Here we publish several of their responses--positive and negative --to recent developments.

VALERY CHALIDZE

It is quite possible that we are witnessing events that willlead to gradual democratization in the Soviet Union. It requires courage on the part of the Soviet leadership to promote such changes, and we in the West must be brave enough to believe in what they are doing.

But if Gorbachev's reforms are to succeed, the SovietUnion must abandon the myth of a unified society and deal with the reality of enormous social contradictions. The leadership must also adopt the principle of separation of power, both within the government and between the party and the government.

Valery Chalidze, along with Andrei Sakharov and AndreiTverdokhlebov, was one of the founders of the Committee for Human Rights in the Soviet Union. In 1972 he received permission to travel to the United States and, soon after his arrival, was stripped of his citizenship. In 1979 he established his own publishing house, Chalidze Publications, for Russian language books. In 1985 Chalidze received a MacArthur Fellowship.

ALEXANDER YANOV

Andrei Sakharov and Margaret Thatcher see a significantchange in Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Union. I couldn't agree more. The problem, as I see it, is not whether reform is under way in Moscow but whether this latest attempt at political modernization is as reversible as previous ones. Remember Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) in the 1920s and Khrushchev's thaw in the 1950s. The first turned out to be a prologue to, if not a provocation of, a brutal counterreform; the second, the precursor of Brezhnevian paralysis. As a historian, I must point out that this has been the outcome of all reformist attempts in Russia since the 1550s.

What is different about the current attempt is that it …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: The Emigres Speak out; Is the Soviet Union Changing?. Contributors: Chalidze, Valery - Author, Yanov, Alexander - Author, Katsenelinboigen, Aron - Author, Kopelev, Lev - Author, Orlov, Yuri - Author, Maximov, Vladimir - Author, Voinovich, Vladimir - Author, Medvedev, Zhores Aleksandrovich - Author. Magazine title: The Nation. Volume: 244. Publication date: June 13, 1987. Page number: 812+. © 1999 The Nation Company L.P. COPYRIGHT 1987 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.