VADIM BELOTSERKOVSKY
III. DEMOCRATIZATION OR OPPORTUNISM?
(Apropos of Roy Medvedev's article, "The Problem of
Democratization and the Problem of Detente.")
49
The historian Roy Medvedev, a dissident well known in the Soviet
Union and abroad,
is
the author of
On Socialist Democracy
and
co-author with Andrey Sakharov and Valery Turchin of
Appeal to the
Party and the Government: Concerning a Question of Great
Importance.
Until recently he was regarded as the representative of the
so-called Marxist trend among the opposition, which included General
P. Grigorenko,
I.
Yakhimovich,
I.
Dzyuba and many others as well.
Recently, Medvedev has published several articles criticizing leading
members of the opposition movement in the USSR, among them
Andrey Sakharov. The most important of these articles, "The Problem
of Democratization and the Problem of Detente," offers the most
comprehensive treatment of the author's present views on the USSR's
basic problems and
its
relations with the outside world.
Medvedev's approach
is
reducible to the formula: Leave the
Soviet government alone! He is particularly insistent that negotiations
on rapprochement and detente not be "complicated" by pre-condi–
tions and "ultimatums" from the West. Rapprochement and detente
will of their own accord lead to the liberalization of the Soviet regime
and to "further concessions" by the Soviet leadership.
Medvedev's theory
is
based on the following main points:
1)
The "right-wingers" and the "moderates" inside the Soviet
leadership are locked in battle and, therefore, excessive pressutes are to
be avoided , so as not to frighten the "moderates" nor give additional
ammunition
to
the' 'right-wingers" for a hardening of the regime. If
the thaw in foreign affairs has not yet affected the domestic climate
to
the same degree-this is, according to him, merely temporary. The
domestic leadership
is
simply not as well prepared for the new mood as
the leaders in foreign affairs. Moreover, external and internal pressures
have angered the' 'right-wingers" or even perhaps driven them into a
more militant stance. Only a little more patience is needed and then
everything will be all right!
2)
The Russian people, accustomed
to
obedience, are silent and
do not support this' 'insignificant, tiny group of intellectuals" -the
