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PARTISAN REVIEW
opposition. Consequently, their activities are futile and only provoke a
counter-reaction from the authorities. And therefore, he claims, the
opposition should not receive too much support from abroad!
Any serious changes in the USSR can be initiated only from above
as at the Twentieth Congress. The people can be awakened only by a
series of grave economic crises, but these are "unrealistic and
undesirable"
and so the regime will not allow them to occur, since
"the economic growth of all branches of the economy" will
continue
even under conditions of isolation, albeit "at a slower rate than is
possible under a socialist system." [sic!]
3) Western public opinion, particularly the "right," is not
genuinely interested in the democratization and prosperity of the
Soviet Union because it fears competition from it. For this reason, the
Soviet opposition should not count on much support from the West.
In short : "Don't make such a fuss, friend, just drown quietly!"
The general thrust of Medvedev's article is in full harmony with
the official Soviet line and with the irate letters denouncing Sakharov
pouring in from Soviet scholars and milkmaids. On the whole, his
theory seems to be contradicted both by facts and by elementary
common sense.
To obtain concessions from any party in a deal, and certainly from
the Soviet leaders, one has to
insist
upon them! Facts of which
Medvedev is fully aware clearly demonstrate that at times only ultimate
pressure can succeed in wringing concessions from the Soviet
government. The removal of missiles from Cuba was forced by the
blockade; the authorization of a substantial Jewish emigration ... by
the self-sacrificing act of the Leningrad' 'highjackers"; the abolition
of the monstrous tax on Jewish emigrants ... by the Jackson
amendment; the non-intervention of Soviet troops in the last
Arab-Israeli war ... by the American military alert.
However, a deeper analysis of Medvedev' s theoretical premises is
called for.
1)
On Medvedev 's assumption ofthe existence ofnght-wing and
moderate groups within the Soviet leadership.
Medvedev's article is addressed, as has been mentioned, not only
to Soviet but also to Western readers and the latter are used to assume
