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that in most cases imprisonment turned the condemned into lifetime
offenders. Other methods of punishment would certainly have been in–
vented, were it not for the fact that the professionalization of crime cre–
ated a kind of reserve army useful to those in power for providing services
such as prostitution, for example, and for providing informers, strike–
breakers, lackeys, agents-provocateurs, and even bodyguards for electoral ,
and even presidential candidates . In short, there is a historical conflict
between political and nonpolitical offenders-in so far as those in power
have always sought to implicate both groups in the same base, selfish,
and savage criminality.
I do not mean to imply that nonpolitical criminals are the faithful
handmaidens of the Soviet regime. But given the extreme difficulty of
the dissidents ' struggle, I wonder whether it is not necessary for them to
distinguish themselves from the others, to show that their cause is not
that of the "thieves and murderers" with which the regime tries to iden–
tify them. This may be only a tactical maneuver on the part of the dis–
sidents. In any case, I find it difficult to condemn the attirude of Soviet
dissenters who are careful not to be confused with " ordinary" criminals .
I believe there were many members of the French resistance who when
arrested refused-for political reasons-to be taken for black-marketeers,
even though the latter could expect a far less cruel fate.
However, if you were to ask me about a country like France, my answer
would be different. Here we must point out the existence of a broad
spectrum of illegalities that extends from the sometimes honored , always
tolerated wheelings and dealings of politicians and the merchant princes
of drugs and munitions (who all
use
the law), to the prosecuted and
punished offenses of the small-time thief who rebels against the law, is
ignorant of it, or even baited by it. And we must also point out the un–
equal treatment handed out by our penal system. The important distinc–
tion here is not between political and nonpolitical offenders, but between
the profitable illegalities perpetrated with impunity by those who use the
law, and the simple illegalities that the penal system uses to create a
standing army of criminals.
Int;
But it is also true that in the Soviet Union, just as in France, there is a
profound rupture between the ordinary people and those found guilty
of petty crimes . I recently saw a program on Italian television that ended
with scenes of a prison cemetery where those who die while serving their
sentences are buried in tombs hardly worthy of the name . The prisoners'
families almost never claim their dead-undoubtedly because transporta–
tion is too expensive, but also because they are ashamed. For me, the
scene had profound social implications.
