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primitive form of collaboration (taking that word in the sense of
"coauthorship"); and it is, moreover, a matter of coercion. True
collaboration assumes equality between the parties, and not the sub–
ordination of one to the other. It is antagonism; that is, interaction
on the basis of contraries, not similarities, like the interaction in
sexual love - what was called
coincidentia oppositorum
by Nicholas of
Cusa, the last medieval philosopher and the first one of the
Renaissance . This bond is stronger than any other: enemies need
each other more than they need friends. They confirm each other's
existence. And the chief, unrecognized principle of that bond–
which at first glance seems unnatural but is actually the most natural
thing that can be - is "Love thine enemy." How could it be
otherwise, when the least little sign of dissent confirms the necessity
of the KGB? On the one hand, that organization would seem to have
an interest in putting down the opposition, and on the other, an
interest in cultivating it, even by artificial means. This explains why
the KGB brands as dissent even routine complaints about red tape,
or activities of literary clubs, which, as recently as the Khrushchev
era, fell in the category of social or public behavior that was entirely
acceptable to the State .
If
today those filers of complaints and
aspiring writers did not exist, the KGB would have to invent dissi–
dents, using utterly loyal citizens of the USSR as raw material.
But the dissident movement needs the KGB as much as the
KGB needs it. Their genesis is a product of reciprocal, not
unilateral, action. Among the many verbose, self-intoxicated remi–
niscences offormer dissidents , one finds some amazing instances of a
dissident's nostalgia for the KGB, and even for its reprisals. This is a
special kind of political masochism . Nor should it be cause for
wonder: the very existence of dissent in the totalitarian Soviet Union
is postulated by the existence of the KGB. Consider, for example,
the following quotation from Vladimir Bukovsky, famous for his ten–
year term in prison and then, after he had been exchanged for the
Chilean Communist Luis Corvallana, for his ten-minute audience
with President Carter. Bukovsky first describes how he and his
friends, carrying placards with slogans on them, took part in a
demonstration. Then he says:
But no one interfered with us. The streets were empty, as if they
were depopulated .. . . And for a moment I was frightened.
Suppose nothing happened? We had figured that they would
seize our placards and arrest us. Could it be that we would have
