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PARTISAN REVIEW
Soviet leaders to solve their domestic problems, which is their
main difficulty. For sixty-five years after the revolution of 1917,
they have not been able to solve the elementary problems of the
day-to-day economy: to provide the Soviet population with the
consumer goods it needs.
When I was in the Soviet Union some weeks ago, I realized
again that the population is exasperated. People have to stand in
line in order to have meat without being sure of getting any, of
finding comfortable lodgings, of being able to move around, to do
all the things we take for granted in the Western countries. Then
there are problems that aren't talked about. To solve them, the
government would have to put less emphasis on military
planning, and to cut the enormous armament budget, which is
why I think the Soviet leaders would be tempted to find a basis for
a genuine agreement.
Kurzweil:
Yes, I've heard that argument. I've also heard another,
which is that by keeping the population hungry, by keeping them
so preoccupied with waiting in line, there remains no time for
politics.
If
that should be the case, aren't we deluding ourselves?
Estier:
No, I don't think that's accurate, because I think that today's
state of exasperation among the Soviet population is completely
new. They have always been told that they had to suffer, that
there would be certain restrictions and hardship: everything had
to be built after the revolution, and again after the ravages of the
war. The Soviet population unquestionably suffered more than
any other: twenty million deaths and considerable destruction.
But the war has been over for forty years, and the same problems
continue to plague them: Soviet agriculture cannot produce the
needed wheat and cereals; they are always short of basic, staple
products. To take a silly example, the Soviets have no jeans, yet
they see thousands, tens of thousands, of Western tourists in blue
jeans. Well, it seems absurd to think that such a powerful country,
which can send men into outer space for six months, is unable to
produce jeans. That is what makes for the exasperation, which is
becoming dangerous for the party leaders. The real problem in
the Soviet Union is not what we in the West think-the problem
of what we call dissidents. This has no weight, no influence.
Soviet citizens aren't even familiar with the names of these
people, although they may be aware of the treatment ofSakharov.
The real problem is the everyday discontent that leads to ever
