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PARTISAN REVIEW
tellectuals who come from a part of the world where, for several
decades now, life-social, political, intellectual, and moral-has
been dominated and distorted by an ideology that was no less vir–
ulent for being increasingly stagnant, increasingly sclerotic, and
fundamentally fraudulent. Not only have all of our panelists
risked the ravages made by this ideology, but all of them at differ–
ent stages and to varying degrees have challenged what Pasternak
called in
Doctor Zhivago
"the reign of the dead letter." They all
have challenged the dogma, not in behalf of another counterdog–
ma, but in a spirit free from dogma and fanaticism.
Our first speaker is Boris Shragin. He has written many
things on the political, social, and religious thought of Russian
samizdat; and an important long essay, "The Challenge of the
Spirit. "
BORIS SHRAGIN: I would like
to
begin with a few remarks
about the recent events in Poland-not only as a sign of my deep–
est respect and admiration for the Polish people, not only because
they are very heroic and courageous, but also because they are
very astute in their political behavior. Their achievement, despite
the results, poses a challenge-not only for the Soviet regime, but
also for us intellectuals and dissidents. This experience has forced
us to reevaluate our positions, our ideas, our perspectives. And
that is the main point of my presentation: to share with you some
of my ideas.
Perhaps a good way to begin is with the theme of an article
by Mr. Kolakowski, one of our panelists.
It
was published in
1979, before the recent Polish events, in an issue of
Survey.
In
Poland, as in all the countries forcibly driven into the cage of
the "New World," the Sovietization process doesn't mean
that people actually start believing in the absurdities of the state
doctrine-it means that people accept their oppression as an ines–
capable reality and resign themselves to the fate of being helpless,
passive subjects of the police regime. To oppose this process is
one of the crucial functions of the opposition.
I think [his is an important idea for the dissident movements
in all of Eastern Europe, and especially for dissidents and intel–
lectuals in the Soviet Union. We tried to unmask the oppression,
the lack of freedom in the Soviet regime. Until now we didn't
have any clear perspective for the future of our country. Yesterday
