WRITERS IN EXILE
19
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Do any of our other speakers feel that any–
thing in Marxism or Leninism is worth preserving?
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY: I think two things should be preserved
from Marxism-Leninism - Marx's grave at the Highgate cemetery
and, perhaps, the mausoleum, as an example of absurd architectural
structure.
VASSILY AKSYONOV: And what about Engel's grave? That's the
whole ocean, since his ashes have been scattered. We have to keep
the ocean.
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY: But in the end, the Soviet regime may be–
come so powerful that it could extract the ashes from the ocean. But
none of this is serious. I'll try instead to answer the question of
whether an antiwar movement exists in Russia. Pavel Litvinov has
already said that one does not and cannot exist, because in Russia
the people's will is entirely subordinate to the tendencies of the State,
of the authorities . They would be called either imperialists or hege–
monists .
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Is there any kind of antiwar or peace ten–
dency?
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY: No, this cannot be permitted by the au–
thorities, because it would inevitably get out of control, and it would
be connected to criticism of the authorities themselves, of the nature
of arms build-up, and of the overall policy goals. But, of course, we
and the American propaganda machine (we shall call it that) must
support in every way the peoples enslaved by totalitarianism in their
attempts to arouse consciousness, in their political activity.
JOHN GLAD: There are two questions from the audience. Why
would
Partisan Review
-
which is a magazine of somewhat liberal views
- support a meeting of dissident writers? The second question is,
were Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, and Maximov invited to the meeting?
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Maximov, Solzhenitsyn, and Brodsky were
invited, but they couldn't attend. Brodsky was a member of the
sponsoring committee for this conference.
The first question sounds almost unanswerable, because its
very assumption is something that we reject - the assumption that
someone with views that tend toward liberalism or the Left should
not be supporting the fight for freedom, not only of the dissidents but
of the populations in countries that live in totalitarian regimes. I
don't see any contradiction. What has happened, unfortunately, is
that the word "left" has become confused with all kinds of false and
fashionable notions and interests that have nothing to do with either
