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PARTISAN REVIEW
help for the Poles - charity, credit, business with them?" We don't
even realize that this is a false question! It's not a question of whether
Americans should help Poles: the Poles are helping America to sur–
vive! The only real peace movement in the world is in Poland, be–
cause they make it impossible for the time being to create a hinter–
land. The Soviet military must figure that these people, just with
their fists , are not afraid, and we in the West are afraid despite all
the missiles and tanks and technology we have .
What I think is important in any such conference - and I really
appreciate the efforts of the organizers of this conference - is to create
a follow-up . We should learn the lesson of the striving of you Rus–
sians for those ideas and ideals that made Russia great. We should
make use of the tremendous political force of the Poles , who take
their human and national dignity as the measure of all values and
who encourage the Americans to establish as a centerpiece of their
policy - particularly foreign policy - a strategy based on the great
human tradition of this great country.
If
they don't do this, they
won't be a great country.
Suppose Mr. Walesa, or even the Soviet Union, suddenly had
freedom. What kind of economic system would the trade union in–
troduce in Poland? How would they create full employment and an
efficient economy? Do you think they could apply Keynesianism,
which ruined this country, or a supply-side economy, which is going
to ruin this country further? What economic alternative do they
have to offer? I think it should be our task, as a follow-up to this con–
ference, to try to work out new means and ways, new theoretical
concepts of how to build a human society - not a society that is per–
ceived as a system of commodities or aggregates, but as a human
system that has no unemployment, no inflation, no frustration , and
where - even in the economic sphere - humanity will be the measure
of all values.
VLADIMIR VOINOVICH: I want to say a few more words . As I
understood it, Mr. Loebl criticized me . It seems I was even called a
Marxist . This surprised me, because no one has ever considered me
a Marxist; I have never been one . I've never even read Marx.
I don't know how the dissident movement will develop in the
future. It's in a very difficult position. But, as Chalidze has said, it
has to a significant degree prepared the ground for something that
will take place . It's already played an enormous role. I think the
