INTERVIEW WITH BORIS KAGARLITSKI to counterbalance the conservatives' strength, it makes a certain appeal for popu-
SOVIET
BUREAURANY
November 14, 1988 • #151 International Viewpoint the difference is between glasnost and ordinary freedom of the press. For example, you don't say that the publication of some article in Le Monde would open a new chapter in the history of freedom of the press in France, because even though this may be a more or less limited freedom, the level of of freedom of the press is always about the same in a society such as the French one.
Le Figaro, L'Humanite and Inprecor regularly express their own points of view about what happens. Here we have quite a different situation. Discussion is mainly about the past, which is less dangerous and allows people to agree on many points, while there is no consensus on more timely subjects. For example, in the party, even the Ligachev faction is against Stalinism. So, criticizing Stalin is becoming a point of consensus.
On the other hand, the "leaders of public opinion" and the press organs that are the standard-bearers of glasnost, such as Moscow News, Ogonyek, Literaturnaya Gazeta and so on are obsessed with the idea that they could be stopped, because there is no constitutional guarantee. So, they want to say as much as possible as quickly as possible. And this is very destabilizing.
At the same time, they want to be the first to say what was not said 20 years ago [in the period of the Khrushchev thaw], because there is also a generational problem. The generation of the 1960s is coming to power today and finds itself confronting public opinion. So, they want to say as much as possible about history.
However, there is no real criticism today of the present administration's decisions. The decision-making process and today's political figures cannot be questioned, unless such leaders have already been removed from their posts! So, all this is only discussed negatively. For example, when you say that the preceding administration was wrong, that implies that the present one is right. Of course, it is possible to criticize the structures, and such criticisms are very different from those of the Khrushchev period, when people criticized only actions and not structures.
However, the main schema is the same. Glasnost remains altogether circumscribed. Inasmuch as there is no constitutional guarantee, no free discussion about present day problems, the only way to keep moving forward, to take new steps in glasnost, is to continually publish sensational new material about the past. Once this is published, once it is in black and white, that is a concrete result. That is the only guarantee of glasnost, because it this stops, it will dısap pear. There will no longer be anything to discuss.
A final point on the group that controls the media, the liberal media, the "heros" of liberal public opinion. Their political limitations are not those that the bureaucracy imposes on them from the outside but those that derive from their own political positions. They want to reform the party's history, and write a new one.
However, they remain totally imbued with the official conception of the party's history. This is why they always need a bogyman, such as Trotsky. This conception of history needs a negative hero. The presence of such a figure makes it possible to avoid discussing in class terms, to avoid turning to the real history, to avoid a free discussion of about the platforms or alternatives possible.
Conversely, they also need positive heros, without any negative aspects. For example, today, you cannot criticize Buk-
USSR harin or Khrushchev. Moscow News and the Book Review have been conducting a campaign in defense of Solzhenitsyn. It has been said that he is a solid person and a patriot. Not a word of criticism has been said about him, either as a writer or a political figure. Not a word about his anti-socialism, his anti-democratic statements. Nor has there been any mention of his problems in the West, because he was so antidemocratic that he has had problems with the Western democracies.
Why is this? Why defend Solzhenitsyn, when Trotsky remains so dangerous? Because the differences between the liberals and Solzhenitsyn are no so great as those between them and the left. Because Solzhenitsyn is anti-democratic, and so are the technocratic elite! They want the technocratic elite and probably a few people of intermediate status to make decisions, but they don't want the masses to take part in this. They want a liberal state, but not a democratic one. There are also socialists and anti-socialists, but the liberals are very important in public opinion, and in their private conversations they are also very anti-socialist. So, the real differences are not so great.
On the other hand, if you take Trotsky, for example, you can see that he is really a dangerous person for the liberals. They portray him as a sort of anti-market fanatic, a partisan of militarized labor, which is false. If you look at his real ideas, you see that he was favorable to political pluralism, to a realistic utilization of the market in the context of new socialist priorities — all ideas that are very different from those of the new market-economy school.
There is a heritage there that the left can use to criticize the technocratic liberal ten- 11 dencies. Thus the left's ideas are more dan-
International Viewpoint #151 • November 14, 1988
USSR gerous for them than those of the right.
There is a good bit of hypocrisy in the liberals' campaign for rehabilitations, justice and so on.
A typical example of this hypocrisy is the
Novocherkassk affair, where there was a strike against the price reform in Khrushchev's time. He sent in troops and some people were killed. Today we are witnessing a campaign for rehabilitation of the
Novocherkassk victims. But, up until now, no liberal publication has produced any material on this subject. Our slogan is that these victims have to be rehabilitated to prevent any repetition of these events. But such a campaign does not seem to be very much "in fashion." because it could damage Khrushchev's image, when he has to remain a pos-
The liberals have at least to say openly that they do not represent the whole of public opinion, but only part of it. They have to recognize that there are various tendencies, not just bad Stalinist tendencies, but also left ones to which they do not want to open theie pages. They have at least to say that they exist, and most of the liberal publishers are not prepared to do that. They are trying quite simply to get people to believe that they are the only repreof public opinion.
They are trying to select material, to control it for their
In the long run, I think, this cenagainst them. If the conservatives waged any sort of counteroffensive, the left could be less disposed to defend the leaders of liberal public opinion who did not defend them when they found themselves in the same situation.
Having said that, I think that we on the left will be more generous and fraternal than they.
• You talk about the possibility of a counteroffensive. Can we come back precisely to the situation at the time of the June party congress and the perestroika process in the present period? Is it possible to characterize different periods within a larger process?
Yes. This is not a revolutionary process.
It is still only a normal evolutionary process of the society. It is not a reform, because a reform would mean that a project was being applied step by step. And, as I just said, here instead of carrying out changes the gradualists are taking a step forward, two steps backward and then three or five forward.
If more criticisms are heard, if the crisis
12 situation worsens, a faction of the bureaucracy will necessarily try to save at least some of its gains. It will make deals with the conservatives at the expense of the people to try to organize a forced march backward with a slogan along the lines of "perestroika equals excess." Such a slogan already appeared during the party conference, and that was worrying.
Everything that happened at the conference shows that the apparatus is quite conservative and ready to defend itself with all the traditional methods, such as the vetting of delegates or control of the media. The liberals have sometimes been hypocritical about their activities in the apparatus at the local level, but sometimes correct in their criticisms. Some liberals, such as Yuri Afanasiev — who talks about Trotsky and political pluralism — are honest and go further to the left than others.
So, on the one hand, there was the whole mechanism of the apparatus, with elections to salvage the bureaucracy's interests, with more or less silent liberals, who are also more or less ready to make compromises with the officials. And on the other there was the people's movement, which was really visible for the first time - and not just as a "left wing" of intellectuals, as was the case last year, or the clubs, committees and groups (all the so-called "informal" associations) that only included a narrow fringe. This time we have seen thousands of people go into the streets in Kuibyshev, in
Omsk, Yagorsk, Astrakhan and in the national republics.
There has been a situation both of desta-
This sort of bilization and polarization.
people's movement from below is supposed to help the liberals fight the conservative bureaucrats, but it also frightens the liberals.
After years of perestroika, people have suddenly realized that even while defending the official perestroika's proposals, the people have to have their own independent organization and their own independent movement that is not controlled and manipulated by the liberals at the top.
• Let's talk about the real movement that is emerging now, and first of all about the broad radicalization that is developing around the national question. How do you characterize the movements that are underway and their impact?
The Estonian People's Front, as well as the Karabakh Committee in Armenia, were very linked to the local liberal reformists, or even to the bureaucratic elites - especially to the national wanted to maintain the power they had previously by becoming more independent from Moscow.
But to organize such movements, they necessarily had to make concessions to people more radical than themselves, and finally this led to a sort of national democratic movement, both in the Baltic republics and in Armenia.
• Can these movements be put on the same level?
Yes, because the mechanisms are very similar in the various republics, and it is striking to see that all the national democratic fronts, all the national democratic movements, have almost the same documents, when often they could not have had any prior consultation. Their demands are very similar. Of course, the Karabakh
Committee was different from the Estonian
People's Front, because in Estonia it did not develop in a crisis situation. It simply took up the national traditions and the national symbols, such as the national flag.
• The fronts in the Baltic republics seem for the moment less in conflict with the official evolution than the committee in Karabakh?
Yes. But in any case the problem is more difficult in Armenia than in Estonia. Of course, the Estonians have a lot of national problems, problems sometimes that even the Armenians do not have. For example, they are in danger of being assimilated into the Russian republic, which is not the case of the Armenians. But at the same time, the Armenians have the genocide syndrome, and they have a real conflict with the neighboring republics, which the Estonians do not have. The Armenian workers, therefore, needed greater support to deal with a graver conflict.
The first group of Karabakh leaders -Zori Balayan, Silva Kapoutikian, and Muradian — were all people belonging to the elite, who had very good relations with the official bureaucracy. They controlled the movement at the beginning, but when the movement became popular in character, with the first strikes and the distinctive features of the workers' movement, all these figures finally lost their positions in the Karabakh Committee, and some of this first generation of leaders were even expelled. The Karabakh Committee kept its links with the bureaucracy, but at a lower level. It became sort of a national democratic movement.
The essential problem for the bureaucracy is that the main support for the Karabakh Committee comes from the working class, which transforms the nature of this movement. Its main bastions are the factories, its real main forces come from the workers who can organize strikes. This populist movement is, therefore, changing into a social one, a movement of the work-
However, we should not be overly optimistic, because the populist component and the nationalist component still exist. I only want to say that there has been a change. • In the course of this change, have workers' self-organization structures
No. This has only been a change toward a working-class radicalism — not toward a working-class ideology — within the existing structures of the Karabah Committee. This has not produced a new independent organization of the Karabakh Committee. I think that this is quite correct, because to make the Karabakh Committee into something else today just to establish an independent organization of the working class would be completely idiotic. The Armenians want a broader front, and in this broad working-class component is • Is there formal organization in this front?
No. Too much should not be expected of a country that has no experience of independent organization, not just in recent years but for centuries. So, I think that in Karabakh they have managed to do everything that it was possible to accomplish.
But now there is another danger. In fact, if they fail to bring any improvement, to get at least some changes in the official policy toward Karabakh, this is finally going to reinforce the extremist tendencies that are also present in this mass cocktail. This is what happened with the Crimean Tartars' movement, where Tatar fundamentalist tendencies developed. The moderate intellectuals try to keep clear of this movement as far as they can. • What do you mean by "Tatar fundamentalists"?
Not the Tatar party but the Crimean Is• What are their demands?
They want to return to their lands. They reject cultural autonomy, and proclaim that all those demanding cultural autonomy are traitors, enemies of the Tartar people and should be killed. I know a Crimean Tatar activist who was condemned to death. He was not executed, but he was condemned to death by the fundamentalists simply because he supported cultural autonomy for the Tatars in Ukraine. The fundamentalists claim that he betrayed their idea of basic autonomy, that he was a supporter of Austro-Marxism and not a very good Muslim. This is why he had to be killed, but he fled
I would like to stress that there is a growing danger of extremism, which is on the rise in these populist movements. It is not the people, but rather the technocratic and bureaucratic leaders and functionaries unable or unwilling to make any concessions who are strengthening the extremists in the • Have the left groups, in particular in Moscow, discussed these movements and taken positions on them?
What is interesting is that Vitali Ponomarev, editor of Left Turn, went to Armenia with some issues of his journal and asked them what they knew about the Moscow samizdat publications. They Armenians replied, "We know Grigoriants." They saw him as the only person who had published all their documents without any falsification, and they were very favorable to him.
In fact, Grigoriants has not published the documents he considered pro-Communist. But only Grigoriants, who is Armenian and prepared to take advantage of his national origin, was known. Ponomarev showed them issue 8 of Left Turn, which was devoted to the Armenian question, and asked them if there was any falsifications of documents or the facts. The Armenians told him, "No, it's fine." • What sort of material did you show them?
Documents from the Karabakh Committee, from the Academy of Science, histories of the Karabakh movement and so on. The Armenians (I am talking about the Karabakh Committee, which is now ready to work with them) were sorry that they
USSR had not known about all that before and now want to work with the organizing committee of the People's Front (in Moscow) and with Left Turn.
For example, one of the problems facing the national movement and the left is that they have no information about each other. We are now involved in a concerted effort to develop exchanges of information among the various movements and see if there are common objectives. • Can you give some information about the fronts in the Baltic republics today and on the demands that have been formulated there?
First of all, they want a kind of economic semi-independence. This can be summed up by the formula: "We get less from the Union than we give to it; so we must limit our contribution to the Union budget," and so on. In principle, this is not necessarily a good thing, but it is understandable, especially for people who had their own state 50 years ago. They want a sort of equal contribution to the Union budget from all the republics, but concretely what they are interested in is limiting their own contribution.
Secondly, they want decision-making power over their own citizens, their own territory. For example, they want people to do their military service in their own republic, people sentenced to prison terms to serve them there, and so on. They also have several demands about the restrictions, on use of the national language or concerning national traditions and symbols, such as the long-banned flag of independent Estonia. In Brezhnev's time, you could be sentenced to prison just for possessing this flag. Today, it is officially recognized as the second flag of the republic.
The Estonians also want to cut down the number of people moving to Estonia from other regions. They want to establish some sort of mechanism to defend themselves against that, not by preventing people from settling in the country but by establishing Estonian language examinations for all those who want to settle or work there.
However, Estonian is one of the hardest languages in Europe. That makes it almost impossible for those who want to settle in Estonia to find work, this being dependent on knowing the language. Moreover, a part of the young Russians already in the country have to leave the country or learn the language, since this system has already been more or less accepted by the officials.
In fact, all this is not very democratic. From the standpoint of socialists, or even of Western democrats, this can seem a bit nationalistic, if you make parallels with the problem of immigrant workers in France. But you have also to look at the other side of the coin. France has a national state, a strong economy and is one of the dominant capitalist countries. That is one thing. The situation of the Estonians, to whom Stalin denied the right to independen 13
International Viewpoint #151 • November 14, 1988
USSR
Many colonists were sent to assimilate the Estonian nation, in a way against their will. So, they have always been exploited by the less developed parts of the country. Their contribution to the budget has been poorly used. They might have been able to say, "Yes, we are paying too much, but this has made it possible to develop Uzbekistan or Azerbaidzhan." But Azerbaidzhan's situation has worsened over the last ten years. • But why don't they formulate a demand like "control over what these resources are used for"?
No, they want to keep their resources for themselves! I don't agree with these demands. I think that in the long term they are very limited and reflect national egoism. But you have to understand them, and this is why we support the Estonian movement on certain aspects of its program - because the Estonians have the right to self-determination — without necessarily supporting the movement itself.
This is not a homogeneous class movement but a populist one, with a bureaucratic nationalist component. We have to work with this movement, help it to become more democratic, help the democratic elements to become more conscious, to establish their identity and probably to turn the movement toward the left, toward more social, more socialist demands, as has already happened in Armenia. • To turn to another subject, it seems that Pamyat, although it is very "Great Russian" nationalist, is also trying to address itself to these nationalist
Pamyat does not need a political program. Saying "kill the Jews" is intended for their specific audience. It does need an ideology, an ideology distinguishing its activists from simple fascists, without however forcing them to give up their more fascist practices and ideological tendencies.
They have to say, "We are not fascists," but the most simplistic way to express this is to say, "We are not Germans, therefore we are not fascists." On the other hand, they have to use fascist democracy in their daily practice. This is very similar to Le Pen in France. Le Pen does not proclaim himself a fascist, and if anyone calls him that, he protests. So, Pamyat has its reasons for arguing that it is not fascist. But its importance should not be exaggerated.
Pamyat is supported by its bureaucratic sympathizers, especially at the level of the local apparatus, but not in the Central Committee, except perhaps partially in Leningrad. If this support did not exist, this group would be less dangerous and less active. For example, from August last year until July this year it kept a low profile everywhere. It was only present when the left raised its head. Pamyat was restructuring itself, preparing for a new counteroffensive, and it seems that they had astonishing links with some official structures.
Now their network has been completed.
They are reappearing, but the situation has become more complicated for them. People understand that most of their slogans are nothing but pure demagogy, that they offer nothing concrete.
However, if the crisis develops further, if a sort of new reactionary bloc arises, some people may think of using Pamyat or some of its elements. For example, in Kazakhstan, problems have broken out between Kazakhs and the police, as well as squads of Russian colonists organized by the police. These squads have been far more violent toward the local students than the
Having said this, the student rebellion in Kazakhstan itself was very violent. It seems, therefore, that in this case the Kazakh fascists, the Kazakh extremists, Kazakh nationalism, was in conflict with Russian nationalism, both sides being intolerant and cruel.! But imagine the situation if such squads were formed against the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Jews or the Armenians, not necessarily in the republics but in the border areas. In that event, the Pamyat activists can be mobilized for political objectives by forces outside Pamyat. And that can only be very dangerous. • Are you thinking about bureaucratic forces?
Yes. I think that they are encouraging Pamyat in their own interest, especially in Leningrad, with the aim of countering a growing left. This probably serves to promote clashes and incidents between the two tendencies, which can later operate to destroy both of them.
In the Moscow apparatus, a good number of people are unhappy with Pamyat, while it is trying to be more moderate and not provoke repression. • I have often heard an analysis of Pamyat by intellectuals, even on the left, that the reason for its existence is that there is not only a national question of the other nationalities but also a Russian question. Do you agree with such a formulation?
I do agree with it, because this question has in fact always existed. At the moment, I am reading Klyuchevski, one of the main historians of the nineteenth century. It shows how the Russians were always exploited by the empire, more than any other region of the country.
Stalin himself also behaved worse toward the Russians than toward any other nationality, except for certain Islamic peoples or German exiles. Overall, the Stalin regime was worse for the Russians than for • In what sense?
Because more Russians were killed. The collectivization was more horrible than in any other region of the country. The Russians have never gained any real privilege from being the dominant nation of the empire, either under the Czarist regime or that of Stalin, nor under Brezhnev. Russia is a nation that has never had privileges. • But there has been Russification of the other nations.
Yes, but what has happened? For example, the Russians who go to settle in Kazakhstan are sent there to Russify the country. But at the same time, all the good jobs, even in the nomenklatura, are reserved for Kazakhs and the Russians cannot have access to them. Many Russians have gone to Estonia, for example, but all as unskilled workers, and their average wages are lower than those of the natives. There is a Russification tendency. But the Russians were discriminated against in the very republics that they Russified. • it has been said that even if formally the important posts were for representatives of the local populations, the real power was in the hands of the Russians.
No, that is not true. Many natives belong to pro-Moscow groups. In Estonia there are problems between the real natives and the Estonians coming from Russia, while the Russians, in a way, are out of the game. Some Estonians are not able to speak the language correctly, but they still hold key posts.
The Russians in the national republics are both subjects of domination and objects of discrimination, this is dialectical. I am not talking about the bureaucrats but about the many Russian workers who have settled in these regions.
You cannot compare the position of the Russians as the dominant nation in their empire in the nineteenth century, and the position of the Russians as the dominant nation in Soviet Russia, with that of the English or French in their empires. The difference is enormous.
Take the standpoint of Klyuchevski. He considered the Russians the victims of this empire. The stronger the state was, the weaker were the people. That is where the Russian national question arises. But Pamyat's solutions are not serious. Just saying "kill the Jews," or "Russians first," or "there is a Masonic conspiracy" is a sort of fictitious response to the problem.
In order to make the Russians more prosperous, more democracy is needed, more rights, social change. I don't think that the Russians are interested by this nationalist demagogy. Moscow is not very typical. It has practically no working-class tradition, no working-class culture. There is only the bureaucracy. In the country's industrial regions, Pamyat has less influence. They [Pamyat] think that Moscow is the place where they have the most opportunities. But in the country as a whole, the Russian masses are not as nationalistic as Pamyat would like. * 1. On Soviet press treatment of the Kazakh problem, see "Pravda since the Central Committee plenum," IV 116, March 23, 1987.