A Word for the Dissidents
Howe, Irving
The crisis in the Communist countries is a permanent one. It may flare up at some moments and die down at others, but it now seems to be built into the very structure of that society. For...
...But it takes no great sophistication to see that, in authoritarian countries, religio-moral resistance has deep political implications—the authorities in those countries know this only too well...
...Among the dissidents there seems to be a tendency to move from political demands to moral absolutes, because their frustration at being unable to bring about changes within society drives them to seek transcendence beyond society...
...q 115...
...They find momentary schemes for dealing with the dissidents, such as exile and psychiatric confinement, when the threat and reality of imprisonment and labor camps do not suffice...
...But even as some dissidents break, others grow stronger, more courageous and outspoken...
...It has brought to an end the sneaky Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, which in effect acquiesced in repression...
...As a result, the Communist regimes oscillate between bouts of repression and intervals of partial tolerance, seeking some point at which authoritarianism can stabilize itself...
...Not only in Russia but also in Poland, Czechoslovakia—even Rumania...
...But this is the right course to take...
...What becomes clear in Eastern Europe is that repeatedly new groups, new generations of dissidents appear...
...The range of dissidence is very wide, from versions of Bolshevik orthodoxy arrayed against the party leadership to versions of Christian confession devoted to setting moral examples...
...In these circumstances there is reason to applaud the stance that the Carter administration has taken...
...We know only their names, perhaps we shall never meet—but they are our friends...
...No doubt, there are built-in limitations in an approach to the Soviet Union that tries to combine some outspokenness about human rights with negotiations for measures of detente...
...It is good, I think, that President Carter has spoken out for Sakharov, one of the great men of our time, even as it has also been made clear that this does not signify any wish to return to the extremes of the Cold War or any policy of sabotaging the negotiations for mutual arms control...
...For their own survival and comfort, the party bureaucrats do not wish a return to open terror—besides, it creates an atmosphere inhospitable to a modern economy...
...Each improvisation deepens the problem of morale among the party bureaucrats themselves, who now seem increasingly deprived of the "fix" of ideology...
...But to retain their monopoly of power, they cannot allow voices of dissidence to cohere into an organized opposition or to reach the masses of the people...
...Meanwhile, we respond once more to the bravery, the boldness, the intelligence of the dissidents in Eastern Europe...
...Each shortrun "solution" leads to new difficulties...
...Speaking for freedom, they help to redeem our age...
Vol. 24 • April 1977 • No. 2
