WEEKLY REVIEW SPECIAL REPORT DETENTE AND THE STIRRING OF SOVIET DISSIDENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001000070031-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: November 15, 1974
• Content Type: REPORT

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meekly Review
Special Report
Detente and the Stirring of Soviet Dissidence
St- 25X1
November 15, 1974
Copy N2 649
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Socialist realism is an artistically creative method whose guiding principle is the truthful,
historically concrete presentation of reality in its revolutionary development, and whose
most important task is the communist education of the masses.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia,
(second edition, 1957; Vol. 40, p. 180)
The lie call pit itself against much in this world, but not against art.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Summary
The Soviet leadership is faced with a long-standing problem that is
entering a new and more difficult phase-how to gain the advantages of
better relations with the West without eroding its control over Soviet
society. It appreciates the tangible, material benefits and a greater sense of
legitimacy and prestige derived from detente, but recognizes that any moves
to increase personal and cultural freedom would cause strains in the closed
Soviet society. All levels of the Soviet body politic are aware of this conflict,
and a variety of groups outside the power structure-intellectuals, mi'lorities,
active dissidents, and political prisoners-sense a new opportunity ir, the
recently announced link between an easing of Soviet emigration procedures
and US trade policy toward Moscow to press for a more general relaxation of
domestic policies.
Special Report
November 15, 1974
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Civil Rights Focus on Emigration
Some Soviet dissidents, certainly over-
optimistically, read the price the regime has paid
for US trade concessions as the "opening of the
floodgates." Despite the lack of reporting on the
subject by Soviet media, the public is becoming
aware of the substance of the letters dated Octo-
ber 18, exchanged between Secretary Kissinger
and Senator Jackson, and the White House clar-
ifying statement, tying the emigration issue to
passage of the trade reform bill, which would
grant most favored nation status to Moscow. Only
three days before the US announcement, Brezh-
nev publicly reiterated for the record the line that
it is impermissible to set conditions for detente.
Despite this disclaimer, the negotiations on em-
igration are certainly seen by all Soviet citizens,
not just Jews, as an unprecedented concession in
an area of hitherto sacrosanct domestic policy.
The right to freedom of movement within
the USSR and, above all, the right to emigrate,
have been goals shared by all, not just Jewish,
dissidents. Some, at least, go further and consider
the core of a general civil rights guarantee for all
Soviet citizens.
is this view and its consequences that the
regime is apparently intent on curbing and cor-
recting, althou,h at what cost is still unclear. The
problem must still be a matter of debate within
the leadership. This would explain some of the
recent signs of contradictory policies in domestic
cultural affairs and the seesaw Soviet posture on
freedom of movement issues at the European
Security Conference.
Signs of Conservative Retrenchment
The leadership's concern over the potentially
corrosive effect of detente-generated popular
expectations on its domestic controls is perhaps
most readily apparent in the nationwide ideolog-
ical vigilance campaign that got under way late
this summer. Heralded by the Central Commit-
tee's generally critical assessment in late August
of party ideological work in the Belorussian
Republic, the pervasive campaign has been
striking out mainly at "consumerism," nation-
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alism, religion, and other bourgeois "ills." The
drive is designed to improve the technical and
ideological expertise of party workers, to rein-
vigorate the propaganda apparatus at all levels,
and to restore popular faith in the curative
powers of Marxism-Leninism. :t is thus the most
conspicuous sign that a significant relaxation of
domestic policy is not imminent. Party conserva-
tives probably see the campaign as a major tool
for promoting their views; when articles of faith
are at issue, moderation can be labeled a vice.
Heaping praise on a period characterized by
cultural repression is another way open to con-
servatives intent on frustrating any change in
domestic policy. An editorial in Pravda on the
10th anniversary of Khrushchev's ouster, for
example, praised Brezhnev's stewardship over a
period of "collective" rule and denigrated
Khrushchev's more freewheeling style. In the
symbol-studded world of Soviet internal politics,
Pravda was also criticizing the relatively liberal
cultural policy of the Khrushchev era.
More significantly, the sensitive issue of
Soviet historical interpretation of Stalin and his
rule has again reappeared after a hiatus of many
years. Under Khrushchev, censuring Stalin
became a symbolic advocacy of a change in the
status quo; now even limited praise of Stalin has
become a symbol of retrenchment. This weather
vane is closely watched by both establishment
and dissident cultural elements. The recently
announced publication of a revised version of
Marshal Zhukov's memoirs is thus another signif-
icant negative sign. The book, which as yet is
unavailable in the West, modifies a chapter in the
original version that questioned Stalin's wartime
leadership.
Stemming directly from the ideological cam-
paign are several recent appointments of veteran
ideologists to important and long-vacant posts in
the party's central propaganda apparatus. Con-
servatives and cultural hard liners have been
recently appointed to the chief editorship of the
Central Committee's journal Kom,nunist and of
the embattled, but hitherto still relatively liberal,
literary journal Novy Mir.
November 15, 1974
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Water truck disrupts Moscow art show on September 15
The most dramatic sign of bold conservative
action occurred on September 15, when bull-
dozers and water cannon were used to disrupt an
attempt by Moscow's unconventional artists to
stage an open air exhibit. Although the artists
received permission to hold a public show two
weeks later-and did so-many of them have sub-
sequently reported that they have been subjected
to increased official harassment. Some have been
charged with "parasitism," i.e., failure to hold
gainful employment, and one was pressed to sign
an affidavit renouncing any intention to organize
or participate in similar future exhibits. Moreover,
an article in the Moscow party organization's
daily on October 17 indirectly praised the ideo-
logical work of the district in which the disrup-
tion of the initial show occurred. The message
seemed to be that the original decision to prevent
the exhibit was correct, even if the methods used
were excessive, and that the subsequent permis-
sion to hold the show should not be regarded as
precedent setting..
The only statement on this issue so far by a
member of the leadership came on November 10
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when President Podgorny said that "the slightest
when
departure from our principles is inadmissible in
any kind of art." Speaking on the 150th anniver-
sary of Moscow's Maly theater, Podgorny tied his
warning against any deviation from socialist
realism to the ideological campaign by adding
that art must be used to combat "apolitical, con-
sumer psychology."
The conservatives' jealous defense of domes-
tic controls and stonewalling on cultural issues are
inevitably reflected in their opposition to eased
emigration procedures. There are sporadic but
continuing reports of harassment of Jewish
activists and of Jews who have declared their
intention to emigrate. Since the US Congress has
not yet passed the trade bill, the Soviet regime
probably does not regard these actions as a breach
of the US-Soviet understanding. A number 'of
Soviet Jews, however, have already made that
charge in public statements.
Moreover, isolated reports of continued
harassment of non-Jewish would-be emigrants by
Soviet officials are intensifying fears among
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Sergei Khrushchev viewing the newly
unveiled monument for the grave of his father
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non-Jewish dissidents in Moscow that the regime
is determined to restrict any easing of emigration
to Jews, despite the non-exclusive wording of the
Kissinger-Jackson letters.
The Other Side of the Ledger
Along with these signs of intent to preserve
the status quo are others suggesting something
less that ,:.:tal inflexibility in the Kremlin.
One such sign came on September 2, when a
monument for Khrushchev's grave-a bust of the
former leader by maverick sculptor Ernst Neiz-
vestny-was unveiled at Moscow's Novodevichy
Cemetery. The sculptor, a Jew, began work on
the monument at the request of the Khrushchev
family soon after the leader's death in 1971.
Permission to install it was withheld, however,
until mid-April of this year; Neizvestny claimed
that the decision was conveyed to him by a
person close to Brezhnev.
The unveiling of the monument was prob-
ably seen by Moscow's unconventional artists as
evidence of a partial rehabilitation of Khrushchev
and of official acceptance of Neizvestny's own
unconventional work. They may have been en-
couraged by this to try to stage the open air art
show, hoping the move also signaled a shift in the
direction of the more relaxed cultural policies of
the Khrushchev era. Although the attempt itself
was a fiasco, the dissidents were no doubt
heartened by the confusion in the Moscow city
bureaucracy following the disruption of the show,
signs of high-level intervention, and the successful
staging of the second exhibit. Moreover, in early
October the party chief of the Moscow district in
which the initial disruption occurred was
ousted-evidently as a scapegoat-and sent into
diplomatic exile as ambassador to Hanoi. On Oc-
tober 4, a deputy editor of Pravda privately
apologized to a US embassy officer for the
manhandling of US correspondents during the
aborted art show.
In the midst of these events the daily paper
of the Communist Youth League on September
17 published what could only have been viewed
as an implicit defense of Khrushchev's rewriting
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of Stalinist history. The reviewer of Ivan
Stadnyuk's IVar, a novel glorifying Stalin's war-
time leadership, rebuked the author for glossing
over Stalin's errors and failing to take into ac-
ccunt "the clear assessments of our historical
science." This was the first positive endorsement
of Khrushchev's rewriting of Stalinist history to
appear in years. Whether the review was
stimulus or a response to the apparently pro-
Stalin revision of the Zhukov memoirs is a moot
point; it is the re-emergence of the symbolic
debate between advocates and opponents of the
status quo that is significant.
Another series of positive signs, contrasting
with the continued harassment of individual
Jewish would-be-emigrants, has been the selective
but markedly more lenient posture toward the
Jewish community in Moscow. For example, the
public religious observances of the holiday of
Simchas Torah in October proceeded without the
customary harassment in front of the Moscow
synagogue by the police.
Another case in point is the unusual course
of the trial of Viktor Polsky, a prominent Jewish
activist. Polsky was charged with having struck a
girl with his automobile. The victim is the
daughter of a man identified in 1972 as a ranking
official of the USSR Procuracy. Polsky contended
that the girl hdd leaped in front of his car in a
suicide attempt. Polsky, a physicist, lost his job
soon after he applied for emigration and claimed
he had been "hounded" because of his desire to
emigrate. At the trial, however, a physician who
treated the girl after the accident appeared
"unexpectedly" to testify in Polsky's defense, an
ambulance driver corroborated Polsky's account
of the incident, and the defense attorney-a
Jew--successfully undercut the testimony of
prosecution witnesses, including that of the girl's
father. Moreover. prominent Moscow dissidents,
among them the wife of Andrey Sakharov, and
several Western correspondents were admitted to
the courtroom. Polsky was found guilty only cf
negligence, was sentenced to pay a nominal fine,
and was released.
These examples of leniency suggest that at
least some elements of Soviet officialdom have
been instructed to try to avoid adverse Western
publicity, especially while the trade legislation is
still pending in the US Congress. This interpreta-
tion is reinforced by the failure of Moscow police
Unconventional ,irt show on the outskirts of Moscow on September 29
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to arrest three young Jews who on October 29
demonstrated in the streets for the right to
emigrate to Israel. It was the first such demonstra-
tion since the announcement of the US-Soviet
emigration understanding.
An Uncertain Prognosis
The conflicting signs in Soviet policy in the
area of human rights suggest that the leadership is
Mill debating the issue of greater flexibility,
Podgorny's remarks on November 11 notwith-
standing. Podgorny, generally identified with cul-
tural conservatives, clearly does not have the lost_
word on cultural policy.
The leadership's discussion almost certainly
hinges on the price, i.e., the benefits acr.ruing
from detente, being right. Recent events also
show how vulnerable the regime's domestic
practices are to Western publicity, and both the
leadership and the dissidents are well aware of
this.
Kremlin advocates of detente may believe
that some relaxation of domestic controls will
deflect adverse publicity and help the Soviets in
other areas of East-West negotiations. They may
fear that if incidents like the art show are handled
piecemeal, the energies of the lea.'irship as a
whole will be sapped, and latent divisions on
other policy issues could rise to the surface.
The leadership will be concerned that
evidence that it was not adhering to its bargain
with the US on emigration would be viewed by
influential segments of Western political opinion
as casting doubt on Soviet good faith in other
detente-related negotiations. The leaders are prob-
ably not of one mind in their assessment of what
the West would regard as non-adherence, but they
are almost certainly agreed that they must try to
Iijnit the domestic impact of the emigration
accord as much as possible. In the short term,
they will probably test US determination to insist
on the terms of the agreement. The longer trend
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An example of socialist realism, raised to
the heroic scale, is this monument in the heart of
Donetsk honoring the coal miners of the Don
Basin. Similar massive statuary, featuring mus-
cular workers and peasants, dots the Soviet
landscape.
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Religious services conducted in Moscow's central synagogue
could be toward some easing of internal condi-
tions, providing the relaxation appears to the
public as the regime's own decision and not-as in
the case of the art show-an emba. rassed response
to internal and external pressure.
This will not be an easy task. So far, the
generally fragmented nature of Soviet dissidence
has been an asset to the regime. The dissidents,
though often vocal, are numerically insignificant,
and the Soviet masses are generalily apathetic and
unsympathetic. Although the dissidents are
spread thin over the political spectrum, and
frequently divided on both goals and methods,
they are united-as were their historical p-edeces-
sors-in their desire to gain the right to voice
unorthodox views. They are united in viewing the
foreign press as a pulpit without which their
voices would now be ignored. And they all sup-
port the right to emigration-despite the ambigu-
ous feelings arising from the traditional Russian
attachment to the motherland. Some dissidents,
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November 15, 1974
like the democratic group clustered around
Andrey Sakhat v, support emigration as a matter
of principle; others, such as the authoritarian
Russian nationalists, frequently favor it for anti-
Semitic reasons.
and Western attitudes, and the dissidents may
anticipate a period in which they have a new
weapon-Western attention to t
agreement--to advance their cause.
I ~~
The emigration issue is also likely to
embolden Soviet dissidents to test the limits of
the regime's flexibility on other matters.
Sakharov has announced that the hunger strike he
claims occurred in several Soviet labor camps on
October 30 will become an annual event. Mos-
cow's unconventional artists have announced
plans to stage a second, indoor, public exhibit of
their work in December. Their colleagues in
Leningrad are pressing authcrities there to permit
a similar public show. All concerned probably
view the coming months as a test of both Soviet
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