European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 9, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes monday january 8,1990 . Rosentha soviet dissidents were True heroes of the �?T80s where Are their names search Tor the names of the people who built the revolution the world celebrates. Hunt for them in the masses of decade end print pouring from journalists and academics. Listen for them through the hours of to analysis of the Eastern european Ana soviet struggle for Freedom. I have not found or heard them a the names of the soviet men and women who suffered in prison for so Many of their years for speaking the truth about what communism was doing to their country or who died because they spoke. Their words were heard first Only in Small Clandestine groups in the soviet Union. Then the truth they told about the communist system reached the outside world. For years most of the world did not pay much attention. They seemed so few and their voices so weak against the huge dictatorship surrounding them. But in Eastern Europe As Well As in the soviet Union the very existence of underground resistance in the Center of the Empire helped Light the fires and keep them alive. These men and women were the Quot dissidents Quot of the soviet Union. Many still arc. What a Palid word dissident for people who were willing to fight without arms against the mighty soviet Power its prisons and firing squads. Mikhail Gorbachev has written his name larger in the 80s than anybody could have dreamt including Mikhail Gorbachev. Without his understanding that the soviet system was in need of change if it was to survive at All the rebellion could have taken years longer to come about. But the revolution in Eastern Europe now moving into the soviet Union is not being fought for the Reform of communism he seeks but for its abolition. Quot i am a communist a convinced communist Quot he proclaimed the other Day. A for some that May be a fantasy. But for me it is my main he has said the same thing before. There is no reason not to believe him a or pretend As president Bush did at Malta that we do not hear him. That will riot help persuade him to change his mind nor help the soviet people replace him if he docs not. But he could not have existed As the political Force he became if the truth about soviet communism its brutalities the imprisonment and death of millions the economic pillaging and social corruption had not been told by the dissidents year after harrowing year. Time Magazine Calls Gorbachev a Man of the credit is due to him but the dissidents who William Safire upp1 fought communism while he tried to build it and still do. Arc the real a men of the decade Quot a and decades past. Here on the desk is a Black Loose Leaf Book with Page after Page of their names a names and stories of the prisoners who suffered in just one political prison Camp in just one Corner of the gulag that i was permitted to visit on a december Day one year ago. It would take a huge Library to hold All the names of All the captives in All the Camps in All the Frozen Corners through the decades. Most of them arc free now those who did not die. Most not All. There arc still men in the Camps serving Long sentences for saying the things Gorbachev says himself or for trying to leave their own countries a crime no longer a crime or for talking with american diplomats in the Days when that was treason. Nobody outside the secret police knows How Many still arc in the political cells. The International league of human rights estimates 300. But each one is a living reproach to Gorbachev and All of us who forget them. Some of the men and women once caged in soviet political prisons were teachers and poets. But at least As Many were boilermakers carpenters and farm workers. Now some of them arc too weary to do More than just live Happy to be beyond the barbed wire. But most of them keep fighting to push the boundaries of Freedom further and wider with their speeches and pamphlets and demonstrations. Most of All they fight for what Gorbachev will not give them a the end of the communist political monopoly and eventually the end of All communist political Power. Some of them see Gorbachev As their destined enemy. Others believe that he is too Wise knows too Well that the soviet system is going under to allow himself to be washed away in the flood. But in either Case the dissidents Are already on history a cover of the 1980s. And they will still be right there in 1999, with one More Brave decade adding burnish to their names. C new you a time Gorbachev must Deal with 2 different worlds Quot the cold War is Over the free would won and the evil Empire lost lets pick a Date for pc Day and celebrate the history ending Victory Over so say our triumphalist. A the cold War is Over it was largely our uptight right wingers fault to begin with because the russians were never so say our sore winners. Gorb Ophilus and Gorbo phones Are on All fours in the same mindset its All Over but the Happy distribution of the peace dividend. A ragtag band taking exception to this consensus is derided by both sides As unreconstructed cold warriors. Skunks at the Garden party of the nifty 90s. From Moscow Brenne Vite retreads accuse us of howling because we were deprived cold Turkey of our beloved communist enemy. We disinter a from the widespread wow be worldview have been reduced to Yogi Berra geopolitics a Quot the cold War ainu to Over till its we mutter that Gorbachev is motivated Only by the threat of incipient col lapse not by an interest in abandoning Iron control. We warn that As soon As the West ameliorates the economic pain the necessity for glasnost and free Enterprise will Lessen and the totalitarian system will survive. Now in the Nick of time comes substantial intellectual underpinning for the done to save communism gang. The american Academy of arts and sciences is based in Cambridge mass., not exactly a reactionary redoubt. The Academy publishes a quarterly. Daedalus named after the athenian who built an ingenious labyrinth. An article will appear in that review titled Quot to the Stalin mausoleum Quot a play on Edmund Wilson s Quot to the Finland station a about Lenin and signed by a a a a a pseudonym recalling the Quot a Quot used by George Kennan a lifetime ago in suggesting a policy of containment. Z surveys the 70 years leading to the political graveyard in a Way that illuminates this past decades events. Awareness of looming disaster began in Yuri Andropov s Kab the Novosibirsk report by the sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya in 1983 a implied the necessity of Radical restructuring for sheer survival a its leaking Quot first alerted the world to the impending end of soviet Gorbachev was a Andropov redux Quot and at first tried to revitalize the communist party when that failed he built a parallel Appart a Quot reminiscent Rutalis Mut Andis of the Way Stalin had used the a kid against the mainline recent elections held to insure Gorbachev against Khrushchev s Fate of removal by the Central committee had an unintended result a to produce a resounding defeat not just for the Appart As Gorbachev wished but for the party As an institution. The party which had hitherto inspired fear in the people suddenly came to fear the but the Peoples interests arc not being served by the communist party or Gorbachev s parallel soviet is Appart private cooperatives were corrupted by the local political mafias and decentralization was subverted because it threatened the party s monopoly of Power. Result Quot Gorbachev is left with the worst of two possible worlds an old one that refused to die and a new one without the strength to be Gorbachev trying to be both Luther and the Pope cannot fix the stultifying system without going much further than he says he is willing or Able to go. But warns z an ideological soulmate whose identity i have no need to know decaying superpowers do not go quietly into the in the historical epoch aborting Don t join the crowd expecting serenity or preaching stability. And done to Start spending that peace dividend As toe a Mcville observed Inzy a keynote a the most dangerous time for a bad government is when it starts to Reform a Nev York Tim a the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government
