Sakharov Speaks Out

The following is the transcript of an interview between Andrei Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident in the Soviet Union, and Columbia Spectator reporters Joseph Ferullo, Mitch Rollnick, and Suzanne Moore. The interview, which took place in Sakharov's Moscow apartment on January 19, is also being published in the Brown Daily Herald, Columbia Daily Spectator. Cornell Daily Sun. The Dartmouth, and the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Q: Andrei Dimitryevich (Sakharov), you have said you became a "free-thinker," a dissident, due to certain psychological and intellectual developments in your life. Could you explain what these shifts have been?

A: This is difficult to explain--it is because of my whole life. It is because of our country, with the repressions and absence of intellectual and other freedoms, the hard conditions of our lives. [Speaking out] is a very great responsibility. In my work on the center of atomic warfare, I understood this great responsibility.

But you know, such development is not only personal, it comes from connection with other people. It is more than a personal process, it is a social process, a whole life.

Q: Could you tell us something about the Soviet academic system? What is taught and how? What are its basic ideas and goals?

A: I don't know much about what is learned in the humanities. I think there are good teachers who could give their students the broad picture, but they are hampered by ideological ties, and must tell their students some words about Marxism, which is in my opinion unfortunate.

I know more closely the system in physical sciences, mathematical science, and so on. The development of this system was sometimes ideological, but the necessary development of the country in technology broke the traditions and the ideology.

Q: You have said that you do not favor radical change, but change over a long period of time--evolution, not revolution. Could you explain this more and say how you see this developing in the USSR?

A: I must explain my position on this. The political questions of fighting, violence, revolution--these are not my profession. I think that violence in politics is a very hard thing; it leads to a very large portion of blood, death and so on.

In our country, in a very short time we have seen revolutions and the troubles of people. And we are tired of all this. We don't want violence, we think that evolution is the only possible way to obtain positive results--though not in a short time.

Of course, we understand that our system is very conservative. It is a system with great differences in position--a party elite--but it presents the front of a monolith. Our society, the way it is today, could not evolve in a good direction; but revolution would be more tragic than the state we have today.

The action of individuals can have a resonance in many other people. Many people have sympathy for me and my friends, and we think that in a long time there will be results. Evolutionary results, not revolutionary results. When it will be, I don't know.

In the near future, nothing will change. Soon Brezhnev will go, but the other leaders who will reach his position will not be different. Our system is conservative in all senses and the positions of leaders are conservative too.

Q: You say the government is conservative. Do you think there is also a liberal tradition in Russia?

A: I think there is no liberal tradition. For 60 years our country has been a totalitarian government. Our tradition is not liberalism but totalitarianism. Some people understand the need [for liberalism], but the whole system is so conservative, there is little opportunity for change.

Q: Would you describe yourself as liberal?

A: My position is not political, but lies in the actions that have formed my life. One of my main concerns is the problem of disarmament and international security and the other is human rights. This is not political, it is above politics.

Q: What is the chief human rights issue in the USSR now?

A: The position of the Crimean Tartars. They are a simple people without education. They could not afford to buy houses; they sleep under the open sky. They want to work in agriculture and they have tried, but they cannot work on the farms because they are not allowed. The Crimean Tartars were brought from Crimea in 1944--it was a Stalin decision. In one day in 1944 the whole population of Crimean Tartars was brought from Crimea. They were brought in railway cars to Uzbekistan. On the way half of them died. Dead people lay near those not yet dead.

Stalin said they were collaborating with the Germans, but this is not true. Some were, but some from every republic were collaborating. Many Crimean Tartars were fighting against the Germans and died fighting the Germans. They were not different from any other people.

Today, they cannot return to the Crimea. We don't understand why the Soviets have such a policy. It is discriminative and hundreds of people have joined the great struggle. One man had a cannister of oil and he burned himself. When he was brought to the hospital, he said everyone must do this, and died. His name was Usmanov. Some thousands of Crimeans came to Crimea to attend his funeral and the officials could not disperse them. It was a great demonstration.

Recently the Soviet Government decided that 700 Crimean Tartars must be expelled from the Crimea and today bulldozers came, and people watched the Tartars leaving. Then their houses were levelled by the bulldozers. People were deported in open trucks from Crimea. This is only one example, but it is very dramatic.

Many people know about the problem, but we don't know why our government does not want Crimean Tarta in Crimea. Crimea is a place of tourism and hotels for the political elite and these people are not good for the government. They want these Tartars to live in Uzbekistan, far from the government.

Q: What about the labor camps?

A: Today there are not as many as in Stalin's time--then there were ten million people interred, today there are one and a half million. Some people who came from the camps say there must be more. But U.S. experts using satellite photos say it is one and a half million.

Q: You've spoken a lot about Stalin. How much do the young people know about him?

A: Today, the main policy is silence about Stalin. Soon there will be Stalin's centennial. There appeared until now only one small newspaper article, which was positive towards him, but admitted he made mistakes. Not that he was a criminal, only that he made mistakes. It said his mistakes will not return. The main part of it was positive, though.

Q: What about Brezhnev, will he try to reform anything?

A: Brezhnev's leadership is more conservative. Today the policy is strength. Military defense. We don't know how effective we will be in war, but in peacetime--we have the greatest army and navy in the world. It [the military] seems to be the only thing in which we are most effective. Education, medicine, agriculture--we are not effective. Every year they get worse and worse.

It is a great military system in peacetime, but we will see [how it does] in war.

Q: What do you think of the SALT II talks? What is likely to happen?

A: Our government understands the situation and does not want a great war. It wants political and internal results without war and with the help of Vietnam forces and Cuban forces. The SALT talks are essential. The talks are better than war. They deal with very essential things, but we must take care of arms control problems and other questions in these talks. I think the U.S. wants effective results in a short time and that is dangerous in some ways. The U.S. and the USSR must also discuss Chinese-American relations.

Q: What about that? How do you view the new Chinese-American relationship?

A: I am not a political expert, but this is not good from a moral point of view. The American-Taiwan treaty is broken. It may be essential from a practical point of view. But Carter's moral action is not good. What Goldwater says is right.

Q: What of the present situation in Iran? How might that affect Soviet-American relations?

A: The Soviet government will not profit from these events. The forces that have come into the open in Iran are illogical and irrational forces, which are not good for the Soviet and American positions. They are negative.

Q: How satisfied are you with academicians in the West who have defended human rights in socialist countries and in their own countries as well?

A: They are very good. Academic boycotts are good, but we must have other forms of support. I think the only way for our people who want to go the U.S. or to the West is some exchange of prisoners. It is the only way to solve the problem, but it will not happen in a short time.

Q: Do you think the dissident trials of Shchransky and Ginsburg succeeded in scaring off other dissidents and members of the Western press?

A: Governments have great power to do what they want. But it is impossible for the Soviet government to put all people who speak out into prison. The quarantine aspect is not essential, as long as the struggle of ideas remains.

Dissidents in prison are separated from the others, and live in the hardest conditions. I have tried to contact people in prisons. Korshnikoff--for a half year his family heard nothing. I sent telegrams to the officer in his camp about his health, paid two rubles for an answer, but received none. I will send telegrams once more.

Q: It seems in most countries the militancy, or desire for change, comes from the youth. Is it the same in the Soviet Union?

A: I don't know exactly; I have little contact with young people. Most of the young people I know are dissident. I wonder if they can be called typical Soviet youth. It is often impossible to contact the young. It is often dangerous. The Soviet student is in a dangerous position. If he is involved in any political activity, he is expelled from the Institute and nobody can help him. And it is not that easy to gain entrance to the university. There is much discrimination. Many students from the country cannot attend the university. Take Moscow University, for example. The percentage of people from the villages who go there is one half of one per cent. The students are mainly from Moscow. It is the same for other schools. For Jewish people it is impossible to go to the university. We have examinations and Jews are put in special groups. Examinations are much harder on Jews than other people. When an examiner sees you are Jewish, he strikes off points right away. It is the same in Czechoslovakia.

Young people have very little opportunity for political activity. Most dissidents are older. A large portion of them are young, but they are not in universities or in good jobs--they have nothing to lose.

Q: You once said to stop speaking out would be like turning down a blind alley from which there is no return. Yet you say change will come slowly and far in the future. Why do you continue to speak out?

A: There are very few people for whom it is possible to speak out and when they speak out they think they speak for those people who do not have the possibility. Most essential is free speech and information. Our open action does not go against any law but it contradicts unwritten tradition.

Q: What criteria would you have in measuring a society?

A: Pluralistic. A society must be pluralistic--in its economy, agriculture, everything.

Q: If you had the chance to do it over again, would you participate in the invention of the Soviet hydrogen bomb?

A: No. When I worked in this direction, I thought it was essential for international equilibrium. I think it also is today. But I think strengthening Soviet power is bad; it upset the equilibrium.

Q: What do you think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's remarks at Harvard about Western society?

A: He is a very important man. His work in literature is essential; he is the most essential man of our times. But his views do not hold good for me. His views about Western countries in my opinion are wrong. I don't think he understands Western societies. Western societies have many possibilities for change by evolution in a positive direction. They are not perfect, but there is no perfect society. It is not conservative, it changes. We know over the last year we have seen much change. Solzhenitsyn thinks it is not a clever society, but he doesn't understand the necessities of a pluralistic society. I think that only Western society could correct life in the whole world. Totalitarianism is not good for this type of change.

His program is not realistic and it is dangerous. Some things he says are true, but he speaks from bitterness. His whole direction is not true, but some things are.

A: What reforms would you bring to the Soviet system?

A: I think it would take a system of reforms to make it more pluralistic. In economics: some businesses not run by the government, but private business. Politically: multi-party system. It is possible for our society to have these changes. Today, this will not happen, because we have an elite to which such changes will not be good. This elite wants to have all possible power in its hands. It is afraid. It wants no change.

It is afraid a little change will knock out the whole base of the system--will set off a chain reaction of liberalism.

Q: The USSR is trying to open up to the West. How long can the present system go on, before people realize the differences and everyone becomes a dissident?

A: I don't know. We know the system is very conservative and it will be many years without changes.

"The American-Taiwan treaty is broken. It may be essential from a practical point of view. But Carter's moral action is not good ... Our government wants political and internal results without war and with the help of Vietnamese and Cuban forces."Columbia Daily SpectatorMitch Rollnick"It is impossible for the Soviet government to put all people who speak out into prison. The quarantine aspect is not essential. as long as the struggle of ideas remains."