Students Peek Behind the Iron Curtain

This year, the Harvard Center For International Affairs' (CFIA) Student Council founded what organizers hope will be an ongoing US-Soviet student exchange program.

With the help of the Washington-based Citizens Exchange Council, student council officers Hyungji Park '89 and Peter H. Vrooman '88-'89 set up reciprocal visits with students at Kiev State University in the Ukraine. The officers and a CFIA faculty committee selected 12 undergraduate delegates--including Vrooman--from a pool of 120 applicants.

During spring break, the 12 undergraduates, two graduate students and one Harvard professor traveled to Moscow, Kiev and Lenningrad in the USSR and Prague in Czechoslovakia. A group of 12 Soviet students will come to the United States this fall. Their travels during the second part of this year's program will include visits to New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Anna V.E. Forrester '88-'89 was one of the delegates. The other undergraduates on the trip were Nicholas B. Basden '89, Priya Bhatia '90, Saria Brachman '88-'89, Anjen Chen '90, Jennifer M. Choo '89, Jeffrey Clarke '89, Vanessa D. Lann '90, Joannie M. Schrof '88, Nina R. Schwalbe '88-'89 and Benjamin Waldman '89. The graduate students were Allison Stranger and Steve Solnick, and Assistant Professor of History Mark D. Steinberg.

A hackneyed question greets you when you return from almost any trip: How was the weather? Another more focused and loaded query awaits you when you complete an exchange with the Soviet Union: So what about glasnost and perestroika--are they going to going to work?

Our answer to the former: Great--not a single drop of rain in 10 full days in the Soviet Union, which was amazing for this time of year. The weather was, in fact, so nice that we almost had to wonder if it was planned, staged for our U.S. delegation like so much else that we saw--or were allowed to see--in our role as an official delegation.

As foreigners we stayed in special hotels, ate otherwise unavailable food and were able to shop in restricted foreign currency stores. Our guides led us to the front of hour-long lines at the Hermitage in Leningrad and at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.

The term glasnost means literally `voiceability'; it applies primarily to new attitudes toward freedom of the press and open expression of thought. Perestroika, on the other hand, refers to Gorbachev's plans for restructuring and democratizing the Soviet Union's economic and political system. Before our trip, the American press had filled us with ideas about these two concepts, describing grassroots democracy sprouting up in the form of private restaurants and independent businesses.

The students we met in Kiev confirmed these notions, telling us in official discussions that perestroika was working; in informal environments, though, they were far more critical. Finally, one-on-one encounters with Soviet citizens who had not been chosen to to participate in the exchange revealed much more pessimistic outlooks.

Surrounded by sometimes contradictory, some-times compatible impressions of the USSR, we found ourselves grappling with these disparate images of the "real" Soviet Union in an effort to define for ourselves the true nature of Soviet society. In our struggle to discern what was real and what was facade, what was planned and what was spontaneous, we naturally found ourselves confronting the second question: What about perestroika and glasnost? Could they really work?

The official "exchange" segment of the trip took place in Kiev at Kiev State University. The program there consisted of discussions, formal events and touring. The format of the official roundtable dialogues was somewhat imposing. We convened around a large table, and each student was given a microphone. Topics of discussion ranged from conceptions of "The American Dream" to the issue of privileged universities and from nationalty problems to family life and personal habits. At first we were distrustful, and the Soviets undoubtedly were as well. We did not know whether these students had been been chosen because of their uncritical devotion to the Soviet system, because their parents held high ranking party positions, or because individual merit had earned them their positions in the exchange.

The difference between public and private attitudes was often startling. In official discussions, we noticed our Soviet counterparts were somewhat constrained and feared to speak openly--a lack of glasnost. But in personal talks at students' homes or in the local student club, words flowed easily, and students were sincere, open and critical. We spent our free time walking around the city together, talking and laughing, We intellectualized our differences while making our basic similarities known. One-on-one discussions proved that the Soviet students were candidly critical of the Soviet system as it existed, yet hopeful for change.

To the students perestroika and glasnost were the great hope of the future. We found students who were bright and inquisitive, eager to analyze and critique Soviet history. They yearned for a different, better future which included some type of democracy. Their vision, however, was still vague. One student said the goal of current reforms is a return to the heritage of Lenin. Another named economic freedom, and a third described it as "developing the human self."

"I want to be able to express and write what I think and not what is currently acceptable," said Tolia, a student of Soviet history. Before the acclaimed rehabilitation of Bukharin, Tolia had written a positive article about him which was widely criticized. Yet after the rehabilitation made him acceptable again, Tolia's article was praised. Tolia said his goal is to be able to discuss the positive and negative sides of an issue and draw his own conclusions.

The Soviet students desired change but wondered how to achieve it. We, too, wondered how and if the Soviet Union will change. Our reflections as we left Kiev were slanted because they were based on encounters with a specific type of Soviet citizen. Despite the students' candor, they were chosen to meet with us, and, as students, they represented an elite segment of Soviet society.

If the Ukrainian students who are scheduled to come to the United States next fall talk only with Harvard students--and not to those who have not profited from the American system--they, too, would leave the U.S. with a skewed picture.

Our observations of the physical and material manifestations of perestroika left us in a quandary. Yes, there were independently run food cooperatives, but their prices were prohibitively high. And there was no butter in the Moscow stores we visited, although our hotel restaurant had it on the table three times a day. Although more Jews are being allowed to emigrate, Jews within the country are still being arrested and jailed for openly protesting Soviet emigration policy. Students held different opinions and openly clashed at our roundtable discussions, but their thoughts and ideas differed even more when we met with them alone and talked informally.

Furthermore those in our group who knew other Soviet citizens--primarily refusniks, Jews who have been refused exit visas, and nonconformists--saw another side of Soviet life and heard a different view of Gorbachev's reforms. Where the students were optimistic, many others saw a dismal future. One woman whose husband spent 15 years in a Siberian labor camp described the Soviet premier as "a man in search of power." And a long-time refusnik said, "Russia just isn't made for democracy. History proves it." When asked what she thought about the current situation, one woman abruptly answered, "I'm scared, scared of what will come after all this is over."

Our task upon returning to the States has been to shuffle through the many ideas and impressions we encountered in a mere nine days. It is difficult to define the exact purpose of our exchange with the Soviet Union. A number of delegates felt uncomfortable with the idea that we were part of some grand plan to foster mutual understanding between peoples. Were we really there to work toward some sort of peace and to be emissaries of democracy? It was easier for us to view ourselves as friendly American college students than as dictionary sources of democracy. It was 16 Americans and a dozen or so Soviets who participated in this exchange, not the United States and the Soviet Union.

In the end, many of us came back hoping, like our Ukrainian friends who will visit us next fall, that the Soviet Union can in fact change. However, we know that the complexity of such a transformation can be overwhelming. If we have learned anything from the exchange, it is that it is virtually impossible to draw conclusions about a nation in flux. We often found it impossible to categorize perestroika and glasnost as "good" or "bad" "working" or "not working." We did learn that if perestroika and glasnost are to work, it will take time.