SOVIET HISTORY LESSONS

Question: What is your profession in the United Kingdom?

 

Bukovsky: I graduated from Cambridge, did my dissertation at Stanford University in California, then came back, worked for some time. That is, I worked as a neurophysiologist. Then funding stopped. These were the new trends — public funding of science was stopped. And the situation became rather uninteresting: one had to raise funds for six months, and then spend the next six months spending them. Somehow this didn't make much sense. [Laughter in the audience]. Many of my colleagues refused [to carry on like this]. There is a difference between fundamental and applied science. Applied science rightly must make alliances with industry, it must negotiate with consumers, it must find out what is profitable for them and what their needs are. And so it [applied science] has to be funded by the private sector. This I find reasonable. But fundamental science cannot determine in advance what it is going to discover and when. But the private sector cannot spend money on this. Imagine if Sir Isaac Newton came to the private sector and asked for a grant. [Laughter in the audience]. He would have been asked, "What are you working on now, Sir Isaac?" — "I sit in my garden and watch the apples fall." [Laughter in the audience]. Who would give him a grant? Nobody ever.

 

Question: What did the support for the democratic forces look like in the Soviet times compared to today?

 

Bukovsky: In the beginning there was no support. We had to start from scratch and kind of prove that we were doing something important. And, in general, the attitude was completely indifferent at first. But gradually it began to change, because, on the one hand, we went to open court hearings — deliberately — and this attracted attention. On the other hand, we had such outstanding people as Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn in our ranks. They attracted attention. Both were Nobel Prize laureates. And this was no longer an accident. So public support grew gradually.

 

Somewhere by 1968, it began to be felt. By 1968 there was already some public support, and in the 1970s it became very serious. As for me, I was working on the issue of punitive psychiatry. I decided so for myself. We did not have any structures or any bosses in our movement. We each decided what we would do. And I decided to engage in [the subject of] punitive psychiatry, because I myself had been there and knew the topic well. And when I took this on in 1970, the cause looked hopeless. Because how would you explain to people in another country that some unknown person, whom psychiatrists consider mentally ill, is actually mentally healthy? How can this be explained? I thought that someone should tackle this topic, so it would be me, I would take it on, I would try. Well, in general, we were already used to this [state of affairs]. In general, we would always laughingly say, "We are taking on only hopeless cases, we do not take other kinds of cases."

 

But it turned out that this topic managed to produce a very strong reaction in the West. In each Western country psychiatric associations have created groups to campaign against Soviet psychiatry. They took it very hard — that their profession was being used for political repression. And they took up this cause in a very united way. Also, a lot of people who were not related to the field of psychiatry took part in this too. For example, in England, a group which got involved in this included the best representatives of the English intelligentsia. There was Tom Stoppard, there was Iris Murdoch, there was Vanessa Redgrave, there was Yehudi Menuhin. That is, people of all cultured professions — outstanding people — realized that they had to participate in this. As a result, the World Psychiatric Association condemned the Soviets in 1977, and in 1983 it was ready to expel them, but they themselves left to save their face. [Laughter in the audience]. In general, we won completely in regards to this matter. By 1989, the Soviets completely changed their legislation, canceled a number of repressive measures, introduced judicial guarantees, which was a complete change. We completely achieved what we wanted. This was possible only because the world responded — a huge number of people in the West did.

 

Question: How would you characterize the role of high-status criminals (“thieves in the law”), because I know that your statements on this subject are very different from those of Solzhenitsyn and those of Varlam Shalamov. They [Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov] do not consider these people human. And you have previously said that they [the criminals] had once told you, "We are doing time for having looked after ourselves, and you are doing time for having looked after everyone."

 

Bukovsky: Yes.

 

Questioner: And they protected you, even saved your life.

 

Bukovsky: Yes. Yes.

 

Questioner: If you could somehow characterize how this all changed: in the 1930s and the 1950s?

 

Bukovsky: We used to argue with Solzhenitsyn regarding this topic for a long time back in 1977. I stayed with him in Vermont for three days on my way to Washington, D.C. to discuss our common affairs. Of course, the conversation soon turned to comparing how things were in the camps — what the camp system used to be, what it had become. And we touched upon this question. I explained to him that during his time, from the point of view of the criminal world, inmates like him were considered “fancy pants,” a legitimate prey. Who were they? Party functionaries, military officers, right? That is, for the criminal world they were legitimate prey. Whereas we were enemies of the state. The attitude toward us was completely different. They [the criminals] were enemies of the state too, and they perceived themselves exactly like that — they did not recognize the authority of any state. We were enemies of the state too. So there were no divisions between us in that sense. On the contrary, they took us under their protection and on several occasions this had helped me a lot.

 

Questioner: But in Stalin's times, political prisoners were also forced to work so that the camps would develop. Didn't this system work like that in your days?

 

Bukovsky: Prisoners were forced to work always. Nowadays they are not forced to work. In Soviet times, everyone was forced to work, and criminals too. It was a different story that thieves-in-law did not work — they found a way not to. And for me they found a job that was not a job at all — it was a special privilege kind of a job. I would go out for work at night for two hours. And then I would come back.

 

Actually, for them, you know, I was a kind of consigliere, like in The Godfather. They would come to me for advice on how to handle this kind of situation and that kind of situation. In general, I was like an underground lawyer in the camp. They would come to me with their complaints, and I would write complaint petitions for everyone. And the thieves-in-law would come to me to consult with me. I was like a consigliere to them — a useful person. And I rather quickly taught the rest of the convicts how to write complaints, how to declare strikes, and, in general, conducted this kind of trade union work with them. [Laughter in the audience].

 

Translator Libor Dvořák: Was it possible to declare strikes there?

 

Bukovsky: Well, you can declare a strike anywhere you like. But what your punishment would be for that — that's a different story. We have achieved a lot. When I got released, when my term was over, the prisoners told me that the head of the camp lined up the entire camp and said, "Okay, that's it! Bukovsky was released today, so no more complaints, go back to work!"

 

Question: I meet friends who have been living in the West for a long time, and they lose their ability to speak Russian. And your Russian is wonderful. Is there an explanation for this? How can one preserve one’s native language?

 

Bukovsky: Well, it's hard for me to answer this question. The fact is that my situation is unique. I have spent exactly half of my life in Russia and half [ of my life] in the West. Thirty five and thirty five. When you leave a country at 34, your language is already formed. You are unlikely to forget it. But when people leave at the age of 15 or 12, then yes, they can forget their language. But if you leave as an adult, you will not forget the language.

 

Question: My question is about the difference in support for the democratic movement in Russia today and in the Soviet Union. How did the West help back then, and how is this different from how the West is helping the democratic movement now?

 

Bukovsky: It was much more difficult for us, because at that time the world was ideologically divided. And the leftist establishment helped only the Soviet Union, it refused to help us. It was very difficult to break through this. That has changed a lot today. Today, the division into the left and the right is completely confused. Today the left in the West does not perceive Russia as a socialist state. People believe that there is "wild capitalism” over there. Therefore, for example, the left in the West campaigned very strongly for the Chechens during the Chechen war, which they would not have done before. Now it’s an okay thing to do. Russia is not seen as a left-wing state, you can campaign against it. For this reason it is much easier to achieve public support for some opposition groups from Russia today. They are just not occupied with obtaining it [this support] yet. They have concentrated a lot on their efforts within Russia itself and think less about the West. But when they do engage in this issue, they succeed. Look, they have managed to succeed with the Magnitsky Act. This is a wonderful thing, this is a tremendous achievement. They achieved it very easily. Look at what happened with this wacky Pussy Riot story. This is absolutely incredible. This was a non-story. If it were not for the idiots in the Kremlin, there would have been no history at all. But the entire pop culture had risen! I always joke, I say: "They appealed to the Mother of God, and Madonna answered them." [Laughter and applause in the audience].

 

The difference in social attitudes is now very significant. If earlier an attempt to tell the truth about the Soviet Union met with resistance from half of the establishment (at least half of it  — and the other half was indifferent), now this is no longer the case. There is no such powerful resistance. After all, they would resort to all sorts of things — they would impose censorship, they would block things. We were not allowed to say here in the West what was happening in the Soviet Union. This is the left for you. My latest book to this day cannot be published in English. It is titled “Judgement in Moscow". The left went to the publisher and said that if he published it, they would ruin him with lawsuits. And he got scared. This is ideological resistance. Here is a well-known fact: when the Kravchenko trial took place in Paris, for the first time the existence of the GULAG was proven, and so on, and it is a well-known [fact] that Sartre reacted to this the following way: He said, “Even if this is true, there is still no need to talk about it, because it is will disappoint the workers in Lyon." This is what they were concerned about — how not to disappoint the workers in Lyon. You see? And now things are different.

 

Question: What is the difference between the people with whom you were together in prison and people like Gorbanevskaya and Delaunay? Because those are being widely discussed, while there is no information about the others.

Bukovsky: You see, my colleagues — Gorbanevskaya, Delaunay, and others — they had made a public gesture. They had made that gesture on purpose, so that it would not be possible not to notice it, you see? This was our tactics, our technique. Let them conduct their arrests, let them conduct their trials, but no one will be able to say that they did not know about it. But as far as  Suslensky goes — and there was also another such person, Iosif Meshener — they were ordinary Soviet teachers. Nobody knew about them, they had never tried to become known. They wrote a letter of protest to the Soviet government, did not show it to anyone, and sent it only to the Soviet government. And therefore, no one knew anything about them, until they became arrested and taken to the camp. In the camp we learned that they were protesting against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. And there were thousands of such people. And they were doing their time, and few people knew about them. If a person writes a letter of complaint to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, then no one except the Central Committee knows about this. So it was impossible for such cases to become known. With great difficulty, while in the camps, we found out how many people had been imprisoned for such protests, and it was always a great numer.

 

Question: (inaudible).

 

Bukovsky: Suslensky? Of course, I was explaining to someone just now. Iosif Meshener taught history. And Suslenksy taught English in Moldova. They lived in the town of Bendery. Suslensky was a kind of a very poetic character, he could not simply... We were doing time in the Vladimir prison, writing complaints, right? This was our method of fighting with the prison administration — we would write thousands of complaints. Well, we all wrote standard complaints. And Yasha —- he could not just write a simple complaint. He chose for himself, firstly, an addressee — a famous pig-breeder, Efrosinya Porosyonkina. (Porosyonkina in Russian means “of piglet” — A.O.) She had this kind of name and she was a parliamentarian at the Supreme Council, a Hero of Socialist Labor, a pig breeder. And so he wrote complaints addressed to her all the time. At that time we had problems with clothes, and one could get a new set of clothes — this cotton prisoner uniform — only every two years, and, of course, over the two years it would become completely worn out. And we had such a worker among us, a certain Sasha Chekalin. His uniform was all ripped. So Yasha would write complaints to Efrosinya Porosyonkina saying that through the holes in Chekalin's clothes he could see his “proletarian origins.” [Laughter in the audience]. 

 

And, of course, they would put him in a punishment cell for this. And every time there was a problem — he is in a punishment cell, he has a weak heart, and so we need to go on a hunger strike. We begged him: "Yasha, write simple complaints, why do you need to write to Efrosinya Porosyonkina?" No, he could not, he was bored. He was a very peculiar fellow. When he got released, he left for Israel. He created a society of Ukrainian-Israeli friendship. [Laughter in the audience]. Yes. And he developed it very actively, inviting former Ukrainian prisoners to Israel, traveled to Ukraine himself, argued in every possible way that... Well, he was doing the right thing, because such a pattern arose, a stereotype that all Ukrainians are anti-Semites. Which is absolutely not true. This outraged him. And he decided to fight against this stereotype. He was a restless man. He could not sit still, no. And all the time he was inventing something, doing something, some campaign, and so on. He died literally about two years ago.

 

Question: How do you go about predicting what is going to happen in Putin's Russia, and whether Putin’s regime continues? Will things get even worse?

 

Bukovsky: Well, you see, if you know a country well, then you don't need to live in it. You can know everything about it without visiting. As I knew Russia and the Soviet Union, I did not have to go there — I already understood what was happening there. And therefore, more often than not, I gave quite accurate forecasts — both regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union, and then regarding the later developments too. As for the Putin regime, unfortunately, all this could have been avoided. It's just that the Russian authorities did not dare to act. We proposed to Yeltsin in 1991, immediately after the coup, to conduct something akin to the Nuremberg Tribunal in Moscow in order to condemn the communist Soviet system. At the time I have managed to convince almost everyone on the Yeltsin team, except for Yeltsin himself: all of his inner circle, including the then head of the KGB. This was a certain Bakatin, but he had never been a KGB officer, he was a kind of a liberal communist. We had a conversation with him which was broadcast on TV, and I explained to him why this was necessary, and he agreed. That is, everyone agreed. Yeltsin disagreed. Yeltsin said, "There is no need to rock the boat, it will be dangerous, we have won, this is final, they will not return." I objected to that. I said, "You are mistaken, because this situation is like with a wounded animal. A wounded animal must be finished off, otherwise it will come back to life and will through itself at your throat." [Applause in the audience].

 

I think that he had two reasons for being so obstinate: first, he was, in general, a political person, he understood that although he himself had not committed any crimes, but having been a party member… this kind of trial would make it impossible for people like him to stay in politics. The second consideration, which was probably serious for him, is that the West was very much against such a trial. They simply flooded all the embassies with telegrams demanding that he does not open the archives, does not arrange for communism to be put on trial. This is the leftist establishment for you. They had good reasons to behave that way — they were very entangled with Moscow. And then, when I received access to the archives of the Central Committee, I saw that it was not by chance that they were sending those telegrams. These are the two reasons why Yeltsin took such a stubborn stance agains the idea. 

 

In 1993 I left. I realized that they were not going to do anything, which meant that some kind semblance of the Soviet regime would make a comeback, that there would be a restoration. So I left. I got very angry and decided not to go there anymore. If they are not doing what needs to be done, then things will return to the old ways. And I left. But when the whole thing started in 2000, and somehow I could not hold back — I started helping the opposition and so on. Actually, I had no desire to even talk to them. Because when it had been possible to change things, they did not dare. Precisely when it had been necessary to finish the old system off, they did not have the courage to. And now what? One doesn’t throw punches after a fight. So further attempts became pointless. Now they [the KGB] have spread all over the world. Back then one could get rid of them like one gets rid of an abscess. And now this abscess has burst, and they have spread all over the world. They are everywhere now. They are now businessmen, they are now corrupt officials, they [claim to be] democrats. But this is still the same KGB. You see? This is the chance that had been missed, things which hadn’t been done. This was the fault of the Russian authorities of the day.

 

Libor Dvořák: Maybe the point is that the West very often did not — and does not — quite understand the essence of the Soviet regime? It does not quite understand that Putin is a...

 

Bukovsky: Well, they did not have an understanding of this for a long time — it is true — that Putin represents a continuation of the Soviet regime. I remember 2001 when I made a public appearance in Washington. Just before that, Bush Jr. had had a meeting with Putin and came out with some phenomenal words. He said, "I looked into his eyes and saw his soul." [Laughter in the audience]. And I gave a speech shortly after that in Washington where I said, "How did he manage to do that? As many Chekists as I have ever known, I could never detect the presence of a soul in them." [Laughter and applause in the audience]. Bush the younger did not understand at all... Well, he did not have much understanding of anything. [Laughter in the audience]. He was not about that. Generally speaking, he was  made president by accident. His brother was going to be made president. But things not work out with his brother, and at the last moment he became president. And he didn't really want to be president that much. So it's hard to blame him. But the people around him — the ones who should have known at least something — were surprisingly unskilled people. The American foreign policy establishment is something that can bring you to tears once you meet them. How did they decide on the “reset”? There was not a single person in the entire State Department who knew enough Russian to correctly translate the word “reset." In general, Sovietologists — I remember having had to deal with them a lot — are something else. It was a phenomenal profession. Half of them spoke Polish and thought they spoke Russian. [Laughter in the audience]. They were those kind of experts. 

 

Question: My question is about the role of Jews in the human rights movement in the USSR.

 

Bukovsky: At the beginning of the movement, there were many Jews taking part in it, because it was an intelligentsia movement. For some reason there were a lot of mathematicians and physicists within it. And a large percentage of mathematicians in Russia are Jews. But then the movement started to diverge. In 1968 the Zionist movement emerged. And very many of our colleagues who belonged to the movement, they went, as it were, to the Zionists, and achieved what they had wanted, i.e. left the country. So there was a split — those who considered themselves Jews, or began to consider themselves Jews — those went over to the Zionist movement. These two movements used to be very similar at one time. We have been sort of helping each other. And then the two movements became completely separate. 

 

It sometimes got ridiculous. In 1971, it so happened that for three months before my arrest I was the chief Zionist of the Soviet Union. While not being a Jew. And it was like this: they began to throw them out of the country after the airplane hijacking trial, the most active activists began to get permissions to leave, and as an imperative: “Get your things ready and leave tomorrow." And their infrastructure began to crumble. They needed someone to handle all of their contacts, someone to send new names (of refuseniks to the West — A.O.), information about them, etc. And so they came to me and said, "Take it on." I said, "They will send me to prison when spring arrives.” — "Oh, spring is in the remote future, and we need someone to handle this right now" — “Well,” I said, “fine, let’s do this."

 

They gave me all the contact information for the groups all across the country. “Well,” I thought, “if that's the case, we need to do something serious." I summoned all these contacts to Moscow for a meeting and said, "Okay, guys. If we don't do anything, then only the noisiest, the most scandalous people would be allowed to leave the country. And if we go on the offensive now, everyone would be allowed to leave." So everyone said, "Yes, let’s go on the offensive!" 

 

And so it began: throughout January and February of 1971, under my command, the Jews would storm the Soviet institutions: the OVIR (the Soviet migration service — A.O.), the Ministry of Internal Affairs... You may remember — they would do sit-ins there. They would get in [to a building] and sit there. And then they would get pulled outside... And my task was to provide the foreign press coverage — and I did it. Indeed, three months later, before I was put in prison, they were already leaving the country by the hundreds and the thousands. That was it, the Soviet government decided to get rid of them all. At the same time, quite a lot of Russians left too. So that gap was very useful — many people left through that gap.

 

So these two movements were very close, they initially arose from one movement, and then for quite a long time, as it were, they helped each other. Then they separated and the Zionist movement, as a matter of principle, no longer had anything to do with us, they became separate. But at first everything was very close. I even had a funny episode. When I became the chief Zionist, a group of young guys, 18 years old, came to me and said, “Listen, we need to leave the country urgently. Otherwise we’ll be drafted into the army, followed by five years of “secrecy oath,” which will end in us not being able to leave at all. And there are rumors (among the Jews - V.B.) that you know a certain method how to leave." Well, the Jews always have myths circulating among them. [Laughter in the audience].

 

Libor Dvořák: The Russians do too.

 

Bukovsky: The Russians do too. I didn’t know any such a method. But they came to me with a plea, so I had to come up with something. And I have managed to do so. I said, "So. You will pretend that you are my closest assistants. You will be coming up to me in the street, saying something in my ear and then you will be quickly leaving. You will be calling me on the phone, saying mysterious phrases, and so on." Two weeks later they were all gone — they were all expelled to Israel.

 

Question: Did you serve in the army?

 

Bukovsky: No. I was exempt from military service even in the event of a nuclear war.

 

Libor Dvořák: Maybe this was because you first went to prison at the age of 19?

 

Bukovsky: Well, yes, I ended up there at the age of 19 with a psychiatric diagnosis. I, as it were, was considered a mentally ill anti-Soviet. [Laughter in the audience]. It would be dangerous to let such a person into the army if there was to be a nuclear war.

 

Question: Do you follow the situation in Ukraine, and if so, how do you assess it and what would you say about the methods the Ukrainian opposition could use? In your opinion, how successful or unsuccessful is it [the Ukrainian opposition] now?

 

Bukovsky: I now follow the situation in Ukraine very little. Before I used to follow these issues much more closely, while the Soviet Union was still intact. At some point — in 1991 — my Ukrainian colleagues even invited me to Kiev, and I gave a speech in the Rada (Ukrainian parliament. — A.O.) They needed a "good Muscovite” to come and tell them that it was OK to separate [from Russia]. I arrived and explained to the Rada: "If you separate from Russia nothing terrible will happen." At the time we were very tight... I used to be in prison with many of them. Lukyanenko and I were in the same cell for two years. And with others too, with Svetlichny, with different other people. I knew them all. And at the time I used to follow those affairs, and could somehow offer my assistance. And then it all changed. And I don't know anyone of their current leaders. Simply no one. These are completely new people. And it is difficult for me to keep an eye on the Ukrainian affairs, because it takes a lot of time to get acquainted with them. I know the general situation as every other reading person does. But as to specificities... I know that Ukraine is split between the Western and the Eastern part. It had always been like this. And that all their politics revolves around this split. This is a very old situation. I know that. But as to more detail... For example, Tymoshenko is in prison. I don't know anything about Tymoshenko. Is she really corrupt or not? I don’t know. I have no idea. I cannot comment.

 

Question: When you were exchanged for Luis Corvalan... [inaudible].

 

Bukovsky: I almost never took interest in this. It was only when I was already working in the archives of the Central Committee [of the Communist Party of the USSR] in 1992 that I found some very interesting details. And about that exchange of ours — because it had all been decided by the Politburo — and about Corvalan himself. It turns out that Corvalan did not like Moscow. And he asked in 1983 to have plastic surgery done, to be given false documents — it's all a fact — and after that he went illegally to Chile to blow up trains. Then there were documents about how he requested explosives, mines, and so on. He was conducting a fight against Pinochet there. In 1989, Pinochet held an election and resigned. And Corvalan was still blowing up trains, and somehow it was ridiculous. He wrote again to the Central Committee — and I copied that document — with a request to return him back, illegally, to have another plastic surgery, to give him back his old face, his old documents, and then he would legally go to Chile. Which was done in 1989. [Laughter in the audience]. The only thing they failed to fix was his nose. His nose used to be aquiline. And so his underground nickname among the communists in Chile was “Orlik" (“Little eagle” — A.O.) [Laughter in the audience]. The first time they changed his face, they removed that hump for him. And now they could not restore that hump back. Which upset him. I once saw his interview where he complained that his nose had not been given back to him. Hmm. [Laughter in the audience]. He died recently. At the age of 92.

 

Question: So you saved him?

 

Bukovsky: Well, he would have simply stayed [in prison], that’s all. His prison conditions were good. He had not been punished or tried — he was in pre-trial detention. Soviet journalists were allowed to see him every week. [Laughter in the audience]. So he could stay [in prison]... He was actually not happy that he was traded. [Laughter in the audience]. And he would give interviews to the Italian communists, saying, "I was against this. [The exchange]. But the party decided that I should agree, so I agreed."

 

Question: What is your opinion of the peace movement in the West during those years?

 

Bukovsky: I wrote an entire brochure — "Pacifists Against Peace." It was, of course, a pro-Soviet movement, manipulated by the Soviets, this was clear even then. But already in 1992, when I was looking through the archives of the Central Committee, I found simply endless evidence of how they were financed, how they were manipulated, how it was all organized. I have all this in my book “Judgement in Moscow". There is an entire chapter about it, called "Birds of Peace". Everything is there about them, how they did it. And then, of course, few people understood this, but I saw it transpiring simply from their style, from the slogans. A slogan is announced in Moscow and two weeks later people are walking around London with this slogan. All this was clearly connected. So I wrote this brochure.

 

Question: We called it [inaudible] when it was possible to avoid the army draft for health reasons. Was there anything like that in the Soviet Union?

 

Bukovsky: No, there were no alternative service options.

 

Libor Dvořák: No, that's not what he means. He means a medical certificate which you ...

 

Bukovsky: Yes.

 

Libor Dvořák: Was there something like this?

 

Bukovsky: Yes, of course. There has always been a medical commission. And there were bribes. But I didn't have to pay bribes. They identified me as dangerous. [Laughter in the audience].

 

Question: What do you think about the current state of the dissident movement in Russia? What do you see as their mistakes and achievements?

 

Bukovsky: Well, you know, you can't call them dissidents now. These are completely different phenomena. Today this is political opposition. This is a completely different game. There were three thousand of us in the entire great Soviet empire, no more. But we did our job. We had a completely different task. And their task is to fight this regime by political methods. There are too few of them for that. They take a hundred thousand [people] out to the streets, and so on. This is not enough to change the regime in today's Russia. They have completely different methods than us, a different approach. The type of people is completely different. People who used to join the dissident movement had little to do with politics. They were usually not politicians. None of them ever went on to perform administrative work. Vaclav Havel — he did. And the way I understood it from him in 1990, he was extremely reluctant to do so. And in Russia — not a single person. Kovalev was at one time the ombudsman, and that's all. But this post is a non-post. We [our movement] attracted a different type of person. They were mainly physicists, mathematicians, biologists. They have never had any relation to public affairs. They were doing something very different. Our task was completely different.

 

And today's guys are politicians, and some of them are quite capable politicians. But the country does not have enough potential for an opposition movement. And they are unable to recruit. They make mistakes — everyone does. Well, in particular, the fact that they created this “Coordinating Council” — I am sure that this was a mistake, and I told them right away that I did not want to participate in that. Because this is idiocy — 45 people cannot solve specific issues. Especially in Russia. With this type of arrangement everyone needs 10 minutes to express their thoughts. Multiply 45 by 10 — that's 450 minutes. No day is long enough. Then they are all different politically. That is, they will never agree on anything at all. A coordinating council should exist to take care of practical issues, such as when to hold a meeting, where, who should speak. Those are practical issues and need to be dealt with quickly. And 45 people will take years to decide this.

 

 

And their second mistake... after the protest movements which took place a year ago, they finally regained the right to create political parties. And I have been telling them for several years already — even before that — that party politics is not suitable for us. Party politics is good where a solid democracy had already been established, where it will no longer change — in such case you can deal with parties. And in a situation where it is still necessary to create democracy, the parties will only do harm — they will be at war with each other. There would be no unity. This is bad. Do not do this. Well, at first they obeyed, and we created the Solidarity Movement, and so on, but as a result of the protest actions, the authorities backed down — they allowed people to start creating parties again. And they all rushed to create their own parties! As if it hadn't been discussed! All this had been discussed already! And what followed? Well, as a result, these little parties will fight each other in Moscow and St. Petersburg and never get anywhere. This is the dead end.

 

Their third mistake, I believe, is that they concentrate on the central cities of the country. They have this pyramidal idea, which is imperial, and one can’t get it out of their heads. I spent a lot of time explaining to them that the future in Russia lies in the country splitting up, where large regions will split off. And therefore there is no point in concentrating on the central cities of the country. We need to go and develop horizontal ties, ties with regions that already have separatist tendencies, such as the Far East, Eastern Siberia, the Urals, the South, and the North. This is what you need to focus on, not on how many demonstrators you will gather at Bolotnaya Square. This is completely pointless. Well, let’s assume you will gather one hundred thousand people. And another hundred thousand one more time. Now what? This will not result in any movement, in any change. But when the regions will set in motion and begin to defend their sovereignty, their autonomy — no matter what they would call it — then the authorities will find themselves in a dead end. Because they have no troops they can employ to suppress these separatist movements. They have been fighting Chechnya for ten years and cannot overcome it. And the Far East is a huge territory. Or Eastern Siberia. These are huge, rich territories that can live quite independently. They have the richest markets nearby — Japanese, South Korean. What's the problem? Hand over these godforsaken islands to the Japanese and you will get everything in return — the entire market, and your entire economic life will develop in a new way. This is what the Far East and Eastern Siberia are going to do. And the policy of the opposition policy today needs to be focused on them. On them. The future is over there, not in Moscow.

 

Question: What are your main grievances regarding the European Union?

 

Bukovsky: The very concept of the European Union is the concept of preserving socialism in Europe. This is a socialist project. Until 1985 we had it all — we had a common market, there was already freedom of movement of materials, people, capital — all of this was already in existence. There was no need to create a union — that is, a single state. The socialists came up with this [idea]. And they began to promote the idea of taking over the European project and turning it upside down. To create a state instead of a common market. They explained this, in particular, to Gorbachev. They spent a lot of time recruiting him on to this idea and convinced him that this was the only way to keep socialism intact, to make sure it spreads all over Europe. It had proven to be impossible to introduce it [socialism] in different countries one by one — things don’t work that way. So [they thought], let us create a “common home” for the entire Europe, including the Soviet Union. They wanted Gorbachev and his Soviet Union to also become a member of the European Union. It didn't work out the way they had been planning it — the Soviet Union collapsed — but that used to be the idea. And the idea itself — in essence — is very close to that of the Soviet Union. It is, of course, a pale copy of the Soviet Union, but still a copy.

 

It is an attempt — a utopian attempt — to force many peoples to live “happily” under one roof. We have already lived in such a country. We know perfectly well how it ended. It's a good thing that it didn't end in a massacre. But interethnic hatred was enormous by the end of the Soviet experiment. So we already know how this model works. It can't work. The larger the union, the worse it becomes. This is already beginning to resemble a communal apartment. Unfortunately, no one in the West had ever lived in a communal apartment. We understand how it works, but they do not. 

 

I often give another example, I say, "It's like a collective farm. Name at least one collective farm that worked well. No such collective farm ever existed. You want to do the same thing in Europe. It will be a collective farm that will never work and will always bring losses.” And this is how it went. They haven’t reached the full integration yet, but already at this stage nothing works. It all costs fantastic money. And all this at a time when there is a financial crisis. England's EU membership costs 60 billion pounds a year. We would have paid off all our debts if we were not members of the European Union. This is complete madness. They spend money there completely irresponsibly.

 

I know well members of the European Parliament. I visit Strasbourg, Brussels and talk to them there. It resembles a large gypsy camp. [Laughter in the audience]. They employ 25 thousand translators alone. Because you need to translate from all languages into all languages. It is impossible to have a situation where a certain language is bypassed and someone gets offended. Twenty-five thousand translators, personal chauffeurs, secretaries. They receive huge amounts of money not only in salaries, but also for their operations. A member of the European Parliament receives two hundred thousand euros a year for his extra-parliamentary activity. And the most incredible thing is that they do not stay in one place. The USSR’s Supreme Soviet at least stayed in Moscow. These fellows move every month. All these 25 thousand translators, drivers, gather up their stuff every month and travel from Brussels to Strasbourg, from Strasbourg to Luxembourg, from Luxembourg to Brussels. Like gypsies. Can you imagine how much it costs? Untold billions. And there is absolutely no sense in doing this. Have we gained anything from this? No.

 

The funny thing is that I used to collect their directives at one time. There is such thing as the European Commission, and this is generally like the Politburo [of the Communist Party of the USSR], they are not elected, they appoint themselves. They are the most important. They take the most radical decisions. So I used to collect the most idiotic decisions of the European Commission. At some point — about five or six years ago — they had a directive ordering all pig farm owners to supply their pigs with colored balls so that the pigs would not get bored. This is serious, I am quoting the decision of the European Commission. About two years ago, the European Commission issued a decision prohibiting the slaughter of horses and zebras for food in Europe. [Laughter in the audience]. So I thought — how do they see Europe? As a kind of endless field with zebras rushing around? Quite recently, there was another decision... we are now taking measures against greenhouse gases, because we have global warming, as you may know, which is approaching us. And the reason is the greenhouse gases. Airlines are now being taxed with a new tax because they produce greenhouse gases. Airlines are no fools, so they hired a research institute that proved that one cow grazing in a meadow emits more greenhouse gases per day than an airplane that flies to New York. [Laughter in the audience].

 

So the European Commission made a decision — they developed a diet that needs to be given to cows so that they emit less greenhouse gases. [Laughter in the audience]. The basis of this diet is that cows should be fed garlic. And how can you make a cow to eat garlic? It won’t [eat garlic]. [Laughter in the audience]. The European Commission has not yet given its verdict on this issue.

 

Question: [inaudible] ... criminals of your era and ours.

 

Bukovsky: We tried to push through the [equivalent of the] Nuremberg trials in Moscow, and we failed. Of course, we would have found a way to condemn those who committed such crimes, if we were given such an opportunity. But Yeltsin was against it very stubbornly — we could not do anything. And without him, nothing was possible — without him you would not get access to the archives. I agree with this question — of course, they need to be... Well, let's take the psychiatrists who used to declare us insane. They are still psychiatrists. I’m not a bloodthirsty person, I don’t want to send them to Kolyma, but one has to take their diplomas from them! After all, they were abusing their diplomas, they were abusing their professorships. This must be taken away from them! But no one even thought to do this. This is wrong. If such crimes are left unpunished, then why anyone should be punished at all. This is completely incomprehensible. So, of course, I agree — this should be done. But I think that this will not happen in my lifetime.

 

Question: [inaudible] ...a sense of humor.

 

Bukovsky: Well, you know, it was impossible to survive without a sense of humor. If you did not have a sense of humor, you would not have survived in the GULAG. Only a sense of humor can save you. Usually, one retains only funny memories. So many years have passed, and I don’t remember the hunger, I don’t remember the cold, I don’t remember the humiliations, I don’t remember the beatings. I don't remember any of this. But I remember all the funny episodes. This is how memory works.

 

Question: Do you know our President Vaclav Klaus?

 

Bukovsky: I saw him once in my life. He and I were at a conference in Marseille, the one against the European Union. And that's all, I never saw him again.

 

Question: [inaudible] ...religious opinion...

 

Bukovsky: You know, well, first of all, I am not a religious person. Therefore, I will talk about the church as a social institution. For me, it is not the house of God. Secondly, let's not forget that the Orthodox Church had been completely destroyed in the Thirties. And it was recreated by Stalin in 1943 in his own image and likeness, not God's. All the hierarchs worked for him in the KGB, and they still do. This is not a church. This was a kind of support structure for the Soviet state, and the only one that has not undergone any changes. The Soviet regime collapsed, ministries became reformed, the KGB now seems to have become the FSB, but the church has not changed at all. This is how it was, and this is how it remains. And it did not repent. This is strange to me, because religious people — if they really believe in God — they must repent for their sins. And moreover, the church hierarchs should do so. None of them repented. No one. Despite the fact that they were committing crimes. They used to pass on to the KGB what people used to tell them during confessions. This is a crime. For this they had to at least repent. But no, they prayed for Stalin, for Khrushchev, Brezhnev. Pushkin wrote in Boris Godunov, "You cannot pray for Tsar Herod — the Mother of God does not permit this." They forgot this. And to me this is not a church. To me, this is an appendage of the Soviet apparatus. And nothing more.

 

Question: Is Gleb Yakunin still alive?

 

Bukovsky: He is alive. But he is deprived of everything — his office, his parish, and now he is in Ukraine. He has found a metropolitan bishop in Ukraine whom he serves. And in Russia he got deprived of all of his office, he is not a priest there anymore.

 

Question: Vladimir Konstantinovich, you first spoke about punitive psychiatry and about a certain degree of successes that you have managed to achieve in your work. How would you assess this situation in modern Russia, in the context of the Bolotnaya Square case?

 

Bukovsky: As for psychiatry, they had a moment when they clearly planned to revive it — this was in 2007. At the time — and precisely for this reason — I agreed to run for president, knowing that no one would register me [as a candidate]. But this provided for a platform. And we launched into them very thoroughly, into this entire issue of [punitive] psychiatry. I revived my contacts with the Western psychiatric associations, they filed their protests, and we stifled them in a bud. There were five or six people who had been hospitalized. They got released, there were no follow-ups, and that's it, they said, "No, no, we are not going to revive punitive psychiatry." So this attempt was strangled in the bud.

 

But, of course, since no one was punished, no one was deprived of professorships for this, this means that, of course, someday it will be renewed again. Until there is a clearly established responsibility for these things, it is impossible to prevent this from happening in the future.

 

Question: I have a simple question. I have tremendous respect for you in your fight against the regime. You knew that you were risking your life, your career, your freedom. Today in Russia a huge number of people are servicing the authorities. If this whole journalistic machine, this whole propaganda machine, did not work for them, and if these people did not work for them, they would not lose anything. They would simply switch to, perhaps, a lower salary. Moreover, the most pro-democratic section of society — students — is the one that is the most conservative in Russia. Why is this happening and what can be done about this?

 

Bukovsky: I'll tell you why this is happening. It has always been like this. Students in Russia have always been conservative, I mean in the Soviet times. In the Soviet times, this had a very simple explanation. If they did something wrong, tomorrow they would be drafted into the army, and they would have to go to Afghanistan, or somewhere else, and would not return. And people were afraid to take risks. Students are an interesting category. While he is a student, he does not want to make any protests. But as soon as he receives his diploma, he immediately goes out and protests. Because his diploma can no longer be taken away from him. This attitude is very simple. I think that today it is the same, all the more so — there is a war in Chechnya, and no one wants to go to the Caucasus, but it is clear that they would be sent there. Therefore, this is a deterrent for students. Generally speaking, the tradition of student activity in our country has been interrupted in October of 1917. In Tsarist Russia the students were the most active. The Soviet times put an end to it, and [the tradition] has never been revived. Unfortunately, this tradition has been lost.

 

Libor Dvořák: What about the journalists?

 

Bukovsky: Well, you know, you are right — if only people… Back in the Soviet times, I thought — it was already post-Stalin time, Brezhnev's time, which we used to call "vegetarian times." Well, what if the people refused to at least participate in those May Day parades or in those "socialist competitions" — that would be a small step forward. They wouldn't have been punished for that. But they didn't! They were afraid. And they were afraid of the most phenomenal things: for example, a person is in line to receive an apartment from the state, and his turn to receive an apartment will come in five years; and if he does something untoward, he will be thrown out of this line, and he will then have to wait for another ten years. That was enough. In Stalin's time the punishment was the firing squad. In the times of the civil war, in Stalin's time, they were afraid of execution. And in our time they were afraid to lose their spot in the queue for an apartment. And that was enough to control huge masses of people.

 

Question: I have a small remark about impunity. Vasyl Stus's lawyer, because of whom, chiefly, he had been given such a [long prison] term, during which he died, is a prominent pro-Russian politician in Ukraine today.

 

Libor Dvořák: Who is this?

 

Bukovsky: Stus had a lawyer...

 

Questioner: …the lawyer had been appointed by the KGB and Vasil Stus died in prison…

 

Bukovsky: Yes, in the camp.

 

Questioner: He was a dissident and a poet.

 

Bukovsky: Well, I'm not surprised. There are probably many such cases. This is not surprising at all. He's probably a KGB man — used to be one, and remained one. See why we wanted the Nuremberg-style trials? We would have at least uncovered all this KGB agent network. They would not be able to go around saying, "I am a democrat." You see? We would have deprived them of this opportunity. And now all we can do is guess. Now, say, a politician suddenly appears. Who is he? Was he a KGB officer — or wasn't he? Try to guess. But why? Everything could have been made public. And it's the same in Eastern Europe. I know that in Poland they are constantly tormented: who is this [or that person] — was he an agent, was he not an agent?

 

Libor Dvořák: In our country too.

 

Bukovsky: You have the same [situation], yes. They doomed people to some kind of twilight state due to the fact that they did not allow this to be calmly investigated — without cruelty, without bloodshed. Our proposal was this: "We will not persecute anyone in particular. We want to investigate the truth."

​

Translated from Russian by Alissa Ordabai.