socialist society and the former colo-
nialized new world of the struggle for
liberation. You have to analyze your
own point of view, and indicate where
you stand: whether you believe in the
necessity of global revolution or
whether you want to appeal to worldwide
solidarity.
To start with, you have to secure
a great deal of knowledge and insight,
and never lose sight of the historical
aspects of the situation, and, also,
never lose yourself in emotional reflec-
tions. Historically seen, socialism is
going through a natural development. It
is demonstrating that it is a force very much alive. It would not be alive if it had become stagnant within one closed bloc. The fact that it is open and developing many different aspects -- even aspects which are in strong conflict with one another -- makes it dynamic, dynamic in a Marxist sense.
Cuba, Viet-Nam, and North Korea have already established a norm on present-day revolutionary socialisn, which expounds a new viewpoint in the socialist world. In Cuba and Viet-—Nan, no doubt, Marxism means Humanism. In these countries, Marxism is always subject to development, always subject to internal discussion, never afraid of criticizing itself, and never afraid even of criticizing the other socialist countries. I think this shows an enormous strength, as these countries are fighting in the front line against the threat of imperialisn.
Many intellectuals in Europe today are very much concerned with Cuba's and Viet~Nam's fight. And when the revolution develops in other Latin-American countries, I think this will influence even those socialist countries which as of now are not yet in agreement with the absolute necessity of armed struggle.
I think of the enormous difficulties, human difficulties, of the fact that it is difficult to change oneself, to really change one's attitude, to change one's own past, to free oneself from the influence of the old society one has been brought up in, to free oneself from the corruption of which almost every artist in the Western world partakes. With a greater or lesser degree of consciousness, one is dependent upon the institutions of these countries. Even if you take liberties in expressing what
you think, you still belong to the old
Western society, and you have to work
hard to break away from it. The revolu-
tionary world is very, very different
from the secure world I have grown up
in, in spite of having lived through
the period of German fascism, of emigra-
tion and war. All this is very different
from the fight which is going on today.
I have to bring myself to fear my
old European security, the security of
having an audience, theaters, editors: I
have to endanger my situation. The con-
frontation of the European artists, writ-
ers, intellectuals with a revolutionary
country like Cuba is of great importance.
Arriving in Cuba or in Viet-Nam, we be-
come directly involved in the war which
is going on; we derive a strong physical
experience from it.
Being in Cuba teaches me every day,
every hour almost, the danger facing the
country. Being on an island which is sur-
rounded, blockaded by the enemy, I get to
know what it means to live and to work
confronted with the enemy, to construct,
to build and not to give way to the omi-
nous threat of destruction. This is an
experience of strength and courage which
I have never had in Europe. In the midst
of the political struggles going on in
Europe, you are more safe, you can with-
draw, you can hide yourself; but here you
are absolutely in the open, you can be
attacked any minute; everything which is
built here is constantly threatened with
destruction by the enemy, because the
enemy has no aim other than to destroy;
he must destroy the revolution in order
to keep alive his atavistic, brutal and
reactionary values. This you feel strong-
ly, and this makes your own point of
view clearer; it forces you to be still
more consequent [consistent] in your own
backyard.
HOBSBAWM'S ASSESSMENT OF THE CULTURAL CONGRESS OF HAVANA
E.J.Hobsbawm, writing in The Times Literary Supplement of January 25, draws some important conclusions about the new mood among intellectuals in the Western imperialist countries and the colonial world on the basis of observations at the Cultural Congress of Havana, held January 4 to January 12. The opinions of the University of London professor on this subject carry weight in view of the solid reputation he has Sebabti shee as a Marxist labor historian.
The Havana gathering "symbolized in a curious way a return to the mood of intellectual commitment which was characteristic of the 1930s, and a break with that which was characteristic of the post-
war 1940s and 1950s."
The new mood includes a critical
attitude toward bureaucratic regimes. As’
Hobsbawm puts it:
"Not that the intellectuals as-
sembled in Havana were unconcerned about
cultural freedom in the liberal sense,
i.e., the right not to be told by orga-
nizations and ministries, let alone by
policemen, how and what to write, paint,
compose or research; the right to avoid
dictation even by revolutionary mili-
tants. ‘In the days of rough and hard
struggle, the muses are silent', said
Mehring, quoted by a Peruvian delegate
who disagreed passionately. ‘Let us
then', said an Egyptian, 'if we want to judge the genuineness of any revolution. see what it does with its universities. Let us see whether the professor claps more than he lectures and whether he writes scientific articles or telegrams of support.' One of the ablest men at the congress, René Depestre of Haiti, praised Cuba precisely because ‘here art and literature are not confined to the direct support of ideology and politics’, and one of the most spontaneously applauded speeches (by a Uruguayan) defended the revolutionary 'intellectual' against excessive encroachments by the 'man of action'.
In complete contrast to this, Hobsbawm points out, in the fifties, intellectuals holding such views would have been tempted to see intellectual freedom as the key question’and the Communist regimes as the main danger.
This mood has changed. "In the 1960s it has become evident, at least in large parts of the world, that the defence of intellectual freedom can be conbined with resistance to another, and at present greater, danger. As Fascism united the intellectuals in the 1930s, so the United States united them at Havana, though one notes with relief that nobody even tried to pretend that the two were or are analogous."
To Hobsbawm, the "most interesting fact" about the congress was the denonstration "that an extraordinarily wide and heterogeneous collection of intellectuals can today be mobilized on the common ground of support for the Vietnamese, for Cuba, for the movements of liberation in the 'third world' and not least, for the Negro and anti-war movements in North America against the government of the United States. The situation of the 1950s has been reversed."
The composition of the gathering, which was attended by some 500 delegates and observers from seventy countries (China did not send a delegation), was quite heterogeneous, with the exception of the delegations from regimes sympathetic to Cuba which tended to be carefully selected supporters of the establishment. "This was a gathering of the francs-tireurs and guerrilleros of culture so dear to the Cubans rather than of disciplined battalions or even platoons, and one of the most extraordinary things about it was that, after a week of debates which were not merely quite unconstrained but seemed at times to verge on the anarchic, the final documents were voted in peace and unanimity. It was a tribute to the competence and moderation of the Cuban rapporteurs and chairmen flanked by tactful but unimpeachably revolutionary co-chairmen from Vietnan, Korea and similar countries."
This outcome was all the more inpressive to Hobsbawm in view of the fact that the congress was composed of genuine intellectuals. Such assemblies nowadays are likely to consist of "all the possible cultural and political avant-gardes, and ranging from the simple hostility to the American war in Vietnam, which is (except perhaps in Britain) the common denominator of all, through relative moderates like the European Communists to the embattled guerrilla and would-be guerrilla fighters of the far left."
As decisive evidence of the nonexclusive character of the congress, Hobsbawm cites the presence "of that fringe of dottiness which is so engaging a part of the left. One Chilean painter described his occupation as 'pataphysician'. The commissions listened to a ringing call for Wilhelm Reich and better orgasms (from a Frenchman), to defences of the authentically revolutionary nature of German dadaism -~ as distinct from neodadaism (from Mozambique), to attacks on female chastity (by two Cuban ladies). A group of French and South American surrealist Trotskyites made a physical assault in the name of André Breton on the Mexican painter Siqueiros, amid cries of ‘Cuba Si -- Siqueiros No'."
The setting of the congress facilitated the work of reaching common agreement on the final resolutions.
"Cuba was, of course, an ideal location for such a discussion," Hobsbawm observes. "It is not only an embattled and heroic country, though as Castro himself observed, a long way second to Vietnam, but a remarkably attractive one, if only because it is visibly one of the rare states in the world whose population actually likes and trusts its government. Moreover, the free and flourishing state of cultural activities at present, the admirable social and educational achievements and the endearing excursions into anti-materialist utopia, can hardly fail to appeal to intellectuals. The shelves of the shops may show large gaps, but telephone calls are free. Petrol is rationed, but the state (if that is the right word for an institution which lacks constitution, parliament and most of the other things an old-fashioned lecturer in political theory would look for) provides posadas where couples can go to make love. The visual arts are unexpectedly brilliant, given the unvisual tradition of the country, witty, entertaining and above all public. Those who do not like the place are free to emigrate. The propaganda of some mass media is balanced by the relaxation of others. 'I have listened to the radio', observed one delegate from the older socialist countries, and it plays nothing but songs of love. Not love of the country; not love of the mother; love of some lover.' In such an atmosphere
the intellectuals were able to discuss the problems of Asia, Africa and Latin America and their own with considerably fewer mental reservations than elsewhere.
=
There were five commissions: Culture and National Independence, the Integral Growth of Man, the Responsibility of the Intellectual, Culture and Mass Media. Problems of Artistic Creation, Scientific and Technological Work. They ranged over a broad field in their discussions. There were certain recurring themes, however, which Hobsbawm singles out for comment.
“Perhaps the most interesting was the problem of developing a genuinely autochthonous culture in underdeveloped countries; interesting both for the acute analyses of the process of cultural penetration under colonialism and neocolonialism it produced, and the very general rejection of the simple nationalist-populist response to it. As Mammeri Mouloud of Algeria put it, the intellectual of the Third World 'finds himself faced with the double necessity of assuming an inherited culture and using an acquired culture', but neither can be simply put on like a ready-made suit. ‘Traditional culture', the product of a ‘cultural system which is already in part disrupted', cannot be the basis of the new culture, whatever can be preserved of it. Attempts to make it so either fail, as in sub-Saharan Africa, or produce the espectaculos folkléricos of the modern tourist trade, or the even more dangerous ‘accelerated indigenization of the violence and tribulations of other times' of which M. Depestre of Haiti spoke with comprehensible feeling. On the other hand, certain elements of traditional and popular culture -- Dr. Belail Abdel Aziz of Morocco suggested that the concept of community in the Maghreb might be one such -- could be essential parts of any anti-capitalist society, or any society unwilling to subordinate itself entirely to the logic of technology."
An uncontrolled process of creating technicians also tends to isolate intellectuals, sometimes as a privileged stratun.
"The enthusiasm about revolution in the Third World is in part due to the fact that it appears to provide a way out of these difficulties. A remarkably interesting and confident paper by Mario de Andrade analysed the cultural aspects of the guerrilla war in Angola in this sense, observing both the integration of the évolué intellectuals in the new nation and the rejection both of cultural as- .Similation to Portugal and of 'the songs of the old negritude' in the poetry of the struggle. To quote M. Depestre yet again:
"*Revolution creates the condi-
tions of a true cultural mutation. That
is why in the Third World...the revolu-
tionary experience is the only valuable
foundation of the "“cogito". It provokes
an exalting coincidence between thinking
and social being. To make a revolution
is the first historical evidence and the
first cultural value which brings us to
a new postulate of reasoning: I make the
revolution, therefore I am, therefore we
are....We cease to be the zombies of his-
tory.'"
The problems under discussion at
the congress concerned intellectuals of
the imperialist countries as well as the
colonial areas. The problems are common
ones and therefore the European and North
American contingent, which was about as
large in size as that from the underdevel-
oped countries, did not at all play the
role of a sympathetic claque. Thus, in
discussing the cultural imperialism of
the United States, "British statistics
were as widely used by Third World spokes-
men as Latin-American ones to illustrate
the gravity of the brain drain, and
Encounter figured in the discussion along-
side Mundo Nuevo." In general, "the situa-
tion of intellectuals as a social group
is not dissimilar in the First and the
Third Worlds; the unrepresentative nature
of most East~European delegations made it
hard to judge whether this also applies
to the Second."
Another recurrent theme was the
relationship between the activity of guer-
rilla forces and intellectuals. It was
agreed "that even in the Andes the public
activities of intellectuals cannot be con-
fined to carrying machine-guns." On the
other hand a Yugoslav delegate reminded
the congress of "the forgotten fact that
European intellectuals are not unacquaint-
ed with guerrilla activity."
Rich as the discussion was, the
most instructive aspect of the congress
to Hobsbawm was what it showed about the
mood of the international intellectual
community as a whole. There "has been a
remarkable reversal of the politics of
the intellectuals in the past fifteen
years; a more surprising development in
some ways than their mobilization in the
1930s."
The mobilization of the intellec-
tuals in the thirties "took place against
a background of depression and economic
breakdown as well as of Fascism and
aggression.
Today the mobilization of the in-
tellectuals occurs against a background
"of technological triumph and economic
progress -- inadequate, modest but real
even in most countries of the Third
World."
The deliberations and conclusions of the Cultural Congress of Havana were thus of unusual significance.
"The protest of the congress was not merely one against the violence and aggression of the United States, and against the inability of the affluent society in the developed world to solve the problems of the majority of the human
A MEMENTO FROM
Paris
The Cultural Congress of Havana had nothing in common with those conformist assemblages of bootlickers so often gathered together by the Stalinists and their successors. However, this note is not about the congress as a whole but only about an incident not without its own flavor and significance.
Some of the members of the French delegation had not forgotten Siqueiros' part in a machine-gun assault on Trotsky's home in Coyoacan, Mexico, a few months before a Stalinist agent succeeded in murdering the great revolutionary leader.
They raised a small scandal over the presence of Siqueiros at this congress. The poetess, Joyce Mansour, walked up and gave him a kick that, according to
race. It was also a protest against its
success, a vote for Havana's combination
of humanity, enthusiasm and pleasure,
even amid austerity, and against the city
of Mahagonny-Miami across the water. Most
of the intellectuals at the congress had
seen that future. Most of them doubted
whether it worked. But whether it worked
or not, they did not like it and their
presence in Havana said so."
ANDRE BRETON
eyewitness accounts, landed squarely
where it was aimed -- in the seat of his
pants.
She shouted loudly and very per-
tinently, "From André Breton!"
Siqueiros' friends cried, "Long
live Communism! Long live Cuba!"
Breton's friends responded, "Cuba
si; Siqueiros no!"
Neither 1'Humanité nor 1'Unita nor
other organs of the same stripe have
given the slightest publicity to this
embarrassing "aggression."
In this world, so many kicks in
the ass do not land where they ought to.
But for once we have a case where it
landed squarely on target. Bravo!
AS TOLD BY SIQUEIROS
Mexico City
Upon his return from the Cultural Congress of Havana, David Alfaro Siqueiros was interviewed by the Mexico City daily Excelsior (January 19) on his reaction to the unexpected award of a swift kick which he received from a member of another delegation.
"The aggression occurred in a street in Havana," said Siqueiros. "In front of an exposition of Cuban painting that was to be inaugurated a few hours later, the New Gallery of Modern Art. I think it was the fifth of January, although I'm not sure about that.
"I had just entered the grounds and had not yet reached the stairs. A group of thirty French youngsters, Trotskyists, were raising a hullabaloo, as is usual with then."
On being asked who did it, Siqueiros replied with a "half-nervous, halfingenuous smile":
"A young girl. Very young. She
walked up and gave me a beautiful kick,
here, below the knee."
The interviewer asked Siqueiros,
"Is it true that they yelled 'murderer'
at you and you answered, ‘Long live the
party' on
"That's correct," Siqueiros re-
sponded. "They yelled the names of Trot-
sky and Breton. I was Breton's friend.
But that was a long time ago. He and I
separated because of ideological differ-
ences. He was a Trotskyist.
"Let me clear things up. Some
journalists say that I answered in Rus-
sian, but I don't know that language at
all. I speak English and French and some
Italian. I studied French when I was a
child at the Colegio Franco-Inglés. I
learned all the common words there, those
that hurt, and I answered these young-
sters with that kind of language."
"You didn't lose your head?"
"I believe I did. I challenged them to step outside if they wanted to take me on. But they didn't want to. I won that round. The police intervened between the two quarrelling groups. Later I made a fiery speech in which I exposed the Trotskyists for their idiocies."
Later in the interview, which covered other topics, Siqueiros referred to the "French youngsters" in the follow-
On the Cultural Congress of Havana
"ZA RUBEZHOM" BRINGS THE
A rather spicy account of the World Cultural Congress in Havana appeared in the Soviet weekly Za Rubezhon, No. 4, for January 19-25, 1968. Over the byline of one V. Polyakovsky, the article purported to be a roundup of foreign press reports, rather than a firsthand account. Za Rubezhom, which runs articles and commentary on world affairs, specializes in reprints from foreign publications.
Polyakovsky starts off with a few incidental tidbits: the idea for the congress originated with Fidel Castro in early 1967; a document about the congress was presented to mass meetings throughout Cuba; a nationwide seminar on it present-~ ed Che Guevara as the highest example for intellectuals to follow.
Polyakovsky's introductory remarks include the facts on the number of delegates and where they came from. He makes special mention of the delegates from the European and Asian workers' states, excluding China, but notes that the Western European delegates were the most numerous.
The theme of the congress and the titles of the commissions (or workshops) are related. Cuban President Dorticés' opening remarks, calling for a "broad dialogue on a world scale," are quoted. The point is stressed that the congress was not supposed to be a forum for any one point of view.
With that, the juicy part begins. "According to press reports," says Polyakovsky, "exceptionally stormy discussions broke out in the commissions, often reaching the point of verbal skirmishing. These arose apparently because among the partic-— ipants of the congress there turned out to be more than a few so-called ‘ultralefts.' Moreover, from the very beginning of the work of the commissions the tendency was observable for a certain group of delegates to try to impose their views on the congress no matter what."
Things were especially bad, to
ing way:
"The chair called them to order at
the congress. They didn't succeed in dis-
rupting the proceedings of the congress.
That was the end of the matter."
"And what happened to the girl?"
"A kick from a girl is pleasing
at times."
REAR GUARD UP TO DATE
Polyakovsky's mind, in Commission No. 2.
There a Mexican delegate proposed to
discuss in detail how imperialism diverts
the youth from both politics and culture.
"Instead of that," declares Pol-
yakovsky, "a group of commission members
representing certain West European coun-
tries tried to bring openly pro-Chinese
theses into the discussion and gave
speeches attacking the Soviet Union, try-
ing to draw the congress away from the
questions on the agenda. Especially zeal-
ous in this regard was the Belgian Trot-
skyist professor Verstreeten.* Echoing
Peking radio, he called the USSR a 'Men-
shevik' country, while China, Vietnam,
and Cuba were 'Bolshevik.' His favorite
thesis was the 'bourgeoisification' of
the European socialist countries and
their loss of ‘revolutionary spirit.'
The Soviet delegate G. Sharapov, along
with representatives from the German
Democratic Republic, Italy, and Switzer-
land, gave the Trotskyist a deserved
rebuff, characterizing his speech as
provocatory. (Incidentally, in the com-
mentaries of the Western press, which
played up these attacks on the USSR, it
was noted that in both this commission
and the others the organizers of the
congress failed to react in the neces-
sary way to instances of disruption of
normal conditions. )"
Polyakovsky continues his sad
tale: "After the speech by the Rumanian
delegate Valeriu, who told of the great
significance attributed in his country
to the struggle of the youth for peace,
several Cuban delegates immediately took
the floor. In their opinion, education
of youth in the spirit of fighting for
* Polyakovsky does not indicate why he
decided to label Prof. Verstreeten a
"Trotskyist." The epithet, of course, has
long been used by Stalinist apologists to
refer to any revolutionist of whatever
political tendency. -- W.O.
peace was unacceptable for the congress, since the youth should be educated in the ‘spirit of rebellion,' in the spirit of struggle against imperialism."
In Commission No. 3, matters were not much better from Polyakovsky's point of view. There the Uruguayan writer Benedetti opened the discussion with the argument that "any oversimplification, partic-— ularly the demand that intellectuals should immediately become heroes and armed soldiers...could prove to be a dangerous thesis."
The Cuban Fornet noted in his paper that the task of the intellectual in an underdeveloped country was to 'teach literacy, learn to handle a weapon, and cut sugar cane.'
"The Mexican and Argentine representatives took issue with the idea of the Guinean delegate that there was a necessity for intellectuals to participate in armed struggle. The Indian delegate Lajpat called for a 'boycott of imperialism in the field of culture.' Representatives from Ecuador, the USSR, and other countries noted that not only a boycott but also an active struggle with the aim of propagandizing socialist ideas was necessary."
With such goings-on in Commission No. 3, how did things fare in No. 4? At first things were calm, as Polyakovsky tells it. "However, this Commission, too, did not get by without its share of attacks on the USSR. For example, the Ecuadorian Adoumu was not pleased that M. Sholokhov [Soviet novelist] had ‘accepted the Nobel Prize.' In reply, V.V.Volsky made clear that all seven Nobel prizes received by Soviet citizens had been given to the aid fund for Vietnam. He told of Soviet aid to Algeria, and other Arab countries, to Vietnam, and Cuba."
In Commission No. 5, according to Polyakovsky's “gleanings" from the foreign press, a Soviet delegate's report on the role of the intelligentsia in the building of communism was approved by a
THREE BLACK STUDENTS KILLED
Three black students were killed and nearly fifty others wounded by white police and national guardsmen at South Carolina State college at Orangeburg February 8. The shooting took place after four days of demonstrations against a segregated bowling alley.
Students had gathered around a bonfire on the state college campus, when national guardsmen and cops, claiming they had been fired upon, charged the students.
Chilean and a Spanish representative,
who termed the "Soviet path of develop-
ment the most effective." But there was
trouble here too.
"In the paper presented by the
Cuban delegation it was said that the
term 'vanguard,' closely tied to the
name of Lenin and the Bolshevik party,
had later been ‘mechanically transferred
to all Communist parties no matter what
their activities were or whether this
corresponded to the reality.' For this
reason, the paper stressed, 'a breach had
occurred between the political and the
cultural vanguard.' The Cuban delegation
suggested the building of a 'scientific-
technical international' in support of
the 'third world' and the printing of
appropriate literature. Delegates from
France, Italy, and other countries did
not agree with this proposal."
Polyakovsky concludes his round-
up by naming the resolutions approved
“with applause but without voting" at
the closing of the congress. His only
hint as to the content of these resolu-
tions is that they called for heightened
revolutionary consciousness among in-
tellectuals and for the strengthening
of their struggle against U.S. imperi-
alism "by all means available to then."
Polyakovsky fails to mention that
the final resolution, among other things,
also declared that revolutionary change
"can only be attained through armed strug-
gle; this makes revolutionary violence,
and in particular armed struggle, a neces-
sity."
Likewise, he fails to indicate the
content of Fidel Castro's speech at the
closing of the conference. Of interest
to Za Rubezhom readers might have been
the passage where Castro bitingly re-
ferred to the absence of mass protest
demonstrations in Europe during the Octo-
ber 1962 missile crisis, commenting: "At
times we have seen alleged vanguards far
back in the rear guard in the struggle
against imperialisn."
BY COPS IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Most students were shot in the back while
lying on the ground seeking cover. No po-
lice suffered gunshot wounds.
The police and Governor Robert
McNair have attempted to blame their vic-
tims for the shooting and have arrested
more than thirty black youths.
Cleveland Sellers, 24, of the Stu-
dent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is
being held for $50,000 bail.
VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY'S PLEA FOR SOVIET DEMOCRACY
By George Saunders
The recent trials of dissident Soviet writers and the protest activities surrounding these trials have highlighted the existence of an increasingly articulate current among Soviet intellectuals against bureaucratic rule. One of the more interesting features of this oppositional activity is the attempt to press for real implementation of the paper guarantees of socialist democracy written into the Soviet constitution, also known as the "Stalin constitution," the "most democratic in the world."
That was the constitution that Stalin cynically introduced in 1936 at the height of the Great Purges, to cover up with democratic phrases the profoundly antidemocratic rule of the bureaucracy consolidated under his leadership. The bureaucrats never meant those promises of free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to demonstrate to be taken seriously. But that is what the young generation and the new antibureaucratic currents are starting to do.
This is nowhere so strongly expressed as in the final plea by Vladimir Bukovsky at his trial ending September 1, 1967. Bukovsky's statement was made public by Pavel M. Litvinov, who thus courageously brought out the issues in this case, despite police threats.
Bukovsky was tried in connection with a demonstration of about fifty young people in Moscow on January 22, 1967. They were protesting the arrest of Yuri Galanskov and several others, who have since been tried and convicted of "anti- Soviet slander."
The demonstration, which Bukovsky acknowledged he had organized, also denounced as unconstitutional Article 70 of the Russian Federation law code. The demonstrators demanded repeal of this reactionary catch-all law against "anti- Soviet slander."
Bukovsky was sentenced to three years imprisonment for his offense against "public order." But he denied he had done anything wrong, and turned the tables on the prosecution, accusing them of violating the constitution.
The following excerpts from his final plea give an interesting indication of the trend of thought among ‘young Soviet rebels. A word should be said, incidentally, on Bukovsky's obvious lack of clear understanding of the nature of the struggle in the United States and his overestimation of U.S. democracy. This error is probably due in part to an un-
critical reaction against everything the
bureaucracy has taught, as well as to
lack of accurate information about the
outside world in the Soviet press.
* * *
",..I have here before me the
text of the Soviet constitution: 'In ac-
cordance with the interests of the work-
ers and with the aim of strengthening
the Socialist system the citizens of the
USSR are guaranteed by law...the right of
street processions and demonstrations.'
Why is such an article included? For May
Day and October demonstrations? But it is
not necessary to include such an article
for demonstrations that the government
organizes -- it is clear that no one. will
disperse these demonstrations."
* * x
"We know that protest demonstra-
tions are powerful weapons in the hands
of the workers; this is an inalienable
right in all democratic states. Where is
this right denied? In Madrid, there was
a trial of the participants of a May Day
demonstration. They were tried under a
new law recently passed in Spain that
provides imprisonment from one and a half
to three years for participation in dem-
onstrations. I see a disturbing identity
between fascist Spanish and Soviet legis-
lation.
"Judge: Defendant, you are compar-—
ing things that cannot be compared: the
actions of the rulers of Spain and those
of the Soviet state. In court, the com-
parisons of Soviet policy with the poli-
tics of foreign bourgeois states is in-
tolerable."
*x* * *
"I recognize the important role of
the organs of the KGB [State Security
Commission, the secret police] in the
fight for state security. But what is
their business in this case? There were
no external enemies involved here."
* * *
"We demonstrated in defense of
legality...We protested against an un-
constitutional decree. Was this really
an anti-Soviet demand? Not we alone
find the decree unconstitutional. A
group of representatives of the intelli-
gentsia have presented a similar demand
to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
of the USSR."
"Freedom of speech and of the press is, first of all, freedom for criticism. Nobody has ever forbidden praise of the government. If in the constitution there are articles about freedom of speech and of the press, then have the patience to listen to criticism. In what kinds of countries is it forbidden to criticize the government and protest against its actions? Perhaps in capitalist countries? No, we know that in bourgeois countries Communist parties exist whose purpose is to undermine the capitalist system. In the USA the Communist party was suppressed. However, the Supreme Court declared that the suppression was unconstitutional and restored the Communist party to its full rights.*
“Judge: Bukovsky, this does not have any relevance to the accusations in your case. You must understand that the court is not competent to decide the questions you are talking about. We must not judge the laws; we must execute then.
* * *
* Actually the Communist party was not literally outlawed, although the McCarran Act's provisions were so harsh that the result was virtually the same. And although the Supreme Court overturned certain provisions of the McCarran Act, neither the Communist party nor any other radical group has "full rights" as long as that and other reactionary legislation
"I absolutely do not repent for
organizing this demonstration. I find
that it accomplished what it had to ac-
complish, and when I am free again, I
shall again organize demonstrations, of
course, with complete observation of the
law, as before."
*x* * *
A comment by Trotsky on the 1936
Soviet constitution shows that critiques,
such as Bukovsky's, made by young Soviet
rebels follow a similar line of thinking.
In Revolution Betrayed, in his chapter
on the constitution, Trotsky observed:
"To be sure, the new charter 'guar-
antees' to the citizens the so-called
‘freedoms' of speech, press, assemblage
and street processions. But each of these
guarantees has the form either of a heavy
muzzle or of shackles upon the hands and
feet. Freedom of the press means a con-
tinuation of the fierce advance-censorship
whose chains are held by the Secretariat
of a Central Committee whom nobody. has
elected. Freedom of Byzantine flattery
is thus, of course, fully 'guaranteed.'
..-The crude and ignorant command of
science, literature and art will be whol-
ly preserved. ‘Freedom of assemblage'
will mean, as formerly, the obligation
of certain groups of the population to
appear at meetings summoned by the au-
thorities for the adoption of resolu-
2e5"5 prepared in advance." (pp. 262-
263. remains on the books. -- G.S.