...In my younger years in the USSR, I saw myself as a Russian/Soviet patriot, and wished my country and my government well. There were many things that I did not like, but I always wanted to rationalize and justify them in my own eyes, saddling myself with the burden of proof in each case whenever a full vindication of this or that national policy was not forthcoming to my satisfaction.
I had many politically prominent friends outside the immediate family and was encouraged to discuss some of my biggest doubts and concerns with them. My honesty was always reciprocated by their honesty (I had very intelligent friends, or rather, I chose the brightest for such discussions), and most of the answers I was getting were reasonable and marginally satisfactory. Some of my questions could not be answered with a straight face, however. Why were some of the greatest Russian books of the twentieth century, such as, for instance, Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpieces, or Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (which I read in English before I could read it in the original Russian!) unavailable to the Soviet reader in the bookstores? Was the CPSU telling the truth or stretching it, “solemnly promising,” in 1961, that "the current generation of Soviet people would be living under Communism" already in the 1980’s?
I knew that these and many other questions could be only discussed privately with politically sophisticated and responsible people, but I ridiculed the Soviet leaders for their stupidity in driving the legitimate public debate underground, instead of allowing it, at least partially, into the open. I wanted to hear a free exchange of opinions on all such important subjects that did not jeopardize national security, and was convinced that Soviet citizenry deserved a broader access to information than what was sanctioned by the Government…
At the same time, I knew that even the most legitimate internal dissent ought not to be smuggled out of your house into the outside world, to be gloatingly used as a propaganda weapon by the hostile West against your own country. But still, I could empathize with the dissidents, especially with those who were persecuted for trying to initiate an open debate inside the USSR, without reaching out to Russia’s enemies.
To cut a long story short, I was never averse to dissent when it pursued legitimate goals, with a clear sense of national interest at heart, and, rest assured, I am not averse to it today. Regrettably, the Soviet dissident movement had quickly degenerated into a game between Western and Soviet intelligence services, in which virtually no place had been left for the honest dissenter, as if to prove that the only chance for liberal reform in Russia had to be by decree from above. Not surprisingly, even such dissident icons as Andrei Sakharov and Anatoly/Natan Sharansky had been accused, in the West and in Israel, with some tangible justification, of working for the KGB, while in the USSR the dissidents had been accused of the opposite offense…
Today, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there are several major opposition parties, such as, say, the Communists and the Nationalists. Ironically, while the West counts their numbers during the political demonstrations in Moscow, they are neither funded nor supported as oppositionists by Washington or by anyone else abroad. Of course hardly any of them would have taken foreign money, but none has been offered them, anyway. I understand America and the West very well: they only want to support friendly movements and groups. I also understand the Russian government: it is bad enough that you are fraternizing with Russia’s “number one geopolitical foe”(to reverse the celebrated Mitt Romney pronouncement), but living off that foe’s wages should make you--- if not a prisoner of the Gulag, then surely a “foreign agent”! Whoever sees it differently is a hypocrite, for sure! Doesn’t America have her own Foreign Agents Registration Act which is, of course, inconsistently enforced when her strategic allies are involved, but always properly enforced in the cases of other foreign powers?
…The times have changed, however, for the new Russian dissident. No longer does he or she have to serve as a juggling ball for the KGB/CIA jugglers, or keep his/her mouth shut, for fear of being mistaken for one by some angry compatriots. Today’s dissidents can afford to be independent. I have read a lot of their critical columns in official Russian publications, including the ostensibly pro-Government media. I am sure that all of them are making a decent living, without having to pick up crumbs under Ambassador McFaul’s dinner table…
As for those who do, I understand that most of them are simply playing the old cold war game that is back in town, or, as many knowledgeable people would say, that never left.
And I understand the West too. They have their own definition of Russian dissent: welcome troublemakers, hooligans, clueless rebels, opportunists, rabble-rousers, crooks, welcome all those who can irritate the Kremlin, while sending West plenty of propaganda fodder in exchange for those NGO wages and other kinds of preferential treatment, including a reasonable expectation of a lecture-circuit career in the West, followed by adequate retirement benefits, hopefully, in the not-so-distant future.
Meanwhile, the bona fide Russian patriot-dissenter lives, and quietly goes on with his work of creating and developing a mature, politically self-sufficient civil society in Russia, despite every Western effort to take over his job, and make him die of shame-by-association.
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