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Leonid Plyushch, the exiled Ukrainian dissident, came to speak in Glasgow in December, at the invitation of Critique, a radical journal dealing with the Soviet Union.
He was exiled from the Soviet Union in January 1976 after a world-wide protest campaign against his confinement in a KGB controlled psychiatric hospital-prison. He is 37 years of age, a Ukrainian, and a mathematician by profession.
In 1966 Plyushch, a Marxist by conviction, began to write articles for the Samizdat press, the Cronicle of Current
Events and the Ukrainian Herald, which serve as tribunes for the struggle for democratic rights in the Soviet Union. He was one of the founding members of the Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights set up in the USSR in 1969
Depropetrovsk special psychiatric hospital where he was compelled to undergo forced "treatment".
GUS FAGAN
Gus Fagan: Could you briefly describe for us what are the main political currents inside the left-wing and working class opposition movement in the USSR? Leonid Plyushch. The left-wing opposition, as part of the whole democratic opposition, is engaged primarily in the fight for democratic rights, for the rights which are enshrined in the soviet constitution. But the leftwing differs from the rest of the democratic opposition in that it considers the political issues to be essentially related to the social and the national issues. Within the left wing itself, largely because of the absence of any information about political movements in the west, there aren't any really clear demarcation lines, any clear programmes. It is possible to divide the left opposition, however, into certain broad ideological currents. First of all, there are the liberal marxists, who think that the regime itself will be forced to change under the influence of events, for instance under pressure from the intellectuals.
Secondly, there are those who support the October revolution but consider that the Bolsheviks were wrong and that what is necessary is to "christianize" the regime. One can include under this heading the Tolstoyans.
A third current is the social democrats, close to the Mensheviks or the social democratic parties of the west. And finally, you have the neo-marxists who consider that the big defeats in the soviet union were not simply due to historical events but also involve essential weaknesses in Marxist theory itself.
There is an interest, among the left-wing oppositionists, in the old left opposition associated with Trotsky. But it is almost impossible to get any information on this in the soviet union. It is far easier to get hold of Mein Kampf than the works of Trotsky. GF. You referred to the Soviet Union, in the talk you gave earlier today, as a "rotting society". When did this "rot" begin and what do you think are its causes.? LP. Under the Stalinist terror the whole population was in a straight-jacket. Anyone with dissenting views was simply sent off to a concentration camp. Then, of course, there was the role of the so-called official ideology. The Stalinists were followed by the Krushchevites and, in my opinion they are even more open to corruption than the previous lot. At one time there really was a section of the population which sincerely believed that they were building socialism, that the party was building socialism. But since the sixties I haven't met anyone who genuinely believes in the official ideology. This leads to the situation where the youth are led to drugs, crime and into a complete spiritual vacuum. A large section of the people mock the official ideology in their family circle but on the official platform and at the work place they say that they support the regime. Only a small part of the population actually goes over into opposition. This unfortunate growth of cynicism is a symptom of what has happened to soviet society. The criminal acts are also a blind unconscious reaction, a protest against the total system. Similar to this also is the tendency or desire not to work, not to go to work, to embezzle.
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to use state property for ones own ends. The middle and lower layers of the bureaucracy are completely corrupted. The upper layers don't need to be corrupted because they have illegal priveleges which are many times greater than the official privileges. The Stalinist terror, the bureaucratic corruption, the cynicism, the spiritual vacuum. Those are the causes and the symptoms of what I referred to as the "rotting society". GF. Would you describe for us what basically are the problems concerning the national question in the Soviet Union.
LP. The first and basic problem is the nationalism and chauvinism of the Russian state. This is in fact a logical continuity of the Great Russian Chauvinism of the pre-revolutionary regime. The basic protest of all the non-ressian nations is against this form of patronism and chauvinism. Of course each particular nation has its own problems and the national question differs in each case.
The most pronounced form of great russian chauvinism has manifested itself in the deportation of whole peoples and the refusal of the russian state to allow them to return to their native homeland. This is the case for instance with Crimean Tartars.
Another form which this problem takes is the state anti-semitism. This reaches extraordinary heights in terms of the reduction of civil rights. Big nations like the Ukraine are fighting for the maintenance of their culture and language. Because the attempt of the Ukrainians to maintain their culture and language is constantly under attack from the Russian party and state, the idea of independence gains more and more ground. This is also true among the other non-russian nationalites. So all the non-russian republics are fighting therefore for one form or other of independent development. GF. Did not the theory and practice of the Bolshevik party under Lenin represent a conscious attempt to fight the problems of great russian chauvinism? If this is the case, what are the roots of the re-emergence of the problem in such an acute form? LP. Lenin pointed to the danger of Great Russian chauvinism in the party. But the October revolution did not itself solve this problem. The October revolution solved the problem of industrialization. But the problem of great russian chauvinism and nationalism remained and became worse particularly under Stalin.
GF. What kind of measures are used by the Russian state to combat the national movements?
LP. They use the same measures as against any other opposition movement, namely, jailing, searches, blackmai, psychiatric hospitals and prison camps., From 1972 the Russification campaign has become a very conscious campaign, especially in the Ukraine. Not just the national movement itself undergoes repression but also the higher party people and the cultural groups. This is especially true of the party bureaucracy in the
Ukraine, and the same thing happens in the other republics as well. The Russian Bolshevik clique doesn't trust the CP in the republics. They also attempt to divide and to poison the relations between the republics. to set one against the other.
GF. Is the working class involved in the national movements or is it mainly the intellectuals?
LP. In the eastern Ukraine it is mainly the intellectuals who are involved, with not much working class participation. In the western Ukraine there is a greater working class involvement. The struggle of the Crimean Tartars involves the whole population. The same is true of the Jews, where there is no differentiation between national democratic and working class demands. So the extent of working class involvement varies then from one republic to another.
GF. What do you think can be done in the west to assist the national and working class opposition in the soviet union? Do you think this is something the left should be involved in?
LP. The most important and the first issue to support is the demand for democratic rights. This is mainly what the working class movement in the west must demand. If the left in the west is active in the defence of democratic rights in the Soviet Union they will have a big influence on the composition of the democratic movement itself inside the Soviet Union. It is also very important for the left wing opposition in the Soviet Union to obtain left wing literature from their supporters in the west because this is very difficult to obtain in the Soviet Union.
Scottish Socialist has written to the Scottish Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain inviting them to submit their views on the question of national and democratic rights in the Soviet Union.