This book was sitting on the shelf of my favorite bookstore in Pennsylvania for a few years. A little while ago, I decided to finally buy it. I don't regret that decision. Soviet Dissent paints a clear and damning picture of what happens when government goes out of control. The author, herself one of the people involved in the process of expressing dissatisfaction with life in the Soviet regime, describes racial, ethnic, nationalistic, religious, and human rights movements after the death of Josef Stalin. She sometimes refers to this as a "thawing period." It was a time when Nikita Kruschev wanted to rule by popular acclaim, rather than by the use of fear and terror.
For the average Soviet citizen, the only difference appeared to be that illegal literature called samizdat appeared. This was the primary means that the Russian people had of obtaining printed works that were banned by the state. Anyone that protested against current state conditions was arrested. If they were given a trial, the odds were that they would be found guilty. Alexeyeva describes one trial in particular where manual laborers were brought in/paid off to jeer at defendants who dared to stand up for their rights. Sentences involved several years in a labor camp followed by several years of internal exile; the crime to earn such punishment did not have to be anything more than passing around a prohibited book such as Dr. Zhivago.
Those who were not sentenced in court often lost their jobs. Then, if they were unable to find work, they were arrested as being as a parasite of the system- someone who wasn't willing to work for the good of the country. It did not matter whether a person chose to live off their savings. They had to work, regardless of whether they were able to do so or not. Others were thrown into mental institutions under the belief that anyone who is unhappy in a worker's paradise must be insane. There were movements in Soviet Russia calling for the release of political prisoners in such places.
Several appeals were made to the west during this time. The United Nations was not interested. President Carter was the only person who appeared even mildly interested in the plight of the Soviet people. But even he was limited in what he could do. He was willing to listen to the concerns of people who had escaped from the Soviet system. He could not free hundreds of thousands of prisoners in various places all across the country. Nor he could release the captive satellite nations that wished to be released from the tyranny of Moscow. The best that he could do was listen; thus it appears that the only outlet the Russian people had for their frustrations was to try and make foreign journalists aware of what it was like inside Soviet Russia.
Soviet Dissent is one such attempt to make people aware. It is one woman's call from the past to not forget about the brave men and women who dared to disobey even when they knew what the consequences might be. It is a book about the quest for a freedom that was never quite won. For, sadly enough, the current Russian government treats dissenters little better than it did fifty years ago.
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