In Soviet Times, Dissidents Opposed Communist Ideology; Now, They Oppose a State without Ideology, Khodorovich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 13 – Sergey Khodorovich, one of the last Soviet political prisoners, says that dissent in Russia now is fundamentally different than dissent against the Soviet system was. Then, dissidents fought communist ideology; now, they oppose a state without ideology and without any scruples.

            In a interview with Elena Gabriyelyan of Radio France International, the former dissident who spent four years in the camps between 1983 and 1987 for his work with the Solzhenitsyn fund for political prisoners before emigrating to Paris, said that when he left the Soviet Union on his release, he could not imagine the USSR would soon fall apart (rfi.fr/ru/россия/20211213-сергей-ходорович-диссидентство-в-эмиграции-–-бессмысленно).

            “I did not believe that this monster would disintegrate; and because it had existed 75 years in spite of good sense, I though that if it existed another half century, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Khodorovich says. To this day, he continues, “I am surprised that everything happened with so little bloodshed.”

            He is no longer a dissident himself now that he is in emigration and is skeptical of those who leave the USSR who attempt to continue to play that role. Khodorovich says that doing so is “ineffective and even insecure and possibly will harm someone as well.” But he adds that he is envious of those who reach a different conclusion.

            In his view, dissent did not play a major role in the demise of the USSR. Instead, the appearance of dissidents was a symptom of the decaying state. There could be no dissidents under Stalin; but there could be under Brezhnev and later rulers.

            “When Perestroika took place and people received freedom,” Khodorovich says, “it became clear that most of them were not able to do anything with it. It turned out that they could steal and trade.” Like many, he says, he though the USSR was based on ideology; but now it is clear that “even without ideology everything could continue.”

            Soviet ideology was only “a curtain” the concealed everything that was going on. Tearing it away revealed that but did not end it. And very quickly everything returned to what it had been, including repression. “Earlier, people fought against ideological opponents; now, there is no ideology but there are opponents of the current powers.”

            “Before our eyes, everything is getting worse,” the former Soviet dissident says. It won’t end with the suppression of Memorial. “My pessimism is complete.” After all, “Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned that when freedom finally comes, it is critical not to be drowned by that wave.”

             The great chronicler of the GULAG said that “Russia needs a minimum of five generations of normal life in order to recover.” But where is such normalcy to be found. Solzhenitsyn himself “when he returned to Russia,” Khodorkovich says, “couldn’t accept what had taken place there.”

            “That is,” the émigré says, “he could not accept what he himself had predicted.”