Soviet Dissident Bukovsky: 'Looking at Russia with Optimism and Hope...'

Part II

STANFORD, CA—Vladimir Bukovsky, considered 'the most famous Soviet dissident after Solzhenitsyn' in the West, spent more than 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps, and forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals.

It was through Bukovsky that the West first learned about punitive psychiatry after his documents detailing the Soviets' political use of psychiatric institutions were smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

While in prison, he co-authored A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissidents to help other dissidents fight psychiatric torture.

In December 1976, Bukovsky, the first political prisoner ever traded by the Soviets, was bundled out of the country in handcuffs and exchanged in Zurich for Chilean communist leader Louis Corvalan.

Currently, Bukovsky, a neuroscientist with degrees from Cambridge University and Stanford University, lives in Cambridge. He is an author of the bestselling autobiography, To Build a Castle: My Life As a Dissenter. In 1983, with Armando Valladares, he founded and was an elected president of Resistance International, which fought for the freedom of political prisoners throughout the Communist bloc.

In 1992, President Yeltsin's government invited Bukovsky to serve as an expert witness at the trial conducted to determine whether the activity of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was unconstitutional. The result of his testimony and research was the book Judgment in Moscow . Bukovsky is also the author of Soviet Hypocrisy and Western Gullibility, and To Choose Freedom.

After the Hoover Institute conference "Soviet Dissident Movement and American Foreign Policy During 1980s" on April 14, Vladimir Bukovsky shared his insights during the conference and related activities on some current political issues.

Upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing

"When China's candidacy was being considered in 2001, we together with Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, who had spent 18 years in Chinese prison for his political activity, and a German TV journalist Gerhard Loewenthal, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, addressed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in an open letter called 'Don't Reward Beijing's Tyranny.'"

In this letter, they called on the IOC not to repeat the historical mistakes of the Olympic Games in Berlin under the Nazis and in Moscow under the communists.

"Holding the Olympics in totalitarian states not only strengthens these regimes, giving them a certain respectability they haven't deserved, but moreover, as a rule, leads to increasing repression," Bukovsky said.

"Before the Olympic Games in Moscow, thousands were sent out of Moscow just because they were considered 'undesirable.' It means holding the Olympics is directly connected to repressions against people—this cannot be allowed."

"And the same thing is happening now in China, as I read on the Internet," says Vladimir. He claims that political regime in China has not changed. "Regarding economics," he continues, "they could have changed, especially in southern regions. But in politics, there are very few changes; they have thousands of political prisoners, which are treated extremely viciously. There are massive public shootings there … uncivilized, savage country indeed."

When Bukovsky was campaigning for the boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow, he "dealt a lot with the IOC. But you just can't influence them; they don't listen to anybody, they don't want to know anything—for them it's a commercial activity. They make money out of it and that is all, they don't want to discuss it."

He said that the Olympic charter has "a very interesting paragraph" stating that Olympic Games could not take place in the country that lacks political stability.

Bukovsky suggested that interested persons work hard on preventing leading politicians from going to the opening ceremony. He mentioned recent statements by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that they may not attend the Beijing Games in August.

Bukovsky remembered that in 1980, some Western leaders such as U.S. President Jimmy Carter and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher supported the idea of boycotting the Olympics in Moscow.

He said that although at this point "it's not possible to halt the Olympic Games, but at least the attitude of civilized countries to this regime should be demonstrated. And that should be done."

Vladimir Bukovsky confirmed that his saying, which had been cited widely, that awarding the 1980 Olympics to Moscow was "humanitarianly, a despicable act; legally, a crime," is fully applicable to the upcoming Olympic Games in China.

Current Situation in Russia

He said that the post totalitarian environment in Russia concentrated on human rights, being unprepared for broader democratization.

"NGOs in the West had focused on peace and friendship, lacking the true understanding that 'new democrats' actually originated from KGB, that they were not real democrats."

When asked about his nomination as a candidate for the President of Russia, he replied with a smile:

"In order to cheer people up and to help unite opposition that was completely destroyed by Putin's administration, we worked out a gambit with Gary Kasparov … We hoped that during these 15 years, the whole new generation of young people, who do not have fear, emerged."

He said that the he knew perfectly well that he would never be elected. But he succeeded in the most important aspect: waking people up during repressions and fear.

The response was noteworthy; the reaction was instantaneous and massive. In three months people, who otherwise would be dormant, organized groups of support in 27 regions, from Sakhalin to Kaliningrad.

Bukovsky has been worried watching that "with every month Russia was becoming more and more like the former Soviet Union, with the return of political repression, political prisoners and even the return of the abuse of psychiatry for political repression."

He realized that his nomination could have encouraged and inspired Russian people.

A month ago, Bukovsky participated in the conference "The New Agenda of the Democratic Movement" in St. Petersburg that adopted a resolution to strive for the carrying out an all-encompassing political reform in Russia with a goal of a fundamental democratization of the social and political situation in the country.

"After this visit, for the first time after many years I feel more optimistic," Bukovsky said. He was pleasantly surprised to discover many well educated and energetic young people ready and eager to act.

He emphasized it was very important to create powerful opposition to the existing regime "that in fact, is really unstable. And I am pretty sure that the return to the Soviet rule is practically impossible now," Bukovsky concluded.