3 ms·

> These were people who wanted to leave and other people who wanted to help them, not an 'anti-soviet operation' Wasn't it both? It was certainly against Sovie

> These were people who wanted to leave and other people who wanted to help them, not an 'anti-soviet operation' Wasn't it both? It was certainly against Soviet policy and interests. What else could anti-Soviet even mean?

pvg 4y ago
Because they called everything they didn't like 'anti-Soviet'. 'What does Soviet (or Socialist or whatever) actually mean?' was precisely the question this kind dissident activity was intended to raise. There was nothing 'inherently' anti-Soviet in simply wanting to live somewhere else or not suffer anti-semitic discrimination. The Soviet constitution ostensibly guaranteed all sorts of freedoms, etc. This gives you the flavour of it, in Czechoslovakia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77 Describing this stuff in the language and framing of a totalitarian regime (or Cold War Bond movies where everyone is a spy) is bonkers.
- MockObject 4y ago
  It's not bonkers at all. Presumably the Kremlin didn't want the brain drain, and labor drain, of these folks leaving. Surely you can agree that it was in the Soviet state interest to retain its slaves for exploitation?
  - pvg 4y ago
    It's bonkers to use that terminology. The Soviet government called this stuff 'anti-Soviet', pretended they didn't oppress and discriminate, put healthy dissidents in mental hospitals as if they were crazy, labeled everyone a spy, etc. None of these things were true. We don't use, I dunno, Nazi terms to talk about the people who ended up in concentration camps. The musicians who tried to help regular Soviet citizens emigrate were not spies infiltrating the Soviet union for an 'anti-Soviet operation'. It is very much bananas verbiage.
    - MockObject 4y ago
      I'm still not seeing what's bonkers. The point of contention between you and the Kremlin isn't who's on what side, but which side is good and which, evil. But that's not encoded in "pro-" or "anti-". You don't think the dissidents would be proud to consider themselves, and their activities, anti-Soviet? Would they correct us, and insist that they were actually being pro-Soviet?

pvg 4y ago

Because they called everything they didn't like 'anti-Soviet'. 'What does Soviet (or Socialist or whatever) actually mean?' was precisely the question this kind dissident activity was intended to raise. There was nothing 'inherently' anti-Soviet in simply wanting to live somewhere else or not suffer anti-semitic discrimination. The Soviet constitution ostensibly guaranteed all sorts of freedoms, etc. This gives you the flavour of it, in Czechoslovakia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77 Describing this stuff in the language and framing of a totalitarian regime (or Cold War Bond movies where everyone is a spy) is bonkers.

MockObject 4y ago
It's not bonkers at all. Presumably the Kremlin didn't want the brain drain, and labor drain, of these folks leaving. Surely you can agree that it was in the Soviet state interest to retain its slaves for exploitation?
- pvg 4y ago
  It's bonkers to use that terminology. The Soviet government called this stuff 'anti-Soviet', pretended they didn't oppress and discriminate, put healthy dissidents in mental hospitals as if they were crazy, labeled everyone a spy, etc. None of these things were true. We don't use, I dunno, Nazi terms to talk about the people who ended up in concentration camps. The musicians who tried to help regular Soviet citizens emigrate were not spies infiltrating the Soviet union for an 'anti-Soviet operation'. It is very much bananas verbiage.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    I'm still not seeing what's bonkers. The point of contention between you and the Kremlin isn't who's on what side, but which side is good and which, evil. But that's not encoded in "pro-" or "anti-". You don't think the dissidents would be proud to consider themselves, and their activities, anti-Soviet? Would they correct us, and insist that they were actually being pro-Soviet?