I POLITICSrnThe Formidable Evilrnbv Andrei NavrozovrnSovietology Pastrnand PresentrnRe’icving a polemical pamphlet ofrnmine on Sovietology published bvrnthe Claridge Press in London, ArnoldrnBcichman assured readers of the May issuernof Chronicles that I am “a seriousrnman.” The bulk of his review, however,rnsupported the proposition that I am arnconspiracy nut, a proposition whose originalityrnthe reviewer may well have overestimated,rnhi mv life it is a familiarrnpresence, as an American tourist’s exclamationrnto the effect that his littlernniece can paint better than that is a familiarrnpresence to the guards at thernMuscc d’Orsav.rnIt all comes down, then, to the questionrnof what constitutes a platitude, orrnrather to the relationship, if any, betweenrnconformity and truth. This question,rnasked bv John Stuart Mill more than arncentury ago, has never been more relevant.rnPrecarious as the freethinker’s positionrnwas, even in a society as free andrnsteeped in the culture of adversarial debaternas Palmcrston’s England, in ourrntotalitarian age the exogenous conformityrnpressing upon him is added tornthe endogenous conformity of the kindrnMill described. In this climate, all formsrnof intellectual resistance appear Quixotic.rnThough threatened with extinction,rnthe freethinker continues to do what everyrnartist is born to do—to tell the wholerntruth as he sees it. Of necessity, thisrnwhole is only a fragment, yet it is invariablyrndifferent from any of the fragmentsrnthat comprise the conformist half-truthrnon offer at any given moment. “Not thernviolent conflict between parts of therntruth, but the quiet suppression of halfrnof it, is the formidable evil,” wrote Mill,rnas “truth itself ceases to have the effectrnof truth by being exaggerated into falsehood.”rnUsing a classic example, back in thernheadlines of late, it is easy to see that torna nonconformist mind the only thingrnthat makes the Warren Commission’srnofficial theory of the Kcnned assassinationrnfall short of a perfect falsehood isrnthat some 73 percent of Americans disbelievernit. Yet it is not uncommon tornsee this sizable majority described, inrnWhite House press releases as well as inrnnewspaper headlines across the UnitedrnStates, as a bunch of conspiracy nuts. Irnha’e no data to indicate how manyrnAmericans disbelieve the official halftruthrnof the August Coup of one yearrnago in Moscow or grasp intuitively thatrnthe notion of a Soviet collapse has beenrnexaggerated into a falsehood bv the pressurernof exogenous as well as endogenousrnconformity. But let us assume, for argument’srnsake, that this number is asrninfinitesimal as Mr. Bcichman wouldrnhave us suppose, although my own contactrnwith people in all walks of life suggestsrnotherwise, blow, then, is a lone individualrnto challenge the dominantrnorthodoxy that the West tacitly accepts?rnHis only hope of pardon, perhaps, liesrnwith the aesthetic aspect of dissidence asrna spectacle, striking as it does a sympatheticrnchord in the soul of an increasinglyrntotalitarian yet still vestigiallyrnChristian bystander. The good scoutrnSid, in other words, has not altogetherrndisplaced Tom Sawyer in Aunt Polly’srnaffections.rnOf the outcome of the August Coup,rnan English journalist wrote in the Neu’rnStatesman thatrncommentators were reduced tornmarvelling at the “amazing irony”rnthat an obviously impossible couprnattempt by hardliners had destroyedrnthe hardline cause. Thernsame people would, I can onlyrnsuppose, consider it “amazinglyrnironic” that Lee Oswald diedrnshortly after John Kennedy.rnAnd, moving on to the larger issue ofrnthe conspiracy theory in question.rnThe semi-intellectual who drawlsrn”Personally, I prefer the cock-uprntheory” belongs in the same categoryrnof smug recyclers of receivedrnwisdom as the child who shunsrnsweets because “Daddy saysrnthey’ll rot my teeth.” Both arernmotivated by a juvenile herd instinct,rna desire to achieve sophisticationrnthrough imitating the selfpolicedrnbanality of one’s betters.rnIt is difficult for me not to recognize inrnthis Mr. Bcichman himself, the “hardlinernskeptic about events in Russia for arnvery long time” who concluded his reviewrnof my pamphlet as follows:rnBut with the failure of the Augustrncoup I became convinced (or wasrnI taken in?) that there was no goingrnback to communism or tornKGB conspiracies against the freernworld. I still think a wait-and-seernattitude about events in the newrnCommonwealth is full- justified.rnBut that is a far cry from sayingrnthat fulfillment of the KCB’s globalrntotalitarian strategy is still thernaim of those who are now therncountry’s political elite. . . .rnThe aesthetics of dissidence requirernthe Western freethinker, whose existencernin “the free world” is made morernperilous than ever by that world’s ongoingrnblind convergence with totalitarianrnpolity, to pass an exam on Mill’s differentialrncalculus of truth and conformity.rnFor habitual dissentients, in whom thisrncalculus is inculcated from the cradle asrnit was in my Moscow childhood, no suchrnexam is necessary. Thus, while Westernrn”experts” endorse the half-truth of arnSoviet collapse in order to facilitate thernlucrative technology transfer v’elcomedrnby the right or to boost expenditure ofrnthe “peace dividend” hailed bv the left,rnmv own freethinking milieu m Moscov’rnis quite without these motivations. As arnresult, to skeptical eves, the West’srn”wait-and-see attitude” is no differentrnfrom the political platitudes of ten,rntwenty, or fifty years ago, and the globalrnstrategy of their own “political elite”rnis as real as it ever was.rnThe “experts” with whom I took issuernin my pamphlet are men of thernright. This is because the conformistrnmotivation of the left is old news, a plat-rnDECEMBFR 1992/53rnrnrn