The Soviet Union toward freedom. To conduct politics, to achieve the legal State, to foreshadow the United States of Europe.

by Marino Busdachin

member of the Federal Council, coordinator of radical activities in the Soviet Union

To destroy the empire

A commonly held opinion, both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, is that the last modern "Empire" should be destroyed. It is a stance shared both by the migrated and exiled Soviets living in the West and by the opponents and reformers in the Soviet Union.

There seems to be no other solution but the disintegration of the Soviet State, no matter how much this will cost; even a massacre. It seems that only a puritan or Jacobinian solution of the problem will be able to modify the "Empire of Evil" at its roots. It seems that only breaking-up of the empire into dozens of small independent states will ensure the hope for a serene and democratic future. Are there really no other solutions? Solutions going beyond an "all the worse is all the better" type!

Democracy cannot be ordered, and the "market" cannot be planned

We will need to answer these questions: Do we favour or oppose the destruction of the Soviet empire? Are we for or against Gorbachev? And we will need to answer that this doesn't strike as the most important, the most urgent of problems! That, in the ruin of the Soviet system, it is urgent to obtain laws, regulations, governments capable of establishing the legal state, defending citizens and mastering the passage from a militarized and indoctrinated society and economy to a market and civil economy. Fundamentally, it seems that the problem we should answer is not so much that of how to destroy the Empire, but what to build in its place. This also because there is the possibility, allow me this provocation, that nothing will remain after having destroyed the empire, or, even worse, nothing worth fighting for.

National independence and democracy

Is the struggle for national independence and for the safeguard of ethnic groups also and automatically a struggle for freedom and democracy? Not necessarily. In his last book, Solzhenitsyn essentially maintains that in order to save Russia (Small Russians, White Russians and Great Russians), it is necessary to put an end to the Soviet Union. Only by guaranteeing national independence to the other 12/13 federate Republics can Russia ensure itself a future void of immense disasters. Unfortunately, we believe it is no longer the time in which nations and States can be done and undone as in YALTA or VERSAILLES. Or the time in which boundary markers were carelessly drawn on a map or established with cannon balls. Is there, can there be a democratic and non-violent way out to the unrestrainable process leading to the separation of the Baltic or Caucasian Republics from the Soviet Union? Can civil and democratic awareness, respect for the rights of ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities develop, in a world wh

ere the latter have never had the right to autonomy and self-determination, and even to exist?

We Radicals have long since been saying that the problems of the minorities cannot be solved within the single States. They must be tackled in supra-national democratic bodies, having the power to enforce the bills they pass. There is no doubt that these bodies and this major, democratic European federation do not exist yet. But this does not change the fact that they are much needed.

The historical reason for the 18th Century battles for independence has ended with the destruction of the last absolute, enlightened, multinational and cosmopolitan Empire: the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The disintegration of the Hasbsurb myth and State was caused by other empires, or imperial states: England, France, Russia and Prussia. The configuration of Europe at the end of the first World War foreshadowed the Second World War. After a brief and weak period of "democracy", the nations that had been formed according to the intentions and political reasons of the victorious states became nationalist, authoritarian and militarist, thus boosting the growth of fascism and of warmongering enterprises.

Today, democratic-national policies and governments are prevailing in most post-communist countries of Central and East Europe; in some cases there is already partyism. In all these countries the progress of democracy is hindered by economic dependence, national affairs and the oligarchy of parties. The problem is not that of creating a series of small and ridiculous armies, squandering the little money that there is, but that of eliminating armies and borders, so as to achieve that policy of European security which is the basis of the EAST-WEST integration.

The bill of human rights guarantees the right to self-determination and independence for peoples and ethnic groups. And for each democrat of this world, this is a sacred right! In the same way, the rights to independence for the Republics of the Soviet Union are also sacred. How this can be achieved in terms of agreement, dialogue, in a non-violent manner between the USSR and the different secessionist Republics is still not clear; nor does it honestly appear possible. More information, a greater circulation of people and ideas, of international commitments, of invitations to dialogue are needed, so as to avoid the events occurred in the Asian Republics and the clashes in Georgia or Azerbaijan. The massacres and the repressions could have perhaps been avoided in a regime with more democracy and more information.

The Kremlin's conduct can no longer be that of a Stalin type of power, "divide et impera", simply putting out ethnic and religious strife. Today it is possible and even dutiful to behave differently for these issues, setting aside the negative experience acquired in 70 years of authoritarian rule.

Perestroika and democracy can be saved by building an open society, a society capable of ruling through democracy and dialogue rather than through force. I am referring to the events occurred in Moldavia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, but elsewhere too. The claims of Estonia, Lithuania and Lettonia should be matter for deep reflection: independence does not always mean democracy. And for us radicals, the battle for human rights prevails over ethnic rights. Our commitment is above all in defence of the weak, the defenceless, the victims of racism on the part of the prevailing ethnic group, the defence of religious freedom.

Pluralism and the legal state

A multiple party system does not "automatically" ensure the legal state and therefore effective, classic democracy. If on the one hand the USSR currently counts almost 600 parties, on the other hand there is no formal and substantial separation of the State's powers. There are of course free elections; however, not all parties may participate. The PCUS is no longer the head party, but the other parties still lack the same rights that the PCUS has. There are no laws regulating the political activity of the parties and of the political groups. Thus, the situation we are faced with, in terms of democracy, is a situation void of rules, at any rate codified rules. And we all know that in the absence of democratically established rules there is only the law of the jungle, which privileges the strongest. The USSR is experiencing a crisis today for several reasons, one of which is the fact that the former Leninist laws and regulations have not been replaced by democratic laws and regulations. Major laws are needed f

or the reform of the State: new electoral laws, laws that define the boundaries of the powers of the State's different bodies. The problem is not so much that of how much power Gorbachev has - for that matter, even Bush and Mitterrand have plenty of power - but within what laws and regulations this power is exerted, and through which procedures it is controlled.

A presidential Republic is not necessarily less democratic than an oligarchic parliamentary republic, for example. Or than a republic in which parties have occupied the State and established their dominion. Parliaments must pass laws, governments must implement them and the judicial power must control their enforcement. In short, democracy can even be reduced to an alternation between government and opposition. It is the laws that make one country more civilized and democratic than another one. And the Soviet Union especially needs laws and legality. It is on this, and not on programs, that the activity of the parties, including the PCUS, should be formulated.

Free market and imagination in the economic field

Planned economy had one privilege: that of being predictable. In the West, where the free market exists and domineers, parties were born to defend citizens from the degenerations produced by capitalism in the fields of ethics and profit. In the socialist systems, the "party" plans the economy according to its own ideology, and takes profit parameters into little account. Having no one to defend them, citizens end up by creating their own parallel black market. Free market economy can develop only in the absence of heavy bonds and limitations preventing profit, and therefore investments, and therefore also competition...and all the rest. For years the Soviet Union developed a "military" type of economy, and has become a major military power. But on a "civil" basis, it has remained at the level of a so-called "war economy". Considering the speed of current economic processes, the delay in the Soviet economic development is so serious as to enable us to consider it irreversible. And that, therefore, there is an

absolute need for an opening toward the free market and toward joint ventures involving Western firms and Soviet firms in order to recover time lost. The Soviet Union, however, completely lacks those medium and small-size firms that are the very basis of the Western market.

To free cooperatives, small emerging societies and the right to private initiative from political bonds and prejudicials is the priority at the basis of a different economy. If we were to judge Russian architects by the buildings they planned, then we would probably not even speak to them. What should we do with economists then?

The Radicals in the Soviet Union

In 1990 the Radical Party was strong of almost 500 members. Members are to be found in Lvov, Magadan, Baku, Vilnius, Moscow, Leningrad, Samara and elsewhere. Among the persons who joined the party are deputies of the Moscow and Leningrad Soviets, journalists, conscientious objectors, environmentalists, feminists, mothers of soldiers, homosexuals, draft dodgers, former addicts, inmates; men and women who are to be respected for their intelligence, humanity and courage. Citizens of 19 nationalities of the Soviet Union have given life to the radical Party: Jews and Muslims, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, atheists and believers in man and his reasons. They have collected signatures and demonstrated, have drafted several bills and have been arrested, have spoken out whenever they could, have tried to exist...have existed.

And now...back to zero. Building the Transnational Radical Party for 1991.