SUMMARY: Nikolaj Khramov id one of the most active Radical residents in the USSR. We hereby report the transcription of his speech at the second Italian Congress of the Radical Party, in which he analizes the political situation of the Soviet Union, stating that the only reply to give to the peoples that strive for democracy and independence in the USSR today is European federalism. The author then depicts the situation of the Radical Party in the Soviet Union; the course of enrollments; the initiatives produced and the economical difficulties.

(Radical News n.51 of the 2nd of March 1990)

It has occurred - and I'm grateful to fate for that - that I spent all the period from the last federal Council up to today in Rome, in the Radical Party. It has been an apprenticeship that has helped me to better understand the situation of the Party. Better to touch things with one's hands at least once, so the say has it.

In particular, I have reached the belief that one of the most important problems for our party today is achieving a truly trans-national dimension.

Unfortunately, I'm not well acquainted with the situation in the other countries, where our trans-national party is present. I do know, however, some of the difficuties that we face in Budapest - difficulties not so much of a technical-organizational nature, but organizational difficulties.

As to my country, the USSR, I can give a more or less certain evaluation on the prospectives of our party; I can in fact state without doubt that the USSR could assume the main role of the centre of the activities of the Radical Party, at any rate outside of Italy.

Talking about the activities of our party in the Ussr, I will say something about the political situation the way I see it.

Firstly there are the conflicts between the various nations that are part of the Soviet Union, that is the infra-national conflicts between Armenians and Azers, the tensions between the Georgeans and the Azerbadjanis. Sometimes these conflicts have deep historical roots, as is the case with Armenia and Azerbadjan. Sometimes they are caused artificially by the Centre according to the principle of dividing and ruling, as it occurred when the Soviet Union under Stalin was created, and as will probably occur for Georgia and Abkhazia.

The second group includes the contradictions, not so much of a national nature, but of a political nature. It has to do with the aspirations of the peoples of Lettonia, of Lithuania, of Estonia, of Georgia, of Moldavia, of Western Ucrania and many more, and in these last times of Azerbaidjan, for freedom, autonomy and also for complete independence.

What is happening now is the breaking up of that Soviet Union created with fire and cold of the last colonial empire in Europe, re-built by Stalin with methods that are far more monstrous than those used by the Zharist Russian empire. Nobody will be able to stop the process of freedom of the oppressed people. With tanks it is possible only to postpone the fulfilment of this process; and here I cannot omit to spend a couple of words on the facts of Azerbaidjan, even if I have already talked about it a couple of days ago at Radio Radicale.

It is usually said that the Soviet army in Baku is defending the life of the Armenians. But try asking the Armenians themselves and you will hear that it is not so. The army entered Baku when there were no more Armenians; 200,000 Armenians fled Adzerbaidjan. Now the army has only one purpose: that of repressing the strinving of the Azers for independence and against the power of Moscow.

What happened today reminded me of Afghanistan, the only difference being that the position of the leaders of the Western countries, and first of all of the US, is different. And I wonder if this is not a consequence of Malta. Malta, that for Azerbaidjan has turned into Yalta.

I would very much want you, who are my comrades in the party, not not to become the victims of a fraud.

Third group of problems: today in Russia an explosion, unheard-of before, of nationalism is accelerating, a Russian nationalism, a nationalism, different from the libertarian nationalism of the common people, that is defensive, imperial and chauvinistic.

The range of this difference is very broad - starting from well known authors like Valentin Rasputin, Victor Afanasiev, up to the authors of the "pogroms", dressed in black shirts, to the sadly known movement that counts tens of thousands of members. The ideological range is very broad too - from the orthodox monarchists to the stalinists of the Muscovite newspaper The young guard.

But all are united by one thing: hate for democracy, an imperialistic and chauvinistic conscience, anti-semitism and xenophobia.

Strictly linked to this trend is the system of the "youth clubs of military and patriotic extent", that are generally organized between former Afgnanistan fighters. The fact that precisely this trend receives latent but sometimes even patent support from the authorities enables us to talk about a real fascist threat in today's Russia.

What can we Radicals do in this situation? What answer can we give to the peoples that are striving for freedom in today's Russia? To me it is obvious that there is only one possible answer: European federalism. I don't think it is necessary to demonstrate here in this room the lack of perspective of national isolationism. We must however be aware of the fact that it is very difficult to talk about federalism, for example, with representatives of the Lithuanian people, who is desperately trying to free itself from the yoke of the so-called "Soviet federalism".

We Radicals must express, on this problem, a clear cut and non-ambiguous position: either we support the aspirations of the peoples of the USSR to freedom, planning to include them in the United Europe, or we keep the same position as the conservative Soviet leaders who are trying, with all their resources, to maintain the "empire united and indivisible", and of their Western partners in Malta. In the latter case, the Radical Party will lose the possibility of capturing the interest and the support of anyone inside Russia except the black shirts and Ligaciov.

We must not only say to ourselves and to others that "we are for freedom", but also that we don't want to de-stabilize the situation and create obstacles for the reformers; we must fully understand that the situation in the USSR is not at all similar to that in Czechoslovakia, Hungary or East Germany, even if the changes brought about in these countries are in a certain degree a consequence of Gorbachev's perestrojka. I will say more, even the official policy is not so much directed towards Prague, Warsaw, Berlin or Budapest, as to Peking or Bucharest prior to the revolution.

But the yearnings of the peoples awakened to freedom by perestrojka is to go ahead. As much as the people that have started perstrojka may do, it is impossible to push this yearnong back. Politics have the aim of keeping together, whatever it may cost, the decaying empire; it is a dangerous folly that can lead to consequences far more terrible than Timisoara. The tanks in Azerbaidjan and the blood in the streets of Baku might simply be the beginning.

In other words, the empire not only cannot enter the European Federation (this is obvious) but simply cannot even exist in the future.

I would however like to look at the problem from a different point of view: I am convinced that a federal Europe cannot exist without the peoples that are an essential part of it and that are currently part of the Soviet empire: Lettonians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Estonians and the others. And I would also add all the leaders of the empire, because no people oppressing another one can be free.

For this reason the special declaration passed by the last federal Council upon initiative of certain delegates of the East European countries seems of particular importance to me. The declaration says that the Radical Party yearns for a federal Europe, uniting all peoples and not only the states with equal rights.

The resolution of the federal Council to carry out a seminary this year on the national problems in Lithuania seems particularly important to me. In 1989 in the USSR 96 people joined the Radical Party. In the first month of this year about 120 people have expressed the wish to join the Radical party in 1990. What is it that attracts people toward the Radical Party in the USSR? Its trans-national nature. It is something completely new, not only in Russia, but I believe in the whole world. It is evident in Russia, but it is not so evident for many people here in Italy. In the USSR we have the will and the strength to pass to concrete actions, to carry out the Radical policy. I won't go into the details of our activity, I will just list certain acts of the Radical Party in the Ussr: the demonstration on the 23d of August of the past year in Moscow, during which an Italian Radical, Antonio Stango, was also arrested. The demonstration on the 20th of October in front of the Italian and Spanish embassies against d

iscriminations of information in the countries of "true democracy". The demonstration on the 15th of November in front of the Rumanian embassy in defence of the victims of the Ceausescu regime, in solidarity with our Czechoslovakian comrade John Bok supporting the requests of abolition of the death penalty in Czechoslovakia on the 17th of January this year.

The participants of all these Muscovite demonstrations have been stopped by the police, fined and arrested. Moreover since past october we are publishing in Moscow the newspaper of the Radical Party Golodovka (hunger strike).

The decision to publish this newspaper has been taken during the federal Council of last September. The director, Dimitri Volcek is in this room (not to be mistaken with Demetrio Volcic, Rai correspondent in Moscow).

There is however a fundamental "but": concerning our very scarce economic and financial conditions. You will forgive me if I state some figures.

The average wage in the USSR is 220 rubles, which amounts to 35 dollars at the official exchange rate and 11 dollars at the black market. One hundred members of the party paying a sum of 22 rubles (this is the established yearly enrollment fee) will give a total of 2,200 rubles. A computer with printer instead will cost 40 thousand rubles. Ten minutes of conversation over the telephone with Rome cost 60 rubles. The rent of a flat for the central office costs 4,200. A pamphlet in 100 thousand copies costs 15,000 rubles.

Without mentioning the fact that not one of us can even dream of of attending a congress like your's at one's own expenses.

You, the Italian members of the party are the main main financial source of the Radical Party.

The Radical Party is the only one in Italy and perhaps in the world, that can and does do something concrete for the democratic forces in Eastern Europe, and particularly in my country. However the Radical Party today is facing serious problems. On the one hand to apply the principle of self-financiation we must have 50 thousand enrollements in the world before the end of the year, of which 20,000 in Italy.

How to mamage this?

I invite all those who are concerned about the principles of freedom, of non-violence, of federalism to join the trans-national Radical Party. I'm saying this as a democratic activist of the Soviet Union who looks at this number with ever-lasting hope.

However I believe it is not enough to invite people to join the Party. I feel compelled to express my opinion on the solutions of the problem of new members in Italy.

The key to the solution is the same as in the USSR, i.e. transnationality. The party must be effectively and constantly trans-national everywhere, from Moscow to Prague, and perhaps first of all in Rome.

On this subject I have a practical suggestion. Perhaps it doesn't make sense to talk about it here, at the congress, but it would be better to discuss it with Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, Sergio Stanzani and Paolo Vigevano. Just two words: my experience of a month's work inside the party, here in Rome, allows me to say that the work of the Italian comrades in Budapest or in Moscow is absolutely essential, but so is the constant presence of the central office in Rome, in the political centre of the party, of someone who knows Russian and Italian languages, the Soviet situation and the Italian one, who can make the connection, the translation and the co-ordination between Moscow and Rome.

I think it should be one of us Soviet members of the Party. I have talked about it at the beginning of January with Paolo Vigevano and the other comrades. I then suggested the possibility that perhaps the thing is not without sense. Now I am absolutely convinced that this step is necessary.

In conclusion I would like to once again remind you of the words of the general declaration of the last federal Council that are according to me beautiful, and that compare the party to an ill person who in order to survive needs blood and oxygen. That person can certainly be ignored or dismissed by stating that medecine has nothing to offer. But if it is a beloved one dying, then you wouldn't act the same way. You would do anything you could to save that person.

Blood and oxygen. 50 thousand members. But the thing is possible only if we become a trans-national party. This is the recipe for survival.

Only as a trans-national party the Radical Party has a future, of this I am convinced. And for me too this Italian Congress is a congress of hope, of hope in a trans-national Radical Party.