Society
‘So Many Ordinary Russians Are Suspicious of [Reform] Initiatives and Assume the Most Cynical Motives’
August 13, 2025
- Benjamin NathansAlan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
- Dmitry BykovRussian writer, poet, literary critic and journalist
Benjamin Nathans, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement speaks with writer Dmitry Bykov about his book, about the Soviet mindset in the 1960s and 1970s, and about the prospect of democratic reforms in Russia.
The Russian translation of the interview authorized by Benjamin Nathans was published in Republic. The English-language version is published here with Benjamin Nathans' permission.
How would you characterize the paths that led Soviet people to become dissidents? In my experience, I saw more orthodox communists or loyalists in this social group than skeptical intelligentsia. When a person truly believes in something, it is more natural for them to start resisting. Soviet elite, like [Andrei] Sakharov, had better opportunities to organize protest. There were also hundreds who had experienced repression, labor camps and exile. What special qualities made some Soviet people become less “Soviet”?
There’s a notion, especially among people from the former Soviet Union, that dissidents were mirror images of the so-called orthodox communist “activists,” fervent believers in the Party and socialism. I don’t think that’s quite accurate. To be sure, Soviet dissidents were products of the Soviet system – born inside it, educated and socialized by it, employed by it - like all citizens of the USSR. In some ways, they were driven by the high-mindedness [printsipial'nost'] that that system sought to cultivate. But what really interests me is the way Soviet orthodoxy, like all orthodoxies, generated its own specific heresy, the heresy of promoting transparency [glasnost'] and strict obedience to Soviet law. This was no ordinary reversal or rebellion against orthodoxy; it was a form of creative repurposing. And there have been versions of this specifically Soviet heresy in almost every Soviet-style system (Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, etc.).
Very few people were driven to dissent by prior experiences of repression.
Typically, the sequence was the reverse: first the dissenting activities (usually strictly within the bounds of Soviet law), then the repression. The exceptions were people like Pyotr Yakir, Viktor Krasin, Lev Kopelev, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
How would you characterize the paths that led Soviet people to become dissidents? In my experience, I saw more orthodox communists or loyalists in this social group than skeptical intelligentsia. When a person truly believes in something, it is more natural for them to start resisting. Soviet elite, like [Andrei] Sakharov, had better opportunities to organize protest. There were also hundreds who had experienced repression, labor camps and exile. What special qualities made some Soviet people become less “Soviet”?
There’s a notion, especially among people from the former Soviet Union, that dissidents were mirror images of the so-called orthodox communist “activists,” fervent believers in the Party and socialism. I don’t think that’s quite accurate. To be sure, Soviet dissidents were products of the Soviet system – born inside it, educated and socialized by it, employed by it - like all citizens of the USSR. In some ways, they were driven by the high-mindedness [printsipial'nost'] that that system sought to cultivate. But what really interests me is the way Soviet orthodoxy, like all orthodoxies, generated its own specific heresy, the heresy of promoting transparency [glasnost'] and strict obedience to Soviet law. This was no ordinary reversal or rebellion against orthodoxy; it was a form of creative repurposing. And there have been versions of this specifically Soviet heresy in almost every Soviet-style system (Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, etc.).
Very few people were driven to dissent by prior experiences of repression.
Typically, the sequence was the reverse: first the dissenting activities (usually strictly within the bounds of Soviet law), then the repression. The exceptions were people like Pyotr Yakir, Viktor Krasin, Lev Kopelev, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Soviet tanks in Prague, August 1968. Source: Wiki Commons
I have been insisting that Putinism, from the very beginning, was much worse than the so-called zastoy [stagnation] and even worse than Stalinism, because the Soviet project was based on the ideas and practices of the Enlightenment and inspired by slogans of progress. The 1970s seemed to be the best period of the Soviet empire – or at least its smartest time. What can you say about Putinism and its prospects? Do you foresee something like the Thaw, a slow decline or a sudden explosion like the [Bolshevik Revolution of] 1917?
Putinism worse than Stalinism? Not until Putin sends 18 million Russians to forced labor camps, kills several million via famine and executions, and deports entire ethnic minorities to Siberia. But I see your point: Stalinism invoked universal ideals of the Enlightenment, including some that appeal to many people today, whereas Putin’s government rejects universalism as such and embraces forms of cynicism that were largely submerged during the Soviet epoch. Many Russians agree with you about seeing the 1970s – retrospectively - as a golden era, or what Yuri Slezkine called “a respite from history.” Of course, most people look back fondly on the period when they were young….
As for the future of the Putin system: I’m not confident in my ability to predict what will happen next year, let alone in the next decade. Much depends on how the war against Ukraine proceeds and how the Russian economy copes with the strain of that war and the severe economic sanctions imposed by Western powers. Putin has amassed enormous power, but he cannot make himself immortal.
Putinism worse than Stalinism? Not until Putin sends 18 million Russians to forced labor camps, kills several million via famine and executions, and deports entire ethnic minorities to Siberia. But I see your point: Stalinism invoked universal ideals of the Enlightenment, including some that appeal to many people today, whereas Putin’s government rejects universalism as such and embraces forms of cynicism that were largely submerged during the Soviet epoch. Many Russians agree with you about seeing the 1970s – retrospectively - as a golden era, or what Yuri Slezkine called “a respite from history.” Of course, most people look back fondly on the period when they were young….
As for the future of the Putin system: I’m not confident in my ability to predict what will happen next year, let alone in the next decade. Much depends on how the war against Ukraine proceeds and how the Russian economy copes with the strain of that war and the severe economic sanctions imposed by Western powers. Putin has amassed enormous power, but he cannot make himself immortal.
“Russia’s history suggests that moments of leadership transition are especially fraught. As incredible as it sounds, there are currently no rules, no norms, no guidelines for this procedure in Russia.”
We have seen how easy it is for Putin to circumvent constitutional limits on his time in office. My hunch is that a very small number of people – perhaps just Putin himself – will decide who Russia’s next ruler will be. My hunch is also that most Russians will not resist this process – they will accept it, perhaps with some grumbling, perhaps with satisfaction.
But two factors could potentially disrupt the relative stability of the current system: a significant reversal of Russia’s military position in Ukraine or a significant downturn in Russia’s economy. These are lessons we’ve learned from the historical experience of many countries, not just Russia. I think Putin, who invokes history more intensively than most leaders, is well aware of these lessons. I sense that the Russian state is doing everything it can to prevent a military defeat or an economic slide.
But two factors could potentially disrupt the relative stability of the current system: a significant reversal of Russia’s military position in Ukraine or a significant downturn in Russia’s economy. These are lessons we’ve learned from the historical experience of many countries, not just Russia. I think Putin, who invokes history more intensively than most leaders, is well aware of these lessons. I sense that the Russian state is doing everything it can to prevent a military defeat or an economic slide.
Vladimir Bukovsky was a Soviet human rights activist and writer, imprisoned for 12 years in psychiatric hospitals, labor camps and prisons under Brezhnev. Source: Wiki Commons
That doesn’t guarantee success, however. Putin used the build-up to the war to systematically dismantle independent institutions in Russia; he has used the war itself to tighten his control and make Russia even more authoritarian than it was before 2014 or 2022. Authoritarian systems have an inherent problem: they do not tolerate dissent or disagreement. They do not allow open, fearless discussion of key problems. They tend to elevate people to positions of power and influence who never disagree with the leader. In the long run, that is not a formula for good policy-making and good decision-making.
You have touched on this question in your book, but nevertheless: how do you explain that practically none of the dissidents – even such influential figures as Solzhenitsyn or Vladimir Bukovsky – took part in real political life in the 1990s? The entire intelligentsia seemed to give up immediately, yielding its positions to merchants, criminals, and even the new bureaucracy. What factors might have predetermined this, and do you now see the most significant mistakes this group made during Yeltsin’s time?
It’s true: very few Soviet dissidents entered the new political arena that opened up in the late Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras. There were exceptions, of course: Andrei Sakharov, Boris Zolotukhin, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Gleb Pavlovsky, Ludmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalev, Revol’t Pimenov. But they were precisely the exceptions. I argue in my book that we will only begin to understand Soviet dissidents if we see them as Soviet people.
You have touched on this question in your book, but nevertheless: how do you explain that practically none of the dissidents – even such influential figures as Solzhenitsyn or Vladimir Bukovsky – took part in real political life in the 1990s? The entire intelligentsia seemed to give up immediately, yielding its positions to merchants, criminals, and even the new bureaucracy. What factors might have predetermined this, and do you now see the most significant mistakes this group made during Yeltsin’s time?
It’s true: very few Soviet dissidents entered the new political arena that opened up in the late Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras. There were exceptions, of course: Andrei Sakharov, Boris Zolotukhin, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Gleb Pavlovsky, Ludmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalev, Revol’t Pimenov. But they were precisely the exceptions. I argue in my book that we will only begin to understand Soviet dissidents if we see them as Soviet people.
“And like the majority of Soviet people, the majority of dissidents regarded politics as a fundamentally dirty activity [gryaznoye delo], something that required unappealing moral compromises.”
It’s important to remember that the KGB forced many dissidents to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. I estimate that, among the roughly 1000 core activists in the democratic movement – people who signed open letters and petitions in the 1960s and 1970s – roughly half left the Soviet Union under pressure from the KGB. Most of them settled in Western Europe, the United States, or Israel, made lives for themselves and raised their children in those countries. Many chose not to return to the countries of the former Soviet Union when that became possible. So the pool of dissidents eligible to participate in political life in the former Soviet Union was much smaller than the original movement (which itself was numerically quite small).
But even those who did return, along with those who never left, carried with them one of the paradoxes of the rights-defenders: they understood themselves as outside or above politics. As strange as it may sound, the overwhelming majority of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s believed that the strategy of insisting on strict observance of Soviet laws by the Soviet state was apolitical – as if the law, civil liberties, and human rights were somehow detached from the sphere of politics. Many dissidents carried this notion into the post-Soviet era, and resisted the idea of reinventing themselves as politicians. This was particularly the case in Russia; less so in, say, Ukraine or Lithuania.
One dissident who did not resist political engagement was Vladimir Bukovsky, who was forced into exile in 1976. Bukovsky attempted to run for president of the Russian Federation in 2008, challenging Dmitrii Medvedev, but was denied permission to do so by the Central Electoral Commission and ultimately by the Russian Supreme Court. So the Putin government bears part of the responsibility for the relative absence of former dissidents from Russian political life.
Is there any chance that Russian reforms might begin from the lower layers – not from the aristocracy or the top of the hierarchy? The problem for any reformer is that he has to “ban” himself, like Alexander II or Khrushchev. Does this mean that all reforms and reformers are doomed?
I wouldn’t say that all reform initiatives from below are doomed. But the prospects don’t look very good, and not just because the “vertical power” of an authoritarian government naturally resists initiatives from below. The deeper problem, it seems to me, is that so many ordinary Russians are themselves suspicious of such initiatives and assume the most cynical motives in those who propose them.
But even those who did return, along with those who never left, carried with them one of the paradoxes of the rights-defenders: they understood themselves as outside or above politics. As strange as it may sound, the overwhelming majority of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s believed that the strategy of insisting on strict observance of Soviet laws by the Soviet state was apolitical – as if the law, civil liberties, and human rights were somehow detached from the sphere of politics. Many dissidents carried this notion into the post-Soviet era, and resisted the idea of reinventing themselves as politicians. This was particularly the case in Russia; less so in, say, Ukraine or Lithuania.
One dissident who did not resist political engagement was Vladimir Bukovsky, who was forced into exile in 1976. Bukovsky attempted to run for president of the Russian Federation in 2008, challenging Dmitrii Medvedev, but was denied permission to do so by the Central Electoral Commission and ultimately by the Russian Supreme Court. So the Putin government bears part of the responsibility for the relative absence of former dissidents from Russian political life.
Is there any chance that Russian reforms might begin from the lower layers – not from the aristocracy or the top of the hierarchy? The problem for any reformer is that he has to “ban” himself, like Alexander II or Khrushchev. Does this mean that all reforms and reformers are doomed?
I wouldn’t say that all reform initiatives from below are doomed. But the prospects don’t look very good, and not just because the “vertical power” of an authoritarian government naturally resists initiatives from below. The deeper problem, it seems to me, is that so many ordinary Russians are themselves suspicious of such initiatives and assume the most cynical motives in those who propose them.
“One of the consequences of a system in which only the elites can propose and enact reforms is that the elites – and the power structure they control – remain unreformed.”
Natalya Gorbanevskaya, one of the participants of the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Source: Wiki Commons
That, to my mind, is the main reason why the structure of power in today’s Russia is so archaic, that is, lacking in effective legal and institutional constraints.
Who are your favorites in the Soviet protest movement? Who were the most talented, the bravest and the smartest?
All of the pravozashchitniki (human rights defenders) were brave – almost by definition. You had to be brave to do what they did. Andrei Amalrik had an exceptionally sharp, I would say brilliantly analytic mind, and an equally sharp sense of humor. Ivan Dziuba, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Boris Shragin, Valentin Turchin, and Tomas Venclova were deeply wise people (my colleague, the German historian Susanne Schattenberg, is writing a wonderful biography of Gorbanevskaya). Sergei Kovalev and Tatiana Velikanova displayed profound moral clarity under extremely difficult circumstances. And of course Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were towering figures in their respective professions – physics and literature – in addition to their historic significance as critics of the Soviet system.
There is an opinion that without Gorbachev nothing would have happened, and that the role of the opposition in perestroika was minimal (like the role of the Bolsheviks in the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917). What do you think of this? By the way, some observers believe that if Andropov had lived longer, he could have transformed the Soviet “swamp” into a Chinese-like scenario. How do you assess him?
Who are your favorites in the Soviet protest movement? Who were the most talented, the bravest and the smartest?
All of the pravozashchitniki (human rights defenders) were brave – almost by definition. You had to be brave to do what they did. Andrei Amalrik had an exceptionally sharp, I would say brilliantly analytic mind, and an equally sharp sense of humor. Ivan Dziuba, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Boris Shragin, Valentin Turchin, and Tomas Venclova were deeply wise people (my colleague, the German historian Susanne Schattenberg, is writing a wonderful biography of Gorbanevskaya). Sergei Kovalev and Tatiana Velikanova displayed profound moral clarity under extremely difficult circumstances. And of course Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were towering figures in their respective professions – physics and literature – in addition to their historic significance as critics of the Soviet system.
There is an opinion that without Gorbachev nothing would have happened, and that the role of the opposition in perestroika was minimal (like the role of the Bolsheviks in the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917). What do you think of this? By the way, some observers believe that if Andropov had lived longer, he could have transformed the Soviet “swamp” into a Chinese-like scenario. How do you assess him?
“I believe that if Gorbachev had not attempted to ‘fix’ the Soviet system, the USSR could potentially have continued on its slow decline for another 10, 20, or 30 years.”
Lyudmila Alexeyeva was a human rights defender who emigrated in 1977; she later returned to Russia and became chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1996. Source: Wiki Commons
It would have become less and less competitive internationally and more challenged by domestic discontent over declining living standards and frustration on the part of certain nationalities (including Russians). Soviet leaders would have faced difficult choices: use force to maintain control over the Warsaw Pact countries (and possibly the Baltic Soviet republics), or allow them to exit Moscow’s orbit. I don’t think it’s correct to say that without Gorbachev “nothing” would have happened. Something, possibly something dramatic, would have happened; whoever was General Secretary of the CPSU would have been under enormous pressure to revive the flagging Soviet economy.
The Andropov cult (especially among conservative critics of Gorbachev and Yeltsin) reminds me in some ways of the Lenin cult (especially among socialist critics of Stalin). “If only he had lived longer….” Andropov almost certainly would not have allowed the Soviet Union to break up – in contrast to his protégé Gorbachev, who did. But would Andropov have succeeded in reviving the Soviet economy? I don’t see how. Could he have turned the “Soviet swamp” (your expression!) into a dynamic engine of the global economy like today’s China? Even less likely, in my view.
Most Soviet citizens laughed at their gerontocratic leaders. Nobody believed in the ideology, and everyone was imitating loyalty. Do you think this was extraordinary slavery or unprecedented freedom (“Takogo muzhestva – ili kholuystva,” as Brodsky once asked)?
When you say “most Soviet citizens” were laughing at the elderly members of the Politburo and “nobody” believed in the ideology and “everybody” was pretending to be loyal – I think the group you are describing was mostly the metropolitan intelligentsia, a small minority of the Soviet population.
The Andropov cult (especially among conservative critics of Gorbachev and Yeltsin) reminds me in some ways of the Lenin cult (especially among socialist critics of Stalin). “If only he had lived longer….” Andropov almost certainly would not have allowed the Soviet Union to break up – in contrast to his protégé Gorbachev, who did. But would Andropov have succeeded in reviving the Soviet economy? I don’t see how. Could he have turned the “Soviet swamp” (your expression!) into a dynamic engine of the global economy like today’s China? Even less likely, in my view.
Most Soviet citizens laughed at their gerontocratic leaders. Nobody believed in the ideology, and everyone was imitating loyalty. Do you think this was extraordinary slavery or unprecedented freedom (“Takogo muzhestva – ili kholuystva,” as Brodsky once asked)?
When you say “most Soviet citizens” were laughing at the elderly members of the Politburo and “nobody” believed in the ideology and “everybody” was pretending to be loyal – I think the group you are describing was mostly the metropolitan intelligentsia, a small minority of the Soviet population.
“The intelligentsia has a long tradition of mistaking itself for ‘everyone’. I’m not at all sure that your description captures the beliefs and habits of the majority of Soviet people.”
But let’s limit ourselves for the time being to the intelligentsia. All public life is performative: the public is an audience. Late Soviet public life was unusual, it seems to me, in the degree to which performers were fully aware of the fact that they were performing, and that others were performing too - as if performativity had become an almost universal, or universally assumed, quality of public speech (at least among the intelligentsia). The anthropologist Alexei Yurchak has written with great insight about this phenomenon. The point, though, is that “not believing” in the official ideology wasn’t the same as thinking it was false; for most Soviet people, including intellectuals, I think it was more a matter of taking socialism as a way of life for granted, of not really thinking critically about it – the way Americans typically take for granted certain claims about economic markets as guarantors of freedom and efficiency.
In my book I include this quotation: “The government was sole and absolute manager of the public business, but it was not master of individual citizens. Liberty survived in the midst of institutions already prepared for despotism. But it was a curious kind of liberty, not easily understood today.” These words were written by Alexis de Tocqueville in the early 19th century about France under Louis XVI, on the eve of the revolution of 1789. One can also apply them to the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era, where a very particular kind of private [lichnaya] freedom was available, a kind that is increasingly difficult to understand – although perhaps not so difficult in today’s Russia. But let’s not forget: Solzhenitsyn and other writers claimed that the freest spaces in the Soviet Union were in the camps. That too was a kind of freedom that depended on a surrounding tyranny, or rather, on the repudiation of the surrounding tyranny.
The previous wave of emigrants was absolutely certain they were departing forever. Yet they went back – if only temporarily – within 10 to 15 years. What do you think about the fate of the new refugees? Do you believe that at least some of us – perhaps the youngest – have any chance, or reason, to go back? Do you plan to visit Russia before Putin disappears?
It is a terrible tragedy – and deeply unnatural – when people are afraid of returning to their homeland. It astounds me that this is happening yet again in Russia’s history, another enormous wave of refugees uprooted from their surroundings, their friends and loved ones, a pattern that goes back to the 19th century. What is it about Russia that leads so many talented, dynamic people to flee, in many cases against their own preferences? Why does this pattern keep repeating?
I don’t know what will happen with the current wave of emigrés from Russia. One has to hope that the younger ones will live to see the day when they can safely return. I have no current plans to visit Russia, and I’m not certain that I would be given a visa. I find this depressing – but nothing compared to what exiled Russians feel.
Do you think Russian history will continue to repeat the same cycle, or is the Russian “soil” exhausted and the vertical state of oprichnina will be destroyed for good?
It is striking how the structure of the Russian state seems to return, after every rupture or opening, to forms of power that are highly centralized, authoritarian, and person-centered. If Russia is going to exit from this historical pattern, which I think is possible, it will probably not be because of “exhaustion” or because some mysterious force “destroys” the vertical power system (although a significant military defeat has the potential to initiate such change).
In the long run, I don’t think the Russian state is going to reform itself in meaningful ways unless the Russian people want, and are able, to place meaningful constraints on what their state can do. Like many authoritarian systems, Russia has adopted the façade of democratic institutions – a parliament, a constitution, political parties, courts and judges. The problem is that these institutions don’t function independently. But it seems to me that they have the potential to do so – if the Russian people want them to. Exhaustion and destruction will not help the population of Russia put limits on the arbitrary power of their state. Only an engaged population that actually wants democratic decision-making processes can do that.
In my book I include this quotation: “The government was sole and absolute manager of the public business, but it was not master of individual citizens. Liberty survived in the midst of institutions already prepared for despotism. But it was a curious kind of liberty, not easily understood today.” These words were written by Alexis de Tocqueville in the early 19th century about France under Louis XVI, on the eve of the revolution of 1789. One can also apply them to the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era, where a very particular kind of private [lichnaya] freedom was available, a kind that is increasingly difficult to understand – although perhaps not so difficult in today’s Russia. But let’s not forget: Solzhenitsyn and other writers claimed that the freest spaces in the Soviet Union were in the camps. That too was a kind of freedom that depended on a surrounding tyranny, or rather, on the repudiation of the surrounding tyranny.
The previous wave of emigrants was absolutely certain they were departing forever. Yet they went back – if only temporarily – within 10 to 15 years. What do you think about the fate of the new refugees? Do you believe that at least some of us – perhaps the youngest – have any chance, or reason, to go back? Do you plan to visit Russia before Putin disappears?
It is a terrible tragedy – and deeply unnatural – when people are afraid of returning to their homeland. It astounds me that this is happening yet again in Russia’s history, another enormous wave of refugees uprooted from their surroundings, their friends and loved ones, a pattern that goes back to the 19th century. What is it about Russia that leads so many talented, dynamic people to flee, in many cases against their own preferences? Why does this pattern keep repeating?
I don’t know what will happen with the current wave of emigrés from Russia. One has to hope that the younger ones will live to see the day when they can safely return. I have no current plans to visit Russia, and I’m not certain that I would be given a visa. I find this depressing – but nothing compared to what exiled Russians feel.
Do you think Russian history will continue to repeat the same cycle, or is the Russian “soil” exhausted and the vertical state of oprichnina will be destroyed for good?
It is striking how the structure of the Russian state seems to return, after every rupture or opening, to forms of power that are highly centralized, authoritarian, and person-centered. If Russia is going to exit from this historical pattern, which I think is possible, it will probably not be because of “exhaustion” or because some mysterious force “destroys” the vertical power system (although a significant military defeat has the potential to initiate such change).
In the long run, I don’t think the Russian state is going to reform itself in meaningful ways unless the Russian people want, and are able, to place meaningful constraints on what their state can do. Like many authoritarian systems, Russia has adopted the façade of democratic institutions – a parliament, a constitution, political parties, courts and judges. The problem is that these institutions don’t function independently. But it seems to me that they have the potential to do so – if the Russian people want them to. Exhaustion and destruction will not help the population of Russia put limits on the arbitrary power of their state. Only an engaged population that actually wants democratic decision-making processes can do that.
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