Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 5, 1976, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press monday january 5, 1976 the old 6each person compares his life with his poverty stricken past and the new in Moscow housing by Ankel Saharov second of a series foreign visitors sometimes ask Why if the soviet Union really has so Many Short comings Don t the people take Steps to Correct them there is no simple answer to that question. One of the Rea sons for the stability of the regime is the fact that living standards Are rising however slowly. Naturally each person compares his life not with Distant and inaccessible Paris or new York but with his own poverty stricken past. But there is a still Factor the imminent strength of the totalitarian regime the Iner Tia of fear and passivity. Although the radio daily in forms the Ordinary soviet citizen that he is the master of his realizes very Well that the real masters Are those who morning and evening Speed through the deserted closed off streets in their armoured limousines lie has not forgotten How his Grandfather was dispossessed As a Kulak. And he knows that even today his personal Fate depends wholly upon the state upon his immediate or Remote superiors upon the c a it m a n of the housing committee upon the chair Man of the Trade Union Mittee who May or May not decide to get his child into kindergarten and possibly on the Kab informer work ing next to him. When elections came around he drops his ballot with one name on it into the Box. He must realize How much he is politically humiliated by such an election without a contest. He cannot fail to understand the insult to common sense and human dignity implicit in this splendid ceremony. He is subjected to the same kind of training a a horse and he submits to the training in order to survive. The consequences of the party state monopoly Are especially destructive in the sphere of culture and Ideo logy i the Complete unification of ideology at All times and places from the school desk to the professorial chair demands that people be come hypocrites time servers mediocre and stupidly self deceiving. The tragicomic ritualistic farce of the loyalty oath is1 played Over and Over Rele gating to the background All considerations of practical Ity common sense and human to dignity. Writers artists actors teachers and s c h o 1 a s Are under such monstrous ideological pres a new store eaten to children sure that one wonders Why Art and the humanities have not altogether vanished in our country. The influence of those same anti intellectual factors on the exact sciences and the applied sciences is More in direct but no less destructive. A comparison of scientific technological and eco nomic achievements in the . And abroad makes this perfectly Plain. It is no Accident that for Many years in Pur country new and promising scientific trends in biology and Cybernetics could not develop nor Mally the surface out and out demagogy Igno Ranee and charlatan ism bloomed like gorgeous Flowers. It is no Accident that All the great scientific and tech Nic logical discoveries of re cent times quantum mechanics new elementary particles Urai Niu m fission antibiotics and most of the new highly effective drugs transistors electronic computers the development of highly productive strains in agriculture the discovery of other components of the Green revolution and the creation of new technologies in Agri culture Industry and construction All of them happened outside our country. The significant achieve ments in the first decade the space age which were due to the personal qualities of the late academician s. P. Korolev and to certain fortuitous features of our pro Grams for building military rockets which made possible that direct use in space constitute an exception which does not disprove the Rule. And certain successes in Mil itary technology Are the re sult of an enormous concentration of resources in the sphere. Ideological intolerance to Gether with cold although not Wise political calculation Are causing an unrelenting persecution of dissidents. In the . There Are anywhere from to individuals who can be identified As political prisoners. This figure does not include those suffering for their religious convictions. Apparently there Are even More of the latter. I should also qualify this by saying that my information May be incomplete according to the code now Tri Force All political prison ers Are regarded As common criminals. They share with prisoners of other categories often including innocent per sons the hardships and humiliations of a he the Char Acter of which is shameful and unacceptable in our time. Attempts to publicize de tails about conditions of confinement and the daily life of prisoners bring harsh reprisals which is the Best proof of the fact that there is something to hide. Yet a Good Deal is known the heavy forced which often involves violations of safety measures a diet both insufficient and bad and the virtual impossibility of improving it via parcels mailed or brought in since these Are severely restricted the same restraints exist even under conditions of preliminary de severe limitations o n visits correspondence and the Opportunity to obtain books harsh arbitrary controls. The political prisoners struggle for their human rights recently there has been news of Many heroic hunger strikes leads As a Rule to new repressions. The soviet prison and Camp system bears Many of the characteristics of that even More terrifying vast gulag described by Solzhenitsyn Shalamov Ginz Burg Ulitskaya and hundreds of other eyewitnesses and researchers which annihilated More than 20 million persons. In order to Correct the existing unacceptable Situa Tion it is essential to establish International Monitor ing of prisons labor Camps and special psychiatrist hospitals where conditions Are even and to Grant a general amnesty to political prisoners. But who Are the soviet to pious believers constitute a Large groups. The persecution of religion is a frightful tradition in All the socialist countries but nowhere except perhaps in. Albania has it attained such scope and depth As in the . In the 1920s and 30s the blows were aimed at the sects with the largest follow Ings orthodoxy and islam and the victims were countless. Today these Reli Gions have been so humiliated and they arc so deprived of rights at least on the sur that they have almost become appendages of the state. By no Means do i want to belittle the import the Complete unification of ideology at All time and places from the school desk to the professorial chair demands that people become hypocrites time servers mediocre and i stupidly Lotical prisoners the great majority of them have never perpetrated crimes As the word is understood in demo cratic countries. They have not committed acts Vio Lence nor have they incited them. One of the commonest causes of political repressions is the Reading keeping or passing on to friends of typescripts and books of undesirable Content although usually they Are essentially in this connection it should be remembered that while in the capital cities the Kab organs have Given up the stalinist practice of Preven Tive removal of potential critics from society in the provinces this practice is still followed on a limited scale. Many people usually Young often from the work ing class or the provincial intelligentsia whose first timid doubts Are combined with disarming illusions about the soviet regime go straight to prison or a Camp. Most of the workers party members and people who declare they Are marxists Are sent to the horrible special psychiatric hospitals obviously out of considerations o f de the prisons and especially the is Yalu Alric Hospi tals crowded with peo ple who tried secretly to leave the country or with the same end in mind ran the blockade into foreign after having despaired of exercising that right us Ough official Chan Nels. Many crimean tartars and Meskhi turks Are in confinement. Among Thost suffering for their convictions the Reli Tance of these faiths or the inner nonconformist of the adherents today the focus of the repressions has shifted to relatively Small religious groups who demonstrate great obstinacy the unites baptists catholics followers of the True orthodox Church and buddhists. Much is known about the persecutions of these groups about the economic sanctions and the trials resulting in Long sentences. Recently special attention has been Given the conviction of the baptists p. V. Ruma Clu k and Gregory p. Vins the tragic death in a labor Camp of Bindiya Dandron who had been sentenced for his religious activities and the brutal murder of a pentecostalism Deacon who had wanted to emigrate to the United states together with his flock. One of the most inhuman forms of religious persecution is the removal of Chil Dren from then parents in order to protect them from a pernicious religious up bringing. Religious persecution is a flagrant violation of the principle of separation of Church and state the kind of meddling by the state in the personal convictions of citizens that is intolerable in a democratic society. It is in fact citizens like these United by repressions Ancl a resolve to follow the dictates of then hearts and convictions who form what May be called the democratic despite the Small number of such people mostly concentrated in few of the country s largest cities and not joined together in any organized Way the Ethi Cal Signie Ance of their very existence in the Monolith of soviet society is immeasurable. I am convinced that the defence of soviet political prisoners and other dissent ers the struggle for greater humanity in places of imprisonment and for human rights in general is not Only the moral duty of honest persons throughout the world but constitutes a direct defence of human rights in their own coir tries. Next world peace excerpted from my coun try and the world by Nobel peace prize Winner Andrei Sakli Arov. Copyright 1975 by Alfred a. Knopf inc. Dissident soviet historian foresees changes new York renter soviet dissident Andrei am Alrik says the next generation of soviet leaders will be less authoritarian than the current rulers. In an interview with news week Magazine the 37-year old historian is quoted As say ing i Don t wish anyone s death but the fact that All our present leaders Are old and will die soon does offer a great Hope for the country. The next generation will be better. The present generation reached the top because the Stalin purges. But the upcoming generation was moulded during War and Dur ing Khrushchev s de salinization in. Less rigorous v am Alrik said the soviet Union would either be restructured More democratically while remaining authoritarian or it would disintegrate. The next generation will be a transitional one with All the shortcomings of the present rulers but in subdued he said. Bureaucrats they will be but perhaps softer and More pragmatic am Alrik said the soviet Union is in a transitional period Between two ideologies and perhaps the next one in Russia will be demo he said it would take a crisis to bring out More Liber Al forces in the soviet Union. However the West does not want such a crisis and de Tente is helping preserve the soviet Union just the Way it he added. Newsweek notes that within half an hour after giving the interview on a visit to mos cow am Alrik was detained by police for seven hours of questioning including a late night talk with a psychiatrist. Am Alrik was released last May after five years of imprisonment and exile in Siberia. He has been refused permission to live in Moscow but can visit there occasionally. Brando Home with sep Icema los Angeles Reuter Marlon Brando 51, was flown Back to los Angeles from his Pacific atoll at Tahiti on Christmas Day suffering from serious blood poisoning but is now recovering his doctor said Here. The actor who is developing the atoll of to Tiara 45 Miles North of Papeete As a Holiday resort and lobster farm was admitted to St. John s Hospi Tal in Santa Monica. He was said on his arrival to be seriously ill from sep Tice Raia a form of blood poisoning. No information was Given on How he got the blood poisoning. Brando had to be flown Back to the. . Too years ago after eating bad food on the Island. Or. Robert Kositchek the actor s personal physician said or. Brando is getting better. He is undergoing in Tensive tests and talks to Start on u teaching or. E. F. Sheffield professor of higher education at the University of Toronto will give a talk on teaching in universities at . Thursday in the University of Winnipeg. Or. Sheffield s talk will be the first in a series sponsored by the University on teaching methods and techniques during january february and March. Other speakers in the series will include University teachers identified in or. Sheffield s Book teaching to universities no one full time employment experienced u Dick offset operators with item experience to Start Jan. 6th, 1976. Top wages to the right people. Apply to or. Henry Armstrong Between 10 . 4 . Et250 main St. Pm. 94341271. Armstrong printing Ltd. Drug Mart photo finishing Coupon offer present this Coupon with your next Roll of Colour negative film for printing and developing. Save 500 on our everyday Low photofinishing Price. Shoppers drug Mart Money saving Coupon present this Coupon with your next Roll of Colour negative film for print and developing save on our everyday Low photofinishing Price. 50f Coupon valid until january 1 51h, 1976 Economy shoppers drug Mart 1112 main St. At Redwood North mpg. Shoppers drug Mart fort Richmond shopping Centre 2860 Pembina Hwy. At Killarney Al shoppers drug Mart 297 Portage Al at Donald St. Downtown Winnipeg shoppers drug Mart in Katy fashion Square 3605 Portage Al a Knox shoppers drug Mart Garden City shopping Centre 2305 Mcphillips at Leila shoppers drug Mart 471 River Al at Osborne former location of Safeway store ;