Analysis of USSR events shows care for Soviet people THE SOVIET REVOLUTION: SHAKING THE WORLD AGAIN. A Canadian jour- nalist’s eyewitness account. By Fred Weir. Published by Progress Books in conjunc- tion with the Canadian Tribune, 1990. Journalist-historian Gwynne Dyer’s ser- ies, “The Gorbachev Revolution,” was air- ing on CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning as 1 was reading the ris page proofs of Fred Weir’s book The Soviet Revolution: Shaking The World Again, a well-edited selection of his dis- patches as the Trib- une’s Moscow cor- respondent. My admiration for Dyer and Weir is ’ 3 great. Both possess ZWICKER keen inquiring and analytical minds. Both respect history, exercise a consistent healthy skepticism and avoid the simplistic and stereotypical. They are leaders in journalism in no small measure because they stand outside main- stream journalism with its ideological con- Steves at La Quena; Cambodia expose Stage: For those who read this in time (space didn’t permit previews the last couple of issues), there’s A Peasant of El Salvador, the Gladstone Secon- dary School Theatre Company’s presentation of the play by Peter Gould, on a peasant’s struggle for survival in the midst of the liberation war in that country. It’s at the Van- couver East Cultural Centre on May 15, 8 p.m. A benefit performance for the people of El Salvador. Phone 254- 9578 to reserve. 3k * * Concerts: Ian Tyson plays the Van- couver East Cultural Centre at 8 p.m., May 27-30. (The May 27 concert is sold out.) Tickets are $20. Don Olds and Richmond alder- man, teacher and folksinger Harold Steves play labour songs, blues and folk music at La Quena Coffee House in Vancouver May 25, 8 p.m. Tickets $3 and $5. cS * * Flicks: Screen time doesn’t have to be quality time, say the folks who put on the collection of camp known as the B Festival. Including such entries as the original Adventures of Batman and Robin, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and other gems our parents told us never to watch, the second annual festival runs May 18-27 at the Vancouver East Cinema, and June 29-July 13 at the Roxy Cinegog in Victoria. . ok * ok The Tube: Knowledge Network airs, on Cross Currents, Cambodia: Year 10, concerning the links between the genocidal former Pol Pot regime and Western powers, on Thursday, May 17, 9 p.m. Also on is Hockey: The Canadian Game. The Mythmakers on Thursday, May 24, 7 p.m. 6 « Pacific Tribune, May 14, 1990 formism masked even from the minds of most of its practitioners by the self-delusion of autonomy. In this independence from the complicated corruption of mainstream journalism, Weir and Dyer should be seen — no higher accolade is possible — as standing with the late I.F. Stone. Its significant that Dyer in his series chose correctly, courageously and oh, so refresh- ingly, to quote no Western authorities or experts — with the sole exception of Fred Weir. The Dyer broadcasts are an enriching complement to the Weir book. But the dif- ferences between the two are instructive and important. What Weir offers with his analyses is that rarest of Western journalistic attributes, at least when the subject is the Soviet Union: _ simple compassion. This is what, probably above all, the Western establishment and mindset cannot abide. Dyer is non-hostile to the Soviet Union — this of course makes him an extreme rarity in Western mainstream journalism — but he still cannot express, or cannot express persuasively or repetitively, a care for Soviet people as Soviet people. Weir does. It’s angering to me that 99 per cent of the journalism we’re exposed to — and have been for all our lives, and our parents and grandparents before — has lacked, liter- ally, a heart when it comes to ideals of human evolution other than “our own.” ‘It has lacked what the greatest minds have expressed as essential to human survi- val and growth. Albert Einstein: ‘““Rem- ember your common humanity, and forget the rest;” Bertrand Russell’s summation that an aching pity for humankind was one of the three great causes of his being. From Weir’s similar worldview he grasps a complex reality — “complex” is a word Weir repeatedly and justifiably uses — in the USSR. Typically, on the other hand, the front page of this morning’s Globe and Mail, for instance, reports: “Soviet old guard strives to foil radicals.” The old sim- plistic dichotomies. Some of Weir’s observations and inter- pretations, much needed as antidotes to the still Cold-War-obsessed mainstream cover- age of the USSR: @ The history and nature of some of the Eastern European countries now asserting themselves is not the idealized liberal demo- cratic one portrayed in ahistorical Western coverage. Weir writes that he was shocked to find in Estonia that only Russian-speaking citizens were in line for top jobs. But now “most of the substantive grievances of the Baltic peo- ples have been or are being addressed. They have won new language laws, regulations on new immigration, sweeping rights of economic self-government and_ political institutions that reflect popular will.” Now “many Baltic nationalists,” Weir reports, are veering “toward almost neo- fascist politics or racial purity. Beneath the rhetoric, one can sometimes sense the potential for crimes that would rival those of Hitler and Stalin.” The truth of this was borne out by a good Toronto friend of mine, essentially anti- Soviet, of Estonian birth. Her shock recently was to hear her dentist, also Esto- nian, say and apparently mean: “All Rus- sians should be killed.” @ The USSR pretty clearly has surpassed most of the West in real political demo- cracy. As was recently noted in The Nation, it’s easier for a non-incumbent to be elected to the Soviet parliament than a non- Rs a ES EE BOE ET RS TOP: Unrest in>the republics; RIGHT: editorial cartoon on perestroika. Raa i Ta incumbent to the U.S. Senate. - The typical Western notion that Soviets are without the understanding or capacity to think and act within a democratic format © hobbles our understanding and predictive powers. Workplace democracy, for instance, is understood, accepted and _ increasingly practised in the USSR far more than in the U.S. or Canada. “I’ve talked with coal min- ers who went out on strike and within three days,” Weir writes, “achieved levels of pub- lic solidarity and class-wide discipline that Western workers can rarely ever dream of. Can we really say that all of these people have only just lately begun their struggle for democracy, starting from square one?” Freedom of speech, I would argue and Weir suggests, is greater in the USSR than in Canada, even if Soviets would disbelieve it. The reason is that here we have de facto censorship of ideas that fundamentally chal- lenge the status quo. Sure, they’ll be pub- lished or even broadcast occasionally. But when it comes to the persuasiveness and repetitiveness necessary for politically- relevant communication, such ideas just don’t make it in the West. In the USSR, by contrast, as Weir points out, everything including Lenin and Leninism is open for discussion and debate. The universal questions: 1. Will the USSR survive? Can the people make a historical transition without some- how shattering? Dyer in his first broadcast and Weir in his book think the Soviets will “make it.” But it could be a close call. Weir characterizes the events in the Soviet Union today as truly a second revo- lution. In other words, the Soviets again are leading the way for the world. If they’re successful they will have “socialism with a human face.” 2. Is socialism dead? If it becomes so in the USSR, what will be the impact on pro- gressive movements around the world? To hear most Western coverage of events in Eastern Europe and the USSR an other- wise uninformed person would conclude that socialism is kaput. This “finding” is a result of not looking. Dyer’s series is “The Gorbachev Revolu- tion.” The title suggests the revolution comes from, an depends on, one man. There’s no doubt Gorbachev must be included among the greatest human beings who ever lived. He is the revolution’s prim- ary precipitator, the leading articulator of “new thinking” for his country and the world. But he is not the revolution. Weir’s book is.“‘The Soviet Revolution.” The title suggests the new revolution comes from and mainly depends upon people. And most of these people, even after decades of stagnation and worse, under- stand that to return to a society that institu- tionalizes greed as its fundamental motiva- ting force would be a tragic mistake. One they are not going to make. This is Weir’s belief and the hope, surely, of progressive people everywhere. As the refreshing and intelligent rocker Attila the Stockbroker says: “I don’t want to have to choose between Stalinism and American bullshit television. I: want a third way.” It’s an empowering belief, even if the rapidly-growing number of its adherents in the West are rendered almost invisible. I.F. Stone, in the final edition of his Weekly, wrote: ‘Politically I believe there cannot be a good society without freedom of criticism: the greatest task of our time to find a synthesis of socialism and fre dom.” Finally that’s happening! It requi journalists of the I.F. Stone cast to grasp the complex processes, dispatch their clear-eyed reports and share their compassionate insights. Stone’s conclusion in his fing issue: “‘I think every man is his own Pygmal- ion, and spends his life fashioning himself, And in fashioning himself, for good or ill, he fashions the human race and its future.” — It’s the kind of observation Weir makes of Soviet society. And the spirit of the observation applies to Weir and his new book. The spirit is hopeful, with reason. — Barrie Zwicker Barrie Zwicker is a media critic for Vision TV in Toronto.