The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Helsinki Accords

The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights From the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Helsinki Accords

✣ Barbara Martin Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021

In the early 1970s, Soviet dissidents’ support of détente between the Soviet Union and the West may have appeared as a given. Andrei Sakharov, usually considered the “father” of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, had become an outspoken advocate of “convergence” between the two blocs with the publication in 1968 of his essay Reﬂections on Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Free- dom, which quickly drew worldwide attention.1 In 1970, along with the dissident historian Roy Medvedev and the physicist Valentin Turchin, Sakharov published an open letter to the leaders of the Communist Party of the So- viet Union (CPSU) demanding the gradual democratization of the Soviet regime.2 Medvedev further developed his program of reform along reform Com- munist lines in his essay On Socialist Democracy, published in the West in 1972.3 Both texts conveyed the idea that democratization of the Soviet Union would engender détente and thus provide the basis for lasting peace. However, neither Sakharov nor Medvedev envisaged a process of détente initiated on a narrow commercial basis, which would not be preceded by democratization of the Soviet system or make it a prerequisite for further rapprochement. The onset of détente, which coincided with a resurgence of repression directed against Soviet dissent, therefore presented the two activists with a moral and political dilemma, which they solved in different ways. In Medvedev’s view, détente

1. Andrei Sakharov, Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968). 2. Roy Medvedev, Andrei Sakharov, and Valentin Turchin, “Appeal for a Gradual Democratization,” in George Saunders, ed., Samizdat: Voices of the Soviet Opposition (New York: Monad Press, 1974), pp. 399–412. 3. Roy Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy (London: MacMillan, 1975). The Russian and French editions were published in 1972.

Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 23, No. 3, Summer 2021, pp. 138–174, https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01009 © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

138 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights was a positive phenomenon in and of itself—a phenomenon that would ultimately lead to the democratization of the regime—whereas Sakharov believed that a serious rapprochement between the two blocs would be impossible un- less Western governments first extracted concessions from the Soviet Union on human rights. This article examines the two dissidents’ debate on détente and human rights in the Soviet Union. That debate, which lasted through the 1970s, was triggered by the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. In an Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 open letter to the U.S. Congress in September 1973, Sakharov voiced support of the amendment, which made the granting of Most Favored Nation status to non-market economies conditional on the liberalization of their emigration policies.4 Two months later, Medvedev made public his opposition to Sakharov’s position and to the amendment in an article published in the West- ern press.5 What set Sakharov and Medvedev apart was not just their goals but the strategies they proposed to reach them. Should the United States demon- strate firmness on important moral questions and use its economic leverage to compel the Soviet Union to respect human rights? Or were such measures counterproductive? Should one instead hope for progressive democratization of the Soviet system through increased contacts with the Western bloc? The different responses the two men gave to these questions reflected the differences in their approaches to political change in the Soviet Union. Whereas Sakharov, along with many Soviet dissidents, adopted the language of human rights and supported the linkage of international and domestic issues, Medvedev believed in systemic reform—within the framework of the CPSU’s monopoly on power—to achieve more humane Communism and favored “change through rapprochement” in alliance with left-wing forces in the West. 6 The debate on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment constituted a turning point (not only in Sakharov’s trajectory but also for the Soviet human rights movement as a whole) from a belief in the progressive liberalization of So- viet society through reforms from above and détente, to a more offensive “boomerang strategy” relying on pressure exercised indirectly by the USSR’s Cold War adversaries and international organizations in order to obtain

4. Andrei Sakharov, “Open Letter to the United States Congress,” 14 September 1973, transcribed in U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 13 December 1974, p. 39837. 5. Roy Medvedev, “Democracy and Détente,” in Political Essays (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1976), pp. 13–29. 6. The German formula “Wandel durch Annäherung” was used by Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr in the context of their Ostpolitik in the early 1970s.

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Soviet compliance in the field of human rights.7 This turn was made possible by a global shift in awareness of human rights violations and toward humanitarian diplomacy, exemplified by the intense public mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jews that prompted the Jackson-Vanik Amendment’s adoption in the United States. The research presented in this article draws on Samuel Moyn’s theory about the rise of human rights as a global ideological paradigm in the 1970s.8 Unlike Moyn, who explains this rise by pointing to the failure of socialist utopias after 1968, I emphasize the strategic dimension of the shift. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Soviet dissidents, who had initially believed that liberalization of the regime could result from reformist policies on the domestic and international scene, turned thereafter to Western political actors and groups to put pressure on Soviet leaders. Although Medvedev’s continued advocacy of détente made him a minority in the dissident movement, his vision still enjoyed support in Western Eu- rope in the 1970s, particularly in socialist circles, and the proclaimed success of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik testifies to the appeal of this approach of “bridge- building” between the East and West. Ultimately, the Helsinki Accords were a success thanks to both the process of détente that made their conclusion possible and the activism of human rights groups who called on the Soviet government to implement the Helsinki Final Act’s provisions. The promises of détente, however, could not be achieved until after a new generation of leaders had come to power in the Soviet Union. The plausibility of such a sce- nario was central to the Sakharov-Medvedev debate in the mid-1970s, but in those years a “perestroika” launched from above seemed an unlikely outcome to a generation of dissidents who had witnessed the crushing of the Prague Spring by Soviet troops in August 1968.

Sakharov’s and Medvedev’s Calls for Détente

On 10 July 1968 Sakharov called Medvedev and asked him to turn on the BBC. The radio was broadcasting Sakharov’s essay Reﬂections on Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom.9 Having initially avoided public debates,

7. Daniel C. Thomas, Boomerangs and Superpowers: The “Helsinki Network” and Human Rights in US Foreign Policy, EUI Working Papers, RSC No. 99/23, European University Institute Florence, San Domenico, 1999. 8. Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). 9. Roi Medvedev, “Iz vospominanii ob A. D. Sakharove,” in Zhores Medvedev and Roi Medvedev, eds., Nobelevskie laureaty Rossii (Moscow: Vremia, 2015), p. 42.

140 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights he had become increasingly active in the 1950s and 1960s, lobbying Nikita Khrushchev to end atmospheric testing of thermonuclear weapons and advo- cating against Trofim Lysenko’s spurious biological theories and Joseph Stalin’s rehabilitation.10 Sakharov’s friendship with Medvedev, an independent historian who was conducting research on Stalinism, further opened his eyes.11 When Sakharov decided to expound his views on contemporary problems in an essay, in early 1968, Medvedev provided feedback and technical assistance, typing and circulating the text among his friends to collect reviews Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 and comments.12 Sakharov reworked the text and sent it to the leader of the CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev, but earlier versions circulated broadly in samizdat and crossed the Iron Curtain. The essay was published in a Dutch newspaper on 6 June 1968 and two weeks later in The New York Times.13 The publication brought Sakharov worldwide fame. In that year of student upheaval, his manifesto for world peace hit a chord, selling 18 million copies the first year. Overall, 65 editions of the essay appeared, with translations into seventeen languages.14 In the essay, Sakharov presented for the first time his ideas about world peace, détente, and the convergence of the capitalist and Communist sys- tems. As a pioneering nuclear weapons scientist, Sakharov could understand better than anyone else the destructive power of modern nuclear armaments. He argued that “enough warheads have already been accumulated to destroy mankind many times over” and that no effective defense system could be devised, and he concluded that the only solution was for humanity “to over- come its divisions.”15 In the international arena, he pointed to two sore points:

10. Jay Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), ch. 7; Susanne Schattenberg, “Les frontières du dicible,” Cahiers du monde russe, Vol. 54, No. 3–4 (Summer 2013), pp. 441–466. Troﬁm Lysenko was an agrobiologist whose theories about the inheritance of acquired characteristics gained predominance in Soviet science under Stalin and retained this status until 1964, despite the inefﬁcacy of his methods. Sakharov openly opposed the nomination of Nikolai Nuzhdin, one of Lysenko’s supporters, to the Academy of Sciences in June 1964. In 1966, Sakharov was among the 25 prominent signatories of a letter to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party, opposing Stalin’s public rehabilitation. See Andrei Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971: Tak slozhilas’ zhizn’ (Moscow: KoLibri, Azbuka-Attikus, 2016), pp. 374– 376. 11. Sakharov praised this Medvedev’s book in his essay and later recalled that it had “contributed to an acceleration of the evolution of [his] views in those critical years.” Sakharov, Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, p. 54; and Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, p. 380. 12. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, p. 392; and Medvedev, “Iz vospominanii ob A. D. Sakharove,” p. 41. 13. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, pp. 393–399; and Medvedev, “Iz vospominanii ob A. D. Sakharove,” pp. 40–42. 14. Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason, p. 135. 15. Sakharov, Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, pp. 34–37.

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Vietnam and the Middle East, where the two great powers led proxy wars and fostered instability. Instead of considering international relations as a zero-sum game, the two camps should collaborate to secure world peace. This implied respect for human rights and the right to self-determination everywhere, re- nunciation of foreign interventions intended to foster or combat revolution or to widen one’s zone of influence, and mutual economic and organizational assistance to defuse international tensions. Among the dangers facing humanity, Sakharov cited fascism and militaristic-nationalistic regimes, such as Mao Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Zedong’s China; hunger and overpopulation in underdeveloped countries; pollution of the environment; and the threat to intellectual freedom deriv- ing from censorship and political repression. Détente was therefore a pressing necessity, and dialogue between the two blocs was a condition for the survival of human life. Sakharov predicted that the two blocs, engaged in peaceful competition to enhance the economic and moral attractiveness of their models, would progressively converge toward each other. The socialist system would democratize and undergo economic reforms, and the capitalist system would adopt social reforms, and both camps would then turn toward “peaceful coexistence.” The two blocs would then ally to fight issues of general concern, such as world hunger and the preservation of the environment. Ultimately, this convergence would lead to the creation of a world government. Sakharov wrote his essay in the spring of 1968, at a time when far- reaching reforms that were under way in Czechoslovakia seemed to be vin- dicating his model of convergence. Sakharov’s notion of peaceful coexistence drew inspiration from the concept coined by Vladimir Lenin and further developed by Khrushchev, and he emphasized that his views were socialist even though his advocacy of convergence clearly set his vision apart ideologically.16 His inspiration came from the scientific world; namely, from philosophical concepts developed by Western scientists and humanists Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Leo Szilard, Bertrand Russell, and Albert Schweitzer.17 Roy Medvedev was generally in agreement with Sakharov’s views.18 His comments on the essay in his samizdat journal Political Diary underscored

16. “Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie,” in Vsemirnaya istoriya: Entsiklopediya (Moscow: Olma-Media Grupp; OLMA-PRESS Obrazovanie, 2006). 17. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, p. 392; and Medvedev, “Iz vospominanii ob A. D. Sakharove,” p. 40. For a discussion of these inﬂuences, see Robert E. Marshak, “The Pragmatic Hu- manism of Bohr, Einstein and Sakharov,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 132, No. 3 (1988), pp. 268–275. 18. Medvedev, “Iz vospominanii ob A. D. Sakharove,” p. 41.

142 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights the proximity of Sakharov’s propositions to his own program for democratization of the Soviet regime.19 During the Prague Spring, Medvedev had begun to write a long essay on political philosophy titled On Socialist Democracy, which was published in the West in 1972. His program for democratization of the regime foresaw greater inner-party democracy, an increased role for elected executive and legislative bodies, a democratic and independent judi- ciary system, greater freedom of speech and the press, freedom of movement within the country and abroad, economic and political reforms resulting in Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 the decentralization of decision-making and greater autonomy, and a struggle against bureaucracy. In the international field, Medvedev expressed his conviction that “democratization of Soviet society would not only have an enor- mous influence on life within the country, but also on foreign policy and the position of the Soviet Union in the world at large.”20 The decision-making process would be made more transparent and democratic, with open discussion on various foreign policy options. Democratization in the USSR would foster greater trust on the international scene; strengthen the position of Com- munist parties in the West, making them more likely to enter coalitions with social democrats; and ultimately facilitate the resolution of such international problems as disarmament.21 In March 1970 Sakharov, Medvedev, and the physicist Valentin Turchin sent a common appeal for the gradual democratization of Soviet society to Soviet leaders.22 The memorandum’s central idea was that the scientific- technological revolution had made freedom of information a crucial prerequisite for technical innovation and efficient management. If the Soviet Union was to catch up with the Western bloc, it had to implement a course of progressive democratization and economic reforms. The signatories recom- mended several measures in the international field: an end to the jamming of foreign radio broadcasts, the free sale of foreign publications, adherence by the USSR to the Universal Copyright Convention, increases in international tourism to and from the USSR, and expansion of international postal and other communications.23 In addition, they emphasized the need for “far- reaching international cooperation” between the two blocs: “persistent search

19. Medvedev ﬁrst mentioned Sakharov’s essay in Political Diary in June 1968. Later, he published in his journal numerous reactions to Reﬂections from Soviet and Western intellectuals. Arkhiv Istorii Inakomysliya v SSSR (1953–1957), Mezhdunarodnyi Memorial, Fond 128, Box 2. 20. Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy, p. 284. 21. Ibid., pp. 282–289. 22. Medvedev, Sakharov, and Turchin, “Appeal for a Gradual Democratization.” 23. Ibid., p. 408.

143 Martin for lines of rapprochement in scientific-technical, economic, cultural, and ideological areas; and the rejection in principle of weapons of mass destruc- tion.”24 The nuclear-armed powers had to endeavor publicly not to use nuclear weapons first, and democratization of the Soviet Union would, in turn, have a positive impact on Soviet foreign policy and public understanding of it.25 The line defended by this appeal was one of conciliation and compromise with the authorities. Typically for the time, the signatories fell short of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 calling for a multiparty system and sought only incremental change rather than radical reform. Susanne Schattenberg has pointed out that the content of the appeal was strikingly similar to Brezhnev’s own discourse.26 Sakharov attributed this “bridge-building” approach to Turchin, but it was in line with the signatories’ willingness to lobby Soviet officials for change two years after the Prague Spring had been crushed.27 The onset of détente seemed to justify hopes that Soviet leaders would open up Soviet borders and that increased exchanges across the Iron Curtain would facilitate democratization of the regime.

Détente on the International Scene

A report from the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) on 26 August 1968 notes that some foreign diplomats believed Sakharov’s Reflections had been de- liberately leaked by the KGB to the West to prepare global public opinion for an upcoming U.S.-Soviet rapprochement.28 The proposals contained in Sakharov’s essay were partly implemented in the international field through the policy of détente developed by Brezhnev with his Western interlocutors in the early 1970s. After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev had turned to a policy of “peaceful coexistence.” However, his fiery character sparked several dangerous confrontations with the West, including the 1958–1961 Berlin crisis and 1962 Cuban missile crisis. As Brezhnev consolidated his personal power after ousting Khrushchev in October 1964, he sought to leave his mark in the foreign policy field and departed from Khrushchev’s nuclear brinkmanship.

24. Ibid., p. 411. 25. Ibid., p. 411. 26. Schattenberg, “Les frontières du dicible,” pp. 460–462. 27. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, p. 424. 28. S. Tsvigun to the Central Committee, 26 August 1968, in Joshua Rubenstein and Alexander Grib- anov, eds., The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 94–95.

144 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

Influenced by wartime experiences, Brezhnev was determined to avert war with the Western bloc.29 To win approval from his CPSU Politburo colleagues, some of whom favored reconciliation with Mao’s China and the resumption of confrontation with the West, Brezhnev emphasized the economic gains that would accrue from détente.30 In the West, French President Charles de Gaulle was the first to advocate détente with the Soviet Union. Convergence theories had enjoyed great popularity in France from the late 1950s on. For de Gaulle, however, con- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 vergence meant balancing U.S. influence through a rapprochement with the Soviet bloc, a kind of “negative convergencism” that emphasized national interest at the expense of ideology. De Gaulle’s 1959 call for a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals” and his decision to pull French forces out of the inte- grated military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1966 were in line with these ideas, which continued to inform his succes- sors’ foreign policy to some degree.31 Next to take up a policy of détente with Moscow was U.S. President Lyn- don B. Johnson, who hoped to garner Moscow’s support for a settlement of the Vietnam War. This tacit support in turn allowed for the formulation of a West German Ostpolitik under the leadership of Chancellor Brandt and his chief foreign policy adviser, Egon Bahr.32 One of the cornerstones of Ostpolitik was the recognition of post–World War II borders, in particular between the two Germanies. Bahr showed himself willing to compromise on this point by agreeing that, over time, restoring dialogue with East Germany could lead to reunification of the two states.33 After the signing of a West German–Soviet non-aggression pact in August 1970 and a West German–Polish treaty ac- knowledging the Oder-Neisse border the following December, an agreement settling the status of West Berlin was finally signed by the four occupying powers in September 1971.

29. Susanne Schattenberg, Leonid Breschnew: Staatsmann und Schauspieler im Schatten Stalins. Eine Biographie. (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2017), pp. 478–521. 30. Ibid., pp. 481–482, 506–507. 31. Georges-Henri Soutou, “Convergence Theories in France during the 1960s and 1970s,” in Wil- fried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou, eds., The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 25–48. 32. Irvin M. Wall, “The United States and Two Ostpolitiks: De Gaulle and Brandt,” in Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou, eds., The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 140. 33. Gerhard Wettig, “Die ‘neue Ostpolitik’ Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und die Veränderungen dieses Konzepts in den achtziger Jahren,” Forum für osteuropäische Ideen und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 2013), pp. 33, 37.

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West Germany’s Ostpolitik heralded a type of détente that saw human contacts across the Iron Curtain as a factor in long-term change, following Bahr’s formula of “change through rapprochement.” This policy, which could potentially destabilize the Soviet bloc and trigger Soviet intervention to “tame” a rebel satellite state, was at odds with the type of détente being advocated by U.S. President Richard Nixon, who emphasized stability in the Eastern bloc as a necessity for lasting peace.34 As Douglas Selvage has shown, Nixon’s policy—which eventually proved ineffective—consisted in encouraging the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 independence of East European Communist parties vis-à-vis Moscow, rather than in fostering popular resistance to East-bloc regimes.35 Nevertheless, in the early 1970s, Nixon’s rapprochement with Moscow, accelerated by the normalization of relations between Beijing and Washing- ton, seemed a fruitful course.36 His visit to Moscow in May–June 1972 led to the signature of a package of agreements: an Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and a statement on “Basic Principles of Relations,” designating the principle of equality as a basis for U.S.-Soviet détente. The signature in October 1972 of a U.S.-Soviet trade agreement, which granted Most Favored Nation status to the Soviet Union, was seen by Moscow as an economic boon. Political rapprochement through trade was a policy long supported by advocates of convergence as well as by promoters of free trade. Conversely, opponents of free trade and détente converged with human rights advocates in their opposition to the Trade Act. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, this joint liberal-conservative opposition took advantage of Nixon’s weakened position and voiced its opposition to Henry Kissinger’s “quiet diplomacy,” which had failed, in their view, to prevent human rights infringements in the USSR.

The Jackson-Vanik Amendment and the Rise of Human Rights Diplomacy

A central stumbling block in U.S.-Soviet relations was the issue of Soviet Jew- ish emigration. In the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, which resulted in a

34. Wall, “The United States and Two Ostpolitiks,” p. 142. 35. Douglas Selvage, “Transforming the Soviet Sphere of Inﬂuence? U.S.-Soviet Détente and Eastern Europe, 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (September 2009), pp. 671–687. 36. Henry Kissinger, TheWhiteHouseYears(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979), pp. 836–837; and Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 216.

146 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights renewed anti-Zionist campaign in the USSR, Jewish emigration from the So- viet Union grew into a major humanitarian cause in the United States. Soviet Jewish activists, who increasingly identified with Israel and Jewish culture, split after 1969 into a majority Zionist current agitating for emigration and a minority current calling for a renewal of Jewish cultural and religious life inside the USSR.37 Partly for domestic reasons, partly to obtain concessions from the United States, the Soviet authorities allowed for an increase of emigration to Israel on grounds of family reunification. The number of emigrants Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 jumped from 1,000 in 1970 to 14,000 in 1971 and 31,500 in 1972, with a peak of 33,500 in 1973.38 In the United States, grassroots groups supporting freedom of emigration for Soviet Jews played a crucial role in raising public awareness of the issue and placing this item on the political agenda, despite the Nixon administration’s unwillingness to raise the question in its negotiations with Moscow. With the support of congressional members eager to promote an increasingly popular cause, Jewish and human rights activists succeeded in shifting the U.S. diplomatic agenda from détente toward human rights.39 The breaking point was reached in August 1972, when the Soviet authorities adopted a law subjecting emigrants to a “diploma tax,” which com- pensated the state for the cost of their higher education. The prospect of the CPSU trying to prevent Jewish emigration while placating the West with empty promises to obtain Western credits aroused indignation far beyond the Jewish community. Despite numerous exemptions granted in response to the international outcry and the tacit suspension of the “diploma tax” in March 1973, the furor contributed to the formation of a united liberal-conservative front of opposition to détente.40 Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA) was one of the first politicians to call for “linkage” between trade and human rights in December 1971. Amid the public outcry raised by the “diploma tax,” he succeeded in building a powerful coalition around a project to amend the Trade Act, making certain provisions conditional on an increase of emigration from the Soviet Union. In the Sen- ate, Jackson lined up 72 cosponsors, and Charles Vanik (D-OH) sponsored the amendment in the House of Representatives.41 Jackson’s championing of

37. Pauline Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques: Washington, Moscou, Jérusalem, 1953–1989 (Paris: A. Colin, 2006), pp. 174–176. 38. Thomas E. Sawyer, The Jewish Minority in the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 188, 203. 39. Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques, pp. 194–195. 40. Sawyer, The Jewish Minority in the Soviet Union, pp. 194–197; and Zubok, A Failed Empire, p. 232. 41. Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques, pp. 202, 224–225.

147 Martin human rights issues was inspired by both moral and political considerations. As Jeff Bloodworth has emphasized, the senator was a “liberal internationalist” who believed in the U.S. duty to spread democratic values worldwide and to combat Communism. As a liberal “Cold warrior,” he lobbied for increased military spending but also looked to wage war on the battlefield of human rights. From Jackson’s perspective, Nixon’s détente was detrimental to U.S. strategic interests and to the country’s moral mission.42 But he also had presidential ambitions, and his confrontational methods were calculated to reap Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 political benefits. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment set back Nixon and Brezhnev in their pursuit of détente. Although Kissinger did believe in linkage, he had aimed at extracting tradeoffs from Moscow in the foreign policy field. By denying him the “carrot” of economic incentives, the amendment undercut his foreign policy strategy.43 In January 1973, after Nixon was reelected, he endeavored to obtain concessions from Moscow that would convince Jackson to withdraw his amendment. However, the tacit lifting of the “diploma tax” and unwritten promises from Moscow that 95.5 percent of Soviet Jews’ requests to emigrate would be satisfied were not enough to placate the senator. Nixon’s attempts to pressure Jewish community leaders to withdraw their support for Jackson also failed, and Nixon lost the battle of public opinion.44 On 11 December 1973, the House of Representatives adopted the amendment by a four-fifths majority.45 Thereafter, Nixon’s only hope was to convince Jackson to withdraw his amendment, but Jackson’s success in rolling back the “diploma tax” reinforced his belief that the Soviet Union would yield to further pressure. For Kissinger, however,

it was one thing for the Soviet Union to give ground with respect to a single administrative act, quite another to permit a foreign nation to impose policies on matters that international law clearly placed in the domestic jurisdiction of a sovereign state—and, to compound the injury, to do so publicly.46

42. Jeff Bloodworth, “Senator Henry Jackson, the Solzhenitsyn Affair, and American Liberalism,” Pa- ciﬁc Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Spring 2006), pp. 69–71. 43. Henry Kissinger and William Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New York: New Press, 1998), p. 324. 44. Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques, pp. 230–231, 238–242. 45. William Korey, “The Struggle over Jackson-Mills-Vanik,” American Jewish Yearbook,Vol.75 (1974–1975), p. 199. 46. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little-Brown, 1982), p. 987.

148 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

Soviet Ambassador Anatolii Dobrynin later claimed that a compromise could have been reached if not for Jackson’s constant escalation of his demands.47 In the spring of 1974, Jackson announced he would withdraw the amendment in exchange for a Soviet commitment to a target of 100,000 Jewish emigrants per year, but Soviet leaders only grudgingly consented to a target of up to 45,000 exit visas.48 This gap between U.S. and Soviet expectations was reﬂected in a tongue-in-cheek remark by Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs

Andrei Gromyko that the Soviet government “did not want to put itself in the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 position where it had to recruit citizens to emigrate to fulfill a moral obliga- tion to the United States.”49 When Gerald Ford, well known for his support of Israel and Soviet Jews, replaced Nixon after the latter’s resignation, he ob- tained from Dobrynin an unwritten commitment to a quota of 50,000 exit visas. Meanwhile, Kissinger and Jackson reached agreement on the terms under which the amendment would be waived: a commitment to grant 60,000 visas yearly and to end harassment of Jewish emigrants. Although Gromyko warned the secretary of state that the Soviet Union would not accept any official quota, Jackson decided to make the agreement public in the form of an exchange of letters with Kissinger, released on 18 October 1974. Kissinger’s letter contained only the vague promise that the lifting of barriers would cause emigration to “rise promptly from the 1973 level,” but Jackson’s response mentioned a quota of 60,000 exit visas.50 Embarrassed by Jackson’s public disclosure, the White House released a statement affirming that Moscow had given no specific numbers.51 This incident created a new diplomatic crisis as Brezhnev rejected Jackson’s target of 60,000 Soviet emigrants per year, a figure he claimed to be well above the real number of Soviet applicants, and Gromyko wrote an official letter of protest to Kissinger.52 However, the

47. Anatolii Dobrynin, In Conﬁdence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents: (1962–1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), p. 269. 48. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 995. 49. Ibid., p. 995. 50. “USA/USSR The Jackson Amendment,” Index on Censorship,Vol. 4, No. 1 (1975), pp. 71–73. See also Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques, pp. 244–245. 51. “Message from the Counselor of the Department of State (Sonnenfeldt) to Secretary of State Kissinger,” 21 October 1974, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969– 1976, Vol. XVI, p. 174 (hereinafter referred to as FRUS, with appropriate year and volume numbers); and Raymond Leonard Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1985), p. 509. 52. Kissinger and Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts, pp. 332–333; and Garthoff, Détente and Confronta- tion, pp. 508–510. For the Gromyko letter, see “Letter from Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko to Secretary of State Kissinger,” 26 October 1974, in FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. XVI, p. 274.

149 Martin secretary of state kept the letter secret and conveyed the impression that the emigration issue had been settled with Moscow, perhaps hoping that Soviet leaders would “swallow the pill” in exchange for the signing of the strategic nuclear arms control agreement.53 On 18 December, the Soviet news agency TASS made Gromyko’s letter public, emphasizing that “leading circles” in the USSR “categorically reject” any attempts from outside to interfere in Soviet internal affairs.54

After a two-year battle, the amendment was eventually adopted by both Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 houses of Congress on 20 December and signed into law by President Ford as part of the Trade Act of 1974, on 3 January 1975. Shortly thereafter, however, the Soviet Union backed away from the October 1972 trade agreement with the United States, arguing that the amendment constituted interference in its internal affairs. Because growing trade relations and credits granted by West- ern Europe had by then overshadowed economic ties with the United States, the Soviet Union could afford such a move economically.55 An adverse result of the adoption of the amendment was the curtailing of Jewish emigration, which dropped to 13,000 exits in 1975.56 President Ford in his ﬁrst State of the Union address, less than two weeks after passage of the Trade Act, expressed regret that “legislative restrictions, intended for the best motives and purposes, can have the opposite result, as we have seen most recently in our trade relations with the Soviet Union.”57 Several historians have emphasized the drawbacks of this amendment, which remained in force until 2012. For Geoffrey P.Levin, “the passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment was a ‘feel-good’ moment for most American pro- emigration activists,” but its results were contested in later years, even within the Jewish community.58 For Pauline Peretz, the amendment was doomed to fail for a variety of reasons: Jackson’s refusal to compromise and let the So- viet Union “save face”; the lack of conﬁdentiality of the negotiation; and the

53. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, pp. 510–511. 54. John Spanier and Joseph Nogee, Congress, the Presidency and American Foreign Policy: Pergamon Policy Studies on International Politics (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), p. 16. 55. Kissinger and Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts, pp. 356–357. Korey also points out that the granting of Most Favored Nation status was mostly a matter of prestige. Only manufactured products were subjected to tariffs, and U.S. imports consisted predominantly of raw materials. See Korey, “The Struggle over Jackson-Mills-Vanik,” p. 230. 56. Sawyer, The Jewish Minority in the Soviet Union, pp. 188, 204–205. 57. Werner D. Lippert, The Economic Diplomacy of Ostpolitik (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), p. 138. 58. Geoffrey P. Levin, “Before Soviet Jewry’s Happy Ending: The Cold War and America’s Long De- bate over Jackson-Vanik, 1976–1989,” Shofar, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2015), p. 67.

150 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights disproportion between an ambitious objective, with a significant destabilizing potential for Soviet society and Soviet allies in the Near East, and the means to reach it. Moreover, the lack of priority of the issue for U.S. foreign policy, competition between executive and legislative powers, and the electoral context, which pushed Jackson to a counterproductive show of strength, further undermined the negotiations.59 Finally, the amendment was premised on a flawed understanding of the power balance: Jewish emigration had begun to decline even before the amendment was adopted as a result of the Soviet Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Union’s lesser dependence on U.S. imports and mounting opposition within the Soviet Politburo to further concessions to Washington.60 These later assessments, however, overlook the nature of the debate of 1973–1974, which focused less on efficacy than on morality. As the debate shifted from diplomatic to humanitarian ground, new actors came to occupy the center stage. The U.S. presidency’s erosion as a result of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal allowed Congress to play an increasing role in foreign policy.61 Accordingly, the lobbying of Jewish activists, as well as the Soviet dissidents on whose behalf they advocated, exercised crucial influence.

Sakharov’s Support for the Jackson-Vanik Amendment

Sakharov’s appeal to the U.S. Congress in September 1973—the result of a progressive evolution of his views since 1968—constituted an important mile- stone for him. Throughout his dissident career, Sakharov addressed count- less appeals to Soviet political leaders and had direct contacts in the 1950s and 1960s with Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and KGB head Yurii Andropov.62 Sakharov’s reputation as a scientist initially gave him some inﬂuence, but as the gap between his requests and the Soviet authorities’ willingness to take them into consideration widened, he grew increasingly skeptical about the possibility of convincing the highest leaders to curb political repression and democratize the country. Moreover, his discourse shifted from an emphasis on domestic reform to the ﬁeld of human rights. Ultimately, this evolution affected not only his objectives but also his methods of action.

59. Peretz, Le combat pour les Juifs soviétiques, pp. 254–255. 60. Ibid., pp. 256–257. 61. Ibid., pp. 221–222. 62. Schattenberg, “Les frontières du dicible.”

151 Martin

In March 1971, still hoping to meet with Brezhnev, Sakharov addressed a new memorandum to the leaders of the CPSU.63 The text repeated his previous pleas but with a new emphasis on human rights. Notifying the authorities that he, together with Valerii Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov, had formed a Human Rights Committee, he called once more for “a dialogue with the country’s leadership and a frank and public discussion of human rights.”64 Far from welcoming Sakharov’s outstretched hand, the authorities only stepped up repression against dissent. The year 1972 saw the arrest of such emblem- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 atic ﬁgures of the movement as Petr Yakir and Viktor Krasin, who were forced to recant their views on Soviet television in September 1973. As Sakharov resolved to publish his memorandum in the West in June 1972, he added a more incisive “postscript” that underscored his increasing disillusionment.65 In subsequent months, he released numerous appeals on behalf of political prisoners. By November 1972, he declared in an interview with Newsweek that he no longer considered himself a socialist. “I would call myself a liberal,” he declared.66 The memorandum’s publication was symptomatic of the evolution of Sakharov’s strategy of action, reﬂecting a broader trend among Soviet dissidents. Soviet human rights activists were steadily losing faith in the possibility of a dialogue with the authorities, and they turned to the West as an audience for their calls. By addressing a Western public, Sakharov was sending a signal to Soviet leaders that he could use publicity in the Western media to add weight to his demands. For his “boomerang” advocacy of human rights, Sakharov needed political allies in the West. The convergence was particularly clear on the question of Jewish emigration. As Yaacov Ro’i and Joshua Rubenstein have emphasized, cooperation between the Jewish “refusenik” movement and the human rights movement was not a given, especially because Israel had advised Soviet Jews against associating with dissidents. Yet the multiple personal connections through family and social ties resulted in a strong solidarity between the two movements.67 In 1970, Sakharov met his future wife, Elena Bonner,

63. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1921–1971, pp. 456–457. 64. Andrei Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, ed. by Harrison E. Salisbury (London: Collins & Harvill Press, 1974), p. 137. 65. Ibid., p. 155. 66. “A Voice out of Russia,” Observer (London), 3 December 1972, quoted in Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason, p. 184. 67. Joshua Rubenstein and Yaacov Ro’i, “Human Rights and National Rights: The Interaction of the Jewish Movement with Other Dissident Groups,” in Yaacov Ro’i, ed., The Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), p. 202. Sarah Fainberg has also emphasized the strains in this relationship in “Friends Abroad: How the Western Campaign for

152 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights a human-rights activist with Jewish-Armenian roots, who became his irre- placeable “political partner.”68 Through her and through contacts with other dissidents, many of them of Jewish descent, he grew keenly aware of the plight not only of Soviet refuseniks but also of Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars. His advocacy of free emigration played a signiﬁcant role in turning the issue of repatriation to a historic homeland from a particularistic claim of given ethnic groups into a universal human rights cause.69

On 7 October 1971, Sakharov released an appeal to the Supreme So- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 viet for the liberalization of emigration. This was a key “spiritual freedom,” and Sakharov argued that only a small number of Soviet citizens would take advantage of it. But, he added, it was essential in itself, for “a free country cannot resemble a cage, even if it is gilded and supplied with material things.” He called for new legislation allowing Soviet citizens not only to emigrate but to return, along with amnesty for those convicted of trying to escape.70 Sakharov also had a personal stake in the issue, for by this point he had begun a protracted fight to secure permission for his stepchildren to emigrate to the United States.71 By 1973, Sakharov had begun to warn the West about a one-sided dé- tente that would solely benefit the Soviet Union, and his position increasingly converged with that of Senator Jackson and his supporters. In March 1973, as the USSR announced its intention to join the Universal Copyright Conven- tion, Sakharov and five other dissidents cautioned that the Soviet authorities might abuse the Convention to censor dissident authors.72 In July 1973 in an interview with a Swedish journalist, Sakharov expressed his skepticism toward socialism in general, and its application in the Soviet Union in particular. He also reiterated his conviction that a country that did not allow emigration was “defective, a closed volume where all processes develop differently from those of an open system.”73 Following this interview, an article denouncing Sakharov as a “purveyor of libel” appeared in the weekly Literaturnaya gazeta,andon15August,he

Soviet Jews Inﬂuenced Activists in the Soviet Union,” in Yaacov, ed., The Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union, p. 411. 68. Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason, p. 154. 69. Ibid., p. 176. 70. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, pp. 160–163. 71. Andrei Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1971–1989: Zhizn’ prodolzhaetsya (Moscow: KoLibri, Azbuka- Attikus, 2016), pp. 54, 67–68, 101–102. Bonner’s children were excluded from university and applied for visas to the United States in April 1973. 72. Andrei Sakharov, Za i protiv 1973 god: Dokumenty, fakty, sobytiya (Moskva: PIK, 1991), pp. 34–35. 73. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, p. 175.

153 Martin was summoned to appear before Deputy Prosecutor General Mikhail Mal- yarov. Sakharov made the content of their conversation public in the Western press and convened a press conference with foreign journalists on 21 August.74 For the ﬁrst time, he publicly stated his support of the Jackson-Vanik Amend- ment and warned about the dangers of unconditional détente. Although he still stood for convergence as the only alternative to war, he perceived the sit- uation as more complex than he had realized in 1968. The main question was: Would rapprochement be accompanied by democratization, or would Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 the West simply accept the Soviet rules of the game without demanding any quid pro quo?

Such a rapprochement would be dangerous in the sense that it would not really solve any of the world’s problems and would mean simply capitulating in the faceofrealorexaggeratedSovietpower....Ithinkthatifrapprochementwere to proceed totally without qualifications, on Soviet terms, it would pose a serious threat to the world as a whole. . . . It would mean cultivation and encouragement of a closed country, where everything that happens may be shielded from outside eyes, a country wearing a mask that hides its true face. I would not wish it on anyone to live next to such a neighbor, especially if he is at the same time armed to the teeth.75 Sakharov’s depiction of the Soviet Union as a dangerous, untrustworthy power signaled a break with his previous strategy. After his attempts to lobby the So- viet authorities had failed, he shifted toward direct confrontation. As he saw it, the threat to world peace represented by Moscow justified the extraction of concessions as trade-offs for détente. Therefore, the Jackson-Vanik Amend- ment was but “a minimal step,” albeit of considerable symbolic significance.76 In response, the Soviet propaganda apparatus retaliated against Sakharov with a furious smear campaign. In a letter published in Pravda, forty members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences voiced their indignation over Sakharov’s stance on détente. They accused him of “de facto aligning himself with the most reactionary imperialist circles” in actively opposing détente, the “development of scientific and cultural cooperation, [and] the strengthening of peace among peoples.”77 This letter was but the first in a daily flow of letters

74. “The Sakharov Dialogue,” The New York Times, 29 August 1973, p. 18. See also Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, pp. 180–192. 75. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, pp. 204–205. 76. Ibid., p. 205. 77. Andrei Sakharov, Trevoga i nadezhda: Stat’i, pis’ma, vystupleniya, interv’yu, ed. by Elena Bonner, Vol. 1, 1958–1986 (Moscow: Vremya, 2006), p. 647.

154 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights in the ofﬁcial media, orchestrated by the CPSU Propaganda Department in the name of “indignant” workers and scientists.78 On 14 September, Sakharov directly addressed the U.S. Congress. In his letter, he unequivocally expressed support for the Jackson-Vanik Amend- ment, which, he argued, defended “the right to freedom of residence in the country of one’s choice” proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Beyond the merits of guaranteeing this right to every Soviet citizen,

Sakharov emphasized the symbolic signiﬁcance of the amendment for dé- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 tente as a whole. He denied that the amendment would undermine Soviet prestige or be interpreted as interference in the country’s internal affairs. Nor would it imperil détente. On the contrary, he pointed out the danger of re- nouncing the defense of international law. Such a “total capitulation of democratic principles in the face of blackmail, deceit, and violence” would have unpredictable consequences for “international conﬁdence, détente, and the entire future of mankind.” He concluded by calling on the U.S. Congress to “realize its historical responsibility before mankind” and support the amendment.79 On 17 September, Senator Jackson introduced Sakharov’s letter to the Senate with the following words:

never in the more than 30 years that I have served in the House and Senate have I seen a letter that so deeply challenges the conscience of the Congress or so profoundly appeals to the spirit of the American people, as the brave letter released in Moscow Saturday by Andrei Sakharov. Praising Sakharov’s courage and moral stance and citing his call, Jackson concluded:

Mr President, Sakharov, by speaking out at this moment when both he himself and the movement for human rights are gravely threatened by the full power of the Soviet state, has challenged each of us to higher levels of conscience and responsibility.80 In his memoirs, Sakharov called this declaration one of his most well-known and most effective appeals.81 The alliance with Jackson constituted a bold political move and successfully demonstrated Sakharov’s ability to build

78. Sakharov, Za i protiv 1973 god, pp. 106–107. 79. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, pp. 212–215. 80. “A Letter from Dr. Sakharov: Remarks by Senator Henry M. Jackson on Détente and Freedom of Emigration,” 17 September 1973, in Open Society Archive (OSA), HU OSA 300-120-7, Box 182. 81. Sakharov, Vospominaniya 1971–1989, p. 89.

155 Martin coalitions with political partners in the West. According to William Korey, Sakharov’s support of the amendment led to

an unexpected broadening of the Jackson coalition. Many militant doves, who had been suspicious of Senator Jackson’s hawkish record, now urged support of his amendment. The coalition took on an increasingly humanitarian edge; no longer could it be challenged as merely hardnosed and anti-détente.82

Several prominent intellectuals were convinced by Sakharov’s advocacy: “Al- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 ways trust the man on the ﬁring line,” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in The Wall Street Journal.83 Kissinger, on the other hand, considered Sakharov’s letter misguided. Although Kissinger understood that the dissidents’ rigorous moral standards “made them resentful of the gradualism inherent in diplomatic methods,” he judged that

the “men on the ﬁring line” were not the best witnesses to design American strategy. Diplomacy may be, in Clausewitz’s terms, a continuation of war by other means, but it has its own, appropriate tactics. It acknowledges that, in relations between sovereign states, even the noblest ends can generally be achieved only in imperfect stages.84 Nevertheless, Sakharov took pains to defend himself against accusations that he was sabotaging détente. Responding to a collective letter from scientists of the Institute of Physics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, where he worked, he denied that he advocated “interference in our private affairs.” What really undermined détente and Soviet prestige, he argued, was the shameful campaign unleashed against him in Soviet media.85 In Octo- ber, Sakharov also answered an open letter in Le Monde by Samuel Pisar, an outspoken advocate of détente.86 Countering Pisar’s accusation that he was opposed to economic relations between the two blocs and in favor of ultimatums to the Soviet regime, Sakharov reiterated that his primary concern was to avoid nuclear war, that he favored the development of economic relations, and that he did not share the “exaggeratedly optimistic prognoses on

82. Korey, “The Struggle over Jackson-Mills-Vanik,” p. 226. 83. Spanier and Nogee, Congress, the Presidency and American Foreign Policy, p. 14; and Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 988. 84. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 989. 85. Andrei Sakharov, “Moya pozitsiya,” n.d., in Arkhiv Sakharova, Fond (F.) 1, Opis’ (Op.) 3, Edinitsa Khraneniya (Ed. Khr.) 67. 86. Samuel Pisar (1929–2015) was a U.S. lawyer and Holocaust survivor of Polish origin. He was the author of Les armes de la paix: L’ouverture économique vers l’Est (1970), an essay arguing that trade relations between East and West would decrease the risk of conﬂict.

156 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights the obligatory consequences that economic contacts would have on Soviet society’s democratization.” Although he opposed ultimatums between states, he “was convinced that a real détente, a real rapprochement implies a growth of mutual trust, mutual comprehension, a greater opening of society, public information, and democratic control.”87 The next year, Sakharov repeatedly reaffirmed his support of the Jackson- Vanik Amendment while calling on Soviet and U.S. leaders to take further steps toward the liberalization of the Soviet regime. In June 1974, during Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Nixon’s visit to Moscow, Sakharov began a hunger strike to protest the treat- ment of political prisoners and repeated his call for freedom of emigration.88 On 21 October 1974, the physicist publicly hailed the agreement reached between Jackson and Kissinger and called for specific legislation to be enacted to guarantee not only emigration but also the right to return from and travel abroad.89 The failure of the agreement did not shake his convictions. Speaking on U.S. television afterward, Sakharov expressed his conviction that “the U.S. Congresswillnotchangeitspositionofprinciple....Toyieldtopressure,to compromise on such a question of principle would not only be shameful, but also fatal to the process of détente.”90 Sakharov’s support of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment constituted a turning point in the dissident’s biography. After years of “quiet diplomacy,” seeking to influence Soviet leaders through letters and calls for democratization and human rights, Sakharov entered for the first time a political debate on the international scene. As an influential public intellectual of worldwide renown, he put his weight behind Jackson in order to exert pressure on the Soviet government. This bold strategy was in line with the rise of human rights on the international scene, which gave added voice to “men on the firing line” and their allies in the U.S. Congress. Conversely, traditional diplomatic channels, which relied on the secrecy of negotiations and necessary compro- mises, were criticized for failing to live up to rising moral standards. Sakharov’s charge against the Nixon-Brezhnev détente, designed for narrow economic purposes and largely ignoring human rights, reflected a widely shared sen- timent. Yet European leaders had shown that another kind of détente was

87. “Déclaration faite par l’académicien Andreï Sakharov à Michel Gordey,” L’express (Paris), 8–11 October 1973, p. 11. 88. Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason, p. 231; and “Obrashchenie Sakharova,” Russkaya mysl’ (Paris), 4 July 1974, p. 2. 89. “USA/USSR The Jackson Amendment,” p. 74. 90. “Tekst vystupleniya pered amerikanskimi telezritelyami v svyazi s otmenoi Sovetskim Soyuzom tor- govykh soglashenii s SShA 1972 goda i o podderzhke popravki Dzheksona,” n.d., in Arkhiv Sakharova, F. 1, Op. 3, Ed. Khr. 91.

157 Martin possible: Brandt’s Ostpolitik, emphasizing human contacts between the two blocs, held more appeal for those who had not lost faith in convergence. Medvedev was among them, standing at odds with much of the Soviet human rights movement.

Roy Medvedev’s Vision of Détente and Democratization Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Unlike Solzhenitsyn, Medvedev was not an opponent of emigration from the USSR. In his writings, he, much like Sakharov, called for liberalization in this area. The freedom to choose one’s place of residence, he said, was “a generally accepted democratic liberty in most civilized countries of the world.” He shared Sakharov’s belief that only a minority would be tempted to leave the USSR. The possibility of doing so, however, would generally improve the political climate, “not because certain ‘awkward’ citizens would leave as a result,” as the Soviet authorities hoped, “but because fear of a ‘brain drain’ would force state and party bodies to take much more seriously all the democratic rights and freedoms that are formally proclaimed as belonging to all Soviet citizens.”91 Medvedev and Sakharov disagreed, however, about strategies of action. The latter’s public support of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment forced Medvedev to take a position on the subject too. In September 1973, he wrote to his twin brother, Zhores, that he had to intervene to “dissociate himself” from Sakharov’s views.92 He claimed that Sakharov not only failed to emphasize the right questions but also was addressing the wrong audience. The U.S. Congress, Medvedev said, was not interested in the development of an economically strong and democratic Soviet Union.93 Zhores Medvedev, who by that time was living in exile in England and had just been stripped of his So- viet citizenship, was more attuned to public debates in the West. He warned his brother against such an intervention, which he feared would not be understood “correctly.”94

91. Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy, pp. 215–216. 92. Roy Medvedev to Zhores Medvedev, 26 September 1973, in Otdel Khraneniya Dokumentov Lich- nykh Sobranii Moskvy (OKhDLSM), Fond (F.) 333, Sdatochnaya Opis’ (Sd. Op.) 10, Uslovnoe Delo (U. D.) 1. 93. Roy Medvedev to Zhores Medvedev, 30 September 1973, in OKhDLSM, F. 333, Sd. Op. 10, U. D. 1. 94. Zhores Medvedev to Roy Medvedev, 3 October 1973, in OKhDLSM, F. 333, Sd. Op. 8, U. D. 1.

158 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

Nevertheless, Roy Medvedev went ahead with his plan and published an article in the West titled “Problems of Democratization and Détente.”95 In it, he paid tribute to the “peace offensive” that Brezhnev had launched, along with his Western partners, despite opposition within the Politburo. Yet he recognized that these changes on the international scene had not triggered liberalization domestically; on the contrary, repression against dissidents had increased after 1968, a circumstance for which he provided various possi- 96 ble explanations. He also praised the courage of dissidents who spoke up Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 in defense of human rights, although he regretted their lack of realism: they had “begun to express more and more extremist viewpoints, to put forward less and less constructive proposals, being moved more by emotions than by considerations of political efficacy.”97 He judged several recent statements by Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, and others to be counterproductive and called Sakharov’s support of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment “a mistaken step, both tactically and substantively.”98 The adoption of the amendment was unlikely to result in Soviet legislation allowing for unlimited emigration; deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations, with adverse effects on emigration policy, was a more plausible outcome. On the other hand, Medvedev believed that détente constituted a ben- eficial process, to be encouraged for its own sake. “Détente, co-operation, trade, and tourism” were, in Medvedev’s view, “important benefits in themselves,” which would ultimately “contribute to the extension of democratic rights and liberties” by giving added weight to internal and external protests.99 For it is precisely in periods of détente that the efficacy of public opinion grows considerably in shaping the internal affairs of each major power. By contrast, a country which is isolated and cut off from the outside world by various Cold War barriers becomes insensitive to protests and views beyond its frontiers. . . . In this sense, it must be said that the relaxation of international tension is in itself

95. This text was made available to foreign correspondents in Moscow on 8 November 1973. See “Roi Medvedev kritikuet,” Russkaya mysl’, 15 November 1973, p. 2. A shortened version of the article soon appeared in the West German weekly newspaper Die Zeit—R. A. Medwedjew, “Provokation gegen die Entspannung,” Die Zeit (Hamburg), No. 47 (23 November 1973); and “Hoffen auf die Freiheit,” Die Zeit, No. 48 (30 November 1973)—and was then reproduced in other media outlets in several languages. 96. Medvedev, “Democracy and Détente,” p. 14. 97. Ibid., p. 16. 98. Ibid., p. 24. 99. Ibid., p. 28.

159 Martin

a very important pre-condition, though not the only one, for the development of democracy in Soviet society.100 He pleaded for the benefits of détente to be considered from a long- term perspective: at present, the leaders of the CPSU were prepared to make concessions in the foreign policy field but not in internal affairs. Ultimatums demanding the fulfillment of preconditions for détente and economic cooperation were “unrealistic.” Nevertheless, over time, détente would have a spillover effect on the domestic level. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Medvedev was not optimistic about Soviet civil society’s capacity to trigger change on its own. Despite widespread dissatisfaction, he argued, the intelligentsia remained isolated and the masses passive. Although outside pressure might seem like a tempting solution to this conundrum, Medvedev considered it a double-edged sword and warned against possible adverse effects. He still believed that change could be initiated from above by progressive forces within the leadership. In particular, he hoped that current work on a Soviet constitution would lead to “significant improvements in the sections concerning the civic and political rights of Soviet citizens, and the constitutional guarantees of these rights,” including the right to emigration and return to one’s homeland.101 Because the human rights movement based its advocacy on a strategy of “legalism,” urging the government to respect its own laws, the inclusion of new freedoms in the constitution would, Medvedev insisted, be an important step forward.102 Appeals to Western political leaders who defended the interests of their countries’ ruling classes, in Medvedev’s view, were bound to be unproductive. Those leaders, he maintained, had no interest in furthering democratization in the Soviet Union and sought, on the contrary, to exploit Soviet weaknesses and to discredit Communism for their own ends. Instead, Medvedev recom- mended addressing left-wing forces in the West.103 The Medvedev brothers’ involvement in the debate on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment did not end in 1973. In October 1974, Zhores Medvedev was

100. Ibid., pp. 28–29. 101. Ibid., p. 24. 102. On this strategy, see Benjamin Nathans, “The Dictatorship of Reason: Aleksandr Vol’Pin and the Idea of Rights under ‘Developed Socialism,’” Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 4 (December 2007), pp. 630–663; and Benjamin Nathans, “Soviet Rights-Talk in the Post-Stalin Era,” in Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman, ed., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 167–190. 103. Medvedev, “Democracy and Détente,” pp. 24–25.

160 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights invited by Senator William Fulbright (D-AR), chair of the U.S. Senate For- eign Relations Committee, to testify on the subject of détente and Soviet emigration. During a previous stay in Washington, in May 1974, Zhores had also met Jackson and explained his and his brother’s position on the issue. The senator had told him it was too late to make substantial changes in the amendment.104 In 1975, after the Soviet Union declined to ratify the October 1972 trade agreement with the United States, Roy Medvedev expressed hope that it would Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 serve as a lesson for both sides. He paid tribute to Kissinger’s and Jackson’s efforts to extract concessions from the USSR. However, he regretted, these had been undermined by Jackson’s attempt to “achieve the impossible” and “present the difﬁcult compromise, just arrived at, in a form humiliating for the USSR,” while exploiting the outcome of collective action for “his own pretentious self-advertisement.”105 In response to this harsh critique, Jackson dismissed Medvedev as “a sycophant for the [Soviet] leadership,” akin to the Jews who supported Hitler in Nazi Germany.106 Roy Medvedev’s intervention in the Jackson-Vanik Amendment debate was motivated not by fundamental opposition to its goals but by his conviction that the stance taken by Jackson and Sakharov was counterproductive. Both Sakharov and Medvedev understood that détente opened up new av- enues for the human rights movement and that the dissidents could acquire greater leverage if the Soviet authorities had an economic stake in respecting human rights. The question, however, was the degree of coercion that could reasonably be used against Moscow. The Helsinki Accords have traditionally been considered a successful case of productive pressure in the human rights ﬁeld.107 While Medvedev’s hopes regarding the Soviet constitution proved misguided, the Helsinki Accords un- expectedly allowed Soviet and Western human rights activists to develop a “legalist” strategy of action combining grassroots activism with international pressure through the mechanism of regular follow-up meetings foreseen by

104. Zhores Medvedev, Opasnaya professiya (Moscow: Vremya, 2019), pp. 330–333. 105. Roy Medvedev, “Tradeand Democratisation,” in Political Essays (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1976), pp. 54–55. 106. “Jackson Indicates He Will Announce His Presidential Candidacy on Feb. 6,” The New York Times, 28 January 1975, p. 16. 107. See, for example, Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transna- tional History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); and Paul Gold- berg, The Final Act: The Dramatic, Revealing Story of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group (New York: Morrow, 1988). For a nuanced appraisal of the Helsinki Conference, see Michael Cotey Morgan, The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

161 Martin the Final Act. This development owed much to détente and to the new role of human rights in world politics.

A Nobel Prize for Human Rights and the Helsinki Accords

Samuel Moyn has argued that human rights rose to prominence as a global Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 ideology in the 1970s thanks to the demise of “socialism with a human face” and alternative internationalist visions. This happened “because the ideological climate was ripe for claims to make a difference not through political vision but by transcending politics. Morality, global in its potential scope, could become the aspiration of humankind.”108 Adoption of a rights-based rhetoric was particularly visible in the Soviet case. As Benjamin Nathans has shown, the first dissident to adopt a strategy of “civil obedience,” calling on the Soviet regime to respect its own laws, was Aleksandr Esenin-Vol’pin.109 Progressively, the burgeoning dissident movement shifted from a loyalist rhetoric and calls for an end to Stalin’s public rehabilitation to broader appeals for human rights and against political repression. The next step was to create human rights groups: the “Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights,” founded in 1969, thus predated the Moscow Helsinki Group. In an essay written in 1978, Sakharov defined the “sociopolitical ideology” of human rights as being “in essence pluralistic, allowing various possible forms of social organization and their coexistence.”110 By offering “the individual a maximum freedom of choice,” human rights could give people “a direct sense of personal happiness” and help them resolve their problems. But “a worldwide defense of human rights” was also “a necessary foundation for international trust and security; it is a factor that can deter destructive military conflicts, even global thermonuclear conflicts that threaten the very existence of humanity.”111 Human rights and détente were therefore two inseparable notions, which together guaranteed personal happiness and world peace. Sakharov’s vision held appeal for most Soviet dissidents. In an open letter to Sakharov written two days before his appeal to the U.S. Congress,

108. Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 213. 109. Nathans, “The Dictatorship of Reason.” 110. Andrei Sakharov, “The Human Rights Movement in the USSR and Eastern Europe: Its Goals, Signiﬁcance, and Difﬁculties,” in Aleksandr Babenyshev, ed., On Sakharov (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1982), pp. 244–245. 111. Ibid., pp. 245–246.

162 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

Esenin-Vol’pin praised his stance, expressing hope that Sakharov’s intervention would compel Nixon and Kissinger to give the question of human rights in the USSR full consideration in negotiations over détente.112 On5Septem- ber, Solzhenitsyn nominated Sakharov for the Nobel Peace Prize. A few days later, Igor’ Shafarevich, Aleksandr Galich, and Vladimir Maksimov followed suit, describing the physicist as “an outstanding ﬁghter for real democracy, for the rights and dignity of man, and for a genuine, not an illusory peace.”113

This general endorsement of Sakharov’s position within the dissident Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 community predictably went along with a negative reaction to Medvedev’s article. The historian’s long-term view of the beneﬁts of détente raised great doubts. Moreover, Medvedev’s critique of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn, who had just been targeted by smear campaigns in Soviet media, antagonized his fellow dissenters. The most violent reaction came from Maksimov, a dissident writer whom Medvedev had criticized in his article. In an open letter, Maksimov accused the Medvedev brothers of attacking “Russia’s moral pride, academician Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” precisely when their lives were at risk.114 The Medvedevs had no moral right to judge Sakharov, whose advocacy of Soviet emigration had already helped a multitude of people, and they should have nothing but gratitude for the man whose intercession had saved Zhores Medvedev from psychiatric incarceration.115 The writer point- edly asked: “Who are you working for?” Sakharov backed Maksimov in a public statement. “By their pragmatism the Medvedevs have placed themselves in opposition to those who lead today a moral struggle for the right of a person to live and think freely.”116 Other dissidents attacked what they characterized as Medvedev’s naïve expectations regarding Soviet leaders. Solzhenitsyn derided Medvedev’s views in his 19 January 1974 interview to Time: The Medvedev brothers suggest that we should wait patiently, on our knees, until somewhere “at the top” some mythical “leftists,” whom no one knows or

112. Aleksandr Vol’pin and Irina Christie [Kristi], “Otkrytoe pis’mo akademiku Andreiu Sakharovu,” 10 September 1973, in OSA, HU OSA 300-120-7, Box 182. 113. Richard Lourie, Sakharov: A Biography (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2002), p. 257; and“FriendsUrgeNobelPrizeforSakharov,”The New York Times, 8 September 1973, p. 10. 114. Vladimir Maksimov, “Otkrytoe pis’mo V.E. Maksimova brat’yam Royu i Zhoresu Medvedevym,” Posev (Frankfurt), No. 12 (1973), p. 6. 115. In May–June 1970, Zhores Medvedev was conﬁned to a psychiatric institution. His continued incarceration was averted thanks to a successful campaign on his behalf, with Sakharov and other Soviet intellectuals playing prominent roles. See Zhores Medvedev and Roy Medvedev, A Question of Madness (New York: Knopf, 1971). 116. “Zayavlenie A. D. Sakharova,” Russkaya mysl’, 6 December 1973, p. 4.

163 Martin

names, defeat the so-called right-wingers, or until a “new generation of leaders” emerges. . . . This is pure nonsense.117 Dmitrii Panin, Solzhenitsyn’s former campmate, also found the idea of a power struggle within the leadership preposterous. Medvedev’s belief in such a myth demonstrated that he was an “armchair academic,” disconnected from reality. The Soviet people were not passive but led a “hidden economic struggle” by sabotaging agriculture and industry. Democratization of the Soviet Union was impossible; the only way out was to overthrow the regime.118 A Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 more moderate critique was voiced by Mikhail (Melik) Agurskii, who considered détente unlikely to bring about democratization. The rapprochement between Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt during the World War II, he pointed out, had done nothing to liberalize the Soviet regime. Campaigns of protest in the West, on the contrary, had proved that outside pressure could force modi- ﬁcations in Soviet politicies.119 Agurskii was also part of a group of three Soviet Jewish activists who issued a statement condemning Medvedev’s position for harming the cause of Jewish emigration.120 In an interview with the Russian émigré weekly Russkaia mysl’,Zhores Medvedev expressed regret that the discussion initiated by his brother had been followed by ad hominem attacks reminiscent of Stalin’s anti-Jewish campaigns against “cosmopolitism.”121 Chalidze, cofounder with Sakharov of the Human Rights Committee, also deplored the tone of this discussion. Even though he disagreed with the Medvedevs, he regretted that their opponents posited the “necessity of a unity of views among dissidents” and “the moral prohibition of discussion with the authorities of dissent.”122 Despite these cautionary words, polarization only increased in the following years. Roy Medvedev’s moderate stance and celebrity, which allowed him to remain un- scathed throughout the Soviet period even as others were imprisoned or exiled, prompted many of his adversaries to accuse him of at least tacit support of Soviet leaders or even outright collaboration with the regime.123

117. Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, The Oak and the Calf (London: Collins/Fontana, 1980), p. 533. 118. D. Panin, “Otvet Royu Medvedevu,” Russkaya mysl’, 6 December 1973, p. 4. 119. M. S. Agurskii, “V chem pravy i nepravy brat’ya Medvedevy,” Russkaya mysl’, 27 December 1973, p. 4. 120. The other signatories were Aleksandr Lerner and Aleksandr Lunts. “Jewish Group Criticizes Medvedev,” Radio Liberty Report, 29 January 1974, in OSA, HU OSA 300/85/13/189. 121. “Otvety Zhoresa Medvedeva na voprosy K. Pomerantseva,” Russkaya mysl’, 31 January 1974, p. 4. 122. Valerii Chalidze, “Otkrytoe pis’mo Zhoresu Medvedevu,” Russkaya mysl’, 27 December 1973, p. 2. 123. See, for example, the scathing critique by Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, a Chechen émigré historian. Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, “R. Medvedev: Klevetnik ili Provokator?” Russkaya mysl’,

164 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

Dissidents were not alone in supporting Sakharov, however, and his position elicited a broad consensus in liberal circles in the West. Already on 20 September, an appeal in support of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov by the “Ad Hoc Committee for Intellectual Freedom,” praising their “courageous effort on behalf of peace and freedom,” was signed by 65 prominent U.S. intellectuals and civil rights activists.124 The American PEN Club and the American Association of Scientists also voiced their support for the dissident, and the former specifically called on the U.S. president to link human rights to dé- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 tente.125 On 26 September 1973, political scientist Walter C. Clemens, Jr., joined Sakharov’s friends in nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize: The writings and actions of Andrei D. Sakharov, perhaps more than any man living today, have emphasized the indivisibility of peace and its interdependence with other humane values: intellectual freedom, economic progress, social justice and ecological wellbeing. Both for his theory and his practice, Sakharov merits the Nobel Peace Prize.126 These words were echoed in a statement by the Nobel Committee, which awarded Sakharov the prize a year later: “In a convincing fashion Sakharov has emphasized that the inviolable rights of man can serve as the only sure foundation for a genuine and long-lasting system of international cooperation.”127 On 10 December 1975, Bonner received the award on her husband’s behalf and read out his Nobel lecture, titled “Peace, Progress, Human Rights.” The document reaffirmed his commitment to a détente going hand in hand with the respect of human rights: I am convinced that international confidence, mutual understanding, disarmament, and international security are inconceivable without an open society with freedom of information, freedom of conscience, the right to publish, and the right to travel and choose the country in which one wishes to live.128

14 December 1978. For a discussion of Medvedev’s collusion with the regime, see Barbara Martin, Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), ch. 6. 124. See “65 Prominent American Scientists, Academics, Intellectuals, Civil Rights Leaders Cable Support to Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn; Protest Message Sent to Brezhnev,” 20 September 1973, in OSA, HU OSA 300-120-7, Box 182. 125. PEN American Center to the President, 11 September 1973, in OSA, HU OSA 300-120-7, Box 182. 126. Walter C. Clemens, Jr, “Sakharov: Why He Deserves the Peace Prize,” Christian Science Monitor, 26 September 1973. 127. “Sakharov Named Winner of ’75 Nobel Peace Prize,” The New York Times, 10 October 1975, p. 77. 128. Andrei Sakharov, “Nobel Lecture: Peace, Progress, Human Rights,” 11 December 1975, published on Nobel Prize website, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1975/sakharov/lecture/.

165 Martin

For Sakharov to be awarded the Nobel Prize just after the signature of the Helsinki Accords, which many interpreted as a diplomatic triumph of the Soviet Union’s policy of détente, hardly seems coincidental. In the United States, Helsinki was widely viewed as a new “Yalta,” recognizing Soviet dom- ination over Eastern Europe.129 As Michael Morgan has emphasized, however, the Final Act made no significant concessions to Moscow: “on every significant point, the West prevailed.”130 Soviet leaders were eager to obtain recognition of the postwar geopolitical order and insisted on the principle of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 non-interference in their internal affairs. In exchange, however, they had to pay lip service to human rights commitments outlined in the “first basket” and to human contact provisions from the “third basket,” designed to end Eastern Europe’s isolation. Once more, the issue of freedom of movement stood prominently on the Western agenda, but this time the Soviet Union made certain concessions because the tradeoffs were significant and the stakes in making the negotiations succeed were considerable. Even though the commitments of the “third basket” seemed mere empty formulae to Soviet leaders they gave greater leverage to Soviet dissidents. Some Western scholars, such as Sarah Snyder, have argued that the Helsinki Final Act was more effective than the UN Declaration of Human Rights because the Act provided for periodic follow-up meetings, which served as a kind of evaluation mechanism.131 By 1977 as Jimmy Carter came to power with the avowed goal of championing human rights in the world, Sakharov and other Soviet activists gained an ally. The newly elected president answered a 1977 letter from Sakharov in which the dissident called on the U.S. president to hold Moscow account- able for complying with its Helsinki commitments at the forthcoming CSCE follow-up meeting in Belgrade. Carter reiterated his promise to fight for human rights in the Soviet Union.132 However, his actions in the human rights field were effective only as long as détente lasted. In a 1978 essay, Sakharov expounded his philosophy regarding the appropriate means of struggle for human rights. He agreed with the Carter administration that strategic arms limitation talks should be given “absolute priority” and handled separately

Bonner had been allowed to travel to Italy for health reasons and was thus able to receive the prize in Sakharov’s name when he was prevented from doing so. 129. Goldberg, The Final Act, p. 22. 130. Morgan, The Final Act,p.5. 131. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War, pp. 7–8. 132. Andrei Sakharov to Jimmy Carter, 20 January 1977, in Arkhiv Sakharova, F. 1, Op. 3, Ed. Khr. 28; and Jimmy Carter to Andrei Sakharov, 6 February 1977, in Arkhiv Sakharova, F. 1, Op. 3, Ed. Khr. 28. Sakharov also sent Carter a congratulatory telegram on 3 November 1976.

166 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights from human rights questions. As for boycotts, whether scientiﬁc, cultural, or economic, Sakharov supported them wholeheartedly but recognized that they were a “complex and contradictory issue”:

No doubt the question of prestige in the world political arena, the struggle to attain and keep power, especially in the context of behind-the-scenes struggles, and the very traditions of a strong power do not allow the leaders of totalitarian states to react directly to pressure exerted against them. It is also certain that at

the same time, boycotts weaken realistically useful contacts, and diminish the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 number of levers that can be used to apply pressure in the future.133 Avoiding boycotts with ultimatums was therefore crucial, insofar as they could result in pushing the opposite side “into a ‘dead end’ from which it cannot ex- tricate itself without losing face.” Moreover, Sakharov spoke about the “necessity of combining various and impressive public campaigns with an energetic and thoughtful quiet diplomacy.”134 Regarding the 1980 Moscow Olympics, he agreed with the position of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which denounced repression of dissent but did not call for a boycott. Roy Medvedev opposed the Olympics boycott for the same reasons, arguing that such international events contributed to breaking Soviet society’s isolation and, therefore, to its liberalization. He concluded: “The combination of collaboration with criticism, the combination of open criticism and methods of so-called ‘quiet diplomacy,’ all of this will contribute to progressively improving the internal atmosphere, both in Eastern and Western countries.”135 Conversely, he predicted that the end of détente would lead to an increase of repression against dissent because Soviet leaders would no longer feel compelled to make concessions to the West. Sakharov’s position on the Olympics boycott showed that he had learned the importance of human contacts as a factor in the long-term liberalization of Soviet society. On the other hand, he had not changed his stance regarding the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. In 1979, as the U.S. Congress discussed the possibility of granting the USSR a waiver, since China had just received one, Sakharov stated his opposition to such a move.136 For Geoffrey P.Levin, however, this was yet another lost opportunity: in the context of the strategic arms

133. Sakharov, “The Human Rights Movement,” pp. 257–258. 134. Ibid., p. 258. 135. Roi Medvedev, “Sovetskie dissidenty i Zapad” (unpublished draft article), p. 9, in OKhDLSM, Sd. Op. 5, U.D. 157. 136. Andrei Sakharov “Otvety na voprosy korrespondenta gazety ‘Washington Post’ Kevin Close,” n.d., in Arkhiv Sakharova, F.1, Op. 3, Ed. Khr. 104.

167 Martin control talks, encouraged by the carrot of improved trade relations, the Soviet Union had allowed for increased Jewish emigration. However, when the U.S. Congress failed to reward Moscow with a waiver, the result was a sharp drop in exit visas just months before the invasion of Afghanistan put an end to dé- tente.137 By January 1980, when the Soviet authorities exiled Sakharov to the closed city of Gor’kii, détente was all but defunct, and Moscow no longer had a stake in improving its human rights record.

The full potential of the CSCE follow-up mechanisms could not be real- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 ized until a new generation of Soviet leaders came on the scene—leaders who no longer perceived opening to the West and the liberalization of Soviet society as a dire threat to their power and who were more inclined to uphold human rights commitments as a way of ending the USSR’s isolation. The complex dynamic between pressure from below and initiative from above was central to a debate triggered by Medvedev’s article.

Reforming the Soviet Union: Pressure from Above, Below, or Outside?

A central question raised by Medvedev’s 1973 article concerns the impetus for democratization of the Soviet regime: Would it come from pressure from below, from reformist forces within the apparatus, or from outside actions? Observing that the progressive forces within the intelligentsia and the apparatus were isolated and powerless, Medvedev concluded, “any shift toward a more consistent democratization ...isatpresentpossibleintheUSSRonlyas a result of certain initiatives ‘from above’ supported ‘from below,’ but not as a sheer result of pressure from ‘below.’”138 This idea ran counter to the bottom- up approach characteristic both for the human rights movement’s grassroots activism and for a traditional Marxist vision ascribing masses a key role in sociopolitical change. Medvedev elaborated on his views in a second article, in which he maintained there was no mass movement in favor of democratization in the USSR, not just because the Soviet people were misinformed but because they were more concerned with food shortages than with shortages of democratic freedoms, to which they had never been accustomed. Still, Medvedev believed that the democratic movement could extract some concessions from the

137. Levin, “Before Soviet Jewry’s Happy Ending,” p. 70. 138. Medvedev, “Democracy and Détente,” p. 21.

168 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights authorities and thus lay the groundwork for an expansion of the movement.139 Medvedev recognized that “critical statements from Western society against violations of civil rights in the USSR have great importance; in some instances they exert a pressure that the internal democratic movement is as yet incapable of exercising.”140 The necessary cooperation between the great powers did not exclude ideological struggle or pressure, but he insisted that “in exerting this pressure, it is always necessary to stay within intelligent limits which if ex- ceeded could again give rise to an uncontrolled and destructive escalation of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 distrust and competition.”141 He therefore preferred Brandt’s and Kissinger’s methods to Jackson’s. Medvedev’s 1973 article fueled a vigorous debate within the Western left, which found an outlet on the pages of a collection of essays edited in 1975 by Ken Coates, a left-wing activist and director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. The volume, titled Détente and Socialist Democracy: A Discussion with Roy Medvedev, incorporated reactions to Medvedev’s November 1973 article by prominent left-wing thinkers and activists from both sides of the Iron Curtain.142 Although the authors diverged on such questions as the impact of détente on the Soviet system or the role of the masses in sociopolitical change, all agreed about the necessity of a systemic approach to the issue, going beyond the mere defense of human rights. Many authors considered détente a positive process that would bring reform to the Soviet Union in the long run, but they regretted that it had been initiated by Soviet bureaucrats and West- ern “right-wing” statesmen who had no interest in the democratization of the USSR. For British historian E. P. Thompson, Soviet bureaucracy was bound to view détente as “a moment of acute danger” and to impose new controls “to prevent that uncontrolled and self-generating liberation of (in the ﬁrst place) intellectual and cultural forces which would, in the end, call in question this bureaucracy itself.”143 On the question of strategies of action and the respective roles of the masses and leadership in initiating change, opinions were widely split. George Novack, an American Trotskyist and Marxist scholar, criticized Medvedev for his elitist view of the reformist process and distrust of the masses. The existing

139. Roy Medvedev, “Dissent and Free Discussion,” in Political Essays (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1976), p. 35. 140. Ibid., p. 37. 141. Ibid., p. 42. 142. Ken Coates, ed., Détente and Socialist Democracy: A Discussion with Roy Medvedev (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1975). 143. E. P. Thompson, “Détente and Dissent,” in Coates, ed., Détente and Socialist Democracy, p. 125.

169 Martin record in Eastern Europe had shown the failure of reformist bureaucratism, which made Novack wonder “how Medvedev holds fast to its efficacy and necessity for the USSR.”144 For Tamara Deutscher, Isaac Deutscher’s widow, the interaction between pressure from below and reform from above were complex. All over the Soviet bloc, change had been initiated by the masses: in East Berlin in 1953, in Poland and Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968. “And yet this pressure from below was stimulated or initiated from above: the liberalization of the USSR after Stalin’s death, after the 20th Party Congress, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 was the first breach in the glacis of the Stalinized regimes.”145 At present, Soviet masses were passive, yet they carried “a powerful dynamic charge of discontent and dissatisfaction.”146 In conclusion, Coates published a new essay by Medvedev, which further developed some of his ideas on détente and democratization. Medvedev hailed the process of European unification, which created the conditions for a socialist transformation and served as a “barrier against the development of reactionary political tendencies in the Soviet Union.” Adopting Sakharov’s idea of convergence, Medvedev argued that although the Soviet Union was in need of democratization, the West needed socialism. “The unification of precisely these outwardly different trends can become the foundation on which a viable and flourishing community of nations can be built on our planet.”147 Another central idea of Medvedev’s essay was his belief that the Soviet leadership was not monolithic. Apart from a group of reactionaries who strove for a return to Stalinism, the CPSU ruling organs consisted of more moderate politicians—among them Brezhnev and Andropov—who were mostly preoccupied with stability. The moderates had achieved much in the foreign policy field since 1970, but significantly less domestically. Their concern for stability had led to economic stagnation, thus strengthening the position of “technocrats” within the leadership. These are the comparatively younger leaders, who want to modernize the management of the economy and science, and would like closer links with the West and a more tolerant internal policy. These people are without many of the prej- udice and complexes of the older generation, and they are capable of bringing

144. George Novack, “Détente and Democracy: A View from the USA,” in Coates, ed., Détente and Socialist Democracy,p.82. 145. Tamara Deutscher, “Reﬂections on Roy Medvedev’s ‘Democratization and Détente,’” in Coates, ed., Détente and Socialist Democracy, pp. 33–34. 146. Ibid., pp. 35–36. 147. Roy Medvedev, “Problems of General Concern,” in Coates, ed., Détente and Socialist Democracy, p. 144.

170 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights

in reforms which, even if they will not change the basic face of our society, will open a wider road to progress and democracy.148

In the authoritarian setting of the Soviet Union, personalities played a crucial role in determining the country’s political course—for better or worse. In the late 1970s, Medvedev still believed that “ultimately any serious changes in a country like the USSR will depend not so much on pressure from outside as on internal processes, including action and initiative by ‘those Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 at the top.’”149 Within the apparatus were forces of change. Although they were not in the majority, they could achieve more from within the system than from outside.150 But the reforms of these putative progressive leaders would succeed only if a strong base of progressive forces was built within the party—something that did not yet exist.151 Medvedev’s claim that a new generation of progressive Soviet leaders would one day rise to power was justiﬁed by his connections to a generation of future “in-system” reformers in the 1960s. His contacts Georgii Shakhnazarov, Aleksandr Bovin, and Yurii Krasin worked for the CPSU International De- partment, which had a key role in Soviet foreign policy. The department had close ties with international relations research institutions, which included some relativey open-minded researchers who were disconcerted by the Soviet Union’s violent suppression of the Prague Spring. Although the department overall was dogmatic and was headed for nearly three decades by the hard- line CPSU Secretary Boris Ponomarev, not all reform-minded personnel were driven out.152 According to the French scholar Marie-Pierre Rey,

alargepartofthemejdurnarodniki [international affairs specialists], when they became decision-makers in the years 1965–1975, did in fact constitute a speciﬁc milieu that promoted the idea of East-West détente—as a way to improve the Soviet system—as well as a revamped socialism with a human face. And ten years later, they naturally formed a hothouse of new ideas and people devoted to the spirit of reform for Gorbachev’s perestroika.153

148. Ibid., p. 147. 149. Roy Medvedev, On Soviet Dissent (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 126. 150. Ibid., p. 127. 151. Ibid., pp. 110–111. 152. Marie-Pierre Rey, “The Mejdunarodniki in the 1960s and First Half of the 1970s: Backgrounds, Connections, and the Agenda of Soviet International Elites,” in Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou, eds., The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 52–56. 153. Rey, “The Mejdunarodniki in the 1960s,” p. 63.

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Medvedev’s contacts shared some of his reformist views and read his books with interest, occasionally providing him with information.154 Shakhnazarov was an editor of the journal World Marxist Review, based in Prague, and later became an adviser to Gorbachev.155 In his memoirs, he underscores the proximity of his and Medvedev’s views, noting that Medvedev “was never a hundred-percent dissident, long before perestroika he presented a wholly rea- sonable concept of reforms.”156 As for Bovin, he was Brezhnev’s speechwriter, but his independent position led him to be downgraded in 1972 to a position Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 at the newspaper Izvestiya. When Medvedev needed assistance—for instance, during his brother’s psychiatric incarceration in 1970—he knew he could appeal to these men.157 According to Medvedev, Andropov first heard about his research on Stal- inism through Shakhnazarov, in 1964. The future CPSU General Secretary allegedly asked to read Medvedev’s manuscript and to meet him, expressing interest.158 Four years later, after his appointment as KGB head, Andropov advocated co-opting the dissident historian for the regime’s aims instead of repressing him.159 Medvedev even believed, based on insider testimony and archival evidence, that the future KGB head and General Secretary saved him from arrest in 1983.160 If in fact these connections and protection existed, they suggest that Medvedev had closer affinities with in-system reformers than with many Soviet human rights activists. As the Soviet Union’s “old guard” gradually passed from the scene and a new generation of reformists came to power, making headway in the field of human rights no longer seemed taboo. With this goal in mind, Gor- bachev called Sakharov on 15 December 1986 in Gor’kii to announce that the

154. Roy Medvedev, interview, Moscow, 22 January 2017. 155. Robert D. English called the journal one of the “oases of creative thought” in the foreign policy field. Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 71. See also Archie Brown, Seven Years That Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 161–163. 156. Georgii Shakhnazarov, S vozhdyami i bez nikh (Moscow: Vagrius, 2001), pp. 191–192. 157. Bovin attributes Zhores Medvedev’s liberation to his intervention with Brezhnev. See Aleksandr Bovin, “Kurs na stabil’nost’ porodil zastoi,” in Iurii Aksiutin, ed., L. I. Brezhnev: Materialy k biografii (Moscow: Politizdat, 1991), p. 94. 158. Roy Medvedev, interview, Moscow, 19 June 2012. 159. “TsK KPSS” (Secret), Yurii Andropov to CC of the CPSU, 4 August 1968, in Rossiiskii Go- sudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii, F. 89, Op. 17, D. 49, Ll. 5–6, reproduced in Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov: Politicheskaya biografiya Yuriya Andropova (Moscow: Prava cheloveka, 1999), pp. 168–169. 160. Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, pp. 173, 180. On this episode, see Martin, Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union, pp. 143–144.

172 The Sakharov-Medvedev Debate on Détente and Human Rights dissident was released and could “return to his patriotic deeds.”161 For the next three years, until his death in 1989, Sakharov became one of Gorbachev’s most influential allies and critics, urging him to show greater boldness on the domestic and international scenes. Gorbachev realized that his plans for the democratization of Soviet society were incompatible with the continued repression of dissidents. To some extent, he even came to see them as potential allies both against his conservative opponents in the Politburo and in negotiations with the West. When Medvedev and Sakharov were elected people’s Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 deputies in 1989, the former supported Gorbachev unconditionally against the party’s conservative faction, earning himself a seat in the CPSU Central Committee in 1990. Sakharov proved more of a challenger than a supporter, eventually becoming one of the leaders of a budding liberal opposition. Although Gorbachev’s hopes that democratization would strengthen Communism proved unjustified, détente on the international stage climaxed with the dissolution of Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, Ger- many’s reunification, and the end of the Cold War. These developments were made possible by Gorbachev’s orientation toward Western Europe as a model for the Soviet Union’s modernization and by his belief that a pan-European rapprochement (a “common European home”) would be infeasible without improvements in the Soviet human rights record.162

Conclusion

In the 1960s, Sakharov and Medvedev were both advocates of convergence between the two blocs. They believed that the Soviet Union’s democratization and rapprochement with the West were two closely related processes rendered necessary by modernization and indispensable to securing world peace. How- ever, Sakharov’s disenchantment, resulting from the Kremlin’s rejection of his calls for change, his growing concern about human rights violations, and the concomitant rise of humanitarian diplomacy in the United States led to a shift in Sakharov’s strategy of action, culminating in his public support of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in September 1973. The debate between Sakharov and Medvedev over the amendment had much broader implications than the mere issue of Jewish emigration from the

161. Andrei Sakharov, Vospominaniya,Vol.2,Gor’kii, Moskva, dalee vezde (Moscow: Prava Cheloveka, 1996), p. 266. 162. Daniel C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 228–231.

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USSR. For Sakharov, Jackson’s methods of action represented the most efficient strategy for extracting concessions from the Soviet Union in the field of human rights. Only by ensuring that the Soviet Union upheld its commitments in this regard could a real détente with the West come to fruition. For Medvedev, however, the amendment was misguided. Although the aims pur- sued were noble, the formulation of ultimatums was bound to backfire and, ultimately, endanger détente and the cause of liberalization in the Eastern bloc. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/23/3/138/1955783/jcws_a_01009.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 In the short term, the erosion and end of détente and the drop in Jew- ish emigration seemed to vindicate Medvedev’s view, but subsequent developments showed that outside pressure on the Soviet regime could in certain cases induce Soviet leaders to show greater respect for human rights. The Helsinki process, in particular, showed that, within the framework of a mutually advan- tageous agreement concluded at the height of détente and through the CSCE review mechanism, pressure could be applied to try to get Moscow to abide by its human rights commitments. Sakharov and Medvedev also diverged in their visions of how democratization would come about in the Soviet Union. For the former, change would result from the combined pressure applied on Soviet leaders from below and outside, whereas the latter believed in the interaction between the initiative of what he believed were reformist forces within the Soviet leadership, pressure from below, and moderate and tactically applied outside pressure. The advent of perestroika and Gorbachev’s decisive role in ending the Cold War proved that initiative from above could indeed shift the balance, but that outcome was by no means guaranteed. Sakharov initially shared Medvedev’s optimism about Gorbachev’s ability to transform the system, but he also understood that pressure from Western leaders and activists on the ground would be crucial. His tireless advocacy of nuclear disarmament and human rights, both on the domestic scene and in his contacts with Western leaders, as well as his increasingly radical support of democratic reforms, thus spurred Gorbachev to bolder action.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded with a grant from the Swiss National Science Foun- dation. In addition, I thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments, as well as Susanne Schattenberg and the participants of a Zeit- Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius “Trajectories of Change” workshop for providing feedback on early versions of the article.

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