Read the original letter in Russian

September 11, 1974

Sir,

For some time now Zh. Medvedev has been tireless in exploiting the confidence with which the Western public has placed in him as a reliable witness of and commentator on Soviet life.

In the summer of 1973 he declared in a radio interview (I quote from memory but almost word for word): “Do not use the expression ‘Soviet regime’; the word ‘regime’ always has a pejorative sense, while we have an elected government as in Western countries and it rules us on the basis of our constitution."

For those of us listening to the radio in the Soviet Union this was of course a mockery of the truth. It was like a spit in the face, however pleasant it might be for some people in the West to believe that the most terrible dictatorship in the world was no more.

In the spring of 1974, during his tour of the U.S.A., Zh. Medvedev drew a reassuring picture of the cessation of political persecution in the U.S.S.R. Although this (false) picture evoked a strong protest among Soviet émigrés present, who leapt up to name a number of people recently arrested, it was natural for the Westerners to believe him: was it not, after all, the word of a man who had not so long before suffered himself?

Surely he would not betray those who remained behind or draw a false picture of their situation? Surely he would not mislead that same public in the world outside, to whom he owed his own salvation?

And now in Norway this distinguished and self-assured witness has announced that the practice of committing sane persons to psychiatric hospitals has ended, that "in the last year I do not know of a single case which could be compared with my own." To be compared in what respect? In respect of the fear which gripped one's heart? Or in respect of the speed and ease with which one's case was ended? Or in the respect of all those other cases, of which dozens of names are known and thousands implied, of all those who refused to comply or surrender, those whom nobody knows, living in remote parts of the U.S.S.R.? Only recently - to quote one example - the world learnt that SVETLANA SHRANKO had been committed to a psychiatric hospital (and we do not know how she is being treated there) for a selfless effort to prevent the air of Ryazen being polluted by a factory built illegally by the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. For trying to protect the environment - into a psychiatric hospital!

It is amazing how Zh. Medvedev always knows how to say things which find favour with the Soviet Government, and how he says them in such a timely and clever way that the whole Soviet propaganda apparatus could not do it better. Is it not more beneficial both for those who live in freedom and for those who are oppressed that the mighty Soviet Government should not be annoyed, that one should never demand anything from it or accuse it of anything out loud, but that one should only ask it, quietly and humbly, to show some good will (which it has never manifested in any gesture of magnanimity towards anyone, unless forced to do so and then only on the basis of cold calculation)?

It would follow that the Nobel Prize should be awarded only to those persons to whom the Soviet Government will not object. And so the need would arise to discredit out national hero, Sakharov. According to reports of the speech Medvedev made recently at the Nobel Institute, he offered this comment:

"You must analyse and weigh up how great a contribution Academician Sakharov made to the cause of peace and how great - to kindling the flames of war."

Let us ask rather who in the Soviet Union originated the idea of the relaxation of world tension. Who, without any thought for himself, hung around the court houses in the rain, was pursued by the police, and went on a hunger strike in the defence of political prisoners? And who played a decisive role in forcing the liberation of Zh. Medvedev himself?

A. Solzhenitstyn
Zurich

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