ANOTHER VOICE
Why the socialist masses are not waving but drowning
AUBERON WAUGH
But one treats any intelligence from behind the Iron or Bamboo curtains rather as one treats the better gossip columns, as something to be digested and brooded on, but only half believed. I have no desire to find out for myself. Quite apart from the discomfort, the poverty, the oppression, the incompetence and the deliberate misin- formation which seem to be the main characteristics of socialist society, I find that an overwhelming depression attaches to the whole idea of socialism which has nothing to do with its more brutal man- ifestations: the stupidity, or the refusal to think straight, which inspires it in the first place; the endless intellectual dishonesty required to keep it going, long after it has been proved not to work.
Which is why I make no claim to greater knowledge about the life behind the Iron Curtain than can be derived from reading about it: Colin Thubron's Among the Russians, now in Penguin; Xan Smiley's excellent despatches from Moscow in the Daily Telegraph — I wish someone would publish them in book form as a companion to Thubron's masterpiece; and Neal Ascherson's column in the Observer, about which more presently.
Nothing I had read prepared me to suppose that either glasnost or perestroika were to be taken seriously. One read of a new Soviet Health Minister who admitted that many hospitals had no sewerage or running water, and imagined that, like the Chief Constables of England and Wales claiming to be overwhelmed by rural vio- lence, he was merely asking for more money. One read of Gorbachev agreeing that one of the problems of Soviet life is that there is no food, and assumed he was making a cheap debating point against the opposition in the Politburo. But it seemed inconceivable that Gorbachev could ever tell the Soviet people the truth about the process by which socialism was forced on them — the story of collectivisation, de- liberate mass starvation and genocide and how it has been maintained ever since. It still seems scarcely conceivable — de- spite hints to the contrary — that he could ever tell the world, what the world already knows perfectly well — the story of such international crimes as Katyn and the Warsaw uprising, thereby giving the lie to the official Soviet version.
It is true that the trickle of new informa- tion has produced some extraordinary side- lights, like the amazing statistic that in the Russian Republic alone, no fewer than 350,000 people have died from drowning in the last 20 years. The official explanation for this (as it would be in Britain) is drink, but after the clampdown on alcohol the great Holopontist continues, with 57 peo- ple drowning in Moscow alone during a recent heatwave. Even that great swimmer Mr Bottomley might be forced to conclude that more attention should be given to swimming lessons and less to blaming alcohol. But I suspect that the admission was inspired by the anti-alcohol campaign, and will be used for no other purpose.
So much for glasnost. Perhaps some idea of the likelihood of a major restructuring may be gauged from the experience of our own beloved Labour Party. After resound- ing defeats in three general elections, and still trailing behind Conservatives in the polls, its mighty soul-searching has come up with two solid proposals: to re-present nationalisation as 'social ownership' and nuclear disarmament as a 'non-nuclear policy'.
Yet something is undoubtedly happen- ing in the Soviet Union, however transient the phenomenon may prove. This brings me to Neal Ascherson, the Observer's expert on central and eastern Europe. Although I suspect that I disagree pro- foundly with nearly all his conclusions, and am mystified by his reasons for holding the opinions he appears to hold, it has to be admitted that he is extremely well in- formed, highly intelligent and writes con- vincingly. He is a serious, rather than a humorous or mad, commentator, but this week, I confess, he had me hooting with laughter when he raised the question: are the central and eastern European nations at present under the Soviet heel really ready for self-government? Independent of Moscow, might they not revert to their pre-war state, 'providing cheap raw mate- rials and labour for the West, with mini- dictators and foreign owned factories'? Perhaps I should explain that Ascher- son, along with the novelist Brian Moore and a host of others, spends much of his time advising the Poles not to kick against the Soviet prick. That would merely invite further oppression. They must wait until the Soviet Union changes its spots, as it is bound to do. Now, we are faced with the terrifying possibility that the Soviet Union is, indeed, changing. This makes it doubly important that Eastern Europe should refrain from provocative actions.
Just suppose, continues Ascherson, that the steam can be released without blowing the roof off, that 'the Soviet Union gra- dually finds it possible to disengage from nations like Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia'. Where will they go? Will they find a Third Way, between Soviet despotism and their abject pre-war state? Ascherson remembers how he and his friends in the Fifties deliberately neglected to ask themselves whether the African countries for whose independence they were agitating were really ready for it. Now is the time to ask: are these Eastern Europeans ready for self-determination? Cheer up, everybody. Ascherson has decided that in the unlikely event of the Soviet Union deciding to leave them volun- tarily, without being pushed, they will find the Third Way: 'These are highly educated societies . . . interested often in a "social ownership" which is neither State nor private property.'
So there's our old friend 'social own- ership' again. Of course, it is all a mirage. Incompetence, poverty and oppression are inseparable from socialism. The Soviet Union will never voluntarily disengage from its satellites. But if ever it does disengage, I rather feel that anything with the label 'social' attached to it will end up burning merrily inside a tyre necklace.
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