Soviet Peace Groups The Read Thing By Norman Solomon . Illustration by Susan Cicotte In the West, an ideological minefield forms the array of opinions about “the Soviet disarmament movement.” Preconceptions routinely carry the day. And the USSR’s unequivocal defenders tend to come across as wooden and implausible. Many Westerners see a hero in Soviet H-bomb designer Andrei Sakharov due to his conflicts with the Kremlin. (Sakharov’s statements that the U.S. deploy MX missiles are rarely noted.) Others point to jailings of more authentic disarmament advocates in the USSR. Meanwhile, the official Soviet peace movement provokes much scorn in the U.S. With assumptions shaped by their own society, many American activists are quick to discount Soviet citizens’ outpourings for nuclear disarmament in the absence of an antagonistic relationship with the Soviet government. At a dozen nuclear disarmament rallies and meetings I attended this summer in Moscow, Leningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, and other Soviet cities, there was a constant emphasis on the absolute necessity of preventing nuclear war. While these events, sponsored by local chapters of the Soviet Peace Committee, were long on formality and short on creativity, they embodied sincere pro-disarmament opinions that are widespread in the general population. The Russian word mir (peace) can be seen on large signs in Soviet communities as frequently as liquor and cigarette billboards appear in typical American cities. A common theme emerged at meetings with local Peace Committees in a half-dozen Soviet cities: 40 years ago our enemy was facism; today it is nuclear war, which would destroy humanity. Random conversations in Russian cities added to my impression that Soviet citizens generally treasure peace more than Americans do. The USSR’s public memorials to World War II are more a mourning of war than a celebration of it. About 470,000 Soviet people, victims of the Nazi siege of Leningrad, are buried at Piskaryovskoye Cemetery in mass graves. More than 40 years later, the manicured rows of earthen mounds seemed to tremble. The contrasts with U.S. memorials, like Arlington Cemetery or Iwo Jima, are striking. Of course, the Soviet government is willing to wage war outside its borders, as events in Afghanistan make clear. The increasing public debate in the USSR on a wide range of economic and social problems does not extend to foreign policy. (Even independent peace activists almost never address the Afghan situation.) Yet nuclear weapons issues provide extensive common ground for Soviet policy-makers and citizens pushing for an end to the nuclear arms race. A few blocks from the last subway stop on Moscow’s red line, beleaguered members of the Group to Establish Trust between the USSR and the U.S.A, have been gathering in a small apartment. But neither admirers nor detractors seem to comprehend this small Moscow group, which is neither fish nor fowl in the frigid waters of the Cold War. “From the very beginning we wanted it known that we are not dissidents,” stressed Yuri Medvedkov, 57, a reknowned geographer. “We do emphasize not criticizing the structure of the Soviet state. Our goals are direct people-to-people contact and diminishing of hatred between East and West, which can be achieved right now.” While prone to label Trust Group members “dissidents,” Western media have shown little interest in the Group’s ideas, such as a proposal to ban all children’s war toys resembling modern military weapons—an idea with the poorest prospects of implementation in the capitalist West. One midsummer night, as Moscow’s late dusk settled through the Medvedkov’s living-room window, I met with a dozen members of the Trust Group, ranging in age from teens to over 60. They asked to hear about Martin Luther King Jr., and I spoke for an hour as Yuri Medvedkov translated. Questions inevitably led to the current U.S. disarmament movement. Telling about the four “plowshares” activists who used a compressor-drive jackhammer in an effort to dismantle a Missouri nuclear silo last November, I mentioned that two of them received prison sentences of 18 years. Shocked disbelief showed on some of the Russian faces. The small Trust Group continues to function in a unique semi-gadfly role, meeting and holding vigils despite intermittent incarceration of members due to its lack of state authorization. The large Peace Committee uses media and public events to reach many millions of Soviet people with information about dangers of the nuclear weapons spiral. Americans should develop more concerted, respectful and candid relationships with Soviets in the Peace Committee and the Trust Group. Olga Medvedkov states the issue clearly, “It isn’t weapons that kill people, it’s hatred. Trust between people at the grassroots is essential. Portland writer Norman Solomon, co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation is currently working as disarmanent director for the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the U.S. in Nyack, New York. Your distributor of high quality organically grown and natural foods. 885 McKinley • Eugene, Oregon 97402 th? Pie An astonishing four-year clandestine journey through the racial mine fields of SouthAfrica £F0,0M w A gifted and courageous young reporter ventured into forbidden lands, met and talked with South Africans of every station. His experiences theirs—make this inside accot apartheid compelling, eye-ope shocking, and deeply moving. 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