For the estimate of the Com- parative Survey of Freedom—the centerpiece of this, as of the first Freedom in the World—is that the freedoms of the citizens of Iran, on an objective scale, are only slightly improved. [...] Andrei Amalrik, the Soviet writer now living abroad, sees "the only real solution" to many domestic and foreign problems gen- erated by the government of the Soviet Union as the future "liberaliza- tion of the Soviet system." The distinguished Soviet philosopher, now exiled, Alexander Zinoviev, believes the USSR's "liberal" period is be- hind it—in the "Khrushchev era and the first years of the Br. [...] Civil freedoms include freedom of the press, the openness of public discussion, the existence of organizations separate from the government, an independent judiciary, and the absence of political imprisonment. [...] The first error of the communist analysis, then, comes from an under- evaluation both of the significance for freedom of the conflicts within capitalist societies and of the importance of idealism. [...] Because of the magnitude of the population involved, and the fact that it occurred within a communist state, the most hopeful of all changes was the rising crescendo of dissent at year's end in mainland China, and the government's promises of a legal structure and social freedoms.
- Pages
- 325
- Published in
- Hungary
