Peace, Progress, and Human Rights

Andrei Sakharov

[Reprinted from his 1975 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture]

Peace, progress, human rights -- these three goals are indissolubly linked: it is impossible to achieve one of them if the others are ignored.

This idea provides the main theme of my lecture. I am deeply grateful that this great and significant award, the Nobel Peace Prize, has been given to me, and that I have the opportunity of addressing you here today. I was particularly gratified at the Committee's citation, which stresses the defense of human rights as the only sure basis for genuine and lasting international cooperation. This idea is very important to me; I am convinced that international trust, 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. I am also convinced that freedom of conscience, together .with other civic rights, provides both die basis for scientific progress and a guarantee against its misuse to harm mankind, as well as the basis for economic and social progress, which in turn is a political guarantee making the effective defense of social rights possible. At the same time I should like to defend the thesis of the original and decisive significance of civic and political rights in shaping the destiny of mankind. This view differs essentially from the usual Marxist theory, as well as from technocratic opinions, according to which only material factors and social and economic conditions are of decisive importance. (But in saying this, of course, I have no intention of denying the importance of people's material welfare.) ...

There is a great deal to suggest that mankind, at the threshold of the second half of the twentieth century, entered a particularly decisive and critical historical era.

Nuclear missiles exist capable in principle of annihilating the whole of mankind; this is the greatest danger threatening our age. Thanks to economic, industrial, and scientific advances, so-called "conventional" arms have likewise grown incomparably more dangerous, not to mention chemical and bacteriological instruments of war.

There is no doubt that industrial and technological progress is the most important factor in overcoming poverty, famine, and disease. But this progress leads at the same time to ominous changes in the environment in which we live and to the exhaustion of our natural resources. Thus, mankind faces grave ecological dangers.

Rapid changes in traditional forms of life have resulted in an unchecked demographic explosion which is particularly noticeable in the developing countries of the Third World. The growth in population has already created exceptionally complicated economic, social, and psychological problems and will in the future inevitably pose still more serious problems. In many countries, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the lack of food will be an overriding factor in the lives of many hundreds of millions of people, who from the moment of birth are condemned to a wretched existence on the starvation level. Moreover, future prospects are menacing, and in the opinion of many specialists, tragic, despite the undoubted success of the "green revolution."

But even in the developed countries, people face serious problems. These include the pressure resulting from excessive urbanization, all the changes that disrupt the community's social and psychological stability, the incessant pursuit of fashion and trends, overproduction, the frantic, furious tempo of life, the increase in nervous and mental disorders, the growing number of people deprived of contact with nature and of normal human lives, the dissolution of the family and the loss of simple human pleasures, the decay of the community's moral and ethical principles, and the loss of faith in the purpose of life. Against this background there is a whole host of ugly phenomena: an increase in crime, in alcoholism, in drug addiction, in terrorism, and so forth. The imminent exhaustion of the world's resources, the threat of overpopulation, the constant and deep-rooted international, political, and social problems are making a more and more forceful impact on the developed countries too, and will deprive -- or at any rate threaten to deprive -- a great many people who are accustomed to abundance, affluence, and creature comforts.

However, in the pattern of problems facing the world today a more decisive and important role is played by the global political polarization of mankind, which is divided into the so-called First World (conventionally called the Western world), the Second (socialist), and the Third (the developing countries). Two powerful socialist states, in fact, have become mutually hostile totalitarian empires, in which a single party and the state exercise immoderate power in all spheres of life. They possess an enormous potential for expansion, striving to increase their influence to cover large areas of the globe. One of these states -- the Chinese People's Republic -- has reached only a relatively modest stage of economic development, whereas the other -- the Soviet Union -- by exploiting its unique natural resources, and by taxing to the utmost the powers of its inhabitants and their ability to suffer continued privation, has built up a tremendous war potential and a relatively high -- though one-sided -- economic development. But in the Soviet Union, too, the people's standard of living is low, and civic rights are more restricted than in less socialist countries. Highly complicated global problems also affect the Third World, where relative economic stagnation goes hand in hand with growing international political activity.

Moreover, this polarization further reinforces the serious dangers of nuclear annihilation, famine, pollution of the environment, exhaustion of resources, overpopulation, and dehumanization.

If we consider this complex of urgent problems and contradictions, the first point that must be made is that any attempt to reduce the tempo of scientific and technological progress, to reverse the process of urbanization, to call for isolationism, patriarchal ways of life, and a renaissance based on ancient national traditions, would be unrealistic. Progress is indispensable, and to halt it would lead to the decline and fall of our civilization.

Not long ago we were unfamiliar with artificial fertilizers, mechanized fanning, chemical pesticides, and intensive agricultural methods. There are voices calling for a return to more traditional and possibly less dangerous forms of agriculture. But can this be accomplished in a world in which hundreds of millions of people are suffering from hunger? On the contrary, there is no doubt that we need increasingly intensive methods of farming, and we must spread modern methods all over the world, including the developing countries.

We cannot reject the idea of a spreading use of the results of medical research or the extension of research in all its branches, including bacteriology and virology, neurophysiology, human genetics, and gene surgery, no matter what potential dangers lurk in their abuse and the undesirable social consequences of this research. This also applies to research in the creation of artificial intelligence systems, research involving behavior, and the establishment of a unified system of global communication, systems for selecting and storing information, and so forth. It is quite clear that in the hands of irresponsible bureaucratic authorities operating secretly, all this research may prove exceptionally dangerous, but at the same time it may prove extremely important and necessary to mankind, if it is carried out under public supervision and discussion and socio-scientific analysis. We cannot reject wider application of artificial materials, synthetic food, or the modernization of every aspect of life; we cannot obstruct growing automation and industrial expansion, irrespective of the social problems these may involve.

We cannot condemn the construction of bigger nuclear power stations or research into nuclear physics, since energetics is one of the bases of our civilization. ...

We cannot cease interplanetary and inter-galactic space research, including the attempts to intercept signals from civilizations outside our own earth. The chance that such experiments will prove successful is probably small, but precisely for this reason the results may well be tremendous.

I have mentioned only a few examples. In actual fact all important aspects of progress are closely interwoven; none of them can be discarded without the risk of destroying the entire structure of our civilization. Progress is indivisible. But intellectual factors play a special role in the mechanism of progress. Underestimating these factors is particularly widespread in the socialist countries, probably due to the populist-ideological dogmas of official philosophy, and may well result in distortion of the path of progress or even its cessation and stagnation.

Progress is possible and innocuous only when it is subject to the control of reason. The important problems involving environmental protection exemplify the role of public opinion, the open society, and freedom of conscience. The partial liberalization in our country after the death of Stalin made it possible to engage in public debate on this problem during the early 1960s. But an effective solution demands increased tightening of social and international control. The military application of scientific results and controlled disarmament are an equally critical area, in which international confidence depends on public opinion and an open society. The example I gave involving the manipulation of mass psychology is already highly topical, even though it may appear farfetched.

Freedom of conscience, the existence of an informed public opinion, a pluralistic system of education, freedom of the press, and access to other sources of information -- all these are in very short supply in the socialist countries. This situation is a result of the economic, political, and ideological monism which is characteristic of these nations. At the same time these conditions are a vital necessity, not only to avoid all witting or unwitting abuse of progress, but also to strengthen it.

An effective system of education and a creative sense of heredity from one generation to another are possible only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. Conversely, intellectual bondage, the power and conformism of a pitiful bureaucracy, acts from the very start as a blight on humanistic fields of knowledge, literature, and art and results eventually in a general intellectual decline, the bureaucratization and formalization of the entire system of education, the decline of scientific research, the thwarting of all incentive to creative work, stagnation, and dissolution.

In the polarized world the totalitarian states, thanks to detente, today may indulge in a special form of intellectual parasitism. And it seems that if the inner changes that we all consider necessary do not take place, those nations will soon be forced to adopt an approach of this kind. If this happens, the danger of an explosion in the world situation will merely increase. Cooperation between the Western states, the socialist nations, and the developing countries is a vital necessity for peace, and it involves exchanges of scientific achievements, technology, trade, and mutual economic aid, particularly where food is concerned. But this cooperation must be based on mutual trust between open societies, or -- to put it another way -- with an open mind, on the basis of genuine equality and not on the basis of the democratic countries' fear of their totalitarian neighbors. If that were the case, cooperation would merely involve an attempt at ingratiating oneself with a formidable neighbor. But such a policy would merely postpone the evil day, soon to arrive anyway and, then, ten times worse. ... Detente can only be assured if from the very outset it goes hand in hand with continuous openness on the part of all countries, an aroused sense of public opinion, free exchange of information, and absolute respect in all countries for civic and political rights. In short: in addition to detente in the material sphere, with disarmament and trade, detente should take place in the intellectual and ideological sphere. ...

I should also emphasize that I consider it particularly important for United Nations armed forces to be used more generally for the purpose of restricting armed conflicts between states and ethnic groups. I have a high regard for the United Nations role, and I consider the institution to be one of mankind's most important hopes for a better future. Recent years have proved difficult and critical for this organization. I have written on this subject in My Country and the World, but after it was published, a deplorable event took place: the General Assembly adopted -- without any real debate -- a resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism and racial discrimination. Zionism is the ideology of a national rebirth of the Jewish people after two thousand years of diaspora, and it is not directed against any other people. The adoption of a resolution of this kind has damaged the prestige of the United Nations. But despite such motions, which are frequently the result of an insufficient sense of responsibility among leaders of some of the UN's younger members, I believe nevertheless that the organization may sooner or later be in a position to play a worthy role in the life of mankind, in accordance with its Charter's aims.

Let me now address one of the central questions of the present age, the problem of disarmament. ...It is imperative to promote confidence between nations, and carry out measures of control with the aid of international inspection groups. This is only possible if detente is extended to the ideological sphere, and it presupposes greater openness in public life. I have stressed the need for international agreements to limit arms supplies to other states, special agreements to halt production of new weapons systems, treaties banning secret rearmament, the elimination of strategically unbalancing factors, and in particular a ban on multi-warhead nuclear missiles. ...

Regarding the problem of human rights, I should like to speak mainly of my own country. During the months since the Helsinki Conference there has been no real improvement in this direction. In fact there have been attempts on the part of hardliners to "give the screw another turn," in international exchange of information, the freedom to choose the country in which one wishes to live, travel abroad for studies, work, or health reasons, as well as ordinary tourist travel. To illustrate my assertion, I should like to give you a few examples -- chosen at random and without any attempt to provide a complete picture.

You all know, even better than I do, that children from Denmark can get on their bicycles and cycle off to the Adriatic. No one would ever suggest that they were "teenage spies." But Soviet children are not allowed to do this! I am sure you are familiar with analogous examples.

The UN General Assembly, influenced by the socialist states, has imposed restrictions on the use of satellites for international TV transmissions. Now that the Helsinki Conference has taken place, there is every reason to deal afresh with this problem. For millions of Soviet citizens this is an important and interesting matter.

In the Soviet Union there is a severe shortage of artificial limbs and similar aids for invalids. But no Soviet invalid, even though he may have received a formal invitation from a foreign organization, is allowed to travel abroad in response to such an invitation.

Soviet newsstands rarely offer non-Communist newspapers, and it is not possible to buy every issue of Communist periodicals. Even informative magazines like Amerika are in very short supply. They are on sale only at a small number of newsstands, and are immediately snapped up by eager buyers.

Any person wishing to emigrate from the Soviet Union must have a formal invitation from a close relative. For many this is an insoluble problem -- for 300,000 Germans, for example, who wish to go to West Germany. (The emigration quota for Germans is 5,000 a year, which means that one might be forced to wait for sixty years!) The situation for those who wish to be reunited with relatives in Socialist countries is particularly tragic. There is no one to plead their case, and in such circumstances the arbitrary behavior of the authorities knows no bounds.

The freedom to travel and the freedom to choose where one wishes to work and live are still violated in the case of millions of collective-farm workers, and in the situation of hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars, who thirty years ago were cruelly and brutally deported from the Crimea and who to this day have been denied the right to return to their homeland.

The Helsinki Accord confirms the principle of freedom of conscience. However, a relentless struggle will have to be carried on if the provisions of this agreement are to be realized in practice. In the Soviet Union today many thousands of people are both judicially and extra-judicially persecuted for their convictions: for their religious faith and their desire to bring up their children in a religious spirit, or for reading and disseminating -- often only to a few acquaintances -- literature of which the state disapproves, but which from the standpoint of ordinary democratic practice is absolutely legitimate. On the moral plane, there is particular gravity in the persecution of persons who have defended other victims of unjust treatment, who have worked to publish and, in particular, to distribute information regarding both the persecution and trials of persons with deviant opinions and the conditions in places of imprisonment.

It is unbearable to consider that at the very moment we are gathered together in this hall on this festive occasion hundreds and thousands of prisoners of conscience are suffering from undernourishment, as the result of year-long hunger, of an almost total lack of proteins and vitamins in their diet, of a shortage of medicines (there is a ban on the sending of vitamins and medicines to inmates), and of over-exertion. They shiver from cold, damp, and exhaustion in ill-lit dungeons, where they are forced to wage a ceaseless struggle for their human dignity and to maintain their convictions against the "indoctrination machine," in fact against the destruction of their souls. The special nature of the concentration-camp system is carefully concealed. The sufferings a handful have undergone, because they exposed the terrible conditions, provide the best proof of the truth of their allegations and accusations. Our concept of human dignity demands an immediate change in this system for all imprisoned persons, no matter how guilty they may be. But what about the sufferings of the innocent? Worst of all is the hell that exists in the special psychiatric clinics in Dnepropetrovsk, Sytchevka, Blagoveshchensk, Kazan, Chernyakhovsk, Orel, Leningrad, Tashkent. ...

A final solution to persecutions can be based on international agreement -- amnesty for political prisoners, for prisoners of conscience in prisons, internment camps, and psychiatric clinics as set forth in a UN General Assembly resolution. This proposal involves no intervention in the internal affairs of any country. It would apply to every state on the same basis -- to the Soviet Union, to Indonesia, to Chile, to the Republic of South Africa, to Spain, to Brazil, and to every other country. Since the protection of human rights has been proclaimed in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, there can be no reason to call this issue a matter of purely internal or domestic concern. In order to achieve this goal, no efforts can be too great, however long the road may seem. And that the road is long was clearly shown during the recent session of the United Nations, in the course of which the United States moved a proposal for political amnesty, only to withdraw it after attempts had been made by a number of countries to expand the scope of the amnesty. I much regret what took place. A problem cannot be removed from circulation. I am profoundly convinced that it would be better to liberate a certain number of people -- even though they might be guilty of some offense or other -- than to keep thousands of innocent people locked up and exposed to torture.

Without losing sight of an overall solution of this kind, we must fight against injustice and the violation of human rights for every individual person separately. Much of our future depends on this. …