Sakharov dissolved in our consciousness

Many civil activists today are doing what only one person could do during the Soviet era. Director of the Sakharov Center Sergei Lukashevsky told PublicPost about why we need to remember Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet physicist, one of the creators of the first hydrogen bomb, and then a dissident and human rights activist. Today he would have turned 92 years old.

Sergei Lukashevsky, director of the Sakharov Center

Historical memory is not just history, not a set of facts. This is a way of relating to history. There is nothing special in Sakharov’s social activities (purely methodologically). He simply raised his voice in connection with all cases of arbitrary power, all cases of persecution of people that were known to him. And this is something that is in some way dissolved in the world around us. Sakharov did not invent this approach - it is a natural moral impulse of any person.

Due to the fact that our situation - for now - is not as bad as in Soviet times, the practice of making public cases of arbitrary power has been dissolved in our life. We don’t think about it, it’s completely natural for us. Sakharov’s very moral position (the responsibility of a scientist, a person who, by virtue of his scientific talent, has acquired social weight, what is now called symbolic capital) is also extremely relevant today.

As for Sakharov’s ideas, some of them, of course, have become history. For example, the confrontation between capitalist and socialist systems. These issues not only disappeared from the agenda, but were actually implemented. Developed states are becoming more and more social, while striving to maintain their market, capitalist competitiveness.

One of Sakharov’s providences is extremely relevant now. If Western politicians were better acquainted with Sakharov's legacy, they would not be surprised by many of the problems. At the end of the 80s, Sakharov said that it was necessary to develop nuclear energy, fully aware of the threats posed by the use of atomic energy even for the most peaceful purposes. Democratic countries risk becoming dependent on authoritarian, totalitarian countries that have energy resources. And democratic countries should use nuclear energy material for the development of free scientific thought. For Sakharov, these were generally inseparable things: it is impossible to develop science in an unfree country. Today we see how countries that have energy resources and are not democratic place developed countries in a specific dependence. This is also about Russia’s relations with Western Europe. And about more complex structures, for example, US relations with the monarchies of the Persian Gulf.

Returning to free scientific thought: Sakharov spoke a lot about the inseparability of progress and human rights. Here we see the degradation of political institutions in our country. Do we really see progress in science, progress in the quality of management? Of course not.

In reality, Sakharov did not write major scientific works and was generally not a very great writer. Basically, he acted through his own life and actions. Therefore, we remember things tied to certain political events: he stood up for political prisoners, participated in congresses of people's deputies. This in itself is not entirely applicable. But the value messages from which he proceeded have either been so dissolved in our consciousness that they are not perceived as directly Sakharov’s, or they are completely relevant, like his forecasts regarding nuclear energy.

Sakharov on freedom

Human society needs intellectual freedom - freedom to receive and disseminate information, freedom to discuss without bias and fearlessness, freedom from the pressure of authority and prejudice. Such triple freedom of thought is the only guarantee against infecting the people with mass myths, which in the hands of insidious hypocrites and demagogues easily turn into a bloody dictatorship. This is the only guarantee of the feasibility of the scientific-democratic approach to politics, economics and culture.

About the death penalty

I am convinced that the death penalty has no moral or practical justification and is a relic of barbaric customs of revenge.

About nuclear energy

Personally, I am convinced that humanity needs nuclear energy. It must develop, but with absolute guarantees of safety.

About war and other dangers

Nothing threatens individual freedom and the meaning of life more than war, poverty, and terror. However, there are also very serious indirect, only slightly more distant dangers. One of these dangers is the duping of man (the “gray mass”, according to the cynical definition of bourgeois futurology) by “mass culture” - with a decrease in the intellectual level and with an emphasis on entertainment or utilitarianism, with carefully protective censorship.

About me

Not out of false modesty, but out of a desire to be precise, I will note that my fate turned out to be greater than my personality. I just tried to be at the level of my own destiny.