Thread by @akoz33

A fragment form Sakharov's critical response to Solzhenitsyn's "To the Soviet Leaders":
"I am also far from Solzhenitsyn's point of view on the role of Marxism as an allegedly "Western" and anti-religious doctrine, which distorted the healthy Russian line of development.

For me, in general, the very division of ideas into Western and Russian is incomprehensible. In my opinion, with a scientific, rationalistic approach to social and natural phenomena, there is only a division of ideas and concepts into correct and erroneous.

And where is this healthy Russian line of development? Was there really at least one moment in the history of Russia, like any country, when it was able to develop without contradictions and cataclysms?

The fact that Solzhenitsyn writes about ideological ritual, about the harmful waste of time and effort of millions of people on this empty chatter, accustoming them to idle talk and hypocrisy, undoubtedly makes a strong impression,

but the whole point is that this hypocritical chatter plays in our conditions the role of an "oath of allegiance" - it holds the people together with the mutual guarantee of the shared sin of hypocrisy. It, too, is an example of purposeful nonsense generated by the system.

The presentation of the problem of progress in Solzhenitsyn's letter seems to me especially inaccurate. Progress is a global process that is by no means identical, at least in the long term, to the quantitative growth of large-scale and industrial production.

In the conditions of scientific and democratic global regulation of the economy and all social life, including the dynamics of population, this is not a utopia, in my deep conviction, but an urgent necessity.

Progress should continuously and expediently change its specific forms, meeting the needs of human society, necessarily preserving nature and land for our descendants.

Slowdown in scientific research, international scientific relations, technological searches, new farming systems can only postpone the solution of these problems and create critical situations for the world as a whole.