Why freedom is a conscious necessity. Freedom as a perceived necessity

Freedom is a conscious necessity

a similar statement was made by Engels - one of those who in the last century in Russia were called “classics”, that is, canonized politicians, creators of the model of behavior of the then and later ruling class of bureaucrats in Russia, who called themselves the “party”; part of the behavior model was the use, both for ritual purposes and to control people, of a certain set of phrases called “Marxist-Leninist philosophy”; the words used to construct phrases were combined according to certain internal rules, and the phrases obtained at the output of the phrase-forming device were interpreted in accordance with the rules of ordinary language; Thus, meaningless from the point of view of ordinary language, but full of deep meaning within the framework of the ritual, the phrase “freedom is a conscious necessity” was used for coercion, for example, to move workers from one workplace to another (parcels “to the collective farm”, “to grow potatoes” and so on.):

ஐ “This lemma, with truly brilliant unceremoniousness, instead of the previous slavery - involuntary, and therefore unconscious - offers us a new one; it does not break the fetters, but only lengthens the stretch, drives us into the Unknown, calling freedom - a conscious necessity.” - Imaginary quantity (preface)

Lem's World - Dictionary and Guide. L.A. Ashkinazi. 2004.

See what “Freedom is a conscious necessity” is in other dictionaries:

FREEDOM AND NECESSITY- opposing philosophies. categories, the relationship between them constitutes one of the most important problems of the concept of man and history. Known in Christ. theology called the problem of free will, it caused a lot of controversy due to the fact that the idea... ... Atheist Dictionary

FREE WILL- the concept of European moral philosophy, finally formed by I. Kant in the meaning of an individual’s intelligible ability to moral self-determination. In retrospect (pre- or post-Kantian theories), the term "St." can be considered... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Freedom of the individual- Free will = Freedom of choice (Greek το αύτεξούσιον or το εφ ημίν, Latin liberum arbitrium) from the time of Socrates and the question of whether people have real control over their decisions and actions is still controversial in philosophy and theology. Contents... Wikipedia

Free will in theology- is an important part of views of free will in general. Religions differ greatly in how they respond to the basic argument against free will, and thus may provide different answers to the paradox of free will and the claim that omniscience... ... Wikipedia

Liberty- Freedom ♦ Liberté To be free means to do what you want. Hence the three main meanings of this word, related specifically to deeds: freedom of action (if by deed we mean action), freedom of desire (if by deed we mean desire; below we... ... Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

Liberty- Basic concepts Free will Positive freedom Negative freedom Human rights Violence ... Wikipedia

Freedom of conscience- Freedom Basic concepts Free will Positive freedom Negative freedom Human rights Violence · ... Wikipedia

Political freedom- a natural, inalienable quality from a person, social communities of people, which allows them to express their thoughts and actions in accordance with legal norms, interests aimed at stabilization, order in political power relations... ... Political science. Dictionary.

Freedom (social)- Freedom, the ability of a person to act in accordance with his interests and goals, based on the knowledge of objective necessity. In the history of social thought, the problem of socialism has traditionally been reduced to the question: does a person have free will... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

NECESSITY- a category used in philosophy, scientific knowledge and logic and expressing the inevitable nature of events occurring in the real world, or the natural nature of processes studied in science, or the logical connection between premises and conclusion... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Liberty- FREEDOM is the central concept of European culture, characterizing a person as the source and reason for his decisions and actions; a philosophical category that characterizes a specific form of conditioning of personal and public life. This… … Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Books

• , Tumanov O.. This book is a practical guide to self-development and managing your own life. Awareness of just a few important laws of life can fundamentally change its course. The choice of these... Buy for 380 rubles
• Choose yourself. Personal freedom and creating your own world, Oleg Tumanov. This book is a practical guide to self-development and managing your own life. Awareness of just a few important laws of life can fundamentally change its course. The choice of these...

What can such seemingly opposite concepts as freedom and necessity have in common? We can say that freedom, constrained by the need for restrictions, is no longer itself, but let’s try to find out whether this is really so.

Preservation of life in the need for restriction of freedom

A person cannot behave with complete freedom of action, since the natural or social environment around him sets certain limits and laws for a reason; ignoring them brings death, first of all, to the person himself. Judge for yourself what the consequences of a free choice to jump from a high cliff or the intention to commit a crime against another person in order to gain profit can be. The first case threatens with fatal injuries, the second - imprisonment. Moreover, the commission of crimes against society and the individual is limited in the mind not only by the fear of punishment, but by the general level of internal culture and the presence of moral principles.

Conscious necessity as true freedom of choice

The above gives grounds for the following conclusion - only a person with a high consciousness will not perceive the forced need to limit his freedom as something negative that requires overcoming. Freedom is not permissiveness; it is the latter that can, in an attempt to overcome necessary restrictions, become real bondage for a person. Realizing the need to perform certain actions, a person performs them without a feeling of oppression, while feeling truly free, since the only source of coercion is the conclusions of his own mind.

So, let us highlight the main factors necessary to understand the definition of freedom as a conscious necessity:

• education;
• having a critical mind;
• education and level of culture.

All the great achievements and exploits that have become the legacy of human history, making our world a better place and leading it along the path of progress, were accomplished with a sense of awareness of necessity and therefore are the highest manifestations of freedom.

Yes, I agree that freedom is a conscious necessity. Freedom is the ability to do what you want without depending on other people.

Let's imagine the following situation. A small child does not realize the need for freedom. He already has a good life. All his needs are satisfied by his parents. The teenager begins to realize that he needs freedom to express himself and do what he wants. Maybe. At this moment, freedom becomes a conscious necessity, when the child ceases to satisfy his primary needs and he has a need, for example, for self-realization.

- “Even the KGB did not know exactly what part of the USSR population listens to foreign radio.”

- “I headed a department whose functions included work on objects of ideological sabotage, among which was Radio Liberty/Free Europe...”

- “There was a discussion around jamming, but nothing new was put forward as arguments, the same thing - “they will corrupt the youth, produce dissidents.” What kind of dissidents could we be talking about even then?..”

- “As far as I remember, there were no disagreements on this issue, because everyone understood that this was already an urgent issue and could not be resolved without solving it...”

- “I would like the programs of today’s Freedom to become a model for our media, but hopes for this are weak...”

Difference in time. - The difference is 50 years. First of March 53rd year. Are those few still alive in Russia who heard this in the early morning of the first day of March:

A fragment of the first broadcast of the Osvobozhdeniye radio station, renamed Radio Liberty in 1959:

Listen, listen! Today the new radio station "Liberation" begins its broadcasts!

Compatriots! For a long time, the Soviet government has been hiding from you the very fact of the existence of emigration. And so we want you to know that, living abroad in freedom, we have not forgotten about our duty to our homeland. All of us - Russians, like other peoples of the Soviet Union, do not intend to stop fighting until the communist dictatorship is completely destroyed...

Vladimir Tolts: Half a century of Freedom...

Speaking seriously, over the past 50 years, this cultural and political phenomenon - Radio Liberty - its role in the history of the no longer existing country of the USSR and the changed world, its significance for modern Russia has not yet been comprehended. And this story itself has not yet been written. Although thousands of pages of research, dissertations, propaganda and counter-propaganda brochures, denunciations, complaints, critical and enthusiastic reviews and reviews have already been devoted to it. The anniversary broadcast, of course, does not provide an opportunity to fill this gap. Yes, I don’t pose such a task.

Today I would like to give the floor to people (very few - time limits us), those who, despite different destinies and views, in one way or another intersected with this unique phenomenon - Radio Liberty - in their work and “in life”. And I would also like to draw your (including future Radio historians) attention to some little-known and critically unconsidered documents and evidence, without which the perception of the history of our Radio and the countries for which it broadcast and broadcasts turns out to be incomplete and emasculated .

Let's start with a passage from a publication prepared by Russian historians for publication in the United States.

“Even the KGB did not know exactly what part of the population of the USSR listened to foreign radio. In July 1960, the head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee for the republics, Leonid Ilyichev, reported to the CPSU Central Committee that “currently in the Soviet Union there are up to 20 million radios capable of receiving foreign radio stations. It is difficult to imagine an exact picture of how much foreign radio stations are listened to in the USSR, including the Voice of America and the BBC, but there is indirect information indicating a certain interest in foreign radio stations."

Ilyichev further reported that in Tajikistan foreign radio stations are listened to not only in apartments, but also in public places (teahouses), the practice of handicraft alteration of radio receivers has become widespread: radio amateurs, including war veterans (trained in this in the army) “for 250 -300 rubles are built into the receivers available to the population, the short-wave range, starting from 10 meters. On these waves, only foreign radio stations can be received. Even in Moscow, in GUM and other stores, people who buy a receiver are often approached by people without specific occupations with proposal to build an additional shortwave range into the receiver."

In 1986, a memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee on jamming foreign radio, signed by Yegor Ligachev and Viktor Chebrikov, reported that “13 “long-range defense” radio centers and 81 “local defense” stations with a total capacity of about 40 thousand kW are used for jamming.” Long-range protection provides jamming of transmissions on approximately 30% of the territory of the Soviet Union. Local protection stations are deployed in 81 cities and provide suppression of transmissions in a zone with a radius of up to 30 km. Outside this zone, the quality of jamming drops sharply. By means of "long-range and short-range defense" with different the degree of effectiveness overlaps with regions of the country where about 100-130 million people live."

Vladimir Tolts: A modern Russian historian sneers: “We cannot help but draw attention to the irresistibility of bureaucratic phrases: the “quality of jamming”, which is the “protection” of the Soviet population". But the then defenders of the Soviet system (from the Central Committee and from the Cheka) had no time for jokes. We must give them their due: they were among the first to realize the power of free radio information on the consciousness of Soviet people, especially young people. (They realized not at all because were smarter than others, and all thanks to the same information that they carefully hid from others.)

From an analytical report by the head of the “ideological” department of the KGB of the USSR, Philip Bobkov, presented by the head of the Security Committee, Yuri Andropov, in December 1976 to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. (Style and spelling of the original!)

Top secret.

Special folder.

On the nature and causes of negative manifestations among students and students

In ideological sabotage against Soviet youth, the enemy actively uses various channels of international communication. He attaches particular importance to radio propaganda.

Currently, 41 radio stations broadcast from the territory of capitalist countries to the Soviet Union, broadcasting 253 hours a day. Most of their radio programs are designed with a youth audience in mind.

Vladimir Tolts: And here - from the same document - and about us:

“One of the leaders of the Radio Liberty Committee expressed in the following words the instructions of the special services to organize ideological sabotage among Soviet youth: “It is absolutely not necessary to formulate specific positive slogans for Soviet youth. It is quite enough to irritate her with the surrounding reality." At the same time, he said, "people will inevitably be found who are ready to do anything for the sake of fundamental changes." In the documents fabricated by the Radio Liberty Committee, "Program of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union" and "Tactical foundations of the democratic movement of the Soviet Union" these guidelines are expressed not only in the form of calls for the widespread involvement of young people in anti-socialist activities, but also in a specific program for the deployment of subversive work by all centers and through all channels.

Vladimir Tolts: Well, "irritation with the surrounding reality" neither the young nor the old needed to call up the Radio with any special efforts - here Bobkov and Andropov, and perhaps their informants, are, so to speak, “bending over.” By the way, I knew some of the last ones who worked in Svoboda for the KGB personally. What can I say: not “Spinoza”, maybe they misunderstood it and they could have lied. This is an obvious lie about the documents “Program of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union” and “Tactical Foundations of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union”. - Pure samizdat! And the Soviet court recognized this, and I know the author too...

But I personally was more interested in another passage in this particularly secret KGB-Tsek document:

“Analysis of statistical data shows that a significant part of those who committed politically harmful acts experienced ideologically harmful influence from abroad.

Of all the factors, the main one is the influence of foreign radio propaganda, which influenced the formation of an ideologically hostile attitude in more than 1/3 of the people (1,445 people) who committed negative manifestations. Analysis of the materials indicates the spread of interest in foreign broadcasting among young people. Thus, according to the study “The Audience of Western Radio Stations in Moscow”, conducted by the Department of Applied Social Research of the Institute of Social Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 80% of students and about 90% of students in senior classes of secondary schools, State PTUs, and technical schools listen to radio stations with more or less regularity. For the majority of these people, listening to foreign radio has become a habit (32% of students and 59.2% of students listen to foreign radio programs at least 1-2 times a week).

The study “Formation of the worldview and value orientation of student youth in Omsk” showed that 39.7% of the students surveyed periodically listened to broadcasts from foreign radio stations.

(According to the sociological study “The Audience of Western Radio Stations in Moscow,” 2/3 of radio listeners under the age of 30 are interested in music programs.) Further, the evolution of interests and moods largely corresponded to the pattern that was determined by the head of one of the sections of the radio station at an instructional meeting.” Free Europe": "Our correspondent is 16 years old. Now he is interested in records, but in 5-10 years, having gotten used to our programs, he will listen to the entire program."

Vladimir Tolts: After 10 years mentioned in the KGB paper, “perestroika” began. In 1991, Svoboda’s mature listeners were among the defenders of the White House, and Svoboda in those August days turned out to be one of their main sources of truthful and uncensored information.

To be fair, it is worth noting that even before, young people listened to not only music programs on our waves. And not only young people...

This is the story of our long-time listener - literary critic, Doctor of Philology, Professor Marietta Chudakova.

Marietta Chudakova: I can’t say that I listened to your radio station a lot in Soviet times - my life did not provide such an opportunity: I went to work every day at twenty minutes to eight, returned 12 hours later, did household chores and sat down until late at night for my work... But It is precisely because Freedom was more than radio, that it was socio-political folklore, that is, it was passed on from mouth to mouth, that I can judge it. We had friends for whom listening to Freedom after 12 at night was a daily ritual that could not be canceled by any circumstances.

Alexander Chudakov recalls the listeners of the very first years of the radio station’s existence in his novel, his impressions of his school years. His father, my father-in-law, is a history teacher in a regional Siberian town and a lecturer on international topics, and then I quote a fragment, practically devoid of fiction, “he listened to the Voice of America and Free Europe radio stations, which for simplicity he called “World Domination.” A ten-meter pole-antenna was erected on the highest poplar tree, which together with it rose more and more every year. A receiver with a round scale produced by the Riga VEF plant, which came from Germany as reparations, was brought from Moscow. Father said: “Quality! - One word - "Telefunken". (That is, this particular line of radios came from Germany, and it was carefully hidden in Riga, as Riga residents tell us.) But the quality helped little - “World Domination” was mercilessly jammed. True, for some reason they didn’t start right away, and one neighbor even came up with a theory - “they like to listen to it themselves.” And before they “started the millstones” (as they said among themselves), they managed to listen to some of the news. In the morning, another neighbor came, who also had a receiver, the listeners exchanged what they heard through the roar and grinding, and discussed it.

In general, one could hear better in Siberia than later in Moscow. But in terms of age, only today, through the tapes of Ivan Tolstoy’s “50 Years of Freedom” programs, we heard your then 50s, rollicking, seemingly Soviet, although in content anti-Soviet voices of the second emigration. Couplets similar to the then Nechaev couplets, almost heard every day on Soviet radio, only with the opposite content.

Yes, some broadcasts are similar in intonation to the Soviet voices of the painfully memorable Moscow radio. They resemble him in their straightforwardness. After all, these were people, announcers and participants in these programs, there were people who continued to feel like in the pre- and post-war Soviet Union on the ideological front. It was a continuation of the war on air. - The world turns red, and they hold the line, which was quite consistent with what was happening...

When the so-called “spirit of Geneva” arose in 1955, that is, a softening of relations between the Soviets and the West, the mood in Svoboda was “the Bolsheviks are giving up, they have retreated.” Both speakers and authors still continued the Cold War by inertia. The softening began after 1956 and also quickly; naturally, things changed after the Hungarian uprising.

Vladimir Tolts: One of our first listeners was the now retired KGB Colonel Oleg Maksimovich Nechiporenko - a former spy, and to this day proud of the fact that the CIA called him the best KGB operative in Latin America, and now the General Director of the Russian "National Anti-Crime and Anti-Terrorism Fund" .

Oleg Nechiporenko: I remember now - during these years I studied at the Institute of Foreign Languages ​​in Moscow - there was such a receiver, at the same time it had a player, it was “Riga-10”. When Radio Liberty appeared, at that time I was carried away as an amateur, listening to shortwave radio broadcasters, both professionals and amateurs... Somewhere, I remember, it was at that time that I first heard Radio Liberty, also, in my opinion , no measures were taken to “silence” or jam. During this period, I remember listening for the first time several times, and during my studies at the institute I periodically came across it. - I didn’t catch it on purpose, but found it while I was looking for shortwave signals and listening to your broadcasts...

Vladimir Tolts: Much later, already in the mid-70s, after he was expelled from Mexico for attempting to organize a coup there, Oleg Maksimovich became closely involved with us.

Oleg Nechiporenko: I headed a department whose functions included work on objects of, as they said at that time, “ideological sabotage,” among which was Radio Liberty/Free Europe. This belonged to the period of the late 70s - early 80s. During this period, I had to communicate quite closely with Radio Liberty.

I must say that here, unlike the early 50s, I did not need to listen to Radio Liberty broadcasts, since many programs or plans for the operation of this facility became known to me before they went on the air, thanks to our capabilities and, in in particular, to a person like Oleg Tumanov, who worked at this facility for a long time and who was able to provide us with very detailed information about the activities of this facility.

Vladimir Tolts: Well, I have already spoken about the quality of this information, which then reached the Politburo through Andropov. In my opinion, the KGB deliberately inflated its significance and distorted it, exaggerating the size of our then audience and the degree of its political danger and influence - all in order to raise the significance of its work in the eyes of the Politburo authorities. This opinion is shared by the former first deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Vadim Valentinovich Zagladin, as well as Colonel Nechiporenko, a long-time participant in Freedom programs.

Vadim Zagladin: - You are absolutely right. You know, the point is that, of course, this influence was exaggerated, deliberately exaggerated, I think. It was exaggerated for a simple reason: in order to give greater efficiency, or, in any case, the idea of ​​greater efficiency of one’s own activities, one must first exaggerate the opposite activity. - This, in my opinion, is the law in all societies and at all times. But that's how it was done...

Marietta Chudakova: ...In the 70s there was a different intonation. We began to listen to Svoboda when, for a fee - for a large joint article in Novy Mir about a modern story (humor!) - we bought a huge box - a VEF radio receiver - in 1966. Less than a year had passed when, in August 1968, every evening two heads began to lean against the golden curtain of our VEF, trying to hear something through the wild roar. (Chudakov and I were content with just retelling them - it was almost impossible to listen). It was Riga resident Lazik Fleishman, a recent student, future Stanford professor and world-famous Slavist - he then stopped at our house on the way from Yalta to Riga. The second was Muscovite Garik Superfin, an eternal student at the University of Tartu, a future prisoner, a future exile, a future employee of the archives of Radio Liberty. He then came running every evening to hear something with Lazik about the details of our invasion of Prague. - Only from the “box” with curtains could one find out what was really happening in these tragic days...

Vladimir Tolts: And here is Gabriel Superfin mentioned by Marietta Chudakova. He is now a fellow at the Institute of Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen.

Gabriel Superfin: Radio Liberty? - I probably heard it quite early, but I clearly remember only from the winter (December 67 - January 68), when I was in the Moscow region, lived for a week, and quite clearly, clearly heard this radio station for almost a whole day .

Vladimir Tolts: - What do you remember?

Gabriel Superfin: - No matter how funny it may seem, it was not the programs themselves that were remembered, but the “insets”. For example, “one often hears a statement about what communism is” and a request to “write about it,” which caused laughter from me and my co-listener, my now deceased friend.

Marietta Chudakova: Svoboda has always been more anti-Soviet than the more respectable and diplomatic BBC, Voice of America and the later Deutsche Welle. This was especially felt during periods of so-called “detente of international tension.”

We listened to what we could catch from several of these radio stations. The audience was large and varied. Those who dreamed of pouring more salt on the tail of the Soviet regime preferred Freedom! In addition, “Svoboda” was jammed the most and, perhaps, that’s why I still wanted to catch it out of spite...

Vladimir Tolts: We are talking today about the fifty-year history of the Russian service of Radio Liberty. Not only to Freedom’s listeners, but also to those who actively prevented it from being listened to, and even to those who worked at the Radio Station, now the half-century of Radio activity and its significance are seen differently than before.

Gabriel Superfin: When I worked [at Svoboda], I realized that Radio is not only something that goes on the air, but it is still an organization that has accumulated a huge amount of information materials and that for any Western Sovietologist it was a school about which, As for the school, everyone doesn’t mention it much and doesn’t express gratitude.

Vladimir Tolts: Naturally, the Soviet people, divided by the logic of history into two opposing, although interpenetrating groups - the supervised and the supervised - had different attitudes to the information they received from Freedom, and to its sources and presentation.

A word from the historian, rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Professor Yuri Nikolaevich Afanasyev.

Yuri Afanasyev: - Indeed, apparently, for different people, for different groups, for different institutions, Radio Liberty was not the same thing at all. If for some large part of normal people who were interested in what was happening in the country and in the world, the radio station was a kind of outlet. And only there in those early years it was possible to listen to the normal Russian language, and some unstamped thoughts, and so on, then for the authorities the radio station was always something very undesirable, with which the enemy’s voice was associated, and so on.

So here we need to approach things differently. For ordinary people, it was also for everyone in their own way, everyone perceived it in their own way. For example, someone simply listened and received some information. Other people, besides this, together, I would say, with Radio Liberty, comprehended some events, looked for the first definitions, tried to analyze some events. I consider myself one of these people.

Vladimir Tolts: At the time when Yuri Afanasyev was developing his “definitions,” one of the most informed people in the Central Committee, Vadim Zagladin, was doing the same thing, but in his own way. He did not listen to Svoboda, but he read in the most detailed manner the printouts of her broadcasts made for the Central Committee chiefs.

Vadim Zagladin: - You know, I have a specific view on this problem. Because for me personally, Freedom was not something special, because everything that you conveyed, I already knew and knew more... I was interested only from one point of view, that this is, so to speak, an oppositional view of our reality , which was probably, and even certainly, interesting for our internal oppositionists, which gave them some materials and knowledge of some things that they might not know from our press. This was of some interest, but not that much for me. It was interesting for me, when I was preparing for trips to the West, I had to conduct some discussions with opponents, it was clear to me approximately what arguments could be used, because they were the same arguments as yours.

Vladimir Tolts: And here’s what Zagladin’s colleague on the CPSU Central Committee, one of the former secretaries of the Central Committee and members of its Politburo and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vadim Andreevich Medvedev, tells me:

Vadim Medvedev: The activities of the radio stations were somehow in the context of the general situation of that period, the split of the world, the confrontation between two blocs. And from here, it seems to me, today’s assessments of the station’s retrospective activities can be derived. Of course, for many people in the Soviet Union at that time it was an additional source of information, an alternative source of information. But I would not dare to say that she carried the truth and only the truth. Because it was an ideological war, as a reflection of the political confrontation between two blocs. In an informational sense, it carried a certain positive load, since it complemented and provided an alternative source of information, but at the same time it reflected the ideology of confrontation between two blocks of ideologies, two systems.

Vladimir Tolts: In contrast to the high-ranking recipients of Svoboda’s information, Oleg Nechiporenko, who led the espionage on it, is still inclined to believe that our station was not only a means of, as he puts it, “ideological sabotage,” but also an intelligence tool. He explains it this way:

Oleg Nechiporenko: Yes, here is the question: Radio Liberty was not an “either-[or]” object, it was an object that performed two functions - collecting information, and the second point in the activity of this object is how the information received by intelligence is implemented to influence the enemy. This is one of the functions of special services, and Radio Liberty was precisely this tool. That is, Radio Liberty, for example, carrying out or raising some questions, carrying out propaganda on the Soviet Union and seeking feedback, that is, receiving some letters from the Soviet Union in response to questions posed in programs or reactions to these programs, or even urging Under this, things that were prepared directly by American intelligence could present it all in such a way that this was information coming from the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Tolts: Well, the view, as another participant in our program put it, is “very specific,” and as an argument - general reasoning, nothing specific. When I reminded Oleg Nechiporenko that his “office” - the KGB - opposed Svoboda broadcasts ("ideological sabotage", as he puts it) not only with espionage, but also with real sabotage (I mean the explosion of our radio station, which resulted in human casualties), followed This is the answer from the current head of the Russian “National Anti-Crime and Anti-Terrorism Fund”:

Oleg Nechiporenko: Technologically, the “hot war”, that is, the hot confrontation, if such a metaphor is used in the Cold War, was waged by the opposing intelligence services using the same methods. And to say that we blew up Radio Liberty, and someone in relation to us... After all, Radio Liberty also contributed and tried to instill in the minds of, say, dissidents or some forces that were and were hostile to our regime - I don’t evaluate our regime in this case, what it was right about, what it was wrong about, what it was utopian about, and so on... But I’m saying that the propaganda that was conducted from the position of Radio Liberty, as a propaganda tool, influence on the enemy, the same thoughts were carried out and planted in the minds of opponents of the regime, including those pushing them to carry out some kind of violent action.

Vladimir Tolts: And again - no evidence! But Oleg Maksimovich knows very well that both the journalistic code and many internal Radio documents that his agents sent him, any calls for violent action are strictly prohibited! Well, contrary to the ancient maxim, times sometimes change faster than people...

Yuri Afanasyev: Somewhere from the 80s, I not only listened carefully to Radio Liberty, it was present with me almost every day, but in addition, I myself very often spoke on Radio Liberty and visited Munich. And that’s why I consider myself, it helps to be, I’m mistaken, but very close and even, perhaps, involved in what was happening at Radio Liberty. And therefore, based on the fact that I have been listening regularly for decades and based on the fact that I myself have spoken quite often and on various topics, it is of great importance to me, and it has filled some visible part in my life ...

Marietta Chudakova: ...The end of the 80s is the activity of Svoboda, in essence, together with ours and Russian journalism, with “Moscow News” and with “Ogonyok”. Knowledge of Soviet history from sources was especially in demand. Everyone in Russia thirsted for the truth!..

But in the first half of the 90s, the anti-Yeltsin scolding, accusatory tone often hurt unpleasantly. Moreover, our local journalists here, and not only journalists, but also famous cultural figures, almost did not ask it, or, in any case, did not correct it. (This was typical social behavior, which some of my like-minded colleagues reasonably call “compensatory”, that is, instead of looking for some kind of constructive positive role in the situation of decisive changes taking place, to become preoccupied with the prospects of the weak, nascent Russian democracy, our thinkers endlessly ridicule of the new government compensated for the long Soviet existence with a clamped mouth). It was a very easy task, since there were any number of absurdities happening around, and it could not be otherwise, and, most importantly, it was finally done safely. The moment came when the meaning of continuing the work of Svoboda was not entirely clear, since they were pouring water on Yeltsin and his team, talking about how badly and incorrectly we were emerging from socialism, as if someone knew exactly the way in which one could get out of socialism in a snow-white suit cesspool, it was quite possible in the domestic press and television.

By the way, today our media lacks a critical analysis of the Kremlin’s policies. Why, for example, with the president’s huge ratings, are reforms carried out so slowly and indistinctly?

Vladimir Tolts: Well, as you can see, we always had enough critics (of all kinds)! And the fact that they care about us personally encourages me...

Let us return, however, to the second half of the 80s, which Marietta Chudakova just mentioned. In 1987, a most important event occurred in the fate of Radio: they stopped jamming it.

How was it? - I ask one of those who participated in making the decision about this - Vadim Valentinovich Zagladin.

Vadim Zagladin:

I don’t remember anything anymore... I can only say one thing, that, of course, this is an issue that was discussed for a long time, there were both supporters and opponents of this, like all those new phenomena that perestroika brought, they had the same opponents and supporters, as well as the issue of removing jamming.

It was a general tendency to either advocate democratization, some kind of freedom of information or not. This applied to everything - jamming and other things. Moreover, perhaps, the struggle on the issue of human rights was of greatest importance, because it was the key point, everything else was derivative. And only thanks to Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, it was possible to achieve what was achieved, that is, a transition from some kind of active rejection of the very problem of human rights in the form in which it was discussed, including the jamming of foreign broadcasts. If it weren't for him, nothing would have happened...

Vladimir Tolts: The then head of party ideology, Vadim Andreevich Medvedev, recalls the fateful party decision for Freedom as follows:

Vadim Medvedev: This was, of course, a collective decision, by the collective leadership, initiated by Gorbachev, but with the support of those around him at that time, although there were very serious disagreements on many issues even then. But as far as I remember, there were no disagreements on this issue, because everyone understood that this was already an urgent issue and could not be resolved without solving it. Moreover, the jamming was ineffective, you know this, a lot of money was spent, but there was no point.

Vladimir Tolts: I was especially interested in hearing about the political unanimity in making the decision to abolish jamming from Vadim Medvedev, who asserted in the same 80s (and Svoboda reported about this then) that “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, which was once read in our programs will never be published in the USSR. True, today Vadim Andreevich remembers this differently:

Vadim Medvedev: I was not opposed to the publication of "Archipelago", I believed that first of all magazines and, in particular, the magazine "New World" should publish those works that were already being prepared for publication at one time before Solzhenitsyn's expulsion from the country, and the obligations under which were already given to him then. But then it was blocked. I thought that it was necessary to start with “Cancer Ward”, publish “In the First Circle”, but not immediately “The Gulag Archipelago”, because this could lead to a very serious complication of the situation around Solzhenitsyn.

But this was a kind of tactical step in this regard. I understood that “The Gulag Archipelago” could not be hidden from the Russian and Soviet audience; sooner or later it would have to be published, but not started right away. And in this regard, the views did not coincide. Alexander Isaevich insisted on starting the publication of The Gulag Archipelago right away.

Vladimir Tolts: Yes, a lot has changed since then. This is noted even by Oleg Maksimovich Nechiporenko, who is staunchly committed to the KGB ideals:

Oleg Nechiporenko: When I first heard these programs and for some time, stumbling upon them, I listened with a certain interest, because in the early 50s I was convinced of the correctness of the ideas that guided me in my life. Subsequently, when gradually, like the majority of my generation, doubts arose about a certain illusory and utopian nature in terms of the materialization of these ideas.

You know, what’s interesting is that it so happened that my schoolmates and a high school teacher ended up at Radio Liberty. And it turned out that I ended up on one side of the barricades, and they ended up on the other side of the barricades. I mean, in particular, Yuliy Panich, with whom we studied together at school, and Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev. But then it happened that they became objects of my operational interest, when I was directly related to the work on this object, and at that time they were on the other side of the barricades. Right now, you know, I am meeting and reminiscing about the past with Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev. It is possible that we are planning a meeting with Yuliy Panich in the near future...

Vladimir Tolts: The 90s, which we reached in our program, turned out to be not only a time that clearly demonstrated dramatic changes in people, in “the country and the world.” It was a time of very serious changes in Freedom.

Marietta Chudakova: ...At the end of the 90s and at the beginning of the new century, the place of the radio station was completely clear. In Svoboda you can now hear what you have to search for all day long in the domestic media: letters from ordinary citizens to Kalinin, Voroshilov, these letters to the authorities, which are not in the wider domestic press, only in the scientific press, heartbreaking stories, sometimes inhumane resolutions... Staff Freedoms remained educators and propagandists, when education, always necessary in our country, with its huge inert and thoughtlessly nostalgic mass, was practically expelled from the Russian media, and anti-Soviet propaganda, I’m not afraid of this word, disappeared completely. And such propaganda now, when the hypocritical slogan “this is our history” about the entire Soviet century is being established in Russia, is especially needed. Therefore, let’s say, the “Soviet Film Twenty” program on Svoboda is about films that, unlike the early 90s, are shown here without any introductions.

We still need systematic broadcasts on Russian history. A significant portion of students in Russia were educated in Soviet times and have very little knowledge of the real history of their country.

About today's Russia - the most important program!.. - "Small Victories" about those who won trials against our authorities. In our media, as a rule, you can only hear about how hopeless the legal battle with the authorities is.

And in conclusion, I’m not afraid to say this: I would like the programs of today’s Freedom to become a model for our media, but hopes for this are weak. Our journalist, there are few exceptions, say, “Radio Russia” seems to me to be an exception, it seems that she is not going to set herself meaningful tasks today.

Vladimir Tolts: You know, it’s surprising to me, but this judgment of a freedom-loving writer quite unexpectedly echoes the reasoning of another participant in our program - a KGB spy colonel:

Oleg Nechiporenko: Radio Liberty, of course, is more qualified and understands the processes in our country more deeply. Because, no matter how you say that even such large radio stations that enjoy great authority in the West, they still do not sufficiently imagine this problem, including the ethnic psychology of Russia.

In this regard, I must admit that Radio Liberty has gained very rich experience in this regard and uses this experience very skillfully. Including, perhaps, somewhere this experience is richer than our modern Russian mass media, which now, if we compare it with something, is like young, vigorous, grown-up puppies that have broken free and are ready to gnaw right and left, conquering their space . But as far as professionalism is concerned, there is, of course, still a lot missing...

Vladimir Tolts: My interlocutors today told me a lot more about Radio Liberty. (This program didn’t even fit half of what was said.) There are a lot of critical comments of various kinds.

A lot of various flattering things. They expressed a variety of opinions (from rosy to cautiously skeptical) about the prospects of the Radio Station. Do you know that, in my opinion, they are now united by these former leaders of the former Central Committee and an employee of the KGB that is by no means as omnipotent as before, liberal professors and a former Soviet political prisoner? - Well, not only this program, of course. But what is directly revealed in it, one might say, according to the Marxist formula, is the attitude towards Freedom (to our Radio) as a “conscious necessity”.

Freedom is a conscious necessity.

This saying goes back to ancient Greek antiquity, and more precisely to the philosophy of the Stoics, which arose in Athens around 300 BC. O. B. Skorodumova notes that the Stoics were characterized by the idea of ​​the inner freedom of man. Thus, she writes, convinced that the world is determined (“the law of fate does its right... no one’s prayer touches him, neither suffering nor mercy will break him”), they proclaim the inner freedom of man as the highest value: “That "Whoever thinks that slavery extends to the individual is mistaken: his best part is free from slavery." A kind of their philosophy proclaims the inner freedom of man, from any external restrictions, but is this so?

Here we should understand human free will, that is, the possibility of choice, as well as in Spinoza: freedom is a conscious necessity or need. In the most general sense, free will is the absence of pressure, restrictions, and coercion. Based on this, freedom can be defined as follows: freedom is the ability of an individual to think and act in accordance with his desires and ideas, and not as a result of internal or external coercion. This is a general definition, built on opposition and the essence of the concept, it does not yet reveal.

The course of B. Spinoza’s reasoning is as follows. Usually people are convinced that they are endowed with free will and their actions are carried out completely freely. Meanwhile, free will is an illusion, the result of the fact that the vast majority of people are aware of their actions without delving deeply into the reasons that determine them. Only a wise minority, capable of rising on the paths of rational-intuitive knowledge to the awareness of the world connection of all causes with a single substance, comprehends the necessity of all their actions, and this allows such sages to transform their affects-passions into affects-actions and thereby gain true freedom. If the freedom of our will is only an illusion generated by inadequate sensory-abstract ideas, then true freedom - “free necessity” - is possible only for those who achieve adequate, rational-intuitive ideas and comprehend the unity of acquired freedom with necessity.

The meaning of this idea is that you feel free when you do something regardless of someone else's will. Very often you have to strain yourself and do something completely undesirable. But this is only if you do not consider it right and necessary yourself. That is, the more you understand the meaning of your actions, the easier they come to you. Awareness leads to liberation of the spirit.

Life in society imposes restrictions on each person (renunciation of some personal freedoms) for the sake of the sustainable functioning or progress of society itself. In this case, the restrictions are more than redeemed by new opportunities, that is, an increase in freedom. A kind of freedom of each individual ends where the freedom of another person begins.

Thus, a free person is a person who consciously accepts the limitations of his capabilities (limitations of his personal freedom) necessary for the existence of a society that, by its existence, further increases human freedom. A kind of opposition arises: restriction of freedom leads to its increase, since its conscious restriction is necessary for the normal existence of society.

It should be understood that the concept of freedom, one way or another, has been transformed in human culture over time. For example, in a number of historical periods for a person, the concept of freedom was belonging to a corporation, and the opposite of this type of freedom was exile 1 . Also, freedom differs in consideration and in the ranks of regions, so in the east of the Christian world the individual is presented with free will, but in the west his life is predetermined. In a way, we see a clash of two extremes: voluntarism on the one hand and fatalism on the other.

Now freedom is perceived completely differently; it represents the opportunity to manage one’s existence and the products of one’s labor. On the other hand, it is perceived as the opportunity to make choices and the ability to manage intangible things: one’s abilities and capabilities. In philosophy, freedom is seen as a necessity. But this need must be considered in conjunction with the relationships between the individual and other people. Thus, we will see that a person cannot be absolutely free and not have any restrictions, on the other hand, the inner life of a person is absolutely free, but the inner life of a person and the outer life are very different. Life in society, as we noted above, imposes a number of restrictions, and since life in society is also a necessity, it should be noted that in order to fulfill one need it is necessary to limit another. One fairly simple mechanism acts as a limiter: freedom appears to us as freedom of choice and it is necessary to bear responsibility for its implementation.

Exercise.

Is unlimited freedom possible in society?

What articles of the Russian Constitution guarantee freedom?

What is the connection between the concepts of “freedom” and “responsibility”?

1 A striking example of such freedom is the medieval estates, where people had clear regulation of rights and freedoms. While people outside the classes were alien and alien.