Yevgeny Yevtushenko's book, Half Measures: The Culture of Democracy in the Soviet Union, provides a window into the ephemeral politics of late-Soviet politics. A book of the poet's liberal speeches, essays, and other short-form prose, Half Measures advocates for a liberal, democratic, and decidedly Western form of politics long out of fashion in today's Russia. It also calls for a clear and sustained attempt to come to terms with the Soviet crimes of the past, especially the Great Terror, forced collectivization, antisemitism, Chernobyl, and the anti-religious campaigns. It also calls for the clear renunciation of a host of Soviet practices, including the hospitalization of political opponents. The book gives readers a glimpse of the many different debates that consumed the late-Soviet public sphere. Questions abounded, small and existential ones alike. Some questions were important, but relatively symbolic. Did the Soviet Union need a new national anthem? Can Lenin's legacy still be salvaged? Should Bukharin be rehabilitated? Should the Cathedral of Christ of the Savior be restored? What type of guilt should contemporary Russians accept for the actions of their parents and grandparents? What role should the intelligentsia play in a new Russia? Other questions were more existential. Should the Party continue to exercise any special privileges in the Soviet Union? What might democracy look like in the Soviet Union? How could modern Soviet citizens overcome a legacy of bureaucracy? How could free trade and capitalism be stimulated, and reconciled with socialist values? What would a free Soviet Union's foreign policy look like? Overall, Half Measures describes a moment of tremendous emotional and intellectual turbulence. The author himself seems filled with hope and anxiety in equal measures. Things could certainly get a lot better for ordinary Russians, but progress was not a sure bet. Russia had a dark legacy to overcome, and many more trials to face before it could be fully free.
Some favorite quotations
Perestroika is not only our spiritual revolution, it is our second Great Patriotic War.
Children on the banks of the Kolyma River to this day will bring you blueberries in human skulls they find and smile in innocent absence of memory.
The branch ministries are like fattened repair offices, and Gosplan looks like a huge atelier for minor repairs for the clothes of the naked king.
The Russian printed word has almost never known similar censor-free times, neither before nor after the Revolution.
The era of executions had passed--this was the period of quiet choking in back alleys.
I would not like to believe Chaadayev's sad prophesy that our nation exists solely to teach humanity a terrible lesson.
But our life with its deficits and daily shopping suffering has turned into a kind of daily life-style Chernobyl.
"Does this mean that if we have three parties, then there will be three regional committees, and we have to feed all of them?"
Every Russian is a collection of all of Dostoevsky's heroes in one.
Poetry is feeling the earth with a bare foot.
"In order to understand itself, a nation creates its poets."
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