Sakharov's statement. Sakharov Andrey Dmitrievich quotes and aphorisms. And it's all about him

On May 21, 1921, the “father” of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was born - Soviet physicist, public figure, human rights activist Andrey Sakharov.

Public opinion has ambivalent assessments of Sakharov's activities. These judgments are extremely polar - from admiration to hatred. For some, Sakharov is an unbending fighter for freedom, democracy and human rights, deserving respect, if not worship. For others, it is a symbol of the collapse of the USSR and all the negative things that followed.

Promising physicist

Andrei Sakharov was born in Moscow. Young Andrei has problems finding the answer to the question “Who should I be?” did not have. The answer to this question was given by his father, Dmitry Sakharov, physics teacher, science popularizer, author of a textbook from which several generations of schoolchildren studied. Therefore, it is not surprising that Andrei received his first education at home. He went to school only from the 7th grade. As Sakharov Jr. himself said, “Dad made me a physicist, otherwise God knows where I would have gone!”

And in 1938 he entered the Faculty of Physics at Moscow University.

RIA Novosti / Boris Kaufman

Arkady Migdal, physicist: “A.S. studied well, but not brilliantly... Along with the A’s, there were quite a lot of B’s in his grade book. He was especially bad at social disciplines, in which he got Cs and sometimes even Ds, so he then had to retake the exams. These failures were apparently explained by his lack of any interest in the social disciplines taught during his university years and his inability to speak smoothly, but essentially meaninglessly, on general topics.”

In 1944, Sakharov entered graduate school at the Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, where he future Nobel laureate Igor Tamm became the scientific supervisor.

Boris Bolotovsky, physicist: “Once upon a time FIAN Deputy Director for Administrative Affairs Mikhail Krivonosov he saw a young man unknown to him with a thoughtful face slowly walking back and forth along the corridor. Krivonosov approached the young man and said angrily:

-Are you idle?

The young man (it was Andrei Dmitrievich) looked at Krivonosov and calmly said:

“I’m not idle, I’m working.”

- How do you work? - Mikhail Grigorievich asked even more sternly. Andrei Dmitrievich answered just as calmly and seriously:

- I think.

This answer tamed Krivonosov’s anger. After this conversation, Krivonosov no longer reprimanded Sakharov for walking along the corridor. And many years later, when they spoke disapprovingly about one theorist in his presence - they say, he is not at his workplace, he is walking around somewhere - Mikhail Grigorievich said:

- He’s a theorist, let him walk around. I scolded someone for this, and he turned out to be Sakharov.

Already at that time, Andrei Sakharov was considered one of the most promising physicists in the USSR, and it is not surprising that he soon became one of those tasked with creating the country’s “nuclear shield”.

Sakharov at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (May - June 1989). Photo: RIA Novosti / Sergey Guneev

"Father" of the hydrogen bomb

Twenty years (1948-1968) of Sakharov were devoted to the development of thermonuclear weapons, in particular he designed the first Soviet hydrogen bomb.

Sakharov worked on the topic of thermonuclear weapons at first reluctantly, but then came to the conviction that this work was necessary to maintain a balance of nuclear weapons between the opposing powers.

How successful Sakharov was in his scientific career is evidenced by his numerous awards, which the Soviet state generously showered him with.

From the creation of the bomb to the idea of ​​disarmament

Gradually the scientist went to the other extreme. In the 1960s, something happened to Sakharov that had previously happened to many other nuclear physicists both in the USSR and in the USA - he came to the conclusion that his activities were immoral and decided to devote himself to the fight for disarmament and human rights. He opposes nuclear weapons testing and the death penalty, and becomes one of the founders of the Human Rights Committee in the USSR. Gradually, Sakharov's social activity begins to crowd out scientific activity.

Henpecked scientist

It is likely that the Sakharov who is known today would not have existed if two fatal circumstances had not happened - death first wife of academician Klavdiya Vikhireva and his acquaintance with dissident Elena Bonner.

The academician himself said: “Lucy (as he called Elena Bonner - author’s note) told me a lot that I would not have understood or done otherwise. She’s a great organizer, she’s my think tank.”

In 1982, a young man came to Gorky to see Sakharov. artist Sergei Bocharov— I wanted to paint a portrait of the “people's defender.” Only he saw something completely different from the legend: “Andrei Dmitrievich sometimes even praised the USSR government for some successes. Now I don’t remember why exactly. But for every such remark he immediately received a slap on the bald head from his wife. While I was writing the sketch, Sakharov got hit no less than seven times. At the same time, the world’s luminary meekly endured the cracks, and it was clear that he got used to them.”

And the artist, realizing who really dictates what celebrities say and do, painted a portrait of Bonner instead of a portrait of the physicist. She got angry and rushed to destroy the sketch: “I told Bonner that I didn’t want to draw a “hemp” who repeated the thoughts of his evil wife and even suffered beatings from her. And Bonner immediately kicked me out into the street.”

Andrei Sakharov with his wife Elena Bonner. Photo: RIA Novosti / Perventsev

Popularity in the West and hostility at home

Both the Western and Soviet press paid much attention to Sakharov. But if in the West the Soviet academician was presented as a fighter against the horrors of the Soviet regime, then in the USSR - as a real scoundrel, throwing mud at the Motherland, which gave him everything.

Famous chemist and philosopher S. G. Kara-Murza: “The idol of the excited anti-Soviet public became Academician A. D. Sakharov - a crazy naive old man who spent his whole life “under the hood”, in an artificial environment, poring over a hydrogen bomb. And then he escaped into the world of his imagination and found himself under the same cap of the foreign press and decoy “dissidents”. And he began to broadcast with the authority of a prophet: to divide Russia into 50 normal states! Immediately allow the purchase and sale of land! But what could he know about land or about buying and selling even potatoes - from what life experience? Read today, with a fresh mind, all his articles and speeches, because in them there is not a trace of the problems that people live with in Russia. I read and think: does he even know Russian literature?”

By 1975, Andrei Sakharov had transformed from a secret nuclear scientist into a world-famous person. That same year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his social activities. The award for Sakharov, who was not released from the USSR, was received by his wife, who went to Norway with the text of Sakharov’s traditional “Nobel lecture” in her pocket, which she read in Oslo.

Despite the constant KGB surveillance of the spouses, harsh measures were taken against Sakharov only in 1980, when he openly opposed the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

Maria Arbatova, writer: “In my youth, the surname Sakharov sounded like a password and meant disobedience to the criminal authorities. The footage that is often shown on television, where Sakharov at the Supreme Council gives his assessment of the war in Afghanistan, is still a turning point in the life of the country. After them, thousands of people received a signal: it is possible and necessary to criticize the Soviet elite, even if it is done by a world-famous scientist. There have been many worthy freedom fighters in our history, but the image of the unbending intellectual Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov will remain in it as a new social ideal, despite all the speculation on his name after his death.”

Maxim Sokolov, journalist: “Andrei Sakharov is an important part of Russian history. Without the figure of Sakharov, without the Sakharov myth about a representative of the elite who suddenly went against the powerful and strong and began to defend the truth, there would probably not have been a Yeltsin myth. Based on his example, the idea was formed that a person from the nomenklatura environment could go against the authorities. As for our time, today, idealism is not held in high esteem today. And probably still because appeals to idealism were much abused.”

In 1980, Sakharov, deprived of orders and other regalia, was sent into exile in Gorky, where he spent almost seven years. He returned from exile only during perestroika, began working at the Lebedev Institute, and in 1989 became a people's deputy.

Mikhail Poltoranin, 1990-1992 — Minister of Press and Information, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation: “Working with Andrei Dmitrievich as people’s deputies in the Interregional Deputy Group, we then developed the tactics and strategy of the democratic movement. I must say, they argued often. But a strange thing: his words about democracy, human rights, and the inadmissibility of persecution for beliefs now sound even more relevant than then, a quarter of a century ago! Citizens have fewer rights, but on the contrary, there is more lawlessness in the country... In general, Andrei Dmitrievich was a bright, honest, decent person. Convinced unmercenary people, the likes of which you won’t find today during the day.”

Sakharov during his return from Gorky to Moscow, 1986. Photo: RIA Novosti / Yuri Abramochkin

Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights: “Now I’m talking about Andrei Dmitrievich and looking at his portrait that hangs on the wall. He has been with me since I got my own office in 1990... For me, this person, if you like, is the tuning fork by which I check my position. A man who, in order to make the life of his country free and prosperous, abandoned all the benefits that the life of a three-time Hero of Socialist Labor, academician and father of the hydrogen bomb promised him. A man who thought about the fate of his country and saw its prosperity not through the prism of nuclear power, but through the prism of people’s well-being, people’s freedom.”

Sakharov lived only 68 years. He never considered himself a politician, although he died precisely as a politician - almost on the podium. At three o'clock on December 14, 1989, he spoke at the congress for the last time, then had a long and heated argument with colleagues from the Interregional Deputy Group. Came home and died of a heart attack. His last words were: “I’m going to rest. I have a fight tomorrow!”

Andrei Sakharov, 1989. Photo: RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko

Tamara Morshchakova, lawyer, professor: “Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov is my contemporary. And this is very important to me. It was important when the country recognized him as a public politician, and it is important now. In purely human terms, he did an unusually important thing for his time - he showed people that politics can and should be sincere, honest to people, and it cannot have goals other than the good of man. For me, this is the most important lesson that can be taken from his life.”

A member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Chairman of the Board of the RPO “Child's Right”, senior researcher at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Physical Institute named after A. P.N. Lebedev RAS

Boris Altshuler

Exactly 50 years have passed since the New York Times published an essay by A.D. in its July 22, 1968 issue. Sakharov “Reflections on progress, peaceful coexistence and intellectual freedom.” This significant date is dedicated to this significant date by the historian of science Gennady Gorelik, “Andrei Sakharov’s Reflections on Progress, Peace and Freedom - 50 Years” (“Troitsky Option”, July 17, 2018, No. 258), the author of which reveals the motives that prompted Andrei Dmitrievich to write this historical essay . And I must admit that a lot of things here turned out to be new and interesting for me, although I knew Sakharov for more than 20 years (1968-1989) and I myself wrote a lot about him after his death.

I did not know that it was the appearance of “Reflections...” in samizdat in May 1968 that prompted the leadership of the USSR to enter into negotiations with the United States on a mutual moratorium on the creation of missile defense systems (ABM). That is, as soon as typewritten manuscripts of one of the first versions of the essay began to circulate in Moscow, the KGB printed “Reflections...” as a separate brochure and sent it to all members of the Politburo. And already on July 1, 1968, US President Lyndon Johnson announced an agreement with the USSR to begin negotiations on limiting missile defense.

This was preceded by the following events: A.D. Sakharov, Yu.B. Khariton and E.I. Zababakhin (Khariton and Zababakhin - heads of the nuclear centers "Arzamas-16" - Sarov and "Chelyabinsk-70" - Snezhinsk) unsuccessfully tried to convince the Soviet leadership to agree to the US President's proposal of January 10, 1967 on a mutual moratorium on the deployment of missile defense . Leading Soviet nuclear scientists, as well as their American colleagues, believed that in the process of creating a missile defense system in the USSR and the USA, the very “balance of fear” (the threat of “mutual assured destruction”) that had held for many years (and indeed kept!!!) humanity from self-destruction in the third nuclear world war. After the Chairman of the USSR Government A.N. Kosygin, who visited the United States in June 1967, rejected the US proposal for a missile defense moratorium, Sakharov on July 21, 1967 sent a top secret memo to the Politburo justifying the fallacy of such a refusal. This note was ignored, and then Andrei Dmitrievich began writing “Reflections...”, the samizdat version of which was heard and received at the highest level.

The uniqueness of Sakharov’s position in, so to speak, the Soviet power hierarchy was that he was the only independent expert in the field of nuclear weapons, whose opinion was taken into account by the leadership of the USSR, and later by the leadership of the United States. “You can’t even imagine what kind of expert you have lost!” - I will remember this phrase of Elena Bonner for the rest of my life, which she uttered on the day of A.D.’s death. Sakharov on December 14, 1989, addressing a high police officer who visited the apartment at 12 at night. It is clear that this was said to the wrong address, but Elena Georgievna was in a state of shock at that moment. And in connection with the topic of Sakharov as an independent expert of the highest level, I cannot help but recall his remarkably accurate joke: “I’m not on the top floor, I’m next to the top floor - on the other side of the window.” This was an instant reaction to the words of my father L.V. addressed to Sakharov. Altshuler “You are on the top floor of power” during his visit to the Sakharovs after their return from exile.

I don’t know whether this is a lot or a little - 50 years. It depends in what context. But the urgent need for an independent expert assessment of what is happening today in the Russian Federation and the United States in the field of nuclear weapons has become obvious both in connection with the statement of the President of the Russian Federation in his Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1 of this year. about the adoption of a powerful nuclear torpedo that is invulnerable to the enemy, and in connection with statements by the US leadership about its intention to withdraw from a number of arms limitation agreements. One can only hope that the recent meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States in Helsinki will ensure that the world does not return to the crazy situation of balancing on the nuclear brink of the Cold War.

In connection with the new Russian nuclear torpedo, there has recently been a discussion about Sakharov’s “cannibalistic” idea of ​​1961 to develop such a torpedo (mine) capable of covering the United States with a deadly tsunami. But before we talk about these events and also try to clarify the “Sakharov paradox”, that is, answer the repeatedly repeated question: “How could the developer of the most terrible weapon of war become a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate?” - some personal memories of 1968 connection with “Reflections...”.

I read “Reflections...” back in May. The fact is that Maya Yanovna Berzina, the mother of my friend from the time of studying at the physics department of Moscow State University Pavel Vasilevsky, was, it seems, the first who printed “Reflections” for Samizdat. And the famous “King of Samizdat” Julius Telesin brought them to her for printing. I didn’t like everything about Reflections. And the incident provided an opportunity to discuss this a little with Andrei Dmitrievich.

Sakharov knew my father well since 1950 from their joint work at the nuclear facility in Sarov, and I met Sakharov in 1968, when he agreed to become an opponent of my candidate’s thesis on the general theory of relativity. At the beginning of August, he and I found ourselves on the same plane, heading to the II International Gravity Conference in Tbilisi. Because of a thunderstorm over the Main Caucasian Range, the plane landed for the night in Mineralnye Vody, and at the very moment when A.D. and I, standing in the aisle between the seats, were talking about something, a flight attendant approached him and offered to spend the night in airport hotel. When Sakharov asked where the young colleague would spend the night, she explained that, unfortunately, the hotel was very small, and only academicians and foreign scientists would be able to spend the night there. Then Andrei Dmitrievich, thanking the flight attendant, refused the hotel, and we spent the night with him on chairs at the airport.

This is where the opportunity presented itself to talk a little about “Reflections”, of course, choosing expressions, realizing that there are “ears” all around. By that time, at 29 years old, I was already quite anti-Soviet. In the spring of the same 1968, Pavel Vasilevsky and I finished and launched into Samizdat under the pseudonyms S. Zorin and N. Alekseev (we also wrote “Leningrad, 1968” for conspiracy) a large, sharply critical and at the same time programmatic article “Time Doesn’t Wait,” which appeared in Samizdat at the beginning of 1969 as a separate book called “Leningrad Program” and in 1970 it was published in Paris by the Posev publishing house. “Enemy voices” also spoke about her.

In response to my comments about the excessive, as I believed, “Sovietism” and anti-American orientation of “Reflections” by A.D. reacted very succinctly and generally explained that denial or even just critical discussion of some ideological stereotypes would mean complete rejection of the potential reader; that in the work there are already enough unusual ideas capable of scaring off, and he hopes that “Reflections” will be read and heard by the Soviet intellectual and scientific elite. For obvious reasons, Sakharov did not talk about the topic of missile defense and the fact that the first intended readers of Reflections may be in the Kremlin.

I will note at the same time that in “Reflections” Sakharov, as always, is absolutely sincere; in 1968 he was still in many ways a Soviet man who believed in the ideals of the Revolution and socialism and in the historical doom of capitalism. And the idea expressed by him in “Reflections” about the convergence of two systems as the only opportunity to avoid the nuclear self-destruction of humanity was quite new for him. In general, I have never met a person similar to Sakharov in terms of his ability for dialectical creative self-development. More about this in my report “The Evolution of Sakharov’s Views...” in the collection “30 Years of Andrei Sakharov’s Reflections...” (M.: “Human Rights”, 1998).

And a few words about looking at “Reflections” from a completely different angle: “This article by Sakharov was a revelation for us,” an American scientist, an active participant in the movement against the Vietnam War (1964-1975), told me at the 1991 Sakharov Congress. He explained that the increasing volume of information coming to the West about the monstrous crimes of the Stalinist regime, the forceful suppression of the Hungarian uprising (1956) and the “Prague Spring” (1968) objectively encouraged them, the American fighters for justice, to stand in solidarity with the anti-Soviet position of the American ruling elite that they hated . The result was complete confusion, and Sakharov’s “Reflections...” gave the answer, an ideological fulcrum: the rapprochement of two opposing systems while preserving the best that is in each of them. And it’s true - Sakharov’s article really became a revelation for millions of people in the West. Therefore, it was published in different languages ​​with a total circulation of more than 20 million copies.

Now - on the suddenly topical topic of a nuclear torpedo. The creation in the USA and independently in 1955 in the USSR of a hydrogen bomb of potentially unlimited power and the testing of such a Soviet - “Sakharov” superbomb (artificially limited power of 50 megatons) on Novaya Zemlya in 1961 raised the question of the method of using such a superweapon for the developers of nuclear weapons in both countries against a potential enemy.

The idea of ​​a nuclear torpedo was developed in both the USA and the USSR. Among the participants at the II International Sakharov Conference on Physics in 2002, at the Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there were several American nuclear physicists. And one of them told me in a private conversation that when he worked in Los Alamos in his youth, he was tasked with calculating the parameters of a hydrogen bomb, the detonation of which in the depths of the ocean would create a wave capable of destroying the USSR. He honestly carried out calculations and came to the conclusion that it is quite possible to create a tsunami one kilometer high in the Arctic Ocean, the only condition is to detonate a superbomb at a depth of one kilometer, that is, the ocean must be deep enough. The conclusion of his report was negative - given the geographical size of the Soviet Union, it is useless to do this; the wave will not reach Moscow and the Siberian nuclear mines. Not to mention that this wave will go in concentric circles in all directions, including the US, Canada and Europe.

In the USSR, at about the same time - in the early 1960s, these issues were also being studied: “ After the successful testing of the super-powerful thermonuclear charge "Ivan" ( on Novaya Zemlya in 1961 - B.A. ) it has been suggested that the explosion of several such charges near the American continent could create surface waves that would cause flooding of a large part of the US coastline and cause damage comparable to that of a tsunami. Khrushchev N.S. instructed military scientific organizations and the Academy of Sciences to study this problem. The work on this topic was called “Avalanche”. It was decided to conduct model tests using TNT charges weighing up to ten tons in the summer of 1964. The northern part of Belushya Bay on Novaya Zemlya, where there were sufficient depths and a flat coast, was chosen as the testing site."(in the book "Nuclear Tests in the Arctic" / M.: "Rosatom", 2006, pp. 392-394).

I will add that Yuri Smirnov, Sakharov’s collaborator in creating the 1961 superbomb, told me that similar tests were organized on Lake Ladoga (perhaps Yuri Nikolaevich named Lake Ladoga conditionally, since he could not name the real test site for reasons of secrecy), where Models of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the United States were constructed. The conclusion was the same as that of the Americans - nothing will work: the Atlantic is too shallow, and a giant tsunami in the Pacific Ocean will only lead to the destruction of California. The Cordillera will not allow the wave to pass further, which is useless from a military point of view.

The permanent leader of all naval nuclear tests in the USSR was Rear Admiral Pyotr Fomin. It must be said that P.F. Fomin, like many in the leadership of the USSR Navy, opposed gigantomania in nuclear weapons. He didn't like the idea of ​​a nuclear torpedo either. Sakharov in Chapter 15 (1959-1961) of Part I of his “Memoirs” writes that Fomin reacted sharply negatively to his “fantasy” of creating a torpedo capable of destroying enemy ports, calling the idea “cannibalistic”, since it is associated with gigantic human casualties. Further, Sakharov writes: “I was ashamed and never discussed my project with anyone again” (see more about this episode in the article by Gennady Gorelik “The Mysteries of the Cannibal Torpedo”, “Troitsky Option”, 04/10/2018, No. 251). Sakharov did not return to this issue again, but, as stated above, on Khrushchev’s instructions, tests of the capabilities of sinking the United States were carried out and, fortunately, gave a negative result.

And in conclusion - about the above-mentioned “Sakharov paradox”. When asked repeatedly whether he felt remorse for participating in the development of a monstrous weapon, Sakharov replied that no, he did not, since it was these weapons that prevented the outbreak of the third world war. But at the same time, he always spoke about the dangerous instability of the “balance of fear” - the same balance that could easily be disrupted by the creation of missile defense systems. In Chapter 6 of Part I of Memoirs, Sakharov writes: “ Today, thermonuclear weapons have never been used against people in war. My deepest dream (deeper than anything else) is for this to never happen, for thermonuclear weapons to deter war but never be used.».

This internal position of Andrei Dmitrievich was unchanged for many years and long before he became a world-famous dissident and human rights activist. Suffice it to recall his shocking those around him and arousing the anger of Marshal M.I. Nedelina toast at a banquet in honor of the successful test of a thermonuclear superbomb in November 1955: “I propose to drink to our products exploding as successfully as today, over landfills, and never over cities.”

Yes, Sakharov is the creator of terrible weapons, but he did so much to ensure that they were never used! And his Nobel Peace Prize is well deserved. There is no “paradox” here.

Nevertheless, perplexities of this kind arise all the time, sometimes among very respected people. So Viktor Astafiev, in an article in Izvestia on April 30, 1994, accused Sakharov of having created a terrible weapon and never repented: “Such a little trick - to die a hero after committing a crime.” We, members of the Sakharov Commission, answered him. I quote this answer in full:

“SAKHAROV HAS NOTHING TO REPENT OF

With understanding and gratitude we read and listen to the articles and speeches of Viktor Petrovich Astafiev. With gratitude, because they are about the most important thing - about primary values, about hope for moral recovery. It was all the more painful to read in Izvestia on April 30 the words of the writer about Korolev, Landau and especially Sakharov (“Having created a weapon that would burn the planet, he never repented. Such a little trick - to die a hero after committing a crime”). We consider it necessary to answer on the merits.

First. L. Landau tried to avoid participation in the atomic project. Recently published documents - KGB surveillance materials - indicate that he did this in accordance with his convictions. A. Sakharov, as well as S. Korolev, I. Kurchatov and many others, unlike Landau, who saw the light early, were people who believed in the Soviet system. And they really were convinced that the country that had incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki could repeat the same thing with Moscow and Leningrad, and they did everything to avert this threat; they considered this their highest moral duty. Is it possible to use the word “crime” under these conditions? In his “Memoirs,” Andrei Dmitrievich writes that while working at the “facility,” he felt like he was at war: “This was my front.” And the author of “The Damned and the Murdered” knows firsthand what war is.

Second. About responsibility for what has been done and repentance. Awareness of his personal responsibility as the creator of terrible weapons permeates all of Sakharov’s social activities. When he realized who he was working for, what monster he was arming, he immediately entered into confrontation with the system. Sakharov always acted in strict accordance with his convictions; the word “cunning” is impossible next to his name. Unlike many, many, for him there was no soul-corroding gap between thought and word, word and deed. The spiritual tragedy of our country is that the era of terrible crimes gave rise to many people who were somehow involved in these crimes and are still avoiding cleansing repentance. Sakharov is not one of them.

We address these lines to Viktor Petrovich with respect and hope for understanding.

S. KOVALEV, B. BOLOTOVSKY, B. ALTSHULER, Y. SAMODUROV - members of the public Commission for perpetuating the memory of A.D. Sakharov and his legacy."(“Izvestia”, May 6, 1994, p. 4.)

Friends from Astafiev’s circle told me later that Viktor Petrovich was satisfied with our answer and accepted it. And recently I came across the following entry on the Internet from the book “Diary is a Great Help” by Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya: “ 12 May 94, Wednesday. Lyusha got me an article by Astafiev. The impression is strong and very ambivalent... There are two nasty things in this article... One nasty thing: an outburst against Sakharov, who, they say, created a deadly weapon and did not repent, died a hero... Fortunately, a refutation answer is also included here, worthy and cleverly written - S. Kovalev, Altshuler and others.».

I express my gratitude to G.E. Gorelik for valuable discussions.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (May 21, 1921, Moscow - December 14, 1989, ibid.) - Soviet physicist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, one of the creators of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb. Subsequently - a public figure, dissident and human rights activist; People's Deputy of the USSR, author of the draft constitution of the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1975.

For his human rights activities, he was deprived of all Soviet awards and prizes, and in 1980 he and his wife Elena Bonner were expelled from Moscow. At the end of 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev, under pressure from the West, allowed Sakharov to return from exile to Moscow, which was regarded in the world as an important milestone in ending the fight against dissent in the USSR.
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The disunity of humanity threatens it with death... In the face of danger, any action that increases the disunity of humanity, any preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies and nations is madness, a crime.
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Speaking in defense of those who were victims of lawlessness and cruelty...I tried to reflect the full extent of my pain, concern, indignation and persistent desire to help those suffering.
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I believe that some kind of higher meaning exists in the universe and in human life too.
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I... am forced to focus on negative phenomena, since it is precisely them that government propaganda is silent about, and since it is they who represent the greatest harm and danger.
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I feel deeply indebted to the brave and moral people who are prisoners in prisons, camps and mental hospitals for their struggle in defense of human rights.
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Personally, I am convinced that humanity needs nuclear energy. It must develop, but with absolute guarantees of safety.
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Every rational being, finding itself on the edge of an abyss, first tries to move away from this edge, and only then thinks about satisfying all other needs. For humanity to move away from the brink of the abyss means to overcome disunity. A necessary step on this path is a revision of the traditional method in international politics, which can be called “empirical-conjunctural.” Simply, it is a method of maximizing one’s position wherever possible, and at the same time a method of causing maximum trouble to opposing forces without taking into account the common good and common interests. If politics is a game of two players, then this is the only possible method. But what does such a method lead to in today's unprecedented situation?
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A safe way to determine whether a person is an intellectual,
A true Russian intellectual is never an anti-Semite.
If there is a touch of this disease,
Then this is no longer an intellectual, but something terrible and dangerous...

The academician first wanted to destroy the USA, and then dreamed of destroying the USSR and creating a world government

On May 21, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb, Andrei SAKHAROV, would have turned 90 years old. The date was once again used to denigrate everything created in our country during the Soviet era. People who had a hand in the collapse of a great country and the subsequent death of tens of millions of people are trying to present the academician as almost an icon of Russian democracy. They impose his image as a martyr genius. In fact, most of the academician’s ideas for developing the country smacked, if not of schizophrenia, then certainly of treason.

See you soon Elena Bonner academician Sakharov was not a human rights activist or a pacifist. The museum at the Nuclear Research Center, where he worked, preserves his recommendations for the speedy use of a hydrogen bomb against the United States. Sakharov proposed that Soviet submariners develop a system for delivering 100 megaton bombs to the shores of the United States to destroy cities with a tsunami 40 - 60 meters high. But the sailors then abandoned this idea and nicknamed him Bloodthirsty!

Elena Bonner appreciated this quality of her husband, but directed him in the opposite direction - against his native country. Today you can tell as many tales as you like about the extraordinary statesmanship of Andrei Dmitrievich and his great plans for the transformation of Russia. Only all his plans consisted of one thing - first to split the country into small independent districts, and then transfer them under the control of the world government. The academician called this “a political expression of rapprochement with the West.” He even wrote a draft constitution in which he explained what was what.

The national-constitutional process begins with the declaration of independence of all national-territorial structural parts of the USSR, said Andrei Dmitrievich.

We are talking here about all autonomies like Yakutia, Buryatia, Tatarstan and so on. By the way, oil-bearing Chukotka and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug also became separate states under this project. And then this:

A republic can have republican Armed Forces... A republic has its own law enforcement system, independent of the central government... a financial system, including its own money, and most importantly, for the sake of which everything was started - the republic has the right to secede from the Union...

The remaining piece of Russia also seemed to Sakharov to be too large a territory. According to the human rights activist’s plan, it was divided into four parts with all the ensuing consequences.

This is how the symbol of democracy turns out.

By the way

Sakharov's role in the creation of nuclear weapons is greatly exaggerated. He was just a "team man" Kurchatova - Khariton" Thermonuclear charges were adopted, made not according to Sakharov’s layer scheme, but according to Viktor Davidenko’s scheme.

Quote on topic

Human rights activist Andrei SAKHAROV:

A pre-trial detention center is not a place of deprivation of liberty.

And it's all about him

Sergey KARA-MURZA:

“I spent one evening at Sakharov’s house, talked about a number of matters and saw his stormy, feverish activity on a global scale. During the evening he received several calls from the US Foreign Ministry and the US State Department - he raised a big fuss there against the death penalty for some black murderer. He innocently said that he was not aware of the case itself and did not want to delve into it, but demanded that the execution be canceled. He so sincerely considered himself the messiah that for the first half of the evening I could not believe it and took it for subtle sarcasm. Then I felt deeply sorry for him. Those who used it became even more disgusted. But how should we treat those who seriously considered and consider him a democrat, philosopher, prophet, etc.?

Quotes from Andrei Sakharov’s article “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”; June, 1968

The disunity of humanity threatens its destruction. Civilization is threatened by: general thermonuclear war; catastrophic famine for most of humanity; stupefaction in the dope of “mass culture” and in the grip of bureaucratized dogmatism; the spread of mass myths that throw entire nations and continents into the power of cruel and insidious demagogues; death and degeneration from the unforeseen results of rapid changes in the conditions of existence on the planet. In the face of danger, any action that increases the disunity of humanity, any preaching of the incompatibility of world ideologies* (* the reader understands that we are not talking about an ideological world with those fanatical, sectarian and extremist ideologies that deny any possibility of rapprochement with them, discussion and compromise, for example with the ideologies of fascist, racist, militaristic or Maoist demagoguery) and nations - madness, crime.

Human society needs intellectual freedom - freedom to receive and disseminate information, freedom to discuss impartially and fearlessly, 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-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.

The awareness of the working class and the intelligentsia of the commonality of their interests is a remarkable phenomenon of our time. We can say that the most progressive, international and selfless part of the intelligentsia is essentially part of the working class, and the advanced, educated and international part of the working class, furthest from the philistinism, is at the same time part of the intelligentsia*. * This position of the intelligentsia in society makes the loud demands for the intelligentsia to subordinate their aspirations to the will and interests of the working class (in the USSR, Poland and other socialist countries) meaningless. In fact, such calls imply submission to the will of the party or, more specifically, to its central apparatus and its officials. But where is the guarantee that these officials always express the true interests of the working class as a whole, the true interests of progress, and not their own caste interests?

Every rational being, finding itself on the edge of an abyss, first tries to move away from this edge, and only then thinks about satisfying all other needs. For humanity to move away from the brink of the abyss means to overcome disunity. A necessary step on this path is a revision of the traditional method in international politics, which can be called “empirical-conjunctural.” Simply, it is a method of maximizing one’s position wherever possible, and at the same time a method of causing maximum trouble to opposing forces without taking into account the common good and common interests. If politics is a game of two players, then this is the only possible method. But what does such a method lead to in today's unprecedented situation?

An extreme expression of the dangers of modern social development is the development of racism, nationalism and militarism, and in particular the emergence of demagogic, hypocritical and monstrously cruel police and dictatorial regimes. [...] The sources of all these tragic phenomena have always been the struggle of egoistic group interests, the struggle for unlimited power, the suppression of intellectual freedom, the spread among the people of mass emotional and intellectually simplified myths convenient for the bourgeoisie (the myth of race, land and blood, the myth of the Jewish dangers, anti-intellectualism, the concept of "living space" in Germany, the myth of the intensification of class struggle and proletarian infallibility, complemented by the cult of Stalin and the exaggeration of contradictions with capitalist countries in the USSR, the myth of Mao Zedong, extreme Chinese nationalism and the resurrection of the concept of "living space", anti-intellectualism, extreme anti-humanism, certain prejudices of peasant socialism in China). The usual practice is the predominant use of the demagoguery of the stormtroopers and Red Guards at the first stage and the terrorist bureaucracy of reliable “cadres” such as Eichmann, Himmler, Yezhov and Beria at the peak of the deification of unlimited power. The world will never forget the book fires in the squares of German cities, the hysterical, cannibalistic speeches of the fascist “leaders” and their even more cannibalistic secret plans for the destruction and enslavement of entire peoples, including the Russians. [...] We will never forget the many kilometers of ditches filled with corpses, gas chambers and gas chambers, SS shepherd dogs and fanatical doctors, pressed piles of women’s hair, suitcases with gold teeth and fertilizers as “products” of death factories.

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 the intention or commercially driven decline in the intellectual level and problematic™, with an emphasis on entertainment or utility, with carefully protective censorship.

It is impossible to impose a fundamental ban on the development of science and technology, but we must clearly understand the terrible danger to basic human values, the very meaning of life, which is hidden in the abuse of technical and biochemical methods and methods of mass psychology. A person should not turn into a chicken or a rat in known experiments, experiencing electronic pleasure from electrodes embedded in the brain.

The problem of censorship (in the broad sense of the word) is one of the central ones in the ideological struggle of recent years. [...] incompetent censorship kills the living soul of Soviet literature in the bud; but the same applies to all other manifestations of social thought, causing stagnation, dullness, and a complete absence of any fresh and deep thoughts. After all, deep thoughts appear only in a discussion, in the presence of objections, only with the potential opportunity to express not only true, but also dubious ideas. This was clear to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, and hardly anyone now doubts it. But after 50 years of undivided dominance over the minds of an entire country, our leadership seems to be afraid of even the hint of such a discussion.

Let us compare the distribution of personal income and consumption by individual groups of citizens in the USSR and the USA. Usually in our propaganda materials they write that in the USA there is blatant inequality, but in our country there is something very fair, something very in the interests of the working people. In fact, both of these statements contain half-truths with a fair amount of hypocritical reticence. [...]the presence of millionaires in the United States is not too serious an economic burden due to their small number. [...] As for our country, we should not assume an idyll here either. There is a very large inequality of property between the city and the countryside. [...] There is a very great difference between cities with developed industry in privileged sectors and old, “living out their days” cities. As a result, about 40% of our country's population finds itself in a very difficult economic situation (in the USA, the poverty line is approximately 25% of the population). On the other hand, about 5% of the population who belong to the "boss" are as privileged as the similar group in the United States. [...] Thus, we must admit that there is no qualitative difference in the structure of society based on the distribution of consumption. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the “managing” group in our country (as, indeed, in the USA, but to a lesser extent) is assessed not only by purely economic or production performance (after all, who will now talk about the great economic role of socialist competition?): There is a hidden a protective function, and in the sphere of consumption it corresponds to the hidden secret privileges of the managing group. Very few people know about the system of “salaries in envelopes” practiced during the Stalin years, about the system of closed distribution of scarce products and goods and various services that continuously arises in one form or another, about privileges in resort services, etc. I would like to emphasize , that I am not against the socialist principle of payment according to the quantity and quality of work, because relatively high salaries are paid to the best administrative workers, highly qualified workers, teachers and doctors, workers in dangerous and harmful professions, scientists and cultural and artistic workers [...] not accompanied by secret advantages, does not threaten society and, moreover, is useful to society if it is paid according to merit. [...] But when something is done in secret, the suspicion involuntarily arises that the matter is unclean, that there is bribery of the faithful servants of the existing system. I think that a reasonable method of solving this “delicate” problem would not be a party maximum or something similar, but the prohibition of all privileges and the establishment of a wage system taking into account the social value of labor and an economic market approach to the wage problem.

"Letter from A.D. Sakharov to the organizing committee
a symposium on the death penalty organized by Amnesty International;
September 19, 1977; read at the Symposium in December, 1977
Chronicle-press. - New York, 1977

I consider the death penalty to be a cruel and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society. The state, represented by its officials, like all people prone to superficial conclusions, like all people subject to influences, connections, prejudices and egocentric motivation of behavior, arrogates to itself the right to the most terrible and absolutely irreversible action: deprivation of life. Such a state cannot count on improving the moral atmosphere in the country.

I deny that the death penalty has any significant deterrent effect on potential criminals. I am sure of the opposite - cruelty begets cruelty. [...] I am convinced that society as a whole and each of its members individually, and not just those who appear in court, are responsible for the crimes that occur. The task of reducing and eliminating crime does not have simple solutions, and in any case, the death penalty is not such a solution. Only the long-term evolution of society, a general humanistic upsurge that instills in people a deep admiration for life and the human mind, and greater attention to the difficulties and problems of others can lead in the future to a decrease in crime and even its complete elimination. Such a humane society is now nothing more than a dream, and only acts of humanity today will create hope for the possibility of its realization in the future.

Let me briefly dwell on the frequently discussed issue of terrorism. I consider the death penalty to be completely ineffective in combating terrorism and other political crimes committed out of fanatical convictions - in this case, the death penalty is only a catalyst for a more widespread psychosis of lawlessness, revenge and cruelty. What has been said does not mean that I in some way justify modern political terrorism, which is often accompanied by the death of innocent, random people, the taking of hostages, including children, and other terrible crimes. But I am convinced that imprisonment, perhaps with the adoption of a law prohibiting early release in cases established by the court, is more reasonable for the physical and psychological isolation of terrorists, to prevent further acts of terror.