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It is humiliating that we still can't dress ourselves well and that we chase after foreign goods. We should manufacture clothes and shoes that will not make Soviets ashamed to wear them. It is humiliating that we still don't have enough medicine to treat our people. The shortage of books is humiliating -- a betrayal of the human spirit. The shortage of computers is humiliating -- a betrayal of modern technological thought. The system of travel abroad is humiliating despite all the promises made to simplify it. The gates should be opened wide for anyone who wants to leave forever, with the exception of the few connected with security work. It is humiliating to hold people by force. You can't call those who leave enemies. And if they haven't insulted the homeland in any way, they should be able to come back to visit or for good. Why shouldn't all citizens of the U.S.S.R. be given a foreign-travel passport good for, say, three years with the right to travel on business, for tourism, or to visit relatives?
The most horrible thing is when we, humiliated by someone, start to humiliate someone else. Humiliating others is a terrible addiction.
Glasnost is a declaration of war against infinite humiliation. Glasnost is war for man's social dignity. Man has the right to like the music he wants, to dress as he likes, to wear his hair as he likes.
The anti-perestroikers are trying to interpret glasnost as discrediting the achievements of socialism. But glasnost itself is an achievement of socialism. Economic perestroika, like glasnost, is being discredited, hobbled, scared off, worn down. In economics, as in literature, there are sacred cows who pretend to be defending the national interest and are actually defending only their own. Today glasnost must help the economy. Tomorrow, if glasnost is in trouble, it will be supported by the mighty shoulder of the new economy. Without personal initiative, we will not be able to move forward in either glasnost or the economy.
The Iron Curtain between East and West for many years created an image of our country that was both attractive and frightening. The exploits of our people in the war against Hitler added an aura of heroism to that image. Khrushchev's thaw added glimmers of hope for mutual understanding. The horrible truth about Stalin's camps, the arrests of dissidents, the abuses of psychiatry, the exile of Academician Andrei Sakharov, the presence of our troops in Afghanistan -- all lined up and blown out of proportion by reactionary elements in the Western press -- worked to destroy the heroic aura, reducing our image to that of an anti-Christ "empire of evil." However, thanks to the peaceful initiatives of our country in nuclear disarmament, glasnost and democratization, the anti-Christ image has been shattered.
We don't need makeup or a mask on our face to impress foreigners or to make them like us. Of course, I would like our country to be liked by humanity -- not through lies, but because of the truth it brings to the world. But most of all, I want our country to like itself. We love it, are proud of its traditions. But not all traditions are good. And priterpelost is a bad tradition that must be rejected as being incompatible with perestroika.