A Quarterly Message on Liberty

Winter 2010Volume 8 Number 1

Vladimir Bukovsky is a senior fellowat the Cato Institute and a former Soviet political dissident, author, and activist. After spending a total of 12 years in Soviet prisons, laborcamps, and forced-treatment psychi-atric hospitals, he authored and editednumerous books describing his experi-ence. He spoke at Cato in October.

he fall of the Berlin Wall was welcomedwith great enthusiasm as the end of theCold War, the end of communism, andeven the end of history. Twenty years later,

we must admit we were too enthusiastic. Not only arethere still communist regimes, but countries likeVenezuela are joining that would-be-extinct camp.

The worst scenario we could have imagined 20 yearsago is happening in Russia today, where there is amarch backwards, a revisionism or restoration process.Putin, when he was president, called the end of the So-viet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the20th century.” I always believed that the emergence ofthe Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastro-phe of all time, but he thinks the opposite—and actsaccordingly.

VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY

T

The Power of Memoryand AcknowledgmentThe Power of Memoryand Acknowledgment

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R ussian elections are nolonger actually elections. Iparticipated two years ago

in the “presidential election,” whichwas not a presidential election. Itwas a game. What would they in-vent to disqualify you? I managedto hold on a little longer than most.The longest was Kasyanov. Hemanaged to get two million signa-tures but was then told they wereforgeries, including his own. Theydisqualified him.

Other institutions of democracyhave also been dismantled. The free-dom of the press is symbolic. Partic-ularly depressing is the return of po-litical repression. Russia today has acouple of dozen political prisoners.Even more troubling is the resurrec-tion of psychiatric hospitals for re-pression. I thought we’d buried thatforever. Luckily we managed to stop

it in time, but we cannot guaranteethat it won’t be renewed tomorrow.

This pattern of dictatorship, op-pression, and lack of freedom ofspeech is rising not only in third-world countries, but also in Europeand the United States. Europe facesthe emerging monster of the Euro-pean Union, which looks suspi-ciously like the Soviet Union in

many respects—though admittedlyonly a pale copy. There are still noGulags in Europe. If you look atwhat they are doing, however—howthey are developing their futurestructure—you can see how it maygo very badly. For example, just nowthey’ve managed to force Ireland tovote for the Lisbon Treaty, which is asubstitute for the European Consti-tution. The treaty was previously re-jected by France and Holland, but ithas now been slipped in throughthe back door.

What does the Lisbon Treaty in-clude? Among all the symbols of theunitary state—the presidency, theemblems, the anthem—it also cre-ates EuroPol, the European PoliceForce. Naturally, being an old con-vict, my first interest is in what thesepolice will be doing and what powerthey are going to have. Unfortunate-

ly, their powers will be sweeping.To begin with, they have diplo-

matic immunity. How do youlike that? A policeman withdiplomatic immunity can comein, take whatever he likes, beatyou up, and you can’t even suehim. EuroPol will have the rightto conduct extradition from onecountry to another without acourt appearance. Furthermore,

EuroPol will police us on 32 crimi-nal counts, 2 of which are particular-ly interesting because they don’texist in the penal code of any civi-lized country. One is “racism” andthe other is “xenophobia.”

Of course, the authorities have al-ready explained to us, in a very quietmanner, that those who might ob-ject to the immigration policy of the

Russia today has a coupleof dozen political prison-ers. Even more troubling is the resurrection of psychiatric hospitals for repression.

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European Union can be ac-cused of racism. And thosewho oppose the further in-tegration of Europe can becharged with xenophobia.We can see now where theEuropean Gulagis going to appear.

I doubt there will ever becamps, but I wouldn’t besurprised if those who don’tlike their freedoms abridged aresent for psychiatric observation. InBritain, they already have a bureau-cracy which will do exactly that. It isa joint operation of the Home Officeand the Ministry of Public Health,and it will recommend people forobservation in a psychiatric ward ifthey show any manifestation of ex-tremism. As you can imagine, thedefinition of “extremism” is so sub-jective that anyone could be labeled“extremist” at any moment.

The European Union itself is be-coming more and more bizarre.Each country that joins is sup-posed to adopt 80,000 pages of regulations and rules. This in itselfis crazy, not least because the na-tional parliaments are not giventime to consider the regulations,but are just supposed to rubber-stamp them. Some of these rulesare incredibly strange, a case of bu-reaucracy gone mad. Several yearsago, I was reading a new directive ofthe European Union which re-quired all the owners of pig farmsto supply their pigs with coloredballs in case the animals got bored.And this year I found another newpiece of legislation which prohibitsEuropeans from killing horses and

zebras. My immediate thought was,what about giraffes? Can we at leastkill giraffes?

We are living in a mad house inEurope. They decided that we pro-duce too much garbage. As a result,our garbage is collected only onceevery two weeks. In the summer,the bags pile up, the rats multiply,and the stench in cities is incredible.We try to protest, but what can wedo? There is no mechanism in theEuropean Union by which you canchange their mind. We’re not elect-ing them so we cannot sack them.They appoint each other—like thePolitburo.

The only elected part of the Eu-ropean Union is the European Par-liament. The Supreme Soviet of thewhole Soviet Union looks like amodel legislature when comparedwith the European Parliament. Tobegin with, it is huge—somethinglike twelve or fourteen hundredpeople. They don’t sit throughoutthe year but have only a couple ofweeks each month in session. As aresult, every member of the Euro-pean Parliament has six minutes ayear to speak in chambers. Yet theyare paid incredibly fat salaries thataren’t taxed. They have a personal

The European Union itself is becoming moreand more bizarre. Eachcountry that joins is supposed to adopt 80,000 pages of regula-tions and rules.

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chauffeur and secretaries. They eachhave 100,000 Euros a year for extra-parliamentary activity.

And all of this moves. At least theSupreme Soviet stayed in Moscow.One month the European Parlia-ment is in Strasbourg. The nextmonth it packs up—with all its secre-taries, chauffeurs, and translators—and moves to Brussels. After onemonth in Brussels they pack upagain and go to Luxembourg. Aft-er one month inLuxembourg theypack up and moveback to Strasbou-rg. The cost of justmoving the wholething must be as-tronomical!

The Europeancommissionersthemselves have alife that any one ofus would enjoy.Not only do they not pay taxes, theyalso have lifelong immunity fromprosecution. So they can steal what-ever they’d like—and they do. Therewas once a big scandal, so big thatthe entire commission had to re-sign. It was a theatrical gesture,though, because within two monthsthe same people came back to occu-py slightly different positions. It waslike a deck of cards shuffled anddealt again.

The next strategy for the Euro-pean Union is to spread to the Mid-dle East, and then to North Africa,and on and on—until the wholeplanet is united under the EU. It re-minds me of the Soviet Union. Theycouldn’t stop expanding. The mo-

ment they did they began fallingapart. It is all so similar to the SovietUnion that I wake up every morn-ing with a feeling of déjà vu.

The Cold War was a confron-tation between liberal democracy andtotalitarian socialism. It was an ideo-logical battle, a war of ideas. And awar we never won. We never evenfought it. We called it the Cold Warbut there was no war whatsoever.There was détente, improved rela-

tions, relaxation ofinternational ten-sion, peaceful coex-istence—but therewas no Cold War.Most of the time,the West engagedin a policy of ap-peasement towardthe Soviet bloc—and appeasers don’twin wars.

Because we did-n’t win the Cold War, it isn’t over.We were given a chance to win in1991. To do it we needed a Nurem-burg trial, but not a trial of people.In a country like the Soviet Union, ifyou tried to find all the guilty, youwould end up with 19 million peo-ple, and who needs another Gulag?This isn’t about punishing individ-uals. It’s about judging the system.

I spent a lot of time trying to per-suade the Yeltsin government toconduct such a trial. Yeltsin finallysaid, “No.” The reason he had to sayno was the enormous pressure hefelt from the West not to have sucha trial. I’ve seen the cables he re-ceived from all over the world,mostly from Russian embassies, ex-

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WINTER 2010 Cato’s Letter • 5

plaining that local politi-cians and governments werevehemently against any trialsor disclosure of crimes oropening of archives. FinallyYeltsin just gave in.

Because of documents Irecovered, we now under-stand why the West was soagainst putting the commu-nist system on trial. It is notonly that the West was infil-trated by the Soviets much deeperthan we ever thought, but also thatthere was ideological collaborationbetween left-wing parties in theWest and the Soviet Union. Thisideological collaboration ran verydeep.

For example—and this brings usback to the European Union—in themiddle of the 1980s the Europeanleft parties talked to Gorbachev andexplained to him that because it isdifficult to organize socialism inone country, it should be done in allof Europe at once. Gorbachevagreed. They launched a projectcalled “Common European Home,”which was, in essence, the precursorto the European Union.

Prior to 1985 both the Sovietsand the European left were verymuch against European integra-tion. But after ’85, when both sidesunderstood that socialism was indeep crisis, they thought it wouldbe a good device to “salvage social-ism.” And in its last years the Westwas helping—with all its power—toretain, salvage, and support the So-viet Union. Not only did they giveGorbachev some 45 billion dollars(at that time a considerable amount

of money), but they also helped himin diplomatic ways and every otherway possible, even to the point thatPresident Bush went to Ukraine in1991 and tried to persuade theUkrainians not to leave the SovietUnion.

Gorbachev’s supporters’ argu-ment was very simple: we need astrong Soviet Union, because thecollapse of socialism in the Eastwould bring a crisis of the idea of so-cialism in the West. In order to savetheir own political privilege and po-sition, they sacrificed all of us. Theysacrificed our future and its demo-cratic possibilities for an agonizingregime that was doomed anyway.And when it finally died, none ofthem ever expressed jubilation. I remember this puzzled me. Thebiggest monster on Earth had justdied in front of us—a monster thatcould have killed us all manytimes—and there was no rejoicing. Itwas quiet. A European politiciansaid, “Let’s say nobody’s a winner.Let’s call it a draw.” I was so angrythat I planted a tree in my garden, inmemory of the collapse of the Sovi-et Union. And it is still growing—avery beautiful cherry tree.

“The Cold War was a confrontation betweenliberal democracy and totalitarian socialism. Itwas an ideological battle, a war of ideas. And a warwe never won. We nevereven fought it.

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You’ve built a career showing errors in callsfor government to quite literally plan our lives.What new threats from government planningare of particular concern?Aside from health care and cap-and-trade, thebiggest threat to both freedom and economicwell-being comes from a national land-useplanning system that is quietly being designedby the administration and Congress. The ad-ministration plans to require metropolitanareas to stop “sprawl” by mandating higher-density redevelopment of existing neighbor-hoods and limiting low-density development atthe urban fringe. To keep people from “escap-ing” to low-density areas, the House Trans-portation and Infrastructure Committee pro-poses to require the creation of Rural PlanningOrganizations that will limit or forbid urbandevelopment of rural areas.

These policies will take property rightsfrom landowners and turn all developmentdecisions over to central planners. As our pop-ulation grows, developable land and housingwill become more expensive, increasing thecost of everything we do.

Your new book, Gridlock, was recently re-leased. What was your goal in writing it?Congress reauthorizes federal funding fortransportation about every six years and thenext reauthorization is expected in 2011. Since1982, successive reauthorizations have increas-ingly politicized transportation and made itless responsive to user needs. Our transporta-tion system is a mess.

Gridlock presents policy reforms that willmake transportation more customer-orientedand less about dystopian social engineering.

My hope is that the book will help alert thepublic about the need and opportunity forsuch reform so the debate over reauthorizationwill be as lively and well-informed as debatesover health care reform.

What would be the most effective policychange Congress could enact to improvetransportation in the United States?The most effective policy would be for Congressto privatize air traffic control and turn surfacetransportation funding and planning entirelyover to the states. Such a plan would get aboutfive votes on the House floor today, but thatcould easily change by 2011.

Short of that, Congress should distributefederal highway and transit funds to the statesbased on the user fees collected by state andlocal governments. Under this proposal, gastaxes and other highway fees are user fees whendedicated to highways, but not if they are di-verted to transit or something else. Similarly,transit fares are user fees if spent on transit, butnot if spent on bike paths. Distributing federalfunds on the basis of user fees would give statesand metropolitan areas incentives to developcustomer-driven transportation systems.

At the very least, Congress needs to removeall limits on toll roads and other local user-fee-driven projects. Congress should also removeall the incentives in current laws that encouragestate and local governments to chase federaldollars by building high-cost transportationsystems (such as rail transit) when low-cost al-ternatives (such as buses and toll roads) canwork as well or better. Gridlock describes theseincentives, and their perverse effects on ourtransportation networks, in detail.

Cato Scholar Profile:RANDAL O’TOOLERANDAL O’TOOLE is a Cato Institute senior fellow working onurban growth, public land, and transportation issues. O’Toole is theauthor of several books and numerous Cato papers. His most recentbook, Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What To Doabout It, was released in January. He has also written for Regula-tion magazine and authored op-eds and articles for numerous otherjournals and newspapers. He is a frequent speaker on free-market environmental issues.

WINTER 2010 Cato’s Letter • 7

ack in the nineties, a friend broughtJim Weiner to a lunchtime Cato Poli-cy Forum. He went away impressed

by the roster of quality speakers and by thesolid logistics of the event. Everything ran ontime, the speakers adhered to their time limitsand, following the forum, a sandwich/softdrink lunch was served in Cato’s beautiful atri-um. Plus, there was no charge: the event was, asJim puts it, “not designed as a nickel-and-dimeoperation but as a true forumfor discussion.” So he cameback for many more PolicyForums and, ultimately, be-came a Cato Benefactor.

Jim spent more than 30years as a U.S. State Depart-ment Foreign Service officer,retiring with the rank of min-ister counselor. Indeed, whenhis friend brought him tothat first Cato Policy Forum,he was located in Washing-ton, D.C., serving as executive director of theBureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Hismajor overseas assignments included stints atembassies in Brasilia and Bogotá, as well as inBerlin. He speaks fluent Portuguese andSpanish and claims “some German.”

Since that fortuitous first Policy Forum, Jimhas attended multiple sessions of Cato Univer-sity, a week-long intensive program exploringthe principles of libertarian thinking. He likesto recall that Tom Palmer, the director of CatoUniversity, succinctly summed up the libertari-an outlook by saying that “folks should nothurt other people and should not steal theirstuff.” He has also been able to attend severalBenefactor Summits. Given that he now livesin Palm Beach, he is especially looking forwardto the 2010 Summit in Palm Beach.

Jim enjoys the wide range of policy analy-sis provided by Cato’s scholars. However, hehas something of a special fondness for legalissues and was particularly outraged by theKelo decision, a U.S. Supreme Court decisionwhich sanctioned the use of eminent domainpowers for a “taking” that clearly served pri-vate interests.

Jim’s long-term support of Cato reached anew plateau in 2008 when he entered into a

charitable gift annuity con-tract with Cato. Gift annu-ities are a popular financialplanning device with a sim-ple, straightforward struc-ture: a donor transfers prop-erty to Cato (or other charity)in return for a promise to paya stream of income, called anannuity, for life. At the do-nor’s death, the charity re-tains the remaining princi-pal. So gift annuities provide

for a guaranteed income stream for life plusan immediate gift tax deduction for the giftportion of the transfer. Jim has been pleasedwith his Cato charitable gift annuity andcommented that “it was easy to do and all theexplanations were complete, forthcomingand forthright.”

For our part, Cato thanks Jim and all ourSponsors for their magnificent supportwhich allows us to stand in the forefront ofthe struggle to defend our heritage of liberty.Our Sponsors make it possible for us to speakagainst the tide of statism and to speak for therule of law and the Constitution.

If you would like to discuss estate plan-ning or gifting ideas, please feel free to contactGayllis Ward, our director of planned giving,at (202) 218-4631 or at gward@cato.org.

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A PROFILE IN GIVING:JAMES WEINER

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