THE DISSIDENT MOVEMENT IN U.S.S.R. political declaration, in an attempt to broaden the social and political dimensions of their activities. The writer or artist who is ex officia interested in discovering reality and trying to give an opinion or express impressions of it, cannot exercise his profession under the pressure of discriminatory, repressive and violent contrais. Likewise, it is impossible to express oneself on social and political issues under the constant threat of administrative retaliation. The writer or artist, therefore, by protesting against certain excesses in the exercise of power, defends, at least in part, the internai logic of techniques and institutions in which he is a specialist. But in so far as he attempts to broaden the social and political dimensions of his activities, the scientific or technical expert is only defending his own interests by his declarations and literary works. It is usual for him to make his political stands in the pursuit of, or the attempt to pursue, his scientific or technical activity, and it is not rare for these stands to oppose him to his colleagues. By trying to carry on his professional activity he demonstrates that his dissidence is a supplementary or auxiliary occupation which is not at all incompatible with his daily work as a scientific or technical expert: he acts, at least partially, « as a writer » or « as an artist » whilst being a dissident. That is to say, dissidence against certain discriminatory, repressive and violent aspects of the exercise of power contains elements of proposais demanding respect for the internai logic of techniques and institutions, of literature and the arts. Certainly, by attempting to increase its social and political importance, the dissident movement goes beyond the defence of techniques and institutions serving those interested in the maintenance of the system. But by not expressing itself except in these types of activity where technical and institutional specialisation goes unchallenged, and by not attempting to attak the ensemble of techniques and institutions which make this specialisation inevitable, the dissidents ore only arguing for the emancipation of certain aspects of their own social, political and professional activities. Well, without fondamental technical and institutional changes, without the creation of real counter-techniques and counter-institutions capable of overturning the entire system, these activities run the risk of remaining those of specialists belonging to the social stratum of experts in methods and teories of the application, improvement and popularisation of 37
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