For your freedom and ours

In 1968, my country went to war. 

As Soviet tanks rolled toward Prague, newspapers described the invasion of Czechoslovakia as an act of “friendship.”

I was nine, old enough to know that nine years hence, I would be at risk of donning a Soviet Army uniform. I knew also that I would sooner shoot my commander than shoot a Czech.

Today, my former country’s tanks are rolling again, trampling a peaceful, independent state. I’ve been using WhatsApp to let my family and friends in Russia know that my thoughts are with them. 

I know exactly what they are feeling: the deepest, darkest shame anyone can possibly imagine. I felt it in August of 1968, and I feel it now. 

Today, as bombs fall and Russian troops amass around Kyiv in the midst of something Putin describes as a “special military operation” aimed at “denazification,” I think of the Russian boys inside the war machines. How can they do it? Aren’t all of us brothers and sisters who speak very similar languages? I can’t speak Ukrainian, but I can understand it—everything. 

It could have been me, rattling toward Kabul as part of another disastrous Soviet adventure. Luckily, my parents had the foresight to emigrate in 1973.

Today, as I listen to Russian-language speeches by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, I hang on to his every word, because I hear a man who has read many books, has an epic sense of humor, and, just as importantly, has a range of emotions. Listening to Putin is another experience altogether—his is the dull language of a power-crazed ignoramus. The experience is akin to being kicked in the gut in a dark courtyard in St. Petersburg. 

Beyond these feelings—deep shame and contempt—I have nothing. 

Rationally, I can’t process it, and I am not sure anyone can. Why would a man who seems to like money and the palaces it can build take a step that unambiguously leads his empire into poverty?

As they bomb Kyiv, the Russians are literally destroying the cradle of the Russian civilization,  the city of Kievan Rus’, also the city of Gogol and Bulgakov.

Putin’s Russia is not Brezhnev’s USSR.

On Aug. 25, 1968, when eight brave men and women staged a demonstration on Red Square, theirs was an extraordinary act of bravery—and, yes, patriotism, in the genuine sense of the word. I would meet two of these heroes—Larissa Bogoraz and Pavel Litvinov—subsequently, while reporting books on the Moscow human rights movement.

On Red Square, the demonstrators unfurled two banners:

“Long Live Free and Independent Czechoslovakia,” read one.

“For Your Freedom and Ours,” read the other. 

A few weeks prior to the demonstration, the great Russian poet Aleksandr Galich wrote a song in which he invoked the 1825 Decembrist revolt on the Senate Square. It’s called “The St. Petersburg Romance”:

Here is a recording of Galich explaining the history of this song–and singing it.

After August 1968, I could no longer justify rooting for the USSR in sporting events. During the 1969 Hockey World Championship, the word “we” lost specificity, spilling across borders, dripping off the map. “We” included the valorous eight who protested the invasion—excluding those who ordered it.

I cheered for the U.S. as the USSR crushed us 17:2. Next came two games between the USSR and Czechoslovakia—our chance to impose limits on tyranny, to triumph over tanks.

“Stand firm, Nedomanski! Go, Cerny! Skate on the Holik brothers, Jiri and Jaroslav! Long Live Free and Independent Czechoslovakia! Skate for your freedom and ours!”

I jumped for joy as we, the Czechs, whipped the USSR 2:0, then did it again 4:3.

This form of protest may not be possible today, as Russia is being expelled from world athletic competitions in what amounts to genuine denazification.

In 1968, the actions of the Red Square demonstrators constituted a singular act of bravery. Today, thanks to Larisa, Pavel, their six valorous friends, their children, grandchildren, and spiritual heirs, it’s no longer a singular act. 

In Russia, in Moscow, my beloved hometown, people are coming out onto the squares and getting arrested by the thousand. On March 2, Aleksey Navalny, a genuine Russian patriot now in the midst of a bizarre trial, issued this Galich-like call to action:

“Putin is not Russia, and if today’s Russia has a reason to feel pride, we should be proud of the 6,835 people who were detained because—spontaneously—they came out into the streets with signs, ‘No to war.’”

Wherever you are—in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the globe—come out onto your city’s main square at 7 p.m. every weekday and 2 p.m. on holidays and weekends.

“There is not a day to waste,” Navalny writes from his cell.

Nataliia Verovkina, a Ukrainian oncologist who spoke with The Cancer Letter’s Matthew Ong had this to say to her Russian colleagues:

Today, the number of Ukrainians who have crossed the borders has exceeded one million, and more are heading toward the borders. Some of them are doctors, some are nurses, some are scientists, some are patients. 

Yes, it’s possible to capture Kyiv, just like it was possible to overrun Prague or quell the Warsaw ghetto, but victories of this variety are Pyrrhic. And no, Putin will not succeed at holding Ukraine—it’s been tried. 

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian refugees need our help. That’s why we have started putting together a compilation of resources available to refugees, some of whom could very well be colleagues you have met at the meetings of ASCO, AACR, and ESMO.

I say this as a Russian, a writer, and, yes, a patriot: Today all of us—all people of reason and goodwill—are Ukrainians.

Сьогодні ми всі українці.

This will not change.