Political views of the representatives of the dissident human rights movement (M. Rudenko, P. Hryhorenko and I. Pliushch)

Abstrakt

The article is devoted to the development of the Dissident Movement in Ukraine. The political demands of the Ukrainian Dissident Human Rights Movement are considered. The political views of the representatives (P. Hryhorenko, M. Rudenko and L. Pliushch) of the Ukrainian Dissident Human Rights Movement are analysed.

During the 20th century, there were many human rights movements in the world. Anti-Colonial Movement (the Congo Reform Association), anti-war movements (e.g., the Civil Rights Movement against the Vietnam War) and Nonviolent Movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. were among them. The Dissident Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union was one of the biggest.

Having minimal opportunity to openly criticize the official authorities and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the most active and progressive people united into civic associations and movements that called for reforms of the Soviet state. Those groups appeared in the period of stagnation of the Soviet society which covered all the fields of the national administration. At that time, the movements to protect human rights and freedoms acquired world-wide scale. Dissidents also listed their fundamental demands focused on extending and guaranteeing human rights, in particular, civil and religious freedoms. All those positions were opposite to the Marxism-Leninism ideology of the totalitarian Communist regimes.

There were many dissident movements in Ukraine in the 1970s, which can be divided into four groups: cultural and educational, national liberation, religious, and human rights ones. The cultural and educational dissidents group was represented by artists (A. Horska, H. Yakutovych), poets (V. Stus, I. Svitlychnyi, V. Symonenko, M. Vingranovskyi), and directors (L. Osyka, S. Paradzhanov, L. Taniuk). The nationalists (V. Chornovil, L. Lukianenko, the Horyn brothers) presented the national liberation one. Religious dissidents fought for freedom of conscience. V. Romaniuk, Y. Slipyi, G. Vins, etc. were among them. The human rights movement called for establishing democratic values though the reforms of the state regime. Its famous representatives were P. Hryhorenko, M. Rudenko, and L. Pliushch. In this article, we focus on them personally and on their political demands in particular.

The Ukrainian Dissident Human Rights Movement included five groups of political views that regarded the following: the criticism of Stalinism, the protection of human rights and freedoms, the rehabilitation of the nations, the political system of the Soviet Union, and the Ukrainian opposition. The Human Rights Movement united universal democratic values, such as pluralism, the principle of the division of power, the idea of people’s sovereignty, the freedom of expression, and the defence of the rights of national minorities. The people wanted to build a democratic, legal and social state that would be based on different left-wing political doctrines such as Leninism, Marxism, and Socialism were considered the main representatives of this trend.

By researching the political views of the representatives of the Human Rights Movement, one can evaluate the importance of democratic values for the development of Ukraine. The progressive ideas of the dissidents concerning reforms of the Soviet society, openness, perspectives of the society of equal opportunities, etc. based on the social democracy.