Word: samizdat
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Some efforts seem to be under way to break away from the stifling past. There is, for instance, a fledgling underground pornographic press called sexizdat (after the samizdat underground literary movement). Stern also reveals that daring protesters have been dropping pornographic doodles into ballot boxes. Yet in spite of such pathetic signs of rebellion, Stern does not see enlightenment any time soon. Indeed, he fears that sex may become increasingly cold, cynical and impersonal in the U.S.S.R. All of which underscores his basic message: that the Revolution stopped at the bedroom door...
...dissent on matters economic, political and religious that is virtually unprecedented under Communism. Much dissent, naturally, has the church's moral support. Illegal "flying universities" schedule home lectures on topics like the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland that state classrooms never mention. There are some two dozen illegal samizdat periodicals and dissident organizations for intellectuals, workers and peasants. In its present need to ensure a measure of political order, the Gierek government devoutly desires good relations with the Polish church and the Vatican. That need is a source of the Pope's bargaining power...
...finds itself not so much opposed as bypassed with the WDC, fostering an alternative culture of art literature and social comment through some 38 different samizdat, or clandestinely duplicated material. Here the initiative in tightrope balancing is firmly with the dissidents, for it is they who can utilise nationalism and religion...
...Samizdat, or underground literature, began to flourish, enriched by such banned works as Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle. But even at the height of the movement, active dissenters have never numbered more than a few thousand people. Still, the influence of their ideas is incalculable in a country where muted discontent over material and intellectual deprivation is widespread...
Thus far the government has been reluctant to crack down heavily on the samizdat publications for fear of stirring up even more popular unrest and making martyrs of the underground writers. Polish officials dismiss the dissident writing as insignificant, but they regard its proliferation with dismay. Earlier this month, police confiscated 450 copies of Opinia in the Warsaw apartment of one of the journal's distributors. But that put only a modest dent in the magazine's circulation. About 5,000 copies of every issue are printed, and each copy is believed to have 20 to 30 attentive...