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AdTI's "Samizdat"

Ken Brown's “book” Samizdat says Linux and Open Source is like samizdat, the self-publishing books of Russia. From a foreword by Cynthia Martin (Associate Professor of Russian, Maryland), who surely bears no blame for the travesty of the book itself:

To understand the appropriateness of the word samizdat in the title of this paper, a brief discussion about the word's meaning and its significance in Soviet history is in order.

Russian culture has always recognized the power of the word, spoken and especially written. In contrast to a democratic tradition predicated upon the notion that protecting free speech is necessary to foster the open exchange of ideas, a monolithic world-view, be it tsarist, monarchy, or Communist totalitarianism, cannot tolerate the potential for alternative positions or systems of government gaining broad support. The written word, as the bearer of such alternative ideas, is viewed as quite powerful, and hence, it is not surprising that official control over all forms of publication has been exercised throughout Russian history, especially during the Soviet period.

State-sponsored censorship developed during the pre-1917 tsarist period, and subsequently found its full elaboration in the Soviet Union. Samizdat was a response to the attempt by the Russian government to control access to all publications and publication outlets. Samizdat referred to the practice of "self-publishing" by dissident thinkers in a variety of areas, including political thinkers, academics and scholars, scientists, and literary and artistic figures in the Soviet Union. [...]

The punishment for producing samizdat or even possessing such self-published literature could be harsh, resulting in prison sentences or worse. To prevent unauthorized publishing, state control of the printing apparatus was so meticulous, that over long holiday weekends, for example, publishing offices containing typewriters and other forms of copying technologies were literally locked and their doors were sealed. The particular keystrokes of all typewriters were registered with the authorities so that illegally typed works might be traced to those responsible.

One of the most famous cases of a dissident writer whose works, political and literary, were published via samizdat is the case of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His personal fate is evidence of how much Soviet Russia feared the bearer of alternative ideas, and how total the attempt was to control the dissemination of texts that offered alternative views. Solzhenitsyn came to be seen as more of a threat inside Russia, where he could still spread his anti-Soviet views, than outside, and therefore he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and expelled from Russia in February 1974.

What a noble enterprise! The goals of samizdat publishers are those which I think many open source contributors would admire: speaking truth, sharing information and ideas, and doing it using their own tools even when it inconveniences or annoys the regime.

Brown slanders the open source and Unix community in the body of the book. But at least in the choice of his title, he is far too kind. The comparison to samizdat publishers is inspiring and flattering, but eventually an exageration: few of us run the risk of the gulag to publish our code, and though the cause of free software is worthy it is not so grand as the liberation of a country from totalitarianism. I do my bit, but I am no Solzhenitsyn.

The rest of the book is truly awful. Were it a university paper, every page would have red ink... at least until halfway through, when I think any marker would give up and just write FAIL.

If there is one worthwhile thing that AdTI ever said, it is this: even our enemies see Linux as being like dissidents under communism.

posted Sat 22 May 2004 in /issues/adti | link

Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Martin Pool.