To judge by press accounts, Yuri Andropov is sitting pretty. His rise to power was unexpectedly swift and trouble-free. A recent wave of arrests appears to have crushed the Helsinki Watch Groups: the Soviet dissident movement is on the verge of extinction. But the dissident movement not only is alive, but also promises to vex Comrade Andropov even in his new post.
The apparent weakness of Soviet dissent stems more from a flawed perception than from the actual state of the movement. This perception, derived largely from the American press, is Moscow-centered to the extreme and views the dissident movement as consisting primarily, if not exclusively, of those activists living in or with good access to the USSR’s capital.
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