The first to respond was the director of the Ukrainian office of the George Soros Foundation, Evgenii Bystritskii. He is on the editorial board of the Kiev journal “Filosofskaya Mysl’” (Philosophical Thought), founded by the Bolsheviks 75 years ago. In the past Bystritskii studied the classics of Marxism-Leninism, but these days he argues with opponents of the American capitalist George Soros.

Bystritskii at first expressed willingness to distribute my article among members of the Civil Forum in Kiev, and on the George Soros website. However, his transatlantic bosses told the titan of “Filosofskaya Mysl’” that it was quite undesirable for him to publish anti-Soros material.

Next, Bystritskii sent emails to the “Democracy and human rights” sociological centre, in which he alleged that I had links to Ukrainian nationalists and Nietzscheanism. What is more, he called me a “booby” and advised the centre to read his own articles, which were published during the 1990s in political publications. In reply, the leadership of the centre suggested that Bystritskii should “try to refute Baranov’s text, and not publicise his own articles”.

Nikolai Baglei, a member of the Transcarpathian human rights group, “Doverie” (Trust), speaking at a meeting of activists, asked “Where did Baranov get his information? He can’t have done it without intelligence from somewhere. We should block his article. In another age the author of such a document would have been challenged to a duel.”

The head of the Ukrainian environmentalist group, “Zelyonyi svit” (Green suite), Sergei Fedorinchik, had previously used my articles, published by PRIMA, in his internet bulletin. However, he thought that “Cult of the new commune” was too dangerous, because it attacked the fragile shoots of civil society. Fedorinchick felt that environmentalists and human rights defenders who read the article might be affected negatively, and so he omitted it from his bulletin.

Anatolii Tkachuk, head of the Kiev Institute for Civil Society, wrote a letter to eleven newspapers, accusing me of spreading false information. None of the newspapers published his letter.

Shortly afterwards an article appeared by the Inna Sukhorukova, one of the editors of the Kharkov “Human rights” newsletter. The article was entitled “In the pawn shop”. The author felt that she must demonstrate my confusion and mistakes. Her article argued that the powerful position of the Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchman forces people to attend demonstrations. I did not understand what this had to do with me. Incidentally, individual members of the Kharkov human rights group, of which Sukhorova is a member, voted for the communists and the socialists in the elections. That explains my opponent’s disdain for President Kuchma.

The final round against me was played by Vsevolod Rechinskii, graduate of the National Judicial Academy of Ukraine, expert member of the Ukrainian-American human rights bureau, and an IREX and Fulbricht scholar. He sent me a huge article in which, quoting the great philosophers, he proved how essential “civil society” is to us all.

I wrote a reply to Rechinskii in which I told me that he had only quoted idealists, materialists, positivists and representatives of the Enlightenment. In his article there was no trace of the existentialists or representatives of “the philosophy of life”. Yet the existentialist Søren Kirkegaard thought that the task of man is to surmount the obstacles which society places in his way. Otherwise, an individual will be unable to achieve true freedom. Friedrich Nietzsche called society “rubbish”. Karl Yaspers wrote “Man is ready to sacrifice society for the sake of the search for his vocation. It is impossible to avert the inevitable degeneration of society into total mass order.” Jean-Paul Sartre expressed in a single phrase – Hell is other people – the relationship between the free individual and social formulations.

I also reminded Rechitskii about a unique book which appeared in the USA by the political scientist Robert Putnam: “Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community”. Supported by a huge amount of material from fifty researchers, Putnam argues that civil society will soon disintegrate in the USA. The Americans’ tendency to form associations will also vanish in a short time. Over the past thirty years US citizens have shown less and less desire to participate in any collective activities. Membership of clubs has fallen and there are now few people who choose to lead social organisations or participate in social life.

I believe that the concept of civil society, the offspring of the Age of Enlightenment, rationalism and morality, is no longer succeeding even in those places where human rights are proclaimed as part of the state ideology. But it seems that our human rights defenders cannot reconcile themselves to the shattering of their illusions.