Dissidents rejected the big lie and valorized local everyday truths. Their central labor in the communist bloc was the chronicle, the list of specific details about human suffering and injustice. Throughout the communist world, those in opposition labored to record the names of those sent to psychiatric prison or to the Gulag. Then they themselves were sent to psychiatric prison or to the Gulag. These courageous people understood that facts were a condition of freedom, and that the facts would not record themselves. Facts need us, and we need them.
