glasnost abroad: new thinking in foreign policy
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Glasnost Abroad: New Thinking inForeign PolicyWalter Laqueur a b ca TWQb International Research Council , CSISc Georgetown UniversityPublished online: 15 Jun 2010.
To cite this article: Walter Laqueur (1988) Glasnost Abroad: New Thinking in Foreign Policy, TheWashington Quarterly, 11:4, 75-93, DOI: 10.1080/01636608809477503
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Glasnost and the West Follow in» an earlier cluster of articles on domestic changes in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev (TWQ, Spring 1988) and a related cluster on his significance for Soviet military power {TWQ, Summer 1988), two renowned scholars of international affairs offer their long-term assessments of the Gorbachev revolution and its broad implications for the West.
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Glasnost Abroad: New Thinking in Foreign Policy Walter Laqueur
INTRIGUING C H A N G E S HAVE occurred in Soviet foreign and defense policy since General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's appointment, but new thinking in this field has not been remotely as striking as glasnost on the home front. T h e reasons for this are obvious. Foreign policy is based on some degree of secrecy even in democratic societies. If there were total openness, there would be no need for diplomacy; if relations among nations were in accordance with the prescriptions of the prophet Isaiah or the Sermon on the Mount, there would be no need for defense budgets and standing armies, navies, and air forces.
Basic factors in Soviet foreign policy and defense are bound to remain constant irrespective of domestic developments. This is true for all countries, but it applies a fortiori to a political regime such as the Soviet Union. One also should recall the priority of domestic over foreign affairs in Soviet policy. This was the case well before Gorbachev; if anything, this trend has become even stronger since. Foreign policy is not neglected, and Soviet leaders will use opportunities to enhance Soviet influence and security whenever possible. Soviet leaders
Walter Laqueur is editor of T\VQ, chairman of the International Research Council of CSIS, and professor of government at Georgetown University. This article is based on his forthcoming book, Glasnost (New York: Scribners, 1989).
unanimously agree that their major efforts now must concentrate on the domestic front: a strong country will strengthen its position externally, whereas a weak or stagnant economy will weaken its international standing. In view of all this, it is pointless to speak about the age of glasnost in Soviet policy as Westerners frequently do (but Soviets virtually never do). T h e correct term for the new approach in Soviet foreign policy is novoe mys/ilenie (new thinking), and its use well predates Gorbachev.1
One could define this new thinking as the movement forward from the negativism that characterized Soviet foreign policy in the early 1980s toward a stress on global concerns common to West and East, such as nuclear disarmament and certain ecological problems or epidemics. Ideally, this shift would not ignore the basic class character of Soviet foreign policy and a peace strategy that aims both to reduce the danger of world war and weaken the countries perceived as the Soviet Union's main enemies. However, there are now certain differences in approach that were always subject to dilution, particularly concerning the class character of Soviet foreign policy in practice, not theory. Defining the party line in 1988 is more difficult than 10 or 20 years ago. T h e ideology has become more fuzzy and less monolithic. Relations between the Soviet Union and the West (particularly the
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United States) deteriorated so much in the early 1980s that negotiations in almost all fields came to a virtual standstill. It is not easy even in retrospect to establish whether this resulted from a deliberate policy on the part of Soviet leaders, or whether, perhaps more likely, they had maneuvered themselves into the foreign-policy equivalent of stagnation. By 1984 there was growing awareness that the militarization of Soviet foreign policy led to self-isolation and was not in the country's best interest. Hence, the gradual retreat from the policy of boycott that began under Andropov and continued under Chernenko.
Gorbachev's first foreign-policy statements were as cautious as his speeches on other topics. T rue , at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, one year after his election, circles in Moscow spoke of tactical flexibility and a preparedness to enter a dialogue and to reach mutually acceptable compromises.-' However, he qualified his remarks with the ritual invocation of the ever-growing crisis of parasitic, decaying imperialism (meaning not only the United States but also Japan and Western Europe) which had brought the capitalist world to the eve of revolution. Gorbachev even characterized the United States as the locomotive of militarism, a system of monopolistic-totalitarianism. True , Soviets did not deny that the capitalist world was still capable of increasing its productive capacities, but it was still doomed because of its inability to solve social questions, such as growing unemployment. They at times referred to global interdependence and the possibility of cooperation in the mutual interest. Was it not a waste to spend so many billions each year on arms budgets?
However, these references were only cautious feelers. If Gorbachev desired to revive detente , he gave no
hint in these statements. The spirit of detente was diluted in the interpretations of leading Soviet foreign-policy spokesmen, such as V. V. Zagladin and Anatoli Dobrynin.1 They emphasized the "world historical mission of the working class," the "revolutionary spirit of the new thinking," and, above all, that the focus of Soviet foreign policy always had to be on the class character, not general human aspects. There was no softening of anti-Western, particularly anti-American, propaganda: the Pentagon was responsible for manufacturing and spreading the AIDS virus; the CIA carried out the Jonestown massacre (in which almost a thousand members of an American religious sect committed suicide); and the Americans were responsible for the assassinations of foreign leaders whenever the circumstances were unclear, be they plane accidents or terrorist attacks.4 Mu'ammar Qadhafi, the Libyan ruler, was introduced to the Soviet public as "Comrade Qadhafi," an epithet preserved in the past for members of communist and allied parties.5
Soviet propaganda abroad did not make an overwhelming show of glas-nosl in 1985-1986, i.e., it was strictly for domestic consumption. Thus , it was stated that the Soviet example had shown that the national question— "one of the most dramatic problems of mankind"—could be solved in quite a short time. T h e right to housing was said to be guaranteed in the constitution, Soviet medicine was free, and real income between 1986 and 1990 was going to increase by about one-third. Among the many Soviet achievements, there were some not hitherto mentioned: "The Soviet people are very proud that our country had retained its title as the last bulwark of romantic love in the world."6 Everyone expects a country to put its best
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foot forward in foreign propaganda, but assertions of this kind clearly went beyond accepted limits of good taste and plausibility.
If Soviet foreign-policy makers had stuck closely to the doctrine articulated by these interpreters, Soviet relations with the West would not have not progressed. However, they did not. Beginning with Gorbachev's visit to London in 1984, even before he became general secretary, Soviet diplomacy showed willingness to establish closer relations with the West, and with China and Japan. This willingness manifested itself, above all, in the wish to attain agreements on arms control. T h e Soviets also proposed intensifying trade relations by means of joint ventures. They appeared ready to stress "matters of common human interest" and frequently reiterated a desire to pull their military forces from Afghanistan.
This new style made an excellent impression in the West. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the first to say that she liked Gorbachev and that one could do business with him. Soon after President Francois Mitterrand expressed similar views, and Prime Minister Helmut Kohl was equally taken by Gorbachev's natural authority and grasp of details. Eventually, President Ronald Reagan showed himself smitten by the Gorbachevs during their December 1987 visit to Washington. T h e impact on public-opinion and the Western media was even more striking.
However, many contradictions remained, above all the basic question about the new rapprochement. Did it constitute a temporary adjustment, being tactical in character and scheduled to last merely a few years, or did it constitute a real break in Soviet foreign policies and a long-term reorientation. Some Soviet commentators
seemed to favor the latter course, arguing that expectations of real improvement in relations with the West were unrealistic unless the concept of a basic, irreconcilable antagonism and of an enemy to be defeated and destroyed was replaced.7 Most Soviet spokesmen preferred to leave the question open.
Further contradictions existed. According to the new political assessment, U.S. power was declining and Western Europe and Japan were emerging as alternative seats of power. However, the Soviet leaders found themselves negotiating most of the time with Washington, still by far the most important partner (and antagonist). Although favoring the decoupling of Europe from the United States and advocating an independent European policy, the Soviets opposed any move toward closer cooperation, political and military, inside Western Europe. Regarding arms control, a similar contradiction existed between the wish to limit and reduce certain weapons systems because of their enormous (and growing) cost and, at the same time, the wish not to cede any of the advantages in the arms race which they had achieved in the 1970s.
True , there have been indications in 1988 for a more self-critical attitude in Soviet foreign political thought. For instance, the last section (dealing with foreign policy) of the official working paper prepared for the extraordinary party conference in June 1988 exposed mistakes, which had not been admitted in the past, at least in general terms. Individual authors have written more specific articles. One such author is Viacheslav Dashichev," who pointed out on the basis of specific instances that it was ridiculous to argue that Soviet foreign policy has been infallible in the past. T o single out but two of his examples, Dashichev argued that
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the Munich policy of the Western powers on the eve of World War II was not only motivated by anti-communism but also by the assumption that, having decapitated the Red Army-command, Stalin was no longer a reliable ally. Nor was the West entirely to blame if it felt alarmed by Stalin's export of the Soviet system (in the Blanquist-Trotskyite tradition) after the war and failed to give credence to the slogans about the Soviet struggle for peace. Dashichcv noted that there were no clear ideas in the 1960s and 1970s about the true national interests of the Soviet Union and that, as a result, wider interests were sacrificed in the pursuit of marginal, ephemeral gains in Third World countries.
However, admissions of this kind by individual authors are still a long way from a fundamental change in the course of Soviet policy. Such rethinking will at best be slow and is unlikely to go beyond certain limits. Even Dashichev, so far the most extreme exponent of the new thinking, has made it clear that he by no means advocates a "socialist isolationism."
Foreign trade was another field in which progress seemed difficult. T h e Soviets were genuinely interested in expanding foreign trade relations with the West to enhance the modernization of the Soviet economy. This aim was repeatedly stated at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress and on subsequent occasions. However, there was actually a substantial decline in 1985-1987 in Soviet trade with its main foreign trade partners (more than 20 percent in the case of West Germany). T h e decline resulted from the fall in the price of oil (the main Soviet export commodity), the fall in the value of the dollar, and a number of other reasons. T o compensate for the decline in foreign currency earnings, the Soviet government decided to es-
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tablish joint ventures with Western and Japanese corporations. T h e New Economic Policy included similar schemes in the early 1920s, but the attempts to revive this tradition were not clearly conceived. In view of bureaucratic complications and other difficulties, potential foreign partners had minimal interest in such ventures.
Most of the action centered on arms control; the Soviet Union took the initiative with a number of suggestions that went well beyond the conditions put forward by Gorbachev's predecessors.9 These suggestions included reduction of strategic weapons by half (October 1985) or at least by 30 percent (June 1986), gradual dismantling of all nuclear weapons by the year 2000 (January 1986), and reduction of conventional forces in Europe (June 1986). Although rather vague and particularly weak on the important issue of verification, these and other suggestions did help restore the initiative to the Soviet negotiators by creating the impression that Gorbachev was a man of peace and Reagan, obstinate and stonewalling, was a man unwilling to make any significant concession for world peace.
This impression was strengthened somewhat by the outcome of the October 1986 Reykjavik summit. T h e Soviets offered a 50 percent reduction of all intercontinental ballistic missiles over five years and their total elimination by the end of the century, as well as the zero option for medium-range missiles. T h e Americans accepted these proposals in principle and, if the conference broke down, it was because the Soviet side was unwilling to accept the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, star wars in popular parlance). Many Western experts thought after Reykjavik that Gorbachev had made his far-reaching proposals with the firm conviction that the
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package, all-or-nothing, deal (i.e., the insistence on the discontinuation of SDI) would be unacceptable to the Americans. However, Gorbachev subsequently relented and U.S. insistence on SDI (and equally determined Soviet opposition) did not prevent the successful negotiations on removing medium-range missiles that led to the signing of an agreement at the December 1987 Washington summit. Nor were the talks about intercontinental ballistic missiles affected.
Neither the intricate arms talks nor Western fears and doubts (decoupling, the greater vulnerability of Europe to conventional attack) are of immediate relevance in the present context. One issue that ought to be discussed, however briefly, is to what extent Soviet defense policy reflected the new-thinking. Under Gorbachev's leadership the armed forces have not played a role as important as under Brezhnev's, a political fact that has manifested itself in various ways.1" Concerning basic attitudes toward a strong defense, Gorbachev's commitment was second to none. However, in contrast to Brezhnev, he questioned the management of the armed forces and military spending. Being more acutely aware of the USSR's difficult economic situation than his predecessors, Gorbachev was bound to reexamine the old consensus: were the economic allocations for the armed forces put to the best use; was the management of people and resources wasteful, and, if so, what changes and reforms could be made? This in turn led to basic questions concerning Soviet net strategic assessment: how strong was the Soviet Union in relation to its potential enemies? Similar questions had last been asked under Khrushchev and had resulted in cuts in military spending. Gorbachev seems to have taken a considerably less alarmist view of the
world situation than enunciated by the military leaders, who throughout 1985 and 1986 tended to create the impression that international tensions were explosive and that the world was hovering on the brink of a major global crisis.
T h e first reaction of the most senior officers toward glasnost and perestroika was one of polite neglect. T h e officers paid lip service and mentioned the new slogans on a few occasions, but the general impression was that the armed forces believed that the reforms concerned exclusively the civilian sector. Few if any changes were deemed necessary regarding the structure and the management of the armed forces; interference by civilians was certainly not welcomed. T h e army leadership resented media publications that reflected poorly on the army's performance. The criticism concerned the war in Afghanistan and the treatment of the returning veterans. No one dared to say this in so many words, but there was widespread public surprise that the mighty Soviet army, the strongest military force in the world, was unable in seven years to inflict a decisive defeat on hordes of ill-trained and poorly equipped Afghans. T h e army resented such insinuations, just as it complained about insufficient moral support from Soviet educational authorities and the media. Some filmmakers and writers (such as Alexander Prokhanov) made a career glorifying the exploits of the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
However, most writers steered clear of the topic, and the army commanders detected pacifist (Remarquist) undertones in the writings of well-known authors, such as Ales Adamovitch. T h e army command took a dim view of the suggestions made by leading scientists that enlisting talented young science students was counterproduc-
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tive, thus depriving the country (and, in the final analysis, also national defense) of the contribution the young scientists could make during the best years of their careers. T h e media complained that the sons of well-connected parents were given preferential treatment during their army service. Above all, there was widespread criticism that young recruits were mistreated during their initial basic training, not so much by the officers (who preferred to look the other way) but by lower ranks and, above all, by recruits during the last year of their service who had themselves experienced the same indignities earlier." In brief, the senior army command saw many complications emanating from glasttost and perestroika; hence, the passive resistance that lasted by and large until early 1987.
At the January plenum of the Central Commit tee , Gorbachev threatened to demote those unwilling to cooperate with the new reforms. Even earlier a reshuffle occurred in the leadership of the Soviet high command and the Ministry of Defense. This shake-up did have a major impact on military attitudes, all the more so because the new appointees were by no means always the next in rank but senior officers known as supporters of reform. General Dmitri Yazov replaced Marshal S. L. Sokoiov as defense minister following the unscheduled landing of a Cessna 172 by a young German pilot on Red Square. In a speech, Yazov charged unnamed fellow officers with failing to stamp out negative tendencies in the armed forces: "We must look the truth in the eye: certain of us have lost the sense of duty and responsibility for the fulfillment of our duties and tasks ." ' '
Whatever the long-term results of admonitions of this kind, military leaders made a more outspoken com-
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mitment to the new reform policy in their speeches and articles from spring 1987 onward. They realized that they had been wrong, belittling the resolve of the civilian leadership's reform policy.
On questions of military doctrine, too, some—though not all—Soviet military leaders moved toward compromise with the civilian strategic thinkers, who clearly enjoyed the support of Gorbachev. Various writers asked previously unthinkable questions in connection with the stationing of the SS—20 missiles in Eastern Europe. Aleksandr Bovin, a leading commentator, noted that constructing and placing these missiles had been obviously quite expensive. "And if we agree to destroy them, the question arises why were they made in the first place? These questions are asked not by me alone, and one wishes there would be a competent answer."
Soviet military leaders found arguments for reform more difficult to accept than the civilians did, particularly the idea that irrespective of what Clau-sewitz, Lenin, and others had said, thermonuclear war was no longer the continuation of policy by other means in the atomic age and that no longer would there be victors and vanquished. Some military writers continued to argue that, although much had changed since the nineteenth century, giving up the classical Marxist concept of just and unjust wars was, at the very least, premature. Eurthermore, there was always the danger of a surprise attack, a concept which played a major role in Soviet military writing in the early 1980s."
These debates seemingly proceeded on a level of abstraction, but they led by necessity to eminently topical and practical questions: how much to spend on defense, the character of a future war, the question of
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superiority in the arms race, and the need for a new Soviet military doctrine. These questions were not unfamiliar to Western strategists and policymakers. The West was inclined to regard these debates as the mirror image of similar discussion of its own, but this happened to be only half true.
Some Soviet military leaders resisted Gorbachev's apparent willingness to make concessions to Washington in the arms negotiations, for instance regarding the moratorium on nuclear tests.M Some resistance was articulated, openly or in Aesopian language; more, one might assume, was never expressed in print but still deeply felt. This attitude reflected the ideas of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of staff until 19X4, (and virtually-all his predecessors) that the international situation was critical, that there could be war at any moment, and that only Soviet superiority guaranteed successful defense and, ultimately, victory. However, as time passed, it appeared that war had not come, that the military consumed more and more resources and that, while the Soviets had attained superiority in some respects, superiority was not enough to give the country a decisive advantage.
These debates caused bitter conflicts, sharp discussions, and painful differences, as Dobrynin said on one occasion. ,s T h e more radical new-thinkers hinted at a new global security system, even historical compromise (Fyodor Burlatski). However, these were speculations of outsiders. T h e mainstream strategists were preoccupied with a debate on dostato-chnost (reasonable adequacy or sufficiency) which began in early 1987. Sergei Akromeyev, the Soviet chief of staff, accepted the term, and it became part of official doctrine when members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization included it in their resolu
tions."' However, the question of how to interpret sufficiency remained; the term parity was less frequently used. T h e army commanders still emphasized the growing danger of imperialist attack and "tended to exaggerate for political reasons Western advantages in certain respects."17 Whether such civilian carping had any significant effect on those in charge of the political indoctrination of the army is doubtful. Thus , A. I. Kirillov, head of the army-newspaper 7M Rodimi, wrote, "Imperialism is preparing for war. Nobody can deny it."IH
T h e more enlightened military leaders suggested that the Soviet high command had every interest in the success of the reform policy, resulting in the modernization of the economy, and ultimately strengthening the armed forces. T h e military therefore was willing to accept sufficiency on a low level, but claimed that the Americans probably would not accept this. Some military thinkers and many civilian strategists argued that matching the Western buildup in every respect was no longer necessary to ensure sufficiency. On the contrary, such a response would be counterindicated "because the Americans would like to wear us out".1 ' ' Some civilian strategists even went so far as to claim that reasonable sufficiency should be interpreted as the ability to prevent a war and to defend successfully the country, a formula also used by Gorbachev, and to deter possible aggression. However, it did not have to be sufficient for offensive warfare.20
All this was heady stuff compared with the strategic doctrine of the 1970s. Soviet foreign policy certainly became infinitely more dynamic during Gorbachev's first years. This is in some ways a backhanded compliment for, as with glasnost, the starting point was so low. During the early 1980s the
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Soviet Union maneuvered itself into an offside position, and the many diplomatic negotiations and state visits which accompanied perestroika at home were therefore bound to make a considerable impression abroad. T h e Soviet diplomats began to speak a different language: they were willing to discuss topics, following the lead given from above, that had been taboo before; they made jokes from time to time; and they were smiling. Thus, the impression was created that a breakthrough, a radical change in East-West relations, was bound to happen soon.
These hopes proved premature: Soviet diplomacy made an effort to improve relations with the United Kingdom and with West Germany, which had been Moscow's favorite Western partner during the 1970s. Neither these activities nor the visits by Soviet leaders to Scandinavia, Spain, Latin America, and other parts of the world nor the relative restraint shown by the Soviet media21 brought about important immediate changes. However, this, in all probability, was not expected even in the Kremlin. T h e purpose was to show the flag, demonstrating that the Soviet Union was not only a superpower but also a moderate, responsible force in world affairs and should be treated as such.
In Soviet Far Eastern policy too, continuity exceeded change. T h e idea of an all-Asian forum was mooted again. In his July 1986 Vladivostok speech, Gorbachev emphasized the Soviet Union's role as a Pacific power, but these ideas were not fundamentally different from Brezhnev's aborted scheme for a collective Far Eastern security system (June 1969). T h e Asian reaction in 1986 was not much more positive than 17 years earlier. There was a rapprochement with the newly independent Pacific coun
tries. Although the Soviet foreign minister visited Tokyo, the Soviet Union was unwilling to make concessions on territorial issues.
In the talks with China, the Soviets made some minor concessions: they accepted that the Sino-Soviet border be in the middle of the Amur and Us-suri rivers rather than on the Chinese side, and they promised to take certain steps concerning the three major bones of contention—Afghanistan, Cambodia, and the thinning of troops along the 7,500-kilometer border. Relations were normalized to a certain extent as the Chinese sent a delegation to the 70th anniversary celebration of the October Revolution and trade between the two countries increased. Gorbachev called China a "great Socialist power," and the Chinese toned down their hostile comments. Even if satisfactory solutions could be found to all major outstanding questions, mutual suspicion between the two leading communist powers is rooted so deeply that a return to the close relationship that prevailed under Stalin and Mao seems illusory.
There was a considerable improvement in atmospherics in the Far East as well as in Europe but no comparable substantive progress. Because the Soviet leaders had few illusions in the first place, the absence of dramatic breakthroughs should not be regarded as a failure. They knew from experience that conflicts as well as common interests enter into the relationship between major foreign countries and a sudden, radical renversement des alliances is therefore ruled out. Soviet policymakers pursue certain basic aims with persistence and flexibility; for instance, they attempt to prevent the emergence of a coalition of potential enemies. Determined efforts were made to withdraw Soviet forces from
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Afghanistan. Yet, the conduct of foreign affairs changed less as far as substance was concerned than policies in other fields. This was only to be expected: even if Gorbachev and his colleagues were interested in a profound reorientation of Soviet policy, they would not have been able to pursue this aim while concentrating, by necessity, on domestic affairs. T h e priority of domestic over foreign policy was clear and undisputed: the last thing the general secretary wanted was to open a second front while the struggle on the home front had only just begun.
T h e Soviet Foreign Ministry went through ritual motions invoking giasnost and perestrioka. T h e ministry renewed publication of a house organ, the Vestnik, originally published in 1918 but long discontinued, and Ed-uard Shevardnadze gave a speech in which he called for internal reforms. He gave an example of the kind of reforms he had in mind. He had learned that for many years an expert on a specific issues of great importance to the country (even under giasnost the minister would not be more specific) had worked in the ministry. Yet, because this man had been modest and had never blown his own trumpet, no use had been made of his talents. Now the man was about to retire from the service. What a waste of talent!22
This man's story was a sad one, but it could have happened almost anywhere in the world. Its telling demonstrated the humaneness and consideration on the part of the Soviet foreign minister. T h e story also illustrated how Shevardnadze interpreted giasnost and perestroika. Yet, modest as Shevardnadze's reforms were, they encountered considerable resistance from officials in the ministry. In the same speech, he made it known that manv comrades, both former and cur
rent ministry employees, were offended by the policy of openness and giasnost and thought it detrimental to the authority of the Foreign Ministry. Shevardnadze, needless to say, did not share such views. As he saw it, the true party spirit in the new period not only demanded creative Marxism-Leninism and professional competence but also required the speaking of one's views against critics inside and outside the ministry.
Giasnost in the West
The West welcomed giasnost with enthusiasm. True , at first Westerners were reticent because the media had welcomed Andropov's election with excessive expectations. T h e media even had many good words for the good sense and levelheadedness of Chernenko. In view of the disappointment that followed, some caution seemed called for. One year after Gorbachev's rule began comments came about a new style of Soviet leadership. Real enthusiasm was building in 1987: a sea change had taken place, the Cold War was finally over, and the Gorbachev revolution was one of the great turning points in Soviet history.
There were, as always, differences and nuances: enthusiasm was considerably greater in the United States and West Germany than in France and Italy. Even in the United States and West Germany, there were discordant voices. Few economists shared the mass media's optimism about Gorbachev's prospects. Liberal political observers, such as Theodor Draper (writing in Dissent), warned against exaggerated hopes. Martin Walker, a British newspaper correspondent in Moscow who had been one of the most sanguine Western commentators at the scene, seconded Draper's warnings. After a lecture tour in the United
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States, Walker expressed surprise about the readiness of American Sovietologists to agree and even go beyond his guesses about the future course of the Gorbachev reforms. He was not entirely pleased: "The capacity of the American media to conjure up an instant myth, to glamorize the mundane and sanctify the profane, should never be underestimated." He expressed the fear that the U.S. pendulum, at present in a state of euphoria, might swing back, from confidence to despair, from faith to rejection with great speed.- '
How does one explain the cordial welcome extended to Gorbachev and his new course well beyond circles in the West normally sympathetic to Soviet policies? T h e style and the political program enunciated by Gorbachev were, of course, a tremendous step forward compared with the Brezhnev-era, not to mention earlier chapters in Soviet history. A lasting turn for the better in Soviet policies had been expected and predicted many times: after the Soviet Union entered the war in 1941, after the victory over the Axis powers, after Stalin's death in 1953, and on several subsequent occasions, for the last time following Andropov's election. On these occasions such hopes had been premature. However, a great reservoir of good will toward the Soviet Union remained. Surely, sooner or later the Soviet Union would turn into a European-style democracy. -4
T h e implications of such a historical turning point were obvious: a safer world in which nuclear war no longer would be a possibility, enormous savings in arms spending, and a world more prosperous and free of fear. T h e potential rewards of the democratization and liberalization of the Soviet Union were truly staggering. Not surprisingly, the Western media, with
their innate tendency to exaggerate, fastened on hopes and possibilities and turned them into facts and certainties. Lastly, the trend toward personalization of political issues, always pronounced in the Western media, found in Gorbachev an excellent candidate—a "star" as Der Spiegel correctly noted as early as 1985, a "man of the year" in U.S. news magazines. Here, at long last, was a Soviet leader with whom Western reporters could identify: presentable, married to an attractive woman, quick-witted, competent, reasonable, peace-seeking, and having a common touch, a sense of humor, and excellent communication skills. T h e popularity rating of such a new-style leader was very high in most Western countries, higher sometimes than of their own leaders.
President Garter called Gorbachev the "most humanitarian of the world's leaders." T h e Soviet leader's charisma swept some media figures off their feet, as if they were confronting royalty. One journalist described the scene.
And there was a murmur of excitement and the Gorbachevs were entering the room, and it was as if royalty had appeared in our midst, or media celebrities whose actual faces—youthful, high colored and smiling, assured—were considerably more attractive than their reproductions. In newspaper photographs, Gorbachev has looked jowly, heavy-set, and stolid, in person, he fairly radiates energy and vigor, the warmth of a naturally charismatic leader who knows his worth and delights in its reflection in other eyes.25
T o a considerable extent, the real charm exuded by the Gorbachevs brought about such reactions. Yegor K. Ligachev in Paris, Nikolai Ryzh'kov in
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Stockholm and Oslo, Shevardnadze in Latin America, and other Soviet leaders did not provoke similar ecstatic reactions.
T h e impression made by the leader by necessity affected the appraisal of his policy. Gorbachev was obviously a nice and decent man and deserved credit. Why were Western leaders so cool? Critics argued that Gorbachev had undertaken the most far-reaching revamping of the Soviet system in over half a century and that new opportunities existed because, on many issues, the Soviet Union was moving toward long-standing Western preferences.2 ' ' Instead of coming to terms with these changes, the West generally had adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the reform. Other commentators stressed the significance of the reforms in similar terms and warned "against an overskcptical response which could retard the Soviet Union's further adaptation."27 Such criticism seemed a little unfair, if only because no Soviet leader since World War II had received such acclaim or had become the symbol of Western hope for change in the Soviet Union. "If Henry-Kissinger and a few senators warned that if Gorbachev succeeded, the democracies would become less secure," these were, as The Washington Post noted, "small voices amid the clamor."28
If, with all good will and sympathy, the West had adopted a wait-and-see attitude, the same was true, according to all accounts, for the Soviet public;2'' Soviet citizens had heard too often the clarion call for reform. Western leaders from Thatcher (who called Gorbachev "a man of courage" in November 1987) to Denis Healy, from German Social Democrats to conservative leader Franz Josef Strauss made highly favorable comments about Gorbachev. If they had embraced him even more
closely, this could have well been the kiss of death. Nor could Western economic leaders be fairly reproached for not showing good will. U.S. bankers were willing to lend money at a lower rate to the Soviet Union than, for instance, to Brazil.
President Reagan set the mood a few days before Gorbachev's arrival in December 1987, certifying on national television that Gorbachev had given up the Communist idea of world domination, was committed to total nuclear disarmament, and was not responsible for the war in Afghanistan.'0
What more could be expected from the man who had coined the term "evil empire"?
One of the most prominent mouthpieces of Western capitalism, Financial Times, gave Gorbachev's Perestroika a rave review. George Kennan was also sanguine:
Gorbachev has mounted the most strenuous effort seen to date to change some of the conditions and the policies to which people here [in the United States] have so negatively reacted. . . . T h e prospects on the Soviet side for a significant improvement of Soviet-American relations will continue to be greater, so long as Gorbachev's preeminence endures, than they have been at anytime since the revolution."
The New York 'Times called Gorbachev's book the "publishing event of the year"; only The Wall Street Journal was negative.32 In West Germany, a country not known for generous advances to authors, a publishing house paid an unprecedented 1.5 million deutsch-marks for Perestroika. Within a few-days it appeared that the publishers had not taken an unreasonable risk, for the magazine Der Spiegel paid 1.2 million deutschmarks for subsidiary rights for serialization.
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Even among the Soviet emigres in the West, counsels were divided. In some emigre journals, glasnost and per-estroika were put in quotation marks. Vladimir Bukovsky wrote that Gorbachev was a new Stalinist in power. Early in the glasnost campaign 10 prominent Soviet emigres called on Gorbachev to give some tangible proof that basic changes had indeed taken place. They had emigrated not as the result of some tragic misunderstanding but because of profound differences with a regime unwilling to respect creative freedom of artistic expression. Would there be no such controls in the future?
Moscow News, much to everyone's surprise, published their letter together with a long reply. Less surprisingly, the editor was upbraided for a decision considered politically mistaken by the authorities. However, he was not deposed, and this, too, was progress in the direction of glasnost.
Another emigre writer published an article entitled, "Glasnost; a battle half won." Boris Vail, who had been active in the human rights campaign, warned his fellow emigres against "pure negativism": "In our maximalist demands of Gorbachev we bring to mind our opponents: It is not pure Bolshevism to demand of Gorbachev that he should close down the KGB tomorrow and introduce a multi-party sys tem?"" Some recent arrivals from the Soviet Union, such as Natan Sharansky (formerly Anatoly Shcharansky) took a far more skeptical view, expressing fears that the West would be seduced by glasnost. Western politicians and journalists found it difficult to resist the claim of Gorbachev's Western-style politics. Gorbachev was a hope, and he did present new opportunities, but only if he was seen as what he really was. This was psychologically very difficult for Westerners. Other recent im
migrants, however, were less skeptical and applied for Soviet visas. Most received permission to revisit their old homeland.
T h e Trotskyites, too, could not agree on the meaning of events in the Soviet Union. T h e International Gom-mittee of the Fourth International declared Gorbachev an inveterate foe of the working class. The committee accused him of lacking sympathy and support for the revolutionary movement outside the USSR and of cowardice; how could he have signed the arms-control agreement with Washington? However, Ernest Mandel, the veteran Trotskyite ideologist, welcomed Gorbachev as the "representative of the most enlightened wing of the bureaucracy." Others, such as Healy and Banda of the Workers Revolutionary party, went even further and adopted a view hardly distinguishable from the communists: there was no capitalist restoration in the USSR, on the contrary a movement of great social and political significance.34
T h e non-Trotskyite extreme left also viewed Gorbachev's reform movement positively. They were encouraged by reports written by Boris Ka-garlitsky and a few other left-wing dissidents from Moscow and Leningrad, published in British journals, such as New Itft Review, and the U.S. In These Times. According to these sources, all over the Soviet Union young people were streaming into socialist clubs, less interested in human rights than the dissidents of the 1970s and mainly preoccupied with a return to "positive Marxism." One leftist wrote that the big news out of the Soviet Union was that a grass-roots leftist revival was taking place reminiscent of the 1960s radicalization in the West. This , to put it mildly, was a gross exaggeration. A few young intellectuals had become interested in
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Marcuse and Gramsci, even in Baku-nin, 20 years after the fashion had reached the West, and some of them had been arrested for a while in the early 1980s.
There is reason to believe that the manifesto signed by a Movement for Socialist Renewal dated Leningrad, 21 November 1985, which created a stir in some Western media, also emanated from these circles.35 T h e manifesto called for systemic change and made a number of sensible suggestions. However, it was not at all clear whom it represented—5, 15, or perhaps even 50 people—and whether they were, in fact, party members. By early 1988 Kagarlitsky conceded that few people were interested in their ideas. On one hand, neo-Stalinism had gained popularity; on the other, Soviet radical liberals were mainly "culture orientated" and left economics to the conservatives.1''
Thus , by and large, most Western observers detected in the Soviet Union what they wanted to discover. This tendency is not surprising in a confusing situation. T h e Soviet Union manifested all kinds of contradictory evidence, something for almost everybody. It was not at all easy to choose among this welter of conflicting accounts the ones closest to Soviet realities rather than to Western wishes.
Finally, the reaction of other communist regimes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Romania and Cuba emphatically dissociated themselves from the reform movement from the beginning. Elsewhere, communist regimes supported perestroika, even though East Germany and Czechoslovakia were slow to give due publicity to Gorbachev's more daring speeches. Poland and Hungary had carried out their own reforms well before 1986, the former by necessity and the latter by choice. They welcomed the new ini
tiatives emanating from Moscow as confirmation of the correctness of their own attitude. After some initial hesitation Bulgaria became an ardent champion of economic reform. In fact, in late 1987 Soviet friends had to admonish Todor Zhivkov to be less ambitious and more cautious; no one had suggested that the party give up overall control over the economy.
Reform was clearly of no interest to North Korea. China went through its own glasnost and perestroika, different in many respects from the Soviet experience. T h e Czechs became somewhat more forthcoming as time passed and as a successor to Gustav Husak was appointed. T h e East Germans, however, were unrepentant. T h e y could claim that, of all the East European economies, theirs was in the best shape, and that this was the result of strict centralization—the concentration of all industrial enterprises in 150 large combines. Why change something that was functioning reasonably well, at least by East European standards? Actually, the idea of East Germany as an economic powerhouse was largely a myth. Its growth was more than modest, its trade with the West had fallen steadily, and, compared with West Germany, it was further behind than 20 years ago . " Unlike Poland, however, it had never faced bankruptcy.
Kurt Hager, the Politburo member in charge of ideology, asked: If your neighbor is putting up new wallpaper in his apartment, does it mean that you have to do the same? This comparison must have irked the reform party in Moscow, but they had more urgent tasks than engaging in polemics with East Berlin comrades.
These East European reactions concerned perestroika; Eastern Europe outside Poland and Hungary had no enthusiasm for greater glasnost. On the
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contrary, fear that its spread might destabilize the loyal regimes became widespread: the small local dissident groups in East Germany and elsewhere drew encouragement from Gorbachev's new course and even invoked his authority. T h e East German leadership did not hesitate: Gorbachev released political prisoners and permitted Andrei Sakharov to return from Gorky, but Erich Honecker ordered mass arrests and the deportation of dozens of pacifists and church activists to West Germany. T h e Gzech government, too, was embarrassed by soul-searching in Moscow, even if not public, about whether the military invasion of 1968, which liquidated the Prague Spring, really had been well advised. Gzech officials immediately argued that the situation in Czechoslovakia had been completely different at the time. The Czech reform movement ("communism with a human face"), in contrast to the Soviet, had been engineered by the forces of reaction, domestic and foreign.
Circumstances were indeed different. Historically, Soviet communism was homegrown whereas in Eastern Europe it was imported by the Red Army during and after World War II. If Soviets identified to some degree with communism, East Europeans did not. The re was latent nationalist resentment: dissidents were few perhaps in number but potentially great in popular support. Given a little finger they would take the whole hand— and more. Even in a relatively stable communist regime, such as East Germany, the pull of centrifugal forces remained strong. A reasonably high standard of living with ample entertainment (in the form of Western television) and achievements in athletics and swimming had not made that much difference.
In the final analysis, domestic peace
rested on the demobilization of the masses, and glasnost and democratization would have the opposite effect, infusing a great deal of uncertainty and insecurity. Hence, it was not surprising that Abuladze's film, "Repentance," should be bitterly condemned in East Germany and ignored in most other East European countries. T h e press called it "historically incorrect," "nihilistic," and "inhuman." T h e film undermined the unity of the party and the masses; it supplied grist to the mills of the anticommunist forces."*
Some intellectuals in Eastern Europe were excited about the new cultural freedom in the Soviet Union, but party leaders informed them that the Soviet example, for once, was not to be emulated. Hungary and Poland had about as much glasnost as the party thought it could politically afford. In any case, they had practiced glasnost well before Gorbachev. T h e rest considered glasnost an alien and disruptive element.
Thus , the East European political landscape showed some variety, with the majority opting for pragmatic-changes in the economy but opposing political reform and glasnost. Such diversity could be interpreted as an encouraging sign; at least the obligatory, monolithic consensus of Stalin's days was gone. However, the monolith had been breaking up ever since Tito 's excommunication and the drifting away of Romania and Albania.
Perestroika did cause some discord in Eastern Europe: how could the Soviet Union achieve greater integration with its East European allies unless these countries accepted a reform policy, broadly speaking, on Soviet lines? Was not some common ideological basis, beyond the old cliches, an imperative for the years ahead? These questions had no easy answers, but, seen in a wider perspective, economic re-
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organization seemed more acceptable in Eastern Europe than cultural freedom and political reform, that is glasnost and democratization.
T o w a r d the F u t u r e
Glasnost obviously means more than showing movies shelved many years ago and publishing banned novels with a delay of 10 or 20 years. T h e Soviet media have discussed the state of the nation much more freely than before. However, as the experience before 1917 shows, even a comparatively large degree of cultural freedom can coexist with an autocratic system. What will happen once the banned novels and movies have appeared and all the revelations about the state of agriculture and the shortcomings of the health services arc common knowledge? Major taboo zones remain. They concern not only the present leadership but also the history of the Communist party and the role of the organs of security. Indeed, cynics may argue, they cover most truly important issues that have a bearing on the character of the regime. Seen in this light, the publication of Dr. ZJii-vago in 1988 and even of works by Platonov, Zamyatin, and Orwell, as well as the showing of abstract paintings or the performance of contemporary musical compositions, are a great achievement but of interest only to a small part of the population. T h e new-rulers permit these freedoms because they do not constitute a political threat to the regime.
If these were the only effects of glasnost, glasnost would still be a very interesting development because it has widened Western knowledge about Soviet things. What hope does it offer for the future? Glasnost is not irreversible. As long as there are no democratic guarantees, what has been given
can be taken away. T h e farther limits of glasnost probably have been reached, and major progress beyond them is unlikely. There could well be a partial retreat, a more narrow redefinition of these limits. Glasnost has meant plain speaking about shortcomings of Soviet politics, society, and other aspects of life. What if the revelations and the debates do not lead to improvement? Glasnost was based on hope, and many felt it was a breath of fresh air after the suffocating years of stagnation. If the changes do not materialize, the hopes are bound to fade and the air will become stale again.
T h e reforms of Soviet society are unlikely to succeed in the next 5 or 10 years. T h e economic and social problems are structural, and the political shortcomings are rooted deep in the past. Something akin to a cultural revolution would be needed to effect real change. Such revolutions have occurred but rarely in history. T he r e are no signs that anything of this kind will occur in the Soviet Union in the near future. T h e situation may have been precritical (in Gorbachev's words), but it is not critical enough for truly radical change. Some minor improvements will no doubt result from what some economists call the "new broom" effect of greater energy and new initiatives emerging from the top leadership. However, the newness of the broom passes with every year.
Glasnost increasingly will be in danger because it makes governing the country more difficult than in the past. All kinds of tensions, national and social which were suppressed before, are coming to the fore. T h e inevitable clashes and disorder will play into the hands of those who have argued all along that the Soviet people are not ready now, and perhaps will not be ready for generations to come, for po-
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litical freedom. They will argue that the authoritarian style, which has prevailed through virtually all its history, is the only one befitting it. It will be an enlightened authoritarianism to be sure but not a system based on freedom and broad, voluntary popular participation. T h e greater the problems that will face the Soviet leadership in the years to come, the greater the temptation to return to the past style.
Radical changes may take place in the leadership, but they are not a foregone conclusion. If the socioeconomic reforms will not show the desired results, the Soviets always can argue that the Western countries, not to mention the Third World, also face serious difficulties (as no doubt they will in the years to come). Accordingly, the Soviet system with all its shortcomings is no worse off than they are. If economic progress is slow and social problems abound, the same may well be true for most other countries. Whether or not a sociopolitical system is bankrupt is a comparative statement. If the rest of world would face a long period of steady growth and prosperity, of diminishing national antagonisms and social tensions, the Soviet system might reach the end of the rope in a few years. Because the prospects for the Western world are not that rosy, the outlook for the Soviet system is less gloomy, at least for the rest of the century. As neoisolationist trends grow stronger in the United States, as China remains preoccupied with domestic affairs, and as Western Europe fails to make significant progress toward greater unity, the standing of the Soviet Union as a superpower will not be in danger.
T h e Soviet Union probably will make a little progress, the state and party will reassert their authority. Some glasnost will no doubt remain in force, come what may. T h e atmo
sphere in the country will be less stifling than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. T h e intelligentsia will probe the outer limits of glasnost from time to time trying to push them a little further. As the high hopes of 1986-1988 fail to materialize, many of its members perhaps will withdraw from public life to the private or professional sphere as they did in the past.
This seems to be the most likely scenario, but it is, of course, not the only possible one. Soviet leaders may impose far stricter dictatorial rule if changes threaten to get out of control. Rebellious nationalities, striking workers, a further decline of discipline among the youth, and unruly intellectuals undermining general morale all could bring about the feeling of general crisis and, with it, the introduction of the harsh measures used in the past. Glasnost would end and be denounced as a bourgeois-liberal aberration from Leninism. Such a development seems possible but not likely. T h e emergence of a "Russian party" military dictatorship seems even more unlikely. Its influence is not to be belittled, but it acts more as a brake than an alternative government. It expresses a mood but it has no program, and it divides the country to such an extent that it could stay in power only by applying extreme measures. T h e return of a fully fledged Stalinist regime also seems unlikely because those in power still seem to have all the instruments to impose control at any time. True , the tensions inside the Soviet Union may be more explosive than the outsider can know, the hold of the leadership more precarious. If so, these developments are beyond the powers of perception of outside observers.
T h e last, equally unlikely, possibility is for the reform to succeed. Successful reform would no doubt be the
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best outcome for the Soviet Union and the world; the arguments that a substantial strengthening of the Soviet Union would by necessity mean the weakening of the West are unconvincing. Is success a possibility deserving serious discussion at the present time? Most informed observers inside the Soviet Union and abroad agree that the reforms are long overdue and that they are a step in the right direction; however, no one expects overwhelming success in the near future.
This is not to belittle the good will, even the idealism, of Soviets in high places and low, who, feeling acute un-happiness about the state of their country would like to effect a genuine break with the past. One wishes them well, but the odds against them are heavy. It is necessary to hope, Dr. Johnson said, "though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction." Faith, it is said, can move mountains, and miracles do happen. There is a striking scene in a recent Soviet novel whose author is near despair as the result of the corruption, apathy, lawlessness, and drunkenness she has witnessed; she has a dream a few days before Brezhnev's death in which she sees a bright comet in the sky that gives her fresh hope.3''
Maria Gania's comet is more impressive than the writings by some Western scholars that the political and economic reform movement is bound to succeed for objective reasons, such as urbanization or the growing educational level of the Soviet people. One should never lose hope, but hope is not a synonym for wishful thinking or for ignoring the enormous obstacles on the road to change and improvement.
T h e Soviet Union is not exempt from the laws of change. T ime does
no more stand still for communist regimes than for other governments. For years some Chinese have argued that certain tenets of the official doctrine are obsolete and should be repudiated. They have argued for an independent press, greater academic freedom, and perhaps even a multiparty system. Against this, many party leaders have claimed that the relaxation of controls has gone too far and that bourgeois liberalism should be fought as in the past.'10 Even Chinese intellectuals seem to fear that pluralism might lead to chaos. They do not want an institutionalized opposition but more regularized and enlightened, less arbitrary party rule which consults them more frequently.
T h e communist system is less deeply rooted in China than in the Soviet Union; less time passed from Mao's victory to the beginning of the age of reform. A pragmatic streak is present in Chinese political life that is less developed in the Soviet Union, and the "Sinification" of Marxism-Leninism began much earlier (and went further) than the Russification of the official ideology in the Soviet Union. Even in China the transition toward a new political system does not proceed by leaps and bounds, but very cautiously. Progress in the Soviet Union for a great variety of reasons is even more slow.
Thus , to repeat once again, there is reason to believe that the glasnost era has reached its climax and that no great further advances should be expected in the near future. With luck the country will be spared a major retreat and the loss of the positions that have been gained, but even this cannot be taken for granted. With luck, at some future date a new attempt will be made to extend the parameters of freedom. This is about as far as any realistic assessment can go; the age of
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m i r a c l e s m a y n o t b e p a s t b u t o n l y t h o s e in g r e a t d e s p a i r w i l l b u i l d o n t h e m .
Notes
1. For instance, Anatoli Gromyko and Vladimir I .omciko, Novoe myshlenie v yadeniy vek (New Think ing in the Nuclear Age, Moscow. 1984). Gromyko and Lomeiko allegedly coined the term at a 1984 conference in Hamburg.
2. Pravda. March 7, 1986.
3. V. V. Zagladin in Voprosy filosofii, no. 2, 1986. Anatoli Dobrynin in Kommunist, no. 16, 1986.
4. T h e AIDS stories that caused particular anger in Washington were featured as allegations made by African sources, anonymous French-Algerian doctors, or obscure East German scientists; for instance, So-besednik, no. 52, 1987. In the case of an official U.S. complaint, Soviet spokesmen could always argue that the Soviet media had picked up stories circulated elsewhere.
5. Izvestiia. March 3. 1987.
6. V. S. Gurevich and V. T . Trctiakov, Seventy Years of Soviet Government (Moscow, 1987), pp. 65, 78, etc.
7. E. Plimak, Pravda, November 14, 1986. Various official philosophers expressed similar views throughout 1987, Voprosy filosofii, nos. 10-12. 1987.
8. Viacheslav Dashiehev, Literaturrtaia Gas-etta. May 18, 1988.
9. In a 1977 speech in Tula, Brezhnev rejected the idea of victory in a nuclear conflict and disavowed superiority as a goal. I Iowevcr, this remained of little consequence because it encountered the opposition of the generals and never became the official Soviet line in negotiations.
10. Dale R. Herspring, "Gorbachev, Yazov and the Military," Problems of Communism, July 1987; I I . II . Schroder. Gorbachev und die Generate (Cologne: Berichte des Bun-desinstituts 45, 1987).
11. Countless articles and letters to this effect appeared in the Soviet media during 1987. See also the widely discussed novel by Yuri Poliakov, Sto Dnei do Prikaza. Yunost. no. 10, 1987. T h e novel was dismissed as non-
typical by official army spokesmen but fully endorsed by others.
12. Krasnaia zvezda, July 19. 1987.
13. Among the major contributions to the debate were Aleksandr Bovin's entry "War" in the Filosojicheski entsiklopedicheski slovar (Moscow, 1983); L. Floristov in Kommunist, no. 15, 1986; D. Procktor, Moskovskie novosti. April 26. 1987; and Zagladin. Prob-lemy mira i sotsialisma, no. 5, 1987. T h e s e and other writers argued that political aims could no longer be attained by nuclear war. General Tabunov took the opposite view in Kommunist voonizhennykh sit, no. 13, 1987. T h e civilian strategists maintained that a surprise attack in the nuclear age was most unlikely (V. Zhurkin etat, Kommunist. no. 1, 1988) and that in a nuclear war even a successful defense was impossible (E. Velikhov, Kommunist, no. 1, 1988). For some well-known commentators, this realization was the starting point for speculations about the feasibility of a world government, with G. Shakhnazarov taking a more optimistic view than A. Bovin; Pravda, January 15 and February I, 1988.
14. For instance. General Chervov, Sovetskaia Rossia, August 23, 1986.
15. Dobrynin, Kommunist. no. 9, 1986.
16. Sovetskaia Rossia, February 21, 1987.
17. I,. Semeyko.
18. Pravda, March 16, 1987.
19. E. Primakov, "Novaia filosofia vnezhnei politiki" (The new philosophy of foreign policy), Pravda, July 10, 1987.
20. Gorbachev, Izvestiia, September 18, 1987.
21. Side by side with the traditional anti-Western coverage, the Soviet media now provided some objective information. T h e media conceded that in some respects a few lessons could be learned from the West.
22. T h e speech was originally published in Vestnik minislerstva inostrannikh del. no. 1, 1987. It is quoted here from Xrgumenty i
fakty. no. 36. 1987.
2?>. The Guardian. September 30, 1987.
24. Fdson W. Spencer. International Herald Tribune.
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25. Joyce Carol Oates. The New York Times. January 3, 1988.
26. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and Edwin Mroz. The Washington Post, October 4, 1987. The choice of "revamping" was unfortunate as dictionaries define the term as "patching up from odds and ends."
27. Robert Legvold, Times (London), November 18, 1987.
28. The Washington Post, November 30. 1987.
29. According to an international Gallup poll carried out in December 1987, 22 percent of the Soviet public thought that 1988 would be better than 1987, 49 percent expected much of the same, and 15 percent thought it would be worse. The respective figures for the United States were 56 percent, H percent, and 25 percent. Daily Telegraph, December 31. 1987.
30. Charles Krauthammer, "The Week Washington Lost its Head," New Republic, January 4, 1988.
31. George Kennan, The New York Rezitv of Roots, January 31, 1988.
32. Archie Brown, Financial Times, November 26, 1987. Richard Pipes, The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 1987. Pipes called the book, "a patchwork of cliches, half truths and non-truths typical of vintage Soviet propaganda. The book aims at a very-low level, one that Soviet experts must have decided represents the common
Western denominator of ignorance and wishful thinking."
33. Times (London), July 1, 1987.
34. "Was geht in tier Sowjet Union vor sich? Gor-btichrc unil die Krise des Sta/inismus, n.p.. n.d. Inprekorr, April 1987, for Mandel's views.
35. The manifesto originally was published in The Guardian, July 22. 1986, and was discussed subsequently as a document of great significance in other periodicals and books. Also, Robert C. Tucker, Political Culture and leadership in Soviet Russia (New York, 1987), pp. 199-202.
36. Interview with Alexander Cockburn, New Statesman, January 29, 1988.
37. The Economist, February 20, 1988.
38. Neues Deutschland, October 30, 1987; and .lunge Welt, October 28, 1987.
39. Maia Ganina, Poka zhivu-nadeius (] hope as long as I am alive), part 1. Oktiahr, no. 10, 1986; part 2, Oktiabr, no. 11. 1987. The original title of the novel should have been Ten Days He/ore Rrezlinn-'s Death, interview with Gorbachev, Moscow News, no. 7, 1988. Also Mary Seton-Watson, "Soviet Literature Under Gorbachev," The Washington Quarterly 11:2 (Spring 1988), pp. 157-168.
40. I Iarry I larding, China's Second Revolution (Washington. 1987), passim; and Uli Franz, Deng Xiaoping (Stuttgart, 1987).
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