Chapter Six
The Revolution That Never Was

6.1 “Acceleration”

There are so many lies around Gorbachev and his “reforms” (not least those issuing from him), lies so fantastic that only documentary evidence can be believed. Even so, it must be remembered that the documents relating to his period in power have been painstakingly cleansed: after the failure of the August putsch in 1991, his cohorts destroyed as much as they could get their hands on. At the time of the Constitutional Court hearing, documents of this period were hidden and protected from us with special zeal. When I was writing this chapter almost twenty years ago, I did not have the documents on many of these subjects, and I had to describe a whole range of aspects of his rule using mainly open sources and indirect data.

Getting anything later was not easy, either. The archives remained closed, and I was barred from entering Russia for fifteen years after the publication of this book. Nonetheless, there were researchers—Russian and Western,—who continued this work. For example, an immense collection of secret documents of the Gorbachev period was copied and brought out of Russia by Pavel Stroilov. The story of this archive and its “hijacking” has been described in the press, so there is no need to go into details. Although the originals of these documents remain in the Presidential Archive (the former archive of the Politburo) and are top secret to this day, Gorbachev and his assistants, upon leaving the Kremlin, copied and stored them in the Gorbachev Foundation for “friendly” researchers. After a while, the existence of this archive became known to the Kremlin, and in 2003 Gorbachev received a demand to black out those documents once again. But there were several years in the interim when control was lax, and Pavel made good use of it. He likes to say that he was my “spy” in the Russian archives, which he really was. For a whole year, practically on a daily basis, he sent me huge files of Gorbachev documents, so we now have much more material relating to this period than ever before. It is another matter that when he came to the West, Pavel came up against the same wall of resistance that I had encountered in my time. The world stubbornly refuses to hear about the secrets of the Cold War, especially its final years.

In any event, even those few documents that were initially at my disposal were enough to overturn the myth of Gorbachev the courageous reformer, a liberal and a democrat, who turned the tide of history despite the opposition of reactionaries and dogmatists (19 February 1986*, 321-Ch/ov):

The activity of the Committee for State Security of the USSR was fully subordinated to fulfilling the demands of the Communist Party in terms of reliably ensuring the security of the Soviet state and society.

State security agencies implemented a complex suite of measures using chekist resources to ensure universal cooperation in implementing the decisions of the April and October (1985) Plenums of the CC CP for accelerating the socio-economic development of the USSR, the overall progress of Soviet society, reinforcing the positions of the USSR in the international arena and counteracting the aggressive policies of imperialism.

Such annual reports on the work of the KGB were submitted to the General Secretary from time immemorial. In fact, this was a simple formality—the measures recorded there were reported to the General Secretary both when they were planned, and when they were implemented. For us, this formality is useful in that it gives us precise information on the main directions of Soviet policy at a given time.

For instance, looking at the priorities set for the KGB in 1985 by the new General Secretary, we see exactly what his real intentions were. The most important point in Chebrikov’s report is intelligence, which is indicative in itself (19 February 1986*, 321-Ch/ov):

The main efforts of intelligence were aimed at improving the quality and operative delivery of information on the policies of the ruling circles in the USA, other NATO countries, Japan and China concerning the international positions of our country and the peaceful initiatives of the Soviet state.

The main focus of attention was on information regarding the military and strategic plans of our opponent, its plans for achieving military superiority over the USSR, signs of preparations for a possible sudden launching of a missile and nuclear war and other problems affecting the vital interests of the Soviet Union and other socialist and friendly countries.

… On the basis of the party’s demands for accelerating the scientific and technological development of the Soviet economy, measures were implemented to raise the effectiveness of scientific and technological intelligence gathering. A significant amount of documented information has been obtained regarding new achievements and inventions in the spheres of science, equipment and technology in leading capitalist countries. Great attention was paid to the acquisition of new materials and samples, preferably of an applicable nature. More than 40 thousand items of information and 12 thousand samples were obtained. Allowing for the main tasks and under instructions from the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military and industrial issues, more than 15 thousand materials and more than 6500 types of samples were obtained. The Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR have been sent 1610 materials and 309 types of samples. […]

Intelligence has carried out systematic measures of cooperation with the implementation of the foreign policy initiatives of the Soviet state and its allies, and exposure of the aggressive policies of the USA and their allies. Active measures were taken aimed at discrediting the American “Star Wars” plan, sharpening and deepening inter-imperialist contradictions, and activation of the anti-war movement in Western counties.

It is obvious that the emphasis is placed on a more energetic implementation of the former policy of scientific and technological espionage, disinformation campaigns and the “struggle for peace.” This is quite in tune with the course proposed by Gorbachev to his colleagues upon his election as General Secretary (11 March 1985, Pb):

GORBACHEV. First of all I would like to say that the most important issue for us is that today’s meeting of the Politburo is taking place in a spirit of unity. We are going through a very complicated and crucial time. Our economy needs much more dynamism. This dynamism is vital for our democracy, the development of our foreign policy. […] I see my primary task in our common search for new decisions, ways of promoting the future development of our country, ways of enhancing the economic and defensive might of the Motherland, and improving the lives of our people.

[…]

We do not need a policy change. It is the right, correct and genuine Leninist policy. We need to step up the tempo, move forward, pinpoint inadequacies and overcome them, and have a clear view of our bright future. (Italics mine—V.B.)

In other words, “acceleration” was in order, as the party announced a month later at the April Plenum. Correspondingly, in matters of ideology and foreign policy it actually envisaged a hardening of the old course rather than its liberalization.

Counter-intelligence has directed its efforts toward the timely discovery and frustration of the intelligence-subversive intentions and actions of the opponent’s special services against the USSR. Successful measures have been carried out regarding the broadening of operative positions in its agencies and foreign anti-Soviet formations.

[…] An end has been put to the espionage activity of a number of staff members of various residents under the cover of diplomatic representations of the USA, UK and France, eight of whom have been expelled from the USSR. One hundred and thirteen intelligence-gathering trips over the country by military agents have been aborted, as well as efforts by 29 spies to penetrate zones with particularly important defense and other objects.

[…]

A great deal of attention was paid to measures for protecting the Soviet economy and science from subversive schemes of the opponent’s special services. A number of successful measures were carried out to prevent the attempts of the USA and their partners to disrupt the foreign economic and scientific-technical ties of the USSR. […] The criminal activity of certain officials in foreign trade organizations, who had been bribed by foreign firms to supply trade secrets and harm our economy, has been uncovered and terminated.

… Agencies of military counter-intelligence have rendered all-round assistance to the commanding and political sections in supporting the constant combat readiness of the Armed Forces of the USSR and ensuring the preservation of military secrecy. […] The KGB of the USSR has pursued a consistent policy for strengthening international cooperation with the security agencies of fraternal socialist countries, which enabled the successful resolution of intelligence and counter-intelligence tasks. A great deal of assistance was rendered to Afghanistan in crushing armed counter-revolution and stabilizing the situation in the country, and also to Nicaragua—by improving the effectiveness of the struggle against American mercenaries. There has been further strengthening of cooperation with the special services of a number of developing countries.

There was a marked increase in political repressions, or “the struggle against the ideological diversions of the class enemy” as Chebrikov called it. This included reinforcing border security (1646 “violators” were detained), the “prevention of subversive ideological actions by emissaries of foreign anti-Soviet, nationalistic, Zionist and clerical organizations” (300 expelled, 322 forbidden entry into the USSR), the liquidation of nationalistic organizations in Ukraine and the Baltic states (25), and the “prevention of the formation of 93 youth groups on an ideologically detrimental basis.” Just the number of “authors and disseminators of anonymous and anti-Soviet materials” caught was 1275 people, of whom 97 were imprisoned. Indeed, the “harvest” was unusually high in 1985:

Indicted on criminal charges: for especially dangerous state crimes—57 persons, other state crimes—417, other crimes—61. […] Preventive-prophylactic measures were conducted with 15274 persons.

This deliberate “hardening” had many purposes, including preparing public opinion for a more grateful reception of the subsequent “liberalization” (should such be required), and ridding the country of those who might make use of it. Apart from that, the regime appeared to be raising the stakes before beginning dialogue with the West, in order to make insignificant concessions in exchange for vitally important ones. Before entering into any dangerous games, the leaders seemed to be making a last attempt to probe the West for weakness: maybe there would be no need to take any risks?

But achieving their aim—the reanimation of détente—would probably require a much more delicate game, as they were well aware. At the same time, as if by chance and unrelated to the “hardening”, was what Chebrikov referred to as “a complex suite of measures using chekist resources to ensure universal cooperation ” with the plans of the Kremlin strategists. Thus, several months before Gorbachev’s election as General Secretary, the Western press was flooded with materials hailing him as “young”, “energetic”, “liberal”, “pro-Western” and so on. After his election, these praises knew no bounds. Gorbachev was served to the West as the best, if not last chance to “reach agreement”, and his entire image was calculated to appeal to the Western consumer, especially the moderate left.

Not surprisingly, this campaign was promptly taken up by the leftist press, the socialists and social democrats. One of the first meetings of the new General Secretary was with a delegation from the Socialist International, and in April the counter-intelligence administration of the KGB instructed all its European residents to resume, with all speed, their somewhat faded contacts with their former partners in détente (9 April 1985*, 473/PR/54):302

Serious exacerbation of the international situation and the intensifying threat of war, evoked by the sharp increase in the aggressiveness of imperialist—above all, American—policy, the consistent peace-promoting line adopted by the Soviet Union, and the broadly based anti-war movement developing especially in West European countries, have combined to confront the Socialist International with the necessity of putting forward its own program to fight for peace and disarmament.

Such a program was announced in its most complete form at the sixteenth SI Congress, held in 1983, which declared that the “most fundamental” task of social democracy was to “ensure the survival of the human race”. This task was, however, formulated as an appeal to the two “superpowers”—the USA and the USSR.

The Congress called on the USSR and the USA to reach agreement on the question of stopping the arms race, virtually repeating many of the specific proposals previously put forward more than once by the Soviet Union: for limiting and reducing strategic weapons; on nuclear weapons in Europe; on stopping the production of new kinds of weapons of mass destruction, banning chemical and biological weapons, demilitarization of the seabed and space, and establishing nuclear-free zones, etc.”

[Cited here and further from the book by C. Andrew and O. Gordievsky in reverse translation].

This is precisely what the Politburo asked for in 1980 from the leaders of the Socialist International—Willy Brandt and Kalevi Sorsa (1 February 1980*, Pb 182/2). At that time, “blaming both superpowers” was acceptable as a convenient form of disguising the substantially pro-Soviet position of the Socialist International. Now such subtlety was unnecessary. The more so that the camouflage of “impartiality” did not save the Socialist International from a split between the northern “radical” wing (British Labourites and the German and Scandinavian social democrats) and the more pro-Atlantic “Roman group” (French, Italian and Portuguese socialists) (9 April 1985*, 473/PR/54).

While the Americans are speeding up the arms race and implementing their missile plans in Europe, differences between the member parties of the Socialist International on questions of war and peace became increasingly obvious. Different views between the leaders of the Socialist International, their waverings and inconsistencies on current key questions are firstly due to the truly opportunistic nature of the parties in this organization, as well as the presence of various groupings in their midst professing rightist, centrist and leftist views. […] Nonetheless, despite these differences within the Socialist International and the outside pressure to which it was subjected, contemporary social democracy retains considerable political power and influence. Objectively, it makes a certain contribution to the struggle for peace and disarmament and a return to the policy of détente. Its representatives participate in various forums of protagonists of peace and frequently adopt close or identical positions to socialist countries.

All this provides certain possibilities for exercising a positive influence on the formation of the views of the Socialist International and its member parties regarding important international matters, firstly on questions of war and peace, thereby ensuring effective support in the struggle of our party for improving the international situation and terminating the arms race. With this purpose in sight, you must do everything in your power to expand our work with the leaders and prominent activists of socialist and social democratic parties in the countries where you live.

The proposed program envisaged a number of “active measures” aimed at sowing discord among NATO countries, increasing the influence of the “left wing” of the Socialist International in the campaign for the resurrection of détente by implementing the following proposals:303

• Take steps for more effective use and broadening of existing operative possibilities in the Bureau of the SI, in the headquarters of social democratic and socialist parties in West European countries;
• apply special efforts to reinforce the operative positions in SI parties that are in power or are participating in government coalitions in their countries, bearing in mind the aims that must be achieved in not just the framework of the SI, but in relation to other problems of international policy;
• increase work with youth organizations with a social democratic orientation, which occasionally take more radical positions than the parties themselves, especially among activists of similar organizations which may prove of interest in the future.

So alongside an external hardening of positions, there was a gradual preparation for a new turn toward détente, sweet dreams of which never died among European social democrats. This time all it took was to wave this carrot at the Menshevik donkey which, forgetting previous offences and lies, allowed itself to be hitched willingly to the Bolshevik wagon.

As for the Soviet leaders, their policy remained really “Leninist”, unchanged since the 1970s at least. It is another matter that now, in view of the crisis, the proposal was to intensify it, in other words—gain their ends by any means.

6.2 “Reformers” and “Conservatives”

It must be admitted that the Soviet leaders were past masters at pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Whispered rumors, obscure hints and at the best of times—the vague promises of the new General Secretary to “rebuild” something, were transformed immediately into already achieved “radical reforms.” In reality, nothing happened: Soviet forces continued to destroy Afghan villages, political prisoners remained incarcerated, spies continued to steal Western technology, but now it appeared that the West was to blame for everything: it refused to meet the other side halfway, did not believe in benign intentions and refused to make concessions.

Even the Chernobyl disaster was not turned against Gorbachev and his regime, but against all other countries with nuclear power plants. He remained unaffected, although it was on his instructions that information about the meltdown was kept secret until the Finns and Swedes raised a hue and cry. For this alone many individual politicians would be cursed by public opinion, and in the West—imprisoned: but the result was that even more people were affected by radiation. Let us imagine that the President of the USA or the Prime Minister of the UK tried to conceal the fact of a radiation leak at a nuclear power plant—the cry that would have gone up is unimaginable. Yet in this case, the First of May demonstration in Kiev was not canceled—it was hoped that nobody would hear about what had happened. But the party bosses in Ukraine were getting their families out of harm’s way by hurrying to send them to Moscow, as far as possible from Chernobyl.

All this was known to the Western press, but was served up in a totally different way: the poor Russians, what bad luck they had with Chernobyl—that is what having nuclear power plants leads to. Gorbachev’s part in this story was not even discussed. The inflated Western “Gorbymania” was built on quicksand, on the “credit of trust” toward one person whom nobody really knew. It was just as absurd and irrational as the campaign for nuclear disarmament, and was implemented mainly by the same forces. The sole difference was that this time everyone else accepted this enforced game, concerned only with not “harming perestroika” and not telling people the truth. Doubts and skepticism almost amounted to sacrilege, which was risked by very few.

“Give him the benefit of the doubt” was the Western refrain, although nobody could actually explain the grounds for such doubt. Gorbachev was a man who had climbed the ladder of the customary party career, and beginning with 1978 as a secretary of the CC and later Politburo member, was complicit in all the crimes of the regime. All that was left to do was to endow the new General Secretary with certain attributes. For example, much was made of how his wife was “modern”, “pro-Western”, and a “philosopher” to boot (she taught Marxism-Leninism!). There were no bounds to the delight caused by the circumstance that she spent most of her time in Paris shopping and buying valuables from Cartier with an American Express credit card. At the same time, often on the same pages of the newspapers, there were denunciatory articles about Imelda, the wife of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos; just think, the country is suffering from hunger, and here she is buying designer clothes and thousands of pairs of shoes!

It was a disinformation campaign par excellence. As for the culmination of their efforts to overcome Western resistance—the meeting in Reykjavik—the Soviets performed, observing all the rules of high drama. The world held its breath: it seemed as though the very existence of the world was hanging by a thread. Entire religious communities prayed for the success of this meeting, as if on the brink of the Apocalypse. In fact, there was nothing special going on; top-level meetings had become quite commonplace by this time. The putative agenda of the meeting did not contain anything new—the same dreams of nuclear disarmament which the Soviet Union needed and the West did not. But it came to pass somehow that that it seemed that everything was about to be resolved. And if it was not, this would be solely Reagan’s fault. Surprising, isn’t it? The crisis was in the USSR, they were bankrupt, they had to save themselves, but for some reason it was the Americans who were expected to make concessions.

The astounding fact is that they almost pulled it off, fell just a little short of the target because they over-egged the pudding and became too greedy. Total nuclear disarmament, to which Reagan was almost ready to agree, was not enough for them: they latched on to the “Star Wars” (SDI) program. The result was that they went away empty-handed, and relations with America became more complicated (22 October 1986*, Pb).

GORBACHEV. We need to exchange opinions about measures regarding the new hostile action of the US administration. Developments after Reykjavik show that our “friends” in the USA have no constructive program and are doing all they can to inflame the situation. Moreover, their actions are crude and they behave like bandits.

[Mikhail] SOLOMENTSEV. Yes, they behave like highway robbers.

GORBACHEV. It is useless to expect any constructive actions or proposals from the US administration. In this situation we need to gather more propaganda aces, pursue clarifying endeavors addressed to the American and international community. This frightens the men in Washington. [US] Customs are withholding materials with my addresses to the press conference in Reykjavik and on Soviet television for three days.

[Alexander] YAKOVLEV. I had a phone call from comrade Bugayev who told me that American customs are still impounding these materials.

GORBACHEV. We need to apply more pressure on the American administration, making our positions known to the public and pointing out the responsibility of the American side for the failure to reach agreement on matters concerning the limitation and liquidation of nuclear arms.

Reagan and his entourage have found nothing better to do recently than undertake yet another hostile action—the expulsion of 55 Soviet diplomats. Five of our staffers have been declared persona non grata because, as Washington explains it, this was in retaliation to our expulsion of 5 American diplomats, and the 50 are added under the pretext of parity in levels of American and Soviet diplomatic representations.

This hostile anti-Soviet act cannot be ignored. We should not hesitate to take resolute steps. The Americans are making threats and state that if we resort to counter-measures, they will take further steps against our diplomatic personnel in the USA. Well, I think that in view of the limited nature of Soviet-American contacts, our embassy in the USA will be able to cope with its tasks.

We need to devise serious proposals. What can be done specifically? We should remove those of our people who are working in our American embassy as service staff. Furthermore, we should limit the number of visits to the US embassy in Moscow by American representatives on business trips. At present, some 500 American citizens arrive along this channel every year. Finally, there is the question of entry visas to guests of the American ambassador, up to 200 every year; this should be decided on the basis of parity. Our people rarely go on business and visit our ambassador as guests. In future, such trips should be on the grounds of strict parity.

Generally speaking, it looks as though my words to the President in Reykjavik are being confirmed; that the normalization of Soviet-American relations is a matter for future generations.

[…]

GORBACHEV. Do the comrades have any doubts regarding these proposals?

POLITBURO MEMBERS. No.

DOBRYNIN. It would also be feasible to determine the question of consulates in Kiev and New York.

GROMYKO. Under present circumstances, it would be better not to press this matter. There is no sense in it right now.

GORBACHEV. We should put a freeze on deciding this question. As for our general line of behavior, we need to act calmly, but decisively. This is important not only from the point of view of Soviet-American relations, but for international relations as a whole. If the Americans talk like this to the Soviet Union, just imagine what they will do to other countries.

I have spoken with Nikolai Ivanovich [Ryzhkov]. We should abstain from buying grain from the Americans.

GROMYKO. It is probably better not to mention this in our declaration, just carry it out de facto.

SOLOMENTSEV. Our document should include the figures mentioned by comrade Shevardnadze.

DOBRYNIN. The actions of the Americans against our military attaché’s office are unprecedented.

GORBACHEV. We should also expel all the American military personnel.

CHEBRIKOV. We have another gambit in reserve that could be employed if necessary. As I have already informed the Politburo, we have found numerous bugging devices in our representations in the USA. This fact could be publicized in order to expose American espionage, hold a press conference demonstrating these devices.

GROMYKO. And how many of our bugging devices have they found in their representations?

CHEBRIKOV. Only one. The score is in our favor —1:150.

GORBACHEV. This should be borne in mind.

SHEVARDNADZE. When should we publicize our declaration on the matter at hand?

GORBACHEV. As soon as the document is ready. We shall take a look at it and hand it over to the radio and television at once, as well as having it published in the press.

POLITBURO MEMBERS. Agreed.

GORBACHEV. I was thinking of holding a press conference today and show in which direction the Americans are pushing after Reykjavik. Expose their lies and cheating. But it appears that after the hostile action of the US administration, this is not the right time. It would probably be better to forget the press conference, but make a televised address to our people.

RYZHKOV. Yes, that would be right.

GORBACHEV. I shall not be making any proposals in the address. So there is really no need to have a special circulation of the text. Within the framework of the position we have determined, it should be stressed that the US administration is fully responsible for the breakdown of the Reykjavik agreements and is undertaking deceptive maneuvers in order to distort facts and confuse the public. It could also be mentioned that the development of events after Reykjavik shows that Reagan is unable to manage his gang.

GROMYKO. That could be said, but in a form that would not exonerate Reagan himself.

GORBACHEV. Yes, Reagan is acting like a liar. We need to find the right formulation for this matter.

Do the comrades have any other proposals?

POLITBURO MEMBERS. No.

So who was finally blamed in the West? First of all, naturally, that reactionary Reagan, who refused to “abandon the Cold War mentality” and back down over the universally-hated “Star Wars” program. And secondly, the “conservatives” and “reactionaries” in the Politburo, whom the “reformer” Gorbachev still had to take into account.

6.3 “New thinking”

However, the Kremlin leaders did not sulk for long: the crisis was pressing. What could they do?—the attempt to get what they wanted unceremoniously failed, so they had to carry on, and make some concessions. Like it or not, the second phase of the plan had to be launched under the name of glasnost and perestroika: human rights, Afghanistan, “socialist pluralism”, “socialist marketplace”, “a common European home”….

Now that the regime has collapsed, it is no longer a secret to anyone in Russia that the so-called “new thinking” was devised by various brain trusts of the CC long before Gorbachev’s arrival on the scene. This is now discussed and written about willingly by former party intellectuals—participants in this planning. Gorbachev confirmed this fact himself in 1988, when the failure of perestroika became obvious and there was a need to explain why the whole plan was so poorly thought through.

What do you mean, poorly thought through? It was properly thought through, and well before 1985: 110 research papers and drafts were submitted by then to the CC by different brain trusts.

We know today that supervision of the plans for “reform” of the Soviet regime was the responsibility of the International Department of the CC (and even under Yuri Andropov’s control). Typically, the most daring ideas of these thinkers did not stray beyond the boundaries of Marxism: the concept was a certain revision of its “Leninist” version, bringing it closer to socialist democracy.

It is obvious what caused the search for such rapprochement. On one hand, by the end of the 1970s the imminent economic crisis was clearly evident, and it was imperative to find quick ways of averting it. First of all, it was vital to find ways of reviving détente which would grant access to Western aid in the form of loans and technology. On the other hand, the phenomenal success of détente at the beginning of the 1970s (and its unexpected collapse at the beginning of the 1980s) prompted the thought of the need for more substantial preparation, allowing for all the mistakes of the past. As we recall, originally détente was not the brainchild of Moscow, but Bonn (9 September 1969*, 2273-A); Moscow simply attempted to use it for its own ends, without changing anything on its domestic front. Combined with internal “reforms” of socialism and the relevant social democratic phraseology, détente became irresistible to the “northern” radicals and “Roman moderates” alike. Minimal alterations that posed no threat to the existence of the regime enabled achievement of the seemingly impossible: not only did they avert the crisis, but opened the way to “convergence” with the Menshevik West. Simply speaking, the reinforcement of Soviet influence in Europe.

What really hindered the full success of détente in the 1970s? Questions of human rights? The invasion of Afghanistan? The Polish crisis? Surely with a certain degree of flexibility, with the support of European social democracy and the leftist elite in the USA, this could be bypassed? As for the first issue, back in 1977 the current ambassador to the FRG, Valentin Falin, wrote to the CC about a possible solution (2 March 1977*, No. 74). Need it be said that the point at issue was not the introduction of democracy, but means for its successful imitation. Reporting that the partners in détente—the German social democrats–were not delighted by the campaign for human rights in socialist countries, he writes:

The Social Democrats are already feeling the danger of anti-communist hysteria—the slogan of the CDS/CSU “freedom instead of socialism” shows that the SPD is not the last in line when the call goes out for a witch hunt. […]

They also note that the West was faster than the East to recognize that changes in the international climate shall not leave the internal climate in certain states unaffected. The NATO countries paid a considerable price for détente, but did not manage to cope with all the difficulties, including those of an ideological nature. But such difficulties are obvious in the West, as they have learned not to raise or accentuate the threshold of legality in the struggle of ideas in ordinary situations. Our social democratic friends say that socialist countries should have also taken into account the costs of restructuring international relations. […]

It must be said that discussions around the practice of work in socialist countries with dissidents and non-conformists are being conducted in circles that are loyal and friendly to the USSR and the CPSU. There are frequent questions that cannot be dismissed or passed off with general statements. For example, why are Picasso and Leger admired in the Soviet Union, while their own modernist painters are persecuted, and the works of many world-famous artists of the pre- and post-revolutionary period are not displayed or rarely displayed in exhibitions in our museums? Or—why is abstract and so-called experimental art recognized in Poland but persecuted in the USSR and some other socialist countries? Why do we accept certain compromises in music and ballet, but not in other cultural spheres?

[…]

Among other things, the legal and administrative practices of the FRG should be studied. The West German state enjoys a flexible and reliable means to avert and deal with undesirable activity, in which the emphasis is on prosecuting dissidents not for reasons of dissemination of information unwanted by the state, but for “anti-constitutional activity”, breaches of public order, etc. The local system of court procedure is not uninteresting, as it allows an individual to be isolated for months or years before being sentenced, in fact to prosecute him long before the final examination of his case by a court at the highest level.

This system functions successfully, as it is combined with a carefully thought-out glasnost and supplemented by other quasi-democratic attributes that allow the lid to be kept on the pot at an acceptable level. A considerable part of the work in suppressing opposition is still conducted under the overt and covert state supervision of the press, the Church, the school and bourgeois social organizations. For the latter, struggle against leftists in general and communism in particular was and is their main reason for existence. […]

Let Falin’s interpretation of the political system of the FRG remain on his conscience; the most important factor for us that his “political letter” was studied carefully by Gromyko, Andropov and the propaganda department of the CC, and the group of party intellectuals that developed the “alternative models” (I have no idea who made the above underlining in the text). Moreover, there is no doubt that the expressed ideas made a strong impression on the authorities, and Falin’s career soared so that ten years later, when his dreams of the “creation of the appearance of self-cleansing and renewal of the system” began to surface, he was already head of the International Department.

However, Falin was not the only smart one in the ranks of the Soviet system. These ideas were already floating around, especially among that part of the Soviet elite which by virtue of its job was concerned with foreign policy—the KGB, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Department of the CC and their brain trusts. For instance, when Brezhnev’s death was announced on 11 November 1982, the deputy of the head of the International Department of the CC, Anatoly Chernyaev, wrote in his diary about the program he expected Andropov to implement (Chernyaev’s diary, 11 November 1982):

The aim is to feed the people and restore their interest in work.

Methods and main problems:

1. Liquidate Brezhnev’s infrastructure—all those relatives, hangers-on, favorites and all those brought in from Moldavia and Dnepropetrovsk: the Trapeznikovs, Pavlovs [administrator of CC affairs at the time], Golikovs, Tyazhelnikovs, Schelkovs…. Villas and out of town dachas, hunting reserves, excessive guards, hundreds if not thousands of menials. This is for the restoration of the moral authority of the leader.
2. Withdraw from Afghanistan.
3. Tell Jaruzelski to resolve his own problems and give everyone to understand that we shall not enter Poland under any circumstances.
4. Adopt a Khrushchev-style declaration of 1956 regarding socialist countries (the one that was violated immediately in Hungary). Abandon the principle that what is not done our way must be jettisoned; this is not acceptable, and we shall not stand for it. Let them do whatever they want.
5. Remove the SS-20s from Europe.
6. Rein in the military-industrial complex. Openly dismiss American blackmail and reduce the army fourfold.
7. Place the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the control of the CC. Appoint a duly authorized secretary of the CC on international matters. But whom? B.N. [Boris Ponomarev] is obviously unsuitable.
8. Release all dissidents to go abroad with [Andrei] Sakharov in the lead—those who are incarcerated and those whom Andropov has not yet managed to imprison.
9. Ditto regarding all Jews who wish to leave. But at the same time, declare anti-Semitism to be illegal. Equate Jews with at least the Armenians in the “system of friendship of the peoples.”
10. Pension off 70%–80% of ministers.
11. Grant genuine independence to the republics, including the autonomous ones. Actual rights are to go to regional committees. Give all-round encouragement of horizontal contacts between the regions.
12. Supply cities and industrial centers—from regional and district resources. A minimized centralized fund: for capitals and certain others.
13. Release all wastelands to pensioners and to anyone who wishes to take them, for whatever purpose.
14. Reduce the CC apparatus, but raise the role of CC departments. Place them above ministries, so they will quake and fear penalties. Free departments of routine matters and administrative-regulating functions.
15. Propaganda. Put an end to cultism (that stands to reason), but maintain vigilance to ensure that it does not creep back through the cracks.

Allow more rights to the press—including criticism of party agencies. Freedom of expressing thoughts, ideas and manner of chastisement, to call, inspire, tell the people the truth, and generally engage in dialogue with the people, explain and give explanations—draw on literary journals and works returning to the greatness of Russian literature. In concentrated form, this is how Pravda should set an example.

This is the minimal program. It should be implemented and felt in Andropov’s first year. Otherwise everything will wither once more.

However, why not give it a try? The bankrupt avant-garde of the proletariat had nothing more to lose apart from their chains, and they had the whole world to gain. In fact, they did not see this problem as particularly difficult: by virtue of their profession they could manipulate enormous masses of people in the West and third world countries, the free Western press and independent public movements without resorting to repressions and censorship. So why not try this on the domestic front, where the degree of control is much greater, where practically everything was in the hands of the party? The techniques of this sort of work had been cultivated to perfection, and the Soviet man in the street was much more dependent on their power than, say, a Western peacemaker.

Their version of détente really seemed to be a certain winner: it included all the more successful features of the old version—the use of social democracy, the leftist establishment of the USA, friendly businessmen and also the massive disinformation campaign (including the old chestnut of a struggle within the Soviet leadership between “hawks” and “doves”, now renamed “conservatives” and “reformers”). The innovations were, firstly, the “executor” whose image, unlike that of Brezhnev, could be created easily as a “liberal reformer”; and secondly—the new internal “reforms” (in fact—an attempt to save socialism with minimal changes in the economy); and finally, the most important innovation was the imitation of a “human face” with full retention of control—a “carefully thought-out glasnost” to use Falin’s expression. If even this proved insufficient for the revival of détente, there were other possible “quasi-democratic features” such as a fictional multi-party system, “free elections” to the “parliament”, a withdrawal from Afghanistan and the “liberalization” of East European regimes….

A suitable crew had to be selected: from the beginning of Andropov’s rise to power, and especially under Gorbachev, most of the candidates had foreign policy experience—from the KGB, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Department, research institutes and brain trusts. This is understandable: their task was not just to secure the revival of détente with the West, but also to transfer the system of harsh administrative-repressive control within the country to the more refined and manipulative one that in the past had only been employed in matters of foreign policy. Nobody else could have achieved this apart from professional manipulators.

However, serious implementation of this “domestic plan” was only set in motion after Reykjavik, when it became clear that nothing was to be gained by mere promises and surprise attacks. And the West? The West was ecstatic, unwilling to see the gigantic deception being played out before its eyes.

6.4 How to “leave” without leaving?

Despite being an accomplished liar, there was one thing in which Gorbachev did not lie: his new policy was truly Leninist. His colleagues were fully aware of this: as faithful students of Lenin, the Soviet leaders knew that they could get away with anything so long as power remained in their hands. Like Lenin in 1921, Stalin in 1941 or Khrushchev after Stalin, they were not afraid of “shaking the foundations” of their regime for the sake of its salvation. Only one thing was necessary: retain the initiative and not allow reforms to escape party control.

Meanwhile, none of their “reforms” that so shook the meagre imagination of the West seemed to threaten party control at the start. I have already gone into details of how “glasnost” was introduced, how political prisoners and Sakharov were “freed”, how simultaneously harsh was the suppression of any attempt to create a genuine opposition in the country while a fictional “multi-party” system was alleged, so-called “socialist pluralism.” The result was the achievement of something that eighteen years of Brezhnev repressions failed to do—an increase in the authority of the party leadership. For the first time since the post-Stalin period, the public greeted the decisions of party congresses and conferences with enthusiasm. And the more the former crimes of the regime were exposed, the less responsibility for them was borne by the party. Even the instituted public criticism of local party leaders only tightened the control of the central leadership over the administrative apparatus which, as we recall, threatened to break up into regional mafias. In a certain sense, “glasnost” performed the function of a party purge, something akin to the “cultural revolution” of Mao Zedong.

Correspondingly, the new control system was implemented throughout the empire, both the foreign and the domestic. Even the republics of the USSR were offered a degree of cultural and economic autonomy, and the satellites were forced to accept it. On one hand, the bankrupt regime could not maintain them fully any longer; on the other hand—its foreign policy aims required changing the image of the “Evil Empire.” It was hard, for example, to expect détente while Soviet forces were fighting in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the remaining “local conflicts” instigated by Soviet global expansion had to be put on hold at the very least.

All this, however, did not mean a rejection of the empire or even global expansion. On the contrary, both only benefited from a similar appearance, and Soviet control did not weaken at all. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan is the best example of this. As we recall, the Soviet leadership had serious qualms about the occupation of Afghanistan, and never saw this decision as final. The question of withdrawal was already being discussed under Andropov (10 March 1983*, Pb).

GROMYKO. In accordance with the resolution of the Politburo, a group of responsible party, soviet, military and economic officials visited Afghanistan. […]

As you know, the general situation in Afghanistan is complicated. In recent times there have been some signs of consolidation, but this process is slow. The number of [guerrilla] bands is not decreasing. Negotiations with Pakistan in Geneva are slow and difficult. Therefore we must do all we can to find mutually-acceptable versions of a political settlement. It can be said in advance that this will be a lengthy process. There are questions that require special discussion. It should be borne in mind that Pakistan cannot be given specific dates for the withdrawal of our forces from the country at this time. We need to be careful. Yes, the situation is stabilizing. It is good that the Afghan army has increased to 140 thousand men. The main problem is that the central authorities have not yet reached the countryside, communicate rarely with the masses, approximately one third of districts are not under the control of the central authorities and the state leadership is discernibly lax.

In closing I wish to say that we shall probably have to take the steps set out in the recommendations submitted for your perusal. It will probably be necessary to have a meeting with [Babrak] Karmal and a group of leading workers of the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at some point in April. It appears that it would be feasible to arrange a personal meeting between Yu.V. Andropov and Babrak Karmal. […]

ANDROPOV. You remember with what care and difficulty we decided the question of sending our forces into Afghanistan. L.I. Brezhnev insisted on an individual vote by Politburo members. The question was examined at the Plenum of the CC.

In resolving the Afghan problem we must proceed on the basis of existing realities. What can you expect? It is a feudal country in which tribes have always reigned over their territories, and the central power did not always reach every village. The question is not Pakistan’s position. We are engaged with American imperialism, which is fully aware that it has been defeated in this sector of international politics. So we cannot retreat.

There are no miracles in the world. Occasionally we are angry with the Afghans for their inconsistency, for their slowness in conducting work. But let us recall our struggle with the Basmachis. At that time, just about the entire Red Army was concentrated in Central Asia, but the fight with the Basmachis lasted until the mid-1930s. So in our relations with Afghanistan we need to be demanding, but understanding.

As for the recommendations drawn up by the Committee, are they not too demanding in indicating what the Afghan side has to do, and what we must do?

GROMYKO. We shall certainly do more work on the recommendations.

ANDROPOV. Yes, so that it will be a political document. It must be expressed with greater flexibility.

This decision remained in force under Gorbachev. The need to withdraw forces became increasingly acute, but nobody was prepared to yield to “American imperialism.” The issue was how to leave without leaving, i.e. how to preserve the regime and control over it. The Politburo had already started to prepare for this decision in 1986, starting with deposing Karmal and replacing him with the head of the Afghan KGB, Najibullah—a gambit very typical of all Gorbachev’s “reforms”. The KGB reformer—just like his boss in the Kremlin a little later—instituted “liberal reforms”: he set up contacts with the opponents, introduced a new constitution, and even changed the name of the country, omitting the word “democratic” (presumably playing up to the Muslim opposition), and became the President. It may be assumed that for the Kremlin “reformers” Afghanistan was a kind of test of the “new thinking”, an experimental site. If the experiment proved successful, it could be launched throughout the empire. This is why the Politburo was so on edge, and preparations for the withdrawal of forces were done with all due diligence. The Politburo committee on Afghanistan (Shevardnadze, Chebrikov, Yakovlev; Yazov, Vladimir Kryuchkov) could not decide until the last moment on the best way to carry out this task (24 January 1989*, Pb 146/VI).

In the complex situation in Afghanistan, there is a growing feeling of internal tension regarding the withdrawal of the remaining Soviet forces. The attention of the regime and the opposition is focused fully on February 15, when pursuant to the Geneva agreements the term of the presence of our military contingent expires. For Kabul, this term is even narrower, as the last Soviet military units must leave the Afghan capital at the beginning of February, […]

It must be stressed that our Afghan comrades are seriously concerned about the development of the situation. On the whole, they are increasingly resolute in their determination to stand up to the opponent, and for this purpose are undertaking a number of special measures and attempting a more rational placement of available forces. They have some reliance on the continuation of their contacts with a significant number of commanders of the armed units of the opponent, on the strong disagreements within the opposition and on the incompatibility of some of the leading political groupings such as the “Jamiat-e Islami” (Rabbani) and the “Islamic Party of Afghanistan” (Hekmatyar). […]

Our Afghan comrades express and reaffirm their understanding of the withdrawal of Soviet forces, but at the same time, having a realistic view of the situation, admit they cannot manage fully without our military aid. This aid, in their opinion, could be rendered in other forms than at present, forms with a limited scope, but nonetheless a significant help at the practical and psychological level. The Afghan comrades consider that if the opposition does not manage to pounce on the main centers after the withdrawal of Soviet forces, then the Peshawar “Alliance of Seven” and the Teheran “Alliance of Eight” shall have to enter into negotiations with Kabul regarding the future state system of Afghanistan, something they are stubbornly refusing to do at the present time. […]

There are some complicated moments for us in the given situation. On one hand, our retreat from accepted and publicized dates for the completion of the withdrawal on February 15 may result in highly undesirable repercussions at the international level. On the other hand, there is no certainty that soon after our withdrawal there will not be a very serious threat to a regime which is globally associated with us. Especially as the opposition may coordinate actions temporarily at that very decisive time, something it is being urged to do by American and Pakistani military circles. There are also certain doubts that there is no real unity in the NDPL, differences remain between wings, clans and other aspects. The arguments of some Afghan leaders are unduly impulsive; there are too many recollections of past “injustices.” […]

The most serious factors are that Islamabad’s violations of the Geneva agreements are taking on not just an open, but demonstrative nature. Pakistani border guards are participating directly in military actions in Afghan territory. Shelling of Afghan border areas is conducted from Pakistan, arms are being smuggled in a steady stream, and armed bands are crossing the border into Afghanistan. Headquarters of Afghan opposition parties, their training centers and bases continue to operate unopposed in Peshawar and other cities. All this is proceeding from the inertia created under Zia-ul-Haq. It is not likely that B. Bhutto will be able to change this situation in the near future.

However, despite all this complexity, the question of the survival of the regime was reduced to the problem of the supply of foodstuffs and fuel to the main cities, especially Kabul.

The obvious plan of the opposition is to organize an economic blockade of Kabul, to cut off deliveries of food and oil products, thus instigating discontent and even direct action by the population.

That meant creating significant emergency reserves, which could only be done overland. The only road from the USSR to Kabul, the Hairatan route, became vitally important.

Comrade Najibullah claims that if the functioning of the route can be assured until around May, the survival of the regime can be guaranteed. It looks as though our Afghan comrades cannot ensure the normal functioning of this road without our help. We must proceed on the assumption that closure of the Hairatan-Kabul route is unacceptable. Special attention will have to be paid to the most vulnerable part of this route, the Salang Pass with its more than three-kilometer-long tunnel.

In connection with this, the Politburo discussed possible versions, each of which is noteworthy by itself, and very typical of the Kremlin “reformers”:

First version. Citing the difficult situation of the civilian population, leave one division in situ, i.e. approximately 12 thousand personnel along the Hairatan-Kabul route. This version is not really desirable, as it may lead to questions being raised in the UN about the non-withdrawal of all our troops. Irrespective of the fact that Pakistan is not observing its obligations under the Geneva agreements, it can be assumed that most of the countries in the UN will not support us, as the question of troops is at the center of the problem for most of them.

Second version. Citing the threat of hunger in Kabul and other cities, call upon the UN to ensure immediate delivery of food and fuel to the cities and send in UN troops to keep the route operating. To leave our army units in these positions until the arrival of UN troops for purely humanitarian purposes—supplying the population with food and fuel. At the same time confirm that the withdrawal of the Soviet military contingent has been carried out. Declare that with the arrival of UN forces, our units shall return immediately to the Soviet Union. […]

Third version. Withdraw all forces, as planned, by February 15 and confirm this on the international level by the declarations of the governments of the USSR and the Afghan Republic. Then, upon an appeal by the Afghan government to all countries of the world, begin sending columns with civilian goods, to be guarded by Soviet military units. The sending of such columns can be commenced approximately two weeks after the withdrawal of Soviet forces. By that time, broad public opinion should be formed to condemn the actions of the opposition, which is consigning the people in Afghan cities to death by starvation. With the background of such widespread public opinion, columns assisted by us will look like a natural humanitarian act. At the same time, this version would include some sections of this route and involve combat every time.

Fourth version. Withdraw almost all Soviet troops by February 15. Confirm this officially in the relevant declaration of the withdrawal of the Soviet military contingent. But under the pretext of transferring some posts along the Hairatan-Kabul route to the Afghan side, leave Soviet units at the more important points, including the Salang Pass. On our initiative, refrain from giving this action wide publicity, noting that the matter concerns only a small number of Soviet servicemen, who have been delayed for a short time because the Afghans have not yet taken over control of the indicated posts. Some time later, as in the third version, begin sending columns of aid to Kabul under the guard of our servicemen.

In all these versions, we can proceed on the assumption that our regular units will take part in these operations, but they shall be formed on a voluntary basis, primarily from the midst of servicemen performing military service in Afghanistan or those who have already finished their tour of duty and are back in the Soviet Union. Wages for common soldiers shall be set at 800–1000 rubles per month, part of them payable in Afghan currency, and officers’ wages are to be increased substantially.

Grant international observers the right—and publicize this widely—to inspect that we are really convoying consignments of goods for the population. Talks should be conducted soon with Aga Khan, the Special Coordinator of UN programs on rendering humanitarian and economic aid to Afghanistan for the purpose of using these programs and the mechanism of the Special Coordinator to counter the plans of extremists to strangle Kabul and other large Afghan cities with an economic blockade. […]

There is another plan that might be considered, a fifth version—Soviet troops withdraw fully by February 15, and we render the Afghan side additional aid, including financial, for organizing the guarding of the Hairatan-Kabul route by its own forces, up to our taking these Afghan units on allowance for a certain period of time, although this will be linked with undoubted difficulties, especially in ensuring the reliable accompaniment of aid columns.

Basically, they approved the fifth version (with a bit taken from the third), but there was no hunger in Kabul or other centers.

Of course, there was also massive aid in the form of military equipment (31 July 1989*, No. 312/1/0297), including even missiles, as well as “the use of Soviet volunteer pilots drawing the relevant remuneration on aircraft of Afghan transport aviation or Soviet transport aircraft that could be leased to the Afghan side.” In 1989 alone, military technology was supplied to the price of 2.5 billion rubles, and in the following year at least 1.4 billion, including military aircraft and helicopters (21 March 1990**, No. 318/2/0354). This system continued until 1992 and collapsed only with the disintegration of the USSR.

Meanwhile, on the appointed date of 15 February 1989, Soviet forces withdrew ceremoniously and in full order, marching in view of television cameras from around the world and crossed the Amu Darya River which separates the USSR from Afghanistan. That is what “withdrawing forces” was meant by the Soviet leaders—unlike the Americans from Vietnam.

6.5 The “Velvet Revolution”

The impressive changes of 1989 in the communist world remain a puzzle to this day, which nobody seems to want to solve. It would seem that a grandiose, almost incredible event had occurred before our eyes: almost bloodless and without a particular struggle, the mighty Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe fell apart. Yet not a single Western government or international organization—NATO, the European Parliament or the UN—conducted a study of how and why this happened. In any case, I do not know of any public report of such a study, so if there was one, it must have been conducted in strict secrecy. Mere mortals like us are supposed to rejoice quietly at the result, without asking any leading questions.

Meanwhile the official or, rather, “generally accepted” version of these events is so illogical if not to say laughable, that it is not repeated much nowadays, although it is not disputed. It is deemed better forgotten, with no other explanations offered. In fact, reference works report304 without a trace of irony that in Czechoslovakia, for instance:

“Mass demonstrations demanding political reform began in Nov. 1989. After the authorities’ use of violence to break up a demonstration on 17 November, the Communist leader resigned. On 30 November the Federal Assembly abolished the Communist Party’s sole right to govern, and a new Government was formed on 3 Dec.”

And here is what is reported regarding the GDR:​305

“In the autumn of 1989 movements for political liberalization and re-unification with Federal Germany gathered strength. Erich Honecker and other long-serving Communist leaders were replaced in Oct.–Nov. The Berlin Wall was opened on 9 Nov.”

The same year the BBC Nine O’clock News said this about Poland:306

“Following strikes and demands for the reinstatement of Solidarity, the government resigned in Sept. 1988. After the parliamentary elections of June 1989 the Communists were unable to form a government against the opposition of Solidarity, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity member, was elected Prime Minister by the Sejm on Aug. 24. Unconditionally free parliamentary elections were held in Oct. 1991.”

Even with regard to Romania, where nothing had really changed except that communist Ceausescu had been replaced by communist Iliescu, it is stated:

“An attempt by the authorities of 16 Dec. 1989 to evict a Protestant pastor, Laszlo Tokes, from his home in Timisoara provoked a popular protest which escalated into a mass demonstration against the government. Despite the use of armed force against the demonstrators, the uprising spread to other areas. On Dec. 21 the government called for an official rally in Bucharest, but this turned against the regime. A state of emergency was declared, but the army went over to the uprising, and Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu fled the capital. A dissident group which had been active before the uprising, the National Salvation Front (NSF), proclaimed itself the provisional government. Suggestions of Soviet involvement have been denied.”

All in all, just a chain of accidents and coincidences.

At the same time, nobody seems to doubt that these changes occurred due to a decision by Moscow and even under certain pressure from the Kremlin: as we recall, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for conducting this operation. As we were told then, he spread his policy of “glasnost and perestroika” to the “reactionary regimes” of Eastern Europe. Yet there is no answer to the obvious question: if that is the case, then what was the Velvet Revolution? A spectacle? A Kremlin conspiracy?

Where the circumstances of the revolution of 1989 were studied, this question was inevitable. It should be noted that out of all the new governments in Eastern Europe, such a study was conducted only by the Czechs,307 but they established that all the early stages of unrest that brought about the fall of Milos Jakes’ leadership were carried out by Czech security, and were organized under general Alojz Lorenc—the head of the intelligence administration of the CSSR—on orders from the head of the intelligence administration of the KGB, general Viktor Grushko. It emerged, for example, that the demonstration of November 17 and its exceedingly vicious suppression, as a result of which a student was allegedly killed, was part of their plan, and the “killed student” turned out to be a perfectly live employee of Czechoslovak state security. A documentary film based on these materials was shown by the BBC in the UK back in 1990.308 Lorenc appeared on our screens and confirmed all this, however adding that they did not accomplish their task: following the “revolution” they were supposed to bring a “liberal” communist to power, not Havel.

More or less the same conclusions were drawn by journalists researching the events of 1989 in the GDR. For instance, in the documentary film “The Fall of the Wall”309 all the former leaders of the GDR confirm that Gorbachev was practically open in demanding Honecker’s deposition and encouraged the conspirators.

Of course, there is much that they do not say, but it is not hard to conclude that the first demonstrations calling for “liberalization” were organized by them with Moscow’s blessing. It is inarguable that on their orders real force was not used in suppressing this unrest. Now we have documentary evidence that Moscow kept its finger on the pulse of the conspiracy at all times, and Honecker’s deposition several days after Gorbachev’s visit to Berlin was no accident. On October 8 Gorbachev’s aide Chernyaev noted in his diary310 that among other impressions from the visit (8 October 1989):

Krenz said to Falin: “It is our Erich who is leading everything, but does not want to admit anything.” On the tenth the Socialist Unity Party of Germany holds a Plenum… maybe they will depose Erich. Otherwise it will soon come to a storming of the “Wall.”

Three days later he writes in more detail:

Recording of [talks] with Honecker…. M.S. called him an “asshole” (in a conversation with Schach). He could say to his own circle: I have had four surgical operations, I am 78 years old, a great deal of strength is needed… in such turbulent times, please “release” me; I have done what I had to do. Then maybe he would have had his place “in history.” Even two or three years ago. Now he is in the same situation as Kadar. He’s already been cursed by the people.

The second day of the Plenum in Berlin. Krenz has told our ambassador to convey to M.S. that he will “raise the question” of changes. Honecker warned him: you will become my enemy! But it seems that [Krenz] has done so. How will this end?

Even the Romanian events, which nobody has studied, and the new leadership as we saw above “rejected Soviet intervention”, are still rather suspicious. For instance, the key figures of this “revolution” were identified as Moscow agents by general Pacepa,311 former head of the Romanian intelligence service who fled to the West in 1978. Calling them a “group of dissidents” can be done only with a certain degree of irony. The new Romanian president, Iliescu, was a fellow student of Gorbachev at university, and seemed to have maintained contact with him. Shorthand reports of their conversations, copied by Stroilov, demonstrate quite clearly that Iliescu was “Moscow’s man” in Romania, and once in power coordinated all his actions closely with Gorbachev—including such sensitive questions as Moldavia. It is not by chance that in a conversation with a Bulgarian comrade who mentioned Iliescu, Gorbachev whispered (23 May 1990)312

Yes, he maintains measured, wise positions, shows readiness for constructive cooperation. But I believe that the closeness of our approaches should not be too widely known.

So there is no doubt that the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 was a Soviet operation. Why should the Kremlin directors stage such a grandiose and dangerous show if they could simply replace the leadership of any one of their satellites with any number of “liberals” at their own discretion? The mechanism of such “changes” was honed to perfection over 40 years and never called for the organization of popular unrest: everything was done quietly, covertly, and without risks. We have seen how Moscow decided whom to appoint as ruler of Poland, and how easily this was accomplished. Actually, they did not bother to pretend between themselves: Moscow appointed Jaruzelski, and he thanked Brezhnev for his trust (19 October 1981*, Pb 1942). So who in this instance was supposed to be fooled by the staging of this “revolution”? The West? Their own people? Or both?

It is hard to believe that the results of this operation fully corresponded with the plans of the Kremlin directors. We have just seen how thoroughly the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan was planned, where the Soviet leaders were prepared to practice any deception in order to preserve the regime “which is globally associated with us,” as they wrote. But Eastern Europe was not simply “associated” with them; it was an intrinsic part of them. It is hard to believe that Afghanistan was more important to them than Poland, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria combined, the more so as the period between the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the “Velvet Revolution” was a mere couple of months. With Poland, for instance, it was just two months: they “left” Afghanistan in February, and the round table in Poland was held in April–May.

Why bother mentioning Eastern Europe and Afghanistan if Moscow continued financing all the communist parties of the world right up to 1990, difficulties with hard currency notwithstanding (5 December 1989*)313? Could some Chilean communist party be more important to them than the whole socialist camp? And it was not merely a question of money—communist brethren all over the world continued to be trained, supplied with arms and “technical means.” For instance, in February 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is how the CC planned to work with them (14 February 1990*, St 112/27):

• Partially satisfy the requests of the leaderships of the communist parties of Argentina (CPA) and Chile (CPC) and invite 5 representatives of the CPA and four of the CPC to the USSR in 1990 for three months to receive training in matters concerning ensuring the security of the party and its leaders, including the use of equipment.
• Reception and rendering services to the indicated comrades will be handled by the International Department and the Administration of the Affairs of the CC CPSU, while their training, assistance in documentation and special equipment shall be provided by the KGB of the USSR.
• Expenses for the return travel of the representatives of the CPA and CPC between Moscow and their assigned places, including flights with foreign air companies, for their living expenses in the USSR up to three months, special equipment, training and other expenses related to fulfilling the requests of the leaders of these parties shall be charged to the reserve in the party budget.

There is a curious detail: just at the time the “liberation of Eastern Europe” was being worked out, my “fellow-criminal blood brother” Luis Corvalan who, as it emerges, lived illegally in Chile since 1983 with an altered face and led the underground fight of Chilean communists against Augusto Pinochet’s regime, made a request to the CC to “legalize” him. There was no more need to hide out: the blood-stained Pinochet had held elections and retired even before the start of “perestroika” in the USSR. But—what a problem!—comrade Corvalan and his legalization meant that he had to return to the USSR, change his appearance again, and receive a legal passport (19 May 1989**).

They had time for schemes as complex as this: what you won’t do for a global revolution. It wasn’t just Chileans—Lebanese terrorists, and Turkish underground functionaries314 as well as “the working people of Cyprus” (22 June 1989**, St 102/124) were not abandoned to their own devices. Their training, equipment and financing continued in spite of all the cataclysms within the Soviet empire. There was a plan to receive 20 Lebanese terrorists every year in 1989–1990 for “special military training by the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.”315 This was the rule, not an exception; moreover the money for these expenses came from the West—for the purpose of “saving perestroika.”

I hear indignant cries: all these were schemes of the “conservatives” and “reactionaries” in the Politburo against the “liberals” and “reformers”! No, they were not. I can show copies of documents with all their signatures: they were signed, for instance, by the main “architect of perestroika” Alexander Yakovlev, who was not rated as a conservative even in the West.

Furthermore it appears that “special services” of this kind were to be increased as perestroika progressed. Here is another document, also signed by Yakovlev (10 April 1989*, St 99/248), where this is stated quite plainly by Falin, Kruchina and Kryuchkov in April 1989:

The leaders of a number of fraternal parties in non-socialist countries send annual requests to the CC CPSU to accept their activists for special training. Over the past ten years, more than 500 foreign party functionaries and 40 from communist and workers’ parties (including Politburo and CC members) received special training. Pursuant to the instruction of the CC CPSU, their reception and maintenance is carried out by the International Department and the Administration of CC CPSU Affairs, and their training—by the Committee for State Security of the USSR. The special training of foreign party workers, and also the reception of the leaders of certain illegal parties who are in the USSR for consultations or special training is conducted in apartments belonging to the Administration of CC CPSU Affairs. Using these apartments for the indicated purposes requires the installation of special protective equipment in order to prevent possible breaches of secrecy and information leakage, and the installation of additional facilities required for the teaching process.

In view of the above, we deem it feasible to implement additional measures to improve conditions for the special training of representatives of fraternal parties. It is suggested inter alia to assign a number of apartments at the disposal of the Administration of CC CPSU Affairs exclusively for the conduct of special training, equipping them with the required protective technical devices as well as everyday domestic appliances such as video equipment and radios with a broad band of short-wave reception.

The KGB of the USSR could be charged with developing and coordinating a complex suite of measures with the International Department of the CC CPSU for ensuring the security and secrecy of the measures being conducted in the special apartments.

So the CC resolves to assign 12 such “special apartments” exclusively for the conduct of special training, and 5 for the housing of leaders of illegal parties.

This demonstrates that the Soviet leadership had no intention of relinquishing the empire or its expansion either in 1989 or at the beginning of 1990s. What, then, did they expect from the “Velvet Revolution”?

• • •

Many years later, I had the opportunity to pose these questions to Yakovlev in person, having encountered him at some conference: what was the purpose of the plan devised by the Politburo at that time? What was the approved decision? Alexander Nikolayevich pretended incomprehension, just kept reiterating that there was no such decision and that the subject of Eastern Europe was never discussed by the Politburo in that period.

“How can that be?”—I persisted—“you had all worked out five different versions for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Surely Eastern Europe was not less important for you? Never mind five, but you must have worked out and approved at least one plan, there must have been at least one decision on this matter?”

“There was no decision,” he kept repeating in his characteristic Volga region accent.

However, Stroilov was to appear shortly with his documents, and the minutes of the Politburo meeting on 24 January 1989 contain this laconic notation (24 January 1989, SA):316

On the institution of Politburo committees. It was resolved: regarding socialist countries—to be headed by Yakovlev, and the Baltics—[Vadim] Medvedev.

That is, there had been a committee on the socialist countries after all, it was headed by Yakovlev and developed the plan that was subsequently approved for implementation. Although we do not yet have the decision of the Politburo, there can be no doubt that it existed, and the course of its preparation can be traced now through documents.

It all began with Poland, where the direct threat of the collapse of the regime forced Jaruzelski to agree to a round table with the opposition. He was to tell Gorbachev later that if it had not been for the round table, the Polish regime would not have lasted another six months. The decision regarding the round table, naturally enough, was accepted with Moscow’s approval: Gorbachev had a special meeting with Czyrek (23 September 1988, SA),317 the Polish ambassador, on 23 September 1988, and after several searching questions, gave his approval:

“Our strategy”—explained the ambassador—“is aimed at reinforcing the social base of the party. The tactics are to divide the opposition, draw it into a realistic constructive channel together with Walesa, into a process of national reconciliation and renewal. This is noted by the Church, which wanted to move toward meeting Walesa, but we acted first.”

While approving this plan, Gorbachev understood full well that the matter would not end with Poland. The problem was a common one for the entire socialist world, and it was logical to conclude that a repetition of the Polish scenario in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR was just a question of time. But Jaruzelski was just as much a born manipulator as Gorbachev, and if he was appointed to his post specifically because he was capable of wriggling out of critical situations, Moscow was not equally certain about the capabilities of Honecker, Zhivkov or Ceausescu. For this reason, Gorbachev ordered the development of a general strategy several days after his meeting with Czyrek (6 October 1988, Pb, SA).

From the Politburo meeting of 6/X/88

At our meeting today we are discussing the results of talks with the leaders or prominent figures of a number of socialist countries—K. Phomvihane, Vo Chi Cong, E. Honecker, N. Ceausescu and Chi Khe Om.J. Batmonkh also requests [inclusion].

The situation in each country is unique, and we are acting correctly in not “lumping” them together, but are trying to determine the specifics of the situation in each one, and to formulate our policy toward them on the basis of such concrete analysis.

At the same time, today’s exchange of opinions and, looking further—all that we know, all the incoming information shows the need for an overall assessment of the situation in the socialist community. Allowing for all the differences and nuances, there are many indications that there are similar increasing and acute problems in fraternal countries. The very coincidence of the symptoms of this disease show that its catalyst is not some pernicious germ that has infected the unwary, but specific factors rooted in the economic and political model of socialism, as it formed with us and was transferred, with insignificant modifications, to countries that entered the path of socialism in the post-war period.

We have already discovered the weaknesses of this model and are removing them consistently. In fact, this may be considered the prime task of perestroika—to endow socialism with a new quality. A number of countries have followed our example or even preceded us on the way to in-depth reforms. Some, such as the GDR, Romania and China have not yet acknowledged the necessity of such reforms, either for political reasons or the unwillingness of the leadership to countenance any changes. Yet it is a fact that transformations are needed by all, although we do not speak of this publicly, so that we cannot be accused of attempting to enforce our perestroika on others.

But facts are facts: clear signs of a crisis call for radical reforms in the entire socialist world. Subjective factors play an enormous part in this. Even in thrice-backward Laos, Phomvihane is conducting matters wisely, and the results are quite good. But those who stubbornly reject the signs of the times simply drive the malaise deeper and complicate its future development even more.

This has a direct effect on us. We have shed the authority of the “big brother” in the socialist world, but we cannot refuse the leading role which the Soviet Union will always have, as the most powerful socialist country, the cradle of October. When a crisis occurs in one country or another, we have to render assistance at the cost of enormous material, political and even human sacrifices.

It should also be clear that the possibility of the future “quenching” of crisis situations by military means is categorically excluded. This appears to have been understood by at least the former leadership of such a country as Poland.

Now we have to stop and think of how shall we act if one or several countries become bankrupt simultaneously? The possibility is quite real, as some are already on the brink of currency insolvency (Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Cuba, Romania and the GDR). Even Czechoslovakia, which managed to keep its head above water until recently, is seeing its foreign debt soaring.

How shall we act if the social instability that is assuming a more threatening nature in Hungary coincides with the latest round of disorder in Poland, actions by the Chartists and so forth? In other words, do we have a plan to deal with a crisis that may engulf the whole or part of the socialist world at the same time?

This is a matter of concern for all of us. From time to time we receive alarming telegrams and try to enact what measures we can, but these are at best sticking plasters on injuries, and not a systematic, consistent treatment of an illness, to say nothing of after-care treatment.

[…]

Can socialist countries resolve the pre-crisis situation without Western aid?

What will be the price of such aid?

[…]

It is feasible to charge the newly-formed International Committee of the CC with preparing materials for such a discussion. The problem is immense both in scope and significance, it demands constant attention, but the first exchange of views should take place at the end of December–beginning of January 1989.

The International Committee of the CC was headed by that same Yakovlev, and returning to the question in January 1989 the Politburo created a special committee to deal with socialist countries, also headed by Yakovlev. Certain Soviet documents shedding light on the course of the work of Yakovlev’s committee in 1989 were passed to me by Polish researcher Minewicz. By all accounts, the committee followed the usual Soviet procedure in which various agencies (CC, MID, KGB) and research centers submitted analytical reports with their view of the situation. For instance the CC wrote the following in a document entitled “On the strategy of relations with European socialist countries” (24 January 1989, SA):

The complex, transitional nature of the present period lies in that ruling parties can no longer rule the way they did in the past, and the new “rules of the game”, for reconciling emerged group interests and reaching social consensus, remain to be worked out. The more this process is drawn out and delayed, the more parties may find themselves in an even more difficult situation.

Against the background of general tendencies that can be observed in all socialist countries, there are the specifics of individual countries that require varied responses from us.

In Poland and Hungary, events are pointing toward a transfer to political pluralism, the creation of coalitional, parliamentary forms of government. Under existing conditions, the Hungarian and Polish parties can only count on retaining their positions within the framework of political alliances. A great deal will depend on whether they will be able to attract part of the opposition towards constructive cooperation. […]

In the GDR with its external relative wellbeing, the situation is becoming particularly complicated. Although compared to other socialist countries the GDR enjoys a better economy and standard of living, the economic situation of the country is deteriorating. Its debt is pressing and its dependence on the FRG is increasing. The party leadership, driven significantly by personal ambitions, tries to avoid problems of renewal. While assessing the conservatism of the GDR leadership critically, it is still necessary to see that it is based on certain objective factors. The GDR arose not on a nationalist, but an ideological class basis, so a radical transfer to the rails of democratization, glasnost and openness could be accompanied by particular difficulties.

Romania is still suffering from the depressing atmosphere of the personality cult and authoritarian rule of Ceausescu. Attempting to isolate the country from our influence, he now tries to cloak himself in the garments of a “fighter for the purity of socialism” and enters into indirect polemics with us. Certain spontaneous outbursts may occur, but at present they are unlikely to become widespread. The situation will probably only change after the departure of Ceausescu, which could result in extremely painful consequences.

The leaderships of Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria are criticized in similar terms, after which the CC recommends spreading the model of the Polish round table to other East European countries.

There are several possible versions of the further development of socialist countries. One of them is a smooth progression of society toward democracy and the new form of socialism under the guidance of ruling parties. This does not exclude some concessions in the questions of power, a significant rise of self-government, the role of representative agencies in political life, attracting constructive opposition to public rule and its possible transformation into one of the forces competing for power. This course toward a parliamentary or presidential socialist republic that has taken place in a number of countries (Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia) would be preferable from our point of view. If the initiative of democratic changes ensues from the ruling party, there is a great chance for the preservation of internal political stability and allied obligations.

[…]

Deeper consideration must be given to existing processes of the formation of structures of political pluralism in a number of countries, toward a coalitional, parliamentary form and the legalization of the opposition. Of course, this is an untried, risky path that requires the party to combine flexibility with loyalty to principles at a high level, and the ability to be at the head of this process and not allow it to be hijacked by opposing forces.

The lessons learned from a whole series of crises show that the main danger of an opposition is not the fact of its existence, but its ability to unite completely diverse forces and tendencies in society on the negative grounds of dissatisfaction with current conditions. Therefore attracting part of the opposition into the official structure, granting it responsibility for the constructive resolution of existing problems could play a stabilizing role.

The recommendations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and various academic institutions echo the same spirit. Although the final recommendations of Yakovlev’s committee and the subsequent decision of the Politburo are unavailable to us, the logic of these and other assessments point directly at the “Velvet Revolution.” They all accept the Polish-style round table to be the best of the available options, and recommend its implementation in other East European countries. In turn, this required the corresponding type of communist leaders, manipulators such as Gorbachev and Jaruzelski and not odious dictators like Honecker or Ceausescu.

At first, they really saw the round table as a very successful experiment, which virtually rescued the regime from the brink of the precipice, when the opposition, accepting a pure bluff, entered into an unnatural “coalition” with the communists and agreed to enormous and totally unjustified concessions. Despite the overwhelming electoral defeat of the communists in all districts without exception, they retained the post of President and two thirds of the Sejm. As Jaruzelski told Gorbachev, he “crawled on his belly to the post of President.” The government, beginning with Prime Minister Mazowiecki, was composed of mostly compromise figures, five ministers were communists, and another six—former communists. Not by chance was Jaruzelski able to say to Gorbachev when they met in Berlin on 7 October 1989 that (7 October 1989, SA):318

If we had not taken the risk of forming a government with Mazowiecki and participation in it, then half a year later, as they say, “our goose would have been cooked.” […] We retain a large base, from which we can influence the development of the situation. […]

It is indicative that those opposition forces that ended up in the government got caught in the same trap they had been preparing for us. After all, in the 1980s the opposition was inciting strike committees everywhere to obtain special privileges in practically all branches of industry. We had a fixed working week of 35 hours. It was established that the material situation could not be worsened by as much as one millimeter. The right to strike was proclaimed everywhere. And what do we have now? Walesa himself now says that strikes are a provocation. Solidarity calls for sacrifices, reducing consumption by 20–30 percent. There is growing conflict between the city and the village. In many ways this is also due to the past policies of Solidarity.

There are increasing conflicts within Solidarity itself and growing competition between various groupings. Of these, 80 percent were factory workers. Solidarity membership is currently around 1,5 million. Workers are leaving Solidarity because its activists are engrossed in electoral struggles in the center and activity in representative agencies.

On one hand, the communists burdened the opposition with responsibility for their own policy, and on the other—they amassed political points by their privileged relations with Moscow, in which Gorbachev played along quite deliberately. Furthermore the round table provided excellent opportunities to split the opposition into all possible groups and factions, and then pervert them separately. Arriving in Moscow four days later, the First Secretary of the Polish United People’s Party, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, told Gorbachev (11 October 1989, SA):319

The idea of round-table discussions was proposed by the PZPR in October 1988. We concluded that it was unacceptable to continue reducing party policy to mainly “imprisoning and releasing.” All our attempts in recent years to employ methods of suppressing the opposition yielded no positive results, rather the reverse. The reasons for the existence of the opposition proved to be deeper than we had supposed.

Our attempts to organize a Movement of National Renaissance, putting pressure on the Church or flirting with it ended in failure. The only solution was to change our strategy.

Of course, one can say that we could have chosen and achieved better positions than the ones in which we are now. Undoubtedly, we made a series of tactical errors. But could they have all been avoided? I don’t think so. We were like pupils in a school of democracy. Our imagination, or probably lack of it, let us down.

[…]

M.S.GORBACHEV. In your opinion, who qualifies as the opposition now?

M.RAKOWSKI. Its core is first and foremost the leadership of Solidarity headed by Lech Walesa and the civil deputies’ club headed by Geremik. These two directions are in conflict. We could exploit this situation, but we have not yet learned how to do it. This also shows our insufficient experience of political struggle.

[…]

The main center of Solidarity was Gdansk. It was the center of the political thought of the opposition. It was the headquarters of the uncrowned king Walesa. Another center is forming now in parliament. Moreover, there is the Mazowiecki government, and the lower classes realize that they were simply used in the course of the elections by those who became Solidarity deputies and senators.

Activists engage in big politics, leaving the voters by the wayside.

[…] Walesa is worried about losing control over the situation. He keeps projecting his ego, he wants to be somebody. The day before yesterday he gave an interview to a Dutch newspaper and stated that a number of trends have emerged within Solidarity: Christian democratic, social democratic, politological and Jewish.

The latter refers to Geremek, [Adam] Michnik, [Jacek] Kuron, Mazowiecki and others.

M.S.GORBACHEV. So the current situation does not suit him. How do matters stand with regard to his idea of becoming President?

M.RAKOWSKI. So far he is not aspiring to that post. But that is his dream. He said to Kiszczak: I’m 47 years old, there are youngsters up and coming, and I don’t want to be sidelined. Walesa does not lack common sense, so he enjoys a certain authority among the workers. But he has become excessively proud, and that will be his downfall. It was he who spoke out in favor of a broad government coalition; to demonstrate his determining role in Solidarity he said that he will give them a Prime Minister. But the so-called Jewish leadership planned to come to power in four years, over which cadres capable of squeezing out the communists would be prepared.

Now the euphoria over the formation of Mazowiecki’s government has passed. Walesa admits that consent to the formation of a government under Solidarity leadership was his mistake. I think that if we had retained full power, we would not have had even a janitor left six months later. Now time is on our side, not theirs.

M.S.GORBACHEV. We spoke with Jaruzelski that the fact that the opposition rushed into power is no bad thing. Let them know how hard it is to be in power. […] We need to know about your relations with the opposition, so that we can take it into account when we start building relations with the new government.

In a recent conversation with E.A. Shevardnadze, Skubiszewski assured him of fidelity to the military union and said that we do not need to worry about the preservation of secrets and so on.

W.NATORF. That is exactly what we told him. It is good that he realized it.

[…]

M.RAKOWSKI. The new government is preparing a number of political demands (Katyn, rehabilitation, compensation). I would request, Mikhail Sergeyevich, that it should not turn out that all these issues that the PZPR government failed to resolve will be immediately settled by the Mazowiecki government.

M.S.GORBACHEV. These matters will be decided in accordance with the established procedure. There are not just Poles buried at Katyn, there are even Muscovites there. We have not found all the threads yet. A Politburo committee is working on the matter, conducting a diligent study of a mass of cases. This work is complicated, a whole number of cases can be found contained in one. Quite recently, three new cases were discovered in [Lavrentiy] Beria’s file. At the political level, we want to report on this to the Twenty-Eighth Congress of the CPSU. We are treating this matter very seriously, without undue haste. If we discover something new, we shall inform you.

[…]

M.RAKOWSKI. […] As for the financial situation of the PZPR, it is very serious. We have made the relevant requests and proposals to comrade A.N. Yakovlev. We would also ask the CC CPSU to extend a loan to the PZPR. We began to develop the economic activity of the party too late, so we will only have the first results in one or two years’ time. The government can strangle us with financial limitations. Our request is of paramount importance to the survival of the party. We are constantly suspected of existing at Moscow’s expense.

As for the Church: after the elections, the support of the Church was not so vital to Solidarity, especially the leftists. Michnik speaks dismissively of clerics as “the black ones.” The left wing of the opposition fears the creation of a theocratic government. We do not exclude the possibility of temporary alliances with various parts of the opposition.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Michnik and Geremek visited here recently, contacted the most anti-Soviet groups and were delighted by the growth of their activity.

M.RAKOWSKI. We are now in a very delicate situation. We shall be playing all the keys of the Polish piano. The Church leadership dislikes the Jewish group in Solidarity, believing that it consists of “suspicious” people—those who are divorced, former PZPR members, Trotskyites and so forth. When we contact these groups within Solidarity, the Church is instantly on its guard against us. [Cardinal] Glemp is wary in his behavior, and is in conflict with the global Jewish community. He has not been forgiven for his comments about the monastery in Oswiecim [Auschwitz] claiming that all the mass media of the USA is in the hands of the Jews.

We do not refuse to cooperate and interact with the Church on the grounds that there is no need for quarrels where they need not exist. Yet we now have support in the army and security agencies, but the leading role shall be played by the intelligentsia, the intellectuals. That will be the deciding factor, not guns and prisons.

But if Jaruzelski could play these games no worse than Gorbachev, expecting such risky ventures from Stalinist dinosaurs like Zhivkov or Honecker was out of the question. Without doubt, according to the Gorbachev-Yakovlev plan, the “popular revolution” should have brought a new generation of manipulators to power in Eastern Europe, just like themselves. They needed a repeat performance of the “Prague Spring”, a fictional “socialism with a human face” appearing at the alleged will of the people. They needed enthusiasm in the West and the East, one that would permit stabilization of the domestic situation and the receipt of vital Western support. But if this enterprise was successful in the West, it was a complete failure in the East. As a result, the only country in which their idea succeeded generally was Romania. In all the other countries, their stooges were unable to withstand the wave of popular rejection that spurned socialism with any kind of face.

The miscalculation of the Kremlin strategists was very symptomatic: like many other reformer-manipulators in history, they overestimated the power of their structures and underestimated the force of popular hatred of their regime. Maybe the result would have been entirely different if they had implemented their “reforms” in the 1970s. But the 1980s saw the decline of even the most elite party structures: decades of “natural” selection resulted in the rise of opportunists and conformists, incapable of improvisation, and their societies had lost any faith in the ability of the regime for renewal. While the manipulations of the Gorbachev leadership were accepted in the West at face value, the regime had discredited itself in the East to the extent that even the intelligentsia no longer believed in the sincerity of their leaders’ intentions. Simpler people, having endured decades of constant lies were even more suspicious, almost paranoid.

In the end, the whole idea of socialism had worn itself out by the 1980s. This was particularly noticeable in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia), where all sorts of reforms had been tried over 20 years, and practice showed that the system was not amenable to reform. Imre Pozsgay, the leader of the Hungarian communists, was probably the first among the East European leaders to admit this openly in May 1989, adding that the system “should be simply liquidated” (Radio Liberty interview, 25 May 1989).

I am willing to believe that many of these new realities were underestimated by the Kremlin, relying on its disingenuity and the trained passivity of the population which had no experience of political struggle. Furthermore, it is possible that skeptics who warned about the danger were ignored, deemed to be “enemies of perestroika”, but in general the apparatus reported on the enthusiasm of the popular masses. However they could not have been entirely unaware of the dangers of the game they had put into motion.

Let us assume that they may have thought that a return of the “Prague Spring” to Prague would have satisfied the wildest dreams of the Czechs, and that “goulash socialism” in Hungary was sufficiently stable that changes in the leadership of this country would not set off a chain reaction of uncontrollable changes to the system. Yet there was still the GDR with an almost Stalinist regime. There was Poland, where the regime was hanging by a thread, practically on the bayonets of the Polish army. Certainly the opposition was tired, and the permanent instability and economic hardships would have exhausted the entire population. However it could hardly be expected that the agreements of the round table with the remnants of Solidarity, leaving roughly two-thirds of the power in the hands of the regime could stabilize the situation for long. In the other East European countries—Czechoslovakia, Hungary and especially the GDR—rejoicing at the unexpected arrival of the “Prague Spring” was replaced quickly by a desire to test the boundaries of their new freedom. In a word, even in the event of a fantastic success of their plans, Moscow should have anticipated the instability of the newly-created East European regimes. For one thing, their openness to Western influence would grow inexorably with the fall of the “Iron Curtain.”

Let’s really imagine that the operation was successful and liberal-communist power was firmly established in Eastern Europe. What does “firmly established” mean? Two Germanys side by side—the socialist and the capitalist, no longer divided by a wall. The Czechs and the Hungarians continuing to “reform” their socialism, and in Poland the remaining communists and remnants of Solidarity activists in a ratio of 2:1 are trying to cope with the country’s disintegrated economy. This idyllic scenario is impossible, if only because it leaves no room for control by Moscow: in a year or two, when the original raptures have subsided, the economic crisis in the former socialist countries would force them to be drawn deeper into the orbit of the West. What could prevent them, despairing of any success with their “reforms”, from going further and, in the event of any harsh objections from Moscow, asking to be admitted into NATO?

The problem of the GDR in the absence of the wall would be insoluble while the FRG remained a member of NATO: nobody could stop the entire population of the GDR from fleeing to the FRG or—as eventually happened—from reuniting with the FRG on Western terms. And one way or another, what would have happened with Poland? Could anyone seriously think that socialism in Poland could be preserved, especially in the hands of the unnatural coalition of communists and Solidarity, if the GDR vanished? Wouldn’t the remaining socialist countries topple like ninepins? No matter how low we may rank the mental abilities of the Kremlin strategists, this was a plan they could not accept. It required some other missing element, allowing at least a little hope for the stabilization of the new regimes. When this book appeared in its first edition, I did not have any documents concerning these decisions at my disposal, I could only speculate about the unknown details of their plan. Now, twenty years later, I have documents from the Stroilov collection in my hands, which contain this plan in its entirety. Gorbachev’s game was much more global, and his plans for expansion were much more ambitious than they seemed at first glance.

6.6 The “German Question”

When I was writing this book twenty years ago, I tried to recreate the Gorbachev plan for the union of Germany and Europe, using only indirect data and examples from earlier Soviet history. We know that a divided Germany was unacceptable to Stalin, who tried to “reunify” it in 1947–1948 to form a bloc of Eastern communists (who had renamed themselves the Socialist Unity Party of Germany) with Western social democrats. The idea of the Leader and Teacher was that a united Germany should remain neutral, demilitarized and… socialist, which would open the way to a peaceful seizure of Western Europe with the aid of a similar operation—a “union” of communists and socialists (the Anglo-American documentary “Messengers from Moscow”, shown by the BBC in February 1995, told this story. See §6.11—Allies, fn. 372).

The project failed, mainly thanks to the Marshall Plan: massive American aid that defused public tension, cut the ground from under the feet of leftist forces and helped Europe to choose capitalism instead of socialism. The GDR and other countries of the socialist camp did not come into being because of a good life: the Iron Curtain was a certain admission of defeat by Stalin. Subsequent rulers of the USSR—each in his own way—tried to get rid of this problem. Beria tried to reunite Germany (see the book by Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov320) and even Khrushchev (for which he first had to achieve recognition of the GDR by the West). But Beria’s plans ended with the 1953 uprising in the GDR, and Khrushchev’s with the building of the Wall.

The policy of the USSR regarding Germany remained essentially the same in Brezhnev’s time, when there was an attempt to achieve the same aims with the help of détente, which was more of the same—an alliance with the social democrats. As in Khrushchev’s time, it started with the recognition of the GDR by the West pursuant to the Helsinki Accords, which legalized the Soviet gains and opened the way to the further “peaceful” seizure of Europe. And ended again with the Cold War.

As I have already written, the aim to make Europe socialist, make it serve the ends of socialism with its industrial potential, was the main direction of Soviet foreign policy from Lenin’s time: this was vital to the survival of the USSR and the success of the entire socialist experiment. The key to the solution of this problem was always Germany. This became increasingly important in the post-war period: the reunification of Germany on Soviet terms—neutrality, demilitarization, etc.—meant the end of NATO, the withdrawal of the Americans from Europe and the almost total domination of the USSR from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. From my point of view there was nothing surprising or even original in these plans being invoked again during the escalating crisis of the 1980s. The turn toward détente, which had been developed since the end of the 1970s, was not sufficient by itself to place the question of German reunification at the top of the list. What was the essence of détente if not the idea of “convergence” on the basis of an alliance of leftist forces in Europe? And how was this convergence to be accomplished without the removal of the Iron Curtain, in the first place—the Berlin Wall? The fact that both Germanys could not survive without the Wall was clear even in Khrushchev’s time.

On the other hand, the reunification of Germany on Soviet terms, the subsequent collapse of NATO and the further integration of Europe on socialist principles was that very missing element in the plan without which the stabilization of the new regimes in Eastern Europe would be impossible, and the entire idea of the Velvet Revolution would have been suicidal for the USSR. Retaining control over these regimes could only be achieved in the context of a general European convergence, leaving them with no other clear alternative. Even intransigent Poland would have not escaped, with the USSR on one side, and a united socialist Germany on the other, with the addition of a strongly leftist Europe, striving for integration under the leadership of a pro-socialist Eurocracy.

At that time this was just my guess; now I see in documents that my guesswork on the basis of indirect data was quite correct. Back in March 1986 Gorbachev’s newly-appointed aide on international affairs, Anatoly Chernyaev (former deputy head of the International Department of the CC) prepared an extensive report for the Politburo on Soviet international strategy for the next couple of years (10 March 1986, SA), which states among other things that:

It appears feasible to pay more attention to the FRG, in the broadest possible sense. If we manage to draw it closer to us—and there would be more chances for this under the social democrats—it would be the greatest achievement of our European and global policy. Everyone would start panicking again, from Washington to Paris and other capitals. The “Spirit of Rappalo” is still alive and feared by some. Lenin’s instructions regarding the importance of the rapprochement of Germany and Russia should be remembered.

Comrade Honecker’s certain intractability in the so-called “German-German question” is well known. This calls for a degree of caution. Our position concerning his visit to the FRG a year and a half ago was quite correct. A repetition of that now is undesirable.

It is worth considering whether we should tackle this entire “German-German question” in a way that would be to the benefit of the socialist community, socialism, and our policy. We hold the most important ace in our hands—settlement of the question of the “reunification of Germany.” This could be the basis for our line of rapprochement with the Federal Republic.

The European Mensheviks, with their dreams of convergence in a united socialist Europe, understood this as well. On 6 July 1989, Francois Mitterrand and Gorbachev discussed Soviet-French relations which, it emerges, were strong, firm and close, and irreplaceable for world peace. Among other matters they talked of history and old Franco-Russian alliances. Suddenly, Mitterand said (6 July 1989, SA):321

It is not just a question of history, but also of geography. Take, for example, the German question, which we shall probably have to deal with together. At one time, this question was resolved by force. Now the issue is to find its resolution through harmony. […] In our view, European borders should not be the border between two Germanys.

Documents show that their idea was to prolong the process of the reunification of Germany for some ten to twenty years, and combine it with the union of all Europe. In other words, convergence.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the following reunification of Germany came as no surprise to Moscow and did not herald a catastrophe for their friends in the GDR. Immediately after Honecker was deposed, his successor Egon Krenz (formerly supervisor of the Stasi for the East German KGB), hurried to Moscow to report the details of the successful conspiracy to Gorbachev (1 November 1989, SA):322

E.KRENZ. Thank you for your sincere and warm welcome. All the members of the Politburo send their regards. […] We were able to proceed on a number of crucial questions after your visit on the fortieth anniversary of the GDR. […]

[…]

I want to say that the path to the IX Plenum of the CC SED was very hard. Under an agreement with [Prime Minister Willi] Stoph, I prepared a draft statement about current political problems. The document was something of a compromise, based on the assumption that E. Honecker would remain party leader. […] However, when Erich received the draft, he decided that it was a personal attack on him. […]

Despite these threats, I submitted the draft for consideration by the Politburo. At the meeting Honecker stressed this immediately, but everyone except one supported the draft. […]

M.S.GORBACHEV. The situation is clear from a political point of view, but it is dramatic from the human angle. I have been through this myself. I had reasonably good relations with E. Honecker, but he seems to have recently gone blind. If only he had accepted the necessary political changes on his own initiative 2-3 years ago, everything would be different now. […]323

[…]

E.KRENZ. […] When you were in Berlin you must have felt how warmly all the young people greeted you, cries of “Gorby! Gorby!” echoed all over the city. Some people even scolded me: “What is this celebration you have prepared?” But a reception like that could not have been prepared artificially. It was just an indication that nobody had been able to ruin the attitude of the youth of the GDR toward the Soviet Union, toward perestroika.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Actually, it placed me in a rather awkward position, especially during the torchlit procession when I was standing next to E. Honecker.

In this same conversation they also raise the matter of relations with the FRG, the Berlin Wall and the outlook for the reunification of Germany—but only in the long run, within the context of the unification of all of Europe.

M.S.GORBACHEV. […] I would also like to mention the need to pursue a principled and at the same time flexible line with regard to the FRG. They will probably pressure you. Effort must be made to ensure that decisions concerning the GDR are to be made in Berlin, not Bonn. But I repeat there is need for flexibility, as a strong blow could come from there.

E.KRENZ. I agree. I would be grateful for any advice on matters concerning relations with the FRG. I would like to have a clearer understanding of the place the Soviet Union is allocating to the FRG and the GDR in the common European home? This is very important for us. We are proceeding on the assumption that the GDR is a child of the Soviet Union, and decent people always acknowledge their children, at least allowing them to take on their father’s name. (Reaction from those present.)

M.S.GORBACHEV. Yesterday A.N. Yakovlev had a meeting with [Zbigniew] Brzezinski and he, as you know, has a head “with global brains.” So he said: if matters today were to take a turn that would enable the reunification of Germany, it would mean the collapse of a great deal. I believe that we have followed the right path until now: we have given firm support to the coexistence of the two German states. […]

You must know: all serious political figures—Thatcher, Mitterand, Andreotti and Jaruzelski, as well as the Americans, although there are certain nuances apparent in the position of the latter—are not seeking the reunification of Germany. In the current situation it would be explosive. Most Western leaders do not want the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Serious politicians understand that these are all factors in an essential balance. Although let’s say that Mitterand considers it necessary to mention his sympathy toward the idea of German reunification. The Americans are also talking about a similar sympathy toward the German wish for reunification. But I think they are doing this to please Bonn, and to a certain extent are apprehensive about too much rapprochement between the FRG and the USSR. […]

I am certain that we should coordinate our ties with the FRG more successfully, which is something E. Honecker declines to some extent.324 We are aware of your relations with the FRG, and you know ours. So there is no need for prevarication or concealment between us! It is worth considering a tripartite cooperation between the USSR, the GDR and the FRG, especially in the economic sphere. At one time there was a special Soviet-GDR committee on coordination. It still exists formally, although it has been inactive for a long time. I believe that Mittag is a member of it from the GDR side.

E.KRENZ. He may have had a hand in the termination of the work of this committee.

M.S.GORBACHEV. The work of this committee must be reactivated with allowances for ongoing changes. I think it would be profitable for us to use the potential of the FRG, try to tie it to us, especially as there is evidence of thinking along these lines by some. It is true that the FRG is prepared to go some way toward the USSR in exchange for our cooperation in the reunification of Germany. The Americans admit openly that the keys to this lie in Moscow. They would not mind a clash between us and the West Germans on this matter. I reiterate that they find the process of rapprochement between the USSR and the FRG most undesirable. Although frankly speaking, at the practical level, and primarily at the economic one, not much has changed in Bonn-Moscow relations.

Everything concerning relations with the FRG must be thought through very carefully. The more so that in your situation, the matter may take a turn that will leave you no room for ideology. Careful calculation should be the order of the day. You probably feel more secure with our participation in tripartite contacts. That would profit everyone and at the same time assist your relations with the FRG and enable the overall reinforcement of the political positions of the GDR. Furthermore, you ought to be able to be more forthcoming in establishing ties with other Western countries and not just the FRG. […]

[…]

M.S.GORBACHEV. As for how the German question will be resolved in the end, we do not need to make any guesses at this stage. We should proceed from the situation “gifted” to us by history. Not taking this reality into account would be the worst political option. Maybe in several decades to come, the German question will be thrown into quite a different light if integration processes develop normally. […]

So today the question of reunifying Germany is not a priority. Please convey our firm stance on this to your Politburo and CC. I repeat, this stance is shared by our partners in the anti-Hitler coalition, which is not to be ignored. The top priority at this time is improving relations in Europe, otherwise everything could explode.

E.KRENZ. I agree with this framing of the question. It requires ideological reinforcement. E. Honecker issued five well-known demands to Bonn at the beginning of the 1980s—acknowledgement of GDR citizenship, and so forth. Since then, we have implemented a number of agreements with the FRG, not one of our demands has actually been satisfied. Moreover, this has created a false impression: people see E. Honecker, Mittag and Krenz going to the FRG and ask why they are forbidden to do so.

One difficult question for us. You often talk of common human values. I am all for them, too. But there are also common German problems. In this sense, the de-ideologizing of relations between the GDR and the FRG is overshadowed by great difficulties; it would entail refusing to protect socialism in the GDR. There are complicated problems connected with the Berlin Wall, with the regime across the border.

M.S.GORBACHEV. All this must be considered and a formula found that will enable people to enjoy their human needs. Otherwise we shall be faced with innumerable ultimatums. […] Chancellor Kohl is still in contact with me and with you. We should influence him. Under pressure from the opposition, he has mounted the nationalist horse. The right-wingers have started to push their demands to the USSR for the reunification of Germany, and appeal to the USA as well. […]

E.KRENZ. We have already taken a number of steps. Firstly, we have instructed the military to desist from using firearms at the border, with the exception of direct attacks on border guards. Secondly, the Politburo has approved a draft law on travel across the border. We shall offer it for public discussion and expect to see its adoption by the People’s Chamber before Christmas. The draft law envisages that any citizen may, for a certain fee, acquire a foreign passport and exit visa. The only exceptions will be for security concerns. Other limitations will include a considerable shortfall of foreign currency for exchange into marks. It stands to reason that we will be criticized for this. But it will have to be said that we cannot ignore reality.

M.S.GORBACHEV. It should probably be mentioned that efforts are to be directed at acquiring the exchangeability of currency, and this will require all citizens to work better and produce competitive goods.

Nonetheless, even this conversation suggests certain concern that events could spiral out of control:

E.KRENZ. […] Mass demonstrations have created a difficult situation. They are formed of different groups, including our opponents, but the majority are simply those dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Speaking in the People’s Chamber, I stressed that political problems can only be settled by political means. As much as we can, we strive to avoid involving the police. The coming weekend will be a very serious one for us: on Saturday November 4 there is to be a large demonstration in Berlin. Seventeen creative associations intend to participate—artists, writers, etc. Up to half a million people may turn up.

[…] We are assuming that not all the demonstrators are our opponents. At the same time, we are implementing measures against a mass approach to the Berlin Wall. The police will be there. If attempts are made to breach the Wall into West Berlin, the situation will be critical: a state of emergency will have to be declared. Hopefully this will not happen.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Everything must be done to prevent this, although it is right to allow for the eventuality of the worst possible scenario.

Even though by November events had really gotten out of control, when the planned and very limited liberalization of the exit regime from the GDR resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev still thought that everything was going more or less to plan. Here, for example, is his conversation with the British ambassador (17 November 1989, SA):325

The ambassador submitted a letter from M. Thatcher, which was a response to M.S. Gorbachev’s appeal to her (and other Western leaders) regarding events in the GDR.

Passing over the letter the ambassador, speaking on behalf of his Prime Minister, he stressed the importance of the current active exchange of opinions concerning “German problems” and the significance of the continuation of such contacts.

“Mrs Thatcher”, said Braithwaite, “has a high regard for your policy not just on the whole, but concerning the events in Germany. Everyone in the West was astounded by the speed and nature of these developments. At some moment there was a feeling of unclarity and instability… and unexpectedness.”

M.S.GORBACHEV. We experienced it to a lesser degree (stir in the room).

R. BRAITHWAITE. It was very unexpected for the West Germans. Now the ambiguity and instability have decreased. It is important that people in the GDR, having gained the option of freely visiting West Berlin and the FRG, are now beginning to return.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Yes, now the queues are in the other direction. And that is good.

R.BRAITHWAITE. Yes, it is good that people can live at home. It is good that the tension, if one can call it so, has relaxed. To a great extent, this is due to your policy. But the Germans—both Eastern and Western, must be given their due.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Yes, that is very true.

R.BRAITHWAITE. Recently Mrs Thatcher spoke to the press several times on this matter, and later in the Guildhall. She placed special emphasis on stability. In her opinion, the most important thing is that we cooperate with you, that everyone cooperates. Changes should be controllable. However, it is also important that the GDR leadership take the road of reform—along the path you have blazed.

There are international institutions (the ambassador meant the Warsaw Pact and NATO), that set the framework for the “management of events.”

He went on to list forthcoming meetings at various levels between the leading figures of NATO countries, at which the situation in Central Europe would be discussed in collective and bilateral meetings.

M.S.GORBACHEV. As for the Paris meeting of 12 leaders of EU countries, Mitterand is probably collecting opinions prior to the meeting with me (stir in room). But—he added jokingly—if something untoward happens, I shall send the bill to Mrs Thatcher as the most experienced of them.

R.BRAITHWAITE. Mrs Thatcher has written in the letter and has said publicly something that I wish to stress here before you: we all—my government and our allies—have a good understanding that there should be no interference in GDR affairs, and not give any pretext for something that may be construed as interference or encroachment on the security of the GDR or indeed any Warsaw Pact countries and your security. This is most important—that there be no interference by any side.

M.S.GORBACHEV. It would be better to interfere in the affairs of the West Germans (laughter).

R. BRAITHWAITE. It would be interesting to learn what you think of that, too. As for the GDR, I think we should meet its people halfway, firstly that they should have free elections.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Now that is interference! We can evaluate, we have that right, but giving unsolicited advice as to what should be done, that is another matter. Let the Germans decide for themselves.

R.BRAITHWAITE. But this question is being decided in the People’s Chamber today—about free elections….

In subsequent months, even though the GDR was rapidly slipping the leash of control, the Kremlin leaders remained convinced that Germany would remain theirs. Knowing the full situation in the GDR, they nonetheless experienced no doubts that it would be the West that kept it within the Soviet sphere of influence (26 January 1990, SA).326

Discussion of the German question at a limited meeting in the office of the General Secretary of the CC CPSU in the CC building on the Staraya [Old] Square on 26 January 1990 (recorded by Chernyaev):

Present: Gorbachev, [Nikolai] Ryzhkov, Shevardnadze, Kryuchkov, Akhromeyev, Chernyaev, [Georgy] Shakhnazarov, Yakovlev, Falin, Fedorov.

GORBACHEV: The situation with the GDR is the same as with Azerbaijan: there is nobody to lean on, nobody with whom to have confidential relations. And even when there is someone to reach an agreement with, it brings no decisive results. Even Modrow is distancing himself from the SED. It makes no difference that he is our sincere friend. There are no effective forces in the GDR.

Therefore the only way we can influence the process is through the FRG. Here, too, we are faced with the choice: Kohl or the SPD. The Social Democrats—despite all their comforting declarations and vows made by Brandt and his colleagues—have rushed to use the GDR in the pre-election battles.

Brandt is already the chairman of the united SDPG. Prominent members of this party are prepared to stand for the People’s Chamber, reject membership of the Bundestag and return home—to East Germany, where most of them were born. They hope to steal a march on the CDU that way.

We can use this to our benefit. We need to invite Kohl and say to him: look at what is going on, but you are playing this game, too, and might lose. Social Democrats in the GDR have more chances than you. But we do not look at the German problem through your electoral spectacles; we look at it in the European and global context. That is also how your NATO allies regard it. You know full well the difference between what they say publicly and what they really think.

So there it is. We, dear Helmut, also offer to seriously adopt the European viewpoint on German matters—in deeds, and not just words.

This is what this means specifically: our troops are in the GDR, and NATO forces are in the FRG. This is a real fact, ensuing from the legal bottom line of the war, established by the victors. And it affirms the right of four powers to participate in the German process. You, and particularly Brandt, do not like it that France is among the victors (“honorary victor”, as you say ironically). Fine. But today’s reality is not the same as that of 1945. So let us convene not “4” but “5” and yes, Kohl, with your participation. Let us determine the rights of Germans, and the rights of the others.

CHERNYAEV: Mikhail Sergeyevich, I think we need to convene not “5” but “6”—four from the victors, and two from the German states.

GORBACHEV: Let us discuss this. Now to proceed. The main thing is that nobody should expect that a united Germany will join NATO. The presence of our troops will not allow it. We can withdraw them if the Americans withdraw their forces. They will not do this for a long time. Kohl will have to take this into account, and also that swallowing the GDR economically will also take several years. So these years are at our and your disposal. Let us use them wisely. And prepare for the 1990 top-level All-European Conference.

The action with “5” or “6” initiated by us returns us to the role of active and indispensable participant in the German settlement. This is a very profitable move.

SHEVARDNADZE: Mikhail Sergeyevich, the most important question for Kohl is now the “contractual community” which leads to the confederation FRG-GDR. We have no need to participate in the discussion on reunification. It is not our affair. Let the GDR display some initiative. Talks about the armed forces should be conducted only with the United States. I am against an “institution” consisting of four victors. That will give NATO the upper hand.

[Vladimir] KRYUCHKOV: The days of the SED are numbered. It is not a lever or a prop for us. Modrow is a transitional figure, he is hanging on at the cost of concessions, but soon there will be nothing left to concede. We should turn our attention to the SPD in the GDR.

Our people fear that Germany will become a threat once more. They will never agree to the current borders.

We need to educate our people gradually regarding the reunification of Germany. The presence of our forces in the GDR is a factor in the all-European process. We must give active support to our friends—former personnel of the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the GDR.

YAKOVLEV: Modrow needs to insinuate himself into the SPD and head its eastern part. America needs our troops in the GDR more than we do. It would be good if Modrow were to come forward with a program for reunification—without prejudices, on the basis of realities, and we would give him our active support. This will win us the sympathy of the German people. It should also be made clear that we have been championing the idea of a united Germany since 1946. And the conditions? Neutralization, demilitarization. There will be opposition from England, France and small European states. We put America into a position requiring deep reflection. In the meantime, we can sit on top of the hill and watch the skirmish at the bottom. With regard to the attitude of our people—Stalin himself advocated the preservation of a united Germany immediately after the war. In any case, we can no longer simply observe.

FEDOROV: This will be seized upon by revanchist forces. According to my data, they do not want reunification right now in West Germany. […]

RYZHKOV: We have to evaluate the process realistically. It is unstoppable. The issue now is tactics, because we will not be able to keep the GDR. All the barriers have been swept aside. Preserving the GDR is a pipe dream. Confederation is a reality. But we need to put forward our conditions for a confederation. It is wrong to give everything to Kohl. If that comes to pass, then 20–30 years from now Germany will start a third world war.

GORBACHEV: The process we have and the process in Eastern Europe is an objective process. And it is too overheated. Where this process has come into contact with the stronger links in the chain—the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Romania—is where the rupture was greatest. It is a lesson for us: to keep up and not lag behind, and always have our eyes open to reality.

The people—even with all the extensive criticism it hears, do not attempt to encroach on perestroika. Rather, they do not favor the opponents of perestroika. Our society is the most rotten of all of its kind. Beyond salvation. We began to transform it ourselves. And we need to keep up our efforts, move forward and not lose the initiative. Marching on the spot is destructive.

There was the “Brest Treaty” № 1,327 and now we are facing a possible “Brest Treaty” № 2. If we do not cope, we face the threat… that half the country will be seized again. It is very important to understand this. The public is overly ideologized, therefore real processes are overtaking us. And the party cannot simply renew itself.

Certainly, the GDR is a special case. It is not Romania. In the GDR, the communist party is a serious matter. Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary have vested interests in us. They will be upset for a while, but will be unable to go very far. Poland is a special case. And the GDR is a very special case. […] The main thing now is to prolong the process, whatever the end purpose (reunification). The Germans also need to get used to this aim, as well as the people of Europe and the USSR.

This is the strategy. All of West Germany is interested in retaining ties with us. They need us, and we need them. But not absolutely. Don’t we need France and England? Thinking this way would be a grave error. The Germans need us. In turn, this makes us take this dependence into account. Business circles do not want freeloaders. There are 58 million people in the FRG and 16 million in the GDR. France is against the reunification. England is afraid of being left on the periphery. We must keep all these factors in mind. […]

We do not refuse the position of victors. Put forward the “4+2” idea. But agree with France at first. Maybe I should go to Paris?

Channel the German question into the Vienna process. On the matter of troops in Europe, handle ourselves so that it will not seem that we are simply leaving on the fiftieth anniversary of the Victory. The presence of troops in Germany is closely connected with the Vienna process.

Kohl should be told—stay out of it. In this respect we can reach agreement with everyone. There is the potential of special relations with the FRG: with it and with the GDR. We should insist on this. There are mutual interests and there are grounds for mutual understanding.

The SED and us: there is currently “euphoria” there with regard to the SPDG. But it is forgotten that there are numerous problems—both European and German. After all, its membership is 2 million. Even if there are only 700 thousand now, writing them off would be stupid. A left-wing force will emerge in time. Let us hear what Gysi has to say.

Other socialist countries: we need to work with them. After all, they are allies. If we abandon them, they will be picked up by someone else.

The idea of playing for time is the answer to the proposal of a “contractual community” with confederative features.

We should hold back those who are in too much of a hurry.

What are the next steps?

[…]

• propaganda support for the processes in Eastern Europe (Yakovlev, Falin, Fedorov),
• Gorbachev’s interview regarding the reunification of Germany after meetings with Modrow and Kohl.

My one-day visits to London and Paris are not excluded.

Akhromeyev is to prepare the withdrawal of troops from Germany. Explain the “economic vulnerability” of the GDR to Kohl and Modrow.

Up to a certain time, at least prior to the spring-summer of 1990, everything seemed to be going to plan and none of them foresaw the looming collapse. Judging by everything, the panic only set in in March, on the eve of and after the elections in the GDR, in which the communists of the “renewed” and renamed “Party of Democratic Socialism” (PDS) suffered a crushing defeat.

It was only in October 1990 that the Politburo finally adopted a resolution “On measures regarding the persecution of the Party of Democratic Socialism (GDR)”, which may be seen as an acknowledgement of defeat. The resolution prescribes (28 September 1990*, 06/2-439):

1. … to organize the systematic publication in the party press and other media of materials regarding the persecution and hounding of former members of the SED, dismissed for political motives and qualify such actions as a breach of democratic principles and human rights.

   Special attention should be paid to cases of the institution of criminal proceedings against individuals who were state servants or engaged in political activity on charges of “national treason” or subversive activity against the FRG, especially when this concerns cooperation with the USSR.

2. In such materials reporting on the process of German reunification, due attention must be drawn to the activity of the PDS. React to attempts aimed at infringing the constitutional rights of the party and deprivation of its lawful property.

   The International Department of the CC CPSU is instructed to establish the regular receipt of information concerning the persecution of party members from the PDS, and also materials exposing the anti-socialist nature of the measures implemented by the West German side in the course of reunification.

3. Maintain a constant watch and react operatively to efforts aimed at building up pressure on the issue of the Western Group of Forces (ZGV) and sowing hostile attitudes toward the Soviet people.
4. Make provision for possible evacuation to the Soviet Union of persons who had cooperated actively with Soviet organizations and who are now subject to hounding and persecution by Bonn. Firstly, this may concern party workers, security agencies and members of the National People’s Army of the GDR, figures in science and culture, qualified organizers of industry who have lost their jobs in the reunified Germany due to political oppression. Implement active measures for finding them work and granting material assistance.

There is no doubt that up until October 1990, that is, up to the date of the reunification, Moscow was still hoping that it would take place on its terms. Yet from the very start, things did not go as planned: by sheer chance, the wall between the East and West was opened one day before schedule, which led to a loss of control over the migration of the population (“Fatal Error”, broadcast by the BBC on 6 November 1994). Millions of people rushed through the breach, burying forever the myth of the GDR as a separate state.

Subsequently, despite all expectations, the election in the GDR on March 18 was a total catastrophe for the PDS, which predetermined the result of negotiations on the status of a united Germany between the Second World War allies and the two Germanys (“4+2”) and the conclusion of the agreement of May 18 on the currency union of both Germanys. Finally, due to this election, the Christian Democratic majority in the GDR parliament (People’s Chamber) simply voted on August 23 for the reunification of the Eastern lands with the FRG on the basis of a pre-war law, and it was all over. Moscow did not have the slightest opportunity to dictate its conditions for reunification, although up to the last moment Gorbachev tried to keep the GDR in the Warsaw bloc. Even in the summer of 1990 he continued to insist on the retention of the GDR army within the Warsaw Pact, which was absolutely ridiculous.

Naturally, something entirely different was envisaged: the collapse of the Wall was supposed to be their triumph, and not serendipity; the migration across the border was supposed to be strictly controlled, thereby lessening political penetration by the West; moreover the election of 18 March was supposed to be won by their “renewed” placemen in the PDS. That would have been when Moscow could have dictated its terms for reunification, differing little from those of Stalin, Beria and Khrushchev: neutrality, demilitarization and socialism. It is unlikely that the West Germans would have rejected any conditions for achieving their dream—reunification with eastern brethren, especially as the social democrats would have been willing to support these conditions and even conduct an election campaign on that basis.

Achieving a “neutral” Germany, breaking up NATO and seeing off the Americans, it would not have been difficult to keep the remaining East European countries “within the framework of socialism.” The “convergence” that had been the dream of West European Mensheviks for so long, would have finally come true.

6.7 The “Common European Home”

I am not exaggerating in the least: the plan for unification—not of Germany alone, but all Europe—had been devised by Moscow and its Western allies in full detail; so it was not by chance that from the end of 1988, and especially in 1989, the prevalent theme in all of Gorbachev’s addresses became the creation of “a common European home.” At the same time, there was a significant change in the attitude of the USSR to the process of European integration: if the Soviet Union had viewed this process with suspicion, not to say with extreme hostility in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, by 1989 this attitude had changed in the other direction. Until 1984 the head of the intelligence administration of the KGB, Kryuchkov, instructed his residents in Europe to increase efforts at penetrating all the structures of the EC and oppose its further integration because:

“Obviously, progress in the integration of Western Europe, especially in the military-political field, runs counter to the interests of the Soviet Union.”328

However from the second half of the 1980s, as integration progressed as well as the political orientation of the European Community as such, the attitude of the USSR toward it began to change: the more the socialists and social democrats gained the upper hand in the structures of the EC, the more benignly it was viewed by Moscow. By 1989 the creation of a “common European home” became their battle-cry, although naturally enough none of them admitted openly that this “home” was to be a socialist one.

The plan was approved at a meeting of the Politburo on 26 March 1987 (24 March 1987, Pb, SA):329

(Recorded by Chernyaev)

On the West European direction of foreign policy

Report by KOVALEV on the concept of the “common European home”:

1. Greater independence for Europe.
2. Distancing from the extremist policy of the USA.
3. Invite the Europeans and others not to look upon Europe through American spectacles.
4. Europe is particularly receptive to our perestroika and glasnost. Use this.
5. The problem of trust—through internal transformations in the USSR.
6. Removal of concerns, demonstration of the defensive nature of our military doctrine.
7. Develop a mandate for a humanitarian conference in Moscow.
8. Increase scientific work on European problems.

…

DOBRYNIN. … The idea of the “common European home” is gaining ground….

CHEBRIKOV. We will have a lot of work to do with respect to the humanitarian conference. We need to set terms—in six months, or in two years. This makes a big difference to us (i.e. the KGB).

GORBACHEV. The Vienna conference is proceeding, not the longest one at this stage. How long did the Madrid Conference last? Three years. And there was no end in sight. Then the Korean airliner was shot down. Suddenly everything was decided! (Laughter). Sergey Leonidovich [Sokolov, Minister of Defense], maybe you can save the day: bring another army into Afghanistan, and everyone will scatter. It is our tendency to put forward an idea, invite famous people, and only then start to think it through!

SHEVARDNADZE. There is no serious analysis of the situation, our lapses, inadequacies and mistakes. There were plenty of them—our own defects. We did not follow through to the end. In drawing up such documents, there should be room for more self-criticism.

We also need to raise the question of military doctrine and review certain aspects of it thoroughly. We cannot leave questions such as control unanswered. Otherwise we will not overcome the psychological barrier of mistrust toward us. We are surrounded by military bases. And that is also our problem.

GORBACHEV (laughing). We have no “bases”! We have said so in Vienna! It is not acceptable for everyone to know that we have something, and we say we do not! These days everyone has government experts on all problems.

… We need contacts with opposition parties in Europe. They play an important role in many countries.

We need to develop the concept for relations with the Communist International. Communist parties turn away from confrontation with us, which is characteristic of the Italian Communist Party, the French Communist Party and the Communist Party of Spain.

… Let the institutes of the Academy of Sciences form at least a group of scientists to work for us on such fundamental issues such as “German-German” relations. There are many other problems.

I have understood from your statements that as far as we are concerned, “everything about Europe is clear.” What is the actual progress of our perception? From a lesser ignorance to a greater one. There is a lot tied up in this, comrades. It is obvious that not a single question can be resolved without taking Europe into account. We need it even in our domestic affairs, for perestroika. As for foreign policy, nothing can replace Europe. It has the strongest bourgeoisie not just economically, but also politically. At one time it seemed that Japan had outpaced the whole world, when suddenly the FRG comes up with an enormous advance in the scientific-technological sphere….

[…]

Western Europe does not have to be split off from the USA; the USA should be squeezed out of Europe. Will it work? I do not know. But we cannot pose such a question.

Europe is our business. We have immense interests there. There is no need to fear. “Strangle them in an embrace.” […] We need to strive for the withdrawal of American arms from Europe.

The Helsinki process offers us possibilities, and we must move into the next phase, step by step, set an example. An important task is to employ the scientific and technical potential of Western Europe, especially as our friends in the Comecon have become stuck in there. Our rapprochement with Western Europe will make their work easier.

See Europe as it is. For example, the reality of integration processes. What is profitable for us, and what is not? On the one hand, the power to influence the USA increases, on the other hand, military concentration increases.

Mitterand assured me that there is no need to fear this concentration. He claims it is in order to be free of American guardianship. But we can see the essence of the matter. We can oppose this only by cooperating in the disarmament of Europe. The stronger this process, the less they will be tempted to form a military grouping.

The second reality. See Europe in all its diversity. There are developed and less developed countries. There are England, France and the FRG. There are Finland and Austria. There are Holland, Sweden and others like them. There are Spain and Portugal. Small countries are our potential allies. Apart from that, there are opposition parties, communist parties, there are social circles. We have more active contacts with social circles in the USA than in Europe.

Many problems arise. We need to plan our work with Europe with great care. Create a regrouping of scientific forces. The forces are there, they just need to be regrouped.

Alexander Nikolayevich [Yakovlev]! Maybe we should set up a center for European studies?

And remember—Western Europe is our main partner.

As for the battle of ideas…. Wick [the director of USIA] said recently: “There is an ongoing war of ideas. To lose it is to lose everything!” So there it is.

I am coming to the main point: we need to do a lot of work to support propaganda—this is a very big question.

In a nutshell, our thoughts are moving in the right direction.

Europe is everywhere: in Kampuchea, in the Middle East, in Africa and, of course, among our eastern friends and even in Latin America. Without Europe, we will not really be able to move things forward.

This program was very close to the dreams of European leftists for convergence and the tactical plans of Western communists. It was particularly pleasing to the Italian comrades, who had preceded Moscow in devising complex concepts for saving socialism in the West. Now there was full mutual understanding between them and Gorbachev. Their General Secretary, Alessandro Natta, was to say to Gorbachev in January 1986 (27 January 1986, SA):330

… Frankly, the present situation of communist parties in the West is critical. There was nothing like it 15–20 years ago. There is retreat, the loss of public influence, and not just in the elections. Schisms and deep crises within parties have affected the positions of the working class.

We have managed to retain our positions in Italy, but we have the growing feeling that we are the black sheep, the exception in the general communist panorama. […]

We are in Europe, Western Europe; we were born here and are fighting the cause of socialism in Western Europe. The SDP, and the Labourites and the French Communist Party have encountered serious difficulties ensuing from the scientific-technical revolution, the collapse of the “social state” and unemployment. The socialist democrats have always conducted a traditional policy, but now they are also beginning to rethink things. The problems we are encountering are not entirely European. They occur in other parts of the world as well.

The countries of Western Europe find it hard to support the alliance with the USA, to oppose the challenges of the USA within the framework of the alliance, to bear the position of subservience. This is why we are putting our cards on the European communities, the European choice. […]

Progressive decisions at the social level must fit into the European framework. In one country, even the most interesting decisions shall yield only partial results […] the issue is not a new phase, but there are conditions for a new uplift of leftist forces.

The policies of Reaganism or Thatcherism did not solve problems, just created new ones. Understanding this, we are coming to the conclusion that there must be a new impulse to the policy of the party. We need new efforts to broaden alliances not just in Italy, but in the European context, moreover this must extend to all leftist forces in the widest sense of the word. We need to ally not only with parties, the communist, socialist and social democratic ones, but the entire complex of movements, progressive forces with differing aims, including religious movements. In the struggle for peace there are some places where religious movements are well ahead of the communists if not in the field of ideas, then in organization. In Holland, for example. In Italy the situation varies: there are bishops promoting reactionary policies, but there are those who speak out in favor of social justice and equality.

However, in forming alliances the communist identity of the party must be preserved. Communist identity is a vital process, not set in stone once and forever. I repeat: conditions have become difficult, processes are moving forward and their laws are not established to be everlasting.

M.S.GORBACHEV. We are also discussing the question of succession: does it mean repeating the past, or moving on?

A.NATTA. I was talking about the socialists and social democrats.

M.S.GORBACHEV. It is harder to invite some communists than social democrats.

A.NATTA. The attitude to leftists in Europe is complex. In Italy we see this in the example of our socialists. If leftist forces want to be more autonomous, they should have more ties with the Soviet Union….

[…]

M.S.GORBACHEV. […] Here is a thought: making sense of one’s work, it is important to think about the attraction of the socialist ideal, socialist perspectives. Others, even the social democrats, have other ideals, especially the conservatives. You are correct that on the left front there is no ready position but the problem of enriching the leftist movement, finding new allies. Maybe there will be transitional pauses on this path, which should be accepted without losing sight of our aims. In search of answers to the existing problems some may have strayed from the way, but this may result in a loss of positions altogether. I think it is not our problem to add anything to the social democrat experience. Looking for points of contact is essential, there may be temporary alliances. But the alternative to bourgeois parties is communism.

A.NATTA. We still lack a majority in Europe; neither we, nor the social democrats. Not even combined. There is a struggle for the minds of the people.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Let the conservatives take the responsibility for the reorganization of the European economy. The communists should proclaim more current slogans.

Gorbachev and Natta met again two years later. (28 March 1988, SA) [26]:331

M.S.GORBACHEV. How should the face of the future socialist alternative look? […] You have already marked the circle of your efforts toward the uniting of leftist forces. I do not think this was easy. The Italian experience shows that this is so. And within the scope of Europe, even more. I see that leftist forces have the strength to ensure that the processes of integration serve the democratization of Western Europe, that social questions will be resolved.

[…]

What is occurring now in Western Europe will determine the course of events for many decades, or centuries to come. The PCI has realized the importance of a new approach to these manifestations, which unite numerous forces. But without the left, it is unlikely that the interests of workers shall be protected. That is why we welcome […] your efforts.

Need it be said that the European Mensheviks seized the chance of the proposed union with the Bolsheviks yet again?

Let us look at another scenario: on 3 March 1989, Gorbachev received a visit from Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Spanish socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez (3 March 1989, SA):332

F.FERNANDEZ ORDONEZ. What you say is of great importance. In the perestroika process the main target is the result of ideological struggle. The success of socialist ideas in the contemporary world community depends on the success of perestroika.

M.S.GORBACHEV. Through our perestroika, through new ideas proposed by the socialists of Western Europe, we do not move further from one another, but draw closer. From our point of view we are now in the watershed period of the development of human history, and there are no reasons why two streams of the workers’ movement should find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades again […] We have a genuine comradely interest, sympathy and understanding of our problems and difficulties, an understanding of the importance of our task from the side of those countries in which socialist and social democratic governments are in power.

At that time there were not many such left in the West, but Gorbachev used them for all they were worth. Of the main Western countries, the socialists were in power only in France—so president Mitterrand was his main partner in the “common European home” program at first. Mitterrand entered history with the reputation of an anti-communist, but documents now show him in a completely different light. Inter alia, being one of the architects of the European Union, Mitterrand saw West European integration as just a step toward “convergence” with Moscow.

A Europe united within the framework of the EEC [European Economic Community]—he said to Gorbachev in 1988—is only the first step toward the real goal, the achievement of which shall require much time—twenty-five, fifty years, and maybe a whole century. The real goal is all of Europe together.

As was to be expected, the West German social democrats were not far behind, especially since Willy Brandt had become chairman of the Socialist International at that time (17 October 1989, SA).333

It is vital that perestroika should succeed, he said to Gorbachev back in October 1989. I would be grateful if you would say what you expect from the so-called West, and from us social democrats […] in assisting perestroika. There is a great deal of talk that socialism “is ending”, has outlived itself. But I believe that from a historical point of view we are dealing with a new beginning, a new quality of socialism in a very significant part of the world.

And when all was said and done, as the question concerned their own survival, the Mensheviks were prepared to turn to any villainy in order to pander to Gorbachev. For instance, by exploiting his position in the Socialist International Brandt, acting through his Scandinavian colleagues, organized restraining pressure on the democratic opposition in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

W.BRANDT. […] I am concerned by the situation in the Baltic republics. I am in contact with our northern friends […]

Our influence in this region is not great. But I assure you that if we exert it, it will only be in the interests of pacification. If necessary, we shall say to someone: questioning the federation in the USSR is playing with fire. Preservation of the federation opens broad opportunities for cooperation between the republics.

Actually, in Gorbachev’s time, this matter was of concern not only for the Mensheviks, and not only in Europe. Here is another mysterious conversation that took place at the height of Moscow’s preparations for the “Velvet Revolutions” in Eastern Europe. On 18 January 1989 Gorbachev received a delegation of the Trilateral Commission, a secretive and influential organization, uniting representatives of the political elite of the USA, Europe and Japan. The delegation consisted of David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Yasuhiro Nakasone and Valery Giscard d’Estaing. Their purpose appeared to be convincing Gorbachev to integrate into world economic and financial organizations (GATT, IMF, etc.), convert the ruble and so on. Suddenly, Giscard asked to speak (18 January 1989, SA):334

V.GISCARD D’ESTAING. Western Europe is currently undergoing restructuring, changing its structures. It is hard to say when this will come to fruition—in five, ten or twenty years. But a new, modern federated state will arise in Western Europe. We are moving in this direction, and the USSR should prepare to have dealings with a huge united West European state. This future state will be open and prepared for all types of cooperation.

But at that time, possibly, the question will arise in one or another form—official or factual—of several states joining it. This will probably concern Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, but also certain East European states. We have no intention of “poking around” in East European countries and disrupting the foundations of stability. We see the danger of destabilizing one country or another and have no interest in this. But we would like to know your reaction if several East European states, while preserving ties of security with the USSR, might wish to become associate members of the EEC?

Kissinger did not object, and was only keen for the USA to be part of this project:

The second group of thoughts concerns the future of Europe, relations between its various countries. What is the outlook for the concept of “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals”? What will be the place for that part of the Soviet Union that stretches east from the Urals? What will be the future relationship between the USA and this future Europe?

I and my colleagues in the Trilateral Commission would like to make a constructive contribution to the building of such a Europe, in which the USSR and the USA would play an equally positive role.

Let us not forget that this conversation took place in January 1989, before there were any drafts of the Maastricht Treaty, let alone Amsterdam, Nice or the European Constitution. Nothing is said about these agreements requiring approval by referendums or at least the parliaments of European countries. How could these people know so precisely what would come to pass in European countries 15–20 years later?

As for the role of the USA, Gorbachev would be only too glad to play on American global visions on one hand, and on anti-American sentiment in Europe on the other. In either case, Moscow would be the winner. For instance, here is how the deputy secretary of the International Department of the CC, Vadim Zagladin, reported on his conversation with the former French ambassador to the USSR, Henri Froment-Meurice (17 March 1989, SA):335

Interlocutor […] said that in recent times, our objections to the military alliance of EEC countries are causing concern in France. From the very first, Froment-Meurice continued, we have never intended to limit ourselves with just the “Common Market.” We shall proceed further—I do not know in what form of political alliance, but we shall proceed. Maybe in the end it will be a federation or confederation, or an alliance, but there will be some kind of political unit. And such a union will, naturally, include defense.

[I] reminded Froment-Meurice that two years ago M.S. Gorbachev said: we are prepared for contacts with the European Community in the political sphere also to the extent that that it will act as a political unit. And such contacts exist. With regard to defense, we are mainly concerned about its future development: that the unification of Europe in the military field might stimulate a new arms race. There has been a tendency toward decreasing the level of armaments on the continent.

The interlocutor uttered assurances that nobody in the West is contemplating increasing armaments, on the contrary. Then, for some reason lowering his voice to a half-whisper, he said: “you must understand that this will not be an American union, but a European one, and not within the NATO framework.” To my objection that most of the members of the EEC are participants in the military organization of NATO, the interlocutor winced, and replied: “Europe wants to have its own defense policy, and will discuss the issues involved with you later.”

The conversation on this subject ended with the interlocutor’s expressed hope that we would not “overdo things” with the idea of the Common European Home, and not scare off the Europeans.

A mere couple of days after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roland Dumas, hurried to Moscow—to make sure that the old plan was still in force (14 November 1989, SA):336

How do you regard the move toward a new European order in the present situation from the point of view of ensuring stability in the world? This echoes your words about the Common European Home.

After all, we in the West have already built the first floor of such a home—West European integration.

M.S. GORBACHEV. That is only an annex.

R. DUMAS. Yes, you could call it that. But if we are to build more floors on top, we need an extensive architectural plan, to try to make sure that these floors are compatible.

M.S. GORBACHEV. […] Everyone is agreed that changes in Eastern Europe are proceeding apace. But is the West changing?

R. DUMAS. That’s a good question.

M.S. GORBACHEV. It is important to not lag behind, to react in time to positive tendencies, and help them along. Incidentally, my conversation with you is made easier by the fact that we represent two tendencies of the socialist workers’ movement. Have you not forgotten that?

R. DUMAS. If I look surprised, it is because I was just about to say the same thing.

Naturally, these plans were used to keep Eastern Europe under control, as well as the republics of the USSR. Even in 1991, several months before the collapse, the parties of the Socialist International continued their efforts to save the CPSU, discredit Yeltsin and support Gorbachev, as the International Department reported to the CC on 7 June 1991 (7 June 1991, 6-S-552^):

In turn, the processes of transformation in the Eastern and Central European states were proceeding under the banner of dismantling socialism, escalating elements of “rampant capitalism” and lowering the social security of workers. This caused anxiety in the leading European parties that were members of the Socialist International. They searched for methods to counteract undesirable tendencies in social development. In this, the Italian Communist Party (PCI), the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), the Austrian Socialist Party (SPO) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) advocated the creation of a Common European Centre for the study of problems in relations between socialists and communists.

The most active advocates for discussing the problems that have arisen was the French Socialist Party (PSF), which is explained by its position as the ruling party and the position of its leadership, which is apparently alarmed by the prospects for survival of the socialist idea due to the crisis in Eastern Europe.

Representatives of the French socialists have lately made frequent references to the need for discussion within the European leftist movement of a new concept for the actions of socialist and social democratic parties in a changing Europe. M. Maurois337 has repeated his willingness to go to the USSR and discuss this complex of questions with the leadership of the CPSU.

On the whole, there is an increasing understanding in the European left that answers must be sought to the questions posed by the altered political situation in Europe, including countering political forces that actively promote ideas of “neo-liberalism” and are forming their own organizations and political structures in Eastern Europe.

I know nothing about “neo-liberal” forces, or about their attempts to create their own political structures in the East. However the “forces of socialism” were working on it before the fall of the Berlin Wall, including Poland, where due to their efforts the activists of Solidarity continued to blindly follow the idiotic agreements of the round table right up to the collapse of communism in the USSR. Their influence was not negligible in other East European countries either: it is said that Vaclav Havel received thousands of letters and petitions from East European well-wishers, persuading him to “preserve the achievements of socialism” in Czechoslovakia.

The subject itself, advanced by them for rapid development, sounds quite convincing: “The European Community and Eastern Europe after the reunification of Germany: a challenge to the Left.” In which the International Department of the CC reported:

Active discussion of this problem and its theoretical and practical development, including the participation of European socialist and social democratic parties, and the search for joint approaches to the development of the socialist idea under new conditions would, in our opinion, promote the strengthening of the international contacts of the CPSU and its position as the leading force in the formation of new approaches to the global development of the socialist idea.

Pursuant to this, it would be desirable to attract the attention of international political circles and the public to the unconstructive position of Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia (which may be joined by Bulgaria) on the matter of new agreements between these countries and the Soviet Union. It is important to demonstrate that the objections of our former allies against obligations to refrain from participating in “any alliances, directed against one another” and the fact that this line is being followed in close contact with the Western bloc will introduce new elements into both the regional and European situation, ignoring the results of the Paris conference of the CSCE and threatening the balance of interests that opened the way to the building of a peaceful Europe.

As we see, the idea that Western Europe could force the Eastern one to remain in the Soviet bloc is not my invention. All these attempts are well documented now. Arriving in London for the G7 conference in 1991 (17 July 1991, SA),338 Gorbachev complained that “there has been a breakdown of the economic ties between the Soviet Union and its neighbors.” In reply the chairman of the European Commission Jacques Delors suggested “thinking about a mechanism for the restoration of your economic ties”:

… you have had to decrease your purchases in Eastern Europe, reserves have dwindled and private debt has grown. What is to be done? I think you should discuss this matter with the finance ministers [of the G7 countries], with the IMF, and provide information.

The theme was picked up by the Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti:

Today we are discussing how to assist in the improvement of relations between the Soviet Union and the counties of the former Warsaw Pact. I am happy that I have lived to see the day when we ask the Soviet Union not to leave this region.

The last nail was hammered in by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Lubbers (representing the European Communities with Delors). He melded the careful deliberations of Delors and the exuberant rejoicings of Andreotti into an ironclad decision. Additionally, Lubbers offered Gorbachev the services of the EEC in solving this problem:

I would like to support G. Andreotti’s thought regarding cooperation between the Soviet Union and the European Community in restoring ties with the countries of Central Europe. That is our common responsibility. You [Gorbachev] talked about a divorce after which former spouses realize just how much they needed each other […] Mr Delors has suggested thinking about a mechanism that would enable the restoration of trade with these countries. I support this suggestion.

But the chairman (British Prime Minister Major, brought all these suggestions together and formulated them as the common decision of the G7”:

… being aware, as President Gorbachev has noted, that there has been a breakdown of economic ties between the Soviet Union and its neighbors, we shall assist in the restoration of these ties….

Simply speaking—assist in the restoration of the Soviet empire, only an economic one this time, not a military one. They surely all understood that this was not a case of a voluntary return of the “former spouses” of the Soviet Union into the old harem. If the East European countries had wanted this, they would have restored trade without any external “mechanisms.”

The point at issue was specifically the “survival of the socialist idea”, and it was not by chance that at the same G7 meeting, an “alarmed” Mitterrand exhorted Gorbachev not to dismantle socialism:339

I would advise you not to privatize everything. I am a socialist by temperament and will risk saying that most of those around this table are the same. The essence is in the synthesis of private enterprise, democratic struggle, competition and, at the same time, the role of the state. In all our countries the state acts, the differences are in degree. We cannot tell you to do this or that. One must respect the traditions of the Soviet Union.

Even at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union continued to exist solely in Gorbachev’s imagination, Mitterrand told him of his apprehensions (6 May 1991, SA)340 that the disintegration of the Soviet empire shall lead to the “fragmentation of all Europe, its transformation into a chaos of states that could not be shaped into anything.” He considered it essential to “at any price, devise the creation of structures that would enable reining in all these movements.” His idea was that Moscow and Paris should become the two “poles” uniting Europe, and exercise joint control over everything that lies between them:

… they must be represented in every place where current problems are discussed, be it the German question, the evolution of the United States, separatist tendencies in Europe and so forth. I use the term “confederation.” Obviously, something else could be proposed. But there must be a common institution, an overall structure.

Like Gorbachev, the European Mensheviks tried to preserve the Soviet Union until the last day. Mitterrand said (31 October 1991, SA):341

I reason quite coldly—it is in France’s interests that there should be a central authority in the east of Europe. If there is disintegration, if we go back to what you had before Peter the Great, it would be a historic catastrophe, and that would be against France’s interests.

Centuries of history have taught us that France needs an ally in the South-East of Europe in order to ensure equilibrium. Any disintegration of integrity in the East causes instability. That is why we do not want and will not encourage separatist ambitions.

[…] I am one of those who wish to see you as a strong partner—a new Union. Otherwise what are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, some other states? The result will be that the situation in Poland will destabilize further. The same can be said of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

[…]

If matters develop this way, my future successors will have to establish strong relations with Russia, as it will be the most powerful remnant of the old Union. But before that we may still find ourselves mired in anarchy. I am in favor of the outcome in which your country will be restored on a federative-democratic basis in 2-3 years. This would be the best outcome for the rest of Europe.

You, Mr Gorbachev, are motivated by the reasoning of a patriot of your country. In this instance, I am relying on the affirmation of historical logic in the development of our continent.

6.8 The “Privatization” of power

In the context of the plan for the “survival of the socialist idea” the sense of the persistent efforts of the Politburo mentioned at the beginning of this book becomes clear—transferring its aid to communist parties “into trade channels with firms controlled by fraternal parties.” As we recall, the first attempts to implement this plan began in 1987, then in 1988 and 1989 they were stepped up considerably: in the putative “common European (socialist) home”, other forms of the activity of communist parties and mutual interaction of Moscow with them were required. Confrontation and the “class struggle” would be changed to the “cooperation” of leftist forces, so the future masters of the “home” from the Politburo hurried to affirm the situation of their spear carriers.

As of 1988, similar processes of “communist privatization” began to be implemented in the USSR as well. On one hand, the structures of the KGB and the International Department of the CC created numerous allegedly commercial “joint enterprises” with their Western friends; on the other hand—acting under the cover of the new law on cooperatives, the party-economic nomenklatura began to get its hands on state property, becoming increasingly entangled with the “black economy.” By 1990 the process was active throughout the country, mainly for the purpose of money laundering—funds stolen from the party and the state—and their transfer into Western financial institutions.

Many documents about this process have already been published. Here, for example, is a memo from CC Secretary Shenin dated 4 December 1989:

On problems of party property.

The development of the political process in the country and the formation of a multi-party system pose many new questions concerning the material support of the vital activity of the party, the creation of stable sources of financing in both Soviet and foreign currency. The material base of the international connections of the CPSU depends on this, as well as its capability to render at least minimal aid to foreign communist parties when the need arises.

Meanwhile, according to the lessons learned from the communist parties of Eastern Europe, the failure to take timely steps to adapt party property to the demands of commercial activity and include it in normal economic turnover, especially during the transfer to the market system, threatens the party with dire consequences.

Symptoms alarming to the CPSU are already in evidence. This business must be started from scratch, and the party will have to work in unfamiliar circumstances, adapting to the demands of the market and competition. Party cadres that will be entrusted with this activity must first tackle the difficult task of “learning how to trade.” In certain cases this will involve the observance of reasonable confidentiality in using anonymous companies, masking direct access to the CPSU. The final aim shall probably be that alongside the “commercialization” of existing party property, to create structures of an “invisible” party economy, work with which shall be limited to a very narrow circle of individuals designated by the General Secretary of the CPSU or his deputy.

We now know the text of the agreement that the first Soviet oligarchs signed with the CPSU upon receiving the right to dispose of party property:

Personal obligation to the CPSU

I, __________________, member of the CPSU from ________ year, Party card No. ________, hereby affirm my conscious and voluntary decision to become an authorized representative of the Party and execute the assignments entrusted to me by the Party at any post and in any situation, without exposing my inclusion in the institution of authorized representatives. I undertake to protect and make careful disposition of the financial and material means entrusted to me for Party interests, the return of which I guarantee upon first demand. I acknowledge that all my earnings ensuing from economic activity for the benefit of Party funds are Party property, and guarantee to surrender them at any time and in any place. I swear to observe strict confidentiality of the information entrusted to me and to perform all Party assignments forwarded to me through the relevant duly authorized individuals.

Signature of the member of the CPSU __________________

Signature of the person undertaking obligation _______________

Toward the end of 1990, even the Pravda newspaper was privatized, together with its publishing complex and polygraphic base, with Gorbachev’s full approval (24 July 1990, No. 14724).342

However it is important to understand that the mass robbery of the country, which ended up looking like rats deserting a sinking ship, was not planned to be this way. They had no intention of leaving the stage: on the contrary, the intention of perestroika was to reinforce their power, to save socialism. But being Marxists, they chose the Marxist way of saving themselves: the key idea of perestroika ensued from Marx’s well-known dictum regarding the three forms of the relations of the ruling class and property—ownership, use and management. And if during the last 60 years of its rule, practically since the end of Lenin’s NEP, the party had in its hands all three forms of relationship to the means of production, perestroika would have been a return of sorts to the NEP. The Party proposed to keep property ownership in its hands, leasing disposition of the property to interested parties and thereby ensuring the use of all the country’s means of production jointly with the producer. Although the Western press announced the “introduction of a market economy in the USSR” about ten times in Gorbachev’s time (and some 15 times afterwards), in fact there was no suggestion of capitalism (and there is none even now). Gorbachev’s economic “reforms” never went beyond encouraging cooperatives, family and brigade contracts, and finally—even joint-stock companies, by a simultaneous decrease in the party’s role in the management of property at the cost of decreasing the role of Gosplan, central ministries and general party control over on-site production. In 1989, desperation drove the party to talk of “individual work activity” (amateur production), but legalizing private property was never contemplated. Gorbachev’s favorite slogan, right up to his resignation was: “give socialism a second wind.”

Is it any surprise that perestroika did not evoke any enthusiasm among ordinary workers? No matter how much the learned fraternity quibbled, they knew that until the enterprise was theirs, nothing would come of it. Joint “management of means of production” with the party clearly did not suit them: the “partnership” was too one-sided and the reputation of the “partner” was too pernicious. But the black economy that was already firmly linked with party structures flourished beautifully in these new forms. The cooperatives that appeared were mainly “intermediaries”, i.e. “redistributors” of socialist production on to the private market. Consequently, corruption became the norm, the deficit of goods became even greater, queues to empty shop counters longer, and the party’s tendency to fracture and form regional mafias only increased. This was facilitated by attempts at decentralizing management of the economy, which encouraged the growth of economic autonomy: instead of improvement, there was managerial chaos, and local authorities, speculating on the eternal nationalistic moods of their republics, strove for greater political independence.

But if these “reforms” clearly proved to be insufficiently radical to stimulate the economy, they were too radical for the political system. Even Lenin’s NEP undermined the party significantly, resulting in a mass exodus from it, 60 years later the party had changed (much less idealistic and much more bureaucratic), at a time when the public retained no trust in it whatsoever. Moreover, during these decades a gigantic administrative apparatus had evolved, which had no desire to lose its “management” function, and most enterprises in the country were actually operating at a loss, existing by virtue of subsidies and grants from the center. They were beyond rebuilding, all that was left was to close them down, and throw millions of workers into the street. However the party cudgeled its brains, however it wriggled, it could not escape these problems by pushing the blame onto someone else and simply retaining the “controlling interest” of owners.

Steps to solve this problem were taken in the spring of 1989, the final phase of the “reforms”, toward “sovietisation”, that is—transfer of the center of power to the soviets [councils]. Once again, everything looked fine and quite Marxist on paper: if the “ruling class” decided to share its property rights to the means of production with others, it should also share power with them. Simply speaking, there could be no reliance on the stabilization of the situation without expanding the social base of power. It all sounded very Leninist, resurrecting the slogan “All power to the Soviets!” But what seemed reasonable in theory turned into a catastrophe in practice: elections to the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR, just like the subsequent elections to soviets of other levels, despite all the cunning procedures of “nomination”, “selection” and “registration” of candidates, despite the legally guaranteed third of places for the party nomenklatura and full control over the mass media, were a total party failure. Wherever “alternative” candidates managed to break through, the people voted for them, expressing their total lack of trust in the CPSU, if not to say their hatred of it. This first election campaign for 70 years stimulated the political activity of the population, stirred up people who had been intimidated for decades by terror, instead of a jubilant cry of: “All power to the Soviets!” they shouted: “Down with the communists!” To a certain degree this experiment was successful at the lowest level, at which the regional and district authorities simply swapped places into the chairs of local executive committees, and even so only in the provinces, not large cities.

In essence, party “perestroika” ended in 1989, showing beyond any doubt that socialist utopias had outlived their time. They had no supporters anywhere except in the West, and the attempt to introduce them everywhere led to a loss of control over the experiment. All that was needed was the removal of the barbed wire around the socialist camp for the prisoners to begin to escape. The first ones to slip away were the East European brethren, thereby burying the idea of the convergence of Europe in a common European home. They were followed by the republics of the USSR, where the republican Supreme Soviets, elected amidst much pomp and ceremony, immediately voted for the “sovereignty” of their republics. Even in Moscow, where by hook or by crook it proved possible to retain what Yuri Afanasyev called “the aggressive-obedient majority”,343 by some miracle 20 percent of “alternative deputies” genuinely elected by the voters attended the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR. They were not backed by any party or financial structures, or all-Union organizations—their only support was the will of the people. It was they who were the main heroes of the drama that unfolded on television before the eyes of hundreds of millions of viewers, who watched the proceedings with bated breath. As the highest legislative body in the country, the Congress did nothing momentous, but it had a colossal enlightening significance, showing the public for the first time the nature of the regime in its true colors. Aroused by this hitherto-unseen spectacle, the strata of the nation began to stir—miners went on strike, nationalist movements in the republics gathered strength. And although it proved possible to pacify the miners to some extent with empty promises, the threat of the appearance of a Solidarity in the USSR continued to hang over the country. By the end of 1989–beginning of 1990, the country was already ungovernable, and the spontaneous popular movement threatened to unite in demanding the revocation of the CPSU’s monopoly on political power. Gorbachev’s “rebuilders” could do nothing but submit to this demand, revoking Article 6 of the Constitution which formally affirmed this monopoly.

So if what had occurred could be classed as a revolution, it was a revolution “from below” that came about not because of, but despite Gorbachev and his accessories. What was planned as quite moderate, inter-system changes got out of control and grew into a revolution, exposing the fundamental and incompatible difference between the intentions of the leaders and the hopes of the people. The leaders were too late in seeing this, but starting with 1990 and to their final collapse, all their efforts were aimed at stopping the chain reaction.

The first attempts to somehow put a brake on the process, especially the disintegration of the USSR into independent republics, began back in 1989 with the murderous suppression of peaceful demonstrations In Tbilisi, and the equally murderous pitting of national minorities against the indigenous population (in Abkhazia, Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Sumgait). This was followed by the military operation in Baku, and provocation of tensions in the Baltic states, where Russian settlers were used as a tool of imperialist policy. Nobody had any doubts now that the so-called “ethnic conflicts” were provoked by Moscow, acting in accordance with the old imperialistic formula of divide and rule. Yet although this blatantly criminal policy left the country with an inheritance of protracted and at times insoluble conflicts, the disintegration of the empire could not be halted. Provoking conflicts was easy, but controlling them was impossible.

In Russia itself, even the effort to control the process by means of fictional “parties” specially created by the KGB for that purpose and the infiltration of independent political organizations granted only a temporary success. This so-called “socialist pluralism”, like its historical prototype the pre-revolutionary “Zubatovism”, only aided further destabilization. Just as Zubatov’s trade unionists ended up organizing the 1905 revolution, so the KGB-Gorbachev “pluralists”, in the situation of an increasing polarization of society, found themselves facing the choice of falling by the wayside of the movement, or confronting the regime. Few wished to expose themselves and support the authorities. By the end of 1990–beginning of 1991, demands for the resignation of communist authorities became so unanimous that they were supported, it would seem, by the communists themselves.

However, by that time most party leaders were mainly occupied by the problem of personal survival, and the process of party “privatization” had acquired the nature of panicked flight. Establishing where these “party billions” ended up, together with a substantial part of Western aid to the USSR at that time, is practically impossible, just as it is impossible to trace all the tangled ties of the International Department of the CC and the KGB with Western organizations and individual politicians. The more so that after the failure of the August 1991 putsch, by some mysterious means the administrator of CC affairs N. Kruchina jumped out of the window of his apartment, as did his predecessor in that post, A. Pavlov—two men who were directly involved in the management of party property and finances during “perestroika.” The other officials supervising the process of “party privatization” faded discreetly from the stage. The last head of the International Department of the CC, Falin, lives quietly as a pensioner, writing books about how he, Falin, devised the brilliant plan to save the Soviet empire which that fool Gorbachev was unable to put into effect properly. Just as peaceful is the existence of his former colleagues in different parts of the world. Nobody seeks them out or bothers to interrogate them: the world has decided generously that this is an acceptable price for their “voluntary retreat from the stage.”

It is quite amazing: these people had been wrecking the country for more than 70 years, exterminated entire nations, sowed bloody unrest over the whole world, suppressed the smallest sign of human spirit, and spent the last seven years in desperate attempts to save their regime, not stopping at bloodshed or the most blatant deceit. Finally, when they lost control and robbed the country, they took to cowardly flight and hide behind the backs of their Western cronies. And we are now supposed to be grateful to them!

6.9 Chronicle of the collapse

As I have already mentioned, the most important documents of this period, especially the period of the so-called “putsch” were destroyed, but there is no doubt that from the end of 1990 the Politburo began to make active preparations for turning things around. The plan for this seems to be little different from the plan for the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, and it is particularly significant that Gorbachev was at the center of its preparation. All the legends about a “conspiracy” against him by “conservatives” and “reactionaries” are nothing more than a continuation of disinformation about the “struggle between reformers and conservatives” in the leadership which, as we see, never existed. Right up to 1989 there were no signs of so much as disagreements in the Politburo, and those who began to voice perfectly justified fears of losing control over events were removed from power immediately. It could not be otherwise—that was how the communist system of power worked; differences within the leadership were acceptable only in discussions of a problem, but not after a decision was reached. The word of the General Secretary was final and not subject to discussion.

Now it sounds almost laughable to hear talk that Gorbachev allegedly knew nothing about this or that decision of his colleagues. The General Secretary was informed of everything, even the most trivial details regarding all measures and events. For example, here is the “List of certain documents on which instructions were received from comrade M.S. Gorbachev in 1990” (15 February 1991, No. 01499). This list, naturally, is not exhaustive, there are missing pages, but even what is left leaves no doubts as to the thoroughness with which the General Secretary was kept informed. Virtually everything landed on his desk: from economic problems in the regions, the state of affairs in individual party organizations to international events. Every document bears his instruction, “assignment”, the performance of which is recorded a bit lower. The machine of the CC apparatus could not work any other way: it was created to work without stopping. He had all the information, even more than necessary at times, but in the process of loss of control over events it reflects the beginning of panic. He receives information in February on “some thoughts on resolution of the German question”, and writes:

To comrade V.M. Falin. Please read. Yes, we need a plan of action for the near future. M. Gorbachev.

And on his order, the material is sent to all the members of the Politburo (26 February 1990, No. 03997).344

At the same time, Falin sends “additional information on the Katyn tragedy.” The matter is a brainteaser: to admit or not that imprisoned Polish officers were executed on Stalin’s orders? It is a bad thing to admit, but denying it is now impossible. Gorbachev writes (23 February 1990, No. 03900):345

Comrades Yakovlev, Shevardnadze, Kryuchkov and Boldin. Please submit your thoughts.

Or in another case, people’s deputy of the USSR comrade Yulin “expresses critical remarks about the CC CPSU, the Politburo of the CC for adopting political and economic decisions that he considers erroneous.” Gorbachev writes (25 April 1990, No. 08597):346

Comrades Stroyev, Monyakin. Talk to comrade Yulin.

However as of April 1990, the loss of control becomes increasingly obvious. Even the Central Television starts showing signs of disobedience. Gorbachev writes in desperation (23 April 1990, No. 08400):347

Comrade [Vadim] Medvedev. Work must continue on regrouping forces within CTV (while there is still time!)

But the problems continued to grow: the economy was falling apart, energy outages became more frequent, an “uncontrolled spread of radioactive nuclides” caused by the Chernobyl disaster, the “breakdown of the state program on liquidation of the consequences of the earthquake in the Spitak district” in Armenia…. By autumn the panic is loose: emergency measures are invoked for “the acquisition of real estate abroad and the creation of joint ventures” (18 May 1990, No. 70460 and 9 August 1990, No. 71404).348 Suddenly another signature, that of Leopold Rothschild, appears on a document dated 18.09.90 (Great Britain N16383), that “Confirms Great Britain’s interest in creating a bank syndicate for granting loans under guarantee of placement of gold.”349

Whether this is directly related or not I do not know, but after the August “putsch” it suddenly became known that the gold reserve of the USSR had “vanished” without a trace….

As for mass killings—in Tbilisi in 1989, in Baku in 1990 or Vilnius in 1991—indeed, any military actions could not be decided by anyone other than the General Secretary. Of course, Gorbachev tried to avoid such methods insofar as his game was built on his reputation as a “democrat.” But as documents show, in principle he never ruled out the possibility of a situation in which he would have to give such an order, just as the Chinese comrades did in Tiananmen Square (4 October 1989).350

Politburo, 4 October 1989 (recorded by Chernyaev)

[…]

LUKYANOV reports that in fact 3,000 people perished on Tiananmen Square.

GORBACHEV. You have to be realists. They also have to hang on, just as we do. Three thousand…. So what? Sometimes you have to retreat. For that you have strategy and tactics. If a line is adopted, there can be various maneuvers within its framework.

And in fact, documents completely refute claims that orders resulting in mass murders in Tbilisi, Baku or Vilnius were issued over Gorbachev’s head. Two days after the killings in Tbilisi, in a shorthand report of Gorbachev’s conversation with SPD leader Vogel, we find a passage that cannot be evaluated as anything other than an admission (11 April 1989):351

There are destructive elements, extremists and even anti-Soviet groups that try to exploit glasnost, democratization for their anti-Soviet purposes. But we shall not allow any encroachment on our interests, the interests of socialism and the people. We shall protect ourselves. You have heard about the events in Georgia. There was an organized outing of committed anti-Soviets led by one [Zviad] Gamsakhurdia. They speculate on democratic processes, inflame passions, and flaunt provocative slogans up to demanding the entry of NATO forces on the republic’s territory. You have to put people in their place, actively counter these political adventurers, protect perestroika—our revolution.

The following year saw the mass murders in Baku and the proclamation of a state of emergency in Azerbaijan. Politburo member Vadim Medvedev wrote this in his diary (19 January 1990):352

19 January 1990

On the morning prior to the meeting in the Great Kremlin Palace, Gorbachev gathered the leadership. There was consultation on the situation in Azerbaijan, which is deteriorating. The authority there has practically disintegrated; the buildings of the CC, the republican Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet are virtually empty. Emergency measures are needed.

Meeting with the press group for the Trans-Caucasus. The usual TASS [news agency] information this time is more detailed and dramatic, allowing for the forthcoming declaration of a state of emergency and sending in troops. The Order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on the declaration of the state of emergency has been sent to TASS under embargo. Lines for its transmission to Azerbaijan are ready.

It was agreed at the Politburo meeting that CC secretaries must be at their posts all night. Everyone except Yakovlev carried out this agreement.

Meanwhile, moods throughout the country continued to radicalize. Even hitherto controllable and scattered opposition organizations were beginning to unite, as Gorbachev was informed (24 October 1990*, Pb 1193).353

20–21 October 1990 in Moscow, in the cinema theater “Rossiya” there was a constitutive congress of the “Democratic Russia” movement. It was attended by 1270 delegates from 73 regions, districts and autonomous republics—representatives of parties opposing the CPSU, public organizations and movements. 23 People’s Deputies of the USSR, 104 People’s Deputies of the RSFSR, deputies from the Moscow City Council, the Leningrad City Council and other local councils took part in the congress. More than 200 guests from the union republics were invited to the congress, also from the USA, Great Britain, the FRG, France, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The work of the congress was covered by around 300 Soviet and foreign correspondents. […] The main attention of the congress was directed toward the organizational strengthening of the democratic movement in the struggle against “the monopoly of the CPSU on power”, creation of an information network of democratic forces and their political infrastructure, “activation of the masses” and the conduct of joint actions with other opposition movements. […] The distinctive feature of the congress was rampant anti-communism. Strategy and tactics were devised for ousting the CPSU from the political arena, dismantling of the existing state and social system. […] Unbridled insults were flung at the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR A.I. Lukyanov, the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.I. Ryzhkov, the chairman of the KGB USSR V.A. Kryuchkov and the Minister for Defense D.T. Yazov….

The harsh, uncompromising tonality of the documents adopted by the congress is obvious. Essentially, they all call for confrontation, civil disobedience and further destabilization of the situation in the country. An analysis of the documents adopted by the founders of the congress, the nature of addresses, the entire atmosphere of the congress and the campaign that led up to it point unerringly to the formation of a united bloc of anti-socialist, anti-communist forces, whose aim includes dissolution of the social and political foundations of the country, seizure of power and the removal of the CPSU from the political arena.

However the Politburo members regarded this attempt, the very appearance of a certain unifying center of opposition was a deadly danger to them. They had to act, and act fast. I think it was then that they decided on a change of course and the proclamation of martial law. By the end of the year Gorbachev had changed practically his entire crew: playing at “reform” was over, new tasks needed new people—blind followers, who would not be frightened by the sight of blood. Some, like Shevardnadze, left of their own accord, knowing well in which direction the wind was blowing. Others like Ryzhkov and Bakatin were dismissed by Gorbachev personally. It is really humorous to assume that there was something he did not know—he was the main organizer of the turnaround.

From January 1991 he and his new team began implementing the plan, starting with Lithuania as usual, and Gorbachev was informed the same day (11 January 1991*, No. 00766):

According to reports from responsible personnel of the CC CPSU […], located in Lithuania, on January 11 this year paratroopers took control over the building of the House of Print and the DOSAAF [Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force and Navy] in Vilnius (where the department for regional security was quartered) and in Kaunas—the building for officers’ courses. On the whole, this operation passed without strong clashes. At the same time, the unobjective information regarding this action broadcast by the “Mayak” radio station should be noted. Inter alia this information mentioned the excesses of the military and alleged victims and wounded. At 17:00 hours local time the CC of the Lithuanian Communist Party held a press conference at which the head of the ideological department of the CC, comrade Yu.Yu. Jermolavicus stated that a Committee for the Salvation of Lithuania had been formed in the republic. This Committee assumed full power. […] the Committee approved an appeal to the people of Lithuania, and also sent an ultimatum to the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR, demanding an immediate response to the appeal of the President of the USSR.

The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR declined the ultimatum, calling the convened Committee “self-proclaimed” and lacking any legal grounds to speak on behalf of the Lithuanian people.

We should note that the putsch in Moscow seven months later repeated the same scenario: troops were stationed at key points, a press conference, and the formation of a Committee claiming “full power”. This was just the dress rehearsal. It is also indicative that Gorbachev’s more intelligent assistants, who worked directly with him in those days, must have been aware that all this took place on their patron’s orders. This is how Chernyaev describes the torments his intelligent soul suffered in his diary:354

13 January 1991, Sunday.

[…]

I never thought that this would be the inglorious end of Gorbachev’s inspiring beginning. I am weary with perplexity and, alas, disorder in work, some kind of “spontaneity” in affairs, and mainly—the tendency to believe one’s own and seek their support (the CPSU!).

All this led to “spontaneous” actions of paratroopers and tanks in the Baltics and ended with bloodshed. It is said that there were 180 wounded and 14 dead in one night in Vilnius!

[…]

On Friday I insisted that Gorbachev telephone Bush regarding the Persian Gulf on the eve of day “X”. The conversation was “friendly.” But on the topic of Lithuania, Gorbachev lied like a trooper and promised to avoid the use of force. […]

The Lithuanian affair destroyed Gorbachev’s reputation completely and probably cost him his post. Yes… that is so, even though he claims to detest “panic merchants.” […]

So once again I am facing the situation of 1968—Czechoslovakia. But at that time the problem was to break away from Brezhnev, with whom I was barely acquainted. And now it is Gorbachev, with whom a great historical endeavor is associated, even if he is ruining it with his own hands. In the press, on the radio at home and in the West there are guesses: was the Vilnius action undertaken with Gorbachev’s knowledge, or has he lost total control over everything in the country? Or was it an independent action by the Lithuanian communists and the military? I am also riven by doubts. But I suspect that Gorbachev, maybe even subconsciously, wanted something like this to happen. The provocation was the workers’ demonstration in front of the Supreme Soviet in Vilnius that brought about the resignation of Prunskiene. Yet if this had not happened, something else “would have had to be imagined.” I find it unthinkable that M.S. would betray Burokevicius and Schwetz (secretaries of the CC CP of Lithuania). It seems that from the very beginning they were nurtured as a fifth column in Brazauskas’ communist party.

[…]

I foresee that there will be enough lies to sink a ship in the Supreme Soviet tomorrow. Lukyanov will make sure. […]

14 January 1991.

[…]

This morning Igantenko talked to me about resigning. Andrey Grachev came along from the meeting of the Supreme Soviet and asked not to be confirmed as head of the International Department under the President. “1968 and 1979 were enough for me. It’s unbearable.” And what about me?

[…]

15 January 1991.

I did not go to Gorbachev’s meeting with Velikhov’s Fund for the Survival of Humanity. Meeting him was repulsive. I feel ashamed to look people in the face. I thought that under the circumstances he would refuse to attend the meeting. I had prepared all the materials and his speech before the events in Lithuania. But I “underestimated” him again. He went. Took Yakovlev and Boldin with him, as well as Bessmertnykh, newly-confirmed at the meeting of the Supreme Soviet. And just as if nothing has happened, he spent almost two hours playing up to the Americans and other acolytes of the new thinking. As was to be expected, they asked no awkward questions….

Igantenko arrived. He said that last night he, Yakovlev and [Yevgeny] Primakov tried to persuade Gorbachev to go to Vilnius, lay a wreath, speak in the Supreme Soviet, visit collectives, the military, etc. It seemed as though Gorbachev was in favor of the idea. He said: have the texts for appearances there ready by morning. They composed the texts and put them on his desk. Ignatenko spent the whole day running around to catch Gorbachev and ask him for his decision. Gorbachev acted as though nothing had happened, and that there had been no conversation with those three. From this Igantenko concluded that M.S. is not “misinformed” as many think. He is carrying out his plan for intimidating the Balts. […]

16 January 1991.

Today is the last session of the Supreme Soviet. Gorbachev had a last chance to cope with the Lithuanian business, meaning his own image as the leader of perestroika. He even asked Primakov this morning to rough out a text. Zhenya and Ignatenko did as he requested, naturally condemning what had occurred. But M.S. did not use it. After the report by Demetey, who headed the delegation of the Supreme Soviet (Oleynik and Ter-Petrosyan) to Lithuania—(the report is useless, a mere formality) and after the “unfolded discussion” suggested… suspending the law on the press and introducing a censor into every entity from the membership of the Supreme Soviet. This caused an uproar. M.S. did not persist. But he showed his face, and his idea. It appears that he is on the side of those who killed in Vilnius—this is something to conceal, not display.

[…]

Primakov tendered his resignation today. M.S. replied: “It is I, not you, who will decide about you.”

[…]

There was no reply to our proposal to meet with assistants. My daughter Anna is clearly in favor of my “leaving.” I saw her for the first time today after returning from Copenhagen. Gave her a brief outline of how I see Gorbachev, whose logic is directed only at remaining in power at any price. His new attack on Landsbergis and about Yeltsin’s press conference, like his last address in the Supreme Soviet, was muddled, deprived of any real meaning, off the point, petty and “personal.” Totally unsuited to the moment.

17 January 1991.

[…]

After Gorbachev let everyone go at around nine in the morning, he suddenly motioned me into his study. He talked about Lithuania. […] Gorbachev spoke as if with regret, that things had happened that way. Such opposition, such a split, such enmity in society, wall to wall fighting. I said to him: “Well, they should have been left to fight it out among themselves, even to the death. But why bring in the tanks? It means the demise of your mission. Surely Lithuania is not worth that?!” “You don’t understand,” he said. “The army. I could not simply dissociate myself and condemn them after all the insults the military has had to bear in Lithuania, as well as their families in the garrisons.”

[…]

It is a fact that the events in Lithuania evoked an incredibly violent reaction throughout the country, not just in the republics, which identified themselves readily with the Lithuanians, but in Russia as well. People understood instinctively that the authorities had launched an offensive against them. In Moscow, where anti-communist demonstrations had been building up all autumn, hundreds of thousands took to the streets, as Gorbachev was informed (23 January 1991*, Pb 223):

On 20 January this year, a manifestation sanctioned by the Moscow City Council took place from 11:00 to 14:30 hours, organized on the initiative of a number of People’s Deputies of the USSR and the coordinating committee of the “Democratic Russia” movement, The column of demonstrators proceeded from Mayakovsky Square along the Garden Ring and the Kalinin Prospect to the fiftieth Anniversary of October Square, in which a 1.5-hour meeting took place.

Up to 150 thousand people participated in the demonstration. The composition of organizations and politicized movements was traditional. Experts estimate that the majority of the participants were representatives of the scientific and creative intelligentsia, persons belonging to nationalities not consistent with the indigenous population of Moscow, and also out-of-town individuals. […] The nature of the meeting was markedly anti-presidential and anti-communist. Typical slogans were such as: “Mikhail the Bloody—Nobel Laureate”, “Bring Gorbachev and his gang to justice”, “Put the President of the USSR in the Dock”, “Bloodshed in Lithuania—the latest crime of the CPSU”, “Red Fascists of the CPSU—hands off Russia and the Baltics.”

The structure of the slogans and addresses, of the 33 main themes the anti-presidential issue ranked first, followed by the anti-communist and in support of the current Lithuanian leadership, the third being support for Yeltsin—the fourth […] A significant place went to demands for putting Committees of National Salvation on trial and rebuttal of the “reactionary course of Gorbachev and the CPSU”, up to an All-Russian strike (this was among the resolutions of the meeting) and armed resistance in the event of use of force….

The resolution adopted contained demands for the “withdrawal of punitive forces from the Baltics”, dismissal of M.S. Gorbachev and G.I. Yanayev, dissolution of the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the creation of a Russian army, calls for the formation of a political organization with cells in workers’ collectives and residential localities on the basis of the “Democratic Russia” movement.

In our opinion, this action should be interpreted as confirmation of the course adopted by opposition forces aimed at the alteration of the state and social system, and the removal of the current leadership of the country from the political arena.

The quality of the tactics of forces opposed to the center and the CPSU are changing. The core of consolidation of democratic and national-democratic movements in the republics is the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR headed by B.N. Yeltsin….

It is true that Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR took center stage as the only functioning political structure: in February Yeltsin took advantage of a direct transmission on Central Television to call the country to “declare war on the government.” The situation was provoked further by a sharp increase in prices in January. This was followed by a wave of demonstrations and strikes, which culminated in a half-million strong demonstration in Moscow in March, conducted despite Gorbachev’s official prohibition and the entry of armed forces into the capital. At the end of March, all of Belorussia went on strike, and it was not the most rebellious of the republics, as Gorbachev was informed (15 April 1991, No. 03182):

If a month ago the attitude of most workers’ collectives toward miners’ strikes was restrained, in recent days support for their actions had increased significantly. Looking at the example of Belorussia, it is clear that the economic demands advanced by workers influenced by opposition forces are becoming political and inter-linked, expressed primarily by distrust of central bodies of power and the CPSU.

The official Soviet trade unions were also thrown into confusion, as “the workers are increasingly failing to support the trade unions, but spontaneously formed strike committees.” In order to reassert their authority by some means, even the official trade unions decided to hold a one-day strike, in which 50 million people took part!

In order to somehow dissipate the wave, plans for the proclamation of martial law were shelved temporarily, and “negotiations” were begun with the Baltic republics. At the same time, Yeltsin agreed to talks with Gorbachev, which ended with the “Novo-Ogarevo Agreement.” This was followed by a lull, akin to a truce, which couldn’t last long: not a single problem was really resolved, and the republics refused stubbornly to sign any new “union agreement.” Control over the country was not reinstated, and there was no end to the crisis in sight. A return to the scenario of martial law was inevitable, and it is ludicrous to assume that Gorbachev’s subordinates hid anything from him. The more so that implementation of such a wide-sweeping “conspiracy” as the “putsch” of 19 August could have taken place without his knowledge. Without his sanction, not one agency of power, or military unit, or KGB subdivision could act. Incidentally, that killed off his plan, his spectacle of a “putsch” in August, when his subordinates had to implement the scenario of proclaiming martial law allegedly without his sanction: not a single commander agreed to act without a direct order from Gorbachev. Everyone was perfectly aware that without such an order, their actions would qualify as treason, for which they would be executed on the spot, accused of responsibility for the “putsch.”

In the absence of documentation, we can only guess at Gorbachev’s reasoning in thinking up such an incredible trick as a “conspiracy” against him. All the details of that strange “conspiracy” convince me that it was copied thoroughly from the scenario of the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, and built on disinformation regarding the “struggle between reformers and conservatives” in the Politburo. Let us recall that this disinformation, disseminated so painstakingly during the period of Gorbachev’s rule, was the foundation of his success in the West. Even the most committed anti-communists (Reagan, Thatcher) bought this claim, constantly saving Gorbachev from mythical “conservatives”, and pro-Soviet forces turned it into a lawful basis for transferring millions of dollars into the Kremlin’s coffers. What could be more logical than using the same gambit for proclaiming martial law? Finding itself on the brink of a precipice, the Kremlin reprised the same scenario that had been used for seven years to scare both the West and the East: a “conservative conspiracy” and the ousting of Gorbachev, at the same time “pacifying” the country with the aid of the harshest methods. Then Gorbachev would return triumphantly some three months later, and mercifully “mitigate” some of the drastic measures of his subordinates and resume a moderate “perestroika” to the full exaltation of the West. Under such circumstances, I bet he would have been able to entice the West into parting with another 30 billion dollars….

However just as with the Velvet Revolution the Kremlin strategists, despite all their cunning, failed to take one factor into account—the reaction of their own people. They were so accustomed to ignoring it, that the role it might play in the planned spectacle did not enter their heads. They did not realize to what extent their own power structures were disintegrating. The party was already scattering into “commercial structures”, the military command had no desire to be made the scapegoat, and even the KGB personnel had no idea of what would happen to them in the closing act of the show. None of them wanted to lay down their lives in attempts to rescue the putrefied regime, and nobody believed Gorbachev, who was tangled in his own lies, except the West.

It is curious that encountering the mass disobedience of the country, the so-called putschists lost their nerve and… rushed off to Gorbachev in the Crimea, probably to beg him to come out of the shadows and head a return toward military law. Some conspiracy, wasn’t it, in which conspirators flee to their “victim” for advice and protection? You can just imagine them trying to persuade Gorbachev:

—Mikhail Sergeyevich, nothing is working out without you. The army refuses to budge without an order from the commander-in-chief, the people are crowding around the White House, and there is no way of dispersing them without bloodshed. You are the only hope….

Of course, he rejects this now and so do the “putschists”—simply speaking, the entire leadership of the country confirm that they acted on his orders. One can only guess at who is right or wrong. Getting to the truth is impossible without an independent, objective and impartial court, which did not exist. One thing is inarguable: the whole preparation for the proclamation of martial law was conducted under his direct leadership. Whether he had last-minute doubts like Jaruzelski in his time, or whether he really devised this diabolical game in order to look good in the eyes of the world after returning from the Crimea in the guise of a peacemaker into a country already controlled by his subordinates is not known to this day.

In the end, it is not that important: three days and nights of overall disobedience was enough for the regime to collapse. With the failure of the “putsch” the CPSU was proscribed, the building of the CC sealed, and crowds drunk with freedom roamed Moscow, pulling down leaders’ statues. Yet no matter how intoxicating this moment of freedom was, it was not a revolution. Deprived of a pivot, the country simply disintegrated into separate parts, controlled by their party mafias. The “new” political elite that had floated to the surface turned out to be the old nomenklatura which had had time to adapt itself to new conditions. This new elite did not want any radical changes, nor did it need the old ideology, because it held on to the “commercial structures”, and property, and fictional parties, and the mass media as well as former international ties with old friends. This heralded the start of the era of “shadow power”, where it is no longer possible to distinguish who is serving whom. An era of kleptocracy which I fear Russia will never be able to shed.

Only Gorbachev, returning to Moscow, kept talking about the renewal of socialism, the new role of the already vanished CPSU, and a new “union agreement” with non-existent republics….

6.10 “I am not naive, you know…”

It is easy to understand the rejoicing of the left over “perestroika” as well as the revolution which never came about—for them, from the very beginning, there was never any alternative to détente but the preservation of the party elite under the guise of a democracy consonant with their wishes. Only this version could cover up their complicity in the crimes of the regime, in which the regime would not appear criminal or, at least, would seem “reformed.” In this sense, Gorbachev was a find for them—if he had not existed, he should have been made up.

Actually, that is how it was: the “reformer”, “liberal” and “democrat” Gorbachev was an invention of the Western leftist elite, buttressed by Soviet disinformation. Remember, there were efforts to credit Yuri Andropov with the same image of a “liberal” and “reformer “when he came to power in 1983; but Andropov’s health let him down and he died without being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Gorbachev was younger and healthier than his mentor and patron—that is the only difference. Had Andropov’s kidneys been in better shape, he would have become the idol of progressive humanity, and the whole world would have watched his “courageous struggle with the conservatives” in the Politburo with bated breath. He, and not Gorbachev, would have been named man of the decade by “Time” magazine (1 January 1990), the “Copernicus, Darwin and Freud in one person” of communism, and flocks of Western sheep would have bleated ecstatically: “Yuri!”, “Yuri!” instead of “Gorby! Gorby!”

Strictly speaking, what is the difference—Gorbachev or Yegor Ligachev, Andropov or Konstantin Chernenko? The issue lies not in the abilities of Soviet leaders, but in the presence of powerful forces of “peace, progress and socialism” in the West, to whom the survival of the idea of socialism was a question of their own survival. Thanks to them, the world sank into post-totalitarian absurdity instead of recovery from the communist plague. While they united in saving their idol from his own people, there could be no formation of any “uncontrolled” opposition that would be able to depose the nomenklatura and stabilize the situation. Nor could the decapitated, glasnost-bedazzled people go against the opinion of the whole world. “The opinion of the West” became the absolute and sole criterion of truth in that troubled time of fantastic lies. How could the people know that this opinion was also a manipulation by the ideological brothers of their jailers? In the absence of political experience, how could the people know that delay was akin to death: either the country, or an alien idea had to be saved, and the protracted death throes of the regime would render the recovery of the country practically impossible. The seven years wasted on the party perestroika and “support of Gorbachev” would rebound with a vengeance.

But the success of “glasnost and perestroika” would not have been as great and their effect so catastrophic for the world if the overall euphoria had not also paralyzed the conservative circles of the West. It is much harder to comprehend the reasons for this paralysis, especially as the word “paralysis” is hardly one would apply to a number of leading conservative politicians of that time. For instance, we all recall that one of the first and consistent supporters of Gorbachev was Margaret Thatcher, who declared him to be a man with whom she could “do business” even before his accession to power.355 How could a politician of her class, moreover one who devoted her life to the struggle against socialism in her country, fail to see the bald truth that her new friend was doing the exact opposite? Or at least that the General Secretary of the CPSU is not a tsar, and that the communist regime is not a monarchy; whatever his personal inclinations, “business” would have to be done not with him, but with the entire communist regime.

Mrs Thatcher’s words were not a slip of the tongue. Her personal loyalty to Gorbachev made her say and do some amazing things. I remember being unable to believe my ears when I heard what she said in 1988 on a BBC live transmission to the USSR.356 Jamming of Western radios had just ended, and here the Soviet people, already dazed by “glasnost”, heard the “most popular woman in the USSR” state that “I think it remarkable that after 70 years of what I might call the old-fashioned form of communism, that is, the one that you’re trying to get away from…. I think they [the changes]… are historic.” And what was the “historical change” perceived by the legendary “Iron Lady”? Apparently that the recent party conference in Moscow [28 June 1988] was “a milestone in freedom for discussion” because “people came up to the platform to speak… they didn’t always speak from fixed notes, but sometimes they spoke just as they felt”

Furthermore, as if forgetting the existence of the Soviet “Evil Empire”, she practically called for the various peoples of the USSR to stay “loyal to the Soviet Union as a commonwealth of nations”, to be content with a certain degree of cultural and religious autonomy, like the various tribes in Nigeria. And this was said at the time of the offensive against the sovereignty of the Baltic republics, whose absorption into the USSR was never acknowledged by Britain or the USA.

Alas, Thatcher was no exception. Even Ronald Reagan, President of the USA, a man for whom the very name Lenin was always anathema, did not fail to praise Gorbachev for his “return to the paths of Lenin.” This was also said in a radio address transmitted to the USSR. As for his successor, George Bush and his Secretary of State Jim Baker, they outdid everyone, opposing the inevitable disintegration of the USSR until the very last day.

“Yes, I think I can trust Gorbachev,”—said George Bush to Time magazine357 just when Gorbachev was beginning to lose control and was tangled hopelessly in his own lies—“I looked him in the eye, I appraised him. He was very determined. Yet there was a twinkle. He is a guy quite sure of what he is doing. He has got a political feel.”

It is notable that this phrase is illogical: if your opponent “believes deeply in what he is doing” does not necessarily mean that he is trustworthy. After all, Hitler also “believed deeply in what he was doing.” But the thought that their aims were diametrically opposed did not enter George Bush’s head. It is not surprising that with such presidential perspicacity, their top-level meeting in Malta (2-3 December 1989) was strongly reminiscent of a second Yalta: in any case, after this the US Department of State invariably maintained that the growing Soviet pressure on the Baltics was “an internal USSR matter.” Even two months prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union Bush, on a visit to Kiev, exhorted Ukraine not to break away.

The extent to which Bush’s administration did not understand the Soviet games in Europe is clear from its position on the reunification of Germany. Secretary of State Baker, who hurried to Berlin immediately after the fall of the Wall, evaluated this event as a demonstration of Gorbachev’s “remarkable realism. To give President Gorbachev his due, he was the first Soviet leader to have the daring and foresight to allow the revocation of the policy of repressions in Eastern Europe.”358

And possibly in gratitude for this, Baker’s main interest was to respect the “lawful concern” of his eastern partner by slowing down the process of reunification by all means.359

“… in the interest of overall stability in Europe, the move toward reunification must be of a peaceful nature, it must be gradual, and part of a step-by-step process.”

The plan he proposed was a total disaster, for it corresponded completely to the Soviet scheme of the creation of a “common European home”: it was envisaged at first to reinforce the European Community, the Helsinki process and promote the further integration of Europe. All this, naturally, without undue haste but “step by step”360 over the passage of years.

“As these changes proceed, as they overcome the division of Europe, so too will the divisions of Germany and Berlin be overcome in peace and freedom.”

Furthermore, even without consulting Bonn, he rushed to embrace the Kremlin’s new puppets in Eastern Germany in order to signal “US intentions to try to improve the credibility of the East German political leadership and to forestall a power vacuum that could trigger a rush to unification.”361 And this was in January 1990, i.e. shortly before the elections in the GDR that actually solved the key question: would Germany reunite on Soviet conditions, or Western ones? Luckily the East Germans were less “patient” and smarter: knowing well what they were dealing with, they voted for immediate reunification, ignoring Baker and the pressure of the whole world.

Why, then, did the West and the USA with its seemingly conservative, even anti-communist administration, yearn for this “stabilization” or, to put it more simply, salvation of the Soviet regime?

Let us allow that Baker was ignorant, pompous and big-headed, dreaming of some kind of global structures “from Vancouver to Vladivostok”, of which he would be the architect362 (“the Baker doctrine”). I remember at one press-conference I even suggested introducing a unit of measurement for political brainlessness—one baker (the average man in the street would be measured in millibakers). At the very height of the bloody Soviet show in Bucharest at Christmas in 1989, he stated that “They are attempting to pull off the yoke of a very oppressive and repressive dictatorship. So I think that we would be inclined probably to follow the example of France, who today has said that if the Warsaw Pact felt it necessary to intervene on behalf of the opposition, that it would support that action.”363 The new pro-Soviet policy of the USA after the top-level meeting in Malta he explained by saying that “the Soviet Union has switched sides, from that of oppression and dictatorships to democracy and change.”364 This was said at the moment when the Soviet army was smashing the democratic opposition in Baku, killing several hundred people (which Baker also “treated with understanding”). But Baker was not alone, and this cannot be explained away by sheer stupidity. That is the tragedy, that such an idiotic position was shared by practically all Western governments, including the conservative ones.

Even Ronald Reagan, who started out with such a successful economic war against the USSR, virtually folded it up in his second presidential term, especially in 1987. As if unbelieving their own success, both Reagan and Thatcher began to play uncharacteristic games of “support for the reformers” in the Kremlin, not even wondering where these had come from. The limitations on the drain of technology fell away, as did those on loans and credits. Toward the end of 1987 the OECD noted: “at present, the monthly debt of the USSR has reached 700 million dollars,” and the total debt of the Soviet bloc rose by 55 percent since 1984.365

“Remarkably, as the debt rises, terms decline. From 1983 to 1986, the Soviet Union saw the average interest rate it pays drop from one to 0.15 point above the Libor bench mark. Brazil pays at least 0.75 of a point above Libor.”

President Bush and his administration simply continued this tendency of sliding into détente, reducing it to the point of logical absurdity when Gorbachev was being “saved” from his people: from miners, from demonstrations of the democratic opposition, and from nations enslaved by communism demanding independence. Just as with the Persian Gulf War, the “Cold War” was terminated just a little too soon than was required for victory, leaving us all with the worst possible version: the vile regime had not been destroyed, the country was wrecked, and the demoralized public no longer had the strength to complete what had been left unfinished. Indeed, it was even worse in a way—at least the Kurds were not forced to listen to fairy tales about that savior of humanity, Saddam Hussein, who for some reason was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize….

So what happened with our former allies in the struggle against détente, seemingly convinced anti-communists? The novelty of the “glasnost and perestroika” campaign lay in that the party, which had built up its power over 70 years on the basis of communist dogma, was now saving that power by demonstrating “anti-communism.” This was directed at anti-communists, whom the Kremlin appeared to grant any changes made to order. The West was racking its brains: what should we ask from them now?

“Let them first release Andrei Sakharov, free political prisoners, then we can talk.”

They released. They freed.

“Now let them leave Afghanistan.”

They left.

“Well, if they publish Alexander Solzhenitsyn, then really….”

They published him.

You could feel the effort, the strain with which the brains of Western thinkers worked, trying to find criteria for distinguishing a normal country from a totalitarian regime. It emerged suddenly that nobody had given this much thought in the past, and all of them now invented their criterion which, when satisfied, gave Moscow another ally. Finally, President Reagan’s crew, which was regarded as the most “unbridled” at that time, had its say:

“Let them bring down the Berlin Wall.”

So the Wall came down.

This was the tragedy of our time, that if one part of humanity had a perfect understanding of the essence of the communist idea (but sympathized with it), the other part, seemingly hostile to it, did not understand it, believing the symptoms of the disease to be the disease itself. People who understood that it was the communist idea that was the root of all evil, that the regime is not inhuman because it persecutes people for their convictions, occupies neighboring countries and threatens the whole world but, on the contrary, does everything because it is inhuman—were few and far between. But they, because of this circumstance, did not belong to the establishment. They were seen as the same kind of renegades, “extremists” like us, and our common influence in the perestroika years was negligible. What could we do? Write an article which might be published alongside dozens lauding perestroika? The conditions of life here equate you to a charlatan and an obvious Soviet agent: he has an opinion, and you have an opinion. They see no difference between an opinion and knowledge.

However, the establishments—both left and right—lived by their own rules, not permitting too much deviation from the consensus, from the need to be re-elected (in the case of politicians) or mutually respectful (in the case of public activists, academicians and journalists). That long-putrefied, banal world lives in accordance with “golden rules” instead of brains: here the attitude toward communism was determined not as to whether it is right or wrong, but by how “moderate” it happens to be. Hordes of charlatan-Sovietologists and so-called Kremlinologists made their careers on contrived reasoning as to who was a “hawk” and who was a “dove” in the Kremlin, who was a “reformer” and who was a “conservative.” And similar hordes of similar charlatans lived at the cost of the bastard “process of control over armaments”, even though it was clear to all that it was not a matter of armaments, and nobody really knew how much of them the Soviet Union had. Not to mention the army of professional diplomats, for whom the highest value on earth is stability at any cost (even at the cost of freedom), and their main task in life is the improvement of relations (even with the devil).

Anyway, being of the establishment themselves, the elite could not but feel a certain kinship with the Soviet elite, the Soviet establishment. To them it was comprehensible, closer, and more convenient than uncontrolled crowds of people, especially those like us, the “extremists.”

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” That was their entire wisdom. But even the most honest politician has to exist alongside this horde of bootlickers and time-servers, and take it into account: it is impossible to rule without it. So it came to pass that the left establishment knew what it was doing, and the right did not find a response. Even Ronald Reagan, with his instinctive hatred of communism, did not know what to say when he was asked:

“What will happen if Gorbachev is ousted tomorrow, just like Khrushchev, and everything goes back to Brezhnev’s times? The whole world will curse us for not supporting him.”

Alas, upon closer scrutiny, real anti-communists, who understood fully what we had to deal with, were fewer in the West than in the Soviet Union. In its heart of hearts, the West capitulated. The best that could be envisaged was the hope for a relaxation of the regime, its liberalization, i.e. the miraculous appearance of a “reformist tsar” in the Kremlin. So they took the bait proffered by the wise CC. It is not surprising that humanity refuses stubbornly to work out exactly what happened. It does not want investigations or documents from Kremlin archives, or the penitent memoirs of former executioners: everyone knows that they will not find much that flatters them. Even now, despite all the facts, it is preferable to repeat blatant lies about the courageous reformer Gorbachev, who rescued humanity from the horrors of communism. It is more peaceful, more convenient that way….

But, I will be told, not everyone is like that. The “Iron lady”, for example—isn’t she better? It cannot be that she also came to terms with communism, capitulated to it: that would be totally incompatible with her image. True, it is incompatible. This question bothered me for all the seven years of perestroika and even later. Attempts to argue with her, explain something, were useless: she simply refused to listen. At the mention of Gorbachev’s name she would only say with a proud toss of her head, as a mother would about her child:

“Isn’t he marvelous?”

That ended the discussion. But I persisted, and at every new meeting returned to the painful question. For me, it became a sort of fixed idea. Finally, in 1992, when I was digging in the CC archives in Moscow, I came across a document dated 1984 regarding Soviet aid to striking British miners.366 There was little in it that was new—it was no secret that at a critical moment in the strike, the USSR transferred a million dollars to them. To be more precise, the fact was known, but it was thought that the aid was sent by Soviet trade unions to their class brothers. Looking at that document now I realized that the decision to send aid was, naturally, made by the CC, and among the signatories was Gorbachev—the Second Secretary of the CC at that time, without whose signature not a single decision could be approved.

Naturally, upon returning to London I hurried to see Thatcher, anticipating the effect. Knowing how crucial the 1984 miners’ strike was to her, a strike that could have brought down her government, I did not doubt that I had finally hit the bullseye. Yes, when she saw her friend’s signature, she paled:

“When was this signed?” she demanded. I pointed at the date.

“This is even worse,” she said quietly. “I asked him about this at that very time, and he said he knew nothing about it.”

This was my long-awaited moment of triumph:

“The difficulty of ‘doing business’ with communists is that they have the disgusting habit of lying while looking you in the face,” I said slowly and clearly, enjoying every word.

There was a long pause. Possibly, too long.

“I am not naive, you know….”

In the book of her memoirs, which was being prepared for print, a mysterious footnote appeared on the relevant page:367

In fact, I have since seen documentary evidence suggesting that he knew full well and was among those who authorized payment.

6.11 Allies

I fear that the perestroika years only exposed the ever-present difference in the evaluation of communism by conservatives here and us—former citizens of communist countries who have experienced real socialism on our own skins. If for me communism was and is an absolute evil, worse than anything imaginable, for them it is just another problem among many, and not necessarily the most pressing. Moreover, I think they have never understood the universality of this evil, its international nature and, consequently, its general danger. Deep down, most of them have been inclined to think that this disease poses no threat to “civilized” people, and that those who have become infected by it have somehow earned it, just as in the distant past an epidemic of the plague was deemed to be God’s punishment for people’s sins. For example, a myth believed widely among [Western] conservatives is that communism in Russia is a consequence (or a variety) of specifically Russian despotism.

“The answer to many puzzles of Soviet behavior lies not in the stars, but in the tsars. Their bodies lie buried in Kremlin vaults, and their spirits live on in the Kremlin halls,” writes Richard Nixon, former President of the USA.368 If this is so, why start détente? Russia cannot be changed; it is as it is by the will of history, so all that is left to hope for is the appearance of an enlightened monarch on the Moscow throne.

Or here is the opinion of our favorite conservative thinker, worth about one “baker”, addressing the feather-headed Europeans in 1991:369

“Ironically, perhaps, the narrow nineteenth-Century European nationalism gave way to another, and a very different rationalism and universalist ideology that would also transcend national borders—Marxism. In the Soviet Union, Bolsheviks blended this ideology with a Slavophile movement that was itself a reaction against allegedly alien Western values.”

Where he found Slavophilism among the Bolsheviks is a mystery, but he is firmly convinced that he knows the antidote:

“To me, the transatlantic relationship stands for certain Enlightenment ideals of universal applicability.”

Let us put aside these illiterate excursions into history—what can one do if this is how our thinker and his friend George Bush were “enlightened” in some place such as Yale University, the fraternity to which they belonged in their student years.370 What is important is since they do not understand that Marxism emanated from the “ideals of the Enlightenment”, they do not see where its true danger lies. In their eyes, Marxism without the “Slavophile” distortion becomes acceptable for the “new world order”, so why fight it?

Curiously enough, in this they are at one with the European Mensheviks, for whom the myth of a good socialism and a bad Russia, which allegedly distorted it, always served as self-justification. (It is not clear, though, why they insisted so obdurately on supporting this distortion in all the seventy-four years of its existence?) If this was only a convenient lie for them, conservatives proceed to repeat it, not even seeing that in that case they will have to legalize the socialist experiment in their own country. In this sense, European conservatives were no better than Nixon and Baker: as far as they were concerned, communism was never a national evil and our fight against it never became a common fight. Just look at the eternal confusion of “Russian” and “Soviet”, which is the intermixture of the regime and the people, the hangman and the victim. This could evolve into utter absurdity: it would be said in one breath that “the Russians invaded Afghanistan” which was denounced by “the Soviet academician Sakharov.” Is this simply a linguistic mistake, illiteracy? I do not know. Real friends were more careful in their choice of words, bearing in mind the difference between fighting against your people, or against the regime that enslaved them. The more so as they were in no hurry to fight the regime. I recall that the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once said to me:

“It is not our business to try to change the Soviet system. That is something for the Russians to do. Our task is to agree with them on supporting balance in the world.”

The same received wisdom was repeated by Margaret Thatcher in her interview, when she told the world that she could “do business” with Gorbachev. “We shall not try to change them, and they will not change us” she said then. I remember answering her in the “Survey” magazine:371

“What a wonderful basis for “constructive mutual relations”! Ordinary business—you give them credits and technology, and they will give you hard currency in exchange […] at the cost of undermining the economy. You build them factories manufacturing trucks, and they will send those trucks full of their soldiers to Afghanistan. Do not try to change them—one way or another, they will change you. That is the essence of the economic reforms for which your friend Gorbachev is striving: the West is building the Soviet economy; meanwhile they are building communism throughout the world.”

The reader can understand my Schadenfreude when seven years later I found the aforesaid document concerning Soviet aid to striking British miners.

Our alliance with Western anti-communists was never equal, we united in their difficult times of the Cold War or the détente of the 1970s, but in our difficult times of perestroika they did not spare us a thought. Yet even in the time of the alliance there was never any full mutual understanding: their interpretation of the Soviet threat was too narrow, focusing mainly on its military aspect. But the fact that in the war of ideas armaments have a merely psychological significance, and that same war has no front or rear, remained beyond the boundaries of their understanding. It is hardly surprising that having achieved the bankruptcy of the USSR by 1986, they settled down, not taking the matter through to the end: as soon as the USSR ceased to be a military threat to the world, they lost interest in it. The further fate of millions did not concern them, possibly because of the abovementioned arrogance (if not chauvinism), assuming the mystical fate of peoples punished by communism.

Therefore our differences, albeit dampened by the existence of a common enemy, began to manifest themselves almost immediately: by the end of the 1970s, when the world realized that the USSR had no intention of abiding by the demands of the Helsinki Accords on human rights, our positions diverged. We believed that the only adequate response to the arrests of members of the Helsinki Groups should be a denunciation of the Helsinki Accords or at least the threat of denunciation—and an ultimatum for the release of those arrested. The West was inclined to pretend that nothing serious had occurred, and “continue the Helsinki process.” This position could be understood while leftist parties remained in power in most Western countries, but it did not change by the beginning of the 1980s either, when there was a rapid shift to the right. Even Reagan’s administration did not dare to touch this question, although many influential Republicans, being in opposition, shared our point of view openly.

Meanwhile this was the key problem in the entire policy of relations between the East and the West. The Helsinki Accords, their shortcomings aside, contained the fundamental principle of these relations—equality and the unbreakable bond between their three baskets: security, cooperation and human rights. They contained the extremely important acknowledgement of the fact that the external Soviet aggression is unbreakably linked with the anti-democratic, repressive nature of the regime, and without changing that it was senseless to speak of security, and any form of cooperation became capitulation. Economic relations became aid to the enemy, cultural ties an instrument of Soviet propaganda, and even diplomatic contacts simply served to affirm the false image of the Soviet Union as a normal state.

Furthermore, the Helsinki Accords enshrined another very important concession on the part of the West: “acknowledgement of the inviolability of the post-war borders of Europe”, which was de facto acknowledgement of the Soviet occupation of East and Central Europe, its legalization. It stands to reason that Brezhnev considered these Accords to be the major achievement of his rule and even remarked to one of his assistants372

“If we manage to complete Helsinki, I can die satisfied.”

This is not surprising: he wanted to “go down in history as the continuator of the line toward victory, as the one who affirmed victory in the war on the political plane.” Only an acceptance of Soviet achievements in Europe could enable moving forward—to the expansion of influence over all Europe, the “struggle for peace” and disarmament. For the USSR, these Accords were the palliative of post-war peaceful agreement in Europe, affirming their empire.

This affected the entire strategy of the West over the subsequent decades: a denunciation of the Helsinki Accords would equal a revision of the Yalta agreements and would raise the question of the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation of East European countries (including the Baltic states and even Ukraine and Belorussia). It was characteristic that even a hint of the possibility of such a turnabout in relations, when a number of US senators and congressmen suggested putting these questions to the 1980 Madrid Conference, threw Moscow into a panic—as a horrified CC reported (25 October 1979, St 182/27):

The initiative of the abovementioned congressmen was supported by the majority of the House. So far this does not obligate the administration to take concrete steps, but these dogmatic proposals may give Carter cause to launch another hostile campaign against the USSR.

In other words, the Helsinki Accords could have been an excellent instrument of foreign policy, if the West had ventured to use them. However not only Carter, but also Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl, who were practically in control of Western policy in the 1980s, did not take up the issue, and the Helsinki Accords simply became an instrument of Soviet policy for suppressing dissidence and the development of further advances on Europe. Instead of forcing Moscow to defend itself, moreover on its own territory (Eastern Europe, the republics of the USSR), the West allowed it to pass on to “peaceful” advance, which almost cost Western Europe its freedom.

Incidentally, it was not too late to take this position even at the height of the peace-making hysteria inspired by Moscow at the beginning of the 1980s. Instead of accepting the Soviet rules of the game and talking about an abstract “peace” outside the historical context of East-West relations, instead of endless bickering over the numbers of missiles and warheads, which frightened the unenlightened population even more (meaning that this was to the advantage of the USSR), there should have been a return to the context of the Helsinki Accords that would allow linking issues of security with the nature of the Soviet regime. This position would have been a winning hand for the West, bringing debates back on the right track, where the guilty party was obvious, and the political settlement of the East-West conflict was already proposed, and the presence of the Soviet signature under the Helsinki Accords would block talk of any conditions “unacceptable” to Moscow.

And really, what could be Moscow’s response to an ultimatum demanding its observance of the Helsinki Accords at that time? Nothing but demagogy. Yet their denunciation by the West offered the latter an excellent game: to propose convening an international conference for executing a post-war peace agreement, which would lead to inevitable questions concerning the self-determination of European countries occupied by the USSR under the pact with Hitler. Who could oppose a peace agreement at that tense time? Even frankly pro-Soviet forces would be hard put, and unprejudiced public opinion would certainly be on our side. This is not just my presupposition: in 1984, just when the anti-nuclear hysteria reached its peak in the USA, we staged a convincing experiment in two of the most liberal states of the USA—California and Massachusetts. Los Angeles voters were posed the following question at a referendum:373

Shall the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors transmit to the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union a communication stating that the risk of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union can be reduced if all people have the ability to express their opinions freely and without fear on world issues, including a nation’s arms policies; therefore the people of Los Angeles county urge all nations that signed the International Helsinki Accords on Human Rights to observe the Accords’ provisions of freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and emigration for all their citizens?

Despite the desperate resistance of professional peacemakers, the proposal was approved by two thirds of the vote! The same resolution was approved in Massachusetts in October:374

… Urging the Soviet Union to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and the Helsinki Agreements as a Means towards Reducing the Threat of Nuclear War.

Without doubt, the US government could have extended this experiment over the whole country and completely neutralized the movement of pro-Moscow peacemakers. But despite clear popular support, Reagan’s administration could not bring itself to take this step. Nor did they try to make it their international stance, as for denouncing the Accords or the idea of convening a “peace conference” in Europe—these were not open for discussion.

Alas, the conservatives proved totally incapable of grasping the principles of ideological warfare. Even the aid to anti-communist movements, the so-called Reagan doctrine, was limited by the purely financial aspect, more frequently in the form of money or military aid. But the enormous propaganda effort required to ensure public sympathy was beyond their comprehension. This and much more fell to us, who were without means or political opportunities. How much could be achieved by purely public groups with donations from public and private funds? The “International Resistance” set up by us in 1983 was pulled in all directions in attempts to counteract all that was performed in the USSR by enormous, well-financed and powerful structures. At times our Western friends did not understand what we were hoping to achieve. They could understand working with the press, conferences and press-conferences, but anything more complex would encounter unconquerable obstacles of bureaucratic misunderstanding.

The more illustrative example was our proposal to encourage mass desertion from Soviet units in Afghanistan. It was plain to see that no matter how much the mujahideen received in the form of arms, they had no hope of a military victory. That meant exploring other options that would make the Soviet occupation too expensive. The most obvious solution would be to enable the defection of Soviet servicemen abroad. Imagine how it would be if on a weekly basis, the Politburo was informed that several hundred more Soviet soldiers from the “limited contingent” had deserted, and the preceding several hundred, having reached the West, gave press-conferences. How much information of this kind could the Politburo take before beginning a rapid plan for withdrawing their forces? The direct participation of Soviet units in combat operations would be reduced to zero, to prevent further possibilities for desertion. Even this reaction would have been a great relief for the Afghans—they would be able to cope with the demoralized government army.

The fact that Soviet soldiers were deserting even without the faintest hope of coming through alive, let alone reaching the West, was known to us through our Afghan mujahideen friends. I never doubted it, realizing how unpopular this war for communist interests was among young Russians (to say nothing of those from the republics). Several dozen of them were already held prisoner by the Afghans, which created difficulties for mobile partisan groups. Moreover Soviet commanders, receiving intelligence about the villages in which these prisoners were held, bombed them unmercifully in order to teach the Afghans the price for such hospitality.

This problem needed attention in any case. The simplest part was to reach agreement with the mujahideen: they were fully aware of the value of the project. It was also understood by Zia-ul-Haq, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who closed his eyes willingly to the conduct of the escapees through his territory. It was only Western governments that refused to comprehend the crux of the matter, insisting stubbornly on the humanitarian nature of the operation, which was its smallest scope. All of us, various public groups tackling this problem, had enormous difficulties in bringing out a total of some 15 men, not more. There could be no talk of hundreds or thousands of escapees: not one single Western country would agree to accept them….

This is just one example, but it is very indicative of the main reasons for our differences: despite all our efforts, even the more conservative Western circles did not want to understand that dozens and hundreds of millions behind the Iron Curtain were their natural and most powerful allies and not a “humanitarian problem.” Communism could only really be defeated together with them.

6.12 I did all I could…

Yet this was still the blessed time when the presence of a common foe made us allies to some degree, and ensured the support if not of governments, then at least of some forces within society. Then the mindless euphoria over glasnost and perestroika in those days deprived us of this last vestige of support, our last allies. The temptation to conquer without a fight, to win with no effort proved too great for them to resist. Just at a time when we could have set about building legitimate opposition structures with no fear of serious repressions—the means and sympathies of the West were on the other side. Just at the time when political prisoners in Soviet prisons and camps were being subjected to the most refined pressure for the purpose of their ideological neutralization, the West applauded Gorbachev’s humanity. When Spetsnaz forces were killing Georgian democrats in the city square in Tbilisi, the National Front of Azerbaijan was being crushed by tanks in Baku, when government buildings were being stormed in Vilnius and Riga, there was only one thing worrying the West: that all this might “harm Gorbachev.” As for financial aid to the Kremlin reformers, it was measured in astronomical figures: over the seven years of the party’s perestroika, the Soviet foreign debt rose by around 45 billion dollars! That was the price paid by the West to ensure that no genuine democracy could arise in the former USSR, and no market economy. They would have paid even more had the August “putsch” been more successful: there was a new Marshall Plan in the offing, discussed in all seriousness at the meetings of the G7.

It would seem that the very mention of the Marshall Plan, which saved Europe from communism, would require a pause for thought: there would have been no idea of offering it 50 years ago to a Germany that had not yet been beaten! Could it have been offered to Petain’s France, Mussolini’s Italy or Quisling’s Norway? At least out fathers had more sense than to defeat the enemy first, force it to capitulate unconditionally—and only then talk about economic aid. Had they acted differently, Europe would not have seen democracy, but lived for decades in a “post-totalitarian” absurdity.

Naturally, we attempted to counter this lunacy right to the last, doing our best to support independent forces and publications inside the USSR. The New York-based “Centre for Democracy in the USSR”, created for that purpose, even began to translate and publish these editions in the USA in an attempt to bring them to the notice of the public until its funds ran out. In order to make the most rational use possible of our meagre resources, it became necessary to pool everything into one “organization uniting democrats from all republics” under the general slogan-title “Democracy and Independence.” But even the conservative Daily Telegraph found us too right-wing.375

“To many dissidents, the West is gobbling up sophisticated disinformation, to the effect that Gorbachev is a genuine democrat, and that he is under threat from conservative opponents…. Yet the more these lone voices decry glasnost, the more the suspicion grows that they are standing still, shifting the goalposts that mark reform in order to ensure their past bravery was not in vain. … They see conspiracy everywhere[…].”

Of course! Even Margaret Thatcher… and even Ronald Reagan…. Only a tiny handful of journalists (Abe Rosenthal of the “New York Times”, the editorial columns of the “Wall Street Journal”) were brave enough to support us in those times. Luckily, the increasing crisis in the country elicited a sharp radicalization of society, and by 1990 even the Moscow intelligentsia began to understand the nature of the matter. New opportunities arose; new forces emerged from under the control of the authorities, shedding the magic spell of perestroika. In the summer of 1990 we made a final serious attempt to somehow unite the opposition—we organized a conference in Prague, inviting all the old dissidents and the new members of the opposition from all the republics of the USSR, and those Western conservative circles that still appreciated our efforts.

Prague was an ideal venue for this purpose not just because of its proximity to the USSR or eased entry conditions, but first of all because of the obvious symbolism, which Vaclav Havel pointed out in his welcoming address. As the only head of state among others in the world who had come to power as the result of an anti-communist revolution, he was not afraid to declare solidarity with our position, did not betray his party, but spoke about our common principle—that freedom and justice are indivisible.376 “If they are under threat anywhere, they are under threat everywhere.”

Alas, he really proved to be the only one. In order to become a genuinely functioning center of opposition we required considerable means, printing equipment, computers, and communications—all that a large-scale organization needs for its normal operation. But despite all our frantic searching, we found nobody who would equip us with all of the above—no foundation, no government, not a sympathetic patron. It looked as if the future fate of the world was of no interest to anyone. Some replied quite frankly: “If you are right and the USSR will disintegrate soon, why should we spend money on this?” The possibility that it might disintegrate in very different ways was not something anyone wanted to think about.

It was a curious state of affairs: the regime was still alive and it could drag hundreds of thousands of people with it into the grave. Furthermore, it became obvious in 1990 that Gorbachev and his adherents were preparing for something. But this did not worry anyone. Scraping up some money we established (in Poland, another newly liberated country) a training and coordination center called “Warsaw-90.” The Poles, former activists of Fighting Solidarity, undertook the rapid preparation of groups of activists from various parts of the USSR to work under martial law conditions. At our request they even restored their clandestine workshop for manufacturing radio transmitters and tried to supply them to every group returning to the USSR. We all remembered how under the conditions of the mass repressions of martial law, reliable and timely information is worth its weight in gold. The lives of thousands and thousands of people would rely on it.

In full confirmation of our forecasts, the regime launched its attack on the Baltic states in 1991 by raising prices and generally clamping down. There was no doubt: the proclamation of martial law could be expected at any time over the next few weeks. If there was something that restrained them, it was the growing resistance of the population that threatened to spill over into a general strike. By spring, confrontation seemed inevitable, and from my point of view—desirable. This was a unique moment in our history, one of those rare moments that determine the life of a country for generations to come. For the first time in 70 years of pitiless oppression, people issued an open challenge to the regime. Such an entirely popular outburst, uniting all the ethnic and social groups in the country with a desire to defend their honor and freedom, was invaluable. It meant that in these seemingly cowed people there lay the seeds of true democracy. But suppositions were not enough. Weak and inexperienced opposition forces needed forging in the process of fighting the old regime in order to develop into a proper political structure, capable of sweeping the nomenklatura from all levels of state rule. Only a struggle like this could produce real leaders, popular organizers in every district, in every industrial plant, thereby creating a genuine political alternative. Without this struggle there could be no system changes, and the new putative system would not have the necessary support.

The country was ripe for revolution. And the stupidest thing that could be done under the circumstances would be allowing the authorities to keep the initiative, letting them choose their own moment to attack. The regime had to be confronted when it was least prepared for it and wanted it least. But influencing the attitudes in an enormous country from abroad, without an organization, without a nationwide means of communication, was impossible. We were unable to achieve anything like that, having been abandoned without support and resources all over the world. There was one last chance—attempt to go there.

Getting to Moscow with enormous difficulty in April 1991, armed with a five-day visa, I threw myself into a maelstrom of meetings, interviews and conferences. The hope that something could still be corrected, saved, gave me strength, even though I was well aware that all I could offer people was advice, not money, technology or organizational structures, or even the sympathy of the Western world from which I had come. This was a desperate attempt to convince, a hope that one loudly said word may be sufficient. After all, had we not been using words to fight this regime for thirty years? Were we not accustomed to doing all that was in our power in even more hopeless times?

“Confrontation is inevitable”—I said at a press conference immediately upon arrival.377—“The only thing that needs to be thought about is avoiding bloodshed. I have said a thousand times and say again: what is needed is a general strike. This is the only way to avoid blood and famine. […] Don’t you understand: there will be famine before the winter? Gorbachev will not retire voluntarily. The KGB will not retire voluntarily. That means they will shoot.

“I believe that you cannot remain passive today. If our country does not arise as one and not tell the communist regime to leave, the alternative will be famine in Ethiopian proportions and a Lebanese-style civil war.”378

“I do not understand how you can morally support striking miners and continue to go to work,”—I challenged people in subsequent interviews.379—“How can that be: miners are striking not for themselves, but for their common cause, while you go to work…. I went through the camps. If one prisoner went on hunger strike, the entire camp went on hunger strike. The country must go on strike. […] If this regime remains in power, your children will be fighting somewhere in Poland or Moldavia. They shall crush a rebellion by the Azeris. Do you really want that?”

“Democratic structures need to be organized as soon as possible. Your deputies sit in your Russian parliament and lose time. Surely they understand that there is nothing backing them, no power? Take away their microphones tomorrow and they are no longer there! People must unite. Call it a forum, or a party…. You must realize that the country will collapse, and there will be nobody there.”380

In fact, this was the core of the problem: the country was ready to throw the regime out, but it was the new elite that was not ready, the new “democrats” that grew up under perestroika. On the whole, they were incidental people, who had come to the fore in pseudo-elections, when any new face looked better than the old; they were closer to the regime than to the people. They were not at all anxious for radical changes which could move them aside, too, depriving them of the unexpectedly acquired position of “leaders.” Attending a session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, I was astounded by their inadequacy: they spent half a day in useless bickering regarding which group of deputies would use which microphone. At the end of stormy debates on this very important subject they even put the matter to a vote and, delighted with their own democracy, called a recess. At that time the country was so inflamed that several days later even communist trade unions were forced, as I have mentioned earlier, to hold a one-day strike in order to retain at least some of their influence. More than 50 million workers downed tools, moreover in the face of an official prohibition.381

Making use of the parliamentary recess, I mounted the stand and tried to bring them back to reality. Fat chance! Just like other Russian leaders they dreamed of a civil peace and negotiations at a round table with the communist regime. No matter how hard I tried to explain that even in Poland (where the leaders of Solidarity had at least millions of people backing this organization and who had already experienced martial law) the round table had proved to be a mistake: it only slowed down the movement of the Polish public toward democracy, but the Russian “democrats” did not want to understand that in their situation such a round table would be anything but round. In the conflict between the people and the regime, their instinct was to choose the side of the regime that fathered them. Yeltsin, their undisputed leader at that time, even abandoned the striking miners to their own devices in order to agree a temporary truce with Gorbachev. Furthermore, out of all the currently existing political groups, he selected the “liberal communists” as his allies—his future deadly foes: he appointed Alexander Rutskoy as his Vice-president, and Ruslan Khazbulatov as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia. Just four months later this choice became fatal to the entire subsequent development of events, to the whole country, making dismantling the old system impossible. Tangled in conspiracies, drowning in putsches, the regime was to fall like an overripe fruit. But all the structures of the new authority were blocked by the old nomenklatura, paralyzed by the egotism of the new elite from the ranks of the “liberal communists” so dear to the heart of Boris Yeltsin. With no mass structures to lean on, the new democracy was suspended in midair, and power was seized by the greedy and soulless bureaucracy….

Still, why blame only the permanently drunk former party apparatchik? It would be hard to expect anything else from him. But the entire “flower of the nation”, the intellectual elite of the country was no better, taking fright at their compatriots at the critical moment, more than a chekist retribution. They started moaning and sniveling:

“Oh, God forbid, a Russian uprising…. Oh, there will be tanks under our windows….”

“From the comfort of Cambridge it may seem that if the factories stop working, loaves shall start falling from heaven,” I would be preached at daringly by some lady382 from the intelligentsia, who had never seen anything more frightening in her life than a party rebuke. “But we are from here, and can see perfectly well that this is no jump into the ‘realm of freedom’, but a step toward destruction and chaos, epidemics and famine. With the aid of a general strike, it will be impossible to avert civil war—just hasten it… numerous wise heads realized long ago that if there is one thing we have to fear, it is ‘blazing revolutionaries’, displaying fearlessness in front of advancing tanks.”

Well, that is why you are given “wise heads” to “see perfectly”…. Several weeks later there were tanks under windows that required displaying fearlessness, but it was too late to save the country from destruction and chaos. That incandescent April, when everything was simply black or white and everything was achievable will be remembered by more than one generation of impoverished, devastated people, huddling in their homes in fear of marauding bands. As for me, just like thirty years ago, I have nothing to say to them but:

I did all I could….

---

Notes

302 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Instructions from the Centre: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations 1975–1985. London: Sceptre (pbk), 1993, Chapter 8, “The Socialist International”, pp. 253.

303 9 April 1985* (473/PR/54), pp. 4–5.

304 Brian Hunter (ed.), The Statesman’s Yearbook. London: Macmillan, 1994, p. 464, 591

305 Brian Hunter (ed.), The Statesman’s Yearbook. London: Macmillan, 1994, p. 955, 1113.

306 BBC Nine O’clock News, 18 November 1994.

307 Gerald Frost & Andrew McHallam, In Search of Stability: Europe’s Unfinished Revolution. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992. Pp. 79–80.

308 See John Simpson, The Darkness Crumbles: Dispatches from the Barricades. London: Hutchinson, 1992. 1998.

309 “A Hole in the Wall” (part 1), shown on 30 August 1994; “The Fatal Error” (part 2), shown on 6 November 1994, BBC2—two episodes of “Fall of the Wall,” Television Documentary Archive, produced by David Ash and Stephen Clark, Brian Lapping Associates. See http://www.kingscollections.org/catalogues/lhcma/collection/f/xf10-001/.

310 Chernyaev’s diary can be seen online. In Russian: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/rus/Chernyaev.html

311 Ion Pacepa, Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989

312 Gorbachev, 1990 (SA), p. 301.

313 17 December 1989*, pp. 3–4.

314 29 September 1989* (St 105/159).

315 18 January 1989 (St 95/62).

316 Kak “delalas” politika perestroiki, 1989 (SA), p. 43.

317 Kak “delalas” politika perestroiki, 1988 (SA), p. 279.

318 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 380–381.

319 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 386, 394–398.

320 Pavel Sudoplatov, Anatoli Sudoplatov, Jerrold L Schecter, Leona Schecter, Robert Conquest, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster. Boston: Little, Brown, © 1994, 1995. pp. 364–366.

321 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 256.

322 Gorbachev and the German Question, Gorbachev Foundation: Moscow, 2006, compiled by Alexander Galkin and Anatoly Chernyaev, http://www.rodon.org/other/mgigv/1989_2.htm#53; see also Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 441 and 442.

323 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 452.

324 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 446 et seq.

325 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 468–469.

326 Gorbachev and the German Question (2006), http://www.rodon.org/other/mgigv/1990_1.htm

327 The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918)

328 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Instructions from the Centre: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations 1975–1985, Sceptre (pbk): London, (1993), Chapter 7, “The European Community”, p. 237.

329 Kak “delalas” politika perestroiki, 1987 (SA), pp. 109–112.

330 Gorbachev, 1986 (SA), pp. 10–12, 14.

331 Gorbachev, 1988 (SA), pp. 150–151.

332 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 56.

333 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 404, 410–411.

334 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 15 (Kissinger), 22 (Giscard d’Estaing).

335 Zagladin (SA), p. 298. Froment-Meurice was then adviser on foreign relations to a major private bank and had recently been appointed to head a commission on joint ventures with Soviet enterprises.

336 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), pp. 461, 467.

337 Pierre Mauroy (1928–2013) French politician. From 1988–1992 first secretary of the French Socialist Party. In 1992, succeeded Willy Brandt as the president of the Socialist International.

338 Gorbachev, 1991 (SA), pp. 607, 612–613.

339 Gorbachev, 1991 (SA), p. 609.

340 Gorbachev, 1991 (SA), p. 340 and 342.

341 Gorbachev, 1991.2 (SA), p. 250.

342 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 7.

343 A phrase coined by Yuri Afanasyev, Dean of the Historical Archives Institute. With Sakharov and others, he became a leader of the opposition within the Congress, the Inter-Regional Group made up of deputies from Russia and other Soviet republics.

344 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 2.

345 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 2.

346 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 5.

347 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 3.

348 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 12.

349 15 February 1991* (No 01499), p. 8.

350 Kak “delalas” politika perestroiki, 1989 (SA), p. 324.

351 Gorbachev, 1989 (SA), p. 115.

352 Kak “delalas” politika perestroiki, 1991 (SA), p. 21–22.

353 20 October 1990 p. 1.

354 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1991 (https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB345/)

355 TV interview, 17 December 1984, quoted in Jonathan Haslam, Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2011, pp. 348–349.

356 BBC World Service, tape No 90R41-AO85G, Phone-in with Soviet residents, 11 July 1988, Archived 3 June 1990. First quote—Min. 13:22; Second quote—Min. 00:40. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p033k7t4)

357 “The Presidency A Game of One-on-One,” Sidey, Hugh, Time, 18 December 1989, Vol. 134, Issue 25.

358 James Baker, US Secretary of State, “A New Europe, a New Atlanticism. Architecture for a New Era” (Speech delivered to the Berlin Press Club on 13 December 1989): Vital Speeches of the Day. 1/15/90, Vol. 56 Issue 7, p195-199. 5p. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/foreign-policy-bulletin/article/euroatlantic-architecture-from-west-to-east/52C89037A07F88A54B258D2859EC3592)

359 James Baker, Berlin Speeches, p. 12.

360 Official State Department (James Baker) statement, Joseph Fitchell, “Europeans Laud Baker Vision of U.S. Role on the Continent,” International Herald Tribune, 14 December 1989, France, English, p. 1. (https://archive.org/stream/InternationalHeraldTribune1989FranceEnglish/Dec 14 1989, International Herald Tribune, #33220, France (en)#page/n0/mode/2up)

361 Official State Department clarification, International Herald Tribune, 14 December 1990.

362 James A. Baker, “Aspen Institute Address: 18 June 1991”, Berlin Speeches, p. 15. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/foreign-policy-bulletin/article/euroatlantic-architecture-from-west-to-east/52C89037A07F88A54B258D2859EC3592)

363 NBC Meet the Press, Sunday, December 24, 1989. (https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity|video_work|2405992)

364 Don Oberdorfer, “A U.S.-Soviet Meeting of Minds,” International Herald Tribune, 2 January 1990, France, English, p. 1. (https://archive.org/details/InternationalHeraldTribune1990FranceEnglish)

365 Editorial, “Going into the Red,” Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y., 7 December 1987. 1.

366 See 20 November 1984, for Scargill request to Soviet ambassador in London for funds for the National Union of Mineworkers (in Russian).

367 Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years. London: Harper Collins, 1993, p. 369, footnote.

368 Richard Nixon, The Real War, New York: Simon & Schuster (1990), p. 49.

369 James Baker, Berlin Speeches, p. 16.

370 Claire Messud, “Bones of a Conspiracy,” The Observer, 31 July 1994, pp. 21–23.

371 Vladimir Bukovsky, Survey, Spring 1985, Vol. 29, No 1 (124), pp. 79–87.

372 Interview with Anatoly Kovalev, head of Soviet delegation at Helsinki negotiations in 1975. Quoted in “The Centre”, part 4 of the documentary Messengers from Moscow, Barraclough Carey productions, Los Angeles.

373 Ted Vollmer, “Human Rights Measure Okd for County Ballot,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1984. Editorial Pages, CC/Part II (http://www.newspapers.com/image/401342424/)

374 Massachusetts Archives, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, H.R. October 25, 1984.

375 John Kampfner, “Gulag survivors bitter as appeals go unheard”, The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 1989, p. 14.

376 Robert L. Bartley, “An Independence Day for Europe,” Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.: 6 July 1990, p. A6.

377 Ogonyok, April 1991, No 18, pp. 26–27.

378 Vitaliy Buzuev, “Exiles: When I return: Observations from the Press Conference of Vladimir Bukovsky,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Saturday, 20 April, 1991, p. 4.

379 David Gai, “Vladimir Bukovsky: The People’s Passivity Surprises Me,” Vechernyaya Moskva, No 76, 18 April, 1991, p. 3.

380 Ogonyok, April 1991, No 18, pp. 26–27.

381 “Fifty million Russians strike for an hour in defiance of ban” (Reuters) International Herald Tribune, 27–28 April 1991, p. 5.

382 Alla Latynina, “When the Iron Curtain rises,” Literaturnaya gazeta, No 29, 24 July 1991, p. 9.