Russia's Dead End: An Insider's Testimony from Gorbachev to Putin

by Andrei A. Kovalev

  What are the deep-rooted reasons why Russia represents a menace to itself and to those around it, and why has democracy remained alien to Russia? The overriding objective of this book is to attempt to provide at least preliminary answers to these questions.

  Russia does not adhere to a normal conservatism that carefully preserves the best and discards that which is obsolete. By some strange sort of logic, in Russia conservatism has become a synonym for stagnation, the preservation of the existing order of things at any price. It is no accident that the concept of conservatism is absent from the political life and even from the everyday political vocabulary of contemporary Russia. Its camouflaged synonym is Putin’s “stability.” Evidently, the “national leader” has not read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. However, there is another possibility: he read and admired Huxley’s model of social organization.

  It is extremely difficult to grasp what is going on in Russia and even more difficult to conceive of various possible future scenarios. This is especially true because the state constantly lies about both the present and the past, and it does everything in its power to withhold reliable information. But if there is no key that will open the doors to the repositories of truth that are securely bolted with both medieval and contemporary padlocks, it is both possible and necessary to pick these locks.

  The author’s testimony of how the Augean stables of Soviet totalitarianism were cleaned out during the period of Gorbachev’s perestroika may serve as one pick with which to open these locks.2 Such testimony about bygone days provides a retrospective on the more distant past and illuminates the present field of vision. The second pick is the author’s know-how, initially acquired in the course of scholarly work, then via service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and later the Russian Federation, in the secretariat of President Gorbachev, and on the staff of the Security Council of Russia. The combination of theoretical and practical political work can lead to interesting results. Working in whatever capacity in such institutions will yield nothing to the investigator in and of itself without freedom from dogma, stereotypes, and preconceived analysis (liberum examen) of problems. When one has worked on all sorts of issues ranging from international relations to domestic problems and human rights in both the USSR and Russia, the picture that emerges is quite broad and multifaceted. Such a liberum examen thus constitutes the third pick. Using these picks, I will try, first of all, to analyze the reasons why the most profound democratic reformation in Russia, that initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, failed.

  The epoch of the transformation of the USSR from totalitarianism to democracy during perestroika is perhaps one of the most interesting, intricate, and paradoxical periods in the entire history of humanity. There can hardly be any doubt about the significance of dismantling a regime covering one-sixth of the earth’s surface that even the term cannibalistic describes inadequately. The intricacies of this historical period are even more complicated. Every participant or even observer of those fascinating and dramatic events has his or her own perspective, which sometimes bears no resemblance to what actually went on. And they are the primary sources . . .

  The personal and other ambitions of some authors of memoirs, of researchers, and of journalists occasionally distort the historical mirrors to such an extent that quite soon after the events it is often difficult to distinguish between the truth and its falsification. Sometimes, however, this is done unconsciously as a result of an ignorance of what has transpired. But almost no one admits to such ignorance, and this gives rise to the Big Lie, so characteristic of Russia.

  Well-intentioned authors should decide for themselves how to avoid purveying such falsification. One possible means is to write only about events in which one has personally participated or, at a minimum, of which one has direct knowledge. Without aspiring to “truth in the highest degree,” such an approach allows me to sketch that part of history in which I was a participant. I was one of the reform-minded officials who attempted to create good out of evil in the USSR (to borrow a thought from one of Robert Penn Warren’s characters, who considered that more good can be made from nothing). Such an approach also enables me to discuss the subsequent regeneration of evil after the collapse of the USSR.

  The reader may derive a partly justified impression that I was not involved in some of the questions touched upon in this book. That would not be completely accurate. Taking part in insider politics entails possession of a broad spectrum of information; it is impossible to be fully engaged in policy formulation and implementation without knowing all facets of a problem. Needless to say, that is only possible if one does not function as an “answering machine” but takes a responsible attitude toward one’s work—that is, pursuing not personal advantage but rather the interests of one’s country. An important part of one’s personal know-how is gained through the tons of official papers one has drafted and dozens of tons of such papers that one has read, as well as the exchanges of views in the hallways of power and, consequently, the sharing of information.

  A fundamental misunderstanding exists concerning the decisive role of leaders such as presidents, prime ministers, ministers, and the like. That’s not how things work. These personages are manipulated by their entourages. For example, in 1997–98, Ivan Rybkin, the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and the staff he headed had a different, softer, and more balanced position regarding the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) than other ministries and departments did. I don’t think that he was fully aware of what was going on, but it would have been wrong for me to pass up the opportunity to influence the Russian position on this matter. Unfortunately, my efforts were fruitless, but I can’t go into details out of consideration for the safety of those colleagues who pretended they did not notice the game I was playing. After the government prohibited direct contact with foreigners and after it said that the West was “looking for our weak link,” I had to admit my defeat. There are many similar examples in this book.

  The second task is to reveal why, as early as the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia took the path of revanchism and reaction. There are three aspects to this. Regarding the first, that of power, we need to try and understand why and how the Russian authorities adopted increasingly reactionary positions in both foreign and domestic politics beginning in the early years of the administration of Yeltsin, a man who was considered a democrat. The reasons that the Russian people followed this path constitute the second factor. Finally, the third aspect is why international society closed its eyes to the negative phenomena in Russia.

  Closely connected to this is a third task: to try to imagine Russia’s future as well as its shared future with the West. Here we need to address the question of whether the Cold War has actually ended and, if so, when and why. For many reasons the generally accepted view that it ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall is unconvincing.

  Analyzing what is happening in and around Russia would be an entirely unproductive undertaking if one did not renounce myths and stereotypes. Unfortunately, an independent analysis of what is happening in contemporary Russia and of possible paths of development yields a cheerless conclusion. A new pernicious period of stagnation has begun in Russia, rife with the most dangerous consequences.

  The fourth task consists of trying to define what is the starting point of contemporary Russian history. In the following text I argue that in many respects contemporary Russia began as a result of the August 1991 putsch.

  While revising the text of my book for the English edition, I was struck by the many references to the special services.3 Unfortunately, my own experience, as well as the analysis based on information about their activities, demonstrates without question the fatal role that existed under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Committee of State Security (KGB). After the collapse of the USSR, the CPSU and the KGB ceased to exist. But the monster—the security apparatus—survived and remained essentially the same
as before. It may be named the Central Committee of State Security.

  Although this book deals with the period when, in various capacities, I was a direct participant in or an informed observer of Soviet and Russian politics, by necessity it cannot strictly be limited to this time frame. To understand what was going on, it is sometimes necessary to refer in rather broad terms to the history of Russia. Moreover, many of the phenomena that originated in those years became evident only after I left government service and the homeland where I was born and had spent practically my entire life.

  As testimony regarding the period from roughly 1985 to 2007, this book is based exclusively upon the facts and figures I relied on in my own work and that were known in the circles of power.

  A final thought. The author and journalist Vladimir Giliarovskii pointedly remarked:

  Russia has two great curses.

  Below is the power of darkness

  While above is the darkness of power.

  Squeezed between them is the realm of light, the realm of everything that is better in Russia and what the poet Andrei Voznesenskii spoke of in the verse cited in the epigraph of this book. Expanding the realm of light is objectively in the interest of everyone, in Russia itself and in the democracies, apart from those in the Kremlin, the Russian White House, the Lubyanka, and other Russian power structures who manipulate the power of darkness for the sake of the darkness of power. In what follows I devote primary attention to the search for a way to diminish the realm of darkness in Russian life.

  The genre of this book—personal testimony—means that the reader should have some conception of just who the author is. Therefore, I must introduce myself. How can I do this most efficiently? Just who am I? Am I, according to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the sum of my human relations—my family, friends, acquaintances, enemies? Am I the sum of my knowledge gleaned from my own life and the countless number of books I have read? My experience, sometimes positive, sometimes negative? Poetry and literature that have moved me? Musical harmonies and art?

  I think in the first place it should not be forgotten that we are all children of our parents and grandchildren of our grandfathers and grandmothers. My family was very different from others in our milieu. It was as if we lived in parallel worlds.

  Generally speaking and in all seriousness, I am not sure just what “I” am. Therefore, for a start, I will follow the tried-and-true method worked out by personnel departments. I will fill out the standard columns of a questionnaire, although I will do this informally.

  Personal Name, Family Name

  I like my name Andrei. I am indebted to my father for it. When I was born as just another nameless creature, the process began of choosing a name for me. Father listened, but the names he wanted to give his son were not to the liking of others in the family. Then he said, “We will call him Afrikan!”

  Panic ensued among the relatives. But father stood firm. Afrikan it would be . . .

  “Perhaps, nevertheless, we will call him Andriusha,” someone timidly suggested several days later.

  “I still prefer Afrikan, but I think . . .”

  And he thought for a long time until the others gave up. Then, as if reluctantly, he assented, . . . and his son was given the very name that he had wanted all along.

  As for the family name, Kovalev, it sounds both very ordinary but is also a source of pride. I say very ordinary because there are lots of Kovalevs (just as there are lots of Kuznetsovs and Smiths). I am proud of it for two reasons. First, because it is my family’s name. My own. Second, because of those who also bear the name.

  It is under this name, Andrei Kovalev, that I have made my way through life. Sometimes I walk about, sometimes I run, sometimes I crawl, sometimes I sink into the swamp . . .

  Patronymic

  Anatol’evich. Because my father is Anatoly Kovalev, a well-known diplomat, politician, and poet in the 1960s through the 1980s who worked under a pseudonym as a journalist and screenwriter for documentary films. He also wrote the Alphabet of Diplomacy, which went through six editions.

  Without the slightest doubt, I can say that he was the primary influence on me. He was a very solid and well-integrated man, but at first glance one might mistake him for a mass of contradictions. He was a diplomat with one of the most brilliant careers in the country, thus implying he had a fair measure of pragmatism, but at the same time he was an idealist and a romantic. He was one of the closest intimates of all the leaders of the USSR from Leonid Brezhnev (1964–82) to the last general secretary of the country, Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–91), with whom he was particularly close. At the same time, in his verses he barely concealed his opposition to the existing order and rulers during the era of stagnation (1964–85), and that was especially dangerous for a person of his position in Soviet society.

  Actually there were no contradictions. He was simply a very gifted, hardworking, and stalwart person. This deserves at least a brief explanation.

  The son of a colonel in the military medical service and the secretary of the director of the Bolshoi Theatre, Father grew up in the atmosphere of the Stalinist repressions. He never believed that his friends’ parents who were arrested were “enemies of the people,” and early on he understood everything about the Stalinist regime. In the xenophobic USSR, he had to know how to defend himself, including from physical aggression. Therefore, he took up boxing while a schoolboy. Like many of his peers, he was attracted to the especially apolitical game of chess and was en route to a good career in chess. But he chose instead to enter the Institute of International Relations (the present MGIMO) and the Literary Institute, and he studied at both simultaneously until he was warned that the KGB was interested in his verses.4 He had to give up the Literary Institute.

  He became the youngest department head in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the youngest deputy minister, and the architect of the policy of détente. He fell into semi-disgrace, however, because of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and endured genuine persecution following the Soviet aggression against Afghanistan in 1979 and the USSR’s turn toward confrontation with the West. He served as first deputy minister of foreign affairs under Gorbachev and was one of the architects of the new Soviet foreign policy. He preferred to work at his desk, solving real problems, rather than attend press conferences, diplomatic receptions, and other glittering gala events. He did not forsake his passion for poetry, which, first and foremost, reflects his political and civic positions.

  In practice, to a high degree my professional development and my development as a human being occurred in this milieu.

  What does a crisis of some sort—Caribbean, Mideast, Berlin—mean for any person, especially a child or an adolescent, wherever he might live?5 Even more, a diplomatic document? In the best case, it is something deserving a few minutes of attention (if, of course, one isn’t living in the area and is not directly affected by it). Everything was different for me. My father, gray from exhaustion, sometimes explained what was going on, sometimes was strikingly silent (as he was after the Prague Spring or the Soviet aggression against Afghanistan). News of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy burst into our home via a phone call from a family friend who had heard about it on the Voice of America. The ministry called after Father had already hurried out from our home. This is how the world in which I lived began to make sense to me, and politics became a natural environment, something like a way of life.

  Toward what ends did Father employ his diplomatic mastery, his political influence, and his fighting character?

  In 1965 after receiving an independent sphere of activity as director of the First European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR (France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Holland, the Vatican, and several small states), he immediately initiated a review of relations with these countries. France came first. The first tangible result of this work was the start of international détente, beginning in 1966, that arose from Pres
ident Charles de Gaulle’s visit to the USSR. Parenthetically, I should say that the alternative to détente was an increase in international tension, threatening to lead to a large-scale war involving nuclear weapons. Father went down in history as a man dedicated to détente, from which he never retreated even though the Soviet leadership renounced it.

  He made use of détente not only to overcome the threat of war and improve relations with the West but also to ameliorate the situation inside the USSR, particularly with regard to human rights. As far back as the 1970s, the heyday of the period of stagnation, Father was able to convince the USSR, quite uncharacteristically, to assume an obligation in the area of human rights, in particular with regard to the Final Act of the CSCE. In preparation for the conference, he succeeded in getting the Soviet Union to ratify the international human rights treaties.

  His closeness to Brezhnev and Yury Andropov, to say nothing of Gorbachev, enabled Father to influence domestic policy as well.

  The unique common denominator of his behavior was his critical attitude toward Josef Stalin. During this period one’s attitude toward Stalin was a key indicator of one’s political outlook. During the period of stagnation, serious efforts were made to rehabilitate Stalin. (Unfortunately, these efforts succeeded in the time of Putin.) This was a fundamental question of domestic and foreign policy since rehabilitating Stalin would inevitably signal an extreme hardening of Soviet policy in both foreign and domestic affairs, including transforming the Cold War into a “hot war.” I could write a great deal about this, but I will confine myself to just one example, the question of whether—and if so, how—to punish Alexander Solzhenitsyn whose epic work The Gulag Archipelago, officially banned in the Soviet Union, had exposed Stalin’s system of slave labor camps.