A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev

welcome to this cold war international history project seminar and look launch I'm Christian Osterman direct the history and public policy program here at the center which of course includes as our core project the cold war international history project known to many of you as a by now 15 16 year old clearinghouse for the new field of cold war the national history some of our publications are outside and there's a lot more on our website at CWI HP dot o RG thrilled this afternoon to open up a discussion of professor vladislav zhu bucks new book a failed empire copies of which by the way are available outside at a discount so between here and the reception upstairs in the sixth floor boardroom at 5:30 there's a chance to get your own very own copy and possibly have it signed by our illustrious author well also I'm also delighted to have along with professors ubach panel of distinguished scholars to review discuss the new book really start up a discussion that we hope to have with everybody here bastard or Raymond Garth off Timothy Naftali will give comments and Tom Blanton well introduce in just a second we'll share the panel once I go offstage let me just make sure I get all the for malya of the way this event is co-sponsored co-organized with the National Security Archive at George Washington University as well as with the Institute for European Russian Eurasian Studies at George Washington versity directed by hope Harrison who unfortunately can't be with us today but wants to make sure that she that she is looking forward hopefully via the world wide web or the the webcast to this presentation let me point out a couple of upcoming events in case you'd like to join us over the next few weeks again for an event on November 9th we're airing between the lines a documentary on the on the wall on November 15th the center is hosting the Ron Young ROTC democracy lecture the speaker the awardee will be Professor Anatoly McAuliffe who is the rector of the exiled European shimada's University Belarusian institution that is now based in Vilnius on November 28th we're hoping to welcome here Ville impression noted Czech historian and dissident who will be talking about a new book of documents on charter 77 that's November 28th from 4:00 to 5:30 on December 4th we're holding another book launch for our colleague Greg Brzezinski who over at professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and his new book on nation building in South Korea Koreans Americans and the making of democracy that's December 4th 2007 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. and professor bill stick distinguished research professor of history at the University of Georgia will be giving Commons is that the one that yes that's right that's the one that I've been closed let me not be remiss in thanking Tim McDonnell if he's here he's probably running around our new program assistant who has put the organizational touches on this event if you see him upstairs at the reception do thank him a lot of work is involved in organizing these events with that let me turn it over to Tom Blanton the chair of today's event Tom of course is well known to most of you and really doesn't need an introduction I couldn't in any case do him justice with just a few words but let me just say sort of on the record that he is the director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University the former journalists and he writes frequently of government on government secrecy and nuclear issues he's on the board of directors of The Bulletin of a tone of Atomic Scientists and the author of White House email as well as a slate of forthcoming books which and include a document reader on the revolutions of 1989 which is co-editing with malcolm burn and svetlana salon scale as well as vlad soo bahk as well as a book on how to use how to read documents something I think that especially the college and high school students here might be interested in for future reference Tom as always it's wonderful to have you here great Thank You Christian very much it's an honor and a pleasure as always to be Christians partner in crime multiple crimes that have opening archives of the world and assorted other adventures I just want to say a brief word about our three panelists and then turn the floor over to Vlad Vlad zu Bach has been a star in the Cold War history firmament for almost 20 years since he burst on the scene sort of a supernova in the making at a seminar at Ohio University in the fall of 1988 when the Imanol degrees is like John Lewis Gaddis looked at him and said wow the best of the young Russian historians that's a direct quote but I'd like to think of wladis or the Alpha Centauri of Cold War history which is the star closest to the earth only a few light years away I've been so pleased to work with Vlad unfortunately his prominence led him to become a traveling Roadshow throughout the early 90s with a series of teaching and lecturing positions and more distinguished institutions than you can list and finally we lured him to the National Security Archive where he set up our Russia programs and to extraordinary success I won the Gelber prize with Coach T of pleasure Cobb for his book inside the Kremlin's Cold War shared the Peabody Award for the phenomenal CNN Cold War series to which he was one of the key advisors I can't wait to hear what he has to say about this failed empire because I remember when the book title was the enemy that would not fight only a couple of years ago but it's an honor and a pleasure to be here with Vlad who has been I feel my partner for 16 years now and I look forward to a lifetime of more adventures next to me ray gar Tov who among many many many other distinctions ambassador gar Tov is one of the main reasons the National Security Archive was lured at the Brookings Institution in the first place his two books on my shelf they taunt and confrontation and the great transition have the dubious distinction of having more post-it notes attached to the pages of those two volumes than any other two volumes probably in the entire Gilman library of George Washington University they are essential to any of us and I look forward to his comments and then of course Tim Naftali who got his start really trying to crack a pretty tough safe get loose some of those key Kremlin documents with Sasha for Cinco and other partners in crime then went on to tougher nuts to crack like the presidential the White House tapes and now has risen to probably the hardest job of all which is running the Nixon Library and your valinda the new Nixon Library that comes up to National Archives standards and is staffed by professionals and will reconsolidate the personal and political materials of Richard Nixon with the public and tapes materials and what is genuinely a triumph for public access that overturns about 20 years of litigation by the late President and I give Tim enormous credit for this that although I'm sure he has as many partners in this victory as we do in the overall project so let me just answer lad to give some minutes of summary and comments and highlights of the book then ask ray to give his his in-depth critique and asked him to bring up the rear with his inimitable quick and dirty insights glad the microphone is yours okay I'm really thrilled to be back in Washington from Philadelphia and just 12 years passed since I was here presenting my previous book with caustic pleasure cough time flies but I see that the interest in the Cold War is an abiding interest looking at this audience looking at this absolutely fantastic panel with discussing whose books actually allowed me to be brief because I could always use the references to their books that are much more complete and certain important episodes of the Cold War so I could use them as the old testament to be New Testament story for that comparison when you have such a chairman as Tom Blanton you always have to come up with respawn repasts to unexpected remarks if I presumably started as a supernova I hope I will not end as a black hole which leads me to the story of the Soviet Union nobody nobody suspected but expected that super Noah to do to become black hole so soon and so suddenly it ended up in implosion as we now now but who could have predicted it how and when I began to think about this next at his book that was 12 years ago the next book without the title and then that ended up being a failed Empire at that time I was involved with some others present here in a CNN documentary called war produced by remarkable British film director Sir Jeremy Isaac's and I would never forget when he took us to Colin garden Oprah together with Tom I believe and we began to discuss that enormous project covering several decades of world history I told him but you did another long series on serial on on World War two 26 parts and he became very agitated and said listen World War two is like you know Mozart knots a defeater oh very short very brief cold war is like venerian the Canarian ring and you know indeed those words rang in my memory as I kept working and working working in this book that became almost an endless process yeah well it ended let me summarize the main conclusions of the book and not all of them but what I judged to be exciting surprising and more or less new at least for me in in my project I focus not so much on diplomatic history although diplomatic history was really a thread in the book but I always thought that you cannot explain Soviet behavior without understanding better the nature of solid Empire the nature of Soviet regime and the profound changes that happen in to Soviet society during those remarkable decades between 1945 and 1991 because indeed the Cold War was very long it encompasses lives life experience of at least three generations and it was their life and experience of those generations Russian society that I tried to reflect in the book as a counterpoint it was not the main theme but it was an important counterpoint an important background that I tried always to keep in mind you had one type of a society in 1945 which is the subject of my first chapter the society mortally tired depleted exhausted by by the unheard-of war unheard of war experience at the same time it was the society with the elites that were imbued with pride with the idea of centrality of the Soviet Union in the world they were drunk with that brew of victory and they were thinking about new kind of imperialism socialist imperialism that would ensure that the Soviet Union would never ever be invaded by the enemy would be a 100% secure sounds like Americans after 9/11 though those were people later on who developed a new sense of burden not keeping Geske burden of a white man but the burden of a Soviet man to promote the idea of socialism in a third world and that became a central idea for a whole generation the generation that I guess was active especially in the 50s in the 60s was an exciting period of de-stalinization without understanding which you cannot understand the times of Khrushchev and without which you cannot explain the motivation of Gorbachev and his generation of reformers and without understanding the phenomena of stagnation during the Brezhnev times loss of ideals loss of sense of purpose in the society and especially in new least you cannot explain why Gorbachev's reforms happen and what way they happened finally the effect of liberation very sudden unexpected liberation during Gorbachev lessons of perestroika should be understood correctly to explain what happened and and how for which off in a sense open the Pandora box with all kinds of unforeseen consequences for him personally and for the rest of us living in a soil Union at that time it's the book that focuses on leadership and elites but I repeat it does keep in in in in in the background the rest of the society those millions of souls were not status they were there they were at some point ready for sacrifice ready for mobilization but towards the end of the story towards the end of the Cold War they were less ready for that and it was a crucial societal change during those four decades the elites you find a crucial generational shift in the elites most of the book is about the generation that grew up under Stalin was nurtured by Stalin came to power during the crucial decades and later became old and decrepit during the Brezhnev era impossibly long era as it seemed to me at the time when I was very young expected all them to die and they did not want to die now I have a different mentality on the subject of mortality so we have very important changes societal changes on the elite level as far as any image was concerned that's why I devoted quite a few pages in the book to the image of the United States the image of the West they changed the changes also concerned what they believed were their national and ideological identity profound changes their vision of war and peace and their values and ideals in fact if we look at these monumental changes that happen to Soviet during those four decades they were not letting no less striking that the changes in a much more open democratic and dynamic American society during the same time span if not more I would say speaking of the driving forces and driving motives of Soviet behavior during the Cold War I used the same expression of the same concept I had used for my previous book with caustic Leszek of the revolutionary Imperial paradigm it shows you how we academics become trapped by the choice of words we once had done and it's it becomes embarrassing actually to say oh I was on in this case fortunately I don't think I was wrong I don't think question I were wrong when we formulated that strange dualistic concept and I think indeed during the entire Cold War you see imperialist goals and sentiments cohabitating in a strange way with revolutionary ideals and sentiments in strange and unpredictable way they often fed on each other reinforced each other under Stalin as I will say in a second Stalin believed he could subdue revolutionary sentiments by harnessing them to the imperialist chariot for him expansion and power relations were much more important than revolutionary fervor but at the end of the story we find that the revolutionary Imperial paradigm play the trick on those who thought they could use it as an instrument Gorbachev himself became so much carried away by it is that he believed revolutionary ideas redoing reinventing re-engineering the meaning of socialism that he forgot about equally important power realities and in the process of perestroika and glasnost that real Soviet power sleep away it's really a fascinating story that's why I believe the Soviet side of the story is in a sense much more intriguing and much more important to understand that then the western side of the story who could have told that one of them empires involved in a Cold War antagonism would peacefully walk off the scene would peacefully implode nobody could predict the end of the Cold War even less so pretty the peaceful outcome of the Cold War I kept thinking about it as I thought about the irony of Soviet ideology and how it worked how it impacted so in society and Soviet leaders the factor of leadership of course as all my colleagues of this panel would readily agree was the crucial one especially with the kind of regime of the kind of system that existed in the Soviet Union at that time highly centralized even in today's Russia it is probably you know centralized enough to when we look at Putin as a key figure when we try to understand what happens in Russia today less so much less so when it was under Stalin for shell Brezhnev and Gorbachev though is Stalin in my perception was truly pivotal figure for the Cold War yes one can say America which is my opinion launched maybe inadvertently launched the Cold War by opposing Soviet regional plans in the Middle East in Iran for instance in Eastern Europe later but it was Stalin that mobilized its own proverbial fabled will and the resources of the Soviet society weakened by 27 million dead by incredible destruction during World War two to to oppose the most powerful nation in the world and it was not not a mean feat to to try to persuade the good Joe to force the giant nation exhausted by World War Two to fight another war a new kind of war with unforeseen unpredictable results Stalin's will Stan's decision Stalin's programs defined the great extent the longevity the fact that the Cold War lasted for decades his space programs ensured that the Soviets would launch the first foodening his atomic program but programs ensured that 20 years later the Soviet Union would reach practically in nuclear parity with the United States so it was Stalin that was a key figure Stalin's sons perceptions of the world fit my definition of the imperial revolutionary paradigm with more emphasis on imperial as I've said Stalin believed he was a practitioner of realism so when I began to write this book I called Stalin a realist and that got me into a heated discussion with some of my reviewers and colleagues Stalin the realist so I added quotation marks Stalin the realist which is to say yes Stalingrad lots of books he knew very well about Bismarck maybe he knew Bismarck more than any one of us does but at the same time he was a Marxist Leninist so he thought he was superior to Bismarck and and the folks like Bismarck because he knew much something that they never knew the Marxist Leninist theory of historical determinism the war of classes the inevitable triumph of socialism over capitalism so that ideological component I think Stalin it underestimated himself he believed he was a realist in fact he was realist ideologue and those ideological conclusion sometimes misconceptions let him to a profound miscalculation visa via the United States in his opinion also nurtured by his study of European history the United States was a dangerous imperialist power like other European imperialist powers but he extrapolated his knowledge about European great powers onto the United States yet the United States when it entered the world scene began to act quite unpredictably quite unpredictable as another major ideological messianic power something that surprised stalling probably and caught him with his pants down in a certain sense when he thought he could strike a compromise with the United States that was 1946 the United States decided firmly and for a long time not to make any compromises with Stalin's Russia and it was a decisive moment in launching the Cold War crucial importance for the big picture of the Cold War is of course beside the fact that he wondered the communist movement irrevocably with his anti Stalin speech he launched new processes inside the Soviet society that a generation later would produce the society with the middle class with middle-class values with new ideals and ideas of privacy individual freedoms versus the state needs and obligations that would later erode and even grew in Soviet power Brezhnev's role in the Cold War fascinated me a lot one thing because I grew up under Brezhnev most of my Soviet period was under Brezhnev second because everybody dismissed him as a blubbering fool that guy who couldn't pronounce a single Russian word correctly that were there for the historiography on Brezhnev is practically non-existent as it's appearing now before I rise of course they are revisionist school jump at the task too we praise Breslin for me Brezhnev belong to the generation burned by war and it's clear that he reflected in his attitude towards they taunt that almost primeval desire to keep peace because he knew about the world so much he watched the war so closely like Rishabha Khrushchev Fukushima Tim Naftali would of course you know correct me if I'm wrong but for Khrushchev his fascination with new technology with quick fixes his fascination with the opportunity to make the world safe for communism and at the same time safe for the Soviet Union by frightening Americans out of their wits and then offering some kind of a deal on Soviet terms for Khrushchev it was the matter of his personality and temperament Brezhnev was more characteristic of the wartime generation Brezhnev like the rest of them was horrified by Nikita's frolicking and dancing on the bomb and through the entire tenure at last as long as he was healthy Brezhnev tried hard to repair the damage done by Nikita Khrushchev and bring the Soviet Union to that position where he could sit calmly and negotiate with the United States from the position of strength now another thing that Brezhnev could not understand as well as Khrushchev as well as Stalin that he was dealing not just with a great power he was dealing with an ideological and messianic great power the United States of America where survival is never enough as we know so Americans were of course frightened ducked out of their wits thought it was a disincentive for them to sit at the table negotiating table with the Soviet Union in fact some people actually did sit at the negotiating table I mean Kissinger some of them decided to be realists some european statesmen decided to play realist games with the soviet union so nikita won at least in a short term in some respects but the bulk of American polity was not persuaded by these things so and produced the second that produced the phenomenon of the Second World War the second Cold War in nineteen nineteen eighty nine nineteen eighty six I may see some humor some objections basically telling what about the Saudis and dating if they honest and they started the second goal well to me the invasion of Afghanistan was really the continuation of of inertial purposeless foreign policy that began when Brezhnev was already sick when the decision-making in the Kremlin became a fictitious decision-making with lots of wroclaw crawling and with three main figures who seen of Gromyko and on drop off fearing more about losing their clout and future careers in the food Bureau then about some kind of trap that awaited the soit army in Afghanistan they brought the USSR into Afghanistan and it's slightly disingenuous for me when people draw this direct line between Soviet interventions and then go Horn of Africa you man and Afghanistan look at the map guys after all Afghanistan is or was on Soviet border the instability in Afghanistan was a security threat of course so it invasion was a disastrous miscalculation but it's not the end of the story of Afghanistan it's not the end of the story of invasions into Afghanistan we'll see more of it of course more of these miscalculations finally Gorbachev Gorbachev is an interesting case of the man who changed his ideals changed his concepts during the period of five to six years he became when he became general secretary a passionate devout believer in reforming the existing system making it work when he finished his term he was a European Social Democrat and practically ready to be a chairman of Green Cross or some kind of international organizations that had nothing to do with communism it's amazing transformation such a volatility such a intellectual open-mindedness to me characterizes the new generation of Russians and Gorbachev was did belong to that new generation and you know because the book cannot really encompass everything I devoted sixth chapter of my book to the changes on the nikita to the rise of the new generation of the people of the 60s and in my next book which have already been sent to harvard university press i will deal more centrally with this generation of the 60s in my opinion Gorbachev belongs to them so the phenomenon of Gorbachev is a phenomenon more of a societal changes in the Russian society the changes that followed the track of generational shifts rather than external pressure and that brings me to the final conclusion of my book not terribly surprising for me because I always believed in that but maybe surprising for some people on this side of the Atlantic that is American role in bringing the Soviet Union to its end was rather limited rather limited when you look at Americans and American foreign policy you find two kind of theories why the clone war ended one attributed to Reagan and his Star Wars two attributed to George Kennan and the strategy of containment I don't believe in either of these explanations I can you know dwell on Reagan Star Wars specific documents show that Reagan's pressure military pressure technological pressure only made Soviet elites encircle you know the camp with wagons rally around the flag only in a sense made them willing to respond and kind it was quite a miracle that Gorbachev came up with a symmetrical responses later on on canon then the containment theory I'm not I'm the last person to dismiss Kenan Kenan is was and is a giant of for Western international thinking but to think of containment as something that caused and ensured the end of the Cold War is almost banal in my opinion and almost tautological it is after all if you look at what kind of options the United States had it didn't have an option of going to war with the Soviet Union after all it would have been disastrous especially after the advent of of the nuclear revolution and it couldn't really appease the Soviet Union and make all the concessions because the American Society is I stressed many times is another kind of ideological messianic society bent on transforming the world bent on making the world safe for freedom and democracy so neither of those options going to war or appeasing were available for the United States so it was logical and almost tautological for the United States to continue to check the Soviet Union but this checking of the Soviet Union in in time began it became a strange game that involved both sides and got them embroiled in all kinds of continents into situations that not a country neither are the countries wanted to get embroiled I would argue maybe paradoxically the so it's ended up and then go and the horn just because Americans was so interested in being in other parts of the world that third world game was impasse but without two hands clapping stalin actually had no intention and no willingness to extend Soviet power into the third wall I mean even if he could it was only that game that would call the Cold War that seduced the Soviets on the Khrushchev and later on the Brezhnev to continue that game that helped to exhaust the Soviet economy to finish my talk the only two points that I regretted and I said about it's my introduction to the book the only two aspects of the Cold War that I wish I could deal more with first aspect is solving economy and finances I think it's fascinating how the Soviet Union was able to function economically and financially for such a long time and paying for such a costly confrontation with the wealthiest not not only with the wealthiest country of the world but with the country that had resources of the rest of the capitalist world created such a great system financial economic system of cooperation among capitalist countries second thing that are I regret I couldn't deal more because the archives on this subject are still closed and so June is the history of the military-industrial complex of the USSR we have some fascinating publications we have some tantalizing clues some budgetary figures but it's far far from complete so if I had those data and those publications some tentative conclusions that I made in the book must have been more firm and and actually more more interesting gaps so let me finish my brief talk by thanking the organizers for giving this a wonderful opportunity and I thank you for your attention ray we're gonna take about ten minutes oh yeah go ahead I think it's a very fine book very useful book and important one fragile book has the advantage of being a Russian American historian and I emphasize all three parts within all three words having the experience of growing up in the shop each Union plus course knowledge of the language and of the system and ability getti excuse me getting to many of the more or less released sources he has advantage over most American Historians it is a choice that any historian has to make in dealing with subjects such as this whether to concentrate on one major protagonist as he has done or to try to equally see both sides but he has I think for good reasons concentrated on dealing with the failed Empire the Soviet Union at the same time keeping very much in mind and well aware of the importance of interaction between the two and he does appropriately take into account of course the American side of the equation the Soviet American confrontation in the Cold War from he states from the start was geopolitical and ideological I think there are some who would downplay the ideological factor perhaps but I think it's quite aptly put he describes them as the two potentially global empires here they're not everyone will agree with that characterization of the two powers but let me just pass that by for the moment and he describes this confrontation as lasting until we're better off finally we appraised drastically his views of both the ideology and in reality and of Soviet security interests and of course this was accepted by President Reagan now the role of ideologies he emphasizes or he states did not decline in importance after Stalin is often thought the revolutionary Imperial paradigm as he calls it continued but ideological considerations and influence has changed of course with a changing world and changing leaders I would stress consistent with the Rubik analysis although using terms that represent more my own analysis rather than his but I think as well it is well illustrated in his buyers account the class clash of objectives and conflicting interests and of perceptions and evaluations of the adversary and adversarial actions led to created a pattern of persistent reciprocal interaction and persistent miss perception affected by ideological presumption presumptions that seemed to validate the adversarial miss evaluations and miss judgments and helped to likely to generate and perpetuate the Cold War some there's likely I think to be some disagreement and some criticism of that's analysis by those who will who may charge him with equivalence or with to take it a step further moral equivalence although he does not apportion blame or in my judgment imply any moral equivalence but he does describe the effects of the interaction of both aims of advantage and erroneous perceptions and errors and missed opportunities by both sides there may be some historians Richard pipes for example who will take issue with Ladd's argument that the personalities of leaders and the role of great men leaders is an important element in history I see no reason why that argument should be posed in extreme terms in any case I think it should be a matter of analysis and evaluation what role particularly der's play in particular situations and I think that plaids analysis is entirely correct in putting the emphasis that he does not on an exclusive role of leaders but on a leading make the redundancy explicit and in in tracing through the specific actions and roles of the major while other leaders and elites more generally as well but principally of course the main leaders through this period of the Cold War Stalin who chef brigeth and Gorbachev I think it is also another virtue of this book that he has included the the cultural background if you will of the role of leaders and the role of events in tracing through this this period of this small slice of history that looms large and our thinking a Cold War you do glad at one point say that there was above all there was a declining will inside Soviet political and intellectual elites to risk a war but I find that your study convincingly demonstrates that there was always a strong determination not to risk war it is true that who Schaaf specifically had a penchant for a kind of attempt to not only to use Soviet power but to use of your power when they didn't yet have it in order to try and blustering lee in advantage but as as the book clearly indicates and is in specifically states especially after the cuban and berlin confrontations of the early sixties who show offs nuclear brinkmanship dropped and not only in his subsequent policy period brief period after those events but carrying over to Brezhnev and the all the subsequent leaders I think this was not because Rousseff was any more prepared to take risks of war and when he saw real risks involved and most tellingly of course in the Cuban Missile Crisis at his feet he backed away at once he didn't it wasn't that he was prepared really to take those risks it was what he judged badly whether there were risks in some of his actions but step back when he found that I won't go into it further but I think I just draw attention to Vlad remark that depression of state and provided an indispensable bridge from Stalin's quiet warmongering who shops blustering - garbage off sending of the Cold War that's just a simple sentence but it says a great deal and it goes through a great deal of history which is well spelled out in the book and I won't go into here I think that is quite correct and seeing go to Bert's office finally persuaded by belief in a new thinking which erroneously thought also already characterized the policies of the main Western powers and he found that rather than resolving the the last major disputes of the Cold War in terms of compromises based on new thinking there was a tendency to for the West to to seek advantage but that to his credit did not dissuade repertoire from going forward as lad points out garbage wealth not only became in many ways a great hero to many in the West the same time that he was losing the confidence of the Soviet people by not following through not successfully carrying out policies to meet the objectives that he did seek in terms of the melioration of the economic and general situation within the country here's perestroika of not only the ideology but also the actuality of life in the Soviet Union failed even as the steps that he was major big steps that he was prepared to take succeeded in bringing and helping and paying the major role in bringing an end to the Cold War so it's a complex situation which I think that spells out very well and in concluding I would say that I found looking for them of course as a reviewer who would for errors and there are a few and they are not many and they're inconsequential don't mention them and I know there are one or two points where I don't entirely agree with you but I must say they're few and in any event it is I think a major contribution and one that should have an important influence as we all go forward with continuing studies of the Cold War well a new book by Vlad zubik is a reason for celebration among the Cold War historians you know good history is not just facts and narrative but it's also a very good historian and you have in blad as Tom intimated an unusual combination of characteristics and attributes and talents which allows you to see how materials can be rethought reconsidered and a narrative spun in an interesting and cool to any way and so it's a pleasure for me to be here and although I come from an institution that I believe is the only federal institution in the United States that has statues of both Khrushchev and Brezhnev I do not speak on behalf of the Richard Nixon Library nor could I speak on behalf of the United States government even though the book is a product of a man who spent his formative years in what was then the Soviet Union the book reminded me of a cartoon that I had seen in my formative years in Trudeau eight Canada and it was a cartoon called The Wizard of Eid and The Wizard of it'd is about a it's about a kingdom that is ruled by appetite and cronyism and cynicism and just whatever the ruler wants to do on the day he when he wakes up and as I and as I read the this book which I really agree with and I really enjoyed reading I kept thinking about how important for understanding Soviet actions in the international sphere the idiosyncrasies of the Soviet leaders in fact I found myself concluding that the least idiosyncratic of the Soviet leaders I was reading about was Stalin which I found a big surprise but having done my own work on Chris job and knowing the importance of Khrushchev's appetites and personality to understanding Soviet policy in his era I was delighted to see that that that kind of model can apply to other Soviet leaders now beware there is of course a debate about the role of leaders in shaping societies and in shaping the international system and I do not say this is a great advocate of the great man and someday great woman perhaps next year theory of history but if you look at Soviet records it is inescapable that is the conclusion is inescapable that the the Soviet leader the actual personality of the Soviet leader was a determinative factor for - it explains a great deal of what happens not everything in in this book Vlad says subtly in some cases and in the case of Brezhnev extremely directly that not only our Soviet foreign policies the product of one man's obsessions but the pace of international events is affected by that person's preferences and I think it's Wells I know it's persuasive in the Khrushchev case but it from the material and evidence he provided it became for me persuasive for Brezhnev and that's really if you stand back that's quite extraordinary that the Soviet leader in a after all a society that was not supposed to be defined by a single leader should have actually been determinative in shaping International Affairs I agree with ambassador Garth off that the interactive quality of International Affairs is an important determinant to understanding outcomes but often times the spiral was begun started by a decision in the Kremlin if I if if I had a complaint about the book it's that the American side while disgust is not always there isn't of the fine and alysus that we see for the Soviet sign sometimes in there on the American side which it's impossible if you want to keep up you know make sure the book is another thousand pages but on the other hand I asked myself occasionally was every was the initiative always coming from the Kremlin in a number of cases the answer has to be yes and these are remarkable each one is remarkable because at least the evidence provided by Vlad is persuasive and these are world historical events and cannot be explained except by or through analysis the personality of the Soviet leader and I'll just list them 1948 the Berlin Blockade 1961 the Berlin crisis 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis 1972 the decision to go to the summit a very interesting very interesting section in this book which I hardly recommend because after all I even persuaded at least that if it were not for president that summit would thinks it wouldn't have happened after the American decision to bomb Hanoi and it's only at least again and I think this is as a result of both the memoirs a visit I jumped off but also it's semyonov diary which is a phenomenal source that you use extremely well in this book it is pretty persuasive that without Brezhnev you're not gonna have a summit 72 and since these days I spent a lot of time with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger at least their papers the argument on our side was that there was no risk to take to bomb Hanoi Nixon was convinced that there would be a summit anyway now either Nixon understood Brezhnev extremely well where Nixon was actually taking a huge risk that almost failed but 72 can't be understood without Brezhnev and of course 1990 and a story that I wish you had had more time but I bet your editor told you to stop the decision to allow Germany to reunify in NATO cannot be understood without Gorbachev I think Bush plays a role in keeping things together a call of course is pushing for it but if you study the role of Germany and you do a great job in the book throughout the Cold War it is inconceivable of a Soviet leader inconceivable that a Soviet leader would allow Germany we're going to find a tow but for Gorbachev each of these instances requires a knowledge of the Soviet leader and that's really remarkable and I think you do a great job of teasing that out but then that that begs a whole bunch of questions what difference did we make what difference did societies make what difference did the military industrial complex make well as flat has already discussed there are lots of areas of information to which we do not have access and frankly we've had to rely and blab to on evidence on the Soviet side that those of us who do presidential history here might not be terribly satisfied with after all memoirists are not known to always tell the truth but there are a number of stretches of of the period that we can only cover particularly after the Khrushchev era with memoir information still it's actually remarkable our sources are better for things that happen in some cases 45 years ago than they are for things and things that happened 10 years ago or 15 years ago then for things that happened 25 and 35 years ago that's just the the idiosyncrasy of the Soviet or Russian now archival now Neo Soviet archival systems now in in the book Vlad talks about neoconservatives and and I know who they are and they're not gonna like this book at all because it's reality based but then you talk about neorealists and I'm not sure who they are but I think Vlad's concerned is that at least from the book you seem to be arguing that there are skal who believe that Soviet leaders riah or reality-based and that in fact they weren't and that ideology so blinkered them that they couldn't possibly engage in the kick cost-benefit analysis that certain foreign scholars perhaps have attributed to them and and what's great about that argument I mean it's we still don't know what role ideology played we don't know and I listed some possible descriptions of ideology could be is it a goat is it a corset is it a pistol is it a narcotic is it diet coke and and what I would want to tease out more what what I would want to tease out more and then I would do it by asking about Rome Eco and a drop of why on earth did they support Gorbachev did they cause it because because from Albany but but but you you know you're you're on drop of is an interesting character and and my point in raising that is that I've always found that that that ideology was a long term general far away objective that was a goat but that that all politicians whether Soviet and American have to make short-term decisions and those short-term decisions are often the product of pragmatism in foreign policy not on domestic affairs do you make a very good argument and in fact that's one of the reasons what we need to do more work on the financial side the Soviets were were if they were ideal they were at their most ideological when they worked with their economy but I bring up this point because what's absolutely consistent throughout this book is a study although it's sort of all shades it's one is below the level quiet to study the balance of terror and what's clear from this book is the Soviets were more terrorized and more terrified than we were again and again Vlad makes reference to fears of an American first-strike which really seemed to be real long after Americans stopped believing until the Reagan era for a brief moment that the Soviets were intent intent on attacking us really attacking us the Soviets seem to believe we were intent on attacking them and if the balance of Terror is that important then that helps explain why Soviet leaders were so afraid of war and I agree with ambassador cartel I think they were afraid of war from from the beginning and and and the fear of war is not ideological it's sort of as primordial as things get and if you accept that the fear of war is a major motivating motivating factor then there's a lot going on here that doesn't have to be so good a Russian it's just human and you see this consistently non-auto they're not all the Soviet leaders reacted the same way to the sphere but they all seemed to have it and I would have I would I would tease that out a little bit more it's there in the book you didn't miss it it's there you prefer to it but I tease it out and I would lay that as a groundwork for an argument about some of more pragmatic at times behavior by the Soviets I also think that though their their their jump into the third world certainly responded to you know useful Springs of ideal of the ideology there was an effort on their part to acquire friends and they often made friends with countries that were anti-communist like Egypt that were jailing communists and they knew it but they saw that they saw the advantage and Egypt as you as you mention in the book is an extraordinarily important plum for them a great thing that they acquired so this is a wonderful book it's now classic already how about that you got to I'm writing it down you're right already classic and it's gonna give heartburn to people who argue that the Soviets had a plan for conquest it's gonna give heartburn to people who like something called the team V assessment but that's sometimes how things work in international history the empire that's more the most militaristic perhaps the most threatening maybe one much closer to home Thanks I think I'd like to open it up for questions but let me just close with one comment that I will steal from Raigarh talk from journey through cold war in which he comments on the team B exercise which is everyone remembers was the critique by Richard pipes and others of team a at that is the CIA and I think Ray at one point in his memoir book says you know except now we know both team a and Team B were wrong in fact we needed a team C that would assume say a Gorbachev and the end of the Soviet Union well I think now we've got it team C is to my right but let me open up to questions Jim Hirschberg and then I think we have a microphone right there thank you it's a great pleasure to be here at this event I'm Jim rush Bert professor at George Washington Christian's predecessor the cold war project and I can't help but recall nineteen years ago this month being at Athens the other Athens apparently someone actually did go to Greece mistakingly and apparently you know it's very disappointing to find out but he should have gone to Ohio for that Cold War conference and I can't help but recall that all the Soviet participants as they were then called or were well not all but some of them were they seem to be most startled by the spectacle of a black woman dis coursing knowledgeably about Soviet alliance management because Condoleezza Rice gave a paper before she went on to lesser things but the Americans were all gossiping about Vlad's ubach exploding onto the scene and displaying along with Costilla pleasure that the torch had indeed been passed to a new generation of young Russian historians who are actually willing to defy the party line and speak their minds and it's it's great to see Vlad at this stage nineteen years later I have to also recall that I've often thought that Vlad is just like Lenin when it comes to called war history Vanguard party no because as Vlad well remembers for decades in the Soviet Union and Soviet politics in history no matter what position you take you took you have to start by quoting Lenin well in Cold War historiography no matter what argument you took from Gaddis to Leffler you have to start by quoting zubik as your authority and now I hear understand that you know not everyone will be able to have that same option so I'm looking forward seeing the book I just have one question just to hear Vlad grapple with the issue of the individual and contingency in Soviet history and during the Cold War vs. broader systemic factors and and this is a counterfactual I think we've discussed in years best if Yuri Andropov's health does not give out and he lives for say another decade does the Soviet Union and this for that matter the Cold War still exists today well I let me say about and Roper and robber was very sick already so he could not could not have possibly leaved him until 2007 I don't think so maybe another decade but the generational shift was imminent in the 80s and it was long overdue and with that generational shift new ideas and new approaches had to come and they'll degree the scope of problems that accumulated in the Soviet society the burden of the Empire which is a subjective thing but it was felt profoundly by the growing number of people even even those people who profited from the empire by lining their pockets in those Soviet semi colonies in Africa even emanate began to see the absurdity of that Empire so in my opinion the more we know about what really happened inside the Saudi society after Stalin the more we would understand how well I hate the word inevitability how determined and over determined where those changes that happened under Gorbachev it's quite another matter that those changes could have led to what happened actually the complete implosion of the Soviet Union how could abandon in some other scenario that many Russian observers especially now like to call the Chinese way without really understanding what it means sometimes but they keep doing so so yes the role of individual was crucial I agree with team on this and can give more and more examples when we get access to the complete and unabridged diary of Leonid Brezhnev I'm sure a better book will be written about his role in date on but so far I used whatever tidbits we could find him right here in the front row and then you back there then come here just please identify yourself briefly Gerry oh look retired intelligence analyst I agree with you that the collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't caused by Reagan or containment however I would pose this question that perhaps the the reason that collapse was systemic and indirectly because of the arms race the arms race and this paranoia that we some of us believe existed among the leadership toward the United States resulted in this crazy use of resources for the military and that the collapse then results from that indirectly the West is part of it I would like your opinion on what if this hasn't holds any water and second if it doesn't what do you think were the factors maybe it's in your book but you don't actually haven't said today what you believed was a reason so beginning collapsed I believe the Soviet Union collapsed to a great degree because of the deep systemic dysfunctions that existed in that society in that type of economy and that type of empire that after all failed to create a an effective counter system of trade finances in economic cooperation to the system that the West had created so with all these funds this severe dysfunctions and severe problems there are other issues that I think were equally important the man-made financial crisis man-made financial crisis during the late 80s that I tribute largely to the decision passed on the Gorbachev and policies that he implemented erroneous policies that he implemented lack of understanding disastrous lack of understanding of the power of nationalism and the dynamics of nationalist movements that he and his lieutenants unleashed wittingly and unwittingly in the Soviet Union and later could not control the effects of late so-called gladness and liberation and discussion of historical errors and crimes that again Gorbachev thought would cleanse and would help to cleanse and liberate so its society from the past in the name of the better socialist future and in reality was a hugely disaster the disrupting and politically dangerous process that played out so the factor of man-made crisis and erroneous policies erroneous erroneous in quotation marks from the viewpoint if you if if his role was to preserve the Soviet Union and reform it he failed and he's this failure was due to a number of erroneous decisions I cannot be more forceful about it but he acted uh and he acted against the background of enormous ly dysfunctional society economy and finances that's also true yes sir Bill Vol I'm a retired foreign service officer and I was on the Soviet desk in the 70s I have a question about something that you and others on the panel may remember that Henry Kissinger during the 70s was busy constructing a web of interdependence that he called it and there were eleven intergovernmental agreements many in the science and technology fields but including things like environment agriculture and there was a Soviet there was the apollo-soyuz thing under the space agreement and a whole variety of things with a lot of exchange activity going back and forth with Soviets coming here and Americans going there Americans going to a lot of places where Americans had never been before in the Soviet Union in your research for your book did you come across anything that suggested there was any impact of this and if so what that impact was thank you in fact I I did I did think about those things and found a that the impact was profound and it was a long-term it started when after Stalin's death the Soviet leaders decided to open up the Soviet Union to foreign tourism and allow some Soviets limited numbers so is to travel abroad and I discussed this in Chapter six I had no time to discuss that to that extent in chapters and the chapters about Brezhnev and date on but I think I did mention that it continued to play important role and the fact that was a highly visible and vocal dissident movement inside the Soviet society using openly support of the Western press and using the the logic and of human rights during you know the seventies was in part the result of that half openness to add one more reason why the Soviet Union collapsed it would be a paradoxical conclusion that the reason that it called because it was collapsed because it was half open had it been completely closed it would have survived like China did winning time to reform itself coming up with a modal but it was half open half involved in world trade and economy half spoiled by being that half open and certain decisions tough decisions that would have have been available in the condition of hermetic closeness were not available in that type of a society that emerged well let's say by the end of the seventies cap it and see nope is there a little button on the side hello I'm Caitlin Hulk from George C Marshall high school and ambassador Garth off talked about how the conflict between US and Soviet objectives and leaders and interests well obviously it continued contributed the Cold War but I want you to explain how post-war Europe and specifically post-war Germany exemplified this conflict the question to me yes how I dealt with Europe primarily I dealt with Germany in fact if I guess the French would be quite unhappy to see this book because as an index I found myself to my embarrassment Francis mentioned three times so it's not good for sales in France it's it's the book you know whoops will sail in Germany hopefully because Germany was a central central issue and first chapter was about solid society second chapter was about how Stalin contributed to the to launching the cold we're in the third chapter is about Germany why and how Germany was divided I think here I fearlessly treaded on the minefields because you know there's still many people especially among European academics who believe that the GDR was Stalin's unwanted child to quote the title of one of the books that Stalin didn't know what he was doing in Germany that he was a hopeless bungler lost in various priorities and and couldn't even understand his own tactics i profoundly disagree with all these statements in my opinion stone perfectly knew what he wanted in germany and task number one was to consolidate his beach head in the occupied ins Germany and to do it without antagonizing and necessarily Western alliances without closing other opportunities related to the rest of Western Europe especially to western Germany to keep options open but it was clear what was the priority for Stalin to have Soviet military force in Central Europe by all means and to have that beachhead in East Germany and it was clear from the discussion recently recently dozen Declassified that took place after James burns offered that fact 20 years packed on German neutrality which would have necessitated with the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Germany it was actually surprisingly almost a real discussion and Soviet elite and Stalin sent out this you know instructions to go what do you think Commerce he has but 20 25 people responded including marshal Zhukov and everybody reading the great leaders mindset no way we will stay in East Germany and that's the Western plot to take us out of Central Europe out of his jammy the implication was we'll never leave his Germany so with that kind of document I think that should effectively finish all kinds of discussions among Austrian German and other Western European story is about that missed opportunity so-called thing but I think it will continue because tenure jobs and you know the academic culture they promote discussions sometimes beyond their usability done over Dover okay Gromyko and then drop off so greatly promoted Gorbachev was it that they were just was it they didn't know the guy who they were Waheeda was it that Gorbachev seemed to somebody different he ended up being it's kind of a mystery that's raised by some of the things that are questioned here and I just wonder what Vlad what your answer is and what Tim's answer is Oh dong and Tim appreciate this question to which I cannot give a definitive answer by having no access to intimate secret letters and diaries of these individuals but it doesn't take to be a great psychologist on the scale of Freud to figure out what what on drop of wanted to do and drop off wanted to be in power he didn't expect to die so soon he wanted to nurture young man like Gorbachev and he saw a potential in this young man he never dreamed that Gorbachev would become the leader so soon and so suddenly and with that absolute power vested to him without even the attempt from the collective leadership to create a sort of Chinese firewall between him and the absolute power what happened that the old-timers the old guard began to die so suddenly well expectedly of course but you know maybe not for them with a Gromyko who after all was the last of the big troika kostina was dead Andropov was dead Gromyko was the only one he never wanted to be the leader he never felt he was destined to be the leader he wanted a cushy position for himself he saw by that time that the powerful forces in the bureaucracy including the KGB very importantly we're pushing for Gorbachev and rooting for Gorbachev just out of the desire to have somebody fresh young energetic after all those Marable and man and he played safely he got what he wanted he supported his candidacy he got his position he died in 1989 just on the eve of the collapse of the empire lucky man Tim do you want to make a comment I'm Mike comment simply is I don't know the answer and that's why I asked it but one of the things that's important we both stressed we both talked about the role of individuals there is still a a process the Kremlin exists is a process and a number of people play significant roles over the history of the of the Soviet Union McClellan plays a significant role in the Khrushchev era and I'm drop-off seems to play this role later and I think I understand McCoy Yuans objectives don't really understand and drop off and so one of the reason I asked that question because a little easier to understand is that I think that when we finally get to sort of thick description of how these things happen I think I think I think that um Vlad is absolutely right about the general conclusion but even though the individual general secretary general secretary matters there is a process and these other Cardinals are important there is a story there there is a story I don't think it's as simple as they didn't understand Gorbachev I do believe there's a story we don't know it yet but it'll provide thick description it doesn't change I think the importance of gorby's role but it will explain a little bit more how this totalitarian system became an authoritarian system and how it was actually governed and I think it'll be of great interest to political scientists because we'll be facing more and more or societies like that in the future let me just give a last word to our author because we reached the time limit and I would like to invite you all to join us for the reception outside but I want to give Vlad the last word and please let's continue this conversation over drinks right well I thank you all for your questions and I'm particularly grateful to the panel raising other points that I could because not about the book and even especially for ambassador Gard Hoffs words that there are few mistakes and therein inconsequential that's the best praise that anybody can get after writing a thick book many words many paragraphs many pages with an infinite potential mistakes in it so I I would like to in my conclude concluding word - actually I was provoked by Tim's sentence that the Soviets were always afraid of war and after all the fear of war cannot be ideological its primordial well let's think about it for a moment yes fear of war is fear of death is primordial and every one of us but fear of war can be ideological I can't relate to ideology in fact some powerful ideologies that we know of that existed in the 20th century dealt very effectively with the fear of war and pushed millions of people into carnage by it's been neutralizing that fear of war so when you imagine the Soviet Union in 1953 February March 1953 before Stalin's death the country was moving like a speed train towards a major war with the United States of course people were afraid but people took it with great degree of fatalism they believed somehow ideologically conditioned to believe that in the end we would prevail and survive what they dreaded were enormous casualties of course because they just witnessed those enormous casualties but ideologically they were inure to that fear by the promises of the eventual victory for socialists now when this ideological in your month is gone the pain is acute the pain is acute so during the early a jeez when you have the second Cold War and Reagan brandished according to Soviet newspapers especially nuclear weapons right and left people's fear of war was now unmitigated by their ideological beliefs about the eventual victory of socialism and I could witness it myself when I lectured and all around the soybean the first question I heard from my audiences was is the war will there be a war soon and people were afraid of it simple folks so there are situations and situations and the dynamic of ideological and primordial terror in the Soviet society still awaits a good research yeah - more - more future good books here let's thank our panelists the reception is actually in the sixth floor board room one floor up I think I figured if you were going to tap me on the Riley like you

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Published: Mon Apr 22 2013