Cold war or détente? The Soviet viewpoint

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Chapter 1 On the Ordeal of Détente and the Value of Accurate Perceptions

The 1970s were the decade of détente. Are the 1980s to become the decade of Cold War II?

Let us not be so fatalistic that we write off a whole decade. But for now one has to face the fact that the overall international situation has deteriorated seriously over the last several years. Not too long before that, it seemed that the world had found a way out of the hostilities and stupidities of the Cold War, that détente had been established as a normal condition. Yet now, to some people, détente is beginning to look like a temporary, if welcome, aberration from the grim normalcy of distrust, enmity, and confrontation that prevailed in international relations in the first two decades after World War II.

What then would be the real ‘normal’ condition?

I would like to be quite unequivocal about it and say that what we see now is a deviation from normalcy, the norm being a relaxation of international tension, the development of cooperation, and progress in arms control. But I am hesitant to do so, at least before we define the precise meaning of ‘normalcy.’ If we talk about some natural condition, like a body's normal temperature, Suggesting that the body is healthy and nothing threatens its health, then I am sure détente is the normal state of affairs, while the Cold War is not. But one can also understand ‘normal’ as ‘usual,’ as a condition so natural that it does not even need any special efforts to sustain it.

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It's normal, say, for a piece of cork to float on the surface of water. If you want to bring it down to the bottom or raise it up in the air, you must make an effort; once the effort is stopped, the cork is back to ‘normal.’ In this sense, détente, alas, has not yet become a normal condition of international relations. It still takes a special effort to maintain it, while all you have to do to bring back tension is sit on your hands.

In other words, détente got into trouble because efforts to maintain it proved insufficient?

No, I wouldn't go along with this. Sure, some people worked harder for détente than others; but it was not just inertia that détente was up against. What really tipped the scales was a strong countermobilization of those who saw détente as a dangerous heresy. Specifically, détente was undermined by the shift in U.S. foreign policy in the late 1970s and the early 1980s.

American readers will be furious reading this, because they are convinced that the decisive factor for the present deterioration was Afghanistan.

I am well aware that our actions with regard to Afghanistan were used to spark a whole storm of emotions and denunciations in the West. But political judgments should be based on facts, not emotions. The official American argument that the reason for the current deterioration lies in events in Afghanistan holds no water, if only because the principal decisions shaping the basics of the new U.S. policy, a policy understood here in the Soviet Union as a big step backward to the Cold War, had been taken well before those events.

What decisions do you have in mind?

The NATO decision to increase military budgets annually for a period of fifteen years (Washington, May 1978), the U.S. president's decision on a ‘five-year plan’ for more military programs and unprecedented arms spending (November 1979), and the highly dangerous NATO decision to build and deploy in Europe new medium-range American missiles (Brussels, December 1979). Also, prior to events in Afghanistan, the United States froze, for all practical purposes, the arms-limitation talks. Ratification of the SALT II treaty was already in considerable doubt in September-November 1979. At about the same time Washington attempted a hasty rapprochement with China. In the late fall of 1979 the United States sent to the Persian Gulf a swarm of its warships with planes and nuclear weapons. It was difficult for us to believe that this was done just to free the hostages in Tehran and was not part of an overall change in American foreign policy and military posture. Therefore, it was understood in the

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Soviet Union as early as mid-December 1979 that the United States was making a sharp turn in its policies.

In other words, American policies influenced Soviet actions in Afghanistan?

They were an important factor.

Do you mean that if détente had developed normally, and the difficulties you cited had not occurred, the Soviet Union would not have sent its troops to Afghanistan?

Quite possibly so. But please, understand me correctly: the sending of troops was not a ‘punishment’ of the United States or of the West for bad behavior. It had more to do with our new assessments of threat, of the situation created by the United States and NATO. As President Brezhnev put it in his interview with Pravda, the decision to send a limited military contingent to Afghanistan had not been easy for us to make.^1. The Afghan government repeatedly requested our assistance long before the eve of 1980, but we held back. By the end of 1979, however, the situation in Afghanistan inevitably had to be viewed in the context of rapidly increasing international tension in the world at large and in that particular region. In that context, the threat to the postrevolutionary regime in Afghanistan, as well as the threat to our own security, assumed a much greater dimension than would have been the case under conditions of détente.

Events in Afghanistan truly alarmed Americans and their allies because they became confused over Soviet intentions. President Carter emphasized that he was not prepared to gamble on Soviet intentions.^2. So maybe the change in U.S. foreign policy that you referred to earlier was caused by what was interpreted as an increasing Soviet threat, confirmed later by the events in Afghanistan.

Frankly, when I hear talk about the ‘Soviet threat,’ not from a brainwashed man in the street, but from responsible politicians and experts, it occurs to me that they have in mind not so much the Soviet Union, its power and intentions, as the United States, its policy and military posture, and the American role in the world. They have full knowledge of the military, economic, and political realities, and the existing balance of power. It is simply more convenient to make the most fantastic claims and demands in American foreign and military policies, while making the Soviet Union seem as if it had provoked the Americans into action. We do not see things this way. As we see them, no one has provoked America into hardening its foreign policy. Rather, for quite some time, the United States has been heating itself up methodically, until it has reached its present

1. Pravda, 13 January 1980.

2. Speech on 19 February 1980 to members of the American Legion in Washington, D.C.

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state of mind over its relations with the USSR and the outside world in general.

But you cannot deny that the Soviet Union has increased its military power tremendously over the years.

Yes, our power did increase. We had good reasons to take care of our defense. And many of those who complain so loudly about the Soviet military threat know that our efforts have been for defense rather than for aggressive purposes.

But NATO keeps stressing that the Soviet buildup goes beyond legitimate defense requirements.

‘Why beholdest thee the mote in thy neighbor's eye, and considerest not the beam in thine own eye?’ I often wonder how American politicians and generals would have sized up their legitimate defense requirements if there had been stationed about one million Warsaw Pact troops and about a thousand nuclear launchers north of Michigan, while Texas bordered not on Mexico but on a country of a billion people, armed with nuclear weapons, with which they had very complicated relations, to say the least.

If there is no Soviet threat, as you say, what then do you see to be the true reasons for the latest American hard line?

There are, in my opinion, two sets of reasons: those that have worked to change the mood and the balance of forces in the American power elite, and those that have created a political atmosphere in the country that allow these changes to be translated into practical policy. As far as the elite is concerned, the main causes of change are, I think, connected with the difficulties of adaptation to new realities of the world situation. These realities have certainly created problems for the United States, demanding a very substantial reorientation of U.S. foreign policy. They called for breaking with the guidelines, notions, and standards of political behavior characteristic of an entire epoch - an exceptional epoch, at that, in terms of the situation America found itself in immediately after World War II, emerging from it as the wealthiest and most powerful nation, having experienced neither any devastations nor major sacrifices. That situation created an impression at the time that the world was headed directly into something called an ‘American Century,’ and that the United States could buy almost anything and anybody, and suppress or destroy by its superior might those it could not buy. That historical situation was unique and transient. But many Americans came to regard it as the natural and eternal order of things.

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Wouldn't you agree that many Americans have done away with such illusions?

Some have, others have not. Parting with such illusions turned out to be tremendously difficult. I think the 1980 election campaign was quite revealing in this respect, demonstrating that the mood of nostalgia for the ‘American Century’ was quite strong.

Coming back to the shifting moods in the power elite, I would stress another point - apprehension in those circles that the relaxation of world tensions would somehow undermine the American political will. I'd like to recall one episode from 1972, when the first summit meeting had just ended, and the American president returned to Washington. What was uppermost on the minds of American policy makers? As Kissinger testified in his memoirs, it was neither joy nor satisfaction, but rather fear and concern that from then on it would be more difficult to mobilize public support for military programs, that many other old policies would be harder to pursue.^3.

In general, it turned out that U.S. policy makers conceded to take part in détente only with great difficulties, apprehensions, and numerous qualifications. They had to take part, because by the late sixties and early seventies the old policies had thoroughly exposed themselves as senseless and dangerous. However, those old policies were not uprooted, and pretty soon began reasserting themselves with increasing strength as brakes on détente, trends toward a resurrection, to some extent or other, of the Cold War, to an acceleration of the arms race and a breakdown in negotiations.

Are you saying that the American power elite has become disenchanted by détente over the last few years and thus decided to go back to the Cold War?

This would be an oversimplified view of the problem. For one thing, I don't think that the American power elite has ever been enchanted by détente. As we Marxists see it, détente, improvement of relations and greater cooperation with the USSR, not to mention disarmament and renunciation of the use of force, are neither the most typical nor the most habitual features of the policies and political views of that elite. But we do see a differentiation within that elite, different groupings that have differing approaches to problems. And what is most important, the objective course of events, objective realities, can sometimes even compel people with established opinions to change their attitudes. But this does not mean that such changes come easily or that they are irreversible. The old, the habitual, that which is almost the second nature of the most influential strata of the ruling class, tends to come back to the fore at the slightest provocation. As to the very influential groups pushing for the most conservative, most militaristic, and most irresponsible policies, they opposed the turn to

3. Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), pp. 1258-57.

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détente even before it took place, trying desperately to prevent it. And after the turn did take place, they spared no effort to reverse the events.

You have referred to the difficulties of adaptation. What has proved for the United States the most difficult to adapt to?

I believe the most difficult thing to adapt to was the loss of American military superiority over the USSR and the establishment of parity between the two powers. It was also very difficult for the United States to get used to the contraction of the sphere of the usability of force, to the fact that even such a strong military power as the United States cannot afford to do in the world whatever it likes, even if it concerns much weaker states, like Iran or Nicaragua. I would also refer to the growing independence of allies.

Then there is the fact that the American economy is now dependent on other countries. When that became evident, the talk about the coming benefits of ‘interdependence’ was easily drowned out by the yells about intolerable ‘vulnerability.’

Talking of the pains of adaptation, I would also mention illusions that played a part in producing the drift to a new cold war, like the illusion that the United States is able to restore its former preeminence and its special position in the world.

Right after his inauguration, President Reagan started persuading Americans that they have a right ‘to see the boldest dreams.’

That may be, but those dreams should not include the notion that the problems facing the Soviet Union will ‘weaken’ it so much that the United States will gain a capability to exert a strong influence on Soviet policies. I'd like to return to this question somewhat later; for now, let me just remind you that such forecasts about the USSR have been made repeatedly over the last sixty-odd years, only to be proven wrong.

I would also point out an important domestic American factor that contributed to the change in U.S. policy.

The election campaign?

We can talk about the 1980 campaign too, but the factor I have in mind is of a longer-term character. I mean the growing complaints of the American establishment about the ‘ungovernability’ of America: lack of consensus, fragmentation of political institutions, an overload of social demands on the political system, ‘too much’ democracy, and so forth. It is not forgotten that during the Cold War the United States was a more ‘organized’ and ‘disciplined’ society, which simplified the task of governing. I suspect that many of those who have grown desperate over this ‘ungovernability’

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expect a more tense international situation to make Americans more docile. All these factors combined produced, in my opinion, a consensus among significant parts of the U.S. power elite that the way to increase American power and influence in the world, as well as to reduce domestic instability, was to turn to a tougher policy, to build up American military might and be ready and willing to use it more freely. In addition, American economic strength is to be exerted more directly and with fewer scruples, suppressing some and intimidating others. Of course, this is a very rough outline of the situation. The real picture is more complex.

That sounds like a qualification.

Well, I wouldn't like to oversimplify the situation and assume order and organization where both are lacking. Actually, I could mention two principal qualifications. One is that the processes of consensus building and decision making in the U.S. power elite are such that a president may not need a very solid consensus. In some respects, it may be easier to lead a more fragmented and disoriented elite than a more tightly knit and self-assured one. The other is that, despite the consensus that seems to have emerged at the top of the American political system, there remain, I think, serious doubts about this new U.S. foreign policy. It is doubted because many fear that it won't work and will be very dangerous to the United States itself.

What changed the political atmosphere in that country?

First I would mention a conscious and consistent effort by traditional opponents of détente. American public opinion was very strongly in favor of détente. But it was also extremely frustrated over some foreign-policy developments during the last decade, especially in Indochina. The hardliners, with their ‘Soviet threat’ and ‘you can't push America around’ propaganda, have been rather successful at channeling those frustrations in the direction they desired.

A sudden upsurge in patriotism was perhaps a result of the Iranian hostage crisis.

Please do not understand this as a justification of what was done to the American embassy and U.S. diplomats in Tehran, but the American reaction looked to me more like chauvinism and jingoism.

Don't Russians love their country?

Yes, we do. We also respect and value patriotism in other nations. We think it's a strong moral force that can play a decisive role at a time of

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national crisis. But true patriotism also means a rational attitude toward one's own nation and a critical attitude when one's nation does wrong. Incidentally, that's how Lenin understood patriotism. It has to be distinguished from nationalistic fervor, which has so often led countries astray. It was this latter variety that the nineteenth-century English lexicographer Samuel Johnson had in mind when he called patriotism ‘the last refuge of the scoundrel.’

Do you see still other reasons for the U.S. policy change?

The policy of détente was never given a real chance in America. It's fashionable now among the hard-liners in Washington to deride détente for sapping America's will and resolution in her dealings with the world. But if there was any area where American will and resolution were really lacking, it was in Washington's attitude toward relaxation of tensions, arms control, and confidence building.

And then arrived the 1980 presidential election. Even prominent analysts, like Colonel Jonathan Alford, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told me it was ‘very, very sad indeed’ that the entire world stops and has to wait until the presidential election circus ends in America. Alford added, ‘This is not only immensely sad but potentially rather dangerous.’

Indeed, election time in America is a bad time for good policy and a good time for bad policy. It's understandable, to some extent. Prior to becoming an excellent president or a disastrous president, one must first become president. In order to become president, the candidates often stop at nothing. But sometimes one wonders why, almost every time around, candidates seem to join in a veritable conspiracy to foster the arms race and to promote anti-Soviet feelings. Well-known American scientist ]erome Wiesner said at the end of the last election campaign, in an article in the New York Times, that ‘during each presidential election campaign we are subjected to a bombardment of hysterical, frightening estimates of impending Soviet strategic superiority, accompanied by calls for a major buildup of our nuclear forces.’^4. And he traces the history of this dangerous tradition to 1948. There have been quite a few campaigns since then that were bad indeed in this respect. But the 1980 campaign was a real international disaster. Almost no debates on the real issues facing America took place. There were no attempts to reevaluate the national interests and work out rational means of promoting them. Instead, the world heard deafening saber rattling, a fierce competition in demands for increased military expenditures, and the announcement of a new, rather dangerous, nuclear doctrine. Then, there was the commando raid on Iran. The country was in

4. New York Times, 10 October 1980.

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a state of artificial crisis, and some Americans thought it was because President Carter regarded the crisis as his only salvation from electoral defeat.

What could have been the alternative?

As an ideal - though I find it too good to believe myself - an election campaign that serves as a means of political education, as an instrument for initiating suggestions for corrections in government policies. But the mechanisms of the political process did not work for those democratic purposes. I think Senator Edward Kennedy was right when he said that the U.S. political process had been taken hostage in 1980.

Well, we do seem to be drifting toward a new cold war.

The point is that the second edition of the Cold War could be much more dangerous. A return to unrestricted animosity and confrontation would occur at a new level in the development of means of destruction, making a military confrontation more probable and its consequences more disastrous. Furthermore, the cold-war whirlwind in the eighties would suck in a much larger number of countries than before. The greater the number of participants in an international conflict, the greater the risks, especially if some of the participants are prone to playing reckless and irresponsible games in the world arena.

Besides, a return to the Cold War would make the proliferation of nuclear weapons practically unavoidable. There is another important matter. In the coming decades, global problems like the depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution, and hunger will be still more acute. Détente, arms control, and international cooperation would increase chances for their solution, while in conditions of cold war these problems may become intractable.

Patrick Caddell, the Carter White House pollster, once said in an interview in Playboy, ‘Oh, a little war does a lot for your rating in the polls. But the absence of war does not translate into political points. Any president can force the country to rally around him with decisive martial action. Eisenhower had Korea and Lebanon, Kennedy had Cuba and Vietnam; Johnson, Nixon and Ford had Vietnam...’^5.

Quite an example of the ‘moral’ presidency: war is discussed as an acceptable means to prevent another routine change of guard in Washington. Doesn't Mr. Caddell's statement indicate some serious deficiencies in a political system that turns war into a welcome contribution to political success?

5. Playboy February 1980.

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Caddell may sound cynical, but do you think such behavior has been demonstrated in the past?

Yes, it's a long-standing feature of American politics that in difficult times politicians find it more profitable and secure to gravitate to the Right, to play tough. For some reason, such a position is still considered more patriotic, even though in the nuclear age it is precisely this position that can invite the greatest trouble upon a nation. For some reason, such a position is regarded as more realistic, even though the worst illusion today is to try to achieve security through an arms race and use of force. The cowboy shooting from the hip does remain a popular symbol in America, but there must be more important psychological reasons for such a state of affairs. One of them could be an inertia of thinking, an inability to shake off the burden of old perceptions, inherited from the Cold War. These perceptions remain strong because of their inviting simplicity.

What do you mean by simplicity?

In a cold-war environment, everything moves on the level of a cheap western. You have a concrete enemy who is the source of all evil. You have a crystal-clear goal - to bring this enemy down. The more damage you inflict on the other party, the better off you are. And you have established and tested the means to do it without any pangs of conscience. You can appeal to such atavistic feelings as jingoism, suspicion, and hostility toward folks who live differently, and yearn for national superiority. You find yourself in a two-dimensional world of black and white, and quite importantly, you can describe your political platform in one minute of television prime time.

The philosophy of détente is much more sophisticated and difficult to grasp. One has to be broad-minded and tolerant enough to understand the possibility and the desirability of coexistence and cooperation between nations that are vastly different in their social systems, political institutions, values, sympathies, and antipathies. One would have to realize that relations between them aren't a zero-sum game in which one side wins exactly as much as the other loses, and that despite all differences and difficulties they still might have overwhelming mutual interests.

What is even more difficult to understand is that the source of trouble is not always ‘the other guy,’ but often one's own mistakes and wrongdoings, or even forces and events nobody controls. And one has to realize that qualities like restraint, moderation, readiness for compromise, even though they require not only more wisdom but greater political courage as well, are preferable to self-righteousness, arrogance, and the inclination to play tough. Finally, one should try to understand the other side. How does your policy look to them? What are their perceptions of your policy?

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Are you disappointed? Has détente proven too sophisticated for the broad public to understand?

You see, it's a process. In the 1950s, the intricacies of modern international politics were understood by very few people. In the 1960s, the numbers of those who understood began to grow rapidly. In the 1970s, certain truths about the modern world penetrated the minds of millions. I am still hopeful that the ideas of détente will triumph in the 1980s.

There have been some developments in Europe and America that give grounds for such hopes.

You mean the antinuclear movement that started in 1981?

Yes.

You said that it takes a strong effort to sustain détente, while tension is self-generating. Did you mean the intellectual and psychological complexity of détente as compared to the dangerously simplistic formulas of the Cold War?

Yes, but not only this. The force of inertia is important. Détente is just a few years old, while the Cold War that preceded it lasted for several decades. Those decades have left behind not only a lot of preconceptions and prejudices, but also some built-in mechanisms. I mean the mechanisms of the arms race, the existing military and political alliances, as well as other parts of the huge infrastructure created in the service of the Cold War, such as the bureaucracies and organizations for psychological warfare, covert operations, and similar activities. All these mechanisms seek to ensure their own survival. This means that they have to generate international tensions, spur military rivalry, and sow distrust and hatred of the external enemy. These mechanisms are made still stronger in the United States by certain ‘transmission belts’ that link them with important parts of the economic system and very influential vested interests.

Will there ever be a stable détente?

Détente has a lot going for it. It has a great vital force. The main argument for détente is that it has no acceptable alternatives if we are to avoid doomsday.

What exactly does the USSR mean by détente?

Let me quote the most authoritative definition, which came from Leonid Brezhnev: ‘Détente means, primarily, the overcoming of the Cold War and a transition to normal, smooth relations among states. Détente means a

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willingness to resolve differences and disputes not by force, threats, or saber rattling, but by peaceful means, at the negotiating table. Détente means a certain degree of trust and the ability to reckon with each other's interests. This, briefly, is our understanding of détente.’^8.

Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria told me that he feels the signing of the Austrian Peace Treaty in 1955 was the very beginning of the policy of détente in Europe.

The signing of the Austrian Peace Treaty was by its very nature and consequences undoubtedly an act of détente. But I am not certain whether we can single it out as the very beginning of this political process.

International politics are getting ever more complex. Nevertheless, U.S.-Soviet relations continue to play a crucial role and remain a central axis for the whole world system.

You are right. Even though it would be a mistake to look at every world development through the prism of those relations, one cannot overestimate their importance for humanity. Let me put it this way: while an improvement of relations between Moscow and Washington is not a panacea for all troubles, unrestrained hostility between the two can lead to the extinction of our civilization.

I asked Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner what he considered the top priority of our day. ‘Survival!’ he shot back.

As simple as that. The overwhelming mutual interest between the USSR and the United States is indeed survival. It makes peaceful coexistence between us imperative. Whether one likes it or not, we are chained to each other on this planet. Neither side can leave the globe. We are here. Americans are here. We've got to learn to live in peace. If we succeed, we will not only survive, but may be able to establish relations that could bring benefits to each other and to the world as a whole. Our well-being and the world's well-being depend to a large extent on whether we spend more on peaceful endeavors or continue to squander our resources through the arms race. There could be tremendous benefit for all humanity in the cooperation of the two biggest economic and scientific-technical potentials in the world. Finally, we are faced with growing global problems that can only be tackled in a peaceful atmosphere.

If we allow ourselves to slide down into uncontrollable hostility, we can expect, at best, a quite drab and bleak existence, and, at worst, a nuclear incineration of life on this planet. True, the task of improving relations between the two most powerful nations in the world, who have been

8. Moscow News, 21 January 1979.

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antagonists for decades, is a tremendous challenge. But it is required by the realities of the nuclear age.

Expectations of improved relations are constantly dashed. That leads to despondency and cynicism.

Unfortunately, this is so. It is unfortunate since there are obvious dangers in having negative attitudes about the possibility of lessening tensions. If such attitudes persist, many people will assume as a fact of life that there is nothing to expect but hostility, an unlimited arms race, and political or even military confrontations. Such desperate moods can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

After the events of the last few years, people can hardly be blamed for harboring those feelings.

But it's wrong. Those events hardly prove that confrontation is inevitable, or that a resumption of the Cold War is unavoidable. Rather, what we have seen is that processes aimed at improving our relations and easing international tensions can be halted, that a deterioration can be readily provoked, and that much of what was built carefully during the last decade with intensive effort and hard work on both sides can be all too easily destroyed. In other words, we've seen that it's not enough to build better relations, but that we must also learn to keep and safeguard them. This is a conclusion we are drawing in the Soviet Union.

There is a lot of talk now about rivalry between the United States and the USSR. High U.S. officials refer to this rivalry as the main source of the problems. Their view is that the rivalry will continue under any conditions, though it may be combined with limited cooperation.

Indeed, this is the official American position. Over the last two or three years it has evolved from ‘competition plus cooperation’ to ‘mostly competition.’ Both elements are certainly present in our relations, but we ought to see that the relative weight and importance of each of these two elements - competition and cooperation - in our relations, can differ substantially under different political conditions. Paraphrasing the well-known statement by Clausewitz, détente is not a continuation of the Cold War by other, more cautious and safer, means. It is a policy that, by its nature and objectives, is opposed to the Cold War, and is aimed not at gaining victory in conflicts by means short of nuclear war, but at the settlement and prevention of conflicts, at lowering the level of military confrontation, and at the development of international cooperation.

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Former American ambassador to Moscow Malcolm Toon once said - and i this is a view widely shared in Washington - that no millennium of friendship and mutual trust would arrive ‘without a basic change in Soviet philosophy and outlook.’ Sovietologist Richard Pipes, while on the staff of Reagan's National Security Council, went further, suggesting that unless the Soviet Union changed its ways there might ultimately be no alternative to war between East and West.

You would have to be in an overoptimistic mood to expect a millennium of friendship and mutual trust anywhere around the world in the near future. It would be ideal, of course, to create such a millennium, but for the moment we should be concerned with more elementary problems, like plain survival. Meanwhile, suggesting that a significant improvement of relations is possible only if there is a basic change in Soviet philosophy and outlook is a sure prescription for greater tensions. That is precisely the approach that has been practiced by the United States over and over again for more than half a century. The only result has been to prevent our two nations from putting their relations on a normal basis. Neither side has benefited from it. The gist of peaceful coexistence is that we can live side by side, have normal relations, even good relations, while remaining different from each other and not demanding that the other side become like ourselves.

But existing deep philosophical differences will continue to have an adverse effect on relations.

Well, they can have such an effect, but one should not exaggerate the potential for international conflict inherent in those differences.

Let's imagine a hypothetical situation where, instead of the Soviet Union, there is another superpower facing the United States, absolutely similar to it, a carbon copy of the United States - a superpower with the same philosophy and outlook, the same economic and political systems, the same political habits, including those connected with elections; with a similar Congress inhabited by quite a few trigger-happy politicians, with the same Pentagon, military-industrial complex, and mass media; a superpower with the same energy-wasting way of life and very similar interests in the Persian Gulf, and in oil and other mineral resources around the world. Imagine that this United States II is just as egocentric, self-righteous, and full of messianic aspirations as its prototype, just as itching to reform the entire world to its liking, to build a Pax Americana of its own. Would our planet be better off and a safer place to live than at present, with the United States and the Soviet Union being as different from each other as they are?

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Wait a minute. Do you mean that the basic differences between the United States and the USSR are actually furthering the cause of peace?

No. But I mean that such differences don't make war inevitable or even probable. And I firmly believe that the policy of the Soviet Union helps further the cause of peace.

And what if we had a USSR I and a USSR II?

I think we would be able to find peace with our alter ego much more easily. But let me continue.

World War I, as well as countless smaller wars, were in fact clashes between states that had similar philosophies and socioeconomic systems, similar aims and outlooks. In World War II capitalist countries were fighting each other, some as allies of the USSR; As to the Soviet-American competition, I don't think it need necessarily create dangers to peace. It can remain a natural competition as long as we control military rivalry, avoid unnecessary or artificial conflicts, and remember the overriding common interests that call for cooperation.

How would you define ‘natural competition’ between the two superpowers?

It is not so much a competition between superpowers as a competition between differing social systems. Natural competition between the two different social systems means that each system demonstrates, not only to its own people but to the world at large, what it is able to achieve in economic and social development, in quality of life, culture, ideas, and so forth. Such competition is inevitable, but it should not necessarily lead to political and military conflicts between states.

Much more of the current misunderstanding, as well as willful misinterpretation, of this matter stems from different ideas of competition. Soviet-American competition is often portrayed in America as a struggle between good and evil, with the Americans, of course, as the good guys. Many people who assume they are being objective may think in terms of competition between two empires, where each is trying to grab as much of the cake as possible and achieve control over the world. But I would not agree with such imperialistic thinking.

The United States, in 1945, did hold the fate of the world in its hands, but it seems to have dropped it.

In our view, Washington did have strong imperial and hegemonistic aspirations after World War II. The United States was predominant economi-

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cally and had a huge strategic superiority based on a nuclear monopoly. It felt it could shape and reshape the world according to its liking.

It has come a long way from that position.

Yes, but the United States did not let go of what it held because of goodwill. The world simply changed immensely, and the United States now occupies a more modest, though very prominent, place on our planet. But it has proved to be tremendously difficult for Washington to learn to live with these changes, to get rid of old illusions, misperceptions, and unfounded claims. Lately, it has looked as if these old pretensions have again begun to guide Washington's foreign policy.

Why should we not suspect the USSR of wanting to replace the United States in its paramount position?

Such an idea would be totally alien to our philosophy and outlook. It should also be borne in mind that the Soviet economy does not need foreign expansion for its growth. But even if one should disregard all this, there would still be very solid practical grounds for not wanting to imitate the United States in this respect.

The costs of maintaining empires nowadays are growing, while the benefits are shrinking. Look at all the troubles America has been having in the last decade and a half because of her worldwide involvement. And the present imperial drive can only worsen America's problems. In today's world, imperialism is a losing proposition. It just does not work.

How would you evaluate U.S.-Soviet relations at this point?

The more I study the United States, the more cautious I become in my evaluations. Sometimes, when I'm asked about Soviet-American relations, I recall the wise man who, when he was asked, ‘How is your wife?’ responded, ‘Compared to what?’ Only if you place relations in a comparative perspective can you avoid both excessive pessimism and overblown optimism.

In answer to your question, I would say that there have been worse times in Soviet-American relations, but there have been much better times as well. To be more exact, so much has been done by the Americans lately to spoil our relations that they are at the lowest point in perhaps a decade.

That is a rather gloomy evaluation.

I'd very much prefer a different one, but what else can I say after what was done in the last year of Carter's presidency and the first years of Reagan's? A great deal of what had taken so much pain and effort to build was broken

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and smashed in a rampage of destruction. It looked as if some people had been dreaming of this orgy for a long time, barely holding themselves back. Arms-control talks were damaged, if not derailed. Economic relations were almost entirely discontinued. Consular ties were undermined. The agreement on direct air links was violated, and many cooperative activities in science have been broken off. An atmosphere was created that virtually incited criminal acts by anti-Soviet hate groups. Alas, to destroy is so much easier than to build.

Mr. Reagan started his presidency with a series of harsh verbal attacks on Soviet leaders. That hardly helped U.S.-Soviet relations.

Yes, since the very first days of the Reagan administration, its leading spokesmen have missed no chance to make abusive charges against the USSR, like the charge that the Soviet Union supports international terrorism, uses chemical or bacteriological weapons, and so forth. The bully-boy rhetoric was supplemented by corresponding policies - primarily, by whipping up the arms race. I think that an important motivation of such rhetoric and policy was an intention to provoke the Soviet Union into changing its policies, and thus justify a return to cold war.

The Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU demonstrated the failure of these attempts. It put forward a constructive program on major international issues, including Soviet-American relations. President Brezhnev repeated from the Congress's podium that we continue to regard normalization of those relations as a matter of great importance.

But not everything depends on us alone. Just like in personal situations, it takes one side to start a quarrel, while peace can only be based on the mutual agreement of all participants.

But even if there were the will in Washington to improve relations with the Soviet Union, there remain endless roadblocks.

Yes, there have always been roadblocks. But I think recent history has shown that it is possible to remove them, provided both sides understand that such efforts are demanded by their overwhelming mutual interests. I believe those interests make it worthwhile to keep trying.

We are talking of coexistence. But doesn't Khrushchev's famous phrase ‘We will bury you!’ still adequately reflect the Soviet attitude?

That expression became an object of feverish speculation at the time it was made, some two decades ago. I will not defend the rhetorical merits of that particular phrase, but let me point out that its meaning was far from aggressive or warlike. The idea was to convey confidence in socialism's historical advantages over capitalism, which, in our conviction, will make

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a worldwide triumph of socialism inevitable in the long run. Of course, victory is understood in the sense that people in capitalist countries will choose socialism themselves, without any pressure or coercion from our side. We communists believe so. Otherwise we would not be communists. Just as the supporters of capitalism, or the free-enterprise system, or whatever else they may call it, believe, I assume, in the advantages of their social system, expecting that sooner or later all nations of the world would prefer it. But we don't think that our different beliefs and expectations should prevent us from coexisting.

In the West we believe that communists do not deal with questions of socialist revolution simply as spectators. You consider it your international duty to assist revolutionaries. This is what leads to trouble, creating situations where there is no room for peaceful coexistence.

This reasoning looks plausible only on the surface. We are not indifferent to the outcome of struggles for socialism in other countries, nor do we conceal our sympathies. But we hold that the only way to help socialist revolution abroad is by means of our example, by building a better society in our own country, by solving successfully the problems that still exist. We are against imposing socialism on other nations, against what is called ‘the export of revolution.’

At the same time, we are opposed to any export of counterrevolution; that is, attempts at restoring prerevolutionary regimes by means of outside interference. History has shown that the export of counterrevolution remains a rather common practice, so the enemies of socialism are not indifferent spectators by any standard either.

Sorry, but this sounds like pure propaganda.

No, we do treat these matters very seriously. As a matter of fact, the first serious discussion within our party following the 1917 Revolution was devoted to this very question, since some in the party - the ultraleftists, the Trotskyites - insisted that we should spread the revolution beyond our borders by means of a revolutionary war. The overwhelming majority of the party resolutely rejected this idea. Lenin maintained that pushing a foreign country toward revolution would be ‘a complete break with Marxism.’

There was, it seems, a similar conflict between Moscow and Beijing.

You are right. It was one of the main issues during the first stage of the split between us in the late fifties and early sixties. Mao and his group declared that peaceful coexistence was a ‘betrayal of the revolution’ and kept repeating that ‘power comes from the barrel of a gun.’ It was the same unacceptable concept Lenin fought against.

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But what about Afghanistan? Has the Soviet Union not imposed its will on a small neighbor since 1978, gradually escalating its interference up to a point where it's virtually running that country now? It seems to be a classic case of exporting communism by the force of arms.

We did not ‘export’ the April 1978 revolution to Afghanistan. Anyone familiar with the situation there is aware of this fact. We first heard of the revolution from Western news media.

As a matter of fact, no one needed to export a revolution to Afghanistan: conditions in that country had reached a point where a radical change of the political and social systems became for the Afghans the only way out of a deep crisis. Don't forget that Afghanistan is one of the poorest and most backward countries in the world. It is sorely in need of economic development, social and cultural progress, and meaningful democracy for its seventeen million people. Some timid reforms were tried there prior to the revolution, but they failed to solve the social and economic problems of the country. Modernization by evolution just didn't work, while pressures for change were growing.

By the way, the uprising that took place in April 1978 was provoked by an attempt of the old regime to stage a coup and eliminate the Afghan Left - the labor unions, the student unions, and the National Democratic Party. Responding to a series of murders and arrests, the National Democrats took up arms and deposed the old regime. It was a purely internal Afghan development.

But the Soviet Union strongly sympathized with the revolutionaries.

Yes, it did. The aims of the revolution were very noble and reflected the real needs of the people: to give land to those who till it, to eliminate hunger, to stop discrimination against women and ethnic minorities, to educate a nation where 90 percent of the people can't read or write - in short, to provide for basic human rights and social justice. We have significantly increased our economic and technical assistance to Afghanistan since the revolution.

As well as military assistance?

Certainly. The revolution needed to defend itself. The old ruling elite that lost its power, its land, and its privileges as a result of the revolution has been doing everything it can to regain power. It has been actively supported by the United States, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The new government in Kabul has been up against a formidable array of hostile forces. You have to keep in mind that some of the Afghan frontiers are virtually open because of migrations back and forth by nomadic tribes. Almost from the first days of the April revolution, Afghanistan has been

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subjected to foreign intervention. Our military assistance was aimed not at imposing our will on Afghanistan, but at helping its government withstand outside interference.

Let's return to Afghanistan later. We have deviated from the subject of peaceful coexistence, which depends to, a large extent on Soviet perceptions of the United States, and, of course, vice versa. How do you view the United States from Moscow?

This is a very complex question. America is a subject of great interest in the Soviet Union. Lots of books and articles have been written. It is quite a challenge to give a short but substantive picture of our perceptions. Let me try, although I will have to be sketchy.

I'd like to repeat that people in the Soviet Union take a lively interest in America. I refer to the broadest strata of our people, regardless of age, education, or the kind of work they do. I think there's a definite asymmetry here as compared to American interest in the USSR. We in the Soviet Union view the United States as a very strong country, both economically and militarily. U.S. foreign policy is seen by our people as characterized by imperial designs, especially pronounced at this stage. And I must say that Soviet people can only interpret the current American policy vis-à-vis our country as very hostile.

In other respects, the United States is a country that is never dull to watch, though I would add that it sometimes makes you mad. Our people are very interested in American culture, literature and cinema, music and architecture. The best American works in these fields are widely known here. Our specialists are well acquainted with the achievements of American science, technology, industry, medicine, and agriculture. There's an interest and sometimes even enthusiasm, particularly among youngsters, for such features of the American way of life as pop music, jeans, chewing gum, Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, the Wild West, and so forth.

At the same time, the Soviet public is well informed of the growing problems facing America. First, I have in mind the economic problems - inflation, unemployment, energy problems, and so forth. I mean also the social problems, like the conditions of black Americans, Indians, and Spanish-speaking ethnic groups; the growing troubles of the old urban centers like New York or Cleveland; the problems of crime, drug addiction, access to health care for a majority of Americans; and many others. Finally, I have in mind the political and spiritual problems besetting American society. We are convinced - and the whole stream of historical events strengthens this conviction - that ultimate power in the United States, and the last word in its affairs of state, belongs to the corporate elite. This conviction, to a very serious degree, determines our view of American democracy and American ways of life.

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How did Watergate strike people in the USSR?

As very unusual. But apparently it looked rather strange even to Americans themselves. Nothing like it ever happened in American history before. I must say that several researchers at our institute won their bets on the Nixon resignation at the time. The same number lost, however, so I would not boast of our foresight.

Let me ask you about the Institute of United States and Canadian Studies. I must say you have quite an elegant eighteenth-century mansion here, less than a mile from the Kremlin. What do you and your colleagues do?

Well, we do not spend all our time betting on political events in America, to be sure. Our institute is one of many research centers organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

When was it established?

In 1968.

What are the principal spheres of study here?

American and Canadian economic problems, domestic and social problems, political parties, the electoral processes, and so forth. We also study American military policy, not the U.S. military establishment as such, but the impact of military expenditures and programs, doctrines and postures on American foreign policy, including, of course, American-Soviet relations. We also study problems of arms control. A special department does research on problems of U.S. foreign policy in various regions, such as Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, and in developing nations. There is a department that studies American public opinion, ideology, and culture.

You have a large staff?

About 350, plus twenty to thirty postgraduate students. We pass on doctoral degrees. A large number of our staff have been trained right here.

Where do your publications go?

Books are our main product. Among our recent works are such monographs as Modern U.S. Foreign Policy Concepts, U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, Canada on the Threshold of the Eighties, Modern American Political Consciousness, U.S. Economy: Problems and Contradictions, and U.S. Congress and Foreign Policy. We also have a monthly publication. Our

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specialists are in great demand for broad educational activities, like lectures, writing articles for the media, TV appearances, and the like.

Surely the reports of the institute go to the government?

Well, if we have any bright ideas, we have no problem bringing them to the attention of the government. The main thing is to have the bright ideas in the first place. If people in the government ask us questions in the fields that we are familiar with, we have no secrets. But I would like to emphasize that our institute has not been created for a day-by-day service in foreign policy. That is the business of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our embassy in Washington. Our task is to study long-term problems and trends, and to develop fundamental research that can contribute to understanding more deeply and reliably the countries we study.

You must have American counterparts.

There are no exact counterparts, but there exist a lot of smaller centers for the study of the USSR at universities, or at Pentagon-sponsored organizations like the Rand Corporation or the Institute for Defense Analysis. There are other centers as well, like the George Kennan Institute at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Do you have regular contacts with American scholars?

Yes, we do have many working contacts with universities, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the Stanford Research Institute, and other centers. With some of them we carry out joint research projects.

You also exchange scholars?

Yes. Our people go there, and we invite scholars, public figures, prominent businessmen, and others to visit us. Besides, many Americans call on us while visiting Moscow. Unfortunately, steps taken by the U.S. government in the last year or two to sharply curtail scientific and other exchanges between our countries have affected our institute's ties, as well.

Could you name a few of the Americans who have visited the institute?

Certainly. Walter Mondale lectured here when he was a senator. Edmund Muskie paid a visit, and former ambassador W. Averell Harriman visited the institute a couple of times. We have hosted such leaders of

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the Communist Party USA as Gus Hall, Henry Winston, and Angela Davis. Who else? The list is quite lengthy. Senators Kennedy, Baker, Garn; Congressman Vanik; Cyrus Vance; Zbigniew Brzezinski; Harold Brown and Marshall Shulman; Michael Blumenthal; Arthur Burns; John Kenneth Galbraith; George Kennan; Robert Pranger; Leslie Gelb; Harold Agnew of the Los Alamos Laboratory; Paul Doty and Stanley Hoffman of Harvard; William Kintner; David Rockefeller; Bank of America President A. Clausen; Roy Ash and the late Tex Thornton from Litton Industries; Paul Austin from Coca-Cola and Don Kendall from Pepsi-Cola; Chief Justice Warren Burger; Retired General James Gavin and Retired Admiral Gene La Rocque; William F. Buckley, Jr. and his brother James Buckley; and almost the entire Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

From talking with all these visitors, and from your own journeys to the United States, didn't you gain the impression that Americans often tend to advertise and exaggerate their problems? Do you think there is a kind of masochistic streak in the American mind?

You see, each society has its own criteria for judging what is a problem and what is not. These criteria change with the times. Yes, Americans usually tend to be quite open about some of their problems, and I consider it their strong point. I don't think it's masochism. We communists call it self-criticism and think that it only helps a society to move ahead. At the same time, American self-criticism shouldn't always be taken at face value. We note some peculiarities here. Americans, for example, have a special gift for ‘exorcising’ their problems, or talking them away, if I may say so. They often seem to believe that it's enough to raise a problem, to discuss it, even to spotlight it, to denounce it - and then forget all about it, moving the spotlight on to another sore spot. That works like letting off steam from a boiler.

Another trait that amazes an outsideris the American ability to ‘deodorize’ the evils of their society and put up with them. Americans are well aware, for instance, that the police in some of their cities are corrupt; that the casinos are controlled by the Mafia; that advertising is full of lies; that politicians often cheat to get elected and, once elected, take it easy on their campaign promises; and so forth. But there's no real public indignation. Far from it: it looks as if some people regard these episodes as good entertainment or good sports, and some even envy the adroitness of the players.

As to this talk of masochism, such complaints are indeed heard more and more in the United States. I don't think it is incidental. In recent times, one observes a definite trend away from self-criticism and toward national self-congratulation, and a weakening of the desire to confront problems head-on.

[p. 24]

What do you mean precisely?

Many opinion leaders in the United States have been trying to persuade Americans that they've never had it so good, or that the causes of American difficulties lie beyond the American shores, or that Americans can solve their problems quite easily just by regaining their faith in themselves, in America, and in the current administration and its programs. This sort of intellectual cowardice and scapegoating looks to me like one of the serious spiritual-political problems in America today. It is truly a serious problem because it frustrates the search for rational solutions precisely when such solutions are urgently required. And it increases the possibility of the nation making serious mistakes.

You don't think the time for self-criticism has passed in the United States?

No, I do not, if only because the search for solutions to the numerous problems facing the country is far from completed. My colleagues and I think that American society has been living through a protracted, multifaceted crisis involving many spheres of American life. It is becoming increasingly clear that, unless some very serious and rational attempts are made in the United States to adapt its policies, including its foreign policy, to changing realities, America is in for a series of very strong shocks, possibly stronger than at any time in her history.

A revolution?

Rest assured, we don't foresee the collapse of American social and political institutions in the immediate future.

No communist takeover by 1984?

If things go in the direction some people have predicted, a few of Orwell's predictions about the Big Brother state may come true by 1984, but it surely would be an anticommunist Big Brother.

Wouldn't you welcome exacerbation of American problems as a plus for the Soviet Union in its historic competition with the United States?

Well, anyone receives some intellectual satisfaction from a confirmation of his political views and theories. Marxists are no exception in this regard. This is anything but gloating. It is very well understood in the USSR that it is not Wall Street that suffers from urban blight, unemployment, or crime in the street, but the average American. How can we rejoice over these problems? If you analyze the reports about Western social problems in our news media, you'll notice that the tone is not one

[p. 25]

of glee or hand rubbing. We don't drink toasts to the automobile lines at American gas stations or stage a party rally each time an American city goes bankrupt.

More sophisticated people here are even concerned about the exacerbation of certain American problems - not because they like the present American system, but because they are aware that a national crisis may be deeper than the public understanding of its causes and its possible solutions. You see, people may be very unhappy about the status quo, but misguided about the real reasons for their unhappiness. They may listen to false prophets or support pseudosolutions. This is what happened in Italy in the 1920s and in Germany in the 1930s. After all, the same Great Depression that brought Franklin Roosevelt to power in the United States and led to New Deal reforms made Hitler the German fuhrer and led to World War II.

Yes, we do want to win the historic competition with capitalism, but we don't want to celebrate our victory on heaps of radioactive rubble.

According to some American figures, socialist governments now control 39 percent of the surface of the world, while 42 percent of the world population is following Marxist ideology.

These figures can be corrected somewhat, but it is obvious that socialism and communism have become a foundation of life on a very substantial part of our planet.

How then do you explain former President Carter's remark in his Annapolis address, that communism was becoming ‘increasingly unattractive to other nations, even to those of Marxist-Leninist coloration’? Or President Reagan's statement that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of communism?

We can only interpret such statements as wishful thinking on the part of the White House. They are refuted by the figures you just mentioned, illustrating the basic thrust of world development nowadays away from capitalism.

Do you think the events in Poland give support to such a view of socialism?

No, I do not. No system is guaranteed against mistakes and difficulties. Capitalism is certainly no exception in this regard. Neither is socialism, which undertakes far more complex social and political tasks.

Naturally, no historical process, no revolution ever develops smoothly. Socialist countries have had their share of disappointments as well. But if you analyze objectively what goes on in the world as a whole, I think U.S. presidents should be more cautious in their forecasts.

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But the economic situation in many socialist countries, including the USSR, is far from rosy, indeed.

We have some economic problems that are openly and intensely discussed. But name me a country that does not. And you cannot ignore the fact that our country continues to grow at a steady pace. Our growth rates are at a level considered at least normal by Western standards. We haven't had a single economic recession in our history. In the 1970s, real per capita income in the USSR was increased by half, while 40 percent of our population has moved to new and better apartments.

It all sounds rather optimistic. Didn't the growth rates of both your GNP and your industrial production sharply decrease in the seventies?

They did decrease somewhat, even though they were still almost twice as high as in the United States.

How about agriculture? It's often described in the West as a complete disaster.

This is simply not true. We still have serious difficulties in our agriculture. To some extent they are caused by our hard weather and climatic conditions less favorable than in most Western countries. But this is one of the branches of our economy that is in the process of especially fundamental and rapid development. In the last five years we have invested 172 billion rubles in agriculture, or about 25 percent of the overall budget. The output of main agricultural products has been increasing steadily, even if slower than we'd like.

You don't think a revolution is around the corner for the United States. But in general, do you consider it possible that a radical change may sooner or later come about in that country?

Why not? Believing in a socialist future for all peoples, I don't see anything that would make the United States exceptional in this regard. Perhaps not in the near future, but ultimately there will be a socialist transformation of American society. It's up to the American people alone to decide about the kind of system that best suits their interests. When the time comes for a socialist America, it might be quite different from other socialist countries. American socialism will bear a label: ‘Made in USA.’

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In 1933, the Americans opted for a radical solution, while the Germans embarked on the way toward doom. Do you think that the Americans may blunder into a similar crisis in the future?

Hopefully not, and there are reasons for this hope. If anything, I have observed that Americans have wisened up considerably during the past decades. Stormy times usually are better educators than sleepy times. Aside from an enrichment in historical experience, we witness definite progress in mass education. Americans are reading more now. There is a veritable reading boom in the United States. Many Americans are now probably less susceptible to official propaganda and more inclined to make up their own minds and form independent judgments.

But this progress toward a more realistic perception of the world has been rather slow, I am afraid. There is still a lot of ignorance and gullibility in the country. The situation both in America and abroad is much more complex now than in 1933, while mass-manipulation techniques have made a giant stride. Those who are trying to mislead the nation have become more sophisticated. Therefore, the possibility of choosing a wrong option at a moment of crisis, in spite of all the increased enlightenment of the average American citizen, cannot, in my opinion, be ruled out.

Indeed, in Europe it is often felt that Americans, unlike Europeans, simply refuse to face the fact that empires have become obsolete.

I agree. There are many lessons to be learned, many new realities to be understood. For instance, Americans have grown accustomed to a sense of absolute security, because this was instilled over two centuries by the insurmountable barriers of two oceans. The strategic preponderance the United States enjoyed in the first postwar decades must have contributed to this feeling of absolute safety. Now the situation has drastically changed. America finds herself not only at rough military parity with the USSR, but absolutely on a par with us and all other countries in terms of vulnerability to a holocaust should a war break out. This is a novel psychological experience for Americans. It is certainly not easy to get used to it or to get along with it. It nurtures a climate for more panicking about the ‘Soviet threat’ and creates a permanent temptation to follow those who promise an act of magic - a return to past invulnerability if only a sufficient number of dollars are allocated and an adequate number of weapons systems produced.

And then one has to see that United States remoteness, self-sufficiency, and isolationism did not encourage much interest in the outside world. That is why Americans are not particularly given to scrutinizing the intricacies of the international scene. This also helps sustain a situation in which foreign policy so often falls prey to domestic politicking.

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What is your impression of the attitudes of average American citizens to the USSR?

Well, I've encountered a lot of ignorance, inaccurate perceptions, misunderstanding, mistrust, and so on. But I've almost never felt hatred of our country or of the Russians. The average American - at least this is my impression from my own encounters - is willing to listen and learn. I also think the natural friendliness and open-mindedness of most Americans are helpful here.

In 1979, the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate issued a book on U.S.-Soviet relations. You, among others, contributed to it. I would like to deal with some of the questions you discussed there. One was whether the American public had an accurate perception of the Soviet Union, its people, and its leaders.

I don't think it does - even on the problems that are of high importance to the United States itself. Inaccuracy of many American perceptions of the Soviet Union is hardly surprising given the fact that there may be no other country in the world of which U.S. perceptions have for such a long time been formed on the basis of such one-sided and distorted information. That is why they are so tinted with strong biases and prejudices.

There was also the following question: on the basis of what information, and as a result of what psychological, social, and political forces, is American public opinion toward the Soviet Union shaped?

My answer was as follows: the bulk of information the Americans get about the Soviet Union is secondhand, delivered to the American public through American intermediaries - journalists, experts, politicians, reports by the CIA and other governmental and private organizations. To a certain extent this is probably the case with any other country. But in informing the American public about the Soviet Union, these American intermediaries very often display a particular bias. This is the result of personal ideological prejudices characteristic of many of them, and of direct or indirect pressure of those who have vested interests in creating a distorted picture of the Soviet Union.

The United States is hardly comparable to any other country in the world in terms of the extent to which special interests affect national policy and the concepts that underlie it. Among those vitally interested in the distortion of the American perception of the USSR are the military-industrial complex, the ultraconservative elements, groups benefiting from the Cold War, organizations representing anticommunist emigration from Eastern Europe, the Israeli lobby, and others.

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Does American public opinion, in your view, have any real influence on U.S. foreign policy?

Without doubt, American public opinion affects official policy. This influence at certain times and under specific circumstances - on the eve of elections, for instance - can be substantial, indeed. However, in my opinion, normally the president and the Congress tend to respond not so much to public opinion as to the sentiments of well-organized pressure groups. And of course, in many instances, instead of echoing public sentiments, the U.S. government and groups wishing to influence its policies may attempt to change public moods in a desired fashion.

Does American public opinion differ significantly from the views of U.S. experts regarding the Soviet Union?

It probably does, but one should bear in mind that there are great differences between the opinions of the U.S. experts themselves. For a long time, a majority of them held a position of utmost hostility to the Soviet Union. This is probably accounted for by the fact that Soviet studies flourished in the time of the Cold War, the interests of which many of those experts served. A disproportionately high share of emigrés from Eastern Europe among the U.S. experts on the Soviet Union was also a factor. Their attitudes toward the Soviet Union might have been tainted by highly negative personal emotions connected with the changes that took place in their countries after World War II. The situation has been changing to a certain extent over the past few years. The United States has produced a ‘national cadre’ of experts on the Soviet Union, differing widely in their personal outlook, but reflecting a wide range of American political interests and opinions. Younger people in Soviet studies, whatever their outlooks, were not brought up as cold warriors. And, of course, among the older generation there are notable exceptions - people possessing not only outstanding knowledge, but great integrity and a clear understanding of the importance of normal relations with the Soviet Union. But with new-type or old-type experts, U.S. policy makers can find confirmation of practically any desired viewpoint.

None of this is meant as a call to distrust the experts. I only think that, first, even with the experts available, personal competence of the political leaders is essential, and second, those who are inclined to rely on the advice of these experts should become expert themselves in deciding which of the experts are likely to provide an objective and thorough analysis.

How about the political elite? Do you think it is sufficiently enlightened to construct effective policy?

We face another paradox here. One cannot help but notice that U.S. foreign policy has traditionally been served by a very big concentration of

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brains - maybe the biggest in the world. The administrations have regularly tried to draft the best and the brightest to serve the government. A host of research centers, both inside and outside the universities, has been scrutinizing on a day-to-day basis everything worth attention, and even many things patently unworthy of attention. The Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, and other offices have been spending huge sums on conducting analytical research to assist in policy making. The elite is constantly enlightened and educated about the intricacies of world politics and about ways to solve military, economic, and political problems. But once you observe the practical results of this voluminous activity, you begin to wonder about cost-benefit ratios. The entire intellectual potential of U.S. policy making proved unable to save America from a series of very bad miscalculations and mistakes, which may have been even bigger than those made by other countries.

How do you account for this paradox?

Well, I don't think that the policy makers just don't listen to the researchers and analysts. They may not listen enough in some cases, and sometimes the specialists may not be very good. But the reasons for these policy failures go deeper than this. One has to take into account certain domestic political mechanisms that push the policy makers to wrong or even irrational decisions. The leadership-selection process in the United States might be such that in some cases the qualities of leaders aren't up to the tasks they have to perform. But the most important reason is the existence of certain strong vested interests that contradict and negate the demands of logic and reason.

Stanley Hoffman once said that the causes of U.S. foreign policy failures have to do not with muscles, but with brains. This is certainly true. But if we are witnessing a new wave of political body building, it's not just because some people are too stupid to understand the situation. The system itself must be curbing and circumscribing reason with a very narrow and stiff framework, indeed.

What aspects of American foreign policy give you the greatest headaches?

Some of them we have already touched on - such as an inclination to shun the most complex problems of security in a nuclear age by escalating military spending and piling up mountains of weapons. Another one is the predominance of political leaders' domestic concerns over a steady course in foreign policy. Just look how it works in the case of the U.S. Middle East policy.

Then, there is a lack of continuity that makes the United States such an unstable partner, even in the most important endeavors like arms control agreements. Take the sad story of SALT II. We started negotiating it with

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President Nixon, but then had to begin almost from scratch with Ford, then again with Carter. And now President Reagan wants to change everything once again, or drop it altogether.

I would also refer to some very tangible remnants of American messianism.

What precisely do you mean by that?

Well, here's an illustration: ‘I have always believed that this land was placed here between the two great oceans by some divine plan. It was placed here by a special kind of people.... We built a new breed of human called American.’^7. That's Ronald Reagan in 1980. It may look like the heritage of a Calvinist past. Back in those times, Pilgrims, if only for survival's sake, just had to believe they were founding a new and chosen land, free of the old world's sins. Eventually, that defensive feeling evolved into an offensive one in the form of ‘Manifest Destiny,’ then over to the ‘American Century,’ and so on. Although by now this messianism has lost much of its former elan, the almost instinctive yeaming to teach others by sermon if possible, or by force if necessary, still persists in full strength. Recently, we have witnessed a revival of this zealotry. Worst of all, it constantly belies double standards. All this strongly interferes with the maintenance of normal relations between the United States and other countries.

If you have in mind human rights, we'll return to them. Let's for the moment stay with American foreign policy.

Then let me mention another feature typical of U.S. foreign policy, though America is hardly unique in this: a tremendous respect for strength. As far as I understand American attitudes, a weak country is no partner for them. It's only the strong that they respect, and this should be regarded as a fact of life, at least for the time being. Though the main American complaint about the Soviet Union today centers around our strength and even our alleged superiority, I think that our weakness wouldn't have provided for better Soviet-American relations. Quite to the contrary. Our country in such a case would have been far worse off in its relations with the United States than now. The same, by the way, can be said about many other countries that gained their independence and freedom of action just because the Soviet Union emerged as a counterweight to overwhelming American power. Saying this, I don't mean to picture America as a nation inherently aggressive. This is simply not so, if we take Americans as human beings. But though the United States likes to attribute this exclusive respect for strength to other countries, it's mostly applicable to the United States itself. We have more than once felt it on our own skins.

7. The New Republic, 1 November 1980, p. 21.

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But your becoming strong hasn't turned your relations with the United States into a romance, either.

No, it hasn't. I only want to stress that our weakness would have made these relations worse. It would have increased false hopes for remaking us according to American standards. Stating this, I'm nevertheless hopeful that the situation will change; that in due course considerations of power will play a lesser role both in United States policy and in international relations throughout the world.

During the twenty years that I lectured to American audiences from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, I was never able to explain the meaning and the fear of war, as we knew it during the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Gunnar Myrdal once observed that ‘the U.S. citizen's lack of a firsthand memory of the horrors of a war constitutes a danger for the U.S. as well as for the rest of the world.’^8. Indeed, the two world wars that ravaged Europe and profoundly changed European attitudes toward the smell of gunpowder made America richer. In World War II, when fifty million people died, the American losses were about 2 percent of ours. The Piskarev Memorial Cemetery in Leningrad alone contains more war dead than the total of American casualties in World War II. To our country, that war meant the tremendous destruction of economic potential, while the same war pulled America out of the depression. I'm certainly not denouncing America for sacrificing much less than others at the altar of war, nor am I calling on them to sacrifice more. From the moral viewpoint, however, one could expect from Americans a much less cavalier attitude toward war than the one epitomized by former Secretary of State Haig's pronouncement that there are things more important than peace. As to the practical aspect, I agree with Myrdal that an important safety check is lacking in the American mind as a result of some gaps in their historical experience.

As a European student of the United States for the past thirty years I would say that all this is closely tied to American egocentrism.

I think you're right. I've observed many times how difficult it is for Americans to put themselves in other people's shoes, or even to imagine the consequences of American actions for others. Sometimes I think that it is not only the dubious intentions and vested interests of some Americans that cause some of the problems that are of foremost importance today, but also this inability to look at life through the eyes of the other side. We have already discussed, for instance, how the United States, in evaluating Soviet military power, ignores the real threats faced by the Soviet Union and then shouts about the ‘Soviet threat.’

8. San Francisco Chronicle, 2 December 1979.

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I don't think the United States fully understands its own allies, either; in particular the fact that, for Europeans, Europe is not an advanced outpost guarding the American heartland, nor a faraway theater for some tactical operations, but their one and only living space. Therefore, Europe may have a different attitude toward détente and toward the development of peaceful relations with the USSR. I heard from my West German friends that it took Jimmy Carter almost his entire term to realize just what Ostpolitik truly meant to West Germans.

I wonder how long it will take the current U.S. administration to realize what détente means to all Western Europeans.

In September 1981, during an interview for a Dutch television program, I asked ACDA Director Eugene Rostow if he realized that we, in Europe, were becoming more afraid of Washington than of Moscow, since the Reagan administration was behaving like a bull in a china shop in its foreign affairs. He was clearly taken aback by the question.

Naturally, because the Reagan people came to Washington certain that cold-war policies would not only get broad support in Europe, but would make Europeans more loyal to the United States. And when the antinuclear movement shook Western Europe their first reaction was to blame it on Russian propaganda.

American ignorance about the Third World is even greater. I don't think Americans have any awareness of how the Third World peoples live, how they feel, or what they want - including America's closest neighbors, like the peoples of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama, or the whole of Latin America.

It often occurs to me that the Americans have been exclusively fortunate in their history, perhaps too fortunate, to be capable of fully understanding and harboring genuine sympathy toward nations with more difficult histories.

But what about American charity and giveaway programs?

Yes, there are many charitable institutions, some of which assist the alleviation of poverty and further other humane causes. As to charity, I don't want to repeat the trivial accusation that this is just a way to allay pains of conscience and to obtain greater pleasure from one's own satiety. In some cases, motives are quite different, sometimes noble. But most charitable activities are a far cry from any ideal of selfless and pure Christian sharing. They are largely oriented to the economic and political interests of the American establishment.

Take the 1980 events in Kampuchea. The United States created obstacles to the shipment of relief supplies to the Kampuchean government, which controlled most of the country's territory and was engaged in a

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desperate attempt to save that ill-fated nation from death and degradation brought on by the barbarian rule of Pol Pot. At the same time, the United States was loudly insisting on its right to give ‘charitable aid’ to the remnants of Pol Pot's army near the Thai border. And, to add insult to injury, the U.S. government was charging the Kampuchean government with indifference to human suffering.

There's no way to explain American behavior here as a manifestation of humanitarian concern. But everything begins to look logical once you recall U.S. geostrategic interests in this area. And it is often forgotten in the heat of righteous indignation that the lion's share of the blame for the Kampucheans' ordeal lies with the United States. Having committed military aggression against Cambodia in 1970, having interfered in her internal affairs and facilitated the overthrow of the neutralist government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Americans actually paved the way for Pol Pot.

Returning to Soviet-American relations, do you feel that a pluralistic, disorganized, and at times wild society can truly coexist with an orderly and centralized one?

When a society goes wild, it's difficult for anyone to coexist with it. But let's put aside cases of national hysteria as exceptional situations. As to American pluralism, blaming it for setbacks suffered by détente in recent years would be tantamount to scapegoating. We know that American society is complex, heterogeneous, and in some aspects decentralized, and we are fully prepared to coexist with that society as it really is.

But wouldn't it make sense if the U.S. Congress were more disciplined and could support the president on urgent matters like SALT II?

It certainly would. But we have to be realists. The Congress plays an important role in the American political system, and now, with all our experience in dealing with it, we understand the existing political procedures in Washington well enough. Of course, I have to confess that we sometimes have questions about the wisdom of procedures under which a few senators, representing a small minority of the population, can block a treaty of vital, even crucial, importance to the whole nation. For example, according to the polls, the SALT II treaty was supported by a majority of more than 70 percent of the American people, while 10 to 15 percent were against it. But we put such questions aside, understanding that these procedures are a constitutional matter that can be decided only by the Americans themselves.

And then, we firmly believe that détente could withstand an honest political debate in Washington. If anything, such a debate would only strengthen it. It was, in our opinion, not the constitutional prerogative of Congress that created problems for trade and SALT, any more than the

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principle of freedom of the press is responsible for the dogmatic anti-Sovietism prevailing in the American news media. The problem is that the pluralism existing in America is used most effectively by the well-established, entrenched, overreaching forces in the power elite, like the military-industrial complex, which is interested in undermining détente and subverting Soviet-American relations. Those who have different interests, even those who must represent the national interests as a whole, have failed to oppose these onslaughts effectively, and détente is now in trouble.

But how about the argument that, being less organized, the United States is less able to marshal its total resources for fierce competition with the Soviet Union?

Actually, this argument is the obverse of the notion that the Soviet Union must become a less organized society before the United States agrees to coexist with it. The liberals generally favor a ‘less organized’ Soviet Union. The conservatives favor a ‘more organized’ United States. The Far Right wants both. But although they have a right to organize the United States as they want, Americans must leave to us our own constitutional prerogatives and the organization of our own society. Besides, all these simplistic comparisons miss the crucial point I've already mentioned: the real competition is between social systems; that is, between their abilities to provide for a happy and meaningful life for modern mankind. It is important to emphasize this, for when Americans talk about ‘marshaling resources,’ they hardly mean more money for the poor or the elderly. They don't mean peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition. The military connotation of the word marshal is not without symbolism.

You would not deny that the USSR seems to be better prepared for a confrontation with the United States than Americans are ready for a confrontation with Russia?

I think that since there is more unity in our society, and a greater ability to rally around a national purpose, we are better prepared to pursue consistently any national policy - preferably a policy of détente, but, if necessary, measures that might become unavoidable in case of a confrontation. At the same time, one shouldn't underestimate the American ability to do the same, but regrettably with much more readiness when the issue concerns not détente but confrontation, when the drums of patriotism and even jingoism have begun to beat, and the battle cry sounds: ‘Give 'em hell, Harry!’ The end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties demonstrated this once again.

But in the final analysis, such ability to rally for confrontation might not be too important nowadays. If it doesn't come to the worst, and confrontation is sooner or later succeeded by a new period of relaxation, this ability

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won't play a substantial role. If it does come to the worst, who will care about the preceding preparedness, unity, or national emotions?

Reginald Bartholomew, formerly on Brzezinski's staff, was director of the State Department Bureau of Political and Military Affairs when he suggested to me that the White House sometimes gets the impression that the Soviet Union is testing American manhood.

I often wonder about the preoccupation of American politicians with their manhood - I mean political, not personal manhood, which of course is also important. They seem to like this macho style, this strutting about like matadors in the bullring. But grandstanding can have extremely dangerous results for public policy. The goal cannot and should not be to show off one's toughness at each occasion for the entire world to see. Such attitudes tend to inspire false and unrealistic approaches to public affairs. What really matters in policy making is wisdom and restraint, the ability to understand the other side, to find solutions that are possible and can be obtained, because policy making has always been and will always be the art of the possible. This ought to be fully understood and accepted as especially important in the nuclear age.

But maybe the public is not educated enough about these matters. And politicians trying to sell themselves and their policies to the public are tempted to arouse this yearning for oversized manhood, so visibly symbolized by ICBMs, bombers, aircraft carriers, and other military hardware, especially because it is much easier and requires much less brains and courage, and it is easy not to pay attention to how irrelevant it all becomes. The more so if you have in mind major problems like peace, economic well-being, energy, and other global problems.

Leslie Gelb suggested that it is high time for the United States ‘to have a clearer sense of our own interests, and the Russians must know them in advance.’ Referring to the failure of U.S. leaders to develop effective ways of influencing Soviet behavior, he added: ‘...the carrots were invariably paltry and the sticks inevitably inadequate. We had too little to offer and not enough with which to threaten.’^9.

Frankly, with all due respect for Leslie Gelb, I find this carrot-and-stick symbolism a rather simplistic way to discuss contemporary problems. What Leslie Gelb must have had in mind is that the United States chose not to offer a carrot big and sweet enough. Soon there remained rather miserable crumbs, and finally the U.S. government, in an outburst of biblical wrath, snatched away even those. As to the big stick, to stay with Gelb's comparison, of course there was none, apart from war - that is, suicide. As to those smaller sticks the United States did have, they have been used up very quickly, demonstrating in the process that they are also

9. New York Times, 10 February 1980.

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double-ended, inflicting no less harm on the United States than on us. Take the grain embargo, trade cutoffs, and so forth. I think these are what Mr. Gelb had in mind, and up to this point I would not argue with him. I would only add in this connection that there is obvious confusion as to which category - carrot or stick - some issues belong. Take, for instance, the SALT II treaty. No matter how this question will finally be settled, the entire agreement seems to be falling victim to this vengeful eagerness to ‘punish’ the Soviet Union. However, both our nations are going to suffer from this, and to the same degree.

But generally speaking, the very idea of reducing the core of a policy to the use of carrots and sticks can hardly work nowadays. I don't think any nation would like to become so pliable to bribes and threats that it would allow its policy to be directed from a foreign capital. Certainly, both the United States and the Soviet Union have avoided and will continue to avoid getting into such a situation. In other words, carrot and stick doesn't work because it's a form of behavior control that no sovereign nation would tolerate in our time.

But you would not deny that economic sanctions imposed by Carter and now by Reagan do work as a stick, given your stake in economic relations with the United States?

Our economic interest in trade with the United States is usually grossly exaggerated. In 1981, for instance, the U.S. share of our foreign trade was only 1.7 percent, and less than 0.5 percent with grain excluded. So these sanctions have only marginal impact on our economy, especially since we can always make up for these losses somewhere else. Nor are they harmless for the Americans themselves, as midwestern farmers and many companies involved can testify. But the real issue here goes beyond purely economic gains or losses. We have always viewed trade and economic relations as means to reinforce a foundation for détente. In the last years the United States increasingly has tried to use its trade with the socialist countries as a cold-war weapon aimed at ‘punishment’ or as a means of blackmailing others into political concessions.

As Felix Rohatyn, a well-known American financier and public figure, recently said, ‘Capital can be as potent a weapon as an intercontinental ballistic missile.’^10.

In response to this, let me first of all say that from the very beginning of our revolution we realized that the capitalists outside would use their economic influence as a weapon against us. Throughout many years we lived with the experience of economic blockades and pressures. That is why we have developed our economy and foreign trade in such a way as to prevent a situation of excessive economic dependence upon the West,

10. Newsweek, 25 January 1982, p. 12.

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realizing that until there is a drastic reconstruction of international relations we must have basically a self-sustained economy. For the same reason, we find the ‘helping the enemy’ view of American-Soviet trade fashionable nowadays in the United States absolutely ridiculous, for it has never worked this way.

Second, it should not be forgotten that trade may also be a double-edged sword. The whole point is that this logic itself is a dangerous anachronism, a hangover of the old imperialist mentality. To step onto the path of all-out economic warfare in today's increasingly complex, fragile, and interdependent world is dangerous not only for us, but other countries as well, for it threatens to undermine the very foundations of international economic and political relations. We may argue about the value of international economic ties for consolidating détente - in my view it can be great - but there is no doubt that disrupting those ties inevitably results in increasing tensions between states. In this sense, Mr. Rohatyn has a point. But an approach designed to inflict maximum feasible damage on the other party makes sense only if you interpret your long-term goals in terms of a zero-sum game, in terms of hostility and confrontation.

Don't you agree that international behavior is becoming less controllable and more chaotic? The dangers of such a trend, if there is one, seem obvious.

External control of a nation's foreign policy is, indeed, becoming less and less feasible. Whether it's more or less dangerous is another question. Remember the time when the world was divided between several empires, which operated as tight control systems. There were endless wars. Each of them was bloodier than the previous one. We in the Soviet Union believe that national sovereignty and equality among nations are necessary preconditions for peace and international stability. It is on that bedrock of sovereignty and equality that a new international system of controls and checks can be based, a system that would preclude some policies and encourage others. But the control will not be in the hands of another nation or military bloc. This system can only be guaranteed by international law or by collective security institutions like the United Nations. Otherwise, we'll be back to imperial times with all the inevitable conflagrations.

What rewards and punishments can there be in such a system?

The rewards could include a guarantee of security, which allows one to allocate more resources for internal development. There could also be direct benefits from increased international cooperation. As to punishments, a country would be punishing itself if it behaved in such a way that it denied itself the benefits I mentioned and harmed the existing security

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system. Other forms of punishment would be the increased danger of war and denunciation by world public opinion. In extreme cases, some kinds of collective measures could be used, like those stipulated by the U.N. Charter. Stability of this new international system would also be guarded by a broad interdependence of nations.

What does the West understand and what does it not understand in Soviet foreign policy?

Your question tempts me to start complaining about all the injustices against us. Even though there are more than solid grounds for such complaints, I prefer to refrain from voicing them. I would rather try to outline the main problems.

The principal problem is not misunderstanding or lack of understanding, but general attitudes. For a long time the West refused to put up with our very existence, and there are people today who still refuse to accept it. Some have developed true paranoia about us. This obstinate rejection of reality is both the main root of the difficulties and the main cause of misunderstandings. One can be more eloquent than Cicero in disproving the arguments of people like Richard Pipes and Senator Henry Jackson. But they will refuse to be persuaded because their views are determined by their iron-cast anti-Sovietism. Of course, such people are in the minority nowadays. But their attitude is only an extremity, while many who are free of such outspoken extremism are still tainted with the same political attitudes, which, carried forth to their logical conclusions, obliterate the very idea of peaceful coexistence with the USSR and other socialist countries.

Of course, there are also other political leaders in the West, otherwise there would have been no détente at all. Those people think in broad civilizational terms. They can see farther ahead. They are reasonable enough to understand the ultimate necessity to coexist with the Soviet Union, whether they like our society or not.

Can you name a few?

De Gaulle and Brandt are, perhaps, two of the most prominent examples in terms of the influence they had on practical policy. It is very difficult, of course, to place those two figures in the same category, different as they are in their political beliefs, as well as in other respects. But what they had in common was their ability to overcome prejudices and stereotypes and to see things in more realistic terms than many of their Western contemporaries. They clearly observed the fundamental interests of their own nations and did not try to ignore those of the Soviet Union. Perhaps one reason for their grasp of reality was their wartime experience. Brandt was hounded out of Germany by the Nazis and took part in the fight against them. De Gaulle was a staunch fighter for the liberation of France from

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Nazi occupation. Those experiences may have been of key importance because one of the most important things misunderstood in the West about the Soviet Union is our attitude toward war. It is often hot realized by Westerners, particularly by Americans, just what World War II meant to the Soviet people. One sometimes hears talk like this in the West: well, the Russians lost twenty million in the last war, so they are hardened enough to take quite easily another twenty or even forty million casualties in a nuclear exchange.

What's behind such thinking?

Attempts to prove that the Soviet Union can start a nuclear war and will not be deterred by the prospect of great losses. It's like saying about a person who was severely injured in an auto accident: now he will drive carelessly because he's used to severe injuries. This has nothing to do with reality. World War II did bring us a glorious victory. But it has also made the Soviet people value peace even more than before. Peace is our highest priority, and the policy of peace and détente has solid and broad support among our people.

Is this peace policy identified with the personality of President Brezhnev?

President Brezhnev has made a great personal contribution to this policy, and he has stressed that it is the policy of the entire party. It's the mandate of several Party Congresses being carried out by the Central Committee of the CPSU.

There is another important thing I'd like to add. Our commitment to peace does not mean that we will buckle under pressure. Our people hate war, but they are proud and patriotic, and once they feel that somebody threatens their security they are ready to meet the threat. I consider it very important that this be understood in the United States, for it looks like there is again growing in the United States an illusion that involving us in another arms race would wear us down. We may have a smaller gross national product than the United States, but we can stand greater hardship.

Another fact that is often not understood properly is our sensitivity to foreign interference in our domestic affairs. Throughout our history since 1917 we have been subjected to endless attempts from outside to frustrate and hamper our development in one way or another. In order to prevent us from following the road we took in 1917, a massive arsenal has been used, from armed intervention to sophisticated propaganda. All that has made us much more sensitive to any meddling in our affairs than those who have never experienced a really hostile environment. It's not that we are afraid. No, we are strong and confident enough. But we are more inclined to see any meddling as motivated by hostility and subversive aims.

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Are you talking about your leadership's attitude or about broad public opinion in the USSR?

Both. Actually, your question brings us to another area of misunderstanding of the Soviet policy: the role of public opinion in the USSR. The standard assumption in the West is that public opinion doesn't count in this country, or that the attitude of our leadership is necessarily contrary to what common people think. The truth is quite the opposite. Public opinion plays an important role in determining Soviet policy, even though that influence works in its own way, which may be different from what one sees in the United States. Certainly, it operates without the American penchant for showing off, but at the same time with great substance.

You see, some Americans seem to proceed from the premise that, no matter what they do, the Soviet public, if it were not influenced by official Soviet indoctrination, would always love them. They seem to believe that they can act like hoodlums today, but that if tomorrow they say a couple of nice things or open a couple of doors, everything will be okay, the bad things will be forgotten. That's a very chauvinistic attitude. We do reckon with public opinion, which must not only be persuaded that our foreign policy is correct, if that policy is to have substance, but which plays a major role in formulating the ideas and policies of the party and the government.

The United States has been sowing some very bad seeds of distrust in our public opinion. Some American actions in recent years have been truly outrageous.

One of the constant themes that has emerged in our conversations is your appeal to Americans to take the Soviets for what they are, to bring their perceptions of the Soviet Union closer to reality.

Yes, I think confusing images with reality has always created unnecessary difficulties in international relations. That brings us back to American egocentrism. America, in the eyes of many Americans, has a monopoly on the good, but if there is evil in America, the same evil is assumed to exist everywhere else. For example, if the United States has a problem with its military-industrial complex, it is automatically assumed that a similar problem exists in the Soviet Union. It is totally disregarded that our economic system operates by quite different laws, that the kind of freedom the military-industrial complex has in the United States as a special interest group is a unique characteristic of the American society and political system.

Standard Western treatment of the real problems we have is still another example of misunderstanding. There is endless denigration of the Soviet way of life as poor, shabby, backward, and so on.

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But Soviet living standards are obviously lower than in most of the Western capitalist countries.

We ourselves know that we don't yet have in abundance some material goods that affluent Westerners are used to. I am not ashamed to admit it. But it makes me furious to hear some Americans talk glibly and condescendingly about Russians. I think our people are entitled to great respect for having achieved what they have achieved despite all the tremendous difficulties. And, by the way, our standard of living is improving.

In the West, a hard line is shaping up vis-à-vis the USSR on the grounds that only a united allied front can teach the Soviets that they should not repeat Afghanistan - in Poland, for instance.

The wording of your statement is based on false premises. I do see definite attempts to build up a united anti-Soviet front in the West, but I would seriously question not only the realism of such plans, but also the motives behind them. Those motives are offensive, not defensive. I have already pointed to the facts that, I think, prove that the intensified anti-Soviet trend in the policies of the United States and some American allies preceded the events in Afghanistan, and thus could not have been caused by them. As to events in Poland, the U.S. hard-liners were far from interested in any peaceful and early solution of the domestic conflict in that country. They treated the Polish events from the viewpoint of ‘the worse, the better,’ seeing a deterioration there as a rare opportunity to achieve all their goals: a full collapse of détente, the taming of the allies, and the rallying of Americans around the most militaristic and adventurist policy.

But wasn't the introduction of martial law in Poland in December 1981 a real deterioration of the situation there?

Martial law is never a pleasant thing, and I am sure that the Polish leadership would have preferred not to introduce it. But think of the options that General Jaruzelski had. What would have happened in Poland if martial law had not been introduced? Economic collapse, a civil war, chaos, and bloodshed. Compared to that, martial law is a lesser evil.

The U.S. policy toward Poland (and the USSR) after the introduction of martial law made a strange impression. The fact that the Polish leadership and Poland's allies succeeded in avoiding a major international crisis seemed to have enraged the American government and impelled it to revenge. What's more, the United States set about creating such a crisis by artificial means, clearly trying to internationalize the events in Poland.

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Martial law in Poland was interpreted by some in the West as a violation of the Helsinki accords and a throwback to the Yalta agreement.

Now, this line is really astounding. Playing Helsinki against Yalta is like using the New Testament to disprove the Old. To begin with, both the Yalta and the Helsinki agreements have the same origin - they codify a certain political structure in Europe, which was born as a result of the war, Hitler's defeat, and the huge sacrifices paid by the peoples of Europe, including, of course, the people of the USSR. In this sense, those accords were written in blood. And they cannot be treated in a mindless and capricious way.

The accords also embody another trend in East-West relations, namely the trend of peaceful coexistence, of the recognition by the West of the Soviet Union, and later the other socialist states, as sovereign and equal participants in international politics, with security interests as legitimate as those of the Western states.

One of the reasons I am seriously concerned by the policies of the United States and other NATO countries in connection with the events in Poland is that I see in those sanctions, ultimatums, and threats a violation of some ground rules of peaceful coexistence. Sanctions were imposed on the government of a sovereign state as punishment for its steps to defend the country's social system, to prevent a violent overthrow of that system - in short, for actions always considered related to domestic affairs. Helsinki was clearly not designed for such meddling in internal affairs of other countries.

But I would remind you of one essential fact: martial law means a harsh regime based on military force. That is why it cannot be seen by the Western public other than in a very negative way.

Let me repeat. Everybody knows that martial law is not a pleasant thing. The Polish leadership openly admits this and stresses that the measure was taken only as a last resort and will soon be lifted.

But it is just as clear that that measure did not violate international law and did not present any threat to peace in Europe. On the contrary, it removed the threat of very dramatic events that could have led to a major international crisis.

I am not sure your assessment of the attitude of ‘the Western public’ to the Polish events is accurate. I think that reaction was at least cautious, despite all the massive psychological pressures exerted by Western governments and media.

As to the attitude of Western governments, particularly the U.S. government, it was a case study of the most blatant double standards. It would take unusual gullibility to believe in the sincerity of the Reagan administra-

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tion's loud denunciations of alleged ‘human rights violations’ in Poland, while the same administration is actively supporting the bloody dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala, having classified them, along with the other pro-American juntas in Latin America, as only ‘moderately repressive’ and thus deserving of American backing. And, of course, everybody knows the Reagan administration's real attitude toward labor unions.

Talking of double standard, I could mention Chile, South Korea, Turkey, and quite a few other places, but I would not draw parallels between the Polish situation and the coups in those countries. There was no coup d'état in Poland. Martial law was introduced by the legitimate government of Poland, in accordance with the national constitution. The Polish parliament was not disbanded. The number of people arrested was very small, the prosecution of those found guilty of violating the law was carried out with appropriate legal procedures, and the sentences were extremely mild. Can one possibly compare it, say, with the bloodbath in Chile in 1973?

Having said all this, I'd like to emphasize that no one expected the sympathies of the American and other Western ruling circles to be on the side of Polish communists, of those who have been defending socialism in Poland. The dividing line on these issues clearly reflects class interests, sympathies, and world views.

But at the same time, policy making, in a nuclear age especially, is influenced to a significant degree by other considerations. For instance, one has to think of how this or that local event will affect the international situation, whether one should let an event grow into an international crisis, into a political, to say nothing of a military, confrontation between the biggest powers. What would have happened in the years since World War II if major participants in international relations had not been guided by, or at least taken account of, such considerations? What if they had blindly followed their instincts, sympathies, and antipathies? I think the answer to this question is quite clear - the world would have been hopelessly mired in the most dangerous conflicts and would have almost certainly crossed the brink beyond which mankind faces nuclear holocaust. It was the understanding of this truth that has given an irrepressible vitality to the principles of peaceful coexistence between states belonging to different social systems. I would like to stress that the Soviet Union formed its attitude to the events in Poland, just as to other situations, with due consideration to all aspects, including the impact on the international situation.

I would stress that, in general, even when confronted with the hostile actions of the United States and NATO, the Soviet Union does everything possible to avoid steps that would increase tensions and harm détente.

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Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Soviets are often perceived as being more interested in détente than the West.

You know, that notion is double-edged. On the one hand, I regard it as a compliment when people say that we are tremendously interested in peace and détente. I'd rather be accused of peacemongering than warmongering. On the other hand, of course, that notion is not being spread for the sake of proving how peaceful the Soviets are. The aim is often sinister and cynical: if the Russians need détente more than the West does, the West can raise the price. It's called hard bargaining, tough Yankee trading. But we are not talking of selling patent medicine or peanuts when we discuss foreign policy basics. We are talking of human survival on this planet. A petty market mentality does not apply here.

So, in general, you believe that Soviet perceptions of the United States are more accurate than American perceptions of the Soviet Union?

I would rather say less inaccurate. It is always difficult to understand a foreign country. The accuracy of our perceptions of each other remains a tremendously important problem in Soviet-American relations, because it is closely connected with mutual understanding, and through this with mutual trust. Accurate perceptions are a very important additional safeguard against the final breakdown of relations - a nuclear war. I am not exaggerating, because such a breakdown cannot be a rational choice, but must inevitably be tied with bad mistakes in evaluating behavior, intentions, and the ultimate aims of the other side.

Has there been any progress in mutual understanding in recent years?

I think we have made substantial progress in this area. Détente played a major role in the seventies, of course, as it led to the development of political and scientific contacts, cultural ties, tourism, and people-to-people contacts. But those were only the very first steps. The problem remains acute. Actually, it may be growing more acute now, as a result of increasing tensions between our countries.

If perceptions are that important, what can be done in order to sharpen them?

There are no easy answers. I could put it this way: we must do just what we were doing during the years of détente, but do more of it and do it more consistently. We should aim at the creation of a normal political environment to facilitate rational, rather than emotional, perceptions of events. We should concentrate on hard work to root out prejudices and preconcep-

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tions. We should promote an objective attitude and a permanent interest in the other country - its people, culture, and political life. And, of course, we should encourage the development of contacts and a permanent dialogue at various levels. In other words, we must continue what we began when we chose the way of détente. And we must overcome those obstacles that stand in our way.