Listening to the silent majority

[70]

Statements by various Soviet officials, both in the Foreign Ministry as in the Academy of Sciences, continue to contradict each other. For instance, Anatoly Adamishin did play, in the course of the many months of negotiations over Resolution 435 and Namibia, an extraordinarily useful role. When talks were about to collapse, Adamishin would fly over from Moscow and the Cubans would quickly fall into line. But then, suddenly, the same Adamishin sang a different song, as late as April 1, 1989, when he told the media in Harare, Zimbabwe, that the Soviet Union would no doubt continue to dispatch ak-47's and limpet mines to the anc. I addressed a letter to The Star under the caption, ‘Adamishin must explain’.^49. So what was the true Moscow position? Why should South Africa wine and dine communist envoys, who play along when they come to the negotiation table, yet whisper into anc ears, ‘Comrades, the Russian weapons are coming!’ the moment you turn your back.

49. The Johannesburg Star, April 20, 1989

[p. 88]

Having dealt over a period of twenty years on the spot with Soviets in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and many other towns and regions, I fear that some academics, who think it is harmless to flirt with Marxist-oriented revolutionary organisations, possess insufficient experience to face up to hardline communists, no matter in what disguise they might come. I have known Academician Anatoly Gromyko, for instance, for a number of years. Together with ambassador Vladimir Lomeiko, he wrote, in 1984, a book called, ‘New Thinking in the Nuclear Age’. In spite of this volume being a very poorly-edited mixture of random-choice Western sources on such think-tank products as ‘Limits to Growth’ by the Club of Rome, the book caused a sensation in Moscow. At least, Mikhail Gorbachev, waiting in the wings for aged President Chernenko to depart from the political scene, was deeply impressed. Hardly had he mounted the Kremlin throne when first indications were being launched that Soviet Communism was going to embrace ‘new thinking’.

Anatoly Gromyko and Vladimir Lomeiko came early in 1985 for a special visit to the Netherlands to discuss their new book.^50. We spent a weekend with them in a Dutch castle, but frankly, whenever Gromyko junior took the floor, the participants of the symposium went to sleep, since whatever he said sounded like standard propaganda from the Brezhnev era. In June 1985 I spent a weekend in Moscow with both Anatoly Gromyko and Vladimir Lomeiko to deal point by point with criticisms I wanted to discuss about their text. I tried to explain that American scientists were busy studying the psyche through cognitive psychology, (an amalgam of psychology, logic, linguistics, computer sciences, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, neurology, biology and various other sciences). Cognitive psychology conducts empirical research on how a person experiences his inner and outer worlds. I mentioned that the cognitive sciences were trying to understand how physiological and mental processes rest upon thinking, feeling and behaviour (doing). ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘how can you write a book about a revolution in thinking without being familiar with or referring to basic data as to what the mind represents? You want people's minds to switch from old to new ideas. John Locke differentiated between simple and complex ideas. Let's say a belief in communist philosophy is a complex idea. How do you remove

50. Not a single Dutch publisher wanted to touch the Gromyko-Lomeiko book

[p. 89]

it from an already-structured mind and replace it with fresh, complex idea? Or how do you decode previously coded information? Shouldn't you familiarise yourselves with knowledge about the mind and its functions? According to the New York Times, at least half a million papers on brain research are published each year. I don't think that “new thinking” will ever work without taking into account the biological and neurophysiological factor involved, that in the end must make your wish come true.’

After all, the human brain is a highly complex working system, consisting of different functional building blocks, every one of which plays a part in reflecting the external world, in processing complex information, in establishing plans and programs of behaviour, and in conscious control of actions.^51. Again, it must be clear to anyone, that to make people change what amounts to a religion, be it from a devotion to communists into a faith in the free market system, or from staunch support of apartheid into acceptance of blacks as equals, requires immense input from scientific psychological resources. Mere talking about a change of heart is insufficient and won't do. Nevertheless, the unprofessional treatise by Messrs Gromyko and Lomeiko became for the time being a turning point in Soviet history, because Gorbachev asked 280 million people to rethink an entire way of life. If Gorbachev can actually make it happen, it would be an indicator for South Africa as well.

51. The Oxford Companion to the Mind, edited by Richard Gregory, Oxford University Press (1987), p 489