The roller coaster of events in Moscow–first the ominous coup, then the return of Gorbachev and the triumph of Yeltsin–has resolved Gorbachev’s dilemma. The Communist Party has been dissolved. The transformation of the Soviet society will now take place under the aegis of democracy. For the first time a new kind of state is coming into view on Soviet soil: less militaristic, loosely confederated and less expansionist. None of this seemed likely while the old establishment backed by Gorbachev and the reformist elements under Yeltsin were threatening to paralyze each other. The defeat of the coup tilted the balance decisively towards the reformist elements, in the process giving America an opportunity to liberate itself from excessive reliance on the personality of Gorbachev and to define purposes appropriate to a historic new opportunity.
Gorbachev will go down in history as one of the seminal figures of this century. The collapse of communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the easing of state terrorism were all made possible by his courage and his initiatives. But the coup was defeated by men and women dedicated to another leader. That Gorbachev first brought Yeltsin to Moscow, that many Yeltsin supporters are former Gorbachev disciples, is a poignant demonstration of how cruel history can be. Gorbachev is not the first revolutionary to be overtaken by forces he himself has set in motion.
In any event, long-term U.S. policy should not be identified with a single individual. It should reflect an answer to this fundamental question: what do we want from any state located on the territory which is now the Soviet Union? In my view, our goal should above all be peaceful, non-threatening conduct. That is what the neighbors of the Russian Empire have never had, under czars or commissars, in 400 years of modern Russian history. America should encourage institutions-not personalities–which guarantee that goal.
The Soviet Union is the heir of the czarist empire, which started as the duchy of Muscovy and in the course of 250 years spread to the center of Europe, to the shores of the Pacific, to the gates of India, inundating entire countries and peoples like the sea. Many of the republics that are now seeking independence have been Russian less than 150 years. There was never any act of free choice that created the “union” that the coup plotters, and many officials still in power in Moscow, wanted to preserve. Not a single republic voluntarily joined the Russian Empire.
Creating obstacles to this relentless expansionism is the most desirable outcome for the peace of the world. Ideally, the Soviet Union should be strong enough to defend itself but not cohesive enough to launch attacks abroad. Confronted with an overwhelming danger, the republics would have the means to cooperate, but not to mobilize, a consensus for foreign aggression. Support for decentralization should not be viewed simply as a matter of Machiavellian self-interest. Such an outcome would benefit the Soviet people, by allowing them to concentrate for the first time on improving their own well-being. After all, decentralization is the highest form of democratization. That goal seems now in sight.
The Soviet Union is undergoing two revolutions, which are partially related and partially distinct. One is a democratic revolution against the institutions of the Stalinist state. The other is an anticolonial revolution against the acquisitions of the Russian Empire since Peter the Great. The first revolution is aimed at 74 years of Communist history; the other seeks to undo 400 years of Russian imperial history. The two movements could go part of the way together, because both believed they could fight most effectively under the banner of democracy. But at some point they were bound to diverge, because democratic governments in the republics were inevitably going to try to be independent. When the process first started, Gorbachev did not grasp this inevitability. He visited Lithuania to argue against secession. He said, “Before you get a divorce, it is important to have a dialogue.” Replying with what turned out to be the basic challenge, the Lithuanians said: “But we’re not married.”
The abortive coup, in my view, was directed above all against the forces that were trying to undo 74 years of Communist history. It was probably the last stand of the institutions of the old guard-the military industrial complex, the KGB, the army, the Communist Party. On the other hand, the second revolution-the one that will determine the location of the new borders of the Soviet Union, and who belongs to it–is just beginning. And the players are not necessarily the same.
Before the coup attempt, the United States was sliding into a situation where its emphasis on the personality of Gorbachev risked involvement in a power struggle between him and the republics. I thought that was a mistake, since it would have put America on the side of the centralizing establishment, albeit its reformist wing. In fairness, in the early period of Gorbachev there was no alternative. It was Gorbachev, holding the then still all-powerful position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, who started the process of reform. Gorbachev must have believed that he could promote change through the Communist Party, and he undoubtedly underestimated the difficulties. Two years ago, he told me that he once thought the whole process of perestroika would be completed in four years. And then he added with some melancholy: “Now I realize it hasn’t even started. "
Gorbachev’s tragedy has been that he recognized the weakness of the system but could not bring himself to overthrow what he had worked for all his life. So he attempted reform by working within the institutions that had nurtured him. His methods were those taught by Leninism: seize the bureaucratic heights in order to carry out your objectives. In the end, Gorbachev was more successful than he wanted to be, perhaps even expected to be. Eventually, the institutions he created to put pressure on the Communist Party made it impossible for him to save the institutions to which he owed his career. Nor was he any longer able to break deadlocks through sheer force of personality and will.
Gradually, Gorbachev was transformed from a leader of the reform movement to a manipulator of contradictions that he himself had created. His initial strategy was brilliantly successful, because he convinced the reformers that a faster pace would trigger a revolt by the rightwing opposition, and he persuaded the rightwing leaders that he was the best barrier to victory for the radicals. He kept this highwire act going with great skill for many years; but as the new institutions developed lives of their own, his difficulties mounted.
The price he paid was a gradual loss of confidence on all sides. When Gorbachev came back from the ordeal of being deposed and detained, his former friend and confidant, foreign minister Shevardnadze, wondered publicly whether the President himself might have been the chief plotter. Clearly, Gorbachev’s capacity to inspire the people who used to be his disciples has substantially eroded. And the celebrations after the failure of the coup conspicuously excluded him.
American policy has no choice but to base itself on these new realities, however poignant the fate of this attractive and remarkable leader. Gorbachev deserves admiration for his historic achievements. But he no longer has the capacity or the authority to act as the principal agent of change. The focal point of reform and decentralization has shifted to the forces that defeated the coup. None of them fought under the banner of Gorbachev; most enlisted in the name of Yeltsin. Gorbachev’s only constituency may lie within what remains of the institutions that tried to overthrow him. The military industrial complex might yet see Gorbachev as their best hope for holding the country together. Yet this is precisely why Yeltsin has been so insistent on staffing those institutions with his own people.
Whether we like it or not–and many Western leaders in the past have demonstrated an ostentatious dislike for this idea–the coup has elevated Yeltsin to the position of commander of the reform movement. Ironically, Yeltsin’s career has been entwined with that of Gorbachev. They were both Communists. Yeltsin was a Gorbachev protege. It was Gorbachev who brought Yeltsin to Moscow, from Sverdlovsk. But they parted company when Yeltsin concluded that Gorbachev was too ambivalent about reform and too committed to the Communist Party. Yeltsin grew convinced that the Communist Party had to be eliminated, or put into a position where it could not veto reform.
Unlike Gorbachev, Yeltsin bit the bullet. He faced the fact that Marxism-Leninism was dead and that the Communist Party was discredited. He has based his program on the restoration of private property, the establishment of democratic institutions, the repudiation of the Communist Party and autonomy for the republics under a loose confederation. The thrust of all these measures was to wreck the centralized Leninist system. The replacement of the hammer and sickle with the czarist flag and the installation of Yeltsin by an Orthodox priest symbolize a major transformation.
All these objectives are now within reach. Perhaps Gorbachev still hopes to make a comeback as the republics cope with the dissatisfactions that are bound to accompany the shift to market economies. But in the wake of the coup and the abolition of the Communist Party, Gorbachev’s only realistic option seems to be to retreat into a position similar to the one occupied by the British monarchy at the end of the last century: as a constitutional ruler with considerable personal influence, particularly in foreign policy, but no final authority. Over time, these powers will no doubt atrophy and the president of the federation may come to occupy a more and more ceremonial position. In the emotional Soviet Parliament meeting at the end of last week, Yeltsin and his supporters seemed intent on pushing Gorbachev in this direction. As for the United States, it should take care to avoid getting involved in these internal Soviet disputes. It must be seen to support principles, not personalities.
The United States and its allies must also understand that the coup leaders, despite their incompetence, reflected some real grievances. The Soviet people will face severe hardship this winter. And the industrial democracies need to make every effort to alleviate it. They should be prepared to extend emergency aid in the form of food and medical supplies. They should form immediately a group of experts to determine what is needed. But they should use the new conditions to ensure that aid helps those who need it, rather than turning it into a tool for strengthening central government organs. Emergency aid should be given as much as possible through the republics.
Getting through the winter would permit a study of what long-term aid may be appropriate. Earlier this year, I opposed the so-called Grand Bargain, which would have committed $30 billion a year in Western aid to the Soviet Union in exchange for promises of reform, for two reasons. It seemed to me a device to give patronage to the Soviet centralizers behind Gorbachev, possibly for use against the reformers around Yeltsin. Second, the Grand Bargain risked fostering the dangerous illusion that the Soviet Union can be bailed out by government programs.
That is simply not the case. No democratic government or combination of governments has the resources, and the Soviet Union lacks the appropriate institutional framework for such a program. East Germany, a country of 16 million with a much better infrastructure than the Soviet Union, requires a yearly subsidy of about $100 billion and still has 40 percent unemployment. To do as much on the Soviet scale would require a trillion and a half dollars yearly.
There is no shortcut to a restructuring that can attract the largest pool of available capital, which is private investment. This requires two steps: the adoption of a constitution which establishes a relationship between the central government and the republics, and the passing of laws to create a predictable environment for investment. The declaration of independence by the Ukraine casts further doubt on the timeliness of a comprehensive program.
Nevertheless, the aborted coup permits another look at aspects of the Grand Bargain. An intermediate step between emergency-and long-term aid would be assistance in the field of energy. The Soviet Union has vast resources. The world is heading into an energy shortage. The Western democracies have an interest to reduce their dependence on Mideast oil. It should be possible to generate foreign capital rapidly to modernize the infrastructure for exploring, mining and transporting Soviet deposits of oil and gas. Over time, this could become a precedent for major cooperation in other areas.
With amazing swiftness, the failed coup has all but settled the Soviet internal struggle over the role of the Communist Party and its organs of repression. The fight to overcome 74 years of Communist history appears to be at its end. But the struggle over the future of Russian imperialism is still to be completed. It has entered an entirely new phase with the declaration of independence by the Ukraine. Almost certainly, the various minorities now in the newly independent republics–specially the Russian minorities-will clamor for some special recognition of their rights. A repetition of the current conditions in Yugoslavia cannot be excluded.
The outside world has a huge stake in this beyond a philosophical preference for democracy. The Russian Empire has always been highly centralized. The large army required to control the various nationalities has created a constant temptation for foreign adventures. Evoking a foreign danger has served as a means of suppressing differences between nationalities. No European country has sent its armies abroad as frequently and with such missionary zeal as the Russian Empire. Annexation became almost a routine matter. Since there were already so many nationalities in the empire, further additions seemed to be consistent with the essence of the state. Were repression to start again, these now dormant tendencies would almost surely reappear.
On the other hand, the United States should not risk reawakening Russian paranoia by acting as if it wanted to break up the Soviet Union for its own purposes. Gorbachev may still be able to salvage a loose confederation, along the lines of the so-called “nine plus one” agreement, which was negotiated between nine of the republics and Moscow. The Bush Administration has so far rightly acted with great circumspection. But the post-coup restructuring is the time to put forward some fundamental principles to avoid misunderstandings later on:
The United States has never recognized the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union. It would be simply carrying through the implications of existing policy if it moved towards recognizing the independence of these states.
As to the other republics, the U.S. actions should be geared to whether they act democratically to fulfill the conditions laid down for secession in the “nine plus one” agreement. When these are met, the United States should move towards recognition.
In any event, the United States and its allies should leave no doubt that repression of freely elected governments in the republics will be received with the same condemnation and opposition as the coup.
The United States and its allies must not become totally preoccupied with events in the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe, the coup revived the nightmare of resurgent Russian imperialism. The Western countries must now move decisively to ease those fears. The fate of the democracies of Eastern Europe must be linked rapidly to that of the West. The European Community should end its petty haggling over East European associate membership in the Common Market. The United States should assist with some aid in a part of the world where substantial governmental assistance can make a difference. Allies on both sides of the Atlantic should consider appropriate security arrangements, short of moving NATO forces to the Soviet frontier.
If the Soviet Union evolves in the direction foreseen by the nine-plus-one treaty, Russia’s neighbors will be freed of a threat that has been part of their landscape since Peter the Great. With new republics along the Soviet western border, with the Ukraine declaring itself independent and Belorussia part of a loose confederation, the institutional basis for Russian westward expansion will diminish, if not disappear. This would lay the basis for linking Russia to Europe in a way that has always been thwarted by Russia’s scale and the ambitions of Russian rulers.
Such a realignment will also bring about a shift in the center of gravity of Russian foreign policy. At this point, it is too early to tell whether the Muslim republics with their 65 million people will opt for independence or association. In either case, they will be very sensitive to developments in the Islamic countries along their borders. That will make it likely that the Soviet Union, whatever its new frontiers, will become an increasingly active player in the Middle East.
As the Russian center of gravity moves toward the Urals, Moscow may resume a historic activism in Asia. It was within this century, after all, that Russia and Japan fought a war over which country should govern Manchuria and Korea. It is far too early to speculate about the long-term initiatives of the new leadership in Moscow. But it is not too early to begin reflecting about the nature of a new world order in conditions that now seem quite foreseeable. This should be a subject of intense consultation with all friendly countries, our allies as well as China. Above all, it should be on the agenda of imminent U.S.-Soviet dialogues and any future summits.
In a remarkable historical irony, the coup has brought about in one week everything the plotters dreaded: the end of the Communist Party and disintegration of the Russian Empire. And if the moment is seized, it could mark a historic watershed when the attention of the world turned decisively towards creating a lasting structure of peace.
