The Ugly Russian

...Arguments and fist fights between Arab soldiers and their Soviet trainers have occurred frequently...

...There are only about 15 of us left at the dam...

...It is proposed to us that we go...

...But the material advantages don't amount to much...

...In payment for this equipment that it considers outmoded, others said, the UAR has consciously shipped the USSR shoddy goods of its own, not suitable for Western markets...

...They said that only good family men were sent abroad—no bachelors or individuals with personal problems—because such people could be counted on to be stable and work effectively with the local population...

...One Cairo resident went out of his way to show me his apartment and compare it with those in the USSR...

...I asked two Russian engineers at Aswan if the Arabs seemed grateful to them for what they had done...

...Seeing my puzzlement, he went on...

...Whether Egypt's dissatisfaction over arms deliveries was indeed the main consideration or merely a figleaf for deeper discontents, it is interesting to compare the Cairo-Moscow dispute with the Sino-Soviet rift of the late '50s and early '60s...

...Though Moscow's policies toward Cairo have hardly been as exploitative as those toward Czechoslovakia since 1968 or the rest of the Eastern bloc in earlier years, many Egyptians feel the same bitterness about the USSR that has long been evident in the European satellite countries...

...Similarly, where Peking wanted to lead the revolutionary movement of the Third World, Cairo still talks of leading the movement toward Arab unity...

...We will all go home in six months...

...These are typical of the sentiments I encountered at all levels of Egyptian society both before and after President Anwar el-Sadat's midsummer decision to send Soviet military advisers packing...

...If so, Egypt will have to develop special machinery, including prohibitively expensive types of plows, to turn over the silt laid down over the years...

...There won't be that much to do," said the senior engineer...

...If we refuse, they will pressure and push us continually...

...An Alexandria police officer complained: "The Russians have not given us what we wanted...

...It is far better to bargain with the French, the English, the Americans, the Chinese, than to depend on one superpower...

...support far in excess of what the USSR has supplied its allies...

...Egyptians vary," replied the younger man...

...The meaning of our position on the Russian advisers," a United Arab Republic political commentator told me, "is that we are returning to non-alignment...

...Russian military advisers have not concealed their disdain for the Egyptian Army's inability to master the fundamentals of modern warfare, or even to maneuver effectively above the brigade level...

...Several Arab engineers told me they own hundreds of shares in Egyptian companies that have netted them significant dividends over the years—a situation obviously unparalleled in Russia...

...Still, we are fairly comfortable in Aswan, with air-conditioned apartments and movies...

...If you come here and do well, you can move ahead...

...He had not been to Moscow, but friends who had made the trip told him of the small, crowded apartments typical there, with communal kitchens and bathrooms...

...Unlike Americans or Frenchmen or other people, they go about with blank faces, with no feeling...

...For the man in the street, the aloofness of Soviet technicians from Egyptian life has perhaps been equally significant...

...Sadat has declared that he will retaliate against any threat and repay any Soviet favor in kind...

...China's major thorn has been Taiwan...

...While such rumors may be apocryphal, they accurately reflect the deterioration of Soviet-Egyptian relations...

...We've been here one and a half years," they answered...

...Their account did not contradict conventional Western theories that a family at home serves to deter against defection...

...The men have short hair and never smile...

...After accepting the costs of building up foreign forces until they achieved some degree of self-sufficiency (China went on to perfect her own atomic bomb...

...Thinking it best not to press the question of unofficial relations between the Russians and Egyptians, I inquired how much longer the engineers would remain in Aswan...

...2. Made "unreasonable demands" for Soviet bases in China (1958...

...They just take...

...Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that Sadat's eviction order was widely applauded...

...But they don't give anything," the officer objected...

...Like Cairo, Peking complained that the Kremlin: 1. Failed to match deeds with words in supporting the national liberation cause, particularly in the Taiwan Straits (1958) and during the border conflicts with India (1959 and 1962...

...Ideologically, the conflict between Soviet revisionism and Chinese dogmatism parallels that between Communist materialism and the amalgam of Arab nationalism and Islam in which Sadat has been schooled...

...When I mentioned Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fawzi's promise earlier this year that electrification for the entire country would be accomplished in a decade, the Russians again looked dubious...

...It is doubtful, however, that Egyptian-Soviet relations will follow the downward spiral of the Sino-Soviet experience, since the leaders on both sides are fully cognizant of their continuing mutual needs...

...At the moment, Americans seem to be highly popular in Egypt, and the visitor gains the impression that the nation is hoping for a diplomatic overture from Washington...

...Yes," the other engineer noted wryly, "they always make a point of their gratitude on official occasions...

...From the point of view of the visiting Soviet contingent, especially the military advisers, a little austerity would be useful here, too, and not only because living standards back home remain hobbled as Soviet aid indirectly advances the local lifestyle...

...the women look like men...

...To what extent Sadat's decision to oust the Soviet advisers was entwined with Egyptian domestic politics or the affairs of his Libyan and Syrian allies remains unclear...

...3. Unilaterally abrogated its 1957 treaty with China on new defense technology (1959) as a "good-will present" to President Eisenhower...

...Some scientists, they observed, fear the dam is holding back the silt that used to fertilize the Lower Nile...

...We have had to pay...

...If you refuse to go, you'll remain a simple engineer...

...4. Sought to intervene in internal Chinese politics (as it seems to have done in abortive moves against Sadat and the Sudanese regime last year...

...Egypt's, Israel—each apparently invulnerable thanks to U.S...

...For Sadat, the final straw seems to have been Moscow's refusal to supply the fighter-bombers and surface-to-surface missiles vital to an offensive capability—or even to reply to the main requests in his recent letters...

...In both cases, Moscow's self-restraint has been good for world peace but bad for Soviet influence...

...the United States simply gives Israel what it needs...

...Both men seemed apprehensive that the Aswan Dam may not achieve its objectives, and may very well engender a series of crippling side-effects...

...Egypt may be capable of detering Israeli air attacks), the Kremlin refused to fulfill their ultimate demands...

...The two confided how they missed their wives and children...

...Historically an object of contempt in Russian culture, the Arabs are blamed for sullying the reputation of Soviet weaponry by their inept performance in the Six Day War...

...limited to those who have a Western language in common, usually English or French...

...We workers," he said, "feel we were favored by Nasser...

...The enterprise, mainly, but the Party will keep asking, 'Why do you think only of yourself and not of the state?'" The other Russian added: "There is also your career to think of...

...When he asked how I thought the Soviets would react to the ouster of their advisers, I speculated that they would be angry...

...Occasionally one meets an Egyptian who expresses gratitude for Soviet military and economic assistance, but a much larger number minimize its importance...

...Russians who work here look upon Egypt as a hardship assignment...

...We don't need them...

...On the Egyptian side, a basic irritant has been the necessity for their officers to request advance permission to visit Soviet bases...

...While the Russian engineers would prefer to be home, many Egyptians have contributed to existing tensions by boasting that they live better than their Soviet counterparts...

...Thus far, the U.S...

...the Americans have given the Israelis everything...

...has done little to exploit rising Moscow-Cairo tensions...

...At the very least, I suggested, the Russians would feel their aid is not appreciated...

...His more cautious colleague, however, said there were many formal declarations of friendship, and cited the numerous crude signs in Russian and Arabic at the Aswan High Dam commemorating Soviet-Egyptian amity...

...Who is it that 'proposes'—your enterprise or the Party...

...When they perceived the limits to the kind of aid Moscow would provide, Peking and Cairo each chose to make a public break...

...Conceding that the USSR provided some technical know-how, some trucks, and some of the necessary financial loans, he declared that the electric turbines supplied by the Russians were "second-rate, not up to date...

...His colleague was less certain, "Time will tell...

...Some sources say he acted to prevent overt challenges from his own military establishment...

...They give the impression that no one is alive in Russia...

...Oh yes, Russians are easy to identify," a Cairo taxi driver said...

...Soon afterward a high Egyptian official—some say the Army chief of staff—is reported to have gone to the base and, when he too was denied entry, to have shot a Soviet guard dead on the spot...

...For this 1 pay six Egyptian pounds from my salary of 35 pounds a month...

...The worker, a typesetter, was unimpressed by the fact that the UAR's per capita income ranks far below that of the USSR, and that rarely does one see in the Soviet Union the kind of poverty or unsanitary living conditions so common here...

...If we go, things will be fine for us in Egypt and for our family in the Soviet Union...

...Look at my flat: three large rooms and a private kitchen and bathroom—all located on a hill above the noise and dirt of the city...

...According to one story circulating in Cairo, Russian officers refused to allow Sadat himself to visit a base near the Libyan border in the spring or early summer of this year...

...It must do it...

...Te Soviet technicians stationed in the UAR appear to have few illusions about the Egyptians' attitude...

...Everything is more expensive when your family is in two places...

...In addition, since few of them know Arabic and few Egyptians know Russian, meaningful communication is necessarily Walter C. Clemens Jr., professor of political science at Boston University, just returned from Egypt...

...Like other nations that have broken with the Soviet Union—Yugoslavia, China, Rumania, North Korea—Egypt today professes a determination to "go it alone" or, more accurately, to deal with all camps...

...Others contend his motive was to reduce Soviet influence in the Mideast generally...

...An Arab engineer at Aswan, for example, emphasized, "We built the dam with our labor, our money, our energy...

...Just as clumsy Anglo-American self-seeking made Egypt ripe for Soviet penetration in the mid-'50s, now the performance of the "ugly Russian" has paved the way for a possible improvement in U.S.-Egyptian relations...

...Will the Egyptians be able to maintain the dam and power station when you leave...

...The Aswan engineer responded likewise to my question about the need for spare parts from the USSR: "If a country has determination, it can do everything itself...

...Did you volunteer for this assignment...

...A man sitting next to me at a sidewalk cafe expressed the predominant mood: "It's good that the Soviet advisers have to go home...

...Volunteer or not volunteer—it's all the same," the older man said...