Voices of Glasnost

...The conservatism and stagnation of the Brezhnev 38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990 period was a hangover from the Stalin era, a continued negation of true Leninism and not evidence of any inherent sickness in the system...

...he main problem with the book, however, is not its subjects' tendency to parrot a revised, if less dogmatic line on Soviet history, but their (and the interviewers') reluctance to deal seriously with a number of the most fundamental, and tantalizing, questions of that history and of contemporary Soviet life...

...He also claims that demands for Jewish emigration created a backlash, with employers and universities refusing to hire or admit Jews for fear they would one day leave the country...

...19.95 Arch Puddington To understand the position held by Stephen F. Cohen and his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, think of them not simply as scholar and journalist, but as key members of the intellectual apparatus of a left-wing political party...

...Cohen functions as this party's chief theorist...

...Roy Medvedev, Cohen has generally ignored Soviet dissent and instead focused on the reform forces inside the Soviet establishment...

...Her articles in the Nation, where she serves as an editor, diligently expose the sins and "excesses" of government agencies, foreign broadcast services, and Soviet émigré organizations whose brand of anti-Communism she disapproves of (among her targets is my employer, Radio Liberty...

...The figures often come across as admirable, idealistic, and competent, precisely the kind of people who would be valued in a government committed to change...

...Despite limited scnolarly achievements (mainly a well-received biography of the Bolshevik leader Nikolai Bukharin), he has positioned himself as the outspoken critic of American Sovietology, explaining how our experts misrepresent the Soviet system and how their errors contribute to mistake after mistake in U.S...

...A second omission is the nationalities question, particularly glaring given the turbulence in the Baltic republics and the Caucasus at the time the interviews were conducted...

...It hardly needs to be added that, as the quintessential Soviet man, Arbatov does not even consider the possibility that Jews wanted to leave because of official policies of religious suppression...

...Support is voiced for even that most undemocratic of Lenin's innovations, democratic centralism, the precept that permits no further debate once a party decision is reached, and also prohibits the organization of intraparty factions...

...Arbatov also claims to have warned that tying detente to emigration would generate anti-Jewish sentiment in both the Soviet Union and the United States, another bit of fiction, since, in the U.S., widespread sympathy toward Jews was evoked by the persecution of the refuseniks...

...In the case of Cohen/vanden Heuvel, the party in question is the loose constellation of academics, columnists, and politicians who make up the core of the anti-anti-Communist establishment...

...Too bad the authors saw their primary role as merely assembling evidence to buttress their own special theory of Soviet history...

...We don't limit it to participation in elections," a remark that will ring strangely familiar to anyone who followed Communist declarations on democracy in the benighted days before glasnost...

...They are thus probably lucky that, with the exception of the Marxist-leaning Arch Puddington is the author of Failed Utopias: Methods of Coercion in Communist Regimes, published by ICS Press He works for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in New York...

...Yuri Afanasyev, one of the most radical party intellectuals...

...Even if there are various schools of thought and points of view, it is possible to reach a consensus to reach the truth, and thus to arrive at a party line based on real scholarship...

...they even speak frankly of the difficulties inherent in bringing about so basic a reform as a rational price structure...

...One of the most troubling responses comes from Yuri Afanasyev, a man perestroika intellectuals regard as a radical...

...Since those interviewed also dismiss the need for a multiparty system, the question arises: How are erroneous policies to be combatted...

...While his appeal is generally limited to a leftish audience (he wrote the "Sovieticus" column in the Nation during the mid-eighties), Cohen was also adviser to the man who briefly shone as the anti-anti-Communists' brightest political star, Gary Hart...

...ing figure in both the Brezhnev and Gorbachev scientific apparatus, manages to compare Edward Teller with Trofim Lysenko, Stalin's quackish science czar...

...One should not, however, be too harsh on Cohen/vanden Heuvel...

...Aleksandr Yakovlev, while admitting the necessity of letting the market determine the price of basic goods, defends the policy of massive subsidies on the grounds that "we want bread and meat and milk at cheap prices and not the way it is in the West," and speaks of the government's intention of creating something called a "socialist market...

...However, Cohen/vanden Heuvel do perform a service by drawing out some revealing observations on Lenin and Leninism, both of which the subjects endorse unhesitatingly...

...It goes something like this: The October Revolution was an extraordinary and, on balance, highly progressive event...

...Tragically, the democratic and humane impulses of the Revolution were crushed by Stalin...

...and Nikolai Shmelyov, a decidedly unorthodox' Soviet economist...

...These patient efforts have now been rewarded in a volume of interviews with fourteen of what the book jacket describes as "Gorbachev's reformers...

...But even these fascinating stories leave the reader regretting the lack of any serious analysis of political life before glasnost...

...Coming from a leading political figure, Yakovlev's ignorance of economics may in part be tactical...

...There are frequent references to the need for "real Leninism" and a "return to the twenties," when Lenin's ideals presumably held sway...

...Asked if there should no longer be a party line on historical matters, Afanasyev replies: I can't imagine there being two lines in one party...

...who is widely believed to be Jewish...

...One of Elem Klimov's best films sat on the shelf for years because the official filmmakers' bureaucracy objected to its treatment of historical issues...

...It is revelations like these that give Voices of Glasnost some value...

...It was also Andropov, the Soviet media tell us, who along with just three other Soviet leaders made the decision to invade Afghanistan, a move the Soviets now denounce as a monumental blunder...

...Or about the system's failure to develop the Leninist ideal of a "Soviet man...

...There is, for example, the intriguing figure of Yuri Andropov, whose name surfaces time and again in these interviews...

...Yet the traditional Soviet posture that weapons systems—and not more traditional political maneuvers—sustained the superpower rivalry is maintained...

...Yet Yakovlev, like (apparently) all the other personalities in Voices of Glasnost, is himself a Russian,' and therefore a member of the ruling nation...

...Yegor Ligachev, the editor of Moscow News, lost several journalistic positions because of his independent opinions...

...40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990...

...How, to take an obvious case, does Georgi Arbatov justify his past defense of polTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990 39 icies now derided as manifestations of the "old thinking...

...What compromises were made, and how were they ration-Mind...

...On the other hand, the authors serve up numerous opportunities for sneering at America, all of which are eagerly taken up...

...The assignment they have undertaken—to convince Americans that the anti-Communist idea is the result of a misinterpretation of history or a cynical ploy by certain elites—is preordained to failure...

...Vanden Heuvel, the dissidents need no enemies...

...Arbatov's response is interesting...

...Again, a distressing sameness predominates...

...Aleksandr Bovin, the prominent foreign affairs commentator...

...Another disappointment is the treatment of Soviet foreign policy...

...Aleksandr Yakovlev uses the opening to offer the standard Soviet denunciation of all forms of nationalism as "repugnant," "alien," "disgusting...

...Although he admits that popular support for egalitarianism poses a psychological hurdle to even limited experiments with free enterprise, he himself seems to have been infected by the general Soviet hostility toward "capitalist exploitation," as reflected in his statement that a thousand people working for one entrepreneur would be "clearly immoral...

...Unfortunately, the question is raised, gingerly, but once, and not pressed when an evasive response is forthcoming...

...Naturally, the U.S...

...Andropov functioned as mentor and political sponsor for many members of the current leadership, particularly during the Khrushchev years, when he filled the Central Committee apparatus with would-be reformers...

...Over the years, Cohen has forged close personal links with the men who have risen to power with Mikhail Gorbachev, even acting as a sounding board for their opinions on internal Soviet developments and U.S.-Soviet relations...

...This raises the obvious question of how Andropov's colleagues square his reformist impulses with his role in enforcing policies they claim to abhor...

...Vanden Heuvel is less theorist than party journalist...

...Had fate and Donna Rice not intervened, it would have been Cohen rather than Robert Gates advising the American President on policy toward Moscow...

...Andropov was clearly a reform partisan, but unfortunately expired before real change could be instituted...

...Aleksandr Yakovlev, who in the bad old days made his reputation writing vitriol about the United States, insists that Soviet democracy, once perfected, will be more genuine than the American version...

...With friends like Miss...

...Yevgeny Velikhov, a lead'The one possible exception is Georgi Arbatov...

...Unfortunately, for the authors, the least convincing parts of their book are precisely the sections they consider most significant: the attempts to shove responsibility for the system's failures on the shoulders of one man, Stalin, and the tortured, and transparent, assurances that the Soviet Union never really posed a threat to American interests or security...

...These may be Gorbachev people, but they are also Cohen people in that each outlines a theory of Soviet history which coincides almost precisely with the version Cohen has been peddling...

...More disconcerting are the comments of the economist Shmelyov...

...These crucial questions are never asked...

...Contrary to the predominant Western view, the Bolshevik party was surprisingly pluralistic and tolerant of clashing opinions...

...Likewise, Lenin (whose genius is uncritically accepted) was at heart something of a democrat who came to understand the necessity of a mixed economy, as witness his support for the New Economic Policy (NEP...

...Reform could come only with the ascendancy of a new generation of Communists, who just happen to be the very people interviewed for Voices of Glasnost...

...it was Stalin and Stalin alone who bears responsibility for Communism's corruption and failure...

...Although none suffered the tragic fates of genuine dissidents, they were forced to absorb the routine humiliations and frustrations endemic to the Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods, evidently without succumbing to the rampant careerism and cynicism of the day...

...The authors were too polite, or too crafty, to ask...

...As each night Americans watch the gathering revolt in the non-Russian republics, or the headlong collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe, they well understand that the system which generated this turbulence is suffering not just from temporary deformities, but from terminal illness...

...Thus the sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya recounts participating in a research team that fell victim to an official investigation because its findings—on comparative labor productivity in the U.S...

...What do Yakovlev and the rest think about Baltic demands for independence...

...Khrushchev, by contrast, was a reformer whose great mistake was his failure to build a popular base for change...

...foreign policy...

...Yet the man often referred to as the godfather of perestroika is the same man who headed the KGB during the period when dissidents were hounded, religious activists harassed, and nonconformists packed off to mental institutions...

...This, of course, is not true: Jews were discriminated against because of official anti-Semitism, which was widespread under Brezhnev, as Arbatov is well aware...

...The authors' unwillingness to chal- lenge the presuppositions of Gorbachevism is especially lamentable in view of the unusually high caliber of their subjects...

...is given the lion's share of blame for the Cold War...

...The one ringer is long-time Kremlin mouthpiece Georgi Arbatov...

...The economist Nikolai Shmelyov abandoned a promising career as a writer because a journal editor tacked a happy ending on to one of his short stories...

...With the exception of a few comments of distress over the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the subjugation of Eastern Europe is never broached...

...To give credit where it's due, the group brought together in Voices of Glasnost is an impressive one, consisting of some of the most influential and controversial personalities in Soviet public life...

...The authors are too polite to raise this sensitive issue, although they do probe Arbatov's views on Jewish emigration...

...The book's participants do not dispute this observation...

...The Soviets, he claims, "interpret democracy more broadly than you do...

...The Soviet leadership is even more Russified under Gorbachev than under Brezhnev...

...Elem Klimov, the film director who led the internal rebellion that brought glasnost to the filmmakers' union...

...The invasion of Afghanistan and the placement of the SS-20s—in other words, the two actions of the Brezhnev regime that already have drawn sharp disapproval from high Gorbachev circles—are ritualistically deplored...

...Among them: Aleksandr Yakovlev, arguably the Soviet Union's second most important official...

...At the same time, one is struck by the limited perspectives of those committed to change...

...How did humane-minded Soviet intellectuals respond to the nasty fates of colleagues who lacked their skill in navigating the system...

...and USSR—clashed with figures cited in a speech by Khrushchev...

...C ohen/vanden Heuvel also elicit intriguing commentary on the economics of perestroika...

...To be sure, as anti-anti-Communists in good standing Cohen/vanden Heuvel dutifully provide their subjects with opportunities to distance themselves from the ultraRussianism of the right-wing Pamyat society...

...Thus far, Western experts see the changes introduced by Gorbachev as little more than tinkering with a system that needs a dramatic overhaul...

...He contends it was a mistake to make one or several groups the focus of emigration policy...

...Vanden Heuvel is always careful to insert a phrase or two proclaiming support for Soviet dissent, but the practical effect of her writings is to damage the dissident movement and bloody the institutions that provide the dissidents with crucial moral support...

...Since those interviewed for this volume harbor strong opinions on any number of issues, their unwillingness to go on record on certain key matters, or their adherence to a kind of unofficial but clearly understood line, is a clear sign that some questions remain outside the scope of glasnost...