Moscow Under Gorbachev
KENEZ, PETER
A TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK Moscow Under Gorbachev by peter kenez I recently flew to Moscow for a six-week research visit, my third since spending the academic year there in 1969-70. Arriving at...
...Many of their comrades had left the country or were imprisoned, and the situation appeared increasingly hopeless...
...There are no exceptions...
...The improvements in the Party newspaper are to be found on page two...
...The film was playing in Moscow's largest movie houses...
...Television news is worse, for not a word of criticism can be heard...
...Reforming zeal is not taken for granted, either...
...Decades of unrelenting propaganda have portrayed the West as decadent and unjust...
...my friends know they are going to live out their lives in circumstances roughly similar to the present ones...
...To most Americans, the USSR is a not especially appealing part of the world, and they do not give it much thought...
...On the other hand, there is little personal response to Gorbachev...
...Since I returned home, the most frequent question raised by my friends and acquaintances has been "What do the Russians think of Gorbachev...
...But even they portray a lifestyle altogether beyond the fondest dreams of a Russian...
...By my third trip in 1977,1 was often taken for a native...
...Soviet nationalism takes many forms today—some attractive, others not— and cuts across the social spectrum...
...After all, Soviet leaders do not come to power because of their appeal to the populace...
...I like it, as I like many other products of Soviet culture, and I want you, as a foreigner, to realize that there is a positive side of our national character...
...This airport could be anywhere...
...He is fortunate that the contrast between him and his predecessors is very great...
...To Russians, the West in general and the U.S...
...He must either j oin an officially organized group or have a personal invitation from an individual or organization in the country he wishes to visit...
...As the memory ofStalinism fades, sodosomeofthe excessive fears...
...Correspondents in Moscow arc always under pressure lo proPeter Kenez, a previous NL contributor, is u professor of history at the University ol California, Santa Cruz...
...it operates according to different principles and caters to different needs...
...Reasonable people may disagree on whether or not American scholars paint a misleading picture of the Soviet Union...
...In fact, the Soviet Union is a country of great contradictions...
...The feeling I got from them in 1969-70 was that they saw the past of their country as an unrelieved story of horrors: Something had to be done, and something would be done, to bring about a more decent life...
...A great deal in Moscow now looks modern and European, yet the spirit of the place is not very different from what it was when I made my first trip to the USSR 15 years ago...
...The naive Russian reader could be excused for believing that in September and October entire "progressive America" and "the American working classes" were preoccupied with the injustice being done to Peltier...
...As the days passed Pravda did not become less objectionable to me...
...Brezhnev, whose slurred speech and slow wit are ridiculed...
...I think few Russians expected any basic alteration of their economic-social system simply because a new leader had come to power...
...Their misdeeds are depicted in such detail that when the partisans capture a German unit and kill the enemy in the most horrible fashion, the audience cheers...
...The superior novelists, playwrights and film directors provide an unvarnished picture of reality...
...Sadly, Soviet depiction of the War is much more ambiguous...
...He demanded to know why American "Sovietologs" write so much dirt about his country...
...I saw it in the middle of the day and the enormous theater was full...
...I came away from Moscow doubting this seemingly commonsensical wisdom...
...Given the slow pace of developments, the smallest event looms large...
...The State itself betrays the difference indirectly: It treats Western Europeans and Americans visiting Moscow as privileged beings...
...We tend to imagine other societies in our own image, making it hard for us to appreciate this Soviet phenomenon...
...I told him Americans by and large have no ill feelings toward Russians...
...Finally, a private car stopped and 1 negotiated a ride for the fairly steep price of five rubles...
...The reporters, no doubt unconsciously, therefore often create an impression of activity and movement where in fact there is very little...
...What I can report is that nowadays the longest lines in Moscow are in front of liquor stores, because their hours have been shortened...
...The same was true two years later...
...In marked contrast to the Chinese, the Russians lack a healthy confidence in themselves and their culture...
...Western observers reason that because the problems of the Soviet economy are obvious and Gorbachev is an intelligent man, he must want to do something fairly radical about them...
...The man demanded that I pay at the outset...
...Well, they certainly think he is smart and capable...
...More importantly, the Soviets do not care a great deal about what we publish...
...No neutral stories fit into the formula...
...There is no competition for an audience...
...Of course, they want a higher standard of living...
...His speeches are usually not shown live on television...
...they feared many things that in fact were dangerous, and others that were not...
...In addition, Americans generally, conditioned by their own political frame of reference, tend to personalize politics...
...Still, it seems to me that there is no young generation to take up the struggle as the older dissenters are silenced in labor camps or internal exile, give up, emigrate, or die...
...On the basis of extensive experience, Russians assume anything foreign made superior to anything domestically produced...
...There is a lot of nostalgia in these accounts for a time the Soviet people recall with pride...
...sneakers are extremely fashionable...
...But even in this inhospitable world private enterprise, like grass through cracked asphalt, raises its head...
...Look around...
...Thus you frequently see on the Moscow subway shopping bags from the London or Frankfurt airport duty free shops, or advertising some Western European department store...
...There have been continuing changes in Moscow since I lived there in 1969...
...He was then told he might not be able to go to New York to see its latest buildings...
...Eastern Europeans have no such leverage...
...Like most occasional visitors to the Soviet Union, I had come wondering how much the country has changed of late...
...But political and material factors do make it easier for him to travel in Communist Europe: He does not have the option of defecting, and a trip to bloc countries is comparatively inexpensive...
...It is not necessary for us to like those principles, or even perhaps to understand them...
...The people I really admire are the ones who stay here and try to improve things, even when they can make only a marginal difference and have to work under adverse conditions...
...The censorship allows some Western films to be shown, notably those that offer a critical perspective of the societies they were made in...
...Today the Soviet people have a much clearer idea what is expected of them and what it is that they must not do...
...The seemingly eternal and almost pathological obsession with World War II is similarly an outgrowth of Soviet patriotism...
...For six weeks I received all my information about the outside world from Pravda, the Party newspaper, and from Soviet television's news program, Vrem-ia...
...This is an unattractive manifestation of patriotism...
...A crucially important, albeit not easily visible, change since my last visit has been the virtual disappearance of the dissent movement, whose activities included producing such samizdat journals as the Chronicle of Current Events...
...The casual rudeness of the local citizens to one another, which makes living in Moscow a tiring experience, has not abated...
...The conservatism of the political elite is easy enough to explain: They want to protect their privileges...
...the Soviet Union is still a country where most things are in short supply...
...As in India under the Raj, natives are not even allowed to enter...
...in particular are crucially important, and are constantly on their minds...
...It isn't that the regime has succeeded in winning over the unorthodox thinkers, or that repression has been stepped up— after all, the Soviet government never hesitated to suppress domestic opposition, not even during the days of detente...
...On the contrary, it has a cumulative toxic effect and each dose makes you more ill...
...It can create its own world and define with impunity what is and is not news...
...In this strange universe the kidnapping of Soviet diplomats by Shiite Moslems in Lebanon can be blamed on Israel and the United States...
...Not once while I watched did it conclude on time...
...It is perfectly apparent in Moscow that people are more affluent in the West than the East...
...The man inquired whether I liked Moscow, where I lived in America, what kind of car I drove...
...The third page is still devoted to foreign coverage, and the tone and nature of the presentation are identical to what they were 10-20 years ago...
...I didn't explain that there is no symmetry between the outlooks in the twocountries...
...The clothes available to Muscovites are an obvious example...
...It is hard to believe the inspectors' methods best enable them to find what they are looking for: bibles, dissident literature in Russian, and rubles...
...Entitled Come and See, it portrays all Germans as wild beasts...
...Talking with a Hungarian historian who was working in Moscow, I naively assumed it would be less difficult for him to get access to sensitive material than it would be for me...
...But a tiny article did declare:" It is terrible that such amisfortune should befall the courageous Mexican people who have been supporting the Nicaraguan revolution against heavy American pressure...
...The dual standard separating literature from the publicists' productions (including modern history) has existed since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917...
...No reduction of central control or Party influence is involved...
...A subsequent article told of Mexico's bitterness about U. S. attempts to use relief as a means of interference in Mexican affairs...
...Even assuming Gorbachev is deeply committed to meaningful economic reform, we can be sure he well remembers the experience of the not-too-distantly regnant Nikita S. Khrushchev...
...I wish I could gauge with confidence the success of Soviet propaganda in shaping the views of its citizens...
...In 1985 the bitterness is attenuated...
...Countless novels and films, aside from noting the suffering, dwell on the heroism of the Soviet people...
...In Moscow, from 9:009:35 p.m., all four channels broadcast the same news program...
...Yet it is apparent that most people in the Soviet Union get great satisfaction from being citizens of a superpower...
...The objective is simply to fine-tune a bloated bureaucracy that has not worked very well...
...there was much pushing...
...The work of Valentin Rasputin andUriTrifonov, the best contemporary Russian writers, shows past values being destroyed as the present system rewards the scoundrels with advancement...
...Everyone I talked to in Moscow, from convinced Party members to critical intellectuals, believed the Soviet Union, at least at the moment, is more desirous of meaningful arms control negotiations than the Reagan Administration...
...Americans can put pressure on Russians...
...He immediately caved in, and the Trade Center has "open" elevators exactly like those you find in numerous recent New York, San Francisco or Chicago structures...
...I have known some people for a long time who had been on the fringes of the dissent movement...
...For example, I happen to know some of the people responsible for the renovation of Arbat [an old historical street recently turned into a pedestrian mall...
...The couple must have traveled a great deal and accumulated a large supply of various foreign currencies—Swiss marks, German marks, French francs, etc...
...Since the late 1930s the last two have been constant and major themes of Soviet propaganda, but it would be an error to think they were entirely artificially created...
...Rather, for the world to be a safer place both sides have to accept one basic truth: The United States and the Soviet Union can, and must, coexist...
...Members of the elite behave carefully to avoid losing this precious privilege...
...Hence authorities make sure that they do not get to look at anything not deemed suitable for their eyes...
...I do not mean to suggest that nothing has changed under Gorbachev...
...But it would be short-sighted to regard such unanimity simply as an achievement of Soviet propaganda...
...Much of what an average Soviet citizen thinks of the West is simplistic or wrong...
...Yet aside from Grigory V. Romanov, a political opponent "retired" from the Politburo, the only major figure among these was the veteran former Foreign Minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, who at 76 was tactfully named to the ceremonial post of President...
...And since restaurants do not serve vodka until two o'clock in the afternoon, people make their lunch reservations for that time...
...He responded by describing his own position roughly as follows: "I know that this is a repressive society and that great crimes have been committed here...
...The extent of this problem in the USSR has long been evident and alcoholics, by definition, lack political clout...
...This means Russians fear change and are likely to see danger rather than promise in sudden or marked policy shifts...
...They understand the constraints the system imposes on the individual...
...Our books are effectively kept out of Soviet libraries...
...The overabundance of jeans is striking...
...Furthermore, many foreign correspondents, finding themselves largely cut off from ordinary Russians, spend a great deal of time in each others' company tracking the minutiae of Soviet government...
...President Reagan has unwittingly helped make this case by persistently avoiding the issues of arms control which could be the central topic of East-West negotiations...
...What he was doing falls into a gray area of legality...
...If they do not allow us into their archives, their scientists will not gain access to American laboratories...
...Be that as it may, my strong impression is that the Kremlin leaders have been successful in persuading Soviet citizens that their country stands for peace and the United States does not...
...Unlike the publicists, the good artists usually write in a minor key and exhibit no belief whatever in the regime's promises of a better future...
...In the course of my visit a new film appeared that had won first prize at the Moscow Film Festival...
...Service in restaurants is as slow as ever, and the food, if possible, is worse...
...people have different attitudes in their 20s than they do in their 40s...
...Going through customs, though, I began to sense that distinctively Soviet ambience I remembered: The lines were long...
...I understand the bureaucracy showed little enthusiasm forthe project...
...On a personal level, members of the Soviet scientific establishment feel it is essential to be polite to visiting Americans, because they very much want to come to the United States and hope their cooperativeness will be reciprocated...
...People in the past were extremely wary...
...One evening, returning home from the theater, 1 w as looking for a taxi...
...This compartmentalization allows Soviet officials to set one standard for themselves and another for everyone else...
...The Soviet press had hardly anything to say about the earthquake in Mexico, because it was difficult to blame that tragic event on the United States...
...it does not follow, as some Western observers would have us believe, that they want reform...
...I do not blame those who leave, although to some extent they impoverish the lives of those of us who have no intention of going anywhere...
...and just as in Paris and Munich during thesummer, 1 saw young people wearing T-shirts with English-language messages...
...This no doubt partly explains the attitude of the Soviet authorities, who view every foreign country as a dangerous place for their citizens...
...Streamlining of this kind, though, does not touch the core of the existing system...
...Soviet society is deeply conservative...
...This fall almost everyone assumed I was a Russian, and I, looking at the crowds, could hardly guess who might be a foreigner...
...Although Gorbachev has been at the top in the USSR less than ayear, it is abundantly apparent that he is a cautious man, unlikely to follow the course of the impetuous Khrushchev...
...One might say the very definition of upper-class status is being allowed to go abroad...
...On the subject of economic improvement, there has been considerable discussion in the Soviet press about the introduction of half a dozen superministries, beginning with agriculture...
...The extended negotiations led to a friendly chat...
...My guess is that people are most easily misled about distant matters...
...Nothing of the kind has existed in the West for a long time, and it is difficult to demonstrate...
...It took almost two hours before my turn came...
...He was returning to the Soviet Union to live after an absenceof decades and had brought various little presents for relativ es...
...As I stood there, I realized the process was slow not only because the inspectors were thorough but because they mindlessly followed prescribed procedures...
...In the United States the press has tended to exaggerate the implications of (he steps taken thus far by the new Communist Party General Secretary, Mikhail S. Gorbachev...
...some were checking passports, while others had no obvious tasks...
...At the same time, I found that casual acquaintances were less fearful in dealing with me, a foreigner...
...The governing principle of page three can be easily summarized: News has no inherent value...
...You hear no grumblings about the loss of lives in Afghanistan...
...The regime exhausted them...
...They constantly expect others to look over their shoulders and tell them how they are doing...
...Even travel to Communist Europe is not a simple matter for a Soviet citizen...
...He pointed out that the reverse was the case...
...One had the sense that the Russians cannot get enough of this stuff...
...The long-term effects of the omnipresent campaign remain to be gauged...
...When Gorbachev gave a speech that had to be read in its entirety, the news went on until 10:15...
...The official publicists constantly make extravagant and untrue claims about life in theUSSR...
...It has no need to lie...
...And it is not true that U.S...
...It is true that their alcoholism, low productivity and absenteeism are an indication of how demoralized they are...
...Most tellingly, I saw young, rustic looking uniformed men everywhere...
...The previous General Secretary, Konstantin V. Chernenko, could hardly walk, much less utter a coherent sentence...
...They are suspicious of moves that would demand more from them...
...foreign policy is determined by powerful economic interests...
...Workers appreciate that under the present system they have almost perfect job security and can get away with little work...
...It is not clear they are willing to pay the price of working more and harder...
...My impression is that most participants simply grew weary of the frighteningly unequal struggle...
...They desperately want praise...
...Jokes also still go the rounds about Leonidl...
...When I came to the Soviet capital the first time everything I wore, from my shoes to my eyeglasses, immediately proclaimed me a foreigner (to my chagrin...
...Muscovites usually have with them some kind of net or plastic bag: You never know where you might find an item you need...
...Thanks to this peculiarity of scheduling, if you turn on the TV after 9:35 p.m...
...I also know people in the West are not only richer, but political conditions permit them to live fuller lives...
...It is clearly the most important motivating force in Soviet society and a central component of Soviet ideology...
...every story must support the argument that the Soviet Union stands for justice and peace in the world, while theUnited States is the cause of all evil...
...All of the plastic bags are either foreign made or made for foreigners...
...they could be quite troublesome...
...Indeed, the Soviet approach to covering the Party chief has not changed...
...But Russians are so used to compartmentalizing that their behavior does not seem strange to them at all...
...No one I talked to in the Soviet Union expressed the feeling that things cannot go on essentially as they are for the foreseeable future...
...Perhaps the program Gorbachev has initiated that touches the average citizen most directiy is his anti-alcoholism campaign...
...The natural process of aging has to be taken into account, too...
...Thcv were all examined and evaluated...
...Understandably Gorbachev's style, his open criticism of high-ranking individuals—all except one of whom have subsequently been ousted—has attracted attention...
...Yet the simplest Muscovite also knows that Westerners live far better than he does, and the West is a great source of fascination to him...
...Granted, the new Party boss has sent several senior establishment members packing...
...In 1977 my friends seemed depressed...
...Soviet propaganda has hammered on this theme for a long time, and the Russians, preoccupied with a desire for security, find the prospect of unemployment altogether horrifying...
...Not unreasonably, Soviet citizens believe that a wide gap separates the poor and rich in America, and that unlike themselves workers in the West generally suffer the dreadful consequences of unemployment...
...The ubiquitous lines have not disappeared...
...A lover of experimentation who did not hesitate to take on firmly entrenched interest groups, Khrushchev was the one person in Soviet history to be removed from the pinnacle of power by his fellow politicians...
...Now Pravda fairly regularly publishes articles that are critical of some factory or other institution...
...All countries jail people for political reasons, but Westerners, unlike us, are hypocrites...
...The greatest reward the regime canbestowonits citizens is not some sort of medal, it is permission to travel to the West...
...imported shoes, gloves, perfume, or whatever are considered more desirable...
...you never know what you are going to see...
...There can be no question that American descriptions of Soviet life are a model of fairness compared with what Soviet publicists and scholars write about America...
...Pravda has changed some, but not very much, since I was last a regular reader...
...The Trade Center, a new hotel in Moscow, operates entirely on convertible currency...
...A Spanish-speaking couple with eight pieces of luggage spent 20 minutes with an inspector...
...The seeds fell on fertile soil...
...The inspectors were rude or indifferent...
...I am sure many patriotic citizens were proud of their leader in France as they watched TV clips showing him confidently articulating well-known Soviet positions and actually handling provocative questions "off the cuff' at a news conference...
...the overwhelming sentiment is that sending troops there is a worthwhile price to pay for having attained the position of a world power...
...Nevertheless, I doubt that those same citizens interpreted what they saw as necessarily signaling the beginning of a new era...
...Moreover, their standards and most of the things they value derive from the West...
...But now the reconstructed and repainted houses on that little street form an oasis in Moscow...
...It is rumored, for instance, that when the new Trade Center Hotel was planned, the conservative head of the building inspectorate balked at using the glass-bubble elevators that are fashionable in modern Western hotels...
...Somewhat paradoxically, the Russian lack of self-confidence, desire for foreign products and fascination with the West in general go hand in hand with a deep-seated nationalism and strong patriotism...
...Of course, it is impossible to generalize on the basis of my tiny sample...
...Their convertible currencies enable them to eat in special restau-rents and buy otherwise unattainable merchandise in closed shops...
...To an outsider, the undertaking does not particularly reflect political courage...
...The Soviet Union does not publish figures about arrests, so theaccuracy of his statement is impossible to check...
...Now, in some instances after visible hesitation, my new friends telephoned to tell me explicitly that I may call them from my room...
...However, this is my country and I have a special attachment to its past and its culture...
...I could not disagree with them...
...a few people were taken out of line and let through ahead of everyone else...
...Needless to say, these articles do not challenge the basic features of the regime, but they discuss real issues and a reader can get some notion that Soviet society has its troublesome aspects...
...He was arguing that social drinkers now drank less, but those who were addicted abused alcohol just as much as before...
...Soviet commentators, and many of their Western counterparts as well, frequently note that the USSR is particularly opposed to war because of its indescribably dreadful experiences 40 years ago...
...Gorbachev's name is never mentioned on television or in the newspapers without his full and ridiculously long title...
...The monies were put on the table, counted, got confused, were recounted...
...The first page is still taken up by pictures of smiling men and women who have overfulfilled their norms, and by "editorials" exhorting the people to work harder...
...In this strange, closed world the removal of an ancient minister seems like a major maneuver, and they try to convey it to their readers...
...Arriving at Shereme-tevo Two, the new airport, it struck me as 1 waited for my suitcases alongside the West German-made luggageconveyor, that, unlike the past, 1 had no feeling of having left the familiar public spaces of Western Europe...
...I would guess there are few places on earth where there is as much construction taking place as in Moscow...
...It does not make good copy to write that once again nothing of consequence has happened in the Soviet capital...
...To say that Pravda lies is missing the point...
...The works of Eastern European scholars are harder to control, both in the West and within the bloc...
...duce news...
...At least for me, however, the basic outlines of an answer were already evident within hours: The Soviet Union has changed more in appearance than in substance...
...It is a widely held notion that people everywhere are very much alike in their aspirations, and therefore if they had the chance to get to know one another they would all live more securely...
...This is an American, rather than a Russian, type of question...
...At an adjoining lineanother inspector spent roughly thesame amount of time with an old man...
...But what do they think of him...
...Nonetheless, putting everything together, his actions to date do not justify the somewhat excited speculation in the Western press about the evolution of Soviet society...
...Admittedly, any answer to this question must be subjective, because what appears insignificant to some has far reaching importance to others...
...An outsider cannot help wondering how the same people who clearly appreciate a play or a film that treats life as it is can then go home and read Pravda, which seems to be from another world...
...Just before we reached our destination, he turned to me: "Tell me, honestly, it will not hurt my feelings, what do the Americans really think of us...
...I mentioned my revulsion to an architect friend of mine who considers himself a nationalist and a patriot...
...Occasionally they bear such subversive slogans as "I Love New York...
...While few of my Russian acquaintances had been outside the USSR, they were aware that the standard of living in Eastern Europe is higher than their own...
...Neither the victims nor the organizers of propaganda ever really know how much they are affected by it...
...Interestingly, the complaints I heard from my acquaintances concerning the drive were that it was not properly prepared, and that the organizers wanted to achieve too much too quickly...
...When outsiders come to the Soviet Union, the authorities distrust them regardless of their citizenship...
...the cab driv ers all w anted to go in directions other than the one where I was staying...
...They know who has been heading which ministry and how long, who has been the protege of whom, etc...
...It was interrupted only during the dreadful quarter century of Stalin's rule...
...I do not believe this more relaxed attitude is the result of any liberalization...
...On my arrival, to cite one example, I had an interview with a functionary at the Academy of Sciences...
...in the past, passengers could have refused to pay him anything at the end of atrip...
...Duringmy previous stays in Moscow it was simply assumed that I would never telephone anyone from my hotel room, except on strictly official business...
...He had evidently had some unpleasant experiences...
...One middle level official observed that while the overall consumption of alcohol had declined impressively, the number of alcohol related arrests was unchanged...
...But the official buildings that have been going up in the center look much more sleek and European than the ones erected 10-15 years ago...
...they are read by an announcer in their entirety, and this may take half an hour or more of the evening television news program...
...During my stay in Moscow, Pravda devoted more space by far to j ailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier than to any other American living or dead...
...My Russian acquaintances made no such assumptions...
...Life in the West in not as violent or conflict ridden as Moscow residents have been led to believe...
...But workers have something to protect, too...
...The new apartment house complexes surrounding the city match in ugliness the ones built a decade or two ago...
...The format is deadly as well: Two announcers, a man and a woman, read their scripts in a monotonous tone...
...The subtext was unmistakable: Westerners blame us for violations of human rights...
...Soviet society is profoundly different from ours...
...As usual, none would take me...
...Nor do Russians read press reports about how well Raisa Gorbachev is dressing, and they are certainly not going to learn from their press that in Paris she visited Yves Saint-Laurent's salon...
Vol. 68 • October 1985 • No. 14
