Communist ideology one cause of Soviet collapse

Jennifer Greenstein Altmann

Princeton NJ -- The enormity of what happened when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 is almost too great to appreciate, according to Stephen Kotkin, associate professor of history and director of the Russian Studies Program. The Soviet Union had a larger arsenal than the United States -- an army of 5.3 million, 350,000 troops in the KGB, 40,000 nuclear weapons and 40,000 tons of chemical weapons. It was the biggest military and police state in world history, and it had a bloody track record of violence. How could a superpower with that much ammunition come undone without a war -- with, in fact, almost no bloodshed?

Stephen Kotkin

Kotkin sets out to answer that question in "Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000," a succinct analysis of the downfall and aftermath of Soviet Communism published last December by Oxford University Press. Here, Kotkin discusses what led the Soviet Union to disintegrate and why the collapse continued long after 1991.

What led the Soviet Union to unravel the way it did?

One of the key factors was a generational change in the leadership. The Brezhnev-era elite came to power in the 1930s, when Stalin was removing many people in his purges. That generation held on to power for a long time, right through the 1970s. But eventually they all became ill, and Brezhnev himself became ill. They were old and infirm, and they had to give way. Behind them was a new generation that had come of age not during Stalin's purges, but during Khrushchev's de-Stalinization and the 1956 exposé of Stalin's crimes. They came to power with a vision of socialism with a human face -- a better socialism, a socialism that wouldn't be Stalinist like the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Gorbachev was their representative, and he began to do what his generation wanted: to liberalize and democratize the system. Unexpectedly, it was Communist ideology that helped bring down the system.

How did Gorbachev manage to make reforms without getting rid of the Communist party?

People thought that Communist ideology was the most ossified, hollow and rigid structure, but it proved to be one of the most dynamic aspects of the system. In fact, it's where the concept of socialism with a human face came from. Gorbachev embraced this romantic notion of reclaiming the ideals of the (Russian) Revolution.

He held to his belief in socialism with a human face right to the end, even though the state dissolved as a result of his actions. He wouldn't return to Stalin's methods, he wouldn't return to Brezhnev's methods, he wouldn't use the force at his command to crack down and try to save the system. This was a huge surprise. Gorbachev and those around him were true believers in democratic socialism, but it was a chimera. It was something they couldn't bring about and, as they tried to introduce it, they destroyed the system.

Even those who attempted a coup against Gorbachev refrained from resorting to a violent crackdown.

Yes, in August 1991, very late in the game, (a gang of eight) attempted a very clumsy and fortunately non-ruthless coup. They arrested Gorbachev. But let me give you a sense of how armageddon was averted. In December 1981, when the Polish leader Gen. Jaruzelski cracked down on Solidarity, the first independent trade union movement in a Communist country, he arrested 5,000 people in one night. In the Soviet Union, the coup leaders -- which included the head of the KGB and the head of the Soviet army -- arrested five people.

But didn't other elements of society have a vested interest in seeing Communism continue?

Yes, the top elite alone was at least 3 million people, which includes the army, the KGB, the party and the state, and though some wanted to improve the system, many didn't. Once it all came unglued, they proved to be opportunists. The elite discovered that it could save itself even if the union dissolved if it could become the elite of one of the republics. So while the union was being accidentally dismantled by Gorbachev's reforms, they latched on to the republics to save themselves.

The other thing the elite did was to grab the Soviet Union's property. All the property was in the state's name. What did that mean in practice? It meant that whoever was closest to it, whoever controlled the licensing and the paperwork and the legal apparatus, could give themselves the property. So there was a colossal self-privatization of property by the elites. Factory managers, party bosses and state ministers just assigned the property to themselves. That mass confiscation of state property diverted the elite's attention. They thought, "Why salvage the system when you can own it?"

Tell me how you did the research for this book.

I read about 400 memoirs -- 90 of them from members of the KGB. The authors ranged from the chief analyst of the KGB to Kremlin drivers, Kremlin doctors, provincial chiefs and ordinary people. I've been to every Soviet republic before 1991 and after 1991 many times, with one exception, Turkmenistan. And last year I traveled to almost the entire post-Soviet space and much of Eastern Europe.

What was one of the most interesting discoveries of your research?

I was in the Gulag archive in 1993 because Communism had fallen and everything had opened up. I struck up a friendship with the head archivist, and I was granted a chance to walk around and look at the stacks, which are usually off-limits.

The Gulag archive is almost the size of Firestone Library. I got all the way to the back wall, and there were these bound quartos, dozens and dozens of photo albums. And in them were photos of many of the most famous performers -- from the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kiev Ballet, from theater groups and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. They had been arrested in purges and sent to the Gulag. And in these remote Siberian Gulags, where people died in the permafrost digging for gold with their bare hands, the camp bosses would have an evening of celebration, on New Year's Eve or October Revolution Day, and they had the greatest dancers and singers in the country perform for them.

The book's subtitle is "The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000." Why do you see the collapse continuing for nine years after the fall of Communism?

The collapse didn't end in 1991; in some ways it was only the beginning. The Soviet era continued to collapse throughout the 1990s, and a lot of it is still there, decaying. You have to overcome the old and build the new at the same time.

I'll give you an example. The KGB had 17 buildings in central Moscow in the Soviet period. How many do they have now? Eighteen -- they built a new gym. It's not the same KGB -- they don't chase after dissidents, they don't make mass summary arrests the same way they used to -- but they're still there. Russia didn't inherit the institutions necessary for a liberal, democratic market society. They inherited the Soviet-era state. So it's a long process. You don't get rid of something that big by pulling the chain and the water flushes it away.

Former diplomat to discuss rule of Yeltsin and Putin

Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state, will discuss "Russia and the West under Yeltsin and Putin" at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.

Talbott currently is director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. He served in the State Department from 1993 to 2001, first as ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the secretary of state on the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. In 1994 he became deputy secretary of state, a position he held for the following seven years. Talbott has been acknowledged as a key architect of U.S. foreign policy during that period.

Prior to his move to government, Talbott was a journalist for Time for more than 20 years. He is the author of several books about the Cold War. He also has written on the significance of recent events in "The Age of Terror: America and the World after Sept. 11" (2002), which he edited with Yale colleague Nayan Chanda. A memoir of his State Department days, "The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Personal Diplomacy," will be published later this year.

Talbott's lecture is the seventh in a series of Cyril Black Memorial Lectures, named for a scholar of Russian and Balkan history and director of the Center of International Studies who was a member of Princeton's faculty for 47 years until his retirement in 1986.

The lecture is sponsored by the Center of International Studies of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.