'The year 1989 was a Big Bang'

Andrei Grachev is a Russian historian, political scientist, and journalist renowned for his expertise in international relations and his role as the last spokesperson for Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Rem Koolhaas (RK) It sometimes seems as though the fall of the Berlin Wall was totally improvised. Did anyone foresee it?

Andrei Grachev (AG) It’s difficult to predict the future. The year 1989 was a Big Bang [moment], the signs of which could be detected long before. For me, 1989 began in December 1988 with Gorbachev’s speech. Westerners didn’t fully appreciate the significance of that speech to the United Nations. He had already conceived it as an anti-Fulton speech. Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech in 1946; for Gorbachev, [1988] was the moment to announce the fall of that curtain. For him, it was a political commitment by the Soviet leadership of the time to take a different path. British historian Archie Brown has dedicated several books to what could be called the turning point in Gorbachev’s policy. It occurred in 1988, during what was called the ‘Party Conference’. It was at this conference that Gorbachev's team imposed, on the entire Soviet nomenclatura class, the end of the Party’s monopoly rule, including the idea of multipartyism, marking the end of the Leninist model dating back to 1917, as well as the end of the ideological confrontation between the USSR and the Western world. The issue at stake was thus an admission of failure of the Bolshevik experiment, which had strayed from Soviet society. That experiment had enabled the Soviet Union to become the second superpower, win the Second World War and launch the first man into space. However, after 70 years, Gorbachev recognized its failure and the need for modernization of the Union. This speech should have been seen by the West as an opportunity, as a challenge, but also as a request for commitment to accompany this massive transition.

On the international scale, it triggered a true avalanche [of change] starting the following year. The scale of the events of 1989 is staggering: the first free elections in the Soviet Union were held in the spring; there was the first use of force by Moscow in Georgia; the human chain in the Baltic countries in the summer (around the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the idea of independence was circulating even if the term wasn't used); the first Polish elections were held (we forget that Soviet elections preceded Polish elections); the events in Tiananmen Square; the fall of the Iron Curtain on the Hungarian border; the fall of the Berlin Wall with all its symbolism; the fall of communist regimes in other countries of the Soviet bloc; the 40th anniversary of the People's Republic of China; the 40th anniversary of the creation of the German Democratic Republic; the events in Romania in December; and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan [May 1988 –February 1989].

RK Were there any concrete responses from the West?

AG Not really. Gorbachev's speech (particularly the declaration that all peoples have the right to freely choose their political system) was not only an anti-Churchill speech but also an anti-Brezhnev Doctrine one. For Gorbachev, no dispute, no international conflict, should be resolved by force. In his speech, he primarily announced the unilateral withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe. Curiously, and contrary to what we had expected, the speech at the United Nations, primarily intended for his Western partners, paradoxically resonated in the countries of the Soviet bloc. This explains later events in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere, but also within the Soviet Union, in the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Nagorno-Karabakh. By proclaiming the right of peoples to choose their system, he opened Pandora’s box. To be frank and blunt, perhaps there would never have been these uprisings and popular revolts in Eastern Europe if Gorbachev had not solemnly announced that he did not intend to use force. The Americans, especially Reagan, did not want to make it easier for Gorbachev, even though he had announced his intention to leave Afghanistan in advance and asked the Americans to help facilitate that departure. Gorbachev unilaterally carried out this exit. In 1987, the Russians eliminated twice as many missiles as the Americans.

Luuk van Middelaar (LvM) There was no reciprocity?

AG No, certainly not. Bush Sr. and his team took too long to confirm their support for Gorbachev.

RK And with the Europeans?

AG Relations with Kohl were difficult at first. He didn’t hesitate to compare Gorbachev to Goebbels. Well, later they became very good friends. But when, in [June] 1989, Gorbachev visited Germany, they spoke of the unification of Germany as a distant and hypothetical future. With Mitterrand and Thatcher, it was better. Thatcher knew Gorbachev, who had come to London [December 1984] as head of the parliamentary delegation. And it was after this meeting that she famously said, ‘I like Gorbachev, we can do business.’ Mitterrand was a socialist, and according to Roland Dumas, he was enchanted. Mitterrand said of Gorbachev that he just wanted to repaint the USSR house. Later, when he started cleaning the walls, he saw they were mouldy. And he eventually realized the foundations needed to be addressed. But with Reagan, things were more complicated. The possibility of a resolution failed due to Reagan's insistence on abandoning the Star Wars agreement.

In 1989 Thatcher and Mitterrand were more concerned than Gorbachev about the unification of Germany. They tried to push Gorbachev to delay it as much as possible. Later, after Bush decided to integrate a unified Germany into NATO, refusing any intermediate solutions that might have moved NATO eastward, Thatcher and Mitterrand told Gorbachev: ‘In private, we’re with you, but publicly, we’ll have to side with the Americans.’

RK Can we say that Europe’s lack of independence from America contributed to the eventual failure of this opening?

AG I’m more inclined to [attribute] internal reasons for the collapse of the USSR. But I believe Jack Matlock, the former American ambassador, who told me that if Bush had remained president (he lost the election) and if Gorbachev had stayed at the head of the USSR, commitments would have been honoured. Their last official meeting, the Madrid Summit in October 1991 on the Middle East, was the last chance we missed. The Israelis, the Palestinians, and all the Arab countries under Bush and Gorbachev were gathered there.

We must go back to the internal politics of democratization. When they saw that Gorbachev didn’t use force, especially in the conflict between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh or in Georgia, it served as a stimulus for nationalist movements. However, the national fronts in the Baltic states were initially very pro-Gorbachev, as were the Ukrainians. They didn’t initially demand independence. They wanted more autonomy, nothing more. No one advocated leaving the Soviet Union. It was Russia that chose to leave the Soviet Union, a great paradox.

LvM It’s as if England were to leave the United Kingdom?

AG Exactly. But then came the August 1991 coup by the conservatives and the return to the Stalinist model of centralization. In the weeks following the coup, a dozen republics declared independence, with the Ukrainians first, even though the day before, in a national referendum, 70 per cent of the Soviet population across all republics voted to maintain the Union.

RK What was the beginning of American triumphalism?

A. The Americans discovered the new Russian leader, Yeltsin, in 1991, and it was from that moment that the Americans began to behave condescendingly. From the moment Clinton [failed to honour] Bush's commitments regarding NATO expansion to the east, Russia became extremely dependent on American economic aid. The behaviour of the Americans and the West in general already represented a terrible humiliation for the Russians, especially with Kosovo and Serbia. At the time, Yeltsin didn’t make much fuss, but today, Putin remembers it. The worst [decision] was Bush Jr.'s withdrawal from missile defence. These decisions were made by Bush after September 11, when Putin offered him bases in central Asia to fight the Taliban together. Since then, for Putin, this has meant that, for the Americans, Russia no longer matters strategically.