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US/Soviet Relations in the Gorbachev Period

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Soviet and Russian Press Coverage of the United States

Part of the book series: St Antony’s Series ((STANTS))

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies undermined the system of enmity between the United States and the Soviet Union. In doing so, it will begin to form a chronology linking quantitative and qualitative changes in press content, namely in political cartoons, with changing Soviet policies vis-à-vis the US.

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Notes

  1. Pravda, ‘Linkages between Domestic and Foreign Policy’, 1990, p. 2.

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  2. Mikhail Gorbachev quoted by Archie Brown, Political Leadership, 1989, p. 197.

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  3. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxix, no. 7, 18 March 1987, p. 11.

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  4. ‘The United States’ capacity to present assistance was matched only by its capacity to heighten international tension and increase the danger of war.’ MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 268.

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  5. Quoted in Sylvia Woodby, Gorbachev and the Decline of Ideology in Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder: Westview Press) 1989, p. 15.

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  6. Pravda, ‘Linkages between Domestic and Foreign Policy,’ 1990, p. 5; Severyn Bialer, ‘The Soviet Union and the West: Security and Foreign Policy’, Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum (eds), Gorbachev’s Russia and American Foreign Policy (London: Westview Press) 1988, p. 459 ff. Woodby, Decline of Ideology, 1989, p. 14 ff.

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  7. S. Kondrashov, ‘Dolgii vzglyad na Ameriku’, Moskovskie Novosti, no. 40, 2 October 1988, p. 6.

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  8. S. Kondrashov, SWB, SU/0844/A4/2, 16 August 1990.

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  9. Alexander Dallin, ‘New Thinking in Soviet Foreign Policy’, in Archie Brown (ed.), New Thinking in Soviet Politics (London: Macmillan) 1992, p. 77; Malcolm, ‘De-Stalinization and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1990, pp. 178–205; MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 124 ff.

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  10. See Gorbachev’s speech to the United Nations, SWB, SU/0030/C1/3, 9 December 1988; Bialer, ‘The Soviet Union and the West’, 1988, p. 479; Dallin, ‘New Thinking’, 1992, p. 73.

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  11. Michael Cox, ‘Hoist the White Flag: Soviet Foreign Policy in an Era of Decline’, Critique 22: Journal of Social Theory, 1990, pp. 73–4; MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 319. For background on the security issue, see Stephen M. Mayer, ‘The Source and Prospects of Gorbachev’s New Political Thinking’, International Security, fall 1988, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 142–3.

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  12. Paraphrased by Cox, ‘White Flag’, 1990, p. 73; Bialer, ‘New Thinking and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1988, p. 296.

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  13. Bialer, ‘New Thinking and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1988, p. 299; MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 288. For Gorbachev and the need for the re-evaluation of capitalism, see his speech at the LXXth anniversary of the October Revolution, SWB, SU/8716/C28, 4 November 1987; Yakovlev, ‘Dostizheniye kachestvenno novogo sostoyaniya sovetskogo obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki’, Kommunist, no. 8 (May 1987), pp. 8–10.

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  14. Gorbachev, Pravda, 3 November 1987. See also Allen Lynch, ‘The Continuing Importance of Ideology in the Soviet Union’, The Harriman Institute Forum, vol. 3, no. 7, July 1990, p. 7; Woodby, Decline of Ideology, 1989, p. 29.

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  15. Bialer, ‘New Thinking and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1988, p. 299; Malcolm, ‘De-Stalinization and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1991, p. 195.

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  16. Gorbachev, quoted in MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 289.

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  17. Dallin, ‘New Thinking’, 1992, p. 72; MccGwire, Perestroika, p. 291 ff.

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  18. Margot Light, ‘Foreign Policy’, in Martin McCauley (ed.), The Soviet Union under Gorbachev (London: Macmillan) 1987, p. 215 ff.

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  19. Shevardnadze, Future Belongs to Freedom, 1991, p. 5.

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  20. As Gorbachev said, paraphrasing (and twisting) Lenin, ‘the interests of social development and pan-human values take priority over the interests of any particular class’. Quoted in MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 285. See Literaturnaya Gazeta, 5 November 1986.

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  21. E. Egorova-Gantman and K. Pleshakov, ‘Kontseptsiya obraza stereotipa v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniyakh’, Mirovaya Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnoshenie, 1988, no. 12, pp. 19–33.

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  22. F. Burlatsky, SWB, SU/8717/B/2, 5 November 1987. David Wedgwood Benn, From Glasnost to Freedom of Speech (London: Royal Institute for International Affairs) 1992, p. 58.

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  23. Sergei Churgov, deputy editor-in-chief of the journal World Economy and International Relations, SWB, SU/0273/A/7-8, 4 October 1988.

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  24. Vlasov, ‘To Raise Quality of Information’, 1988, p. 20.

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  25. Gorbachev seemed obsessed with psychological barriers and attributed success in international relations in part to changes in psychology. As he said in early 1988 about improving US/Soviet relations: ‘All this has become possible as the result of the gradual alteration in the psychological climate in the world and as a result of changes in people’s state of mind.’ He then singled out ‘world socialism’s contribution to arousing a global impetus towards an improvement in the normalization of international relations’. Gorbachev, SWB, SU/0046/C/1, 12 January 1988. Shevardnadze saw ‘stereotypes of the existence of the enemy’ as the chief barrier to the implementation of new political thinking. Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom, 1991, p. 62.

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  26. Gorbachev, Time interview, quoted in Pravda, 2 September 1985. For earlier expressions of Soviet concerns over the hostile international environment, see Light, Soviet Theory of International Relations, 1988, p. 72, n. 14.

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  27. Gorbachev mentioned the importance of eliminating the enemy image in his first speech calling for the ‘expansion’ of glasnost to international affairs. SWB, SU/0081/C/13, 22 February 1988.

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  28. Grigoriev, author interview (Middletown: April 1992); As then editor-in-chief of Izvestiya Ivan Laptev said, ‘not only the Soviet people but the entire world now view the policy of glasnost’ as an indicator of the progress of our restructuring’. I. Laptev, SWB, SU/0150/C/4, 13 May 1988. Easing of censorship and restrictions on the underground press in Poland was in part linked with the government’s desire for Western credits. Ash, Polish Revolution, 1983, p. 19.

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  29. MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 270.

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  30. Morton Schwartz went so far as to state that for the Soviets, communications media were ‘the most poorly understood feature of American life’. Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the United States, 1978, p. 88 ff.

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  31. Burlatsky, after extolling the virtues of the changes which had occurred in the Soviet media images of the West, said, ‘We would like Western mass media also to take part in destroying the enemy image which remains a psychological foundation for the arms race and for difficulties in our relations. We expect objectivity, honesty and broad coverage of all aspects of our life from the Western mass media.’ F. Burlatsky, SWB, SU/8717/B/2, 5 November 1987.

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  32. Georgi Arbatov, New York Times, 8 December 1987, p. A38.

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  33. Yakovlev, SWB, SU/0277/A1/4, 8 October 1988.

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  34. Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya (Moscow, 1957) vol. xx, p. 201.

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  35. Michael Milenkovitch, The View from Red Square: A Critique of Cartoons from Pravda and Izvestia, 1947–1964 (New York: Hobbs, Dorman) 1966, p. 129.

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  36. S. Gribachev, interview with author (Moscow, May 1990). In the cases of Geneva (19–21 November 1985) and Reykjavik (11–12 October 1986), the changes were ephemeral. In fact, the period just after Reykjavik saw a significant increase in anti-American cartoons in all three publications, which reflected Soviet disappointment at the summit’s failure and concomitant perceptions of American intransigence.

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  37. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxviii, no. 8, p. 6.

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  38. Gorbachev, SWB, SU/8389/A1/9, 14 October 1986. He was no more sympathetic in a television broadcast in Moscow a few days later, when he said that ‘The leadership of that great country is too dependent on the military-industrial complex and on monopoly groups, which have turned the race in nuclear weapons into a business, a means of making profits, the aim of their existence and the point of their activities.’ SWB, SU/8391/A/10, 16 October 1986.

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  39. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxviii, no. 8, p. 36.

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  40. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxviii, no. 8, pp. 6–7, 27 ff.

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  41. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxviii, no. 8, p. 9 ff.

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  42. Gorbachev, CDSP, vol. xxxviii, no. 8, p. 36.

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  43. The period also witnessed tremendous turnover in the staff of the foreign ministry and central committee departments devoted to foreign affairs. Besides Shevardnadze, the foreign ministry also received two new first deputy heads and two deputy heads. There was major personnel turnover in the ambassadorial ranks, with new faces in over forty capitals, including Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, London, Paris and Bonn. The replacements tended to be younger, speak native languages more fluently and be better versed in the efficient conduct of public relations. Light, ‘Foreign Policy’, 1987, p. 213.

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  44. Shevardnadze quoted in Light, ‘Foreign Policy’, 1987, p. 216. See Pravda, 31 July 1985.

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  45. Current Soviet Policies IX (Columbus: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press) p. 154.

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  46. See Archie Brown, ‘Policy and Power in a Time of Leadership Transition’, in Archie Brown (ed.), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan) 1989, p. 187 ff; Seweryn Bialer, ‘The Changing Political System’, in Bialer (ed.), Inside Gorbachev’s Russia, 1989, p. 193 ff.

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  47. Yakovlev, ‘Dostizheniye kachestvenno novogo sostoyaniya sovetskogo obshchestva nauki’, 1987, pp. 8–10.

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  48. Light, ‘Foreign Policy’, 1987, p. 215.

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  49. Remington, ‘Gorbachev and the Strategy of Glasnost’, 1989, p. 64.

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  50. MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 272; Cox, ‘Hoist the White Flag’, 1990, p. 76.

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  51. By mid-March 1987, the Soviet Union had informed the Warsaw Pact that it had adopted ‘sufficiency’ as its standard for determining military requirements. MccGwire, Perestroika, 1991, p. 319.

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  52. Bialer, ‘New Thinking and Foreign Policy’, 1988, p. 298.

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  53. As Grigoriev said, ‘The INF was the turning-point, because it was the first thing that really worked.’ Author interview (Middletown: April 1992).

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  54. Gorbachev quoted in SWB, SU/8716/C/28, 4 November 1987.

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  55. Malcolm, ‘De-Stalinization and Soviet Foreign Policy’, 1990, p. 195.

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  56. In his book Perestroika, released in November 1987, Gorbachev said that ‘We certainly do not need an “enemy image” of America, neither for domestic nor for foreign-policy interests.’ He also said that ‘We must get rid of chauvinism in our countries (the United States and the Soviet Union), especially given the power they both possess. Chauvinism can bring into politics elements that are inadmissible.’ Gorbachev, Perestroika, 1987, pp. 216, 218. See also Gorbachev’s talk with US Secretary of State George Schultz, Pravdai 24 October 1987, p. 1.

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  57. Bovin, SWB, SU/0316/A1/2, 23 November 1988.

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  58. Instead, Shevardnadze saw the defining tendency as ‘the ability to build up material wealth at an accelerated rate on the basis of front-ranking science and high level techniques and technology and to distribute it fairly, and through joint efforts to restore and protect the resources necessary for mankind’s survival.’ Shevardnadze, CDSP, vol. xl, no. 30, 1988, p. 13.

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  63. The last noted use of Nazi symbolism was in Pravda, 31 October 1986, p. 5.

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  64. Krokodil, no. 5, February 1989, p. 5.

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  65. Pravda, 16 April 1989, p. 5.

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  66. N. Entilis, interview with author (Moscow: May 1990).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bard College, USA

    Jonathan A. Becker (Dean of Students and Dean of Studies)

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  1. Jonathan A. Becker
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© 1999 Jonathan A. Becker

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Becker, J.A. (1999). US/Soviet Relations in the Gorbachev Period. In: Soviet and Russian Press Coverage of the United States. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230598423_6

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