My Review* of Sergey Radchenko's "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Bd.........."

 The Rise and Fall of Soviet Foreign Policy

 

Johns Hopkins professor Sergey Radchencko has given us a deeply researched and encyclopedic book on Soviet foreign policy from 1944 – 1991 from the point of view of the Soviet leadership. He gets into the heads of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and their foreign policy minions. The Soviet leadership faced the tension among three incompatible goals of maintaining its revolutionary ideology, the need for security and its search for legitimacy among the nations, especially the United States.

 

He starts off with Stalin as the ultimate European focused leader whose “percentages agreement” with Churchill in late 1944 opened the way for Soviet control over Eastern Europe. He argues that Stalin did not initially want to Sovietize the Eastern Europe economies until he witnessed the failure of the French and Italian Communist parties to win electorally in the mid-1940’s. I don’t really buy that because the hardening of the Soviet position occurred while the war was still going on. Further, Radchenko fails to mention the Duclos letter to the American Communist Party in April 1945 criticizing its softness which signaled a hardening of the Soviet position worldwide.

 

What Stalin envisioned in 1945 was that Russia, as in 1815, would be part of a new Concert Europe that would run the continent. Hence Soviet power would be viewed as legitimate. Russian actions in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Berlin soon stripped away any sense of legitimacy, and in response NATO was formed. What I found fascinating was that anglophiles in the foreign ministry, Maksim Litvinov (ex-foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S.) and Ivan Maisky (ex-ambassador to the U.K.) played leading roles in developing Stalin’s European policies.

 

In Asia Stalin did not believe that Mao would succeed and for a time played the nationalists off against Mao’s communists. Mao accepted Stalin’s leadership as a junior partner. He would not feel such obedience under Khrushchev. In Iran Stalin was very cautious and he withdrew his forces from northern Iran thereby selling out the local communists who supported him.

 

Khrushchev was far more reckless. In Europe he ignited a Berlin Crisis, n caused a nuclear war over missiles in Cuba, and was an early supporter of Third World revolutionaries. Russian influence had to be reckoned with throughout the world. All the while the Soviets were building up their missile and nuclear capabilities in a direct challenge to the United States. This was crucial to Khrushchev because he sensed the unfairness of the United States having military bases surrounding the Soviet Union while he couldn’t have bases close to the United States. Hence, the big play in Cuba.

 

Khrushchev’s 1956 speech denouncing Stalin sent ripples throughout Communist Parties around the world triggering revolts in Poland and Hungary. While Chairman Mao respected Stalin, he had no such respect for Khrushchev and hence the long simmering Chinese jealousy towards Russia began to boil.

 

The split with China would widen to even include military action and a break in diplomatic relations with the Soviets and the opening of relations with the U.S. after the Nixon visit in 1972.  In 1978 Deng Xiaoping took power and embarked China on a capitalist road to prosperity. His goal was modernization, but as early as 1982, after he realized that the U.S. would stand by Taiwan, China gradually began its drift back towards Russia. In fact, two weeks before the 1989 Tiananmen massacre China resumed diplomatic relations with Russia. Thus, it should not be surprise to see Putin’s Russia and China cozying up in recent years.

 

In 1964 Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev and simultaneously accelerated the nuclear arms race and sought détente with the United States. In making arms deals with Nixon, Brezhnev at once lowered the risk of a nuclear holocaust and achieved the legitimacy he sought from the United States. One of the most powerful vignettes in the book is that Radchenko recounts that at the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War Nixon was asleep and drunk and Brezhnev was zonked out on sleeping pills. The decision over war and peace was thus made by Kissinger and Andropov.

 

Brezhnev’s failing health later in the 1970’s was emblematic of sclerosis seizing up in the Soviet economy. Even allowing for Soviet gains in Africa, Soviet power was falling under the weight of its weakening economy. That economy would be put to the test with Reagan’s military buildup in the early 1980’s. Simply put the Russian leadership went into panic mode fearing they could not keep up. If you learn one thing from this book, it is that Reagan’s foreign and defense policies brought the Soviets to their knees.

 

Gorbachev tried to turn things around with his glasnost and perestroika, but the Soviets were too far gone. To ease the pressure on the economy he made a series of arms control deals with Reagan and Bush thereby legitimizing his country and he cut loose Eastern Europe because the economy could no longer afford to subsidize its satellites.

 

Gorbachev was a proponent of the Gaullist notion of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. He called it “Our Common European Home.”  It was too late. Radchenko notes that there were discussions about limiting NATO’s reach in Eastern Europe. However, not commitments were reduced to writing and thus under Clinton NATO expanded to the borders of Russia.

 

One last point the Soviet Union had two diplomats who were survivors, and they appear throughout the book. Andrei Gromyko was a power from 1945-1988 and Anastas Mikoyan was a major player from 1935-1966. It was though them that Soviet foreign policy has continuity and historical memory. Radchenko has written an important book, and it will be useful in gaining insights into how Putin’s policies are both a continuation and a departure from the history he has outlined.

*- I am engaged in a dispute with Amazon about my ability to post reviews on their site. Amazon alleges that I have gone afoul of their community guidelines. Amazon is very difficult to communicate with so dear readers if you have a way of weighing in with Amazon, please do.