Gorbachev’s Crisis — and America’s Opportunity

BY: Richard Nixon
The Washington Post, June 2, 1991

THE SOVIET UNION is quickly approaching the moment of truth, when it must decide
whether to transform its outmoded communist system into a democratic state with a free market
economy. Many analysts are urging the West to foot the bill — to the tune of $ 100 billion or more
— to help Moscow make the right choice. While we have an enormous stake in the outcome,
advocates of a bailout misunderstand what our interests are and how we can best advance them.

U.S. policymakers should not separate the issue of economic reform from broader political and
strategic questions. Many tend to see the economic salvation of the other nuclear superpower as
an end in itself, but in fact our key strategic interest does not lie in saving the Kremlin
economically. Instead, it centers on the dismantling of the communist Soviet system that has
oppressed its people for 75 years and that has engaged in unremitting expansionism against the
free world. Our policies should promote the chance for democratic government, market
economics and self-determination for the Russian and non-Russian nations.

How we advance these objectives requires an understanding of the present Soviet political
scene. So far, U.S. policy debate has been preoccupied with every twist and turn in Mikhail
Gorbachev’s periodic maneuvers between the forces of reform and reaction. His most recent
swing toward the reformers, including an offer to accommodate Boris Yeltsin’s Russian
government and other republics, has been uncritically accepted as an irreversible return to
thoroughgoing perestroika after his dangerous detour toward repression last fall.

But Gorbachev is not one-dimensional. He is a troika: a product of his upbringing in the
Communist Party apparatus; a patriotic Russian nationalist; a brilliant pragmatic politician who
likes power, knows how to use it and will do what is necessary to keep it. He sincerely wants
major reform. But his vision seeks the strengthening, not the destruction of the Soviet system.
The zigzags in his policy are not accidental but rather reflect a profound split in his political
personality.

Only the naively optimistic can confidently conclude that his recent agreement with Yeltsin and
the leaders of eight other republics willing to sign a new union treaty will put an end once and for
all to Gorbachev’s vacillation. It is far more significant that opponents of re-form continue to
dominate the positions of real power in his inner circle: Valentin Pavlov, the prime minister, has
not retracted his recent accusations that Western banks tried to destabilize the Soviet economy;
nor has he withdrawn his authorization of the police and the KGB to raid the offices of Western
joint ventures without search warrants. Oleg Ozhereliev, a doctrinaire Marxist economist, remains
Gorbachev’s principal economic adviser and dominates day-to-day policy, while market-oriented
thinkers, such as Grigory Yavlinsky, are simply window-dressing for the Western press. Boris
Pugo, the tough-minded former KGB chief in Latvia and current minister of the interior, presides
over the continuing bloody attacks by Soviet military and security forces on secessionist republic
governments from the Baltics to Transcaucasia. Vladimir Kryuchkov, the steely head of the KGB,
shows no sympathy for broader political reform. In a meeting during my recent visit to the Soviet
Union, he pulled no punches. He bluntly said, “We have had as much democratization as we can
stomach.” But opportunities as well as dangers exist in the divergence between Gorbachev’s
beliefs and actions. Over the last six years, he has repeatedly drawn lines in the sand across which
he swore he would not step, only to reverse himself when confronted by overwhelming political
pressure. Today, he has declared that he cannot acccept any reforms that would fragment the
empire or undermine socialism. But there is a chance he will do so if the deepening crisis leaves
him no alternative.

Instead of promoting political and economic reform, premature Western assistance would ease
the mounting pressure on Gorbachev to expand perestroika into a comprehensive dismantlement
of the Soviet system. Since the Soviet Union only reforms when under pressure, a helping hand
would hinder the cause of democracy. Although they are on the ropes, the forces of reaction are
not down and out. They will exploit Western aid to preserve the communist system, even if only
in a modified form.

The West should therefore set three preconditions to any consideration of major economic aid
to Moscow: Geopolitical accommodation: While relations have improved, important issues still
divide the superpowers. Until Gorbachev resolves satisfactorily the date disputes in the
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, signs a stabilizing and verifiable Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty, accepts a settlement giving genuine self-determination to the Afghan people and cuts off
aid to Third World client states like Cuba, aiding the Soviet economy would simply enhance
Moscow’s ability to challenge our interests. Market reforms: It would require a great leap of faith
to offer the Soviet Union massive assistance in exchange for a verbal promise from Gorbachev
that he will adopt more radical reforms. Some have touted the proposed $ 100-billion aid package
as a “grand bargain.” But a “grand con job” sounds like a more appropriate term.

While Gorbachev has changed the world with his foreign policy and the Soviet Union with his
political reforms, he has not moved off square one economically. In a speech before the Institute
of World Economy and International Relations, a prestigious Moscow think tank, I observed that
Gorbachev’s “economic policies have been a dismal failure.” My speech drew many responses, but
no one disputed my assessment. To his credit, Gorbachev himself admits that his earlier economic
policies were a major cause of the present Soviet crisis.

Yet he still fails to understand the iron link between prosperity and private property, free-market
prices and sound monetary policy. As recently as two weeks ago, he expressed his lack of
enthusiasm for private ownership. In an interview with Rupert Murdoch, he said, “People do not
want to work in the factory whose owner has accumulated money in some unknown way. Small
private property might be allowed in trade.” This kind of old thinking would doom any new
economic reforms to failure.

The West cannot save the Soviet Union. Only the Soviets can save themselves. The Soviet
system is bankrupt, and its leaders must face up to this fact. This means they must adopt radical
reforms that will provide the incentives for the people to work their way out of bankruptcy. While
we should permit and encourage trade in non-strategic goods and even grant most-favored-nation
trade status, aid to a Soviet government not committed to radical reform would be like a bank
extending credit to a bankrupt corporation.

Those who patronizingly claim that nothing short of a Western bailout can save the Soviet
people are wrong. The Soviet Union is no nuclear-armed Bangladesh. The Soviet Union’s natural
resources, while increasingly expensive to develop, are abundant. Its labor force, despite its poor
work ethic, is highly skilled and will respond to proper incentives. Its scientists are recognized
internationally. When right reforms come, the accomplishments of the Soviet people will astonish
the world. Democratic reforms: Economic success requires more than radical economic reform.
Only a democratically elected Soviet government will have sufficient credibility to take the tough
steps and make them stick. The Marshall Plan succeeded because its resources were channeled
through democratic, non-communist governments. More recently, a multi-billion-dollar Western
assistance program to Poland was implemented only after Solidarity instituted the painful
economic reforms needed to make the aid effective.

This means the Pavlov cabinet has to go. Neither a game of ministerial musical chairs nor even
the appointment of competent technocrats would suffice. Nothing short of a government elected
by the Soviet people and fully committed to reform can do the job. The remnants of the
Communist Party bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex would finally have to surrender
their power to the democratic process.

In addition, Gorbachev must decide not just to share more power with those republics willing to
stay within the Soviet Union, but also to accept the secession of those that are determined to
leave. Promoting democratic and market-oriented reforms while simultaneously fighting a
rear-guard battle to save the dying empire is impossible. For the Soviet Union, it is far better to
have as neighbors friendly people living in an independent nation than hostile people living in a
captive nation.

The Soviet empire was put together by force. It is being held together today by force and fear.
The glue of the communist idea, which once enhanced unity, has lost its potency. Today the
Soviet Union can remain intact only through the voluntary consent of the people. These are the
conditions for the successful outcome of the Soviet experiment in reform. While we cannot
demand that the Soviet Union give up its territorial integrity, its system of government and its
present leadership in return for aid, we should not delude ourselves into believing that aid would
succeed without these far-reaching changes. Only the Soviet people themselves can make
decisions of such magnitude. And they deserve to make them without artificial and, in the
long-run, counterproductive Western painkillers. Only when they have irrevocably made such
changes can Western aid be justified.

In coping with the volatile Soviet crisis, the U.S. policies cannot be built on the fortunes of one
man — even as outstanding a man as Gorbachev. Nor does it make sense to hold a U.S.-Soviet
summit this summer for the sole purpose of bolstering him politically. Soviet citizens already
know their president is a world class leader. But his foreign policy accomplishments mean nothing
to average people standing in line for everything from cigarettes to Big Macs. In fact, unless they
deliver tangible economic gains, vodka-toasting summits between Gorbachev and world leaders
trigger rather than temper frustration among the angry and disillusioned Soviet masses.

This is not to suggest that the summit with Gorbachev this summer would be a mistake. If
remaining arms control differences can be successfully resolved, a summit could improve the
U.S.-Soviet relationship and lock in reductions in military forces. In this case, the decision to
proceed with the summit would be based on merit.

Can Gorbachev survive? He is by far the ablest leader in the Soviet Union. He is a fighter. He
has demonstrated the vision and courage to make bold decisions. He can survive temporarily in
alliance with Soviet reactionaries — the hardliners in the KGB, military-industrial complex and the
party. But the wave of the future is democratic reform not communist reaction.

A new revolution of free nations, free peoples, free ideas and free markets has driven the
communists from power in Eastern Europe and is now sweeping across the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev’s only long-term hope is to set aside the ideological and imperialist baggage of the
Soviet past and lead this new revolution. To do so, he must establish his legitimacy by submitting
his fate to a nationwide free election. By showing the same boldness in economic and political
reform that he has demonstrated in his foreign policy reforms, he could save his nation and his
place in history.

Former president Richard Nixon met with government and opposition leaders in Moscow,
Lithuania, the Ukraine and Georgia on a recent trip to the Soviet Union.