Summarizing the debate, I said:
This conference has brought together very influential people associated with large scholarly teams, important state and public organizations, and with a high profile in the press and on television. I think it is important that we should all subscribe to one big idea: that supporters of reform concerned for the future of Russia should seek to understand each other.
Despite the diversity of standpoints and opinions, our discussion has been constructive and full of concern for the country and determination to find solutions. I want to support the predominant view that we are still in with a chance. Our task is not to inflame passions or sweep away the government, but rather to help it make the right choices, to develop policies capable of coping with the current difficult situation, and to supply it with answers, at least for the immediate future. We cannot simply continue to drift as we have since May 1992.
All this is closely connected with the question of what kind of Russia we are hoping for in the future. If we do not have an answer to that, we leave scope both for those who would return Russia to the pre-reform administrative-command system, and those who would blindly follow Western stereotypes and steer the Federation’s future development with no regard for its particular characteristics and traditions. If we do not address that larger question, we shall be unable to find the right solutions for more detailed matters.
I got just one thing wrong, and that was when I said, ‘This conference has brought together very influential people.’ Unfortunately, neither the president nor the government were interested in paying heed to the advice of independent experts. They brushed their views aside and instead carried on ‘firefighting’ emergencies as they arose. It was particularly clear they had an allergy to the viewpoint of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which, incidentally, was to be inherited in the years that followed by many in Putin’s ruling circle. That approach leads to micromanagement and, in reality, to drift rather than thought-through, long-term policies. We seem incapable of freeing ourselves of this. I believe it is one of the great failures of our protracted transition.
Nikita Khrushchev: lessons in courage and lessons from mistakes
I am not a great enthusiast for dates and anniversaries, but one date in 1994 brought to mind someone whose life and experiences had long fascinated me, encouraging me to reflect on continuities and, although they are said always to be misleading, historical parallels. The centenary of the birth of Nikita Khrushchev was approaching.
We decided to organize a conference at the Foundation on the life of this outstanding man. I offered my thoughts about him in an article titled, ‘Nikita Khrushchev: lessons in courage and lessons from mistakes’. I wrote that I identified with Khrushchev’s fraught experiences.
An undertaking as vast as Perestroika would not have been possible without his example. It is fair to say that in Russia critical thinking about socialism and the relationship between socialism and democracy dates from his period in office. I was conscious of continuing what he had begun when, in January 1987, I took on the Party bureaucracy, which stubbornly resisted political reform.
It is not difficult to find weaknesses, mistakes and faults in Khrushchev’s actions, but I would urge, not just to protect him from unfair judgements but primarily in the interests of a historically sound approach to our problems today, that we should not attempt to judge that period with the benefit of hindsight and how we feel today, not impose our perspectives on entirely different historical trends and situations. It is only by going back mentally to that time that we will be able to do justice to Khrushchev’s exceptional courage. He struck the first blow against the totalitarian system, and that at a time when the repressive machinery of Stalinism was still functioning, the Party establishment were against change of any sort, there was no place for critical approaches in the way people worked, and officials were ready to fight tooth and nail to retain their privileges, jobs and power. His report to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 was not part of some palace revolution: it was an act of great civil courage.
In all the ups and downs of the USSR’s domestic and foreign policy of that time, what was at work was not only Khrushchev’s level of understanding of the issues, but also the rigid framework in which he found himself and with which he could not but come into conflict.
It would never have occurred to him to renounce the leading role of the Communist Party. That was beyond his wildest imaginings. Nevertheless, he was conscious of the need to reduce its monopoly of power over everyone and everything. He tried to do this in his own way, often taking ad hoc decisions, and this was one of the reasons for his defeat. He tried to make the system work, but by using the system’s methods.
That could not lead to the outcome he was looking for. Nikita Khrushchev failed, but there is still much we can learn today from his courage and his mistakes.
Our academic Khrushchev conference was not mere ceremony but a lively, impassioned exchange of views between people, all of whom had their own understanding of this exceptional individual. The participants included, amongst others, Academician Alexander Nikonov, director of the Agrarian Institute; Khrushchev’s son, Sergey; the writer Viktor Rozov; Ambassador Oleg Troyanovsky; historian Roy Medvedev; playwright Mikhail Shatrov; historian Zoya Serebryakova; Khrushchev’s American biographer Bill Taubman; Academician Dzhermen Gvishiani; Professor Vadim Zagladin; journalist Nina Khrushcheva, Nikita Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter; corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Science and my assistant, Georgiy Shakhnazarov.
Opening the conference, I said we wanted to pay tribute to a courageous politician who had dealt the first blow to the ideology of Stalinism and the totalitarian system. Second, this was an, admittedly belated, opportunity for a serious examination of Nikita Khrushchev’s efforts at reform and a frank discussion of the lessons that could be learned from them in the present day.
I shared my reflections and assessments with those attending the conference and think they remain of interest:
Khrushchev was not only the first person to openly cast doubts from above on the ‘correctness’ of political arrangements that had been established for several decades. By his actions he demonstrated, wittingly or unwittingly, the possibility that these arrangements could be radically changed.
Despite all the attempts to denigrate Khrushchev, or even to ridicule him, he has not only gained a positive place in history, but has deservedly given his name to a whole period in the life of our country.
Khrushchev’s attempt was not forgotten. The next generation of reformers had good reason to call themselves the ‘children of the Twentieth Party Congress’. During the Brezhnev years of stagnation, timid attempts to change things were firmly confined to the sphere of the economy, but even they got nowhere because the system itself remained sacrosanct.
Our generation has felt duty-bound to resume the process of change and take it further. At the end of 1987, we sensed that the reforms initiated were facing the same fate as befell those following the Twentieth Party Congress. Everything hung in the balance. Officialdom woke up to the fact that ideological and political pluralism undermined its monopoly on power, with all that entailed, and began doggedly resisting. It became clear that, if Perestroika, which was vital for Russia, was to be taken further, thoroughgoing political reform was essential. Through democratization and free elections, the way could be opened for fresh forces, and the Russian people enabled to exert decisive influence on national politics.