Bigwigs Abroad
Vladimir Ilich Lenin never made a single trip abroad: by the time the Bolshevik regime started to receive recognition, he was only nominally the head of the party and government. His successors traveled abroad, and each trip had its own distinctive features. Evgeny Zhirnov has investigated the characteristics of national visits.
Visits with State Security
The “father of the nation” decided to leave his household only twice, and even these two visits can be called foreign only in a rather relative sense. In 1943, he went to a meeting of the “Big Three” in Iran, where the Red Army controlled half of the territory. The next meeting of the heads of the great powers took place in Potsdam in the Soviet-occupied sector of Germany.
Both trips were accompanied by unprecedented security measures, but the journey to the Potsdam conference staggered the imagination with the amount of energy and money that were poured into “Operation Palma” in summer 1945 to deliver the leader to Germany and then to his guards upon arrival.
The entire railway line from the USSR border to Potsdam (828 km) was altered from European to Soviet width, and instead of one train, there were three in a row. The main train carrying Stalin was guarded by 90 officers. Stalin’s train was outfitted like a submarine for a long voyage with huge reserves of fuel and water. Everything was provided, from food tested in special laboratories to cryptographers and radio communications. There was even a potential scapegoat in the person of Lieutenant General Kovalev, People’s Commissar of Railways, who traveled in Stalin’s train.
A surveillance train with 40 secret service officers went ahead of Stalin’s train, and a third train with 70 NKVD troops followed behind. Another 17 140 NKVD soldiers were assigned to guard the tracks, so that there were four to six soldiers for every kilometer of the route from Moscow to Brest, and one every 100–125 m from Poland to Germany. In addition, every 3–5 km on the route there was an secret service officer who was responsible for intelligence operations in a 5-km zone along the track; and armored trains plied the sections that were most “obstructed by hostile elements.”
As engineers Viktor Lion and Nikolai Kudryavkin recalled, the last stage of the preparations, the dress rehearsal, was a trial journey of a special train to Potsdam, where everything was already prepared for the meeting. Seven NKVD regiments and 1500 of the most experienced intelligence agents were transferred to Potsdam and Babelsberg by June 15, 1945, in order to carry out Operation Palma. More than 2000 NKVD soldiers and officers guarded the meeting place of the “Big Three”; and in the Crown Prince’s palace itself, in addition to 1000 soldiers, there were 150 intelligence agents from the NKVD and NKGB (People’s Commissariat of State Security; the Soviet secret police from 1943 to 1946).
Interestingly enough, although all the NKVD troops taking part in Operation Palma were rechecked by the secret service just before the conference, they were rearmed just to be on the safe side by replacing 85% of their submachine guns with rifles.
Stalin was pleased with the outcome of the conference and therefore forgave the special services for small organizational flaws. On September 15, 1945, Lavrenty Beria presented the most outstanding members of Operation Palma (2851 people in all) with awards “for successful fulfillment of a special government mission.”
Visits with a Gift
In an appearance in a tight circle of officials, Anastas Mikoyan, one of the Soviet leaders closest to Khrushchev, called himself and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union “world wanderers”, because, as he said, they ended up traveling so much around the country and abroad.
This was the simple truth. Khrushchev managed to make more visits that any other Soviet leader. Many contemporaries thought his trips were nothing but a way of expending irrepressible energy and that many of these journeys were mere tourism. “What use could a trip to Thailand have been to Khrushchev?” asked an exasperated government veteran during a conversation with me.
However, Khrushchev needed foreign visits above all to consolidate power within the country and in the socialist camp. Soviet journalists accompanied “dear Nikita Sergeevich”, and Soviet newspapers were replete with articles about how the authority of the Communist Party and the Soviet state was increasing thanks to the First Secretary’s personal meetings and his speeches to the people in various parts of the world.
As a rule, after his return home, a mass meeting was held in a sports complex on the occasion of the completed trip. After knocking back a bottle of cognac, Khrushchev could ramble on for hours before any audience. The means of ensuring the success of these PR events was primitive in its simplicity: expensive gifts were prepared for the host in order to make the visit look at least outwardly successful. For example, Khrushchev’s visit to Great Britain in 1956 seemed on the verge of cancellation owing to the unwillingness of the British political elite to see “this political clown” in their country. Moscow quickly set about selecting gifts for the British royal family, members of the government, and prominent members of the opposition. The list was impressive: “For Queen Elizabeth, a diamond and sapphire brooch, a cape made of extra-high-quality sable furs, Aivazovsky’s painting “The Seashore”, and a casket with a portrait of the royal family. For the Duke of Edinburgh, an Akhal Teke horse with trappings, a casket with a portrait of the Queen, and a chest with a selection of wines. For Prince Charles, an Arabian horse with trappings, a set of illustrated Soviet children’s books, and an assortment of candies. For Princess Anne, a casket made by Palekh craftsmen (with scenes from Russian fairy tales), a set of illustrated Soviet children’s books, a three-month-old bear cub, and an assortment of candies. For Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, a gold Lily-of-the-Valley brooch with diamonds, a small box made of Ural semiprecious stones, and a sable cape. For Princess Margaret, a sable scarf and a diamond and sapphire brooch.”
Presents for members of the government were less sumptuous. For example, Prime Minister Anthony Eden received a painting entitled “A Hot Day”, an inkstand made of Ural stone and a Palekh casket with his portrait on it.
The lavish gifts helped make the visits a success, but there was a problem: the gift fund of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was usually depleted by summer, and sometimes even by spring. As one government veteran recalled, the major headache was not only a lack of valuables, but also the choice of non-duplicate gifts for the same government figures. Khrushchev visited a lot of countries more than once. “Khrushchev loved to give foreigners expensive gifts indiscriminately,” recalled the veteran. “When African leaders received our planes and cars, they were ecstatic. But Americans died laughing at our Moskviches. I remember when the question of the next gift for the King of Afghanistan came up. We had already given him cars and planes. What should we give next? Someone suggested a locomotive, and everyone approved. Then they remembered that Afghanistan had no railways.”
Of course, gifts did not always ensure success. For example, in 1959, Khrushchev flew to Beijing for the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the People’s Republic of China and arrived very late after being delayed in the “land of paper tigers”, i.e., the United States, which especially offended the Chinese. As a result, Ni Tszi Du, as the Chinese called him, was actually excluded from participation in the celebrations and unceremoniously sent packing.
Khrushchev’s comrades in the Central Committee took note of his other style innovations in conducting state visits. They got even with him for taking not only his wife, but also his children with him on foreign trips in October 1964, when he “went to bed as premier and woke up a pensioner”. Thus the successors of “dear Nikita Sergeevich” learned by his bitter experience not to take any liberties with protocol in their first years in power.
Visits with Hugs
The system of separation of powers that formed after Khrushchev’s ouster created a complex legal situation that made Brezhnev’s life miserable for more than a year. In principle, as First Secretary and later General Secretary of the Central Committee, he was the number-one person in the country. However, Leonid Ilich could not make visits at the state level on any formal basis, since the head of the government was Aleksei Kosygin, and the head of state (Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Presidium of the USSR) was Nikolai Podgorny. Traveling as the head of party delegations at the invitation of foreign parties meant placing himself below the level of his co-rulers.
However, Brezhnev would never have been the first among equals if he had not found a way out of the situation. He gradually forced his colleagues out of foreign affairs and simultaneously worked to establish strong personal and trust relationships with heads of foreign governments; and it was not just a matter of exchanging long-drawn-out kisses.
For example, during a visit to Warsaw, he spoke confidentially with his Polish colleagues about who might become his successor, not without calculating that the Poles, who were traditionally eager for rapprochement with the West, would pass on this revelation to the West. Of course, Brezhnev was being cunning in naming names, but the French became very interested in inviting him to Paris and having the opportunity to engage him in frank conversations.
Brezhnev won over American President Richard Nixon by telling him that the girl who was living with him in his house during his visit was a stewardess from the General Secretary’s plane and also, quick as the wind and with a squeal of tires, taking him for a ride in the car he had just received from the Americans as a gift.
As a result, a formula was worked out allowing Brezhnev to make full-fledged state visits. To the satisfaction of all sides, Leonid Ilich began being referred to as the “Soviet leader” in protocol documents. Soon there was no need for this formulation, because Podgorny was pensioned off and Brezhnev formally became not only party leader, but also head of state.
Thorough preparation was another distinguishing feature of Brezhnev’s political tours. A prominent Soviet intelligence officer who was working in Paris during those years told me that the primary task just before Brezhnev’s visits was always to obtain the most accurate and complete information possible on what questions the French side was planning to raise during discussions.
This kind of preparation for visits proved very useful as Brezhnev gradually started sinking into senile dementia. Answers to the questions his hosts would ask could be written for him beforehand in large letters on cards, although after a while, even this no longer helped. However, as a true Leninist, he continued to make his own “invaluable contribution to strengthening peace around the world” to the end of 1981, when his behavior became glaringly inappropriate.
Old age and illness made foreign trips impossible for his successors as well. Yury Andropov managed to travel to Czechoslovakia in early 1983 before a ward in the Central Kremlin Hospital became his office; but Konstantin Chernenko never even thought about visits during his short rule from his deathbed.
Visits with the Wife
There was revival of Khrushchev-style political tourism after Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee. Mikhail Sergeevich’s visits nostalgically recalled Nikita Sergeevich’s tours, except for the gifts and extravagant escapades like the shoe-banging incident at the UN. Most likely everyone still remembers the sudden stops of the General Secretary’s car on the streets of New York and other cities and his informal contacts with Americans and other people delighted by his attention.
The “general foreman of perestroika” needed international recognition in order to boost his prestige within the country. People who craved everything foreign were supposed to be pleased that their new leader was highly regarded in the West.
It is possible that the strategy of “they liked him abroad—he overcame his enemies within the country” occurred to Gorbachev even as he was fighting for the General Secretary’s chair. As Aleksandr Yakovlev recalled, “in December 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev made a trip to England and had a very successful meeting with Margaret Thatcher. I was present at his meeting with Thatcher and saw how the Iron Lady’s aggressiveness changed to very polite attention. This success was a signal to the Soviet leadership that here was a person accepted by the West and able to talk with it on equal terms. The success of the meeting with Thatcher was foreshadowed by one of Gorbachev’s other trips. The first Western politician to show a liking for Gorbachev was not Thatcher but Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Mikhail Sergeevich came to Canada when I was ambassador there. He amazed Canadian leaders with his free manner. Gorbachev managed to combine a relaxed attitude with exactness. He would say something that seemed so interesting, but when you tried to record the conversation, as was customary in diplomatic practice, there was nothing in it, except maybe one key phrase that he used for the entire conversation. I know very well that Trudeau repeatedly told the leaders of other countries that they should pay attention to Gorbachev. And even Thatcher thawed.”
As time went by, international recognition of the General Secretary took on the form of a caricature. Former KGB Chairman Viktor Chebrikov claimed that the Soviet secret service paid for up to half of the complimentary reports about Gorbachev in the Western press. Gorbachev’s closest aide during that period, Valery Boldin, maintained that his frequent trips abroad were not made for the good life: “He was no leader, so he delegated all matters in the Central Committee to Ligachev, while he traveled around the country or abroad.”
A distinctive feature of Gorbachev’s trips was that for the first time in Soviet history, attention was focused on the country’s First Lady. However, malicious gossips claim that during each trip, Raisa Maksimovna would talk her husband into making sure that Soviet TV showed her just as often as the General Secretary himself. Members of the Gorbachevs’ entourage, whose backs were bent from the habit of putting their ear to the keyhole, told me that during the trips, Raisa would start a row with her husband, demanding that they show her more often. If you trust these sources, these arguments sometimes came to blows. However, this is very hard to believe.
Visits under the Influence
President Yeltsin’s style on foreign trips was set by his first trip as opposition leader. The disgraced Soviet politician’s visit to the US caused a scandal after a less-than-sober public appearance. Pictures of Yeltsin swaying on the podium shown on national television caused a reaction totally unlike the one that Gorbachev’s entourage was counting on. Boris Nikolaevich’s slurred speech was like a breath of native air to tens of millions of his fellow citizens, and Yeltsin’s rating soared. Russia’s first president later repeated this success a number of times, supplementing a tried and true method with elements of improvisation. Such as conducting, for example.
It is unlikely that anyone has had time to forget this, which is why Yeltsin’s trips are still not history.
by
Evgeny Zhirnov
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 12, 2004
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