Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986

74. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane) to President Reagan¹

Washington, August 8, 1985

SUBJECT

• Paper on the Soviet Russian View of the World

Attached at Tab A is the third in a series of papers we have prepared as background reading on the Soviet Union.² It deals with the Soviet and Russian view of their place in the world and follows on the two you have already seen on the nature of the Soviet Union and Soviet psychology.³

Taken together, these three papers are intended to set forth key factors which operate as sources of Soviet behavior. The next group of papers will describe how the Soviet system operates on the inside.

Recommendation

That you read the paper at Tab A.⁴

Tab A

Paper on the Soviet Union⁵

Washington, undated

RUSSIA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD:
THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW

Russia has a long tradition of contradictory self images. For two centuries visions of Moscow as the seat of universal truth have clashed with perceptions of Russia’s technical and economic backwardness. But it made a big difference whether Russians were looking west, to Europe and the United States, or south and east, to the Islamic World, China and Japan. The attitude toward the West was deeply ambivalent, with urges to emulate and “catch up” conflicting with those to declare themselves superior and to prevent the penetration of Western influences. Toward the East, however, there was less ambivalence; relations were viewed as fundamentally hostile and Russia was considered an agent of Christian, Western civilization, holding at bay threatening hordes. The injection of communist ideology with the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution brought important changes in policy, and added new contradictions, but the underlying popular attitudes toward the world outside the Soviet Union persisted.

LOOKING WEST

Russian intellectual history in the nineteenth century was in large part a conflict between “Slavophiles” and “Westernizers.” The Slavophiles had a romanticized view of the Russian nation as the carrier of religious orthodoxy, profound spirituality and universal morality. The Westernizers decried Russia’s backwardness, and saw emulation of Western science, technology, economics and political reform as the cure for it.

The revolution which brought Lenin’s Bolsheviks to power in 1917 was in a sense the ultimate victory of the most radical heirs of the Westernizers’ tradition. It did not, however, put an end to conflicts of self images. The old ones persisted in transmuted forms, and new ones arose.

On the one hand the Bolsheviks saw themselves as the vanguard of the inevitable world proletarian revolution envisioned by Marx as the prelude to a communist society. On the other, they were keenly aware of Russia’s backwardness. It was only after a bitter debate that Lenin won agreement to a separate peace with Germany. Many Bolsheviks wanted to turn World War I into a revolutionary campaign. They felt that a revolution in backward Russia would have no meaning if it did not immediately kindle revolution in the advanced countries of Europe.

Stalin later sought to deal with the paradox of Russia’s backwardness and pretention to world leadership by arguing that building “socialism” in one country was a necessary step to pave the way for world revolution. Nevertheless, Soviet propagandists still had to juggle conflicting self images of the USSR: boasting that the Soviet Union was an example for the world in abolishing unemployment while trumpeting Stalin’s call to catch up with America.

Impact of World War II: Glory in the Ashes

The Soviet Union came perilously close to defeat when Hitler invaded, suffered heavy human and economic losses in the war, but in the end emerged as a victor. Soviet propaganda strives to keep fresh—even passionate—the story of patriotism, sacrifice and ultimate victory. Psychologically, World War II is a much more recent event in the Soviet Union than it is in the United States. It left its own discordant self images.

One legacy is an abiding fear of war. The populace gets jittery in periods of tension. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and again during the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 we heard that rural stores ran out of matches, kerosene and soap as peasant women hoarded in fear of war. Soviet leaders play to this popular concern over peace; their habit of repeatedly seeking declaratory statements of peaceful intent is one part of this.

The other legacy was a new pride that the USSR had at last graduated into the ranks of the great powers and had new and far greater influence on world affairs. Communist officials in particular take pride in the fact that the Soviet Union has moved from an outcast power on the fringes of European geopolitics in the 1920’s to one of the world’s two acknowledged superpowers, and see this as perhaps their most important and lasting achievement.

The Parvenu Superpower

The short leap from the darkest days of World War II to sputnik and strategic parity with the United States must have been a heady experience for Soviet leaders. It created a new self image of the USSR as one of the world’s two most powerful countries. But at the same time, it sharpened the contradictions in Soviet views of the U.S.

The idea that the USSR could be the equal of the U.S. took on new meaning. When Khrushchev renewed Stalin’s theme of catching up with America economically, the notion had a new plausibility. After all, the Soviet Union had achieved a major first in space. Leninism postulated enmity between “socialist” Russia and the most advanced capitalist country of the world. But it also assumed communism would be built upon the foundation of the best that capitalism had developed. America’s productivity and consumer goods were, in effect, the vision of the good life to come. Catching up with the U.S. was thus a powerful theme for Khrushchev’s Soviet audience, conditioned as it was (despite heavy propaganda to the contrary) to see America as the land of milk and honey and the embodiment of most of its aspirations. But it was again a clear admission of the shortfalls of the Soviet economy, an admission that Gorbachev implicitly reverts to today when he appeals for better economic performance and alludes to a serious lag in adopting new technology.

Eastern Europe: A Special Case

Perhaps because the margin between defeat and victory in World War II was so narrow, the Soviets have long been troubled lest their gains from the war prove transitory. The effort to freeze the postwar status quo on the Soviet side of the dividing line they imposed on Europe has run like a red thread through virtually all of Soviet diplomacy on European issues for forty years. The instrumentalities have varied enormously—the Berlin crisis of 1961, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the MBFR negotiations, the Conference on Disarmament in Europe have all been vehicles for it. But the purpose has all been the same—to write a public law of Europe which in the absence of a peace treaty formally ending World War II would make permanent the East-West division of Europe and provide implicit recognition of the Soviet right to take whatever steps it deemed necessary to perpetuate its domination of countries on “its” side of the line.

Entirely aside from the ideological reasons the Soviet political leadership advances to “justify” its interventions in Eastern Europe (the Brezhnev doctrine), Soviet efforts to dominate Eastern Europe find broad support from the man and woman on the street. Their attitude seems to be that Eastern Europe is made up of small nations prone to “make trouble” if given the chance. Since they might be used by a larger power to threaten Russia (as Russians are convinced they have been in the past), they must be kept in line. Furthermore, Russians are keenly aware that the East Europeans have a higher standard of living than they do, and this they resent.

When Solidarity was at its height in Poland in 1981, the aspirations of the Polish workers attracted little support among the Russian working people. One heard relatively mild and self-deprecating comments like, “The problem with the Poles is that they want to work like Russians and live like Americans,” but more often the comments were bitter, like “If the Poles think they can refuse to work and then expect us to feed them, they’ve got another think coming.” And many Russians are convinced that East Europeans live better than they do because of Soviet assistance and subsidies. “They all have their hands in our pockets,” is not an unusual comment in Moscow. Deep down, Russian workers may also be ashamed of the evidence that Poles, Hungarians and even Czechs at times will rise up and fight for their interests while the Russians rarely have the guts to do so.

The popular Soviet feeling that East Europeans are likely to make trouble if left to their own devices means that, whenever the Soviet leaders decide that various forms of intervention are necessary to maintain their position in Eastern Europe, most Russians can be expected to agree.

LOOKING EAST AND SOUTH

When Russians turn their gaze south to the Islamic World and India, or east to China and Japan, they never experience a desire to emulate or “catch up,” which is such a prominent aspect of their attitude toward the West. For Russians, their subjugation by the Mongols in the twelfth century, and the “Tatar yoke” which persisted for more than two centuries and cut them off from Western Europe during one of its most creative periods, is still a relevant historical experience. The experience and its “lessons” are drummed into every schoolchild, and books and films continue to be issued which tell of Russia’s erstwhile degradation and subsequent redemption through relentless struggle. Along with subsequent invasions—by Swedes, Poles, French and Germans—the Mongol domination is used to explain and excuse Russia’s economic and technological backwardness, and to bolster the feeling that everything must be sacrificed to a powerful military establishment.

Whatever disabilities the Mongols inflicted on Russia, the damage has long since been avenged and the tables turned on the Asian peoples bordering the Russian land. Nevertheless, the Asian is still considered a potential threat, and the Russian populace has never totally freed itself from the nightmare image of Asian hordes sweeping across the “motherland.”

This residual fear should not be exaggerated. It does not (despite the claims of some apologists) totally explain the Soviet preoccupation with military strength. Russians know very well that the Chinese cannot really threaten them in the immediate future. But they do worry—and probably rightly so—about what would happen if they faced a modernized and militarily powerful China, still smarting from the imperial Russian seizure of lands once under its sway.

What is equally relevant to current Russian attitudes is that their fear has also been mingled with loathing. To put it bluntly, most Russians are racists underneath. They consider themselves “Europeans,” implicitly measure themselves against European standards, and have never thought that they had anything to learn from the East. To a Russian—even a relatively sophisticated intellectual—there is no greater insult than to call Russia an “oriental despotism.” “Despotism” they might accept, but “oriental” never.

Communist Ideology and Geopolitical Opportunism

The persistence of racist attitudes, a mingling of fear and contempt, and the absence of cultural affinity did not prevent the communist regime from embarking on a policy of exploiting social and political grievances in the underdeveloped world. If the “imperialist powers” of the developed West were too strong to take on directly, their power could perhaps be sapped by undermining their control of their empires, and their predominant influence in weakened countries like China.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s, these efforts were carried out primarily through the Communist International, which was totally under Stalin’s control. While the effort to foment revolution in undeveloped countries had no basis in Marx’s original concept—which was that the revolution would occur only after an economy had gone through its “capitalist stage”—it flowed easily from Lenin’s theory of imperialism and the Bolshevik attempt to skip the capitalist stage in Russia. The effort, therefore, combined ideological and geopolitical aims.

After World War II, as Soviet power grew, attention was shifted to dealing with rising nationalists, even if they were not communists, and with newly independent governments which might be induced to take an anti-Western stance. If the opportunity to deal with established governments seemed sufficiently promising, the Soviets did not hesitate to abandon the local communists when they were repressed by the regime the Soviets were courting.

Soviet experience since the war must have taught them two important lessons—neither of which they can admit openly, but both of which are implicit in their actions. The first lesson was that communist ideology in itself was not sufficient to ensure Soviet control—Tito and Mao broke with the Soviet Union and split the world communist movement. The second was that the most powerful instrument of influence the Soviets possessed in dealing with the Third World was its ability to supply arms to revolutionary movements and the wherewithal and ideology of repression to those leaders whose power was threatened from inside their countries. The ideology thus became a mere handmaiden to force, which was applied in a totally opportunistic fashion.

Despite all their efforts to penetrate countries in the Third World, and all the crocodile tears shed in their propaganda about the lot of the poor and oppressed, one thing both communist officials and ordinary Russians lack is a real interest in the fate of these countries, and real empathy for their problems and cultural values. It is difficult to imagine, for example, the Russian population getting particularly exercised over the famine in Ethiopia, even if it were given all the facts. Life is tough enough at home to worry much about the misfortunes of others, particularly if their skins are dark.

SUPERPOWER DILEMMAS

From the standpoint of the Soviet leaders, the USSR’s superpower status is both their most tangible achievement and the source of some of their greatest problems. It is apparent to them that this status rests on one factor alone—military strength—since the USSR is not an economic superpower, and its ideological prescriptions for satisfying human needs have been discredited both at home and increasingly throughout the world.

While the people are largely passive in regard to foreign policy formulation and play none of the direct role that publics do in democracies, their views are not unimportant to the leadership. To act contrary to deeply-held popular views risks damaging public morale, which is already quite low, and provides ammunition for potential rival factions in the party.

The Russian people doubtless take satisfaction in their country’s superpower status, both because it bolsters their national pride and because they see it as insurance against another war on their own soil. The regime, however, must be careful to avoid leaving the impression that its policies risk war. The leaders are probably acutely aware that there would be little public support for direct military action distant from Soviet borders. Covert supplies of military equipment, training and advisors and also support of surrogate troops is sustainable. These actions carry limited risk of direct confrontation with the U.S. and can be conducted largely without the knowledge of the Soviet population. But it is hard to imagine a Soviet leadership deciding to try to defend Cuba or Nicaragua or Angola with its own forces.

Another persistent trait of Soviet interaction with the outside world has been the absence of experience with and propensity for what we call alliance management. The U.S.S.R. has no real alliances, only countries under its control or those used for discrete temporary goals. Even in World War II, when the alliance with the Western powers was a matter of life and death, Stalin never treated it as a true alliance, but only as a very limited marriage of convenience to be terminated as soon as the war was won. (The Russian people, in contrast, looked at it differently, and their experience of and gratitude for the wartime alliance has served to undercut massive anti-Western propaganda ever since.)

Soviet unwillingness or inability to understand and respect the interests of smaller and weaker countries and to develop with them mutually beneficial long-term policies limits the potential of Soviet diplomacy. In the short term, the Soviet leaders can reap the benefits of a “divide and conquer” policy, since they put most of their efforts on exploiting bilateral relationships to their own benefit. This enhances their ability to disrupt and undermine international structures and efforts which leave them on the sidelines. Witness, for example, their ability to derail efforts to achieve a peace settlement in the Middle East by providing support to forces in the area which oppose a settlement.

In the long run, however, the sheer opportunism of Soviet policies tends to stimulate local resistance to Soviet influence, and a turn of the political wheel in a given country can result in the sudden expulsion of Soviet representatives—as occurred, for example, in Sadat’s Egypt. But this long-term vulnerability only reinforces the Soviet proclivity to seek domination of other countries rather than relations based on mutual respect. The Soviets are totally incapable of maintaining with other countries the sort of relationship we have with Canada and Mexico, and their inability to do so creates serious problems both for them and for the entire world. To gain some sense of the Soviet dilemma as most Russians perceive it, we need only imagine the problems we would face if we felt we had to occupy our neighbors and impose puppet regimes on them in order to be secure and to play our destined role in the world.

These Soviet and Russian attitudes toward the outside world pose many problems for American policy. Though the Russian populace tends to see Soviet policies and actions as defensive, its underlying fears and sense of wounded national pride is exploited by the communist regime’s cynical manipulation. The fact is that the Soviets define their “security” in terms which amount to absolute insecurity for everyone else. It makes little difference to a Pole or an Afghan that Russians feel they have to dominate them to be secure; for them the end result is the same as it would be if the avowed Soviet rationale were imperial conquest. It is important, therefore, never to accept the Soviet argument that their aggressive actions are justified by legitimate security concerns, and to do all we can to make clear to the Soviet people that such policies undermine their security in the long run rather than bolstering it.

Furthermore, the fact that the Soviet Union is a superpower only in military terms creates its own set of problems. Attempts to extend Soviet influence by military means must be countered, but it would be an illusion to think the Soviet leaders can be persuaded to foreswear such means, since they are the only means at their disposal to demonstrate their status and “rights” as a superpower. The Soviet Union is non-competitive in a peaceful world, and its leaders know it. Therefore, they can be dissuaded from applying or threatening force in given situations only by being convinced either that their efforts are doomed to failure, or that they would run unacceptable risks such as a dangerous military confrontation with the United States or a political defeat damaging to their prestige.

Fortunately, other elements in the typically Russian view of the world make our problem more manageable. There is little if any public support for Soviet military involvement far from their borders, particularly if justified solely on ideological grounds. And countries which receive large numbers of Soviet “advisors” quickly develop a virulent antipathy, since most Russians simply do not deal with Asians, Africans and East Europeans with the respect they reserve for West Europeans and Americans. Whenever the perceived need for Soviet arms diminishes, the Soviets are usually given the boot, provided they have not managed to establish military control over the country.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Jack Matlock Files, Chronological File, 1980–1986, Matlock Chron August 1985 (2–6). Confidential. Sent for action. Copies were sent to Bush and Regan. A stamp in the upper right-hand corner reads “The President has seen” with the date “8/9/85” handwritten.
2. See Documents 39 and 60.
3. On July 27, McFarlane forwarded to Reagan the second paper in the series, “Soviet Russian Psychology: Some Common Traits,” written by Matlock. Reagan initialed McFarlane’s covering memorandum, indicating he saw the paper. (Reagan Library, Jack Matlock Files, Geneva Meeting: Briefing Papers: Duplicates)
4. Reagan approved the recommendation and added a check mark.
5. No classification marking. Prepared by Matlock with contributions from Robert Baraz, Department of State.