Interview and Discussion with Vladimir Lukin

Visions of Europe - Vladimir Lukin^[1]

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: Yes, let’s begin. Vladimir Petrovich Lukin, good evening. My name is Sergey Radchenko. I am a professor of international relations at Cardiff University, Great Britain. Svetlana Savranskaya from the National Security Archive at George Washington University will also take part in today’s meeting. Svetlana and I are the co-organizers of the Visions of Europe project under the aegis of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. The goal of the project is to provide an initial historical documented assessment of the transitional period of the Cold War to what we now have, with focus on the course of events on the European continent. And we have requested you to meet with us in this connection in order to hear from you, as a direct participant of the events, how exactly relations between Russia and the US developed during this period, what was your view of Europe, and of the world in general. Thank you very much for agreeing to this meeting. I will hand it over to my colleague for the first question. Svetlana, please.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Svetlana, before you start talking I will add one more transitional phrase. I will add one more transitional phrase. I wanted to say that I am still not completely retired, understand? I have some public responsibilities. I am in the Upper House, and therefore I want to say that everything that I say right now I am saying exclusively as a historian, exclusively as a private person, and of course does not and cannot have any relation to my current functions. Properly speaking, this needs to be said for the integrity of the experiment.

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Vladimir Petrovich, again we thank you. Of course, we understand that you are speaking as a private person but, as a private person, you were simply not simply a witness, you were actually a participant of such very key events in the formation and development of Russian foreign policy and the new Russian state in general. And, therefore, your view, your recollections of these events are extraordinarily important to us. I recently just re-read your article in Foreign Policy magazine which was called Our Security Predicament”, which you wrote at the end of 1992^[2]. I would say that is such a policy article which describes all the challenges of Russian foreign policy and Russia’s situation in the world, and the end of this article is very interesting. I would, inasmuch as it was written in English and we are speaking Russian, I could even rephrase, in the words of Blok, when he finishes his verse Skify [The Scythians], the poem Skify, with the words: “but if not, we have nothing to lose”. This article actually foresees many events, many transformations of Russian foreign policy, and of American foreign policy with respect to Russia. A note of caution was expressed of how the US specifically should treat the geopolitical, so to speak, gestures and maneuvers of Russia in the post-Soviet space. In this connection I would like to ask you about the very beginning of independent Russia. What was the view, not just your personal view, but how did you understand the view of the Yeltsin Administration of the new position of Russia in Europe and in its immediate surroundings?]  Inasmuch as our project is called Visions of Europe, how would you characterize this view, this vision?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Well, you understand, it is not easy to remember the past. It is true that this article was written, and it is interesting that it was reprinted not long ago, not at all long ago, [by] our journal Rossiya v Global’noy Politike [Russia in Global Politics]. And with some surprise the editor-in-chief, my good young comrade Fedor Lukin, noticed that there is much in this article that is being read absorbingly and with a, so to speak, contemporary meaning. Apparently, all the same the fact that I never was a professional diplomat, but was a professional historian, had an effect in the sense that in this article I tried to convey my hopes and my fears regarding how the system of international relations and our relations with the leading Western powers would develop in the new conditions of a post-polar world. I understood very well that foreign policy cannot develop without regard to domestic policy, and although both have their elements of autonomy, they are very strongly interconnected. Russia looked at the future with cautious optimism in distant strategic terms, and with less optimism in more specific terms, because I well understood that a third revolution had occurred in our country after the Revolution of ’05, after the Revolution of ’17, and maybe it was a fourth, if you count the 19^th century, the great reforms of the ‘60s. And here, this revolution, like any social movement, has its own force of events. Some think that a revolution is the sum of specific individuals, especially those at the head, leaders, loud-speaking people, and sometimes they underestimate the force of events. But besides everything else the force of events consists of the fact that a revolution quickly gains speed and goes at a very rapid pace. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn represented this as a red wheel. The Revolution of ’17…the subsequent period. And so this wheel has its own movement, its own stroke, and it goes far ahead, and then there occurs a deceleration process of this wheel and a reverse motion, a movement backwards. And so from the point of view of the force of events the meaning of revolution is how fast the wheel moves ahead, how much as it manages to advance in first place, and it advances…[quickly?], and that’s why it’s red. Many think that a revolution devours its children, but the grandchildren devour the revolution. And here it moves, then slows, then some moment of equilibrium and stagnation appears, and then it moves backwards. What remains unchanged and inviolable, and what vanishes? And how much does it move back? The fact that something remains unchanged is always the case, and then in essence it constitutes human progress, but there is also backward movement. For instance, the great French Revolution passed through a stormy forward movement, with all the excesses of this movement, and then there began a reverse process with a return to the Directory, empire, and even to the dynasty which ruled before the Revolution, etc. But a revolution has two sides…What, in general, is a revolution? It is an interesting thing. For instance, in the remarkable well-known movie about the October Revolution…³ They show an October Revolution of ’17. They show sailors, workers, etc., ordinary people, they climb on and through the bars and break into the Winter Palace, make the Revolution, and arrest the Provisional Government. And so it changes to the government of Lenin and Trotsky. It turns out that this is one side of the Revolution. A second side of the Revolution, I would say, is this: what has essentially changed in the country and in the world after this red wheel has rolled? But it did change. Revolutions took place in France in [18]30, [18]48, and [18]70-71.  France became different. Each smallest cell of France began to live differently. This is it, the main revolution, the revolution of the force of events. And here, when I used to ponder this, I used to think, what would happen with our Revolution from the perspective of the force of events? This allowed me to say, there will be such a movement backwards, there will be elements of what was previously called Bonapartism in a special form, there will be much else, but something will remain. And this was the background against which I also considered foreign policy, because if one speaks from the point of view of foreign policy in the context of what I am saying right now about policy, then unquestionably: Russia was formed during the last 300 years as the Russian Empire, with all the pluses and minuses. People and countries who consider themselves victims of the Russian Empire might not love it very much. Inside Russia and outside its boundary there are those who might value [it]. This Empire had military power, distinctive features of governance, and distinctive features of mass psychology, and a great culture was formed, so to speak, specifically as an imperial culture. And the foreign policy was part of the Russian Empire. You see, that fact that a revolution, a democratic revolution, occurred in Russia does not change the fact that Russia borders China on the one side and Poland on another…It is exactly the same as any events in America which occurred, and are occurring right now – and, by the way, very interesting events are taking place in America right now (but [more] about this next time) – do not cancel the fact that America borders Mexico on one side and Canada on the other. This influences its foreign policy, and will always influence it. It’s the same with Russia. It’s the same everywhere. Britain is dealing with Brexit right now. There are elements of traditionalism there, some traditionalism and a desire nonetheless to pursue a policy everywhere. Here, to put it briefly, there is a retro element. Not exclusively…but there is.

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¹ The transcript was lightly edited. See the original video of the recording. The notes from this point on are of S. S. Radchenko.

² Lukin, V. P. 1992. Our security predicament.  Foreign Policy (88), pp. 57-75.

³ Obviously this is about Sergey Eisenstein’s 1927 film Oktyabr’ [October].

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: I recall in this connection an anecdote which was told about Zhou Enlai. Someone once asked Zhou Enlai: give [me] your conclusion of the French Revolution, and Zhou Enlai replied: not enough time has passed, for now it is hard to say.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: He was right, of course. What kind of length of time is it for the Chinese? It is not a long time at all.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: If we can go to the next question.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: I only want to say that our foreign policy is [a compound] of two things: a compound of the revolution of the ‘90s on the one hand and the collapse of the Russian Empire in that form in which it existed until then, and in the Stalinist form in particular. But on the other hand there are elements of traditional Russian foreign policy which existed due to the fact that this was geopolitics and not only geopolitics, but a number of other [factors]: ethnic policy, religious policy connected with Orthodoxy. All this taken together constitutes foreign policy and will constitute foreign policy with one or another combination of elements.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: By the way, I wanted to say in this connection that I worked in the archives at one time. There were declassified documents from the end of the ‘80s, or perhaps of the start of the ‘90s, when you worked in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, not yet of the Russian Federation. Svetlana knows about this. So, there was an interesting document there in which you, I believe wrote a memorandum perhaps to Yeltsin or perhaps to still someone else about relations with China, and how important it was to build relations with China based on national interest and to not break relations with China and proclaim a friendship with Taiwan, as some, Oleg Lobov and others, had said. By the way, this stresses this connection of periods in foreign policy. But I would like…

VLADIMIR LUKIN: The revolutionary character is not my thing, but others’.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: I would all the same like to say that, in spite of all these factors, there was some kind of revolutionary character. Many say that 1992 was especially pro-Western for Russian policy. You were the Ambassador of Russia in the US then. Do you agree with such a conclusion that in 1992 Russia turned its face to the West and its policy became pro-Western?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Russian policy unquestionably became pro-Western because Russian policy could not fail to be anything but democratic at that time, during the revolution, when these very aspects had come to the fore. What is Russia? What is Russia’s identity? Who is Russia? Is Russia a Muscovite kingdom? Is Russia a Petersburg empire? Is Russia a provisional government? Who is Russia? What is its identity? In the epoch of the ‘90s, in the context of the ‘90s, of course, there could not be anything other than a reliance and an inclination toward the policy of the leading democratic countries of the world, a reliance specifically on this, at the expense of the fading of other considerations into the background. And this was understandable and natural at that time. The red wheel was  spinning in this direction. On the other hand, this question arises: Is this an extreme or it is a direction based on some serious interests of Russia. Unquestionably it was both. So, you mentioned China, and that allegedly a conservative Lukin was saying, that you have to be more cautious with China, that China is always China. You see? Let’s consider this fact. On the other hand, a group of comrades, deputies of the Supreme Soviet, who were “giddy” from the fact that they were allowed to go to Taiwan, quickly grabbed foreign passports and rushed to Taiwan. They were well-received there, understandably, for their own reasons. Inasmuch as they were isolated and they had difficult relations with China. So, whose interests were defended by the conservative me, Russian interests or some other? But meanwhile I was of course both from emotional and from rational reasons a supporter of strengthening our, as the expression goes, pro-Western policy, but in fact not a pro-Western, but a pro-Russian policy which is most effectively achieved through cooperation with the leading Western powers. On what basis? First, on a domestic political basis, because we ourselves chose a democratic means of rule, democratic bodies of rule, and in this sense have become systemically closer to the Western countries. Second, because I always, since Soviet times, was a supporter of relaxing international tension, and improvement of relations even in conditions of a dissimilarity of political systems, a supporter of the Helsinki [Accords], a supporter of such a behavior pattern, and a supporter of strategic arms negotiations and finding common interests. Because, among other things, there exist imperatives of the security of a country in the context of the security of all humanity. So I understood this and I still understand it this way. And, third, I understood that, as I have already said, that Russia is Russia, and Russia had more than just one revolution, but a very broad history, a very great territory, very specific interests, and enormous [?lands?] are encompassed in the Russian land mass under the aegis of Russia, in spite of the reduction of this land mass as a result of the events of the ‘90s. And this, too, cannot be discounted. And, fourth, I strived for Russia to simply survive as a country because it had a very bad economic situation, and from the point of view of this economic situation it more critically, in the most acute way, needed specific basic aid, including food aid, if you remember the situation of that time. All these considerations made me think that Russia…I formulated [it] in this article: Russia doesn’t need a pro-American policy, Russia needs a pro-Russian policy which would take into account today’s realities, but this pro-Russian policy should not and cannot be anti-American, but specific limits exist. Besides all the above, Russia still is a country with the self-consciousness of a great power. And the self-consciousness of a great power is based not only on sand. Yes, it is sometimes based on many subjective things which are not bolstered by enormous economic might and prosperity. But in some aspects it is based on nuclear potential, enormous territory, and things that in geopolitics beginning with [Halford] Mackinder were named a great land mass, etc. Briefly put, I was a supporter of such a pro-Russian policy which would be maximally friendly to the United States and Western countries with consideration for Russian circumstances and considering global circumstances.

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA:Vladimir Petrovich, I would like to ask you this question which Vladimir Olegovich Pechatnov suggested to us, and it comes straight out of what you just said Reading your article, I was slightly surprised that it somehow did not talk as much about partnership with the US, as many other people did at that time, especially as you were the Ambassador at that time. It’s fair to say that at the start of the ‘90s many expected much specifically from this direct partnership. Russia and the US are such strategic partners, almost a condominium, although such a word could not be used. Nevertheless, many saw the US as such an enormous priority of Russian policy, but you promoted the concept of democratic patriotism, and spoke of Russian policy in terms of concentric circles, that is, beginning with the Commonwealth of Independent States, and then spoke much about Europe. It seems to me somehow that this point of view differed from the official point of view of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at that moment. How would you describe the differences in views - of course, they were not radical – but all the same there were differences - between you and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among the other people in Yeltsin’s circle, how did these different views see the Russian foreign policy, a different policy orientation?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Well, first, Vladimir Olegovich is my old comrade, and when I worked in America he was an Embassy counsellor, and we collaborated in the closest fashion, including in the course of writing this article. He is a remarkable academic and if you have spoken with him, then why waste your time with me? Now, concentric circles and so forth. I very well understood, and probably still understand, the connection between foreign and domestic policy. Right now many say: you know, what is happening in America some kind of almost revolutionary events are occurring, so to speak, and what if you now go ahead and remove in the name of the noblest goals, motives, historical political correctness, recollections of the past injustices of the last four centuries, and so to speak the need for some remorse and apology, real and historically conditioned, and so on. What if you go ahead right now and take everything away from America sharply and harshly, and leave one verity understandable by this group. But what needs to be taken away? Take away the feeling of a great power, the “from sea to shining sea” attitude, take away the feeling that America should demonstrate some kind of example, [that it] is a city [on a hill], and so forth. Not only America has this. Israel, too, has it, and we have it, too. Take away this, and take away a significant piece of territory for one, for example, give half of Mexico back, that, as is well-known, in the 19^th century it belonged to Mexico. But what will you get in America as a result? Do you get a popular foreign policy? You will get nothing! It seems I’ve answered your question. The problem is that we Russians have a very unusual sense of proportion. Yes, possibly we expanded too much in the context of history, but an immoderate anti-expansion is also a serious problem, with many things, including a foreign policy one. This is how I understand history. But many in the United States do not understand this in relation to Russia. Hence there have appeared the issues of an older brother, the problems of “we are telling you”. The problems when, addressing a person, one would say: “you should”, although that person held a very high position…”You should do that, you should do this”. You know what I’m talking about?⁴ This is what leads to incorrect things and very dangerous things, especially not so much in foreign as in domestic policy. And those who warned about this might of course sneer and say: we warned [you], but they also might say: unfortunately, the force of events turned out to be stronger, the forces of egoism, human and international, and so forth. This is what I would like to say on this score.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: Incidentally, not long ago I read Kozyrev’s memoirs⁵. I don’t know if you saw, they were published in America last year…Quite an interesting book, it’s called Firebird [Translator’s note: said both in Russian and English]. He mentions you several times and writes about your work. When he writes about Russian foreign policy he says that, yes, many say that I was a pro-Westerner. In fact, I was pro-Russia, I promoted the interests of Russia, I simply thought that the interests of Russia [were] in the West. Are you in sympathy with this opinion?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Well, first, they didn’t form the foreign policy of Russia exclusively in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although Andrey Vladimirovich [Kozyrev] took an active part in this. Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, which was then a real force, formed [it]. Therefore, I think it is correct to say that he was undoubtedly for Russia, subjectively. But the issue was something else. It was necessary to find and approve in a timely way in the most positive and amicable form such balances, such red lines, which might have been rose-colored in form, but red in content, which would not allow many, including in America, and including in Russia, and in the Russian opposition to consider our country a banana republic without bananas. For geographic considerations it is hard for us to naturally grow bananas. That’s what the real issue was. A sense of proportion was disrupted. Policy was ideologized. Again, I will say that I don’t plan to blame a specific individual for this, but I might be also guilty in this matter in this fad, although as you reminded me of the article, possibly to a lesser degree than many others. A balance was disrupted, a balance of a feeling of self-respect, in the absence of the aid of such signs that would speak of respect for us. It was hard to achieve this in the conditions of the collapse, in the conditions of disarray, open bickering, and so forth, but it was necessary to strive for this and was necessary to find such a balance. In many respects we fell short of doing this, and this was the saddest for me, and not that this complicated our relations [with the West]. It complicated them badly. They were complicated even before the current Russian President, back during Yeltsin. It was at the turn of the century, closer to the end of the century, it was connected with the Yugoslav matters, which was quite harshly and keenly felt. Mastery of foreign policy consists of some general policy and those nuances which make it acceptable to people. So, the foreign policy of that time for the generation of people who were in Russia then, who were brought up on completely different ideals, and this strange phenomenon came into existence because of the unacceptability of this policy at the time when there was official anti-Americanism in the latter stages of Soviet power, but among the common folk there was no anti-Americanism, there were no anti-Westernists. Now such broad a strata of the population exists among us which is hostile to both America, and to a lesser degree, to Europe.

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⁴ Probably this is about the attitude of the Clinton Administration toward B. N. Yeltsin and other high-ranking Russian politicians.

⁵ Kozyrev, A. 2019. The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy. University of Pittsburgh Press.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: Why? How do you explain this?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: I explain it by the fact that a strategic resentment has accumulated in Russia. But not against itself, for we did not lose a war. It said in the dictionary that in such a diplomatic dictionary that we all won as a result of the end of the Cold War.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: Mikhail Sergeyevich [Gorbachev] spoke this way.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: It was Nazi Germany which lost the war. Although they say that it repents, how good it is, it repents, but it lost the war, it lost the war as a result of the fact that the government was entrusted to such people who brought it to an absolute catastrophe, a military one, whatever. But Russia did not lose a war. And this led to quite serious domestic stresses which were manifested in domestic policy, and I would say, to a verbal and stylistic revenge-seeking in foreign policy.

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Vladimir Petrovich, I have this question for you. You were a person, one could say, who introduced Yeltsin and Clinton during his visit to the US in 1992. Could you not tell us about their relations? We have already received the declassified documents about their meetings. Practically all their discussions are available to historians right now. It is very interesting to read how these two people believed that by virtue of their personal partnership and their personal friendship, they could overcome all obstacles and help democratic Russia become a free power, a great power. And it is very interesting to follow how this communication, this friendship was developing. Very often Clinton gives advice and all the time Yeltsin keeps saying: “I understand, I understand”. Occasionally Clinton would advise something: Boris, it needs to be done this way, and Boris says: “Yes, I understand, I will do it that way. At the same time Yeltsin constantly appeals to this power of their personal relations, their personal friendship. How did you observe this, what did you see in this partnership, a personal partnership between two presidents?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Yes, well actually, the first meeting of Clinton and Boris Nikolayevich was held in Blair House, when the election campaign was going on during his official visit to the United States in 1992. Clinton was not yet President, the election campaign was still going on. And when the question arose of whether to meet or not, we had people there who said: But why? He [Clinton] is generally trailing third [in the polls] to begin with. There was also this Ross Perot. A billionaire with big ears, he was such a broad-shouldered guy. At one time he was running second, and gaining. But this was such a young person, from somewhere in Arkansas, a total spring chicken. I was in contact with Boris Nikolayevich and said: You definitely have to meet [him]”. First, America is a democratic country, and here they have elections. The Democratic Party is an official American institution. The President of the country that has embarked on the path of democracy of the country arrives. Of course, not to meet with the opposition, that [would be] completely wrong, especially as Americans always meet with various people of our country when they come. So it’s necessary to meet. So, that’s how we outlined this formula. Moreover, it needs to be said that friends from the Democratic Party were very worried: will he or will he not meet? But I simply thought and that was a secondary matter for me, I thought that this was necessary,  and this was the right thing to do. And prior to that I travelled around America, I wrote a telegram to Boris Nikolayevich in which I said that most likely Bush would win all the same, Bush Senior, Bush-41, not 43, for he had just won a war and he had high poll numbers. I said even if Clinton didn’t win, he was the leader of the Democratic Party just the same, and is a promising politician. Therefore [you] have to meet [him] and establish good working relations. Two friends are always better than one friend. But Boris Nikolayevich, of course, had a certain grudge against the senior Bush because he [Bush] had special [relations] with Gorbachev, and Yeltsin’s and Gorbachev’s relations were [also] special relations, this goes beyond the bounds of our conversation, but it explained many things. So, we held a meeting in Blair House opposite the White House. Clinton was still not very confident of himself, and Yeltsin was already a President. So it turned out, so to speak, that Boris Nikolayevich arrived five minutes later than Clinton. I [mention] this to illustrate that in diplomacy style always needed to be borne in mind. What is a diplomat? A diplomat is a person who conceals his natural stupidity behind professional courtesy. So they met, and I think that from this moment on they [liked] one another…positive chemistry carried on from this meeting. Then there was a meeting in Vancouver and relations began to improve. In general there is a problem, a problem of a personal factor in international relations. When there is no personal element or a negative personal element, it is very difficult to develop relations because if there is no interest, the bureaucratic apparatus is very sensitive to this. It works in a slipshod manner. And hardly anything develops in a major way. When the personal interest is great a dual history begins here. On the one hand, a great deal can be achieved. On the other, such a tendency gradually developed from the American side. I began to notice it quite quickly. Well, alright, we were holding negotiations on disarmament, on space, on the [space] station, and on economic matters. Everything seemed to be in order, everything was good and normal, but there were difficulties in one point, a misunderstanding. Well, experts were looking at it well, and so forth, and then the Americans said at a sufficiently high level: well, aright, if you and we don’t come to agreement right now we will tell our presidents, they will meet, and might come to agreement with them. Other things come into play here: the quality of work of the presidents themselves, their motives, which are 90% motives of domestic politics, and in the case of America and the Russia of that time, electoral politics. So, all this gets plugged into the system of decision-making. In my view, the personal factor sometimes became the object of abuse from the American side. Much in violation of this balance was connected with the fact that they abused the external factor. Boris Nikolayevich was a high-caliber man. He was an extraordinary person, I have to admit this. This was not a person of my usual circle, but without doubt I recognize the fact that he was a prominent, outstanding figure. But he was sometimes uneven, and the unevenness could be used, for bouncing from bump to bump. That was it, in my view. But I might be mistaken, unlike the President.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: In continuation of the theme, when Yeltsin and Clinton met the first time, the second time, in Vancouver the subject was economic aid from the US, aid to Russia, and in the corresponding record of the conversation, which has already been declassified, Yeltsin said: let’s not call it aid, let’s call it support. He constantly returned to this: “Let’s not call it aid, let’s call it support” to Russian democracy, and so forth. The question is this connection is: here some say that America didn’t help Russia enough at the beginning of the ‘90s, and others say: why was Russia helped at all, this was money down the drain. Russia was an enormous black hole. You throw money there, it gets sucked in, and there was no benefit. [What is] your position on this, if [you] can?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: First, America at that time provided aid both with food and other things. I would say it was simply disgusting not to recognize this was like Lend-Lease. I am grateful to America both for Lend-Lease back then as well as the aid in the ‘90s which was given through different channels. And to talk about whether it helped a little and a lot is not even very fitting from the point of view of the Russian sense of self.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: I simply wanted you to describe the context for you. There are debates in America. Some there say that there should have been a second Marshall Plan.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: But one cannot say that the Americans, that the American side used all its abilities to help. Although, what you said, that there was a black hole, this factor unquestionably also existed because the system of totalitarian management was collapsing in Russia. No other system was in essence created because local power brokers who were chosen God knows how and by whom, did what they wanted and pocketed everything they could – this factor unquestionably existed, and therefore American skepticism was not completely unjustified, I would say. But there was another side. All these things could have been avoided and overcome if the United States had nevertheless made not its own domestic tasks, but the strategic development of Russia, a priority (electoral, etc.). All the people were sliding into poverty at that time, and of course the organization of a struggle with this impoverishment and its organization might have become one of the factors of American leadership in the world. But, unfortunately, it didn’t happen. There was separate – piecemeal [said in English] – so to speak, aid. I know very well, I myself was constantly in and out of this very USAID then, which dealt with the aid, and which was in the premises of the State Department, and I know this aid to Russia, to the Russian revolution, and aid to Europe in the first months, in the postwar years – these are incomparable things. I don’t want to say that everything depended on the Americans, but very much depended on the tact of [their] foreign policy and substance, as well as the focus, the scope, and the persistence of American aid. This is something to think about and review.

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Vladimir Petrovich, we would like to now move to a question which has recently been very actively discussed in America, discussed in the community of historians in connection with the fact that right now the documents have become available. This is the question of the expansion of NATO. I remember when we talked with you about it in Moscow you told me that back in the very early years, in the ‘90s, you were an opponent of expansion, and you were saying that you had practically foreseen, if not predicted, what would happen if NATO expanded and Russia were left aside, so to say, and not integrated into the European institutions and the collective security institutions, but remain as if on the other side of this new dividing line. Could you tell us how you saw this issue then, at the beginning of the ‘90s, and whether you tried to warn the American and Russian politicians? What was your position [then]?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: I have already told you [about it] and, frankly speaking, little has changed from that time. I think that this is the biggest strategic mistake of the United States, the Western alliance. This mistake led to very serious long-term consequences. It cannot be said that this mistake was only on one side. On our side there were also serious fears. But I must say – and you well know – when you have the chance, select the appropriate citations – when we at the level of our very highest leadership, both during Yeltsin and post-Yeltsin, it was said that Russia was completely able of not only creating a common security system, but could simply consider the question of joining NATO. And the fact that we did not join NATO…I think there were two reasons. Probably, Russia was not ready for this. The NATO letters, NATO deeds, and NATO confrontation in the Cold War were associated with too negative connotations, and the second thing was that the Americans and NATO members were afraid that we would use Article 5 incorrectly, in their opinion, to paralyze it.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: In what sense incorrectly?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Incorrectly from the American point of view. Because, as is known, an attack on one of the NATO countries is an attack on NATO as a whole. So, within the framework of the interpretation of this article - who against whom, when, and why it attacked – a great many disputes, alternatives, actions, and inactions are possible. Yugoslavia clearly demonstrated this. Because even now we can have long arguments about what in fact happened there. What happened is that Tito left collective leadership to the Serbs. But the problem was something else, that there was OSCE, and the development of the OSCE could have completely gone by the canons of the Paris party of the ‘90s, when all the goals were proclaimed. which I still support. In general I think that even now, in spite of all the difficulties, the problems and reverse movements, the only way to preserve Europe, European culture, the European raisons d’etre is the creation of a single European system because in your country and mine America is becoming less and less European in a whole series of parameters. I won’t go into details, you yourselves know, including ethnic, psychological, whatever parameters you please. And as regards Britain, it’s making a choice in favor of America. The result of this is a land mass consisting of China and non-China. I don’t at all want to say that we ought to worsen relations with China. No, only to improve [them]. But at the same time the great Russian literature and French novels are closer to one another than to others, to the rest of them. Take our genius, Pushkin, the personification of the Russian soul…[for example]….his native language was French and a little later, Russian. This is also an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? They called him Frenchy in the lyceum. By this I don’t want to say that the French influence was dominant. In this sense, the Russian imperial bureaucracy, the German influence might have been more substantial. But this is a separate discussion. Therefore I think that we fell short at that stage of a serious discussion about the future of Europe, about European security. I think that a parallel inclusion into the larger Europe, [I mean] a parallel, in very measured steps, and maybe sometimes better coordinated, steps of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova  is the only way, a very long, conflicting, difficult, and only way to create such a center of power which might actually be viable from the point of view of solving the fate of the world in the new oligarchic world of the second half of this century, when it will be a Chinese world, when possibly there will be an Indian world, when America will all the same be great and powerful, but within the bounds of, let’s assume, the Monroe Doctrine, [do you remember this one?] Well now. It seems this might be somewhat romantic. Look what is happening. This is what Macron talks about from time to time. What the remarkable German [Chancellor] does sometimes, how [their] relations are developing with America and Russia. You will see that the saplings of all of this are sprouting. That is how I understand the situation. We have suffered a strategic defeat, which has become a crisis, but a crisis is a new beginning.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: In this connection I would still like to ask you another question about NATO. If, let’s assume, the Soviet Union would have won in the Cold War, NATO would have collapsed, and the Warsaw Pact would have expanded to the west. So, in the interests…

VLADIMIR LUKIN: I spoke about OSCE, it might be strengthened. OSCE. Right now it’s on its last breath, but it could be strengthened.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: The Americans say that we have nothing to do with it. The Eastern Europeans were knocking at the door, please let us in, there is a Russian bear…

VLADIMIR LUKIN: They should have said: the Russian bear is a very bad bear, very bad. Let’s work together with the bear.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: Would this make sense from the point of view of American national interests this, I mean, push them away? Then how Russia would act in this situation?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: I don’t know how well the Americans know history, not all American presidents know history well, but I would like to remind you that we used to have this very powerful [factor] to a lesser degree, and it still exists, although to a lesser degree, as one of the varieties of Russian imperial national self-consciousness. I mean the Slavophile movement. We had Slavophiles.  They say that all this is nonsense, that the West is decaying, for two thousand years the Pope, and Catholicism, and everything. And that we should, we should mainly engage in Orthodoxy, and mainly to be friendly with our brother Slavs. So,  some went ahead and were friendly. A result of this friendship was the First World War and the collapse of the country after the First World War and the Revolution. In all wars, or in almost all [of them] in which these comrades took part they were on the side opposing Russia, as is well-known, even when the issue was not simple. Remember the Balkans Wars, and so on and so forth[?] So, as Vladimir Il’ich Lenin justly said about one Menshevik with whom he quarreled, [Fedor] Dan was such a Menshevik. “Beware of the Danites, [even] bringing gifts”. As soon as it goes about something they don’t like, right away it’s Danites…

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Vladimir Petrovich.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: …Stop bringing the gifts. This is me in my experience, in the Russian experience…

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Since you’ve already touched upon Eastern Europe, let’s talk some about Yugoslavia. Cooperation in the maintenance of peace in Europe. In your article you also said that the role of Russia is exactly this, the role of such a geopolitical stabilizer in Europe which maintains the peace. I believe that a test, a test of such a role of Russia as a geopolitical stabilizer was demonstrated in the middle of the ‘90s in Bosnia, in Yugoslavia, when cooperation between Russia, the US, and the Europeans was sufficiently successful in maintaining peace, and nevertheless later on in [19]98, [and] during the bombing of Belgrade this cooperation collapsed. So, how would you explain this trajectory when the cooperation was still possible to when a certain dividing line of this cooperation became nevertheless evident when the US did not want to accept Russia at all as a full partner[] It was informed but not consulted when in [19]98 NATO decided to use military force.

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Well, what can be said? Of course, Boris Nikolayevich was friendly with Clinton, they became ever closer and closer as friends, but when it come to an attempt at cooperation…what [cooperation]? …What is a compromise? A compromise means an agreement, a partial agreement with the position of someone else. As is known, Russia has serious and often painful interests in this region for reasons which I have laid out, for historic, but also for domestic political [reasons], because at the time a situation had developed in Russia when Yeltsin’s sharp position raised the most pressing questions with respect to Yugoslav affairs, the Yugoslav split, and concerning all the numerous dividing lines associated with this split. And what was our reply? Our reply was this.

Let’s cooperate, let’s try to find a solution to the issues, which would suit us, and which would be within some sort of a legitimate framework. And what was the answer to that?

Yes, we wanted to spit on you. What we want, we will also do. We favored Yugoslavia splitting up, and we would continue breaking it up. But we consider Bosnia and Herzegovina legitimate and very much legal, [and want] it to unite, and therefore we are uniting it. We do what we want, and you…[one word indistinct] and you... You stood there. We made suggestions. Boris Nikolayevich appointed Chernomyrdin a special representative there. They talked with Dick Holbrooke and Strobe Talbott, but they won a victory, the Americans won a victory. Of course, the bombing of Belgrade was a terrible thing. I remember how the delegation of the Council of Europe visited us. We met, visited Rome, and met with the Pope. The Pope spoke against it, warned, etc. Not at all Zyuganov. And the matter ended with a humiliation of Russia. Simply a humiliation. For the sake of his own domestic political considerations Clinton simply came down to humiliating Russia and Boris Nikolayevich personally. The complication of relations didn’t begin under the current President. The current President [V. V. Putin] has a quite special policy, it waxed and waned, but it was with Yugoslavia that there started a serious systemic growth of mistrust at the highest level. This mistrust at the highest level backfired later on when it turned out to be popular inside the country…[It was one thing] when the flash of moral indignation comes from the soul, you can persuade yourself, but when it brings certain political dividends, it is already another matter, do you understand? This is already a solid matter. This is what I would say. Therefore we lost a chance back before Yugoslavia to create structures adequate to the Paris Agreement, after which inertia began. Unfortunately, this inertia has been still prolonged to this day.

DR. SERGEY RADCHENKO: If we can again return to 1993…The massacre in Bosnia had been going on for months. The situation was worsening, and from the point of view of America Europe was doing nothing. That is, they sent some UN people there⁶. The UN people actually did not have any special authority, and the war continued. Well, what did the Americans say, what was the American point of view? They said this: there’s nothing left for us to do. You yourselves could not figure it out, we had to go in there to stop the bloodshed. Just look what happened in Srebrenica, what in Sarajevo, where the Serbs were bombing. How do you regard this American explanation?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Excuse me, I’m being urged on a bit…The American position was very simple. We have to report to our people that we settled the situation and won a victory. This was especially evident from the position of the late Dick Holbrooke, who is no longer with us, and we can say this. Unfortunately, he was one of those who were a proponent of this policy: to squeeze out of this dead cat which we consider Russia everything for a specific policy of America and for its ambitions. He wanted to be the Secretary of State, he wanted to win a remarkable victory. Well, that’s that. In this sense Russia was an adjective,  and not a noun, but this had an effect on all further relations, it had an effect on the dialog about disarmament, it had an effect on the situation when discussions began in parallel with this about the parts of the former Soviet Union being accepted into NATO, which was of course completely unacceptable from the point of view of Russia’s traditional world view, and which was a violation of all verbal agreements. Verbal – there were no written agreements, but it was well known that there were verbal agreements about this. But they squeezed everything out. I don’t know whether this was good or not. In my opinion it was not good because America lost such a partner with which it could have done a lot of useful things, including for…

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⁶ This means UNPROFOR.

DR. SVETLANA SAVRANSKAYA: Vladimir Petrovich, I have a question about the changes in the foreign policy of Russia, when the new Minister of Foreign Affairs Yevgeny Primakov arrived. I read your negotiations, records of your negotiations, with American comrades such as Strobe Talbott and Sam Nunn, when you were chairman of a Duma committee, and at that time, in 1996, you very favorably assessed the arrival of Primakov in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the minister, and the beginning of his foreign policy. What do you think if Russian foreign policy had been constructed on the principles of these Primakov innovations, could there have been more constructive relations with the US?

VLADIMIR LUKIN: Well, long working business relations connected us with Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov. We came out of the Academy of Sciences, as you know. Yevgeny Maksimovich tried five times to hire me as his assistant, but Georgy Arkad’yevich Arbatov, the Director of the institute of America, objected to this in what I would say was a peremptory form. But, nevertheless, he and I cooperated. We created the Russian Association of Pacific Cooperation. When I was already in the institute I dealt with the sector of American Far Eastern policy, and we worked with him on many issues. Therefore, our common understanding of foreign policy was very similar. Therefore I approved of his arrival in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he and I worked together well even before he came to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because, as you understand, that place where he worked also had a foreign policy connotation⁷. And even at that time our views also coincided more often than now. The problem was not in taking an anti-American position. The problem was how to take  and what kind of pro-Russian position to take. And in this sense the arrival of Yevgeny Maksimovich was a very correct and pleasant thing for me because he was unquestionably a very intelligent person, and he was able to combine, he was able to pursue matters cautiously in the right direction with the country in which he worked, in which he served, and the pulse which he was supposed to feel. After all, in [19]96 it was Yevgeny Maksimovich together with your humble servant who completed the process of our acceptance in the Council of Europe, which was a very difficult thing to do then because the Chechen War was going on then and the difficulties associated with the Chechen War, etc. I remember how we travelled to Chechnya with the delegation of the Council of Europe. This was a cheerful trip, to put it mildly. On many other issues he was ready to go…he was a believer in a strong state, cynical in a good way on some questions. He clearly knew what could be done, to what degree it could be done, where it could be stopped, and done tomorrow, and where not to do something yet. His turnabout with America, about which they have spoken so much, I have no doubt [but I did not speak with him about it] was coordinated with Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin⁸. He was too cautious a person to simply do such things. Therefore working with him was transparent and easy, Actually, I would like to explain that at the end of his life, when Yevgeny Maksimovich was not working in the MFA [he worked in the Chamber of Commerce, although in the last year he had retired altogether], he wrote articles in which he warned that too rigid a complication of relations with the United States would be counterproductive, this was his favorite word, and this might lead to consequences unfavorable and unnecessary to Russia, etc. I think that….it is a pity that he is no longer here right now.

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⁷This means the RF Foreign Intelligence Service.

⁸This means the “turnabout over the Atlantic” associated with the bombing of Serbia in March 1999.