Shaping of a Reformer (II)

As a young man, you came to the United States in the first exchange program and were a student for a year at Columbia. How did that change your perspective on the world? Or did it?

I was not such a raw youth when I came to the United States. I was 33 then. I had already spent three years working on the Central Committee and then, after the Hungarian Rebellion, I took leave to go and study social sciences. I don't regret that I left at that point. As to my stay in the United States, when I studied at Columbia, I want to be frank in my answer: I had a very ambivalent impression. Of course I was enormously impressed by the difference in material well-being between the United States and my country. It was 1958 and our country continued to experience great economic difficulties. At the same time, I was terribly irritated by the primitive criticism of my country by the Americans. I took it very hard. Often that criticism was just consistent lies. I once even saw a very short American film comparing the people belonging to the top administrative personnel in Russia and the common man in Russia. We certainly did have such a problem, but the way the Americans treated it -- they were showing the Gorky recreational park in Moscow, they were showing the architecture of the gateway, very ornate, pretentious, and the voice-over was stating that "These are the gates for the party elite, for the state elite," and that the common man was not allowed to enter that gate. Then they showed a little door from the Kremlin side of it. Usually people who are walking their dogs would take those gates. And the voice-over says, "...and this little gate is for the common folk, for the proletariat, for the workers and peasants." I came to the United States, to Columbia, cherishing all the illusions of the progressive Moscow intelligentsia, especially associated with Moscow University. At that time it was the hotbed of liberalism. But the kind of American propaganda I encountered pushed me toward more conservative attitudes. This was not a matter of intelligence or reason, it was just a matter of emotions. It caused negative emotions.

The other extended period, later in your career, was when you were ambassador to Canada. Tell us a little about that experience. Again, an opportunity to be abroad for an extended time -- were you able to see your own society in a different light as a result of that tour?

By that time I was much older. I had accumulated much more experience. I had been active in actual politics by that time. De facto, I had headed the Communist Party Department of Ideology and Propaganda for four years, even though I was never confirmed in that position. So when I looked at life in Canada, I no longer allowed my emotions to speak to me. I looked at it with different eyes. I looked at it as a pragmatic politician, because my being there was a result of my being banished, if you will, after I published an article against anti-Semitism in Russia -- banished by Brezhnev to Canada as ambassador. I became one of those suspicious people. So I just decided that I was going to look at everything through the eyes of a pragmatic politician. As a former peasant, needless to say, I was drawn by the way agriculture, the farmer's economy, was organized. And I would use the opportunity to live on a farm for three or four days to look closely at the way they really do things. I sent endless cables back to Moscow regarding agriculture. I never received any answers. Nevertheless, I felt it was my duty to inform the government about these matters. But you know, I could not agree with the proposition that I used what I saw in Canada as a model for life in Russia. I was, for example, convinced that our press ought to be much freer than the press in Canada or the United States. I already encountered the practice of articles on demand, articles for which some shady deals had been made. I already saw that practice in Canada. When I was trying to promulgate the policy of glasnost at home, I frankly have to tell you that I tried to do things in such a way as to avoid those errors or ways that I encountered in this country. At first we were successful -- Moscow News, Izvestiia, Ogonek Magazine. They were the path-breakers to freedom of the press and they acted very idealistically.

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