The Foreign Service Journal, December 2011

36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 1 (the All-Union Znaniye [Knowledge] Society offered a regular series of lec- tures on socioeconomic and political topics) and artistic performances, walked around town and traveled to provincial centers, and organized events at the embassy to create as many opportunities as we could to mix with the locals. Because our contacts were limited, we spent a great deal of time reading newspapers and jour- nals and watching television, looking — in the venerable tradition of Kremlinology — for subtle clues to changes in power at the top (who was standing where on the Lenin Mausoleum?) and broader policy directions (what change in policy was suggested by that change in phrasing in a Communist Party document?) This task had grown more exciting — and more time-consuming and exacting — as Gorbachev pressed his policy of glasnost (transparency) and called for filling in the blank spots in Soviet history. A flood of articles critical of the Soviet past was pouring out. The challenge was to determine what those articles portended for the direction, dimensions and ultimate goals of reform and what they revealed about the possible bat- tles inside the Soviet leadership over Gorbachev’s policies. We asked the same questions that many Soviet citizens did —but largely in parallel with, not together with them, be- cause of the wall that still divided us from most of Soviet society. Glasnost and Perestroika: A Sea Change That wall fell in 1988. First, a substantial part of poli- tics moved from the closed chambers of the Communist Party and government ministries into more public venues, ultimately into the streets. Mass public demonstrations erupted in the Caucasus over the fate of Nargorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, and in the Baltic states over their annexation by the Soviet Union during WorldWar II (which the United States never recognized). In Moscow, informal groups sprung up at various locations to discuss the issues of the day, the most prominent group being the one that met regularly on Pushkin Square in front of the offices of the pro-reform Moscow News , just a short dis- tance from the Kremlin. Second, President Ronald Reagan traveled to Moscow in May 1988 for a summit meeting with Gorbachev. The amicable atmosphere, symbolized by the two leaders’ friendly walk on Red Square and encounters with more or less average Soviet citizens, sent an unmistakable sign that meeting with Americans was now acceptable be- havior. Doors that had once been tightly closed to us swung open; our regular contacts began to talk more freely. In this changed environment, there was much work to be done as we tried to keep up with the events rapidly un- folding around us. In 1989, for example, the Soviet Union held the first competitive, secret and surprisingly free (if not wholly fair) elections in its 70-plus years’ history for the newly-created Congress of People’s Deputies. The reporting opportuni- ties were myriad during the long campaign. We attended political rallies, conferences on current politics, and other campaign-related events in Moscow and various provin- cial centers. To cover election day itself, some two dozen embassy teams fanned out across the country. The day was festive everywhere, as Soviets exercised their right to a meaningful vote for the first time. We vis- ited polling stations, talked to voters and observed the vote count. And we were as surprised by the results as most other observers were: Scores of leading Communist Party officials lost (as a majority voted against them by crossing out their names on the ballot — with great relish, one imagined) and hundreds of anticommunist and nationalist candidates were elected. The drama only thickened with the first two-week ses- sion of the Congress, which the political-internal unit bore the main responsibility for covering. The proceed- ings were broadcast in their entirety, and Soviet citizens remained glued to their TV sets as they witnessed the first open public debate at the highest levels of the polit- ical system. Each day one of us sat in the diplomats’ lounge of the Congress, and during the intermissions we mingled with the deputies, including senior Communist Party officials, military officers and the heads of security organizations — all targets of opportunity for brief chats. But the real story was inside the hall itself. Each day brought its own fireworks: scathing denunciations of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (which had led to the So- viet Union’s annexation of the Baltic states, Moldova and what became parts of Belarus and Ukraine), of the brutal F OCUS We were not only the eyes and ears, but the analytical mind, of Washington on the ground.