Which Face of Soviet Policy Is Real? : West Can Influence Choice of Cooperation Over Antagonism

“(International) crises and conflicts offer a fertile soil for terrorism. The revolting nature of terrorism manifests itself in undeclared wars . . . political assassinations, taking of hostages, seizing airplanes and exploding bombs in the streets, airports and railway stations. Those who inspire such terrorism try to cover up with all sorts of cynical fabrications.”

No, it was not President Reagan or another Western spokesman who delivered this ringing denunciation of the plague of terror, but Mikhail S. Gorbachev, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, addressing its 27th Congress last February.

But what did the Soviets do when the United States, in view of its inability to put other constraints on worldwide terrorism, launched a punitive strike against the country whose regime is generally acknowledged to be one of the main instigators of such horrors? The U.S. action against Libya was roundly condemned by the Kremlin. The May meeting of Soviet and American foreign ministers that was to lay the groundwork for the next summit was called off by Moscow, and indeed Gorbachev hinted that the summit may not take place at all, should Washington persist in such depredations as well as continue to reject Soviet initiatives on various ways of limiting the arms race.

What’s going on? Are we in the face of yet another case of divergence between what the Soviets say and what they do? Does the Kremlin really desire a new summit and a rapprochement with the United States? Or is the possibility of such rapprochement a mirage, its idea a propaganda ploy designed to confuse world public opinion and to further divisions within the Western camp?

Some would cite the splits within the Soviet leadership to explain Moscow’s intermittently blowing hot and cold about the summit: Gorbachev, they believe, genuinely wants to promote better relations with the West but as yet has not been able to prevail against the views of the Politburo and military hard-liners. Others would go further: The Soviets do in fact desire new detente, yet the Reagan Administration’s actions and attitudes since the Geneva meeting have given them little hope that another summit could be fruitful in lowering the tension between the two superpowers.

There may be elements of truth in both interpretations. But the basic reason for the Kremlin’s inconsistencies and hesitations is probably found elsewhere in what might be called the split personality of Soviet foreign policy. That debility was well-illustrated in the general secretary’s speech at the party congress. It is as if two Gorbachevs emerged in the discourse--one, a devout Marxist-Leninist, mouthing traditional platitudes about the rapacious nature of capitalism and scathing in his references to “the military industrial complex” that, according to him, has dominated the Reagan Administration and seeks to destroy socialism and to subjugate the Third World.

But along with the dogmatist one could also hear a pragmatic statesman emphatic in his insistence that the two superpowers must reach an agreement and banish the specter of a nuclear holocaust. Is such an agreement possible?

The Soviet leader answered his own question: “It would be easy to say: maybe yes, maybe not. But history does not permit us to acquiesce in such a prognosis. We must not quibble in answering the question whether mankind is to survive; we say: social progress and the life of our civilization must and will go on.”

Which is the real Gorbachev? Unfortunately, his ambivalence reflects that of Soviet policies in general. Genuinely desirous of avoiding a nuclear war, which they now acknowledge as unwinnable, the Soviet leaders still balk at admitting the logical deduction from that fact: Preservation of peace requires more than just American and Soviet signatures on a new strategic arms limitation agreement. And one of the main prerequisites of true international security would have to be Moscow’s curbing of its expansionist drive and ceasing to be the provider of arms and diplomatic support to regimes such as Moammar Kadafi’s.

In other words, the question is whether the Kremlin can abandon what has been one of the main premises of its foreign policy--that any trouble, any setback to the West’s interests and security, no matter how dangerous its consequences to international stability, represents a gain to the Soviet Union, and a reaffirmation of the viability and dynamism of the Communist regime. Judging from the speeches of Gorbachev and other leaders at the 27th Congress, such a reorientation of the Soviets’ philosophy of international affairs is not likely to come soon or easily. And to some extent a reorientation of the Soviets’ policies must depend on those of the West; will the United States and its allies be able to synchronize their policies more successfully than has been the case in the last 20 years or so?

It is only when the Western powers can combine a tenacity of purpose with a flexibility of tactics that they can hope to influence the Soviet Union’s policies in a desirable direction and convince the Kremlin that a cooperative, rather than an antagonistic, relationship is the only true path to peace--and hence, is in its interest as well as our own.