The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990

by Margaret Thatcher

  We have seen in Mr Gorbachev’s speeches a clear admission that the communist system is not working. Far from enabling the Soviet Union to catch up with the West, it is falling further behind. We hear new language being used by their leaders. Words which we recognize, like ‘openness’ and ‘democratization’. But do they have the same meaning for them as they do for us? Some of those who have been imprisoned for their political and religious beliefs have been released. We welcome that. But many more remain in prison or are refused permission to emigrate. We want to see them free, or reunited with their families abroad, if that is what they choose… When I go to Moscow to meet Mr Gorbachev next week, my goal will be a peace based not on illusion or surrender, but on realism and strength… Peace needs confidence and trust between countries and peoples. Peace means an end to the killing in Cambodia, an end to the slaughter in Afghanistan. It means honouring the obligations which the Soviet Union freely accepted in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 to allow free movement of people and ideas and other basic human rights… We shall reach our judgements not on words, not on intentions, not on promises, but on actions and results.

  VISIT TO THE SOVIET UNION: MARCH-APRIL 1987

  I left Heathrow for Moscow just after midday on Saturday 28 March. I always used a special VC10 for these flights. A dozen of these aircraft were permanently based at Brize Norton and two or three of them had been adapted for ministerial overseas visits. The VC10 was not a modern aircraft and was rather noisy. But it was pleasant to fly in and had two big advantages. One was that there was plenty of space for me and my staff. There were tables to work at. There was a separate compartment for me to get an hour or two’s sleep when allowed respite from writing speeches and reading papers. There was even room for journalists towards the rear of the aircraft. The other advantage was the RAF staff who provided us with delicious food, drink and friendly service.

  When I landed, there was an official welcoming ceremony which began at Moscow Airport, where I was presented with a large bouquet of red roses which proved remarkably photogenic against my plain black coat and fox-fur hat. We then sped down the centre of the road, reserved for high officials and their guests, to the Kremlin. There I had to make my way down the length of St George’s Hall, under its glittering crystal chandeliers, to meet Mr and Mrs Gorbachev and to exchange formal pleasantries. I cannot deny that I enjoyed the splendour of these occasions, but I sometimes reflected that the traditional formalities were intended to clothe in the trappings of legitimacy regimes that had neither historic nor democratic credentials.

  On Sunday morning I was driven fifty miles out from Moscow to the Russian Orthodox Monastery at Zagorsk. I knew that this was a very important time for Orthodox Christians in Russia who, the following year, would be celebrating the millennium of their Church. The Soviet authorities had allowed some churches to reopen and the numbers of seminarians to increase a little. There was also a slight increase in the amount of religious literature allowed. As the Khrushchev years showed — when religious persecution sharply increased, even though in other areas liberalization occurred — there was no guarantee that the pressure on Christians would be removed just because of glasnost and perestroika. I felt it important that I should show solidarity.

  Crowds were waiting outside the gates of the monastery when I arrived. Against the wishes of the communist Minister for Religious Affairs (sic) who accompanied me, I insisted on getting out of the car to speak to them. Then I got back in and we were taken into the grounds of the monastery itself. I had never attended an Orthodox liturgy. I was struck by the richness of the singing, the clouds of incense, the gorgeous vestments, the sensuousness of the total experience. It was a far cry from the Sunday service at Finkin Street Methodist Church in Grantham. I was also moved by the devotion of the worshippers — it would be too much to say ‘the congregation’, for so much of what was going on was evidently a matter of private prayer, with people coming in and out to attend a part of the apparently endless ritual. I stayed for forty minutes or so and then lit one of the long, thin unbleached Orthodox candles, placing it in the sandbox which contained so many others. I reflected that it would take more than limited reforms of the communist system to contain the power of this Christian revival.

  The best that can be said of most of the Russian Orthodox leaders was that they probably had little choice other than to collaborate so closely with the communists. The worst that can be said was that they were active KGB agents. Certainly, the speech which was given by the Deputy Patriarch over lunch could have been drafted by Agitprop: it concentrated heavily on the need to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Discarding my own prepared text, I answered by stressing instead the need to release prisoners of conscience. In the car, on the way back to Moscow, I asked the Minister for Religious Affairs whether there were still people in gaol for their religious beliefs. He said, ‘No, unless they are in for something else.’ Such as possessing a Bible, I thought.

  That afternoon it had been arranged, at my suggestion, that I should do a ‘walkabout’ of the sort which comes so easily to western politicians but which the Soviets typically — and perhaps for good reason — avoided. (Mr Gorbachev, though, was in this, as in other matters, a western-style politician.) As I walked around a large housing estate in a bleak suburb of Moscow in the slushy snow and bitter wind, more and more people gathered to meet me. Soon they poured in from everywhere, a huge crowd cheering, smiling, wanting to shake hands. As in Hungary I was being received rapturously as an anti-communist by those who knew the system even better than I did.

  That evening I attended a performance of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre with the Gorbachevs. We shared a box. Like all good Russians, they were both clearly enthusiasts for the ballet. I too enjoy the ballet, almost as much as the opera, so we found this in common. During the interval the Gorbachevs held a small supper party for me in a private room. It was a relaxed occasion. For some reason the conversation turned from the story of Swan Lake to the subject of bread-making in the Soviet Union. Mr Gorbachev said that, partly as a result of help which the Soviet Union had received from ICI, the quality of Soviet bread was now much better than it had been. But it was difficult to please people. When the quality had been lower, it had been necessary to add salt. Now that the quality had improved, so that salt was no longer necessary for the bread, the people still preferred salty bread. He had told the Soviet minister responsible for bread-making to go on television to explain to the people that they were now getting better bread, even though it was not what they were familiar with. Ironically, a similar point had recently been made by the great dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. He remarked that whenever the Soviet media reported that scientists had found that some food — sausage, say — was bad for your health, the ordinary Russians reacted immediately by telling each other: ‘So they’re running out of sausage.’ Such are the unanticipated consequences of collectivism.

  We drank some excellent Georgian wine. I was encouraged to have another glass when Mr Gorbachev assured me that it helped some Georgians to live to be a hundred. He was very conscious of the unpopularity of the action he had taken against alcoholism. This had already resulted in a decline in deaths at work and road accidents. But it was an uphill struggle. He had read that people in the West thought that perestroika was doomed because he had taken away alcohol from the people and privileges from party officials. We lingered rather too long over supper and the audience had been sitting in semi-darkness for some time when we returned. When we bade farewell Mr Gorbachev was still in a jovial mood and said that he looked forward to our meeting tomorrow.

  Monday began for me with a meeting of what it would be perhaps impolite but only accurate to describe as impeccably distinguished Soviet stooges. This group of tame artists, academics and scientists took up again the themes which had been prominent in the Deputy Patriarch’s speech. They knew, presumably, that I was to have lunch with Dr Sakharov and other dissidents and wanted to extol the merits of communism first. Then I
left for my discussions with Mr Gorbachev in the Kremlin.

  I sat across the table from him, a long flower vase between us. I was accompanied by just one member of my staff and an interpreter. It was soon clear that he, glancing from time to time at the notes in front of him, intended to take me to task for my Central Council speech. He said that when the Soviet leaders had studied it they had felt the breeze of the 1940s and ‘50s. It reminded them of Winston Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri (about the ‘Iron Curtain’) and the Truman doctrine. They had even considered whether they might have to cancel the visit.

  I did not apologize. I said that there was one point which I did not make in my Central Council speech but which I would make now. This was that I knew of no evidence that the Soviet Union had given up the Brezhnev doctrine or the goal of securing world domination for communism. We were ready to fight the battle of ideas: indeed this was the right way to fight. But instead we in the West saw Soviet subversion in South Yemen, in Ethiopia, in Mozambique, in Angola and in Nicaragua. We saw Vietnam being supported by the Soviet Union in its conquest of Cambodia. We saw Afghanistan occupied by Soviet troops. We naturally drew the conclusion that the goal of worldwide communism was still being pursued. This was a crucial consideration for the West. We recognized that Mr Gorbachev was committed to internal reforms in the Soviet Union. But we had to ask ourselves whether this would lead to changes in external policies.

  I went on to show that I had read Mr Gorbachev’s speeches with as much care as he seemed to have read mine. I told him that I had found his January Central Committee speech fascinating. But I wanted to know whether the internal changes he was making would lead to changes in the Soviet Union’s foreign policies as well. I added that I had not expected that we would have generated quite so much heat so early in the discussion. Mr Gorbachev replied with a roar of laughter that he welcomed ‘acceleration’ and was pleased we were speaking frankly.

  The conversation went back and forth, not just covering regional conflicts (with me placing much of the blame on the Soviet Union and Mr Gorbachev blaming the West), but going right to the heart of what differentiated the western and communist systems. This I described as being a distinction between societies in which power was dispersed and societies based on central control and coercion.

  Mr Gorbachev was as critical of Conservatism as I was of communism. But he was a good deal less well informed about it. His view was that the British Conservative Party was the party of the ‘haves’ in Britain and that our system of what he called ‘bourgeois democracy’ was designed to fool people about who really controlled the levers of power. I explained that what I was trying to do was to create a society of ‘haves’, not a class of them.

  We then turned to arms control. As at our meeting at Chequers, he showed that he was well versed in all that was being written about the Soviet Union in the West. He knew that it was being openly said that the Soviet Union would need to reduce its military budget to finance the development of the civil economy and that the Soviets were desperate for arms agreements. He was clearly extremely sensitive and worried about being humiliated by the West. In particular, he blamed me for frustrating the moves towards the elimination of nuclear weapons which had been discussed at Reykjavik. (So the Camp David statement had indeed been noticed.) I found myself arguing, yet again, the case for the retention of the nuclear deterrent. I also said that it was quite clear to me that the Soviet Union’s objective was to bring about the denuclearization of Europe, leaving the USSR with a preponderance of conventional and chemical weapons. But I welcomed the fact that Mr Gorbachev had now broken the link, to which the Soviets had previously held, between an INF Agreement and other arms control issues, such as SDI. At this point I returned — rather late because our animated argument had overrun the scheduled time limit — to lunch with the Sakharovs and other former dissidents who were now supporting the Gorbachev reforms. I was impressed by what they told me of the changes being made. But I told them that it was not enough to support Mr Gorbachev now; they should be prepared to support him in five to ten years’ time when the going got really tough. I said that the costs of reform would be apparent long before the benefits.

  I then returned to the Kremlin to continue my talks with Mr Gorbachev. St Katherine’s Hall, where we had met that morning, was now being rearranged for the plenary session which was due to follow. So we were moved to the ‘Red Room’ of the Kremlin, which Mr Gorbachev said he hoped might improve my views. The afternoon discussion was less contentious and more informative. He explained to me the economic reforms he was making and the problems still to be faced. This led on to technology. He claimed to be confident about the Soviet Union’s capacity for developing computers in competition with the United States. But I was not convinced. And that led back to SDI which Mr Gorbachev promised the Soviets would match — in some way that he would not disclose. I tried to interest him in my proposal for greater ‘predictability’ as regards the progress of the American SDI programme, but apparently to no avail.

  Then I pressed Mr Gorbachev on human rights in general and the treatment of the Jews in particular. I also raised the question of Afghanistan, where I had the impression that he was searching for some way out. Finally, I listed the points which I thought we could agree on for a public account of our discussion which, he agreed, had contributed to better relations and greater confidence between us. But it was now very late. Guests were already assembling for the formal banquet at which I was to speak. The plenary session was abandoned. Putting diplomacy ahead of fashion, I abandoned my plans to return to the embassy and change: I attended the banquet in the short wool dress I had been wearing all day. I felt rather like Ninotchka in reverse.

  Tuesday began with a rather dull meeting with Prime Minister Ryzhkov — apparently a pleasant, competent man, who, alas, could never quite escape from the armour of his communist training — and other Soviet ministers. I had hoped to learn more about the Soviet economic reforms, but we got bogged down once again in arms control and then in bilateral trade issues.

  Far more exciting and worthwhile for all concerned was the interview which I gave to three journalists from Soviet Television. I learnt afterwards that this had an enormous impact on Soviet opinion. Most of the questions related to nuclear weapons. I defended the West’s line and indeed the retention of the nuclear deterrent. I went on to point out that there were more nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union than in any other country and that the Soviets had led the way on deploying short- and intermediate-range weapons as well. I reminded them of their huge superiority in conventional and chemical weapons. I pointed out that the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in ABM defences. Nobody had ever told ordinary Russians these facts. They learned them from my interview for the first time. The interview was allowed to go out uncut from Soviet television, which I afterwards regarded as proof that my confidence in Mr Gorbachev’s basic integrity was not misplaced.

  That evening the Gorbachevs gave me dinner in an old mansion, converted many years before for entertaining foreign guests. The atmosphere was, perhaps deliberately, as close to that of Chequers as I ever found in the Soviet Union. In the rooms around which Mr Gorbachev showed us, Churchill, Eden, Stalin and Molotov had smoked, drunk, and argued. We were a small group, the Gorbachevs being joined by just the Ryzhkovs, who did not take a very active part in the conversation. A brightly burning log fire — again like Chequers — illumined the room to which we later withdrew to put right the world’s problems over coffee and liqueurs. I saw two interesting examples of the way in which old Marxist certainties were being challenged. There was a lively argument between the Gorbachevs, which I provoked, about the definition of the ‘working class’ about which we heard so much in Soviet propaganda. I wanted to know how they defined this in the Soviet Union — a point of some substance in a system in which, as the old Polish saying goes, ‘we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.’ Mrs Gorbachev thought that anyone who worked, whatever his job or
profession, was a worker. Her husband argued initially that only the blue-collar workers counted. But he then reconsidered and said that this was largely an historical or ‘scientific’ (that is Marxist) term which did not do justice to the diversity of today’s society.

  The second indication of a break with old socialist certainties was when he told me — with tantalizingly little detail — of plans which were being discussed for increasing people’s incomes and then having them make some payment for public services like health and education. Not surprisingly, such plans, whatever they were, came to nothing.

  The following morning I had breakfast with refuseniks at the British Embassy. Theirs was a disturbing tale of heroism under mainly petty but continual persecution. Every obstacle, short of total prohibition, was put in the way of their worship and expression of cultural identity. They were discriminated against at work — if they found work. They told me that giving private tuition was the easiest way to earn a living: for these were educated people whose talents the Soviet state should have been able to draw upon. One of their leaders, Iosif Begun, brought me a tiny Star of David, which he had carved out of horn while he was in prison and which I have always kept.

  Later that morning I left Moscow for Tbilisi in Georgia. I had wanted to see a Soviet republic other than Russia and I knew that Georgia would present a great cultural and geographical contrast. This certainly proved to be the case. From all that I saw — and from the excellent and exotic food and Georgian wine — it was clear to me that given the right political and economic conditions this was an area where the tourist industry could flourish. But, as in the detective story, perhaps the most important feature of my admittedly brief visit was the ‘dog which did not bark’. Although I was presented with all the evidence of a vigorous folklore and although I knew how ancient and distinctive Georgia was — only coming under the control of Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century — there was still no evidence of that desire for national self-assertion and independence which was to come.