Ambassadors Of Russia And The Soviet Union

"How more profound is India's traditional world, where each stone is a hierophant, a sign of the presence of the sacred in our world. Every sunrise here becomes a cosmogenic drama, every woman an embodiment of the tantric principle of Shakti. Behind the exterior forms specific only of India hides the sublime universal paradigm of the traditional conscience totally opposite to the modernistic one, also far more vibrant and wholesome. The craving of human soul for sacral archetypes is unquenchable, and archetypes are easily juxtaposed with new age constructs. The sacral and the profane coexist."

"We shall do everything possible for further increasing cohesion of the great community of socialist states, the unity of the ranks of Communists of the whole world in the struggle for common aims and ideals. We shall guard and develop our solidarity and our cooperation with the countries that have gained freedom from colonial oppression, with the struggle of the peoples for national independence and social progress. We shall always be loyal to the cause of the struggle for peace, for the relaxation of international tension."

"A second escape from determinism involved the discrediting of dictatorships. Tyrants had been around for thousands of years; but George Orwell's great fear, while writing 1984 on his lonely island in 1948, was that the progress made in restraining them in the 18th and 19th centuries had been reversed. Despite the defeats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it would have been hard to explain the first half of the 20th century without concluding that the currents of history had come to favor authoritarian politics and collectivist economics. Like Irish monks at the edge of their medieval world, Orwell at the edge of his was seeking to preserve what little was left of civilization by showing what a victory of the barbarians would mean. Big Brothers controlled the Soviet Union, China, and half of Europe by the time 1984 came out. It would have been Utopian to expect that they would stop there. But they did: the historical currents during the second half of the 20th century turned decisively against communism. Orwell himself had something to do with this: his anguished writings, together with the later and increasingly self-confident ones of Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Havel, and the future pope Karol Wojtyla, advanced a moral and spiritual critique of Marxism-Leninism for which it had no answer. It took time for these sails to catch wind and for these rudders to take hold, but by the late 1970s they had begun to do so. John Paul II and the other actor-leaders of the 1980s then set the course. The most inspirational alternatives the Soviet Union could muster were Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, a clear sign that dictatorships were not what they once had been."

"The Soviet Union declares with all firmness and in no uncertain terms that it remains an adherent of the principled course of ending the arms race, first of all the nuclear arms race, of lessening and ultimately totally removing the threat of nuclear war. It will further exert every effort for the attainment of these lofty aims."

"The imperialists have not given up the scheme of economic war against the Socialist countries, of interfering in their internal affairs in the hope of eroding their social system, and are trying to win military superiority over the U.S.S.R., over all the countries of the Socialist community. Of course, these plans are sure to fail. It is not given to anyone to turn back the course of historical development."

"Our foreign policy is also a class policy, because our Party follows a steady, persistent and honest peace policy which simultaneously stands unstakeably on the principles of proletarian internationalism and solidarity with the struggle of the peoples for freedom and social progress. There is no contradiction in this. We do not expect that the monopolistic bourgeoisie and the governments which are executing their will will endorse under the conditions of detente the revolu­tionary struggle of the proletariat or the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples. The Soviet Union does not put such demands on the West. But one should not demand of the Soviet Union to sacrifice its solidarity with those who are struggling against exploitation and colonial oppression."

"It’s necessary to create conditions-economic and organizational-that will stimulate good-quality, productive labor, initiative and enterprise. Conversely, poor work, sluggishness and irresponsibility should have an immediate and inescapable effect on the remuneration, job status and moral prestige of personnel."

"Washington and its NATO partners more and more often resort in international relations to the policy of blackmail and crude pressure. They try to impudently force their will on other countries and nations. Imperialist bigwigs put forward adventurist doctrines of either a "limited" nuclear war or a war with the use of only conventional, non-nuclear weapons."

"In America and in our country there are nuclear weapons—terrible weapons that can kill millions of people in an instant. But we do not want them to be ever used. That's precisely why the Soviet Union solemnly declared throughout the entire world that never—never—will it use nuclear weapons first against any country. In general we propose to discontinue further production of them and to proceed to the abolition of all the stockpiles on earth."

"Our nerves are strong, and we do not base our policy on emotions."

"As it is, we are living in too brittle a world. That is why responsible statesmen must evaluate the developments and adopt a rational decision. It is human reason alone that can and must save mankind from the grave danger. We call on those who are pushing the world along the road of the ever more dangerous arms race to give up their unrealizable hopes of thus achieving military superiority in order to dictate their will to other peoples and states. The Soviet Union is convinced that peace can be strengthened and the security of peoples guaranteed not by way of building up and inventing ever new types of armaments but, on the contrary, by way of reducing the existing armaments to immeasurably lower levels."

"The Soviet state has successfully overcome many trials, including crucial ones, during the six and a half decades of its existence. Those who encroached on the integrity of our state, its independence and our system found themselves on the garbage heap of history. It is high time that everyone to whom this applies understood that we shall be able to insure the security of our country, the security of our friends and allies under any circumstances. The Soviet people can rest assured that our country's defense capability is being maintained at such a level that it would not be advisable for anyone to stage a trial of strength. On our part, we do not seek a trial of strength. The very thought of it is alien to us."

"He also put in train a revision of the country’s foreign policy. Andropov quietly proposed that both the USA and the USSR should formally guarantee not to intervene militarily in the countries under their control. Thus he signalled disapproval of what had happened to Hungary in 1956 and to Czechoslovakia in 1968. Confidential indications were given to Cuba that the USSR was withdrawing its military guarantee for the island’s defence. He called not just for limitations on the superpowers’ stockpiles of nuclear weaponry but for their drastic reduction. Andropov, ex-Chairman of the KGB, understood that he would have a weak bargaining hand unless the USSR could show a sustained capacity to develop its military technology. The Politburo approved. Investment was sanctioned for upgrading the Soviet armed forces. The military-technological parity with the USA won by Brezhnev was to be reattained even at the expense of the popular standard of living. Andropov wanted to ‘perfect’ the communist order; he had hoped for plenty of time to do this. But Reagan’s geopolitical challenge would be met. The Cold War was going to get hotter."

"The Soviet people have boundless trust in their Communist Party, they trust it because for the party there have never been and are no other interests than the vital interests of the Soviet people. To justify this trust means to go ahead along the road of Communist construction, to work for the further progress of our socialist homeland."

"The Soviet Union, and we stress this again, does not strive for military superiority, and we will do only what is absolutely necessary to prevent the military balance from being disrupted."

"Decided on by NATO ministers on 12 December 1979, in response to the deployment of Soviet SS-20 intermediate range ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe, and despite considerable West German division and reluctance, the Cruise and Pershing missiles arrived from November 1983. Their deployment demonstrated the continued strength and effectiveness of the Western alliance. In addition, American rhetoric, notably Reagan’s ‘evil empire’ speech, which in some respects matched a longstanding Soviet pattern in rhetoric, rankled the Soviet leaders. Moreover, the American invasion of the unstable, left-wing Caribbean island of Grenada in October 1983 accentuated Soviet concern about American actions and intentions. Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader from 1982 to 1984, interpreted these actions to support his suspicions of the USA, and he suspended Soviet participation in the arms-control talks in Geneva. Andropov came out of Gosbes (State Security) and was a genuine ideologue. He believed in the inherent mendacity of Western imperialist leaders and society, and in imperialists’ treachery and willingness to wage war against the Soviet Union. However, there was no precipitant to conflict, in part due to Soviet caution and in part because the Soviet Union could not afford war."

"Brezhnev died in November 1982 and the USSR acquired Yuri Andropov as its new Party General Secretary. Andropov recognised the need for political and economic changes if the USSR was to remain at all competitive with the USA. He called for a renewed emphasis on discipline and a rooting out of corruption. Dozens of central and local party functionaries were shunted into retirement. Punctuality and conscientiousness at work was demanded. Andropov stated that the leadership had failed to understand conditions in society; by implication he was conceding that a gap had opened between the party and most citizens. Behind the scenes he set up a group of younger politicians including Mikhail Gorbachëv and Nikolai Ryzhkov to explore what kind of reforms were needed in the Soviet economy."

"If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a symbol of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition. It is the drawing of millions of women into productive work, which was swiftly effected especially during the war and which thrust into the realm of possibility the fact that a woman could be advanced to the highest political and diplomatic positions. Nevertheless it is obvious that only a country of the future, such as the Soviet Union, can dare to confront woman without any prejudice, to appraise her only from the standpoint of her skills and talents, and, accordingly, to entrust her with responsible tasks. Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman and only the productive-working people is able to effect the complete equalization and liberation of woman by building a new society."

"I never gave a thought to any kind of danger, being all too engrossed in matters of an utterly different character."

"The work began with great zeal and the most roseate hopes. A splendid summer and an eventful winter marked the year of 1923! The newly resumed trade relations were in full swing: Russian corn and Norwegian herring and fish, Russian wood products and Norwegian paper and cellulose."

"When one recalls the first months of the Workers' Government, months which were so rich in magnificent illusions, plans, ardent initiatives to improve life, to organize the world anew, months of the real romanticism of the Revolution, one would in fact like to write about all else save about one's self."

"Such is life's irony."

"There are individuals – a mere handful in the history of mankind – who, while themselves being the product of an imminent catastrophic change, leave their mark upon an entire epoch. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is one such giant mind, one such giant will... However mighty such giants of history may be, the universal-general principle that they symbolise and embody dissolves all the narrowly individual. The ordinary measuring rod of the qualities, failings and passions characteristic of the people of that age is not applicable to them. It is not a question of the personal characteristics of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin but what he symbolises... He has gathered to himself like a magnet everything in the revolution that is expressive of will, power, ruthless destruction and constructive persistence. Everyone who values what the workers' revolution brings with it in its cleansing whirlwind cannot but value and cherish its symbol, its embodiment – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin."

"To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment."

"The issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the , the Soviets."

"Then came the great days of the . became historic. The sleepless nights, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is socialized and belongs to the peasants!""

"Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917!"

"In the autumn of 1916 when I devoted all my energies to drawing up systematic guidelines for the liberation of working women in all areas, I found a valuable support in the first President of the Soviets, Sverdlov, now dead. Thus the first Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants could be called as early as November of 1918; some 1147 delegates were present. Thus the foundation was laid for methodical work in the whole country for the liberation of the women of the working and the peasant classes. A flood of new work was waiting for me. The question now was one of drawing women into the people's kitchens and of educating them to devote their energies to children's homes and day-care centers, the school system, household reforms, and still many other pressing matters. The main thrust of all this activity was to implement, in fact, equal rights for women as a labor unit in the national economy and as a citizen in the political sphere and, of course, with the special proviso: maternity was to be appraised as a social function and therefore protected and provided for by the State."

"The Revolution was in full swing. The struggle was becoming increasingly irreconcilable and bloodier, much of what was happening did not fit in with my outlook. But after all there was still the unfinished task, women's liberation. Women, of course, had received all rights but in practice, of course, they still lived under the old yoke: without authority in family life, enslaved by a thousand menial household chores, bearing the whole burden of maternity, even the material cares, because many women now found life alone as a result of the war and other circumstances."

"My life was as crammed with strenuous work and highly interesting experiences alike."

"In all the social relations which I had during the three years of my work in Norway, I never once experienced the least trace of aversion or mistrust against woman's . To be sure, the healthy, democratic spirit of the greatly contributed to this. Thus the fact is to be confirmed that my work as official Russian representative in Norway was never, and in no wise, made difficult for the reason that I belonged "to the weaker sex.""

"My Marxist outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating clarity that women's liberation could take place only as the result of the victory of a new social order and a different economic system."

"The vehement struggle between the two factions of the broke out anew: the on the one side, the on the other. In 1908 I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the hostile position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the Duma, a pseudo-Parliament called by the in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age. Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the point of view that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a tribute for our Party and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the Liberals in order to accelerate the overthrow of absolutism. On this point I was, in fact, very left-radical and was even branded as a "" by my Party comrades. Given my attitude towards the Duma it logically followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first bourgeois women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that our women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an independent and distinct group. I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "feminists" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no comprehension at all of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon professional women. Nevertheless our will prevailed."

"Not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my world-view. On the contrary, most of the time I was the guiding spirit. I acquired my view of life, my from life itself, and in uninterrupted study from books."

"It was a great privilege to work so closely with these wonderful women of our movement...I was very much impressed too with the brilliant and handsome Alexandra Kollontai, who had been active in the woman's movement even in pre-revolutionary days. She had been for a time People's Commissar of Social Welfare. When I first met her, she was one of the leaders of the Workers' Opposition, taking the line that the interests of the trade unions were opposed to those of the Soviet state and the Party. Lenin, to whom she was deeply devoted, convinced her of the fallacy of her position, and she abandoned her oppositionist stand, becoming a loyal supporter of the Party's position. She became Minister Plenipotentiary to Norway, the first woman ambassador in the world, was for a time ambassador to Mexico and is today Soviet Ambassador to Sweden."

"I could not lead a happy, peaceful life when the working population was so terribly enslaved."

"I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion."

"It must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish. In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women."

"Alexandra Kollontay and Angelica Balabanoff were within easy reach, as they were living in the National. I sought out the former first. Mme Kollontay looked remarkably young and radiant, considering her fifty years and the severe operation she had recently undergone. A tall and stately woman, every inch the grande dame rather than the fiery revolutionist. Her attire and suite of two rooms bespoke good taste, the roses on her desk rather startling in the Russian greyness. They were the first I had seen since our deportation. [...] She leaned back in her arm-chair and I began speaking of the harrowing things that had come to my knowledge. She listened attentively without interrupting me, but there was not the slightest indication in her cold, handsome face of any perturbation on account of my recital. "We do have some dull grey spots in our vivid revolutionary picture," she said when I had concluded. "They are un-avoidable in a country so backward, with a people so dark and a social experiment of such magnitude, opposed by the entire world as it is. They will disappear when we have liquidated our military fronts and when we shall have raised the mental level of our masses." I could help in that, she continued. I could work among the women; they were ignorant of the simplest principles of life, physical and otherwise, ignorant of their own functions as mothers and citizens. I had done such fine work of that kind in America, and she could assure me of a much more fertile field in Russia. "Why not join me and stop your brooding over a few dull grey spots?" she said in conclusion; "they are nothing more, dear comrade, really nothing more." People raided, imprisoned, and shot for their ideas! The old and the young held as hostages, every protest gagged, iniquity and favouritism rampant, the best human values betrayed, the very spirit of revolution daily crucified-were all these nothing but "grey, dull spots," I wondered! I felt chilled to the marrow of my bones."

"I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things in life but sentimental love feelings. After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet understand how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force. But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again alone, unhappy, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal ...work. Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur."

"I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school."

"Throughout the history of the socialist movement there has, therefore, been a strand of feminist critique from within. Many feminists shared in the vision of a just society, but criticised the ways in which communist parties sought to bring it about. Amongst the Bolsheviks, Inessa Armand and Alexandra Kollontai were early critics of their party's policies and practice, and they, along with anarchist feminists such as Emma Goldman, laid some of the early groundwork in identifying socialism's failures."

"No American socialist-feminist successfully integrated the anarchist-feminist analysis of domestic oppression into a socialist framework...Nevertheless, a socialist framework existed, in the work of Aleksandra Kollontai. Kollontai, a Russian Marxist revolutionary who participated in the birth of the Bolshevik state, wrote her most extensive analysis of the Woman Question while in exile in Western Europe in the years immediately preceding World War I." Following Bebel and Engels, Kollontai argued that the first requisite for women's emancipation was productive work outside the confines of the domestic circle. However, participation in the work force would not free women unless there were also changes in the industrial system. Ultimately, of course, the workers must overthrow capitalism, Kollontai declared. But, more immediately, socialists should work for shorter hours, less dangerous working conditions, paid maternity leaves, nursery facilities in all factories, and scheduled breaks from work so that mothers could breast feed their babies. Not all socialists agreed with Kollontai on the above issues. Most men and some women refused to countenance the urging of special reforms for women because they believed it undermined the solidarity of the proletariat. But Kollontai further extended her analysis of female oppression to include an attack on the emotional dependence of women upon men."

"I wanted to be free. I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life."

"When I was appointed as Russian envoy to , I realized that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but for women in general and indeed, a victory over their worst enemy, that is to say, over conventional morality and conservative concepts of marriage. ... What is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it, was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel the old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own existence, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of working women."

"'Women's Day' is a link in the long, solid chain of the women's proletarian movement. The organised army of working women grows with every year. Twenty years ago the trade unions contained only small groups of working women scattered here and there among the ranks of the workers party... Now English trade unions have over 292 thousand women members; in Germany around 200 thousand are in the trade union movement and 150 thousand in the workers party, and in Austria there are 47 thousand in the trade unions and almost 20 thousand in the party. Everywhere – in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland – the women of the working class are organising themselves. The women's socialist army has almost a million members. A powerful force! A force that the powers of this world must reckon with when it is a question of the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labour and legislation to protect female labour. There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the 'old world' without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the 'non-class-conscious' was to damage their cause and hold it back. The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no 'ideas' of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband..."

"Kollontai was never a brilliant Marxist scholar or an innovative theoretician as was her friend Rosa Luxemburg, for example. She "discovered" Marx in a copy of Communist Manifesto which she picked up in a bookstore in Germany during the cooling off period forced on her by her parents. It quickly replaced her populism, which had been shallow and emotional, and seemed to pull her previous ideas together in an intellectually satisfying form-a common experience for many Marxist converts."

"One must write not only for oneself. But for others. For those far-away, unknown women who will live then. Let them see that we were not heroines or heroes at all. But we believed passionately and ardently."

"Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography. What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write honestly and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of modesty. For if one is called upon to tell about one's life so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. Accordingly it is a matter of forgetting that one is writing about oneself, of making an effort to abjure one's ego so as to give an account, as objectively as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's accomplishments."

"Barbara Clements has shown that for Kollontai "woman's inferiority was imbedded in the pattern of erotic love, the most private of human relationships." Socialism for her, therefore, was more than the overthrow of capitalism as an economic system. It promised the creation of a new order in which men and women could live together and love in harmony and in community. Clements has demonstrated Kollontai's unique place within Marxism: "Other contemporaries, most eloquently Virginia Woolf but also feminists such as the Pankhursts, knew the price of female emancipation, but of the Marxists, only Kollontai gave it a place within the ideology. Into a socioeconomic theory that valued rationality as the road to social liberation, Kollontai introduced an emotional understanding of woman alone in an isolating world." Kollontai's emphasis on psychological and emotional liberation was remarkably similar to American anarchist-feminism, but she differed in her insistence on integrating these issues into an uncompromising materialist analysis. She believed that "solitude and women's struggle for independence [were] economically determined and therefore ... soluble. She remained resolutely an ideologue and an optimist.""