The United States has often played a pivotal role in my political life, beginning 50 years ago when I was a student of international relations at a Moscow university.
At that time, Soviet propaganda was well-practiced at denouncing Richard Nixon for rejecting the Kremlin’s dogma that in politics, the ends justify the means. Mr. Nixon had argued during his 1960 presidential campaign that the American democratic system recognizes a standard of moral truth that allows the individual to say to government, “Thus far may you go, but no farther.” If what Mr. Nixon said was true, many of us in the Soviet Union thought, then America is on the right side of history.
The Kremlin would later exploit the Watergate scandal to sneer at Mr. Nixon’s — and by extension, America’s — allegiance to moral truth as nothing more than hypocrisy. But what looked like an easy propaganda victory turned out to be Pyrrhic. When Republicans joined Mr. Nixon’s Democratic opposition in Congress and forced him to choose between resignation or impeachment, the Soviet dissident newsletters retorted that the standard of moral truth had proved to be real in America after all. And they pointed out that the investigation of the president of the United States was initiated by two young reporters, representatives of a free press. The Kremlin found no counterarguments, except to condemn the press as enemies of the people and dissidents as traitors.
The Iron Curtain was not enough to block the words of moral truth from Washington. Gradually more and more people in Russia heard and heeded them. The words spoken by successive presidents, members of Congress and many ordinary citizens were loud and clear — and when buttressed by genuine efforts to live up to them, they were the most powerful weapons in the Cold War. Unlike nuclear missiles, free speech, and the moral truth it brought, was not an element of the superpower struggle to be found in equal measure among both rivals. It was a unique and essential advantage on the American side.
President Jimmy Carter’s strong reaction to Russian military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 had a sobering impact on Soviet leaders. President Carter said, “Aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.” His decision to send military aid to the Afghan resistance made this moral and political message concrete.
Years later, President Ronald Reagan famously asked Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in Berlin as a condition of improved relations with the United States and the West. This continued American stand for moral truth across political parties helped win the Cold War and paved the way for real progress in American-Soviet relations.
Of course American presidents made a few unhappy, even hypocritical, decisions, in both domestic and foreign policy. Yet we in Russia saw how severely they were criticized by the media and Congress when they did so.
In 1991, the Russian people rose against Soviet hard-liners and the tanks they had ordered to the center of Moscow to quell dissent. This successful uprising was led by Boris Yeltsin, the first (and last) freely and fairly elected president of Russia. By no coincidence, the building from which Mr. Yeltsin had called for resistance was called the White House. I was proud to be there. A few months later, the end of Soviet rule and the Soviet Union itself was announced from that Russian White House.
Today, under false slogans promising to make Russia great again, the Kremlin bosses have returned to their old ways, including the dogma that the ends — power — justify any means, including quelling opponents inside Russia and, if possible, abroad. They have unapologetically rushed down the path toward a renewed Cold War, using old and new tools of subversion against established democracies in America and Europe, and aspiring democracies in Ukraine and Georgia. If the Russian slogan under Communism was “Proletarians of all countries unite!”, today it would be, “Detractors of democracies and foes of the liberal world order arise!” And they do so, from China to Venezuela, from North Korea to Syria, taking advantage of the current absence of global American leadership grounded in moral truth.
Make no mistake: Moral leadership is needed today no less than before.
As the foreign minister of a newly democratic Russia in 1992, I was in the same shoes as today’s Ukrainian leadership when we needed and received American aid to consolidate our democracy. Nobody took it for granted, but it was not viewed as just another diplomatic quid pro quo either. The American generosity was an expression of another moral truth: that democracies help each other. At the time, President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, was at risk of losing to the Democratic contender Bill Clinton in the next election. The idea that he or his representative would have asked us for “kompromat” on his rival is unimaginable.
That sort of presidential morality seems to be a thing of the past. But the America I knew then is still with us today, in the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens and members of Congress. If Washington looks different now, I believe it to be an aberration.
Russia likes seeing President Trump in the White House in part because it provides the Kremlin a chance to point to the ugly side of American politics — to say, just as they did with Mr. Nixon, look how sordid, how hypocritical.
But I believe that if Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, act to remove this president, a new powerful message would be sent to governments and people around the globe, just like the one that went out in 1974: Moral principles still matter in American politics and policy. And the future still belongs to moral truth and to those who embrace it.
Andrei V. Kozyrev was the foreign minister of Russia from 1991 to 1996, and is the author of “The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy.”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | From Russia, With Admiration and Despair
Opinion | From Russia, With Admiration and Despair
The United States has often played a pivotal role in my political life, beginning 50 years ago when I was a student of international relations at a Moscow university.
At that time, Soviet propaganda was well-practiced at denouncing Richard Nixon for rejecting the Kremlin’s dogma that in politics, the ends justify the means. Mr. Nixon had argued during his 1960 presidential campaign that the American democratic system recognizes a standard of moral truth that allows the individual to say to government, “Thus far may you go, but no farther.” If what Mr. Nixon said was true, many of us in the Soviet Union thought, then America is on the right side of history.
The Kremlin would later exploit the Watergate scandal to sneer at Mr. Nixon’s — and by extension, America’s — allegiance to moral truth as nothing more than hypocrisy. But what looked like an easy propaganda victory turned out to be Pyrrhic. When Republicans joined Mr. Nixon’s Democratic opposition in Congress and forced him to choose between resignation or impeachment, the Soviet dissident newsletters retorted that the standard of moral truth had proved to be real in America after all. And they pointed out that the investigation of the president of the United States was initiated by two young reporters, representatives of a free press. The Kremlin found no counterarguments, except to condemn the press as enemies of the people and dissidents as traitors.
The Iron Curtain was not enough to block the words of moral truth from Washington. Gradually more and more people in Russia heard and heeded them. The words spoken by successive presidents, members of Congress and many ordinary citizens were loud and clear — and when buttressed by genuine efforts to live up to them, they were the most powerful weapons in the Cold War. Unlike nuclear missiles, free speech, and the moral truth it brought, was not an element of the superpower struggle to be found in equal measure among both rivals. It was a unique and essential advantage on the American side.
President Jimmy Carter’s strong reaction to Russian military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 had a sobering impact on Soviet leaders. President Carter said, “Aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.” His decision to send military aid to the Afghan resistance made this moral and political message concrete.
Years later, President Ronald Reagan famously asked Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in Berlin as a condition of improved relations with the United States and the West. This continued American stand for moral truth across political parties helped win the Cold War and paved the way for real progress in American-Soviet relations.
Of course American presidents made a few unhappy, even hypocritical, decisions, in both domestic and foreign policy. Yet we in Russia saw how severely they were criticized by the media and Congress when they did so.
In 1991, the Russian people rose against Soviet hard-liners and the tanks they had ordered to the center of Moscow to quell dissent. This successful uprising was led by Boris Yeltsin, the first (and last) freely and fairly elected president of Russia. By no coincidence, the building from which Mr. Yeltsin had called for resistance was called the White House. I was proud to be there. A few months later, the end of Soviet rule and the Soviet Union itself was announced from that Russian White House.
Today, under false slogans promising to make Russia great again, the Kremlin bosses have returned to their old ways, including the dogma that the ends — power — justify any means, including quelling opponents inside Russia and, if possible, abroad. They have unapologetically rushed down the path toward a renewed Cold War, using old and new tools of subversion against established democracies in America and Europe, and aspiring democracies in Ukraine and Georgia. If the Russian slogan under Communism was “Proletarians of all countries unite!”, today it would be, “Detractors of democracies and foes of the liberal world order arise!” And they do so, from China to Venezuela, from North Korea to Syria, taking advantage of the current absence of global American leadership grounded in moral truth.
Make no mistake: Moral leadership is needed today no less than before.
As the foreign minister of a newly democratic Russia in 1992, I was in the same shoes as today’s Ukrainian leadership when we needed and received American aid to consolidate our democracy. Nobody took it for granted, but it was not viewed as just another diplomatic quid pro quo either. The American generosity was an expression of another moral truth: that democracies help each other. At the time, President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, was at risk of losing to the Democratic contender Bill Clinton in the next election. The idea that he or his representative would have asked us for “kompromat” on his rival is unimaginable.
That sort of presidential morality seems to be a thing of the past. But the America I knew then is still with us today, in the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens and members of Congress. If Washington looks different now, I believe it to be an aberration.
Russia likes seeing President Trump in the White House in part because it provides the Kremlin a chance to point to the ugly side of American politics — to say, just as they did with Mr. Nixon, look how sordid, how hypocritical.
But I believe that if Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, act to remove this president, a new powerful message would be sent to governments and people around the globe, just like the one that went out in 1974: Moral principles still matter in American politics and policy. And the future still belongs to moral truth and to those who embrace it.
Andrei V. Kozyrev was the foreign minister of Russia from 1991 to 1996, and is the author of “The Firebird: The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy.”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article