Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union - David Satter

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In 1978, Vietnam, a close ally of Moscow’s, invaded Kampuchea and replaced the Pol Pot regime with the Vietnamese puppet government of Heng Samrin.

      It was against this background that the Afghanistan crisis which threatens to take U.S.-Soviet relations back to the Cold War emerged. The Soviets were faced with a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan where a pro-Soviet Government, installed by a coup in 1978, appeared in danger of being overthrown by anti-Soviet Muslim guerrillas.

      The Soviets paid no political price for their intervention in Angola and Ethiopia. But they cannot have been under any doubt that there would be a sharp American reaction if they flouted the U.S. notion of detente by intervening openly in Afghanistan.

      Detente created greater security in Europe, but only on the condition that the Soviets did not go too far through open military intervention in tipping the balance of forces in the Third World. The U.S. had little choice but to link detente agreements to Soviet behaviour in the Third World because the Soviet Union has several inherent advantages there. No public outcry within the Soviet Union will prevent the dispatch of Soviet or Cuban troops to a zone of conflict. Once a Soviet-style regime has been installed in another country, the Soviets work to ensure that it will never be displaced.

      When the Soviets decided to go into Afghanistan they had reason to be worried about the strategic situation on their southern border. Soviet officials saw little prospectfor good relations with Iran’s religious leaders in the long run, in spite of present U.S.-Iranian conflicts. All attempts to improve relations with China had been rejected as China moved steadily closer to the U.S.

      Soviet officials have said that when the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan they believed that they had very little to lose because of the failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify SALT-2, the NATO decision to deploy new medium range missiles in western Europe, the increase of U.S. and NATO defence spending, and the long standing U.S. failure to respond to Soviet “signals” asking for broader trade opportunities.

      All this is probably true. But there is little possibility that the Soviet Union would have desisted from invading Afghanistan had the survival of a Marxist regime there depended on it, no matter what the state of detente. The goodwill of the detente era carried within it the risk that people in West, who value the benefits of East-West cooperation, would lose their sense of realism. Even President Carter was affected by this.

      Hierarchical

      The Soviet Union, although an established power, differs fundamentally from most other states. It is organised like a revolutionary movement with the hierarchy, discipline and secrecy of the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party.

      The idea of the Soviet Union as the vanguard of a committed ideological movement is false if measured against the Soviet people’s true beliefs and could almost be abandoned were it not frozen into the power structure of Soviet society with its lack of liberty, hierarchical gradations of authority and privilege, and proliferation of “secret” establishment; which do not guard anything that would be considered secret in any other society. But being organised like an ideological movement, it feels compelled to act like one.

      When the U.S. announced its retaliatory measures, it was restricted in the methods it could choose, but the grain and technology embargoes and the threatened Olympic boycott, whatever their practical consequences, are certain to have a deep and lasting effect.

      Soviet leaders often betray a desire for Western style respectability and their decision to banish Dr. Sakharov, after 10 years of tolerating his dissident activities, is one measure of how deeply the U.S. rejection of them has hurt. The attitude of the Soviet regime towards dissidents has always been repressive. The arrest and exile of Dr. Sakharov is a sign that, having given up hope of attaining Western style respectability, the Soviets are now about to demonstrate to the world the extent to which they had previously been restrained.

      Mr. Roy Medveder, the dissident historian, once noted that the 1970s had been the quietest decade in Soviet history, but added cautiously that there was no way to be sure that the stability that the leadership of Mr. Brezhnev had sought to bring to the country could be guaranteed in the years ahead.

      With Mr. Aleksei Kosygin, the 75-year-old Prime Minister, seriously ill after a heart attack and Mr. Brezhnev reportedly working only three or four hours a day because of failing health, the Soviet leaders and those who will soon succeed them face a world situation clouded with uncertainty.

      ERZEUGT DURCH JUTOH - BITTE REGISTRIEREN SIE SICH, UM DIESE ZEILE ZU ENTFERNEN

      Caviar sold as herring

      200 Soviet Officials Held

      The Soviet authorities have arrested more than 200 employees of the Fisheries Ministry, including top officials, in connection with a multimillion dollar caviar swindle which appears to be among the most serious economic crimes in Soviet history.

      It is understood Ministry officials made a secret and illegal agreement with a Western firm to send black caviar abroad in sealed 3–5 litre tins marked “smoked, seasoned herring.”

      A Western firm which imported the caviar paid the hard currency price for herring. Then it repacked the caviar and sold it at enormous profit, splitting the proceeds with Ministry officials, whose share was deposited in Swiss bank accounts.

      Economic crimes involving foreign currency, are punishable by death in the Soviet Union if big enough. It is believed more than 150 people could be liable to capital punishment for their role in the caviar operation which involved the Okean stores in Moscow and was undetected for more than 10 years.

      Fisheries Ministry officials asked about the report declined to speak to the Financial Times. However, an official of the Internal Affairs Ministry acknowledged he was working on an investigation involving the Okean stores, but declined to discuss the case.

      The Soviet Foreign Ministry also declined to comment and there has been no mention of the case in the press.

      The Soviet system, with its uncertain distribution network, shoddy consumer goods and tough currency restrictions, creates rich opportunities for black market operations and illegal economic activity. Some is overlooked by the authorities if it is economically beneficial.

      There is a history of large scale operations, although not, it is believed, as complex as the caviar swindle. The insistence on fulfilling the plan creates possibilities for massive concealment, if all staff of an enterprise are willing to falsify results.

      What appears unprecedented in the Okean scandal is the alleged involvement of Ministry hierarchy, as opposed to an individual enterprise, and that the payments were in hard currency.

      The investigation has been going on since February last year, when Mr. Alexander Ishkov resigned as Fisheries Minister. Also replaced were other high officials, including Mr. Vladimir I. Rytov, a deputy minister, Mr. I. V. Nikonorov and Mr F. P. Zaitsev, two Ministry Secretariat members; and Mr. S. I. Gushchyan, deputy chief of resources and fish products marketing.

      Besides the more than 200 people arrested in Moscow, hundreds of people involved in processing, packing and distributing caviar have been held in the provinces, especially Soviet Azerbaijan, where most black caviar originates.

      Also apparently involved in the operation were scores of restaurant managers in Moscow, the Black Sea resort of Sochi, and other cities.

      Mr. Ishkov has not been arrested, although the state prosecutor’s office has demanded that he be charged. Other major figures are about to go on trial, however, and the investigation continues.

      Red caviar from the Soviet Far East and other types of fish delicacies were also reportedly involved, but black caviar was the largest item because of the substantial increase in production from the Caspian Sea in the last 10 or 15 years.

      Mr. Alexei Kosygin, the Soviet Prime Minister, is reported to have interceded for Mr. Ishkov—one of the longest-serving Ministers and a member

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