On March 15, 1990, an extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, also called at that time "a model of an indestructible bloc between communists and non-party people," elected Mikhail Gorbachev president of the Country of Soviets. The first and, as it turned out very soon, the last.
Perestroika gave a powerful slip. The Soviet Union was in a fever with interethnic conflicts. The store shelves were rapidly emptying. But the country faced head-to-head with the greatest achievement of the Gorbachev era - great friendship with the West.
Broad white-toothed smiles, friendly pats on the shoulder, a summit there, a summit here … The country was falling apart before our eyes: the Baltic States, the Caucasus were floating away under radical nationalist slogans, Central Asia was breaking away. In Russia itself (the RSFSR), a wave of discord, poverty and chaos arose. The country has lost the thread of foreign policy to protect interests at distant approaches. But Mikhail Sergeevich didn’t have it before. Mikhail Sergeevich had euphoria …
After all, he has been courted by fellow politicians from the countries of Europe and North America for many years, rubbing all over the place, saying: “Mikhail Sergeevich is doing the right thing! Right!"
Withdrawn troops from Afghanistan. Euphoria? - Euphoria. The Berlin Wall has collapsed. Euphoria? - Well, of course euphoria. Especially when Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Helmut Kohl, Douglas Hurd and others, others, others, shaking hands with Gorbachev, said something like this: Well, you gave it, Misha!.. We did not expect such a turn. They thought you were on the table with your fist… You thought you would demand reinforced concrete documentary guarantees “in exchange” for a step towards the unification of Germany. And you, Michal Sergeich, well done! - did everything in such a way that it was difficult for us to even hope for. Then you go to the office for the Nobel Prize.
And Mikhail Sergeevich blossomed. I wanted to show him even more confidence in the Western friends of the USSR. And let, he says, instead of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, thrice damned by all progressive mankind, I will become a real democratic leader, the support of the entire Soviet people?
Well, of course, Misha, - the friends approved. Is it possible to remind people of the bloody pages of the history of this party? Be you president! Just listen to how it sounds: pre-zi-dent! - chased, democratic, fresh!
And what about the non-expansion of NATO, friends? - You offend, Michal Sergeich - everything is as promised: they said NATO will not expand, but NATO is nowhere, as you can see, and is not expanding. Our word, Michal Sergeich - granite, lump! And the fact that you believed us is just great. We don’t believe ourselves, and our peoples don’t believe us, but you believed in us - you are a worthy politician, little devil - take something else from the shelf there. Credit? - you say. - Well, you will have a loan - you still don't have to pay - the descendants will pay off … We'll wait somehow, the interest is good - double-digit, in dollars.
What is all this "lyrics" for? And to the fact that at the end of last year, the US National Security Archives at George Washington University published material that consists of numerous notes and notes, one way or another related to "guarantees", as it were, provided to the then Soviet power elite by Western partners. The material is titled "NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard".
In a rather lengthy document, it is quite frankly stated that, in fact, no one offered any guarantees to Gorbachev, unless, of course, the statements from the series "Yes, we are telling you for sure that NATO will not expand" are considered guarantees.
What attracts attention?
European leaders, including the Germans, British and French, by and large, did not themselves believe that Gorbachev, without any "tough" requests from his side, would agree to actually surrender not only the GDR, but the entire eastern bloc. Thus, a note contained in the aforementioned American archive is published, on which - the words of the then head of German diplomacy, Hans-Dietrich Genscher. The note was sent to Washington through the American Embassy in Bonn. Fragment of text:
The changes in Eastern Europe and the unification of Germany must not harm Soviet security interests. East German targets cannot be included in NATO military structures. East Germany in this context should have a special status.
By the way, as a result, a document was even born - September 12, 1990 - which secured this pseudo-special status for the former GDR.
The same Genscher from February 1990:
The Soviet Union should receive guarantees that if, for example, the Polish leadership at some point leaves the Warsaw Pact Organization, then the very next day it will not join NATO.
This formulation in words (this is the key word - IN WORDS) was supported by official London, which, in its usual openly deceitful manner, announced through the mouth of the then British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd: NATO will not move an inch east.
The American Secretary of State James Baker immediately picked up the wording: Yes, yes, he says - Not an inch …
From material published by the American National Security Archives:
Not only the Soviet Union, but other countries as well need guarantees that if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, then the current military jurisdiction of the Alliance will not advance an inch to the east.
Gorbachev was then asked: how does he view the fact that after the unification of Germany, American troops remain in the western part of it, and "do not climb" to the east, like the entire NATO infrastructure? And the Secretary General replied:
Of course, no enlargement of NATO is acceptable.
The most important note from the American archive with the words of James Baker:
It turns out that NATO within its current borders (at that time - author's note) is acceptable.
This actually untied the hands of the United States. Even more untied Washington's hands were openly draining any "oral promises" to Gorbachev by the then director of central intelligence (the prototype of the CIA), Robert Gates. If the secretary of state, who is naively called the third person in the United States after the president and vice president, still tried to state something about the fact that the Warsaw Pact countries need to block the very possibility of joining NATO, then Gates, seeing the crumbling USSR, made a different decision, saying something like the following: "Guys, let's not close all the doors for them (the countries of the" socialist camp ")." And he didn’t deceive: at first they kept the doors ajar, then they flung them wide open, and only now they put a turnstile on them so that only those who would really come in handy in NATO could enter.
Noteworthy in the published archival data are materials concerning the position of the then official Paris. And then the French authorities were not yet slaves at the American court. So … François Mitterrand said the following thing to Gorbachev in May 1990: my friend, my dear, you can listen to the Americans, of course, but let's think together: if everything goes to the fact that Germany is really uniting, the Warsaw Pact Organization is dismantled, then you can reasonably raise the question that the military blocs should be completely abolished.
That is, there was an unequivocal hint that Gorbachev could well have made the elimination of NATO a condition for approving the merger of the FRG and the GDR.
However, as is well known, the future Nobel Prize winner did not do anything like that. Officially, he was content with verbal guarantees of the security of the USSR and the non-expansion of NATO.
But really, what kind of anti-state cockroaches in my head I had to be at that moment in order to pro … uh-uh … -to allow such an opportunity as mutually beneficial mutual elimination of military blocs: Western NATO and the Eastern OVD. It was quite worthy of the Nobel Prize. But … NATO, as a military institution, has survived. And if, as the classic used to say, a gun hangs on the wall, then it will certainly (according to the laws of the genre) shoot. And it fired … It still fired so that it clogs the ears.
Therefore, a lot can be said today on the topic: Mikhail Gorbachev was deceived by cunning Western schemers with their oral promises, but only for the head of the world's largest state with a powerful army, a ramified network of special services, ideology created for decades, this is clearly not an explanation. In fact, there was an open surrender of state interests. Let this be true with a beard, but the materials published by the Americans once again confirm this fact.
Once again - a link to materials published in the United States. There is something to pay attention to.
