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217 Document No. 1: Transcript of Mikhail gorbachev’s Conference with CC CPSU Secretaries March 15, 1985 These minutes, which are as close to an official transcript as can be found in the Soviet archives, provide Gorbachev’s report to and discussion with top CPSU officials about his first meeting as Soviet leader with the East European allies. That encounter occurred immediately following the funeral of General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev’s predecessor. Interesting hints emerge here about Gorbachev’s attitude to the various leaders. For example, he is very positive about Poland’s Wojciech Jaruzelski, Hungary’s János Kádár, and Czechoslovakia’s Gustáv Husák, but negative to the point of sarcasm about Romania’s Nicolae Ceauşescu. Ironically, the meeting also discussed renewal of the Warsaw Pact for another 20 years. In his memoirs, Gorbachev describes this meeting as a watershed, as the moment when he talked to each of his counterparts about the need to “revitalize” relations and to take full responsibility for their own countries. In this retrospective view, his statement to his fellow leaders signified no less than “a shift to new realities , a rejection of the Brezhnev Doctrine.” Similarly, Anatoly Chernyaev would later comment at the Musgrove conference that the meeting was a turning point. Yet the document below does not entirely bear the weight of such a claim, and one wonders whether the East European leaders heard Gorbachev’s message quite so clearly. Gorbachev: I think that we gave a fitting farewell to Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko. It was well received by the party and the people. I spoke with Konstantin Ustinovich’s family yesterday. The family is very grateful. Now we have to think through all the questions related to memorializing K. U. Chernenko’s legacy. Let us entrust comrades [Yegor K.] Ligachev and [Mikhail V.] Zimyanin to work these issues through. At the same time, we should make decisions on all the issues regarding material support for K. U. Chernenko’s family. We already have a draft of this decision. Today, the flow of condolences in connection with the death of Konstantin Ustinovich continues, and many of these condolences have important content. The people and the party as a whole received the decisions of the March Plenum of the CC CPSU with high approval. Responses and greetings are coming from all parts of the country and from abroad. Dolgikh: Very positive responses. Gorbachev: The people support the party’s policy and are expressing their satisfaction with the unanimity that was exhibited at the Politburo session and the CC CPSU Plenum. This undermines completely the slanderous allegations of the Western press, which in recent months has expended rivers of ink to prove that there was a rivalry, a struggle for power and so on, within the Soviet leadership. Melyakova book.indb 217 2010.04.12. 16:20 218 Zimyanin: Now they have bitten their tongues. Gorbachev: The overall reaction of working people to the decisions of the Plenum is positive. The Soviet people support actively the thoughts expressed at the Plenum about the need to concentrate on practical work, on discipline and order, and on the continuation of our Leninist party line. Zimyanin: Yesterday, the scholars who took part in the USSR Academy of Sciences session were talking about it very actively. Gorbachev: Such support from the working people gives us strength and places many obligations upon us. As far as the international resonance of the decisions of the Plenum is concerned , I felt it especially during conversations with the foreign leaders who arrived for Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko’s funeral. Almost all of them tried to meet with our leadership and spoke about the need to develop contacts and cooperation. The meeting of the leaders of the member-states of the Warsaw Treaty Organization took place in an exceptionally warm, comradely, and business-like atmosphere. Romanov: Comrade [János] Kádár spoke very positively about that meeting and its business-like, constructive character. Gorbachev: Kádár was the first to speak at the meeting. He gave a very good, I would say internationalist, speech. [Erich] Honecker supported him actively. Comrade [gustáv] Husák’s speech at the meeting was exceptionally important. Rusakov: Husák’s speech was the best. Gorbachev: The leaders of all the fraternal countries spoke about the need to hold regular meetings at the level of first secretaries of the communist and workers ’ parties of the socialist commonwealth. Comrade [Wojciech] Jaruzelski said directly...

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