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241 Document No. 9: Notes of CC CPSU Politburo Session January 29, 1987 At Gorbachev’s first meeting as general secretary with the leaders of the East European fraternal parties in 1985, his new language was already remarkable (even if his audience did not hear it clearly); but this Politburo session at the beginning of 1987 represents the fullest expression of Gorbachev’s principle of non-interference in Eastern Europe—beyond the repudiation of military intervention. Gorbachev tells his colleagues, “And we should hold more firmly to the principle of each communist party being responsible for what happens in its country. We need this. It is in our interest not to be loaded down with responsibility for what is happening, or could happen , there.” The motive here seems to stem from a growing sense of Eastern Europe as a drain on the USSR, rather than a net asset—its benefit as an essential security buffer, in the Stalinist conception, was beginning to be outweighed by the costs of its economic upkeep. Increasingly, the Soviet Union’s own “economic difficulties” at this stage mean that the West is the only possible source of “state-of-the-art equipment and technology” while the USSR is simply a “spigot” for gas and oil. These notes also reveal some of the character of the internal Soviet leadership debate. Yakovlev notes how Soviet reform processes are creating political problems for the East European “friends,” and Dobrynin tries to defend Honecker, and in so doing, may be seen as implicitly criticizing perestroika (“our friends do not know the positive” in it). Gorbachev sees leadership change as inevitable and imminent in Eastern Europe, describing the fraternal leaders there practically as “little Brezhnevs ,” but he is not willing to interfere directly to replace them with “little Gorbachevs :” “We cannot assume the position of giving political evaluations or snubbing people. We can have only one kind of influence: through the example of our own actions.” There is no defined strategy in his presentation, however, just a call for “[m]ore contacts, more information” and continued friendship. ON THE OUTCOME OF THE WARSAW MEETINg OF CC SECRETARIES FROM CMEA COUNTRIES REgARDINg INTERNATIONAL AND IDEOLOgICAL QUESTIONS Yakovlev: Our friends are having political troubles because of our XXVII Congress and now because of our Plenum: they don’t know what to do and how to behave with us. Dobrynin (he went to Berlin before the meeting—A.Ch.) We should not dramatize nuances in Honecker’s and the SED’s behavior. We have the same position on international issues as they do, except for german–german relations. We should broaden our relationship with the gDR as a counterbalance. Our friends do not know the positive in perestroika very well. Melyakova book.indb 241 2010.04.12. 16:20 242 Gorbachev: We have disagreements with him [Honecker] in the sphere of perestroika. He compares our self-government with Yugoslavia’s: how poorly we know each other, after all! He sees [Mikhail] Shatrov’s play about Lenin as a deviation from the traditions of October. He is unhappy with our treatment of Sakharov. (Chernyaev’s note: Aliyev fell asleep a long time ago!) Medvedev (he was in Berlin as well—A.Ch.): The SED rejected the slogan “Learn from the Soviet Union How to Win.” The Delhi Declaration was not printed in the gDR. Criticism of the U.S. has been toned down. We should not speak of a separate SED line because there is no SED CC resolution on that. We are talking about divergences and deviations. Gorbachev: So far, nothing unexpected is happening. We could have expected this. Those roots go beyond our April Plenum. Honecker, Kádár, and Zhivkov—they all have deviations from us. Economic ties with the West have gone very far. That is the result of our economic difficulties . We could not provide them with state-of-the-art equipment and technology, so they got into debt with the West. On the political side, our relations on the highest level have slackened while relations between them have become broader. Our approach should be: a) To develop the attractiveness of Soviet processes, to show the dynamism of our development and our foreign policy. We cannot respond to their actions by starting down the path of shutting off spigots (gas, oil). To pay in currency, if they insisted on it, would be catastrophic for them. It is pointless to shout that we are wrong to give it to them...

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