all morning he was struck august 20 if he received a telegram saying his papers are arrived safe at harvard. $6,000 is what harvard paid all with $6,000, quite amazing. but the exiled papers which means everything from 1929 brandt trotsky was exiled from the soviet union all the way up until now his death, those were not open to scholars until 1980. and because of that out to all scholars come isaac who wrote the classic trilogy had access to those archives the you have to trust him and he wasn't great for sources, not always, and when it came to the affair with frida he looked the other way and he couldn't believe it was happening. he was flustered. you can't blame him, he was

riding in the 1950's. but the boy to biography had some access to this but the speed of biographies of trotsky that cannot of the 1970's, no one had our access so people than kind of lose interest in trotsky and then when they regain interest, and it starts with dmitri, a former soviet army general who writes these great biographies in the early 1990's and has access to the archives, those coming out everyone is focused not on harvard, they are focused on what you're asking about. we want to get into the archives and see what is there so in fact what i found as i began to research the book is there is a lot of great stuff at harvard and then here who for inherited the papers of that party, that was trotsky's party in america. and he would be suppressed because hoover has a reputation for being a conservative

think-tank but there are many people left who will get their papers to the hoover archives because they know they will be well taken care of when the researchers have access and so on. great stuff, the bodyguards, teamsters, the papers are here so i was able to use those so all of that taken together i put together the story of the murder in a way that hadn't been done before. one more question. yes, one more question. come on up. i will repeat it. >> [inaudible] >> i decided i think largely for aesthetic purposes to avoid trotsky which sounds like you get a call when clark pest control. it sounds a little funny to

trotskyist was used and i decided to go with that and be consistent except where i quoted people singing trtoskite, it sounds less mutual. the word of sounds as old as the russian revolution may be of really when he is in exile there is an american trotskyite party, but it just grates on the to use that. folks, thanks for coming out and i will see you all again. [applause] >> bertrand patenaude is the author of the american relief expedition to soviet russia in the famine of 1921. he's currently a research fellow at the hoover institution.

find out more. but isn't hoover.org. archie brown for our politics professor at university presents a history of communism. the john hopkins school for evidence international studies in washington, d.c. hosts this 90 minute event. >> my name is bruce, the director of the russian studies program, and i am very pleased to welcome you to this lecture by dr. r. g. brown. the even is co-sponsored by sais

and st. ns college was this part of oxford university where dr. brown spent most of his professional career. archie brown is emeritus professor of politics at the university of oxford emeritus fellow of st. antony's college. he began his academic career with doctoral studies of the london school of economics and political science where he worked with leonard shapiro was the giants in the development of russian soviet studies in the west. from lsd, he moved to a lectureship in the department of politics and [applause] university and then on to oxford. the following decades he was a visiting professor of yale, columbia university and university of texas austin. in 1998 he was distinguished visiting fellow at the kellogg institute of international studies at the university of notre dame. i am personally interested to dr. kronman more than one sense. in the early 1970's i spent two

years as a visiting fellow at st. antony's where i was in exile writing a dissertation for columbia university. and that is where i met him. in addition to the intellectual exchanges one encounter was especially beneficial for me. in the spring of 1974 archie stopped me near the library and asked argue going to apply for the job at john hopkins university? to which i responded by most ordained manner what job at johns hopkins university? [laughter] if archie hadn't asked me that question my own career would have followed a different and less happy path. i also indicated to dr. brown in a general scholarly cents. his major publications include the gorbachev a factor published by oxford in 19967 years that changed the world in 2007 and

most recently the rise and fall of communism published by aco in 2009. in addition to his work on political leadership and communist history and politics he has written on the end of the cold war and edited important encyclopedias and reference works on russia and the u.s.s.r.. these and many other publications he has been an on fittingly observer of the communist world in general and in russia in particular. his writings are distinguished by meticulous research, shrewd political judgments and admirable sensitivity to the experiences of the individuals living in the political systems he studies. his most recent book is a splendid piece of scholarship, rigorously researched and gracefully written. here is. i've already added to the list of required readings for students in the studies program. in short dr. brown gives social science or perhaps he would prefer to say social studies a

good name. that is something all of us social scientists can be grateful for. in recognition of his achievements dr. rahm was elected a fellow of the british academy in 1991 and for a moderate member of the american academy of arts and sciences in 2003. in 2005 he was awarded the compendium order of st. michael and saint george and of the queen's birthday our list for service to u.k. russia relations and the study of political science and international affairs three for all of these reasons it gives me special pleasure to introduce dr. r. g. brown -- archie brown. [applause] >> i'm extremely grateful, burst of for that introduction. i've no mention of the straw that -- job at sais.

well, i should say first of all to those from my old kawlija are here but i want to start telling everybody about the college so other people who are not would be rather bored by that. but i can tell you the colleges in good shape and excellent in market mad mahlon and people are pretty happy there in spite of the hard times for diversities as well as other institutions these days. the title of my talk is the fall of the ball and fall of communism, why and why 1989? the tomé anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall almost upon us that is my natural starting point. by not spending much time on the immediate effect dramatic though it was the basic facts by now or will the best known. so why focus will be mainly on the longer-term process that brought this about. the breaching the wall was just one at a number of unintended

consequences and a long chain of events in the transition from communism. under increasing pressure, as a result of what was taking place in the soviet union and elsewhere of eastern europe the east german leadership decided to relax some of the regulations for the east german citizens traveling abroad. it was no part of their intention however to open the border completely. nevertheless a carroll was answered by the bureau member to give the impression at a press conference that the wall was going to be opened. this news was broadcast back to east germany by the respected west german television presenter who said that the gates and the wall were open and at that point they were completely closed. but it is a good example of how perceptions even misperceptions can change reality because tens of thousands of people turned up at the berlin wall under the

impression they were little bit and they were not open. the party leadership couldn't be consulted because they were in the late night central committee meeting and everybody was afraid to interrupt it. and so the person in charge of the guards at the ball had to take a decision themself and there were so many people there rather than try to shoot them all they decided to open the gates. the next morning gorbachev was told about this by the east german ambassador, the whole soviet bureau were asleep at time global sow by 11:30 in the evening in germany and was two hours later in moscow but when the east german ambassador told to gorbachev happened gorbachev told him the leadership to give the correct direction and please convey that to the leadership. the effect the leadership had taken that decision at all they wanted to deal more are led by what happened to gorbachev.

the fall of the wall is not some on this with all of communism. the dismantling of communist systems in europe and soviet union itself was already well advanced by the time the wall was breached 20 years ago. so i'm going to spend the remainder of my time examining the reasons for the fall of communism in europe rather than for the wall in berlin specifically. the law to the call of the wall was proceeding the fence. we need to remind ourselves communism as a political movement was basically successful at one time so far as numbers were concerned. in the 1980's almost one-third of the world's population with a finger under communist rule. at various times it's a second world war western leaders thought communists were winning the competition. in the 1950's there were worries

the growth rate was faster than the growth rate of market economies with the soviet but the first person in space the said bills ringing in the united states and elsewhere and the vietnam war that was fought on the ground if the whole of the vietnam and communist, the rest would quickly follow. the so-called domino effect. as it happened the dominoes fell not in asia in the 1970's but eastern europe in 1989. we shouldn't forget either that thanks largely to the huge population of china, more than one-fifth of humanity still live under what may be regarded as communist rule. up until 1989 there were 16 communist states as i would define them. oddly there are 36 countries today which were at one time communist. that contradiction is to be

explained by the fact the soviet union, one state broke up and became 15 states and czechoslovakia and yugoslavia also broke up so there'll be were 16 communist states but there were 36 countries that were communist and today there are five common is countries, china, vietnam, laos, north korea and cuba. the first three have been developing market economies on a substantial private sectors. the hybrid regimes, political economist economically not. china has been described as a state of party cabalism. archaeologically is a world away from the china over which he ruled. but i was in beijing early this year a professor of economics told me how puzzled he had been to breed in a bbc poll karl marx emerged as the greatest philosopher of all times. he seemed to be much reassured when i told him this wasn't a

scientific poll based on a representative sample. it was a kind of poll people had to fill and or e-mail to take the initiative to register your votes to and the marxists were more motivated and better organized than support of aristotle, hobbes or david hume. ..

>> >> place elsewhere, specifically in moscow. there is absolutely no mystery about poland or czechoslovakia become independent and non-communist once the peoples of those countries realized that this was highly unlikely to lead to soviet military intervention. the same is even truer of the breaching of the berlin wall and the subsequent unification of germany. all these things would have happened now insists years earlier, but decades earlier but for the perfectly correct assumption in east central europe busted the might of the soviet union and the soviets' military ary superpower ready to intervene with all means necessary to defend what it regarded, what the soviet union regarded as its legitimate gain

from the second world war and its victory in the current war against nazi germany. the soviet invasion of hungary was a stark reminder for east and central europeans of the limitations on autonomy. poland was the least disciplined, but even in poland, solidarity was stopped in its tracks by the imposition of martial law in december 1981. the soviet, as we now know from the transcripts of the soviet bureau at that time, seriously considered military intervention in poland august 1980. by then they decided it would create more problems than it would resolve. i am sure they were correct in that assumption. there are already bogged down in afghanistan hanistan at the tim. so in the course of 1981 they put enormous pressure at the

polish authorities to institute their on crackdown, which they did at the end of that year. so much less what happened in eastern and central europe in 1989 than a change of policy in moscow. three individuals in particular have been credited with playing a decisive role in the ending of communism in europe, president ronald reagan, pope john paul ii, and mikhail gorbachev. i'll speak about reagan first. a lot of people attribute president reagan's rhetoric, things like talking about the soviets union has an evil empire. some people see a causal relationship between reagan's speech in january 1987 and the fall of the wall in november.

i don't myself see this at all. gorbachev at the time said to his aid that reagan was still after eight years not managed to throw off his former profession. he saw this as a piece of play acting in berlin and didn't take it especially seriously. i think james mann in his recent book, which i read with interest, was right in saying that reagan's speech was aimed more at his domestic audience than at the soviet union because reagan was under a lot of pressure in 1987. not only conservative republicans, but people who regard themselves as realists. alexander haig, richard nixon were all very critical of reagan's apparent willingness to

trust gorbachev and his willingness to sign the agreement in europe. the former american ambassador to moscow, an excellent ambassador between 1987 and 1991, in his book "reagan and gorbachev: how the cold world ended" a lot of these people have been supporters of reagan's zero option. and then it was dismissed out of hand. that made the point that a lot of people supported it, only the assumption that the a soviet union could never accepted. i don't think that it was reagan's rhetoric which brought this profound change in the soviet union and eastern europe because, in fact, when he

accidentally in moscow, the people who wanted this change or wanted to end the cold war the buildup of strategic defense initiative, the strength and the hard-liners. the soviet military were worried because the scientists thought it would work. most of them were very skeptical or dismiss it completely. but an investment into this for a technological spinoff that would strengthen the magistrates are forces. as usual ease complex argued that it necessitated more resources for them. it would not have been fully operational for another 20 years.

the strength of soviet hard-liners just as the evil empire did in the same year, 1983. but in that year, 1983, their poor actually fears and of very high-level that nato and the united states specifically might be thinking about a pre-emptive strike on the soviet union and this rhetoric was a kind of psychological prepared this of americans for nuclear war. until a kgb colonel who was working in london who was also working for mi-6 warned his british that this exercise was about to take place, being seen as possibly more than an

exercise. possibly a pre-emptive strike against the soviet union. so that exercise was altered in order to reassure the soviet union that it could not be anything other than an exercise. reagan was important in the end of the cold war, but important in another way. he wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker, not a war monger. mann's book emphasizes systemize in the second term reagan alarmed his conservative republican basis and mentioned ed have critical the so-called realists were of him because he was very seriously interested in engaging with the soviet union at that time. in concrete policy term no one was more important than george schultz, the secretary of state.

most surprising of all was the part played by the popular historian, suzanne massie, who had numerous meetings with reagan. we knew about them before. she sent reagan frequent letters of advice. she was introduced in 1984 and found ways of talking to him about russia, which helped him to think about russians as people, which he had not been inclined to do before. massey was also also one of thoe that thought a serious change was taking place in the soviet union under gorbachev. she strengthened reagan's desire which was also greatly enforced by margaret thatcher. in his early years president reagan was not much interested

in engaging with the soviet leaders. as he complained, these guys keep dying on me. but pope john paul ii, pope john paul ii was hugely important in relation to his native poland. he went there in 1979. this was a pivotal moment in the rise of solidarity. it was absolutely no accident or coincidence. the pride, the sense that god was on their side. this was pretty crucial for the development of solidarity in 1981. however, no more than reagan's military power he was the pope's moral authority able to implement the imposition of

martial law. so i would argue that gorbachev was more important for the transformations of 1989 than president reagan and pope john paul ii put together. it was the occupancy of the kremlin, not the occupants of the white house or the vatican had locked the doors to change. after three leaders in a row the polish leader chose the youngest leader. a lot of people took the view up to the mid-1980s and even beyond that the soviet system in particular was impervious to change from within. the kgb worked efficiently to eliminate the possibility of change from below. as for change from above, surely that was impossible.

the idea that a reform will could climb all the way to the general secretaryship was regarded as far-fetched. gorbachev was much more of a reformer than he was prepared to reveal. and as years he became substantially more radical. he was chosen because he was already the second secretary of the party to seize the initiative. called a meeting within a few hours of his death and within 24 hours gorbachev had been chosen not only by the bureau, but by the central committee. no plausible alternative candidates. state funerals had become something of an embarrassment. that, however, did not stop russians from telling jokes

about them. it was said in moscow that yesterday the central committee unanimously elected general secretary and agreed that his ashes will be buried in the kremlin wall. similarly after mrs. thatcher met with his successor to tell the story that she immediately telephoned president reagan and said he should have come for the funeral. they did it really well. i'm definitely coming back next year. i was told, of course she did come back next year. there was absolutely nothing inevitable about the dismantling of communism. did not imagine for a moment that within five years the

political world would be transformed. my best friend was an economist communist who i first met in prague in 1965. she was allowed out of the country for the first time since 1969 in 1987 when she came and spent some time with us and of rum and oxford. in the nearly 1989 they had permission to come to a holiday. she was very active in the movement at that time. she was being followed everywhere. just one small example of how dramatically and quickly things changed in 1989. before that year and didn't she was the first communist ambassador of czechoslovakia to the united states.

it was later incidentally have put the words revolution into the english language. what i was told was that the more most that she and her fries dared hope for was that czechoslovakia might be allowed to go as far and be allowed some modest economic reform. there was no expectation in eastern europe anymore than there was in washington or west european capitals that soviet domestic and foreign policy was going to be fundamentally transformed. a serious can to be terry factor to y factor to the demise of communism was, of

course, its economic failure. for example, a very economic determinist view of the end of the soviet union. the oil price in the second half of the 1980's it was important. i don't think this a sufficient explanation. the soviet union did have a problem of technological lag except in the defense sector which did pretty -- which was rather successful. i don't think there is an automatic link between economic failure and the collapse of the regime. it would be hard to deny that north korea was economically much poorer than south korea. but their leader is still an power and developing nuclear

weapons. regimes which are infinitely poorer than as a year managed to keep going for decades longer than they they deserve to. over the long term it is true that market economies with all their problems turned out to be more efficient than the command economies. but if we consider the longer-term reasons for regime change it was not only the relative areas, some of their success is also contrary to the. education, for example, was a success story. but the more educated people were and especially the larger and higher education sector the more dissatisfied they were with the and the more dissatisfied they were with their lack of upper chantey to travel abroad in the same way as their professional counterparts in the west could do.

fidel castro described it as the greatest newspaper in the world. something to the fact that fidel doesn't read russian. for education depressions founded an inadequate source of information. in the soviet union of 1939 only one in ten of the population had received more than an elementary education. by 1984 the percentage had risen to 87%. the proportion of the soviet population who had completed high education was almost seven times higher in 1984 on the eve than it had been just one generation earlier in 1954. it was especially high in moscow. well, marks idea that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction by nurturing a

highly educated population. although in all communist countries officials ruled more power. the highly educated made up a disproportionately large part of the communist party. the west was important just by being there and providing a source of alternative ideas. only a minority of soviet citizens were allowed to travel abroad, but that minority included leading party officials. over many years the law and serving soviet foreign minister was living proof that this does not happen automatically. however, foreign travel combined with an open mind could make a huge difference. gorbachev said it is his short visits to a number of west european countries in the 1970's that opened his eyes to soviet propaganda and how people actually lived in western

countries. q. are you going to believe? me or your on eyes? gorbachev preferred his own eyes to the dogma that he was being dispensed from the central committee. very important also that the ten years he spent in canada, the second most important. when he returned in 1983 he was much more critical of the soviet system than he had been many left for canada a decade earlier. in the long-term communism was also undermined by nationalism. this was always a potential threat to communist rule, although some liberalization of the system was required before potential could become reality. his potency was naturally especially good in a multinational state them in particular nationalism on the

surface of political life in the soviet union and yugoslavia. the more difficult it became to strengthen the legitimacy by playing the national guard. russian nationalism or serbian nationalism could be used to rally russians are serbs. moreover it was federal structures based on national boundary lines, regional differences and grievances became bound up with national sentiment. even so, nationalism did not lead to the demise of communist rule in any country until the radical reforms of the soviet perestroika had made their mark. nationalisms role was essentially more importance. the cold war has an ambiguous role in relation to the

persistence of or dissolution of communist regimes generally. the central paradox is that the cold war which is seen here with some justice as a necessary struggle to keep communism at bay and to restrain the soviet union also helped to sustain the soviet system. it is true, as many have pointed out, that the military was far greater on the soviet economy than it was on behalf of the net to states. propaganda in the soviet union against the perceived threat of foreign enemies helped to lend legitimacy to communist rule. the icy air the cold war became the starter was the position of hardliners in moscow a weakening

of the ministry of defence and of the kgb as institutional interest in the soviet system and a rapid decline in the influence of conservative communist appointments of domestic reform. i mentioned several long-term factors and some of the short-term factors. i turn finally to what seems to be the most immediate sources for a change in the soviet union in the second half of the 1980's which had consequences for eastern europe. i'll mention four. from what i have said already you will not be surprised that i suggest that the first was the choice of party leader, the general secretary. nothing new. that had been there for a very long time. what was new was a general

secretary interested in ideas and open to but was sent to be called new thinking. i am not endorsing a great man. , but in the strictly hierarchical soviet system merely a change at the top of the ira could make radical change in the system possible. gorbachev had long been an anti stalinist, though it wasn't possible to say so publicly it you wanted to advance your career. he was also come as he later set himself, and in former by nature. gorbachev's own views evolved. he believes the system could be reformed. by 1988 he believed it had to be comprehensively transformed. from that time on he was encased in dismantling the soviet system. although he fervently wished to preserve the soviet state. but he did not recognize until much later was that since this

was a party state a weakening of the party but also a weakening of the state. the second factor, there was an immediate source of transformation, ideation of change, change in the language of politics. the ideas were important in the rise and fall of communism. resigned 1956. i'd be dead if anything could say communism it would be worse than belligerence. communism was an idea, but an idea could not be dealt with by force. it must be bent over the handle of truth to test its strength. i do not come a said, believe that this particular idea if put to that test can survive. in gorbachev's own ideas evolved

greatly. already in his first three years he did change the language of soviet politics and embraced new concepts, new, at least for the soviet union. these quite quickly became more radical. he accepted the idea of the rule of law to which even the communist party would be subject. the idea of checks and balances, and also the idea of political foes and. he introduced the a idea of competitive -- principle of competitive alexian's but to place in march 1989 for a legislature that was cable of holding the country's leaders to accounts. the immediate was precisely the attempts to reform the soviet

system. much more a case of reform reducing crisis than of crisis making reform absolutely unavoidable. the views of gorbachev and his like-minded supporters evolve from wishing to reform the system to seeking a new way. gorbachev in 1989 it used a phrase which had so infuriated. later by 1990-'91 cards have had moved beyond that. this understanding of socialism by that time was more than us synonymous with west european social democrats. really by that time no longer west german chancellor, but presidents of socialist

international organization of democratic socialist parties in western europe. and the spanish socialist prime minister at that time. kirby johnson least favorite politicians were not surprisingly nikolai ryzhkov. the fact that the soviet union had embraced an advertising change and by no means a fully fledged democracy had become a pluralistic political system with contested elections for a legislature with real power was of profound importance for eastern europe. even more important, and this is my fourth immediate source was a change of soviet foreign policy. as early as 1985 gorbachev told the leaders of the east european countries that you could expect no more soviet interventions to keep him in office, no more military assistance. this was not information that they chose to share with their

own people. in 1988 gorbachev made clear that the era of soviet intervention to prop up communist regimes in other countries as over. he did so first of all and the summer of '88 at a party conference and then again at the united nations in december 1988 in december he spoke of the binding nature of the freedom of choice system for the people of every country. this, he added, was a universal principle applying to the socialist and capitalist countries and allowing no exception. gorbachev told his aides that he intended this to be an entire fulton, fulton in reverse. he went by that winston churchill's speech which was not the beginning of the cold war. the beginning of the cold war with the soviet takeover of eastern europe.

a dramatization when churchill said that an iron curtain has descended across europe. he was trying to end the cold war and very efficiently with that speech. people in eastern europe demand the fact that major challenges had been mounted one at time weather in hungary in 1956, and czechoslovakia in 1968, or pollen in 1980-'81. coordination was, however, impossible. even if they manage to meet they had little chance of globalizing populations. they did pad have access to communications that could have provided the possibility of coordinating a simultaneous defiance of soviet imports rulers. the amount of force required to

maintain communist power was much less when expectations were low that it was when expectations were aroused. they were very high in hungary in 1956 and if anything did beacon still higher throughout eastern europe. first one country and then another effectively brought with communist rule. the hang darien's also destabilize to the east german regime by allowing east germans to travel to west germany. and then on the fourth of june 1989 the very day on which hundreds of people are being killed in beijing solidarity in the polish elections. there demonstrations, also leipg

and prague and budapest. the protests continued. what we saw was a circular flow of influence. began with the changes in both the political system and foreign policy in moscow. what happened there, especially poland, the june elections had a huge impact in the baltic republics of the soviet union. turned full circle. the soviet union itself by the end of 1989 year had a communist system in my view. the two most important political edge to be its are the communist

party and what it was called the democratic centralism. extremely limited rights and discussion. but in the march, 1989, contested elections saw communist party members competing against one another and the soviet union on fundamentally different platforms. democratic centralism was cast aside. without it was called the leading role of the party was also completely undermined. new political authorizations' such as the into regional group of deputies within the new parliament. much of this political pluralism was consciously embraced and even promoted by gorbachev and his allies within the party. this vehemently opposed. what gorbachev and the parties did not want was the breakup of

the soviet state. but here again the linkage between developments in eastern europe and the soviet union was a fundamental importance. by the end of 1989 everyone was aware that the soviet forces had not been deployed to prevent the east european cup countries from becoming independent. instructed to remain in their barracks. quelling into communism and pro-independence movements, people with an even the most drastic would have came to the conclusion to be applied all the more quickly. but since the soviet had accepted the loss of eastern europe but for the peoples of had been fairly tangible, barely

imaginable in 1985 and had begun to be unthinkable in 1989 and had become virtually unstoppable by 1991. i say almost unstoppable because it could have been stopped by a in moscow prepared to use coercion the ruthlessly and willing to pay the price. the last word on the lessons of the fall of communism. one of the most important lessons it seems to me is the engagement of western countries with communist countries paid off. the more contact the better. at the time of reagan's evil empire speech many influential washington politicians thought the last the united states had to do with the soviet union the better. reagan may have had less knowledge than some of his more conservative critics, but his political instincts stood him in better stead when he opted for dialogue and developed a good working relationship with

gorbachev. leers were also ready to engage from very early on. and at a later stage for his own good reasons. another lesson we may take from the critical transformation is that in a consolidated communist system and one in which the communists have come to power indigenously, not simply being put there by a foreign power, a fundamental change normally comes from within the communist party itself. this is partly because the system is such that it is very difficult for it to come from anywhere else. but immediate and occurrence, were far more important than most observers realize that the time. the same, i would suggest the minister of china today. the last big thing is that ideas

matter. during perestroika campus leaders dismissed the thinking has just so much hot air divorced from political reality. the tick the same view in 1988 that the citizens of every country have the right to decide for themselves what kind of political and economic system they wished to live in. but the events of 1989 showed that these were not an idle words. the fact that gorbachev used those words and manned them was the crucial facilitating condition for everything that happened in 1989. we are in a truly important and exciting anniversary year. the most fundamental decision was taken not in 1989, but 1988 and were made not in budapest or pride, but moscow. thank you.

[applauding] >> thank you for a very informative and stimulating lecture. we now have time for questions and comments from the audience. at think i will allow archy to call on questionnaires. before you ask a question please give your name and your institutional affiliation. >> i wonder how you think gorbachev is viewed today in russia? as a historian how would you speculate he might be viewed 25 years from now? >> of course he is blamed above all by russians with the breakup of the soviet union which was something he was desperate to avoid. he was not going to avoid it at all costs. it could have been avoided, and he was not prepared to pay that

price. people also see russia ceasing to be a great power, a superpower as the process began under gorbachev. he is criticized for that kind of reason. and think how he is with that in the future will depend really on how russia develops over the next decade. if russia becomes successful economically, if it becomes a democracy and is still further from that and indeed moving in the wrong direction in my view, if it at achieve those things that people will look back and see this is where it began with gorbachev and perestroika. a great deal depends on the development. we will remain a number of russians to see him as the greatest reformer and russian history. i've met russians to have said that. i have read that in articles by russians. even though i admired gorbachev

i admit that is the view of all in a small minority in russia today. [inaudible question] >> could you identify yourself please. [inaudible question] >> very objective. >> the question about china. what was the actual question? well, i had a very distinguished visitor this year. very interested in that question. a lot of writing and publication in china in the last 10-15 years has been trying to learn the lessons of what happened in the soviet union. there are quite a number of chinese party intellectuals who

are not only economic reformers, but political reformers. they all emphasize that we must have step-by-step reform. when i was in china in 1988 that, in a sense, was the kind of come a time when things seem to be going really well. things were not getting have of hand. was becoming more democratic. member people saying we need a cheney's gorbachev. after the soviet union split up, of course, the attitude became much more negative. i don't think fear the break above the state in the way the russians had to tear it because the chinese have more than 90 per cent whereas russians were only 50%. but it is undoubtedly the case that the party didn't want things to get out of control. i don't find any of the specialists had been dented.

maybe they had. but i learned from one very well informed chinese person that the chinese party came very close to dropping the name communist earlier this century. and in the end they didn't drop the name communist, not for ideological reasons, but because they were afraid that some members of the party, possibly many members would say this was not the party they joint and would start another communist party. so ended virtually they would be creating party competition but, you know, ideologically they moved. i see six defining characteristics. to our political. that still exists in china. democratic centralism has

embraced a much wider diversity within limits, but a wide diversity of your then you got. economically, in this system, state ownership, and private ownership. china's new to market economy. the state sector and the private sector produces. economically it is not a communist system. i see to the ideological defining characteristics. a sense of belonging to a movement. and finally the aim of building communism. well, it will take many generations to build the first stage of socialism. so in other words hundreds of years. as for communism, forget it. nobody in china today, i think,

is seriously thinking about building socialism let alone communism. they have still got some pretty important political characteristics, but nevertheless there is, i think, a certain intellectual fermanent. the final point on this question, chinese intellectuals. educated people suffered so much. the chinese population is still two-thirds peasant. so if you move to complete democracy tomorrow the educated chinese will be putting their faith in the hands of the less educated majority. they would have to be rather sure that they share their values. i think that is another reason why they want step-by-step reform.

>> yes, please. >> thank you very much for your kansai stock. >> please a identify yourself.  >> okay. so the international system we often called bilateral system and the cold war has transformed from early 1990's. his target, each transitioning international system. but your point, i think, you know, i tried to figure out your point. this time the transition of the political international system is, you know, the change of the soviet communist party itself.

>> you are saying that the fundamental change in international system was caused by the. [inaudible] >> yes. >> but alive the perspective the cold war, the competition between the soviet union and the united states caused economic depression in this country. the pluralist political systems in the eastern european countries including globalization of affirmation globalization, many caused the collapse of the communist system. what do you think to ? okay. thank you very much. >> in the long run and globalization and economic factors were liable to lead to the demise of communism, but it could have ended in different

ways. more versus could have applied force to keep the regime going. you know, number three is an example. we actually know at the time gorbachev was elected. every one of them became what gorbachev was doing. not to say that communism would have been a success story. it certainly would not have been. but it could have strolled on for another decade or two. i think it is entirely possible there could be communist states in eastern europe. so long term processes which we are working against, but you know, why this happened when they did, i think, was a great deal to the choice the politburo made in march 1985 simply because gorbachev was the only

possible canted it. an accidental matter and history, and a sense to be a matter of luck to some extent. so i am quite critical of the economic determinism. he argues. he argues that everything gorbachev did, letting each year ago, alleging the soviet union fell apart, was because he was desperate to get foreign loans because of a numbing bankruptcy. that was an incredibly round about way to do it. if he had been assessed by the economy to lose eastern europe was to lose the support of the military industrial complex. to these parts of the soviet union was to lose the support of almost the entire party state

elite. gorbachev's primary motivation had been economic and driven by that, surely it would have been easier to move to market prices because this is what the chinese bishop would have done, carefully preserving the monopoly of political power. that is one reason why i don't accept the economic determinist view of the change in the soviet union which had such consequences for eastern europe >> next. >> yes. >> i come from the former soviet union. i also had a chance to have taken a class from the cold war at yale. one of the issues that we discussed was the role of personalities and bringing about the demise of the soviet union and the communist system. in your talky make a good point that pope john paul ii, reagan,

gorbachev, other key people played an instrumental role, but you also talk about the rise of educational standards in the soviet union. you talk about social trends that were under way. my question to you is coming in your intellectual framework the you see the will of personalities being more significant? do you see them as movers and makers of history? to you see them as a new reflection of the social trends which are sweeping tax. >> said think the answer is neither. you know, if gorbachev had been a bit older when he had come to power in 1954i don't think he could have persuaded paul remoty similarly. so in that sense i absolutely reject the decisive role. the same personality coming to

power in 1953 stalinist, concerned by the fact that he didn't have such a highly educated population. so, you know, even if internally he was the same his own views would, of course, have been different. like many communists only had his eye opened in 1956 even though two of his grandfathers had been arrested in the 1930's. it was only then that gorbachev like so many others realize the culpability. of course he went for the thinking it could not just be one man. the master been something wrong with the system. so i do emphasize. of course in wantagh can't go in to subtleties. the book elaborate these points and others, too.

in terms of lifestyle and the soviet union there was a middle-class. people can argue whether it should be called the middle class, but in terms of their lifestyle soviet intelligence was pretty close to a middle-class. so the social developments were very important. so i've been to deny those factors for a single moment. and yet i think this choice in 1985 of the most powerful communist party in the world less decisively important. but it was -- and i can't say that gorbachev is simply representative of of a generation. generational change was important, but not all the

people were other than conservative commonness or careerist. he was more interested in ideas than many of them. so this is the golden age of the institute. the think-tank said. they were encouraged to think the unthinkable. previously they work within narrow parameters. so i can't accept this either or. either you accept these great forces of history or you accept the individual. it was clearly above. i'm sorry. you were next. then charles. >> i had a question that is completely offbeat. but since we agreed at the beginning there is an idea, an idea that too many people and increasingly more people, can you by any stretch of

imagination make any parallelism between the rise of communism as a concept and the idea that some these people and today's rise? and if you do so is any of your the earnings on the fall of communism have any bearing on strategy to deal with islamism? >> it is a good question. i think that's we didn't see the end of history in 1989 and '81. islam is a comprehensive ideologies to which people can beat loyal in the way they were to international communism. and that think there are some lessons in common. at think that the policy of engagement and contacts at all levels to the extent possible is desirable. at the same time branches of

islam that are so extreme you could not do it just as he could not do it in stalin's soviet union. you would need a more moderate regime before you could do this. but that remember taking part in something with margaret thatcher and other academics. you know, we give an analysis of what was happening. indeed that was when she first heard the name gorbachev for me gorbachev's invitation. but for the end when she asked us for policy advice much to our surprise for advice was the more contacts the better to be the should be talking to everybody from dissidents to the general secretary's. it can do that it is desirable. highly authoritarian systems where they try to keep out ideas that might contradict the ruling in theology were very vulnerable to ideas from outside.

western intelligence services might sometimes be worried about espionage. but we had nothing to worry about. we could by communist newspapers in britain and all over western europe. so we had a very this'll to lose in this. communist systems have a lot of this. i think that there are some lessons for dealing with the islamic states. so, for example, the more interaction with iran the better. but, you know, a political judgment, how would you can get away with and what levels of society you can conduct discourse. the more the better because this weakens the whole of totalistic ideologies. >> i'd teach here.

there are those who say that gorbachev knew how to start the process, but he did not know have to finish it. i take it that you are less critical. you seem to assume that he knew all along what he was doing, or most of the time. if my assumption is correct how do you explain that some of his closest advisers, especially jacobi, became as critical as he has? >> well, i don't think that gorbachev knew where he was going to end up. far from it. my point is rather that his view is involved tremendously, you know, from used. communist reformer. by 1988 somebody wanted it to fundamentally transform the

system finishing up very close views of the west european social democrat. but at the same time a different position. but everything to gorbachev. in the beginning of 1986 he was not even a candidate member of the central committee. he had moved from being outside the top 500 people to being in the top five. that is a tremendously accelerated promotion. presented the criticisms. but at the time was pretended to be a centralist. gorbachev was the leader of the country and the party and he had to try to reconcile different groups. of course there were zigzags. in the literature in transition

one of the generalizations that people make is in the transition to democracy if you're going to have it in the transition from authoritarian rule you have to it tranquilize the hard-liners. gorbachev successful detribalized the hard-liners until it was too late for them to make. by the time they put him under house arrest it was really too late. so he could have forced him to be more radical. but in his book, his lightest memoirs i would say their is a lot that is highly positive. he goes to great lengths about the pluses and minuses. for example, he says that courts of hated bloodshed and it is entirely unfair to blame him for the bloodshed. nothing to do with gorbachev. so not as critical as many

people. it takes he is consistently democratic enough. if he had been more consistent democratic he might have been overthrown earlier on. i don't think it was as simple as that. so he played a very important and very constructive role, but you know, he was the radical voice on the most reformist wing. he was only their because gorbachev put in there. ..

smaller group and there was a very strong nationalist group. there was a book published a few years ago which i site in there in my book by with a russian party official. he was engaged and propaganda, and the book is called "the russian party inside the cbsu." every time he calls him a speech to her. we might think he was a pretty hard line communist but he was a terrible internationalist and

somebody had a jewish mother and this makes them doubley damned. there was a and anti-semitic movement but a broader still russian nationalist movement and russian nationalists could have come out and talk. we see a social space tendency was a larger tendency of a russian nationalist one. so some of the people you see becoming prominent today like dugan and others, russian nationalists had their antecedents even in brezhnev's time, and certainly in the counter reformation of the british period a lot of those people came to the floor, and i think what we saw in last year's soviet union was a kind of coming together of russian nationalists some of whom in the past have been very critical of communists, soviet communist party and conservative communists.

because the conservative communist was abandoning what was left of the marxist and leninism and the new ideology became the one that there were individualistic civilizations and their work at eclectic civilizations and it was a collective civilizations of this idea of trying to impose political pluralism we don't want it. it is against our tradition and this brought together conservative communists abandoning some of their old beliefs and clinging to this idea of the russian state and russian civilizations and russian nationalists so it is quite a strong tendency today. yes. >> good evening. my name is james climate. and with department of defense. in 1988, '89 i had a fellowship at st. antony's and although i was writing a book on the cabalism all things, a rather interesting thing to be giving it the time, the ability to sit at the high table and have success of visitors from central

and eastern europe come through, i found that an extraordinary thing and almost which i kept a journal of the time because while you were privileged enough to see it several years earlier it was obviously a kind of preview what was to come later on because the discussion you may recall was frank of those events. my question there was different. do you think of the 1980's had been a period of high oil and gas prices as a result would have been different in the way that we could almost chart russian behavior now linked to the price per barrel of oil tendency or predisposition to intervene in the republic of georgia now being rather different than it was last year with different price fundamentals? so it is this question of integrating with western european economy have been progressively less to trade except oil and gas and if it had been high with that have been that type of resource that could have sustained that system? >> well i think that gorbachev wanted to sustain the system. he definitely wanted to preserve the state.

and so, i think it would have given a better chance of sustaining -- what gorbachev said more than once what he wanted was revolutionary change by evolutionary means. the change couldn't be evolutionary because once you had right turned into a speech and even publication after all the blog of katella was published a massive addition in 1989. that was highly a communist system that time of the pella. so it couldn't be evolutionary because people began to demand faster change, and at a time when the economic situation is becoming harder partly because the economy was neither one thing or another. a was no longer in effect of command economy into not yet a market economy combined with the falling oil prices this made things really tough for

gorbachev. as if it had been cushioned by a high price conceivably the evolutionary change revolutionary change by evolutionary means would have had a greater chance of success but i wouldn't like to predict it could have been. i think that to the extent the soviet union democratized the baltic states had to become independent. there's no way they would never opt to stay but i don't think it was inevitable and should be total disagree -- integration of the soviet union. after all to the extent the soviet union was a greater russia it wasn't obvious the russian leader would demand russian independence of the union. one could argue yeltsin was against the national interest and has a role in breaking up the union that he was desperate to get himself inside the kremlin and gorbachev out of it. >> you go with first.

>> i am a with sais students. i have a question. you seem to imply the collapse of the eastern bloc was due to the russian on the willingness to engage using the military and the inability due to being bogged down in afghanistan and the fact they get lost their credibility with military force do you think that this -- there are any lessons that can be learned and applied despite the context current situations with america's ability to productively engaged both its allies and russia? >> it's interesting what reading the discussions of gorbachev with afghan leaders and gorbachev is telling them you have got to broaden your coalition. you've got to bring in the people who have got traditional authority within the country.

you're not a building socialism. forget it. afghanistan is not ready for that. this is just a national movement and he wanted to get soviet troops out of afghanistan and so he wanted the afghans to come together and have these collisions so i think there are some lessons that it's not very easy to have a government of democrats in afghanistan any more than it was easy to have a government of communists in afghanistan. the country wasn't ready for the one and it's not ready for the other. but i think what we do is make superficial comparisons. but a friend of mine who is british ambassador to moscow in 1988 and 1992 is now writing a book on the soviet experience in afghanistan and i think he will draw some lessons for us today.

>> actually, thomas from the international spy museum and my question is closely related to worse, very briefly what role did the soviet invasion defeat in afghanistan played in the fall of communism that the soviet was sometimes said this was parallel to the american experience in vietnam such as i would be curious on your take on that. >> i think it was one of the many stainless to gorbachev to create change. from the very beginning of his secretary ship and his conversation with his main foreign policy aide he made it clear he wanted to get out of afghanistan and indeed they have written though they were members of the bureau they read about these events, and it was decided by a group of four people, brezhnev, who -- the minister of

defense and the bureau simply accepted it. of course somebody could have spoken out against the public bureau that would have been out of the public bureau the next day so gorbachev met and agreed this was a terrible mistake that they were not going to say so because they didn't want to bring their career to a stop. so he was against it and is becoming increasingly on a popular in the soviet union and not the least appearance of boys reaching the the military edge, so at the same time there are problems with the united states. they didn't want to make it look like a defeat and gorbachev said in the public. you know, how do we explain to the people that have lost their sons that this was all in vain, this was for nothing? the same questions were asked about the imam and may even be asked today in other places. so what he wanted was american cooperation so to ease the exit

and make it not look like a humiliating defeat and above all he didn't want to hand the country over to militant islamists. that stage though i give a lot of credit to the reagan administration and reagan administration especially for engaging with gorbachev at the same time they didn't want to make it easy for the soviet union to get out and so continue to support people who were the predecessors of the taliban. >> we have time for one final question that there is one. >> [inaudible] -- your outlook on jubak. >> you're out on cuba. >> well, i certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert on cuba, but i have read what i could on cuba. i think that the united states played a great part in preserving their regime, an

aspect that i made earlier about engagement leading to a change of systems surely would have applied to cuba. if there had been a lot of interaction in the united states people going to and from economic relationships, so i think the united states has played enormous part in sustaining the castro regime. they will do nothing to help castro they preserved to david who defied goliath and the weight to a diminishing of the communism of cuba and so already i think we see some signs of change on the deployment, and i think if this is not at the top of his agenda and he has enough problems with cuba at the moment but i think if that continues surely there will be liberalization in cuba. i can hardly think if more

counterproductive policy. i was speaking yesterday at the chicago council on foreign relations and the question came up and one person, one chicago businessman disagree with me very vehemently and said why should we help to the economically. i said of the policy failed 50 years isn't it time to think of something else and he said we could evade them. [laughter] that was tried before and it wasn't very successful either. >> i want to thank archie barham for a very informative invitation. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] archie brown is a former professor at oxford university. he's the author of the gorbachev factor which was a recipient of

the w.j.m. mackenzie price of britain for best political science book of the year. this event was hosted by the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies. for more information, visit sais-jhu.edu. constitutional expert and matthew spaulding reintroduce is the principles of the nation. he says the government got off track and offered to the heritage foundation of washington, d.c. hosts this 50 minute