Gorbachev, Mitterrand, and the Emergence of the Post-Cold War Order in Europe

Abstract

More than two decades since the Cold War's end, the new ‘united’ Europe resembles the old divided one, without the ideological cleavage. Transferred farther east, the continent's re-division condemned Russia to Europe's fringes where it remains today. Some scholars trace the origins of this fault line to 1989–1990, blaming the United States, Germany and the USSR for failing to erect pan-European security foundations. Few, however, focus on the not insubstantial role of France in this story. Mikhail Gorbachev's close ties with his intellectual mentor François Mitterrand contributed to the failure in unexpected ways. This essay explains this element in the history of the pan-European idea while also shedding light on the politics behind the birth of the EU.

Notes

¹ As Gorbachev said in Finland in October 1989, ‘I am … for the deepening of integrationist processes in Europe … from the Atlantic to the Urals, and not just to Brest’. He praised the idea of ‘Finlandisation’—that is, ‘Finlandise’ the USSR—as a ‘positive’ way of ‘constructing the common European home’ (Otvechaya 2010, p. 345).

² Thatcher persistently stressed strengthening the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). In February 1990, Thatcher urged Bush to allow Soviet troops to stay in the former GDR for a transitional period ‘without any terminal date’ and stressed to the president ‘that a new European security system should be constructed on the basis of the CSCE to “prevent Soviet isolation and help balance German domination in Europe”’ (Salmon 2010, p. xxvi).

³ The duplicitous label comes from the fact that Baker, followed by Kohl, pledged to Gorbachev in February 1990 that, if reunified Germany gained entry into NATO, the West would prohibit extending NATO's ‘zone of its jurisdiction or military presence in the East even by an inch’. It was on the basis of that pledge that Gorbachev agreed to a reunified Germany's NATO membership (Otvechaya 2010, pp. 378–79; see also Grachev 2008b, p. 155). When Washington reversed that pledge, Baker later asserted it was not a pledge, but a proposition for the purpose of negotiation. Though Baker and others added that their ‘pledge’ only concerned the territory of the GDR, Soviet transcripts demonstrate that the implicit message was of no NATO expansion anywhere. Gorbachev complained that ‘he had fallen into a trap’ (Sarotte 2009, pp. 191, 114), accusing Baker of ‘playing with me; it's indecent’ (Grachev 2008b, p. 176).

⁴ Similarly, Kennan felt Bush was ‘not independently thoughtful’ (Gaddis 2011, p. 674).

⁵ A good example was Mitterrand's tête-à-tête with Gorbachev in late May 1990 (analysed more fully below). At first, Mitterrand said that he agreed in principle on the need for some kind of special status or non-NATO membership clause for the united Germany (Otvechaya 2010, pp. 385–88; Attali 1995, pp. 1050–51, 969), though evidence suggests that, quietly, he did support full German membership of NATO (Bozo 2009, p. 262, fn 37). Mitterrand further claimed he would ‘not refuse to say no to united Germany’ and went on to comfort Gorbachev that ‘I am almost more comfortable with you [USSR]’ than with Germany. Finally, though, Mitterrand came to the point: he would bow to American and German pressure and go along with the united Germany's full membership of NATO. ‘I do not want to say no, if only to have to say yes later on. I am sure everyone will relent over Germany's presence in NATO. So I cannot isolate myself’ (Attali 1995, p. 1051).

⁶ Jacques Attali's detailed account of events in Verbatim: 1985–1991 is treated cautiously here, since some have questioned his accuracy. Interestingly, even his Soviet counterpart, Anatolii Chernyaev, distrusted Attali: ‘This promoted intellectual at the French President's side leaves me very sceptical: he is a swindler who is playing games with us with his financial projects, while he is sure that we will fail anyway and will be easy to make excuses’ (Chernyaev 1991, p. 7). That said, many writers, including Jacques Delors, refer to Attali's work and rely on his judgements, given his unusual access to the French president: ‘you had to pass through [Attali's] office to get to Mitterrand’ (Delors 2004, p. 138). Moreover, Attali was sometimes the only French note-taker during Mitterrand–Gorbachev meetings. This author has thus taken great care to compare Attali's version of events with Soviet versions (which tended to be written either by Chernyaev or Vadim Zagladin, another Gorbachev aide and Soviet note-taker in certain Mitterrand–Gorbachev meetings). It is possible to trust Attali's accounts when corroborated by Soviet versions. Despite some intriguing differences at times, Soviet and French accounts mostly correspond in substance.

⁷ Regarding this last objective, Mitterrand explained to Gorbachev in June 1991: ‘… The Americans are tempted to … turn NATO into a political alliance. I take a different view on this subject …. If NATO was vested with functions that are in principle under the jurisdiction of the CSCE and the EC, it would be very bad. The European process was largely made possible by the concerted efforts of the Soviet Union and France. You, of course, remember that France was practically the only country to support your initiatives in the sphere of European cooperation. Our collaboration yielded good results. So let us not allow the fruits of our cooperation to be eliminated. [Let us not] give NATO excessive powers …’ (Chernyaev 1991, p. 133).

⁸ This was obvious in his ‘European Confederation’ idea, where Russia's inclusion was conceived in sparse, non-committal and highly ill-defined terms (Mitterrand 1997, p. 229).

⁹ See also ‘Charter of Paris for a New Europe’ (1990), OSCE, available at: http://www.osce.org/mc/39516, accessed 1 February 2012.

¹⁰ V. Baranovsky, correspondence with author, 5 July 2011. The insights (expressed here and below) of IMEMO Deputy Director Vladimir Baranovsky are very credible. He is well placed to comment on the Kremlin's attitudes towards Europe and the EC during the perestroika period, for several reasons. First, in the late 1980s, he was the Head of the European Studies Department at the Institute on World Economy and International Affairs (IMEMO)—an institute with close links to Gorbachev's Kremlin, especially given that Aleksandr Yakovlev, a Politburo member and chief architect of perestroika, was IMEMO's Director from 1983 until 1985. Yakovlev said Gorbachev had even transformed IMEMO into the Kremlin's intellectual ‘laboratory’ in 1985 (Yakovlev 1991, p. 16). As part of this ‘laboratory’, Baranovsky would have gained insight into Kremlin thinking. Second, IMEMO continued to enjoy ties to the Kremlin after Yakovlev left IMEMO for the Kremlin, and Baranovsky was part of that, too, as a member of an important new department on disarmament, headed by Alexei Arbatov, which the Gorbachev leadership used for disarmament ideas. Third, since the MID (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) lacked a separate department on European integration and there was only one other academic institute that stressed Western Europe (and only after 1987), IMEMO was important during the perestroika era as a valued source for information on Western Europe (along with Vadim Zagladin, Gorbachev's ‘in-house’ advisor on Western Europe). From all these vantage points, Baranovsky, an IMEMO expert on European integration and Euro-Atlantic affairs since 1973, would have gained important insights into Kremlin thinking and policy making vis-à-vis Europe.

¹¹ V. Baranovsky, correspondence with author, 5 July 2011.

¹² A. Kortunov, interview with author, Moscow, 25 September 1991.

¹³ See also Dyson and Featherstone (2003, pp. 63, 131, 204).

¹⁴ A. Grachev, telephone interview with author, 6 July 2011. Though Grachev was speaking 20 years after these events, this writer first interviewed him in 1991 as well as on several other occasions over the years. On every occasion, his account of events has remained consistent.

¹⁵ A. Grachev, telephone interview with author, 6 July 2011.

¹⁶ Until 1987–1988, the Soviet approach in Europe was largely about nuclear arms control initiatives and charm offensives. During this early period, Soviet Europeanism remained traditionally Soviet in that it was used as an instrument through which to influence or constrain the United States—in the tradition of dividing and manipulating the Alliance through ‘instrumental’ Europeanism.

¹⁷ Soviet documents reveal that those in the top Soviet leadership did not, in fact, fully grasp in 1987 the genuineness of Western threat perceptions and their causes. Even Aleksandr Yakovlev, in private notes to Gorbachev, dismisses West European fears as ‘artificial’ and motivated by the right-wing (Yakovlev 2008, pp. 86–87).

¹⁸ ‘La Visite en URSS de M. Roland Dumas’, Le Monde, 24 February 1987, p. 3.

¹⁹ On the Soviet foreign policy community's spontaneous, chaotic process of ‘complex learning’ about Europe, see Newton (2003, Chapter 6).

²⁰ Even Aleksandr Yakovlev, writing privately to Gorbachev in 1987, seemed baffled by Europe's response to Reykjavik. He referred to ‘anti-Soviet stereotypes’ (2008, p. 87), suggesting better Soviet tactics to overcome ‘artificial obstacles’ (2008, p. 118). As sources of the trouble, he merely blamed the Left's collapse in Europe, including Mitterrand's rightward tack and the Right's attempts to ‘neutralise’ positive effects of perestroika (Yakovlev 2008, pp. 98, 118, 87, 120–21). Gorbachev's words and actions suggest similar views at that time.

²¹ For more evidence, see Newton (2003, Chapter 6).

²² When the West German Ambassador Maier-Landrut said to Aleksandr Yakovlev in June 1989, ‘a “little Rapallo” won't do our relations any harm’, he perhaps forgot how disastrous it had been for Nikita Khrushchev in 1964 (Yakovlev 2008, p. 331).

²³ ‘Press Conference by Mitterrand and Gorbachev’, BBC/SWB:SU0504, 10 July 1989, p. A1/5.

²⁴ ‘La Visite en France de Chef de l'Etat Soviétique: La Conférence de Presse des Deux Présidents’, Le Monde, 3 July1989.

²⁵ Delors' memoirs support this conclusion (Delors 2004, pp. 269–303, 459–61).

²⁶ As Yakovlev said to UK Ambassador Rodric Braithwaite in February 1989, ‘… We do not seek to detach the USA from Europe—it's not even in our interests to do so’ (Yakovlev 2008, p. 318), confirming that the Common European Home project was genuinely about bringing Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community.

²⁷ V. Baranovsky, correspondence with author, 5 July 2011, emphasis in original.

²⁸ On 21 November 1989, Valentin Falin, in a rogue diplomatic initiative behind Gorbachev's back, sent Nikolai Portugalov to Kohl's advisor Horst Teltschik to sanction the notion of ‘German confederation’ in an attempt to forestall outright reunification. But ‘confederation’ outpaced Gorbachev's thinking at that time (though he later embraced the idea—once it was too late). The trouble was that Falin/Portugalov's rogue adventure allowed the Germans to seize the political initiative and inspired Kohl's ‘Ten Point’ speech, which shocked Gorbachev, Mitterrand and Thatcher and left them struggling to keep up (Grachev 2008b, pp. 134–36; Sarotte 2009, pp. 70–76).

²⁹ Though Mitterrand reputedly opposed reunification, his views in fact differed greatly from those of Thatcher. Once Mitterrand recognised the political opportunity reunification potentially offered France and the EC (by late 1989), he quietly supported reunification so long as Kohl supported deeper EC integration and the EMU. This happened by late 1989, and was not, as Sarotte posits, more slowly developing throughout early 1990 (Sarotte 2009, pp. 283–84, fn 9).

³⁰ He would do so by ‘harnessing Germany's economic strengths to European objectives’, ‘opening up new opportunities for French leadership in international monetary reform …, [and] challenging the power of the US dollar’ (Dyson & Featherstone 2003, p. 65).

³¹ To maintain French independence while deepening integration, Paris traditionally stressed intergovernmental arrangements, ‘a union of nation-states’, rather than a federal, political union (Musitelli 2004).

³² Kohl was determined to rid Germany of this reputation (Schwade 2010, pp. 121–22).

³³ Mitterrand also conceived the solution in terms of full NATO membership for the united Germany, although deeper European integration was by far Mitterrand's primary approach, especially since he believed NATO would become irrelevant due to the Cold War's end. In contrast, for Bush and Baker, the way to solve the German problem was also maximal NATO and EC integration, but they overwhelmingly stressed NATO over the EC as the dominant approach. Germany stressed all three—EC, NATO and CSCE—approaches.

³⁴ See also Otvechaya (2010, p. 403).

³⁵ A. Grachev, telephone interview with author, 6 July 2011.

³⁶ Mitterrand's aide, Hubert Védrine, quipped that NATO seemed to be the only priority for Bush (Sarotte 2009, p. 210).

³⁷ In February, Baker asked Gorbachev: ‘Which do you prefer, Germany outside NATO, completely independent, without American troops or united Germany, maintaining contacts with NATO, but with a guarantee that juridically and militarily, NATO will not extend its troops from its present line?’ Gorbachev: ‘Of course, it is clear that the expanding of NATO's zone is unacceptable’. Baker: ‘We agree with that’ (Otvechaya 2010, p. 380).

³⁸ The Quai d'Orsay felt that ‘any arrangement conferring a special politico-military status on [united] Germany had to be ruled out’ (Bozo 2009, p. 262, fn 37).

³⁹ In an interview with CBS, Yakovlev also suggested the French option for Germany. After all, ‘we want to end confrontation; you want to end it. So if we all want to end it, then don't you agree that making a former WTO country [fully] part of NATO just intensifies confrontation?’ (Yakovlev 2008, pp. 464–65).

⁴⁰ The thrust of Attali's account of this meeting is basically similar, except that he recorded that Mitterrand floated an idea for united Germany to be a member of the Alliance, but not the military structure (Attali 1995, p. 1050).

⁴¹ As thought-provoking exceptions, Margaret Thatcher and Hans-Dietrich Genscher were more genuinely interested in steadily strengthening CSCE or pan-European security for the sake of Soviet inclusion in wider Europe, but they were isolated and ineffectual forces (Grachev 2010; Genscher 1998).