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ABSTRACT
Shortly before and after the USSR’s demise, a new literature emerged: memoirs by veterans of the Soviet Union’s massive military intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 1960s and ’70s. Resurgent Russian pride, coupled with condemnation of its corruption by Soviet crimes, permitted startling disclosures. Tools we developed to evaluate these sources found them remarkably reliable and necessitated a reassessment of existing historiography. The Putin administration marked a reversal. Russian nationalism now stressed continuity with the USSR’s great-power status. ‘Falsification of history against Russian interests’ was criminalized. Some veterans resorted to purported ‘fiction’, which if challenged could be disclaimed. But under even stricter scrutiny, these narratives generally proved to reflect the authors’ actual experience, providing significant pointers for further research.
Notes
1 The earliest appearance found so far for the total figure is in Voronov (Citation1999) and refers only to the period when large regular Soviet formations were stationed in Egypt: 1969–1972. The peak figure for a given time is extrapolated from the figure quoted by Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin (Citation1997, p. 244), for the number of these servicemen who were repatriated in the summer-autumn of 1972, plus several thousand advisers and others who remained.
2 How Heikal and Kissinger shaped the conventional versions of key turning points in the Soviet intervention is detailed in Ginor and Remez (Citation2010).
3 E.g., Bentsur and Kolokolov (Citation2000); Geyer and Selvage (Citation2007). (The discrepancy between the titles with respect to the period to be covered illustrates the change in Russia during the Putin era with respect to opening archives: The Russian title indicates an original intent to publish another installment reaching to 1976, which never appeared.)
4 For a particularly revealing example, see the analysis of Naumkin (Citation2003), document 263, v. 2, pp. 577–578, in Ginor and Remez (Citation2006).
5 Woodrow Wilson Center, ‘The Vassiliev Notebooks’, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/86/Vassiliev-Notebooks; Vasily Mitrokhin Archive at Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University, http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0014%2FMITN.
6 For detailed examples and discussion: On the absence of documentation for major political and military moves, and the intentional falsification of events in official documents, Ginor and Remez (Citation2007), pp. 3–5, quoting Grinevsky (Citation1998), pp. 354–357; on the systematic destruction of entire series of files, Ginor and Remez (Citation2008), quoting Syromyatnikov (2007).
7 On 16 December 1994, the Russian State Duma amended the ‘Federal Law on Veterans’ to recognize as combat veterans the participants in 46 ‘local’ military conflicts in various countries, including Egypt in June 1967, all of 1968, March 1969 through July 1972, and October 1973 through March 1974. ‘Spravka-kontekst o veteranakh lokal’nykh voyn v SSSR’, Gazeta.ru, 16 October 2002; text of law and list of recognized combat operations, http://base.garant.ru/10103548/3/.
8 Viktor Logachev, ‘Eto zabyt’ nevozmozhmo’, in Safonov et al. (Citation1998), pp. 144–146.
9 V. Logachev, 1998, op. cit., p. 153.
10 A. Smirnov, ‘Operatsiya “Kavkaz”: v gushche sobyty’, in M. S. Meyer et al. (Citation2001), Togda, p. 31.
11 Two additional important sources are another diary, kept surreptitiously by the adviser G. V. Karpov, ‘Vospominaniya sovetskogo voennogo sovetnika v Egipte’, (Filonik, Citation2009, pp. 71–113), and a memoir by Lashchenko’s closest associate (Malashenko, Citation2003). The only known publication by Lashchenko himself about his Egyptian service (1996) is not very informative — typically both for his rank and for the Soviet period — and was overlooked by Western scholarship. Heikal contributed to this neglect when in his much-quoted account (1975, pp. 44, 78, 110, 182) he misnamed the general as ‘Lashinkov’.
12 The iconic hero Gen. Ivan Panfilov encouraged his hastily organized division in the 1941 defense of Moscow to initiate skirmishes with the Germans and thus overcome their awe of the enemy’s invincibility.
13 Yaremenko, ‘Sovetsko-Egipetskoe voyennoe sotrudnichestvo nakanune i v khode oktyabr’skoy voyny 1973 goda’, in V. A. Zolotarev et al. (Citation1999), pp. 52–53. Despite the title, the conference and book dealt mainly with the preparations for the war before 1973.
14 Authors’ interviews with Yaremenko (2000) and Lt.-Col. Vasily Tolokonikov (2001).
15 ’Yubiley Viktora Pavlovicha Kutsenko, 12.11.1992g.’, posted 29 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgI1xREmor0 at 54‘. Concert 10 years later at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rjB8Y5cRk0.
16 R. Donadio, ‘The Iron Archives’, New York Times Book Review, 22 April 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Donadio.t.html.
17 Resolution of the State Duma no. 1923-IV, 27 May 2005, ‘O popitkakh falsifikatsii istorii’, http://www.bestpravo.ru/rossijskoje/lq-akty/q7o.htm.
18 J. Wendle, ‘Russia Moves to Ban Criticism of WWII Win’, TIME, 8 May 2009, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1896927,00.html.
19 Facsimile of decree #549, 15 May 2009, http://www.dezinfo.net/foto/16114-popytka-ne-pytka.html; P. Felgenhauer, ‘Medvedev Forms a Commission to Protect Russian History’, Eurasia Daily Monitor 6:98, 21 May 2009, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35018&tx_ttnews[backPid]=13&cHash=6729b2258e.
20 D. Andreeva, ‘Istoriya ne terpit soslagatel’nogo nakloneniya: 5 let komissii po protivodeystviyu falsifikatsii istorii’, Rosinformbyuro News Agency, 19 May 2014, http://www.rosinform.ru/2014/05/19/istoriya-ne-terpit-soslagatelnogo-nakloneniya-5-let-komissii-po-protivodeystviyu-falsifikatsii-istorii/.
21 Reuters, ‘Putin Passes Law Banning Nazi Crime Denial’, The Times of Israel, 5 May 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-passes-law-banning-nazi-crime-denial/.
22 Federal law #128-fz, passed by State Duma 23 April 2014. Text at www.rg.ru/2014/05/07/reabilitacia-dok.html.
23 Announcement at http://us.educom.ru/347/2556.html?view=event.
24 Announcement at http://www.hubara-rus.ru/meeting2014.html.
25 Meshchanskaya Sloboda, 27 April 2006, p. 4, http://www.meschanka.info/smi_newspaper/40_2006_9.pdf.
26 S. M. Lynn-Jones, ‘Quiet Success for Arms Control: Preventing Incidents at Sea’, International Security 9(4) (1995) p. 162; ‘Oops! Accidents That Could Lead to Obliteration’, New Internationalist # 97 (March 1981), http://www.newint.org/features/1981/03/01/oops/.
27 Personal communication from Kudaev to the authors, 30 December 2011.
28 Personal communication to the authors from Norman D. Kass, Office of the Secretary of Defense-Defense Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office, 21 November 2001, and copy of the Russian response provided by Mr. Kass.
29 29 August 2008, http://www.kirya-team.org.il/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=930&Itemid=30.
30 Posting #16 by ‘Shaike’and #17 by Dudchenko, 21 January 2010,http://artofwar.ru/comment/d/dudchenko_w_a/text_0120?PAGE=2.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Isabella Ginor
Isabella Ginor (former Soviet/Russian affairs specialist, Ha’aretz newspaper) and Gideon Remez (former head of foreign news, Israel Radio) are associate fellows of the Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in the Soviet military role in the Middle East. Their book Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale, 2007) won the Silver Medal of the book award presented by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.