The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; May Day

(Footage showing May Day festivities in Moscow.)

JIM LEHRER: Today was May Day, international Socialism`s special day to parade, to celebrate, to send messages to the rest of the world. While there was scattered violence at May Day demonstrations in London, Paris and Copenhagen, it was all peace and glory here on Red Square in Moscow, home base of Communism and its worldwide message.

Good evening. It`s an interesting time for that thing called detente between the United States and the Soviet Union. There`s the continuing flap over human rights and the Soviet dissidents, Soviet support and Cuban troops in the Horn of Africa, Soviet backing of the Arab war faction in the Middle East, the spat over the neutron bomb and problems with SALT-II, and most recently the defection of a high-level Soviet official at the United Nations. The question to ask on May Day -- their day -- is how do the Soviets view what`s going on? So tonight, with a former Soviet insider and two knowledgeable Americans, what are the Soviets up to right now, and why? Robert MacNeil is off tonight; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, the insider you referred to has intimate knowledge of the Soviet power structure because until a year and a half ago he was a part of it. He is Dr. Boris Rabbot, the highest ranking Soviet official to be allowed to emigrate legally. Dr. Rabbot was formerly Secretary of the Social Science Section of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow and an important adviser to Soviet leaders in the detente years. For the past year Dr. Rabbot has been working at the Columbia Institute on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. His project is a book on the Soviet elite. We have asked Lynn Visson, Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College and a freelance interpreter, to interpret Dr. Rabbot`s comments tonight.

Dr. Rabbot, can you tell us what the number one priority in the Soviet Union is at this time?

Dr. BORIS RABBOT: Among the various groups of the Soviet leadership there are also different priorities. If we`re talking about the dominant group, headed today by Brezhnev, then the primary goal of this group is in the support of the strategic balance between the Soviet Union and the United States and in particular in Europe, and to a lesser extent in Africa. The second goal on a priority scale is the regulation of commercial, scientific and cultural exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union and, I would say,. an attempt to expand all of these exchanges. I think those are the major goals.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. You mentioned as the first goal -- and I presume you mean by having mentioned that first that it is the most important one-- maintenance of this strategic balance. Why is that so important to the Russians? Are they afraid of the United States or of other forces?

RABBOT: I think that strategic policy, or strategics, in Russia has been formed under the influence of three fundamental fears, the first of which is fear of pressure from China. In 1968 Chinese troops and part of the civilian population crossed over the Russian border, and this fear is particularly important for Russia. This fear exists in the subconscious`s of each person, because the only time when Russia was conquered for many centuries was in the twelfth century, during the Mongol invasion. This fear is really very strong, and to a great extent it dominates decision-making on the level of the Politburo.

The second fear was formed back in the mid-50s, and this is the fear that the United States has a great strategic superiority, thanks to its possession of nuclear, in particular hydrogen, weapons. This fear became stronger also because at that time a great influence was felt in the United States due to the supporters of Senator McCarthy. Russia in the mid-50s had just gotten rid of its own fanatics, headed by Stalin, and the Russians were very much afraid that in another country which had nuclear superiority there was a very influential group of such fanatics.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. Well, we`re going to move on very quickly in just a moment, but what, in a word or two, do you think, in light of those concerns, would make the Russians feel secure?

RABBOT: I think that the major condition to make the Soviet leadership feel -- at least, at three of four levels of the central committees -- secure, in order for them to have that feeling they would need a much wider development of personal contacts, not only between major figures in the United States and in Russia but also between dozens and hundreds of people.

HUNTER-GAULT: People throughout the world, you mean?

RABBOT: Yes, people at all levels. I would say that most important here are exchanges on the level of secretaries of provincial Obkoms and Gorkoms, party committees in Russia. This group of people reminds me of the French Vendee at the end of the eighteenth century because they influence the highest level of the Party and governmental leadership, and they exert an extremely conservative influence on that level of the leadership.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we`ll pursue those points in just a minute Jim?

LEHRER: Everyone who follows the continuing American-Soviet war of nerves over human rights knows the name of Robert Toth. Mr. Toth is the Los Angeles Times Moscow correspondent who was in the headlines himself fast June o owing his arrest by Soviet officials. He was subsequently released and ordered out of the country. He`s now in the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau. Bob, your troubles grew out of your reporting about the dissident movement in the Soviet Union. How is this dissident problem viewed within the Soviet leadership? Do they see it as a minor public relations problem or as a major policy concern?

ROBERT TOTH: Well, probably somewhere in between. I would disagree, for example, with Dr. Rabbot on the first order of business of the Soviet hierarchy. I think it`s to maintain power -- their own power. And I...

LEHRER: Their own power within the Soviet Union?

TOTH: Yes. And I think then they see dissent or any nonconformity as in some way a potential challenge to the total dominance of Soviet society by the Party. So I don`t see that there`s enough dissent in the Soviet Union to really pose a threat to anything but their monopoly on power, and presumably they are afraid that if you allow dissidents to speak out the habit may be catching and it. may spread.

LEHRER: It is still a minor factor in Soviet affairs internally, is it not, the dissident movement?

TOTH: Well, numerically it is, but I think that its appeal, in one respect, is much greater and maybe it`s a cause for some alarm among Soviet leaders. I think there`s a great desire on the part of the majority of Soviet people to make the authorities obey their own laws; it`s a so called legalistic aspect of the reform movement, of the dissident movement, within the Soviet Union.

LEHRER: I see. What about the average Russian on the street? Is he or she concerned about the dissident movement, or do they even know anything about it?

TOTH: Well, that`s very hard to answer because you never know. I think Dr. Rabbot can tell us something -- it would be interesting -- about how much opinion surveys are done that are never reported but are done for the Politburo to find out what the average man on the street does think. But their propaganda against the dissidents can`t help but have an effect. I can remember when there was a bomb explosion in the subway in Moscow; it got minor coverage in the Soviet press, but one could overhear comments about blaming it on the dissidents, among the old babuschkas who were sitting and warming themselves in the winter sun. So I think, though, there is not a great concern on the part of the average person for the dissidents or against the dissidents, except perhaps for those ultra patriots who see anybody who`s not with us as being against us. It`s a very, I think, characteristic Russian trait to paint things in black and white. And if you`re not for us you`re against us; therefore, you`re an enemy.

LEHRER: All right. Let`s move to some of the points that Dr. Rabbot made. You heard what he said, first of all, the number one priority was a strategic balance with the United States. You would say it`s maintaining power, is that right?

TOTH: Oh, I think by definition in their system. Maybe the question in terms of foreign affairs might have been a strategic balance with the United States.

LEHRER: Do you agree that it`s balance, not superiority, say?

TOTH: Well, it`s difficult to answer that, because what may be balance to them is superiority to us. But they`ve got a couple of problems that we don`t have; their allies are a little bit restive is East Europe; they put maybe twenty percent of their military on the Chinese border. We don`t have those kinds of problems. I think, though, that their psychology tends to be overkill, that they would want a balance which we would view as superior to us. And moreover, we might be concerned of the use of such a balance, in their terms, as political blackmail and the temptation for adventurism -- the old Russian imperialism coming out, as I think we`ve seen in Ethiopia: if you have this muscle, why not use it -- and then also fueled by some ideological considerations, words of national liberation -- all these things might come together to be a little concerned about what they would consider a balance.

LEHRER: Do you agree with Dr. Rabbot`s list of fears -- the pressure from China, the fact that in the `50s the United States did have strategic superiority over them, and now the whole thing about exchanging more -- do you agree with his list there?

TOTH: Yeah, I think it might have been true in one case, but I don`t see that it obtains any longer. I think I would put their fears, nationality problems, as a very high one. I mean, by the 1980s forty percent of the population increase will be coming from the Central Asian republics, and you`ll have what you call a yellowing of society, of Asiatics. I think Russians tend to be rather racist people, and I don`t think that`ll go down well. I think a big problem is labor. The birth rate in the Russian republics is very near zero -- not zero, sorry, but a replacement level. Their usual solution to problems is to throw more manpower into the situation. They`re going to have a real labor shortage; they`re going to have, according to some projections, like the CIA`s, an economic crunch. I think their domestic economy is a major concern for now.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Our next guest normally lectures on Soviet economics at Wellesley and serves as an Associate Director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. But last semester Dr. Marshall Goldman moved a little closer to his sources. Along with his wife and daughter he moved into a dormitory at Moscow State University and became the first non-Marxist economist to lecture on that campus. Dr. Goldman, where do you come down in terms of this priority list with the Soviets? Are they attempting to maintain or monopolize power, or just what is their situation, in your view?

MARSHALL GOLDMAN: Well, I think that it`s a combination of all things, and I don`t think we really have to disagree with any of the answers that have been given. In international affairs they`re seeking for parity or, I would suspect, probably dominance if they could have it -why not? Domestically their main concern is maintaining economic and political power, and as Bob Toth said, they want to stay in office and they want to stay in control. And they do have economic problems, although I would disagree -- since everybody`s disagreeing -- I`d disagree with him, too, to some extent. I don`t think the CIA report is quite as accurate as many people have been led to believe. The Soviet Union does have problems. The birth rate is one problem, they have some capital shortages and they may have some raw material problems. But everybody in the world has some kind of problem, and all taken together, the Soviet Union really isn`t in that poor shape. Their rate of growth has fallen, and they`re worried about that, and that`s one of the reasons why they want to buy technology from the West. But our balance of trade deficit is very high, we have unemployment, we have inflation; so we shouldn`t think of the Soviet Union as being the only country in the world with those kinds of problems.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. So you`re saying they have similar problems to ours.

GOLDMAN: That`s right.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, how about students? You`ve spent time with our students and with theirs; do their students, the students in the Soviet Union, receive enough information to make informed judgments about what is going on in the United States?

GOLDMAN: Well, the students I was working with were specializing on the United States, on the American economy, and were given access to special closed libraries. And `they could see our newspapers and journals and our magazines, but that`s not true about most students. I would say, however, that my students were very well informed and very bright, and I was very much impressed with them and I could not really distinguish between my students in this country and them. But at the same time...

HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me, I was just going to say, how about in terms of attitude -- how do the students you had in the Soviet Union feel about the United States?

GOLDMAN: Well, they were very positive. In some ways it`s a love hate relationship. Anything that we do in the United States they are envious of; at the same time, because we do so much and sometimes we threaten them, there is kind of a hate relationship. It also extends to the fact that they want to do better than we do. One student said something that was very interesting to me. He said, "We`re more concerned about the United States and the American economy in our society than you Americans are because it means more to us." In other words, what we do they will sooner or later be trying to do, and therefore we must do the right thing so they have a goal that leads them in the right direction. And when we do bad things, that means they`re going to follow in the wrong direction. So it`s this complex attitude towards the United States which is fascinating. But I was received very well and very warmly, and I was very appreciative of that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you also said they were very special students. What did you mean by that?

GOLDMAN: Well, they were special because they had been selected to study the American economy and learn all our successes as well as our faults. Usually there`s no problem learning about our faults. And that meant they had to be ideologically trustworthy. It also happened that since the people who work on the West in the Soviet Union normally are going to be dealing with Westerners, will be traveling, working in the U.N., working on trade organizations, that means that this is a very

privileged kind of thing; one of the most important benefits a Soviet citizen can have is to travel, because they have internal passports; it is even hard for them sometimes, if you`re a peasant, to travel into the city. And my students, studying the United States would mean that they could travel not only inside the Soviet Union and probably in Eastern Europe but probably to the West and to the United States. And therefore it was very competitive, and very often my students were the children of the very rich -- or the privileged, rather; the members of the central committee. Their playmates were the grandchildren of the Politburo members.

HUNTER-GAULT:I see. We`ll pursue some of those points in a minute. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes. Bob Toth, do you think the Soviet leadership sees its relationship with the United States as a love-hate relationship?

TOTH: Well, there is the envy that Marshall Goldman talked about. It`s ambivalent, for sure, because they hold us up as the ideal and also as the...

LEHRER: As the ideal. Why do they hold us up as the ideal?

TOTH: Well, as the most successful society -- and also the superpower relationship makes it inevitable that they compare themselves to us. But we`re also the archvillain of the world, because we`re the major enemy, the major capitalist country, the one that would probably be the only one to stand between them and real world domination if that`s what they set out to do. So I think you have it both ways. There is the envy. I don`t think I`d use the word "love," though.

LEHRER: Dr. Rabbot, let me ask you: do you think the Soviet leadership sees the United States as a friendly competitor at this stage of the game or as an archenemy, and an enemy that may eventually someday have to be dealt with on the battlefield?

RABBOT: I would say that such people as the present members of the Politburo have a very diverse kind of attitude towards America. On the one hand there is fear of the power and the wealth of American society. On the other hand, I would say that this psychological trait is dominant for the Politburo members, which is that they have an inferiority complex towards America, and this complex characterizes them because they themselves have come from very poor peasant families and their attitude towards each American is the same as that of a peasant of the nineteenth century towards his master, the intellectual.

LEHRER: All right. Dr.. Goldman, let me ask you to take it to a concrete step. Do you think that the Soviets see, for instance, their continued military buildup --particularly in Eastern Europe in conflict with NATO -- do they see that as a political act on their part, as a bargaining-chip act, or do they see that as virtual preparation for war that may someday come?

GOLDMAN: Well, again, it`s a very hard question to answer. I wouldn`t be surprised if it was a combination of all those things. Certainly they consider it as a political act. They`re worried about Eastern Europe; I mean, the East Europeans, after all, have shown their independence in a variety of ways that have astonished us in the past, but there`s also no doubt that they view this as a bargaining chip.

One of the things I learned, by the way, is that from the Soviet perspective they find themselves threatened by us; when we do things it`s hard for us to understand why it`s threatening, but to them, they very often feel, Why is the United States being so aggressive? That was perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned, being in the Soviet Union this past fall. I began to become much more aware of how others see us. So that answer to your question really reflects a whole host of those issues.

LEHRER: Is it a paranoia?

GOLDMAN: I wouldn`t be afraid to use that word; absolutely. I mean, again, for the things that Mr. Rabbot and Mr. Toth mentioned. They`re overwhelmed by the United States; we just keep astounding them in terms of what we do, our technology and our resilience. You know, their dogma called for us to collapse a long time ago, economically, politically; and we`re a pretty strong society. You come to appreciate it better after having been in Moscow, too, let me tell you.

LEHRER: Has that dogma changed much, Bob Toth? Do they still want us to collapse?

TOTH: I think so, but I think they`re realistic to recognize that we won`t very soon. If you look at the projections for the economic growth -- sorry to harp on that, Marshall, but the lag between them and us in cost of living is going to increase; in other words, the gap is going to widen in the future. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I`d be interested in asking Dr. Rabbot, if can turn this around a little bit...

LEHRER: Sure, absolutely.

TOTH:...is why he thinks the Soviet leadership hasn`t been more forceful in coming to grips with the economic problems that they so obviously face.

RABBOT: It`s true that the economic difficulties and the very, very low level of production in Russia are one of the major concerns -- if one is not to use the word "fears" -- of the Soviet leadership. But taking decisive steps, which had been planned in the 1960s, is something the Soviet leadership has not made up its mind to do. In my opinion, the main reason for the breakdown of the economic reform which was expected in September 1965, was foreign policy; in particular, the events of Czechoslovakia badly frightened the members of the Politburo and forced them to turn back reform as fast as they could. This had a very, very bad effect on Soviet domestic policy.

HUNTER-GAULT: Okay, let`s pursue the matter of foreign policy for a moment and talk about the things that seem to have exacerbated particularly the relationship between the Russians and the United States over the past few months -- for example, the activities of Russia in the Horn of Africa, backing the war faction in Egypt, and so on. How do you explain Soviet motivations, for example, in the Horn of Africa?

GOLDMAN: Well, I can begin by saying that they are very mixed. They saw an opportunity, I think is perhaps the best answer; they saw an opportunity and they used it, particularly because the Ethiopians had indicated to the United States that they were not happy with our influence. But at the same time, while we see this as a very aggressive act on our part, from the Soviet perspective they`re a bit bewildered by American criticism of support of Ethiopia, and that`s because they were simply following what the Organization of African Unity said, and that is that Ethiopia should remain an integral whole. The question of the Cubans and Soviet military advisers is another question.

HUNTER-GAULT: Okay. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes. Bob?

TOTH: Well, I don`t see how one can be that naive to believe that they didn`t know what they were doing there. I mean, they weren`t surprised by the reaction, they just did the very detailed calculation that we weren`t going to get involved because of the post-Vietnam syndrome here. We didn`t get involved in Angola, either. But if they tell you that they`re surprised that we`re critical of their role in Ethiopia, I think they think we`re foolish.

GOLDMAN: Well, I drew two distinctions. I said in the first place they saw themselves defending what the Organization of Africa Unity wanted; and also because indeed we just made a little fuss in Angola and didn`t carry it very much further. My initial statement was, they saw an opportunity and they exercised it, and I think that would still stand.

TOTH: I agree with that.

HUNTER-GAULT: Dr. Rabbot, do you have a comment on that?

RABBOT: Unfortunately, it`s very hard for me to answer this question, because I couldn`t agree with any of the different types of American analysis of Soviet activity in Ethiopia which I`ve read about in the American press recently. I think that the reason American analysts have failed to understand Soviet activity in Ethiopia is simply lack of information. For example, starting from 1973 Soviet military advisers in Somalia were actively persuading Siad Barre not to seize Ogaden.

HUNTER-GAULT: I`m sorry, we are out of time. We may pick this up at another time. Jim?

LEHRER: Right, thank you. Dr. Rabbot, Dr. Goldman in New York, thank you. Bob Toth, thank you here. Goodnight, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: We`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.