Review

-Gromyko’s-Memories

assesses leaders

ANDREI GROMYKO — Memories.
Hutchinson, 1989. 364 pages. Hardcover,

29.95. Available at People’s Co-op Book-
Store,

In his now well-publicized memoirs,
€mories, former Soviet foreign minister
and president Andrei Gromyko tells how
ikhail Gorbachev first became a leading
unctionary of the central committee of the

Ommunist Party of the Soviet Union. He
Was recommended by Leonid Brezhnev, the
8eneral secretary of the party. Among those

Tezhnev consulted before making his
commendation was Gromyko, who
avoured the appointment.

The subsequent period,” Gromyko
Writes, “revealed Gorbachev's wealth of tal-
ent as an Outstanding and perspicacious sta-
tesman, a subtle and far-sighted statesman
and a man with a powerful mind. This is
Precisely how he is seen by both the party
and the People.”

Gromyko held high office in every Soviet
80vernment from Stalin to Gorbachev. As
ambassador, deputy foreign minister and

fe “Ign minister, he met and negotiated with
Most every world leader. From 1985 to his
‘tirement in 1988, he was chairman of the
Tesidium of the Supreme Soviet of the
b ESR {a post later held by Gorbachev
clore its abolition). In 1943, when he was
ambassador to Washington, he sat with
ae Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta
fhe erence. Later, he played a key role in
© establishment of the United Nations
Tganization.
As first deputy foreign minister in 1950,
‘© recommended that the Soviet Union par-
Ucipate in the UN Security Council session
f0 discuss the outbreak of hostilities in
rea. But he was overruled by Stalin, who
sage, instructed the Soviet representa-
ee the security council to boycott the
i ‘ion, thus giving up the Soviet right to
eto the Subsequent decision to send troops

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from a number of countries into battle in
support of the corrupt and reactionary
regime in South Korea. Those armies,
among which the United States played the
main role, fought under the banner of the
United Nations.

“On this occasion,” Gromyko states,
“Stalin, guided for once by emotion, had
not made the best decision.”

Gromyko’s evaluation of Stalin’s place in
history makes interesting reading. Describ-
ing him as a man of large calibre, Gromyko
credits Stalin with holding the CPSU
together after Lenin’s death and, for a
further 30 years, playing a determining role
as the leader of a great power facing
momentous tasks.

“However,” he continues, “it is wrong to
see only his positive side, since he was a
tragically contradictory figure. On the one
hand he was a man of powerful intellect, a
leader with the unshakable determination
of the revolutionary. On the other hand, he
was a harsh man who did not count the
human cost of achieving his aims and who
created a monstrously, arbitrary state
machine that sent multitudes of innocent
Soviet people to their deaths.”

Having said that, and more in the same
vein, Gromyko warns that Stalin’s crimes
should not be allowed to overshadow the
country’s achievements in war and peace.
“These achievements are great, and they
were accomplished despite Stalin’s mon-
strous crimes. Justice demands that we see
the dark pages, but also the heroic pages of
our history.”

For those who want to learn more about
international affairs over the past 50 years,
this is a valuable source of information and
should help to set the record straight about
many foreign policy initiatives and deci-
sions by the Soviet leadership, particularly
in respect to the international political cli-
mate in which the major decisions were
made. Some may wish that Gromyko had
written more about the events in Hungary
in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, but
what he did say represents, I believe, the
thinking of the party and state leadership he
was part of for so many years.

Memories is all the more interesting
because the author gives us some penetrat-
ing descriptions of the personalities of for-
eign statesmen, political leaders, actors,
cultural figures business people, scientists
and members of royal families he met in his

KEY TO
THE CITY

Retired Van-
couver jeweller
Karl Zuker shows
silver “‘key to the
city’’ made in
honour of folk
singer Pete
Seeger. Key was
to be presented to
Seeger at concert
in Orpheum on
July 14.

This comment on former Canadian
prime minister Pierre Trudeau should illus-
trate Gromyko’s wide grasp of intérna-
tional affairs: “Trudeau was always ready
to speak critically of Canada’s southern
neighbour, where he was eyed with some
caution. I found him well informed on
international matters, and if at times his
evaluations were muddled then it was prob-
ably NATO solidarity speaking, for when
he received information from Washington
it was often either uselessly subjective or

false. To his credit, on such occasions, he
‘always listened with an open mind to the
Soviet explanation.”

As a dedicated Communist, he closes his
book with these words: “ ... Marxism-
Leninism has always been and remains my
guide to practical actions, including the
writing of my memoirs.”

— Jack Phillips

This review was written before Gromyko’s
death at age 79 on July 2.

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Pacific Tribune, July 17, 1989 « 7