The political person of Mikhail Gorbachev in the early 60s seriously interested Western intelligence. A young ambitious communist, with political ambitions and a craving for a respectable life, and at the same time "managed" by a beautiful and also extraordinary wife, had to fall on the hook of Western agents.
Today, a number of researchers give several main versions of how and when exactly his recruitment could have happened.
According to one version, Gorbachev was recruited back in the 50s, when he was studying at the university. Indeed, Gorbachev's first connections with foreigners appeared during his studies at Moscow State University, where many foreign students studied. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev became friends with the Czech Zdenek Mlynarzh, maintaining relations all his life.
It is interesting that this Czech, after studying in the USSR, went into party work, in 1968, becoming a secretary and a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, he turned out to be one of the leaders of the so-called "Prague Spring", notes researcher Alexander Ostrovsky. That is why in November 1968 he was dismissed, and in 1970 he was expelled from the party. In 1977, Mlynarzh signed Charter-77 and emigrated to capitalist Vienna.
According to another version, Gorbachev entered into an agreement with Western agents already in Stavropol. It should be noted that in the 60s, Mikhail Gorbachev was already actively communicating with Western comrades and visiting foreign countries.
Thus, at the World Youth Forum in Moscow in 1961, Gorbachev, on behalf of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, "was attached to the Italian delegation." In addition to the fact that the future secretary general himself provided services to the Soviet state security, the researcher believes that his connections with the Italian communists and the movement that later became known as Eurocommunism came from here.
In 1966, Mikhail Gorbachev traveled abroad for the first time - to the GDR, to exchange socialist experience in the development of agriculture. Many years later, the American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski said that the Americans recruited Gorbachev and his wife as in 1966, only during their trip to France. At the same time, Gorbachev's official biography testifies that until 1971 Gorbachev had never been to the capitalist countries.
However, a number of researchers claim that in 1966 Gorbachev, accompanied by his wife, nevertheless traveled outside the GDR. According to Western sources, the Gorbachev couple made a trip to Italy via France in a car rented for a few days. Be that as it may, Brzezinski, who at that time (1966-1968) worked in the Political Planning Council (an organization of independent analysis and forecasting at the State Department) and participated in the development of a strategy of "peaceful involvement" in relation to the USSR within the framework of the Cold War, certainly knew what he was talking about. In any case, even then the political figure of Mikhail Gorbachev was of great interest to Western intelligence. In September 1969 he visited Bulgaria, in November of the same year he was sent to Czechoslovakia. In 1971, Gorbachev for the first time (I emphasize - officially) visited a capitalist country - Italy, after which he visited France, Belgium, and the Federal Republic of Germany. It is possible that contacts with agents of the CIA or other Western intelligence, about which Brzezinski spoke, took place already during the official visits of the Gorbachevs abroad.
In addition, Mikhail Gorbachev was in contact with foreigners who came on business trips and on vacation in the Stavropol Territory. Mostly, these were party and government officials from the friendly countries of Central Europe. According to researcher Ostrovsky, Mikhail Gorbachev was in contact with representatives of capitalist countries who visited the region for business purposes - these are representatives of the British company John Brown, the German company Linde and the American corporation Union Carbide, who took part in the design and construction of a chemical plant . Gorbachev also spoke with employees of the English bank Morgan Grenfell, which financed this project.
From August 1968, Mikhail Gorbachev was the second, and from April 1970, the first secretary of the Stavropol regional committee of the CPSU. In 1970, he was elected a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where until 1974 he was a member of the commission for nature protection of one of the chambers, then until 1979 - Chairman of the Commission on Youth Affairs of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
In 1973, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Pyotr Demichev, made him an offer to head the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, but Gorbachev refused. But already in November 1978, Gorbachev was elected Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. From 1979 to 1980 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In the early 80s, he made a number of foreign visits, during which he met Margaret Thatcher and became friends with Alexander Yakovlev, who then headed the Soviet embassy in Canada.
As researcher Mikhail Antonov notes, the Gorbachev couple were distinguished by fawning over their superiors and at the same time rudeness in dealing with subordinates, a desire for luxury. As a member of the Politburo, Gorbachev traveled to Canada (where he stayed at the house of Ambassador Alexander Yakovlev) and to Great Britain (already with Yakovlev as an adviser). This visit to England can be considered historical - on it, Margaret Thatcher, on behalf of the West, assessed Gorbachev as a desirable candidate for them to lead the USSR. In his memoirs "From the Shadows", former CIA director Robert Michael Gates admits: "The CIA welcomed Gorbachev's emergence in early 1983 as Andropov's protégé with enthusiasm." What sparked this enthusiasm? "We knew a lot about him."
With the Bush presidency, the final stage of the process of dismantling the political, legal and military arsenal of the Cold War in Europe began. Already in December 1988, speaking at the UN General Assembly, Gorbachev announced his intention to unilaterally withdraw Soviet troops from the Warsaw Pact countries: another step towards detente, which, at the same time, hid the growing difficulties that arose in relations between the USSR and allies.
Gorbachev continued to search for final agreements with Bush on strategic weapons, but he managed to achieve only partial results. The first meeting of the new American president with Gorbachev took place on the roads of Malta on December 2-4, 1989. after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At first glance, the real results of the meeting were difficult to assess, but in reality it marked a turning point in bilateral relations. During direct negotiations, Gorbachev raised all the critical issues of the international situation, not excluding the threat in connection with the beginning of the separation of the Baltic countries from the Soviet Union.
"Without hesitation, Gorbachev spoke openly about internal difficulties. He talked about budget problems, about the consequences of Chernobyl. According to him, "the main test was to do away with the lack of consumer goods."
"The negotiators then moved on to discussion of closed issues, and this moment of confidentiality showed the American president that Gorbachev recognized the weakness of his position. Although he continued to assert that the Soviets retain superiority in Europe, he declared:" You are no longer our enemies . Times have changed. You are needed in Europe. You must stay in Europe. It is important for the future of the continent that you be present." Secretary of State James Baker hailed these statements as the most important and most promising that Gorbachev had made. It was at a time when the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe was crumbling that Gorbachev reaffirmed his willingness to tie up Soviet foreign On the other hand, the talks in Malta convinced Bush that Gorbachev was the best possible interlocutor at the time, a reliable partner in an era of new relations between Moscow and Washington."
In this climate of profound political change, Bush and Gorbachev in Malta made a very strong commitment to continue disarmament talks in the coming months and approached the situation with a keen interest that perhaps was not needed. They agreed on a significant limitation of their troops stationed in Europe. Having received the approval of NATO and the Warsaw Pact on February 13, 1990. in Ottawa, a meeting of representatives of the two alliances took place, which set a maximum limit - 195,000 people - for Soviet and American troops in Europe.
Bush and Gorbachev met again on May 30 at Camp David. This time they agreed that the START negotiations should be completed, reaffirmed their commitment to reduce their nuclear forces by 50%, destroy the chemical weapons arsenals and sign a new trade agreement.
Before the 1990 summit agreement became a formal treaty, an important new step was taken on the road to disarmament: the Paris negotiations concluded in Vienna in 1973. on the mutually balanced reduction of armed forces and armaments in Europe. The agreement was approved at the meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the CSCE, which took place on November 19, 1990 in Paris, where two documents were signed. The first of these is the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). It reaffirmed the obligations already contained in the Final Helsinki Act and eliminated the possibility of a surprise attack and major offensive operations in Europe. The second document, signed on November 21 by all CSCE member countries, proclaimed the principles of the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe", i.e. rules for future peaceful coexistence on the European continent. The conclusion of this treaty paved the way for an agreement on strategic arms. Negotiations on this issue ended on July 31, 1991, when Bush and Gorbachev signed the START-1 Treaty in Moscow, i.e. treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms. The agreement reflected understandings reached at various stages during Gorbachev's summit meetings with Reagan and Bush. Their results are shown in the following table.
These negotiations ended in January 1993. the conclusion of a new treaty between Bush and Yeltsin, called START-2. This treaty almost halved the limits set by START-1.
The agreements of July 31, 1991 were for Gorbachev the climax and final moment in his international activities as head of state.
"After that, an acute phase of the crisis in the Soviet Union began - in August 1991 a coup d'état took place and Gorbachev was removed from power, and in December 1991 he officially ceased to exercise his duties as president of the USSR. At the same time, the USSR ceased to exist "as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality" On December 9, 1991, Yeltsin set about shaping relations between the former Soviet republics on a new basis." The American government had to make a choice between four entities that possessed atomic weapons, which were in the possession of the former USSR, i.e. between the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The choice was to fall on the strongest successor.
In the fall, Bush began negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, and it was with him in January 1993. START-2 agreement was signed.
On December 8, 1991, meetings of the leaders of the three union republics were held at the Viskuli hunting estate in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the territory of the BSSR - President of the RSFSR Boris a, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk and Chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus.
Decisions were made to terminate the union treaty of 1922 and to terminate the activities of the state structures of the former Union, a document was signed on the creation of the CIS.
The meeting was also attended by the Secretary of State of the RSFSR, the State Councilor of the RSFSR, the Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus.
Shortly before the adoption of the Belovezhskaya Accords, a period of the so-called “parade of sovereignties” began: the union and autonomous republics, one after another, proclaimed their sovereignty, adopting a corresponding declaration. These actions aggravated the economic situation in the USSR, ties between regions and republics were broken.
On March 17, 1991, an all-Union referendum was held, in which the majority of citizens voted for the preservation and renewal of the USSR. The exceptions were Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia, whose leaders refused to hold a referendum and declared the independence of their countries. In turn, the plan to conclude a new union treaty, previously proposed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, was thwarted in the summer of 1991 due to the "August putsch", which, in particular, was caused by the actions of the self-proclaimed authority - the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP ). A few days later, the coup was crushed and the committee dissolved.
Belovezhskaya meeting
Later, on December 1, a referendum was held in Ukraine, as a result of which the majority of citizens supported the country's independence. At the same time, talk continued about the need to conclude an agreement on the creation of the Union of Sovereign States, abbreviated as the SSG. The document was planned to be signed on 9 December. At a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin announced a planned meeting with the heads of Ukraine and Belarus at the Viskuli estate in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. On the agenda was the discussion of the creation of the JIT.
As Stanislav Shushkevich recalled, it was decided to hold a meeting on December 8 in Viskuli in order to also "discuss the issues of oil and gas supplies to Ukraine and Belarus." Meanwhile, the former president of Belarus noted, “it quickly became clear that economic problems could not be solved without a political definition of who is who.” It can be assumed that, although there were talks about the collapse of the USSR long before that, the decision to officially sign the corresponding document was made spontaneously.
The text of the document contained 16 articles.
The preamble to the agreement stated: "The Union of the SSR as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality ceases to exist."
The document outlined the rights and obligations of the CIS countries, while under Article 14 Minsk became "the official seat of the coordinating bodies of the Commonwealth."
After the signing of the treaty on the dissolution of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin called the US President. The interview lasted 28 minutes.
The transcript of this conversation will be classified for a long time by the American intelligence agencies who recorded the conversation, and only in 2008 will the secrecy mark be removed. In the course of a personal conversation, Boris Yeltsin reported to George Bush on the agreements that had been reached, on the creation of the Commonwealth, the purpose of which is to strengthen international peace and security, as well as uniform control over nuclear weapons and their non-proliferation. Yeltsin noted that the President of Kazakhstan also supported the actions of the politicians and was ready to sign the agreement.
“This is extremely important. These four republics produce 90% of the entire gross output of the Soviet Union. This is an attempt to preserve the commonwealth, but free us from the total control of the center, which has been giving instructions for more than 70 years. This is a very serious step, but we hope, we are convinced, we are sure that this is the only way out of the critical situation in which we find ourselves, ”Boris Yeltsin said during a telephone conversation with the US President.
Yeltsin also reported to the president that he did not yet know about the decisions taken,
however, both Mikhail Gorbachev and the press will be immediately informed about the signed documents.
“Mr. President, I must tell you in confidence that President Gorbachev is not aware of these results. He knew about our intention to meet - in fact, I myself told him that we were going to meet. Of course, we will immediately send him the text of our agreement, since, of course, he will have to make decisions at his own level. Mr. President, I was very, very frank with you today. We, the four states, believe that there is only one possible way out of this critical situation. We do not want to do anything in secret, we will immediately pass the statement on to the press,” Boris Yeltsin concluded.
Consequences of the agreement
The signing of the Belovezhskaya Accords caused a wide public outcry and conflicting opinions both among politicians and among ordinary citizens. On December 10, a statement by Mikhail Gorbachev about the agreements that had been reached appeared. It reported that "the fate of a multinational state cannot be determined by the will of the leaders of the three republics."
On December 16, Kommersant's news headlined "Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich had a good hunt" read: "As a result of a hunting weekend in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine agreed to establish a union of three Slavic republics with a center in Minsk and to abolish the USSR as a subject of international law.
On December 25, US President George W. Bush received a phone call from Mikhail Gorbachev. By this time, the document on the termination of the existence of the USSR had already been signed by 11 union republics.
Mikhail Gorbachev announced that in about two hours he would announce a decision on Moscow television. “In front of me on the table lies the Decree of the President of the USSR on my resignation. I also resign from my duties as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and transfer the authority to use nuclear weapons to the President of the Russian Federation,” Mikhail Gorbachev said. The former president noted that he values \u200b\u200bfriendship with, and also called for the support of Russia.
“As for me, I am not going to hide in the taiga, in the forests. I will remain politically active, I will remain in political life. My main goal is to help in the processes that began with perestroika and new thinking in foreign policy,” Mikhail Gorbachev added.
In response, the US President promised to "build relations with the leaders of Russia and other republics with due respect and openness." On December 25, 1991, George W. Bush officially stated in the press:
"The United States applauds and supports the historic freedom choices made by the new Commonwealth states."
Later, recalling the conclusion of the Belovezhskaya Accords, the first president of Ukraine said in an interview that he did not regret the decisions made then. The former president of Ukraine noted that "there was no talk of the collapse of the USSR." “We thought about how to make sure that people do not die under these collapses. I will say more, if we had not signed the Belovezhskaya agreement, but applied another option, then blood could have been shed, ”Leonid Kravchuk said.
VKontakte Facebook Odnoklassniki
In Germany today is a national holiday - Day of German Unity
27 years ago, on October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic officially became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. Divided for several decades, the German nation thus gained state unity.
True, even then, many East Germans called what happened a much more appropriate name - the "Anschluss" of the GDR from the FRG. But such conditions for the restoration of a unified German state, put forward by the leadership of the FRG, were agreed by the key player in the then world arena - the USSR in the person of Mikhail Gorbachev and his entourage. Moreover, the then Soviet leader began the process of German unification behind the back of the leadership of the GDR - with separate negotiations with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the US President. And only then were the leaders of the GDR informed of Gorbachev's intentions to "reunite" Germany.
Betrayal of the GDR by what seems to be the main ally - the USSR? Undoubtedly. But the main losers from such a union were not even the East Germans: the German nation, at the very least, was reunited. The main loser in the end was ... the Russian nation, which, after the collapse of the USSR that followed soon after, turned into a divided nation. She repeated, so to speak, the fate of the Germans in the late 1940s. And, sadly to admit, under the current leadership of Russia and the post-Soviet states, no real prerequisites for the reunification of the Russians are yet visible. But let us return to the history of the unification of Germany.
The first decisive step in this direction was taken in October 1988, when Mr. Kohl paid a visit to Moscow. Before that, however, the chancellor had already thrown a "bait" to Gorbachev about the possible unification of Germany. And he received a very encouraging answer: the Soviet leader wrote a letter to Kohl, in which for the first time the words appeared about the need for a “new chapter” in relations between our countries.
Encouraged, Kohl hurried to Moscow, where the most cordial welcome awaited him. On October 28, 1988, in the Catherine's Hall of the Kremlin between Gorbachev and Kohl, one might say, a turning point conversation took place. True, then Gorbachev was somewhat modest, describing at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU the negotiations with Kohl that took place as follows: “So far, a turning point has not come, but a strong impetus for moving forward in this important direction has been given.” Gorbachev, of course, was cunning: the turning point had already come by that time (at least in his head). Ahead, though, there was a lot of work, but to a large extent, so to speak, of an applied nature.
In June of the following year, Gorbachev came to Kohl and signed a joint statement with him. Helmut Kohl himself characterizes this document as a kind of line drawn under the past, and at the same time as a source that illuminates the path to the future. Gorbachev, for his part, calls the document a "breakthrough."
After that, the leaders of the USSR and the FRG met more than once to work out a specific mechanism for the unification of Germany; among these meetings - and the famous negotiations "without a tie" in Stavropol, so dear to Mikhail Sergeevich. And at each of these meetings, the Soviet leader, in fact, surrenders one position after another, eventually agreeing to the unification of Germany on the terms put forward by Kohl. Well, after that, how can the Germans not rank Gorbachev among the "founding fathers" of today's Germany!
And in parallel, Gorbachev is negotiating with the leaders of the Western powers. Indeed, until its unification, German sovereignty, to put it mildly, left much to be desired: as having lost the war and accepted the conditions of complete and unconditional surrender in 1945, the German state was, in fact, under the international control of the victorious countries.
In the international arena, Gorbachev and his entourage, by the way, also had to work hard to convince the same Margaret Thatcher to give her consent to the reunification of Germany. And French President François Mitterrand also had to be persuaded at first. But in the end, the victorious countries reached a consensus, and in 1990 they agreed to give a reunified Germany full sovereignty by signing the Treaty of the Final Settlement for Germany.
What did the USSR (let us repeat, the key actor of the then world stage) get as a result of the unification of Germany? And he had, firstly, to urgently withdraw all his troops from East Germany. And although the FRG gave the USSR money for the withdrawal of troops, they were clearly not enough to relocate such a huge military group overnight.
Secondly, the USSR gave the united Germany full carte blanche as to which military-political union she would like to enter. Gorbachev did not demand any guarantees of Germany's neutrality, although initially he could have made this condition preliminary to all others.
As a result, Russian troops were promptly withdrawn from Germany, many units - literally into the open Russian steppe. But Germany remained in NATO, and the troops of the North Atlantic Alliance then began a quiet “drang nah osten”, including in their orbit the territory of united Germany, and the Eastern European states, and even the Baltic states. Politically, the USSR/Russia also actually lost these territories: they fell into the orbit of the West. All this is the direct fruit of those negotiations on the unification of Germany, which were held by Gorbachev.
What did he get in return from his Western "partners"? Let us give the floor to authoritative specialist Valentin Falin, who also worked as the USSR ambassador to the FRG and headed the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee under Gorbachev.
“So why didn’t he (Gorbachev) get at least a decent “compensation”? - asked Valentina Falina a few years ago, the Izvestia correspondent. - What amounts could we talk about?
“124 billion marks in the form of “compensation” (for the unification of Germany. - Approx. site) - this amount was called under Chancellor Erhard,” Falin explained. - In the early 80s - 100 billion marks so that we release the GDR from the Warsaw Pact and it would receive a neutral status like Austria. I told Gorbachev: “We have every opportunity to achieve the status of a nuclear-free territory for Germany and prevent NATO expansion to the east; according to polls, 74% of the population will support us.” Him: "I'm afraid the train has already left." In fact, he told them: "Give us 4.5 billion marks to feed the people." And that's it. He didn’t even write off the debts of the Soviet Union to both Germanys, although our property in the GDR alone was worth about a trillion!”
This is how Mikhail Gorbachev united Germany.
With the Bush presidency, the final stage of the process of dismantling the political, legal and military arsenal of the Cold War in Europe began. Already in December 1988, speaking at the UN General Assembly, Gorbachev announced his intention to unilaterally withdraw Soviet troops from the Warsaw Pact countries: another step towards detente, which, at the same time, hid the growing difficulties that arose in relations between the USSR with allies.
Gorbachev continued to search for final agreements with Bush on strategic weapons, but he managed to achieve only partial results. The first meeting of the new American president with Gorbachev took place on the roads of Malta on December 2-3, 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At first glance, the real results of the meeting were difficult to assess, but in reality it marked a turning point in bilateral relations. During direct negotiations, Gorbachev raised all the critical issues of the international situation, not excluding the threat
1G2l8a4va 13. From the crisis of detente to the Soviet crisis
PS in connection with the beginning of the separation of the Baltic countries from the Soviet Union.
Without hesitation, Gorbachev spoke openly about internal difficulties. He spoke about budget problems, about the consequences of Chernobyl. "The main test he faced was to do away with the lack of consumer goods." To achieve this result, according to Gorbachev, it was not enough to reform the economic structures: "it was necessary to change the attitude of workers to work." The negotiators then moved on to closed-ended discussions, and this moment of confidence showed the American president that Gorbachev had finally acknowledged the weakness of his position. Although he continued to assert that the Soviets retained superiority in Europe, he declared: “You are no longer our enemies. Times have changed. You are needed in Europe. You must stay in Europe. It is important for the future of the continent that you be present.” Secretary of State James Baker praised these statements as the most important and promising of those made by Gorbachev. It was at a time when the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe was crumbling that Gorbachev reaffirmed his willingness to link Soviet foreign policy to American dominance. On the other hand, the negotiations in Malta convinced Bush that Gorbachev was the best interlocutor possible at the time; a reliable partner in the era of new relations between Moscow and Washington; much more reliable than such unpredictable politicians as Walesa or Yeltsin, who appeared on the political arena.
In this climate of profound political change, Bush and Gorbachev in Malta made a very strong commitment to continue disarmament talks in the coming months and approached the situation with a keen interest that perhaps was not needed. They agreed on a significant limitation of their troops stationed in Europe. Having received the approval of NATO and the Warsaw Pact (the duration of which there were already legitimate doubts), on February 13, 1990, representatives of the two alliances met in Ottawa, which set a maximum limit of 195,000 people for Soviet and American troops in Europe. Outwardly, this seemed like a big conquest, since the number of American troops in Europe reached 350,000, and the Soviets - 600,000, but few then knew that the Soviets kept their troops at the ruble.
Part 5. From the "great détente" to the Soviet crisis
zhom, because they did not know how to accommodate them if they returned to their homeland.
Bush and Gorbachev met again on May 30 - June 3, 1990 in Washington and Camp David. This time, they agreed that the START negotiations should be completed, reaffirmed their commitment to reduce their nuclear forces by 50%, destroy their chemical weapons arsenals, and sign a new trade agreement.
Before the 1990 summit agreement became a formal treaty, an important new step was taken on the road to disarmament: the negotiations begun in Vienna in 1973 on the mutual and balanced reduction of armed forces and weapons in Europe. The agreement was approved at the meeting of the CSCE Heads of State and Government, which took place on 19 November 1990 in the French capital, where two documents were signed. The first of these, signed by 22 members of the officially still existing military-political alliances, was the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). It reaffirmed commitments already contained in the Helsinki Final Act and eliminated the possibility of surprise attacks and major offensives in Europe. The second document, signed on November 21 by all CSCE member states, proclaimed the principles of the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe", i.e. rules for future peaceful coexistence on the European continent.
The conclusion of this treaty paved the way for an agreement on strategic arms. Negotiations on this issue ended on July 31, 1991, when Bush and Gorbachev signed the START-1 treaty in Moscow, i.e. treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms. The START-1 Treaty completed the long work begun by the SALT treaties and continued after 1981 at the negotiations in Geneva, it opened a truly new era in the history of international relations. The agreement reflected understandings reached at various stages during Gorbachev's summit meetings with Reagan and Bush. Their results are shown in the following table.
Forces up to START-1 Limit START
MBR 2450 6612 4900*
SLBM 5760 2804
GShva 13. From the crisis of detente to the Soviet crisis--sutt.-
Nuclear warheads in general
ICBMs - ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles
nia; SLBM - ballistically; missiles on submarines; TB - heavy bombers equipped with missiles with nuclear warheads; *---Limit in
The 4900 in the first row of the table refers to the total number of warheads on
sea- and land-based ballistic missiles] authorized by each power.
These negotiations culminated in January 1993 with the conclusion of a new treaty between Bush and Yeltsin, called START II, in accordance with the parameters generally agreed upon during the meeting of the two statesmen in Washington on June 16-17, 1992. The new treaty almost halved the limits , established by the first START treaty, and allowed the United States and Russia to have 500 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,728 and 1,744 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, respectively, as well as 1,264 and 800 heavy bombers. The total number of nuclear warheads under the treaty was 3,492 for the United States and 3,044 for Russia.
The agreements of July 31, 1991 were for Gorbachev the climax and final moment of his international activity as head of state.
This was followed by an acute phase of the crisis in the Soviet Union - in August 1991 there was a coup d'état and Gorbachev was practically removed from power, and in December 1991 he officially ceased his duties as president of the USSR. At the same time, the Soviet Union ceased to exist "as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality." On December 9, 1991, Yeltsin began to form relations between the former Soviet republics on a new basis: before that, the question remained open, since a new Union Treaty was not signed in August. The American government had to choose between four entities that possessed atomic weapons, which were in the possession of the former Soviet Union, i.e. between the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The choice was to fall on the strongest successor and the most reliable in terms of responsibility, which included the ability to control an atomic arsenal that was still powerful enough and more dangerous than ever before.
In the fall of 1991, Bush began negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, and it was with him that in
Part 5. From the "great détente" to the Soviet crisis
In January 1993, the START-2 agreement was finally signed. Meanwhile, at the time of the signing of the agreement, a crisis phase began, as it was difficult to understand the extent to which Yeltsin controlled the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. The collapse of the USSR gave rise to problems unknown in the past. Gorbachev's policies led to the end of the Cold War, but after his departure, the internal situation of the entire region, directly or indirectly under the influence of the Soviet Union, began a process of destabilization with unpredictable results.
