Andrey Edemskiy

"Soviet Foreign Policy on the Road to Helsinki:
Strategies and Tactics (1966-1976)"

The idea of the paper lays in the hypothesis that  Soviet position at Helsinki and Belgrade conferences was formed by inertia of Soviet activity in the previous period (1967-1973). In the moddle of 1970-s Soviet foreign policy elite was paying special attention to Baskets I and II, and did not consider human rights dimension of CSCE process (Basket III) as crusial. Therefore  the CSCE process (since 1975) laid down the groundwork for Gorbachev and his team to advance perestroika leading to velvet revolutions in Soviet bloc and relatively non-bloody collapse of it and the USSR itself.
To analyze Soviet (and Warsaw Pact in general) preparations for a European Security Conference from 1967 to 1973, and generalization of their further activity during Helsinki Conference 1974-August 1975 and before Belgrade meeting. In spite of the lack (still classified) of primary sources (day-to-day documents of Foreign Ministry) the report is drawn upon recently released (declassified) reports of Secretary-General of the CPSU Leonid I. Brezhnev to secret sessions of Soviet bureaucratic elites (Central Committee of the CPSU), and regular exchange of views on international issues during the meetings of leaders of European  socialist countries.
The idea to organize pan-European dialogue had domestic and foreign policy implications. At the domestic level the hidden struggle between fragmentized groups in Soviet riling elite (pragmatics of Brezhnev clique himself, ideological team headed by Suslov, and technocrats oriented partly at Soviet Premier Kosygin, partly at KGB head Andropov,) was accepted by all of them.  Both ideologists and Real-policy groups of Soviet elite (former supported ideological line whereas technocratic elites were logically implicating de-idelogization of Soviet regime, has been used by Brezhnev and his entourage to elevate to power. The idea of European conference allowed him like an ‘honest broker’ to stay keeping afloat out of discussions.  Moreover, all these groups were united by the idea to bring closure finally World War II by all-European recognition of existing after WWII borders. At the pragmatic level the Kremlin wanted to fix principles that should govern its foreign policy in Europe in the future and would establish a privileged pan-European dialogue. Another uniting momentum was the whish to fix Soviet European flank, especially after clashes at Chinese border in 1969. At the same time all elite groups were for European stability since economically Soviet elite expected financial investments into Soviet economy with its decreasing industrial production and catastrophic lack of finance and industry machines even for exploring and using of mineral resources in Siberia and Northern Russia.            
At the same time all groups in the Soviet leadership were united with the idea of Moscow’s “pan-European dialogue” as a tool for sowing discord among the Atlantic alliance, supporting the intentions of France and FRG to free them from American grips. For this reason already after Bucharest declaration, Moscow encouraged Warsaw Pact member states to engage in bilateral negotiations with Western European countries on the issue of a pan-European conference.
The Soviet Foreign Ministry bureaucrats (Anatoly Kovalev, Valentin Falin etc) and Academic circles (directors of newly established academic think-tanks like V.Inozemtsev, G.Arbatov, O.Bogomolov) oriented at KGB chief Yury Andropov and technocrat Premier Kosygin were driving force behind the CSCE pushing CC/CPSU  entirely in favor of the CSCE.           
As documents reveals Leonid Brezhnev himself at the early stages was not interesting in foreign policy formulations since he was busy with pushing forward his people placing them at all high-ranking positions. Generally he adopted the idea of Conference since its symbolized the formal end of WWII which did not achieved his predecessors Stalin and Khrushchev. Step by step he realized that this idea is popular in the nations which has lost more than 28 million people during last war. Moreover the  activity in this direction made General Secretary equal to the leaders of industrial Western states.  To achieve this goal, Brezhnev was ready for many concessions. As contemporary research demonstrate at the later stages Leonid I. Brezhnev has been willing to go very far and even involved himself personally in formulating the positions, and one of them was the intention to harmonize interests of Soviet European allies, which at the same time became the seeds of disintegration in nearest future since the Helsinki process has  assisted to closer cooperation of countries of the Soviet sphere of interest  with the West.