A Lesson from Khrushchev's Error
http://www.ghandchi.com/317-KhrushchevEng.htm
Persian Version
http://www.ghandchi.com/317-Khrushchev-plus.htm
Iranian pro-democracy movement can learn an important lesson from Khrushchev's failure to create a rapport with the U.S. Do I mean to compromise independence and make secret behind-the-closed-door deals with the U.S.? No, on the contrary, I believe in 100% openness and lucidity in any relations with the U.S., and other foreign entities. Let me explain.
Decades after Khrushchev's failure, Yeltsin by avoiding anti-U.S. rhetoric, not only did not compromise his nation's interests, but instead created a clear successful strategy of relations with the U.S. Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa also created a good rapport with the U.S., to a degree that they were even invited to address U.S. Congress.
One may wonder why a popular singer like Sting, in his lyrics of a song in 1985, chooses the name of Khrushchev, and not Stalin or Brezhnev, when singing "Mr. Khrushchev said we will bury you... I hope the Russians love their children too"?
As we know,
Khrushchev was the first reformist head of state in
the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin, whose famous speech in 1956, in the
20th Congress of the Communist Party, was the first admittance of the horrors of
Communism by a Soviet official, and he opened the way for pro-democracy movement
in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in the Communist Bloc, and he initially
received a lot of support from the West. Then why internationally he was
not able to create a rapport with the West in the subsequent years, to the
point of bringing the world to the point of a third world war in 1962, at the
time of Cuban Missile crisis?
What was Khrushchev's error?
Khrushchev tried to outperform the party hardliners in anti-U.S. rhetoric so that they would not call him anti-Communist. The reality is that he was still called anti-Communist and revisionist, but being antagonistic with the Western democracies, also cost him a failure to create good relations with the West.
Khrushchev did not realize that Party hardliners work a different way. They attack the West for its democratic values, and at the same time, they tell their constituency, that because of reality of the world, they have to have relations with the West, and they would have all kinds of closed-door deals with their Western partners as well. In contrast, this approach would not work for a liberal leader and anti-American slogans cause the failure of the pro-democracy movement inside and failure of rapport with democratic societies aboard.
The correct strategy for a liberal leader should have been to create a friendly open-door clear relations with the Western democracies, rather than trying to outdo the hardliners in anti-U.S. rhetoric, attacking Western *values*. This is what, decades later, Gorbachev, and especially Yeltsin, learned in their handling of the relations with the Western democracies, and did not make Khrushchev's error.
The situation in Iran has been similar in many junctions. From Mossadegh to Khatami. Not that Khatami is like Mossadegh in his politics. In fact, Khatami contrary to Mossadegh, has always sided with the new king of Iran, Ayatollah Khamene'i, at every crisis from the July 9th of 1999 suppression of 18-tir student uprising, to the election of Seventh Parliament a few days ago. My point here is to note that they both would try to compete with the leftists or rightist, by outdoing them in anti-U.S. slogans. Actually in the beginning in 1987, the U.S. had hopes to build a rapport with Khatami's government, but continuous anti-U.S. rhetoric of Khatami caused those attempts to fail.
I am not saying that it would have been any better if Khatami made a right choice and was successful. Needless to say that IRI reformists, in contrast to Soviet Union, want to save the Islamist state, whereas Soviet reformists of 80's wanted to end the the Communist state, and start a Western-style secular democracy. As I have written before, I do not have any illusions about the IRI reformists, the same way Karl Popper did not have any illusions about Soviet state reformists like Khrushchev.
Most of the lesson I am emphasizing here is for the progressive forces of Iran, and not the IRI so-called reformists. And it was not just Khatami, Banisadr at the time of hostage-taking in 1980, tried to be a kAseh dAghtar az Ash (pot hotter than the soup), in his anti-U.S. rhetoric. My goal here is just to show the issue of handling the relations with the U.S., by reform-minded forces in Iran, whether they are thorough reformists or not.
Even our progressive independence-seeking liberals like Mossadegh, did not know how to handle the relations with the West, to reduce tension and create proper rapport, because they were afraid to be labeled by Islamists or the leftists, as U.S. collaborators. Moreover they worried about the connections of Ghavamol Saltaneh or other adversaries with different foreign states and acted accordingly. My point is that a liberal force should not make its strategy based on such political considerations of the moment, and should create a friendly rapport with the Western democracies.
The IRI hardliners attack the West with rhetoric, while the IRI lobbyists, such as emissaries of Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani in the U.S. and Europe, work round the clock to make deals with the U.S. Basically the U.S. believes that dealing with Rafsanjani is easier than dealing with the IRI reformists like Khatami, and of course they also are comfortable dealing with the monarchists. As I noted, both these forces make anti-U.S. rhetoric, while making deals with the U.S. behind the closed-doors. Such a relationship with the U.S will never work for pro-democracy forces, and using anti-U.S. slogans as a foreign policy for such forces is like shooting oneself in the foot..
In my article about the Death to America rhetoric of IRI hardliners, I wrote that we should focus on sharing the democratic values with the democratic societies of the West, and we need to make it clear that we see them as our allies, sharing democratic values, when building a post-industrial society.
The taboo of relations with Western states and parties should be broken, and we should make sure that *only* open and clear dialogue with the foreign governments is what we pursue, and that we condemn any secret deals with any foreign entity. Nonetheless, this stand does not mean animosity towards the U.S. On the contrary, it means friendship and cooperation based on mutual respect, independence, and lucidity.
As I wrote in an article in 1999, the taboo of relations with the foreign countries has caused many Iranian pro-democracy forces to avoid proper relations with Western democracies as well, whether they are in power or not:
http://www.ghandchi.com/59-Taboo.htm
Hoping for a Futurist, Federal, Democratic, and Secular Republic in Iran,
Sam Ghandchi, Editor/Publisher
IRANSCOPE
February 22, 2004
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