網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

tivities of the First Main Directorate and its enterprises and institutes, or to demand information about its work or work carried out at the behest of the First Main Directorate. All records of such work are to be directed only to the GKO's Special Committee.

12. That within 10 days the Special Committee be instructed to provide recommendations for approval by the Chairman of the GKO concerning the transfer of all necessary scientifc, design, engineering, and production organizations and industrial enterprises to the First Main Directorate of the USSR CPC, and to affirm the structure, organization, and number of workers on the staffs of the Committee and the First Main Directorate of the USSR CPC.

13. That Cde. Beria be instructed to take measures aimed at organizing foreign intelligence work to gain more complete technical and economic information about the uranium industry and about atomic bombs. He is empowered to supervise all intelligence work in this sphere carried out by intelligence organs (NKGB, RUKA, etc.).

[blocks in formation]

Group) is to be set up to study archival documents connected with the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR and to devise recommendations for their declassification. The Working Group is to consist of the following:

L.D. RYABEV-first deputy Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (director of the Working Group);

[ocr errors]

R. G. PIKHOYA director of Rosarkhiv (deputy director of the Working Group);

[ocr errors]

G. A. TSYRKOV head of a main directorate in the Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia (deputy director of the Working Group);

[ocr errors]

V. V. ALEKSEEV director of the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Urals Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences;

[ocr errors]

V. I. ANIKEEV deputy head of a direcorate in the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia

directorate in the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation;

B. V. LITVINOV - senior designer at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia;

V. M. OREL

director of the S. I. Vavilov Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences;

V. A. PIDZHAKOV-deputy head of the Central Physics and Technical Institute at the Defense Ministry of Russia;

Yu. B. KHARITON honorary research director of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia.

2. Within three months, the Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia, the Defense Ministry of Russia, the State Committee on the Defense Industry of Russia, the Federal Se

V. V. BOGDAN-chief of affairs at the curity Service of the Russian Federation, the

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, Rosarkhiv, and the Russian Academy of Sciences will prepare, and present to the Working Group, lists of archival documents proposed for declassification and for inclusion in an official compilation of archival documents pertaining to the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR during the period through 1954.

3. In the third quarter of 1995, the Working Group will determine a thematic way of dividing archival documents proposed for declassification in accordance with established procedures and for inclusion in an official compilation of archival documents pertaining to the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR during the period through 1954, and will prepare a general list of these documents.

4. In the fourth quarter of 1995, the State Technology Commission of Russia, in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia, the DefMin of Russia, the State Committee on the Defense Industry of Russia, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, Rosarkhiv, and the Russian Academy of Sciences will, on the basis of established procedures, arrange for the declassification of archival documents pertaining to the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR during the period through 1954, drawing on the list

specified in Point 3 of this directive.

5. The Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia is responsible for providing organizational and technical support for the activity of the Working Group and for the preparation of materials needed to publish an official compilation of archival documents pertaining to the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR during the period through 1954.

6. The Russian Committee on the Press and Publishing, in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Ministry of Russia, is to ensure the publication in 1996 of an official compilation of archival documents pertaining to the history of the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR during the period through 1954. Funding is to come from outlays in the Federal budget for the periodical press and publishing outlets.

Chairman of the Government of the

Russian Federation
V. Chernomyrdin

******

RESEARCH NOTE:

SECRET EAST GERMAN REPORT

ON CHINESE REACTIONS

3. After that date, Chinese press reports were virtually identical to the coverage in other Communist countries, all of which condemned the Hungarian revolution and strongly supported the Soviet invasion. Until November 2, however, the Chinese press

was bolder and more evenhanded in its treatment of the Hungarian crisis than the other East-bloc newspapers were, as Liebermann's report makes clear. The East German diplomat even expressed anxiety about the detail of Chinese coverage, saying that "they would have been better off leaving out" some of the most vivid descriptions of the revolutionary ferment. Liebermann left no doubt that the kind of reports featured in the Chinese press would have been unacceptable in East Germany.

The concluding paragraph of Liebermann's report is intriguing insofar as it reveals high-level East German concerns about China's efforts to establish a “special position' within the socialist camp” and about Beijing's general commitment to the Communist bloc. Although Liebermann assured his superiors that China "stands solidly behind" the socialist camp and "is not taking up any sort of 'special position," the very fact that he had to rebut these accusations

TO THE 1956 HUNGARIAN REVOLT implies that some officials in Eastern Eu

Introduced and Translated

by Mark Kramer

Following are excerpts from a document prepared by a senior East German diplomat, H. Liebermann, a few weeks after Soviet troops crushed the revolution in Hungary in 1956. The full report, entitled, "Berich uber die Haltung der VR China zu den Ereignissen in Ungarn," is now stored in File No. 120, Section IV 2/20, of the former East German Communist party archives, known as Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMDB, or SAPMO), in Berlin. (A copy of the document was recently located at the Berlin archive by Christian F. Ostermann, a researcher currently based at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., and provided to the author by CWIHP.)

Liebermann's six-page report, compiled at the request of the East German Foreign Ministry, traces Chinese press coverage of events in Hungary from late October to midNovember 1956. The portions translated here pertain to coverage through November

rope already sensed that the "steadfast alliance" between the Soviet Union and China might one day be called into question.

Thus, the document is valuable in showing how even a seemingly arcane item from the East-Central European archives can shed light on the dynamics of Sino-Soviet relations.

[blocks in formation]

The first report in the Chinese press about the crisis in Hungary was published on 27.10.56. It should be noted that up through 2 Nov. this information was published without commentary, for example in the foreign policy section of "People's Daily" on pages 5/6. Nevertheless, through daily published reports (except on 30 Oct., when nothing about Hungary was published in "People's Daily") the PRC informed the Chinese people in detail about the crisis in Hungary. This information, however, was not enough to provide a clear picture of the crisis. This situation remained essentially unchanged until the formation of the Workers' and Peasants' Government.

The form of reporting in the Chinese press was obviously geared toward the Chinese reader. Even though the Chinese people were following the crisis in Hungary very closely, it is quite natural that for the Chinese people the crisis seemed more distant than it did for, say, the peoples of the European People's Democracies. In addition, the Anglo-French aggression against Egypt at that time was given priority coverage in the Chinese press. This explains why until the formation of the Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Government, much more information about Hungary appeared in the Chinese press than in the GDR press. Under the special conditions of the PRC, they can pursue this type of reporting without fear that it will cause agitation and disquiet among the Chinese people of the sort one can detect among some of the GDR citizens currently here in Peking.

Although the Chinese press during the early days was factual and objective in its reports on the crisis in Hungary, there were some things reported in the press that they would have been better off leaving out, even if one takes account of the special conditions in the PRC. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this point.

1) The "People's Daily" on 1 Nov. quoted the following passage from a speech by Nagy: “The continual growth of the revolution in our country has brought the movement of democratic forces to a crossroads."

2) The "People's Daily" on 1 Nov. also reported that Nagy on 30 Oct. had commenced negotiations with representatives of the armed forces committee of the freedom fighters and the revolutionary committee of the revolutionary intelligen

tsia and students.

A clear statement about the crisis in Hungary was published in a lead article in the "People's Daily" on 3 Nov. In this lead article, which covers

the Soviet Union's declaration on ties with socialist countries, a portion concerns the crisis in Hungary: "The Chinese people are wholeheartedly on the side of the honest Hungarian workers and on the side of the true Hungarian patriots and resolute socialist fighters for Hungary. We are dismayed to see that a small group of counterrevolutionary conspirators are exploiting the situation with the aim of restoring capitalism and fascist terror and of using Hungary to disrupt the unity of the socialist countries and undermine the Warsaw Pact."

Judging by the stance of the PRC toward the crisis in Hungary, one again can confidently emphasize that the PRC stands solidly behind the camp of socialism and friendship with the Soviet Union. It is also clear that the PRC is not taking up any sort of "special position" within the socialist camp, as certain Western circles would have preferred. The stance of the People's Republic of China toward the crisis in Hungary was no different from the stance of the other socialist countries. (H. Liebermann)

"A VOICE CRYING

IN THE WILDERNESS": THE PROFESSIONAL'S REVENGE

by David R. Stone

Georgii Markovich Kornienko, Kholodnaia voina: svidetel'stvo ee uchastnika [The Cold War: Testimony of a Participant] (Moscow: International Relations, 1995).

After a Soviet fighter plane shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 in September 1983, Georgii Kornienko was assigned by his superior Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to prepare TASS's official press release on the incident. In particular, Gromyko instructed Kornienko to claim that the Soviet Union had absolutely no knowledge of the fate of the airliner, though the Soviet leadership was quite certain that it had indeed shot down the plane. Kornienko vehemently protested that the truth of the matter would inevitably come out and that the best course was to reveal just that: the Soviet Union had shot down an unidentified intruder in the full conviction that it was an American spy plane. Gromyko was indecisive, but invited Kornienko to call KGB head Yurii Andropov to state his case. In Kornienko's opinion, Andropov was prepared to accept an honest account of the event, but was swayed by Defense Minister Dmitrii Ustinov, long-time master of Soviet defense industry, and the Soviet military leadership. At the meeting to make the final decision, Ustinov won this internal battle and Kornienko was only "a voice crying in the wilderness." The consequences proved Kornienko right; a human tragedy was turned by the Soviet leadership's short-sightedness and the Reagan Administration's intense criticism into a public-relations disaster for the USSR.

Moments like these, in which political leaders ignore at their peril the advice of their professional advisors, recur frequently in Kornienko's memoirs. Covering his over forty years of serving the Soviet state from junior translator in intelligence work to Deputy Foreign Minister, Kornienko's observations are those of a Soviet patriot intent on settling scores both with the West and with his Soviet comrades. It is perhaps a universal failing of memoirs that they emphasize those times when the hero-author is right and all about are mistaken; Kornienko's

are a sterling example, concentrating particularly on moments when diplomats' prerogatives were violated, whether by party functionaries, military officers, or the highest leadership of the Soviet state. After Henry Kissinger's April 1972 visit to Moscow, in which he worked closely with Kornienko, the innocuously bland final statement noted that talks had been “open and productive.” N. V. Podgornyi, Chair of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and thus nominally Soviet head of state, objected to this positive spin on Soviet-American relations despite his complete ignorance of diplomacy. Only Kissinger's acquiescence avoided more serious diplomatic consequences. Still later, as political instability in Afghanistan grew at the end of the 1970s, the universal opinion within the Soviet Foreign Ministry against military intervention was disregarded-Andropov and Ustinov eventually browbeat Gromyko into agreeing to an invasion, Kornienko informs us, producing a bloody and ultimately frustrating war with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.

Despite these tales of underappreciated diplomats, Kornienko's book is surprisingly unrevealing about the inner workings of Soviet foreign policy; while discussing Ustinov and Andropov's pressure on Gromyko for intervention in Afghanistan, he never satisfactorily explains why they themselves had abandoned the general conviction that military intervention in Afghanistan was a terrible idea. Extraordinarily cagey, he never draws upon personal experience or Soviet documentary evidence when a Western secondary source will do. Personal observations in his work serve either to prove his own acuity and point up the mistakes of others or to disparage the talents and character of those Kornienko worked with. His memoirs produce the impression that Kornienko had no friends, was particularly unimpressed by Brezhnev, Ford, and Reagan, and of all those he dealt with admired only Gromyko and Andropov. This does not mean that Kornienko's book is without value, but it must be used to understand the mindset and mental world of a member of the Soviet foreign policy elite, not to find new facts and revealed secrets.

Kornienko's first three chapters, on the sources of the Cold War, on the Eisenhower presidency, and on Kennedy and Khrushchev, offer very little that is new or especially interesting to students of the Cold War.

Though he claims to have based his accounts on his own experiences and on his conversations with other Soviet diplomats, in particular Gromyko, the reader finds little from an insider's point of view. As a low-ranking diplomat, Kornienko may indeed have seen and done little worthy of reporting. Even so, an occasional personal glimpse of life in Soviet intelligence and the diplomatic corps slips through. Kornienko relates, for example, that hawkish officials in the KGB, hoping to present Stalin with a translation of George Kennan's seminal 1947 Foreign Affairs article, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," in which “containment" was translated as "suffocation," pressured Kornienko to spice his translation. The cooler heads of Kornienko and his fellow translators succeeded in standing up for the integrity of the translator's art.

These earlier chapters are most noteworthy for the general theory Kornienko offers of the Cold War and its origins, which has a direct bearing on his interpretation of how the Cold War ended. For Kornienko, there were no vast impersonal forces or inevitable class contradictions dictating the growth of U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Neither class struggle nor geopolitical necessity mandated confrontation. Soviet policy in Eastern Europe was also no obstacle to normal relations, as Kornienko argues that American methods in Japan did not differ from Stalin's methods in Eastern Europe. (Poles and Czechoslovaks might be puzzled here at their implicit inclusion in the camp of defeated Axis powers.) Instead, the Cold War stemmed from the pragmatic Roosevelt's untimely death and his replacement by the ideologue Truman. Kornienko notes Truman's notorious suggestion that the Nazis and Soviets be left to kill each other off; he likes it so much he repeats it twice. Kornienko asks rhetorically, “Was another path possible? It seems to me yes. But Truman consciously rejected it." That is, confrontation was a specific political choice, and one for which the Soviets bore at least some measure of responsibility, for “if the American side said 'A' in the Cold War, then Stalin didn't hold himself back from saying 'B'." Since the West never seriously undertook an end to the Cold War, when the end finally did come under Gorbachev, the only possible explanation was unilateral Soviet surrender.

Chapter 4 on the Cuban missile crisis is

nearly as frustrating as the first three in terms of lacking new revelations. Kornienko approves the document collections that have been published since the advent of glasnost, but does not enrich the story they tell with any significant new information of his own. Despite serving as a counselor in the Soviet Union's Washington embassy during the crisis, Kornienko tells us little of his own experiences. He does relate (as does thenSoviet ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin in his recently published memoirs) that the Soviet embassy was kept in complete ignorance of the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, and was in fact unwittingly used to pass along disinformation.

The meat of Kornienko's story is his role in one of the key moments of the crisis: Khrushchev's two letters to Kennedy, the first of 26 October 1962 promising withdrawal of Soviet missiles in return for an American pledge of non-intervention in Cuba, the second of the next day additionally demanding the corresponding with drawal of American missiles from Turkey. According to Kornienko, his own detective work played a central role in Khrushchev's decision to sharpen his demands. Soviet intelligence sources reported a conversation with an American journalist on his immediate departure for Florida to cover the imminent American invasion. Hearing these reports as well as taking into account the heightened alert status of American armed forces, Khrushchev accordingly acted to calm the situation by sending his first letter. Kornienko himself knew the journalist, scheduled lunch with him (itself proving that the journalist was not due for immediate departure), and convinced himself that the earlier intelligence reports of imminent invasion had been mistaken. Armed with Kornienko's information, Khrushchev felt prepared to drive a harder bargain with the Americans.

Chapter 5 on the prelude to détente and Chapter 6 on détente itself offer slightly more. Détente came not from any alterations on the Soviet side, but from Nixon and Kissinger's decision to undertake a more pragmatic and conciliatory policy towards Moscow. In early 1972, Kornienko worked closely with Henry Kissinger on the "Basic Principles" statement on Soviet-American relations. Despite being at the heart of political decision-making at the highest levels, Kornienko strays from standard accounts

of the most important stages of détente— Kissinger's secret visit to Moscow, Nixon's Kissinger's secret visit to Moscow, Nixon's Moscow summit and Ford's Vladivostok summit with Brezhnev-only to comment bitingly on Brezhnev and Ford's lack of mental ability, or to claim that Kissinger deliberately scheduled meetings in Moscow to keep his deputy Helmut Sonnenfeldt away from discussions on the Middle East (allegedly due to fear of Sonnenfeldt's "zionist inclinations").

Détente was short-lived. In Kornienko's interpretation, the beginning of the end was interpretation, the beginning of the end was the 1975-76 Angolan Civil War; Carter's presidency only furthered the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations already begun and represented another missed chance at an end to the Cold War. The main obstacle to improving relations, in Kornienko's account, improving relations, in Kornienko's account, was not Carter's concern for human rights, which was irritating but rather insignificant to Soviet leaders, but instead more concrete issues of international politics. While Carter himself might have been prepared for a more open-minded approach to the Soviet Union, open-minded approach to the Soviet Union, the Carter Administration, hamstrung by unnamed (but easily identifiable) hawks within its ranks, was not prepared for a full within its ranks, was not prepared for a full settlement. The United States' fundamental goals still included superiority not equality in arms control policy, and even the Carterbrokered Camp David accord only undermined the chances for a general Mideast peace via U.S.-Soviet joint action, Kornienko alleges.

Chapters 8 and 9 cover the war in Afghanistan and the downing of KAL 007 as discussed above; Chapter 10 brings us to the discussed above; Chapter 10 brings us to the Reagan years and the beginnings of glasnost, for which Kornienko has saved his bitterest venom. His target is not Stalin, Brezhnev, or any Western cold warrior, but his last two superiors: Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard superiors: Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze. In Chapter 10 and his conclusion, he presents the case for the prosecution in Mikhail Gorbachev's treason trial. Traitor is not too strong a word to express Kornienko's evaluation of Mikhail Gorbachev, but Kornienko admits that blunders began before Gorbachev took power in 1985. Chapter 10 first examines at the preGorbachev decision to replace aging Soviet medium-range SS-4 and SS-5 missiles in medium-range SS-4 and SS-5 missiles in Europe with SS-20s. In keeping with Kornienko's general portrait of the late Brezhnev years, in contrast with more effective policy under Stalin and Khrushchev,

Soviet efforts in foreign policy were sabotaged by bungling and short-sightedness. He tells us that West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt suggested to Aleksei Kosygin that the replacement SS-20s be limited to a quantity significantly less than the outgoing SS-4s and SS-5s, given the qualitative superiority of the new missiles, and that this policy be linked explicitly to an attempt to head off a new arms race in Europe. Kornienko, an invited guest at the Politburo meeting that discussed Schmidt's suggestion, spoke above his station and out of turn to support this initiative. Ustinov challenged him with the possibility of an American arms buildup even after conciliatory Soviet gestures. Even in this worst-case outcome, Kornienko believed, any temporary advantage the Americans might gain in medium-range missiles would be far outweighed by the beneficial effects of the resulting strains in the Western alliance and strengthening of Western Europe's antinuclear movement. With Brezhnev too feeble to make his presence felt, and Gromyko's refusal to speak up for Kornienko, Ustinov simply proved too powerful. Once again Kornienko, the lone voice of reason, had his advice unthinkingly disregarded, and the upgrade went forward as planned.

The second half of Chapter 10 examines the fate of the SS-23 "Oka” missile. This is one episode of the Cold War whose significance is interpreted in radically different ways on either side of the former iron curtain. Barely noticed in the West, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze's decision to include the SS-23 with its 400km range in the list of intermediate range (that is, with range 500 km and higher) missiles slated for elimination is the touchstone of Russian military and conservative condemnation of Gorbachev, what one officer terms the “crime of the century." While the opposition to Gorbachev can hardly argue that the elimination of a single missile system was the root cause of the downfall of the Soviet Union, they do see the case of the Oka as an example of all the worst in Gorbachev's diplomacy: unpreparedness, unwillingness to listen to expert opinion, and, most seriously, sacrifice of Soviet national interests in the name of agreement, any agreement, with the West. As Kornienko puts it, the inclusion of the Oka under the provisions of a treaty that did not concern it was "only one of the examples of what serious consequences occur when

high-placed leaders ignore the competent judgment of specialists and as a result sacrifice the very interests of the state trying for one thing—to that much quickly finish the preparation of this or that treaty and light off fireworks in celebration."

The conclusion of Kornienko's book, a shortened version of a case set forth earlier at greater length and in greater detail in Nezavisimaia Gazeta (16 August 1994), is what his argument has been leading to all along: the Gorbachev era as the epitome of unprofessionalism in foreign policy. It is a full-fledged condemnation of almost every action undertaken by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze from 1985 through the final collapse of the Soviet Union. In particular, Kornienko strives to discredit the idea that Gorbachev offered something truly new and revolutionary in international politics. As Kornienko reminds us, it was Lenin who first enunciated the principle of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist world (as another form of class struggle), and Stalin actively endorsed the idea of coexistence with the West as late as 1951. Ever since a rough nuclear parity had been achieved in the 1960s, reasonable people on each side had seen the need for an end to the arms race and confrontation. Gorbachev's innovation was not living in peace with the West, but the unilateral "betrayal of the Soviet Union's vital interests."

Kornienko enunciates a number of specific examples of Gorbachev's craven behavior-submission to the United States over the Krasnoyarsk radar station and Soviet acquiescence in the use of force against Iraq-but his most substantial comments are reserved for the reunification of Germany. Kornienko, having passed over in silence the Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, takes pains to emphasize the right of the German people to self-determination, free from outside influence. His objection is to the manner in which this unification took place and the status of the resulting German state. Why, he asks, should Germany remain in NATO and why should NATO troops remain in Germany with Soviet troops completely evacuated from Eastern Europe? The fact that Germany has stayed in NATO he attributes to the absolutely incompetent way in which Gorbachev handled the German question, avoiding the enunciation of any clear policy until too late, insisting on the

unacceptability of German NATO membership to George Bush in Washington only in February 1990 and then conceding Germany's right to remain in NATO without receiving guarantees and concessions in re

turn.

Here Kholodnaia voina particularly suffers by comparison to Kornienko's 1992 collaboration with Marshal Sergei Akhromeev, former Chief of the General Staff and one-time personal aide to Mikhail Gorbachev. This earlier book, Glazami marshala i diplomata [Through the Eyes of a Marshal and a Diplomat] (Moscow, 1992), covers in book-length form the Gorbachev years which Kornienko discusses in a chapter. The lion's share is Akhromeev's work, and he was a much more sensitive and forthcoming observer, on occasion even revealing the details of Soviet tactics in arms control negotiations. While nearly as condemnatory of Gorbachev as Kornienko, Akhromeev as Chief of the General Staff was in a position to truly appreciate the steady decline of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev and the need for radical reform, though he parted company with Gorbachev on how precisely reform needed to be implemented. (Akhromeev killed himself in the wake of the failed coup of August 1991.) What Kornienko misses in his evaluation of the Gorbachev years is precisely how desperate Gorbachev's position was by the end of the 1980s. With opposition to Gorbachev growing on all sides, an economy spiraling into free fall, Soviet troops on hostile ground in Eastern Europe, and the specter of nationalism haunting the Soviet Union, Gorbachev simply had no ground to stand on. It is this last factornationalism—that Kornienko (and for that matter Akhromeev) consistently ignores. It seems he imagines that a stable end to the Cold War could have occurred with Eastern Europe still occupied by Soviet troops, and he never noticed that half the Soviet Union's population was non-Russian.

Kornienko, then, continues to be a devoted patriot of the collapsed empire he served for four decades. While there is likely some truth to his assertions that Gorbachev might have driven marginally harder bargains with the West than he in fact did, the real significance of any diplomatic triumphs Gorbachev might have achieved is questionable. What can any diplomat achieve when the state he or she represents crumbles away? Kornienko can complain that his voice was

[blocks in formation]

Post-Mao China has been marked by a transition from a combination of totalitarione anism and socialism to of authoritarianism and a "socialist market economy." Along with this transition is the gradual "withering away of the state," which in turn has resulted in a looser government control over publication on some historical issues previously considered taboo during the Mao era. One of the most fascinating new academic interests in China is the sudden surge of materials on Chinese Communist intelligence, triggered by a massive "political rehabilitation" of those Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence veterans who were vanquished in Mao's ruthless campaigns.1 The publication of Chen Hansheng's memoirs, My Life During Four Eras, is just one of the telling examples.

Chen Hansheng became an agent for the Comintern in 1926 while a young professor at Beijing University (p.35). His life as a communist intelligence official spans many decades of the 20th century and involves some of the most important espionage cases. Chen Hansheng's memoirs add some new and revealing dimensions to the present understanding of the much debated history of Chinese and international communism. In an authoritative manner, this publication helps answer many nagging questions long in the minds of historians, chief among which

« 上一頁繼續 »