Word: sovietism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...find acceptance with any new departure. Every step he took was immediately subsumed again in the controversies and distrust he had accumulated over a lifetime. He soon found himself in the paradoxical position of a former cold warrior accused of being too committed to easing relations with the Soviet Union. What was the reality...
Brezhnev was quintessentially Russian. He was a mixture of crudeness and warmth; at the same time brutal and engaging, cunning and disarming. While he boasted of Soviet strength, one had the sense that he was not really all that sure of it. Having grown up in a backward society nearly overrun by Nazi invasion, he seemed to feel in his bones the vulnerability of his system. It is my nightmare that his successors, bred in more tranquil times and accustomed to modern technology and military strength, might be freer of self-doubt; with no such inferiority complex, they may believe...
...Stalin and the intrigue that led to the overthrow of Khrushchev and catapulted Brezhnev to the top. He seemed at once exuberant and spent, eager to prevail but at minimum risk. He had had enough excitement for one lifetime. None of this, of course, changed the realities of Soviet power, which he was augmenting energetically. And this would have to be balanced by our strength, whatever Brezhnev's intentions or professions. Detente could never replace a balance of power...
Among our own experts Kosygin had the reputation of being more liberal than Brezhnev. I considered that a superficial judgment. As Prime Minister, he was in operational control of day-to-day activities of the Soviet government-outside of the security and foreign policy fields...
Inevitably, this produced a certain pragmatism. He could speak eloquently about the advantages of increased commerce with the United States, though he never failed to claim that he was doing us the greater favor by opening up the Soviet market to our exports. But outside the economic area, Kosygin struck me as orthodox if not rigid. It seemed almost as if he compensated for managerial pragmatism by the strictest piety on ideological matters...