'Europe is our Common Home': A study of Gorbachev's diplomatic concept

Cold War History

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 33-65

  Rey, Marie Pierre ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ PARIS 1 PANTHÉON SORBONNE   (France)

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EID: 34248063301     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14682740412331391805     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Among the latter, see Marian Leighton, 'Toward a "Common European Home", What's in it for Us?', Global Affairs 6/2 (1991), pp.77-92;
2. Georges-Henri Soutou, 'La Maison Commune Européenne: tactique et stratégie', Géopolitique 36 (1991-92), pp.73-80;
3. and Jacques Levesque, 'De la "Maison Commune Européenne" à la désintégration du Pacte de Varsovie et à celle de l'URSS', Etudes Internationales 23/1 (1992), pp.37-55.
4. In his book, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Archie Brown does not even mention the concept.
5. And in his study of Gorbachev, Gorbachev and After (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), Stephen White mentions the expression only in passing (p.195).
6. See, for example, Coit D. Blacker, Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985-1991 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993);
7. James Goldgeier, Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy: Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.)
8. Erik Hoffmann, Robin Laird and Frederic Fleron, Contemporary Issues in Soviet Foreign Policy from Brezhnev to Gorbachev (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1991);
9. Nicolai N. Petro and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Russian Foreign Policy, From Empire to Nation-State (New York: Longman, 1997);
10. and Gerhard Wettig, Soviet Foreign Policy under Gorbachev: New Political Thinking and its Impact (London: Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies, 1988)
11. Mikhail Gorbachev, On My Country and the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p.177.
12. In Russian, 'Evropa, nash obshchii dom', Pravda, 19 Dec. 1984.
13. Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (London: Doubleday, 1996), p.161.
14. See Marie-Pierre Rey, 'Georges Pompidou et l'Union soviétique', in Georges Pompidou et l'Europe (Paris: Complexe, 1995), pp.141-70.
15. see also Hannes Adomeit, Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Foreign Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998), p.47.
16. Gorbachev, On My Country and the World, p.171.
17. Gorbachev, Memoirs, p.428.
18. Izvestiya, 25 Sept. 1985.
19. Quoted in Adomeit, Imperial Overstretch, p.251.
20. See Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Détente (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).
21. Coit D. Blacker, Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), p.98.
22. Blacker, Hostage to Revolution, p.102.
23. 'The realistic dialectic of present-day development consists in a combination of competition and confrontation between the two systems and in a growing tendency towards the interdependence of the countries of the world community.' FBIS/Soviet Union: Party Congresses, 26 Feb. 1986. Cited by Petro and Rubinstein, Russian Foreign Policy, p.149.
24. Quoted by Richard Sakwa, Gorbachev and His Reforms, 1985-1990 (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990), p.334.
25. In February 1987, at the international peace forum in Moscow, Gorbachev emphasized that 'our international policy is determined more than ever before by our domestic policy, by our interest in concentrating on creative work for the perfection of our country. For that reason we need a more stable peace, predictability, and a constructive direction of international relations'. Izvestyia, 17 Feb. 1987.
26. On the mezhdunarodniki, see Nicolas Polianski's memoirs in MID, douze ans dans les services diplomatiques du Kremlin (Paris: Belfond, 1988).
27. See Neil Malcom, 'New Thinking and After: Debate in Moscow about Europe', in Neil Malcom (ed.), Russia and Europe: An End to Confrontation? (London: Pinter, 1994), p.153. The author writes about the mezhdunarodniki: 'While much of their work represented routine elaboration of official doctrine, the more independent-minded among them were able to smuggle in new ideas from the West behind the obligatory ideological smokescreen. During the thirty years before 1985 the traditional image of a hostile and crumbling West, from which the Soviet Union could and should remain aloof, had been gradually eroded.'
28. See Jacques Levesque, 'Soviet Approaches to Eastern Europe at the Beginning of 1989', CWIHP Bulletin 12/13 (2001), p.49.
29. See his address: 'It is evident, for example, that force and the threat of force can no longer be, and should not be instruments of foreign policy. Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should not be exceptions.' Cited in CWIHP Bulletin 12/13 (2001), p.29.
30. V Lukin in Moskovskie Novosti 38 (1988)
31. quoted in Malcom (ed.), Russia and Europe: An End to Confrontation? p.14.
32. The expression 'free-riding' ('parasitage') is used by Georges-Henri Soutou in La guerre de cinquante ans (Paris: Fayard, 2001), p.689. To my mind, this affirmation is no longer relevant after 1988 and it constitutes a misinterpretation of Gorbachev's motivations and objectives.
33. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, p.108.
34. Chernyaev's testimony, 24 May 2001. Collection of oral archives on Perestroika. There is a similar assertion in his memoirs, My Six Years with Gorbachev (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), p.176
35. Quoted by Marie Mendras, in 'URSS: le procès inachevé d'une politique étrangère', Politique étrangère 4 (1988), p.799. Some extracts of the article are also reported in AFMFA, Europe 1986-90, USSR, box 6648, Moscow to Quai, 2458, 15 June 1988.
36. Quoted by Mendras, 'URSS: le procés inachevé d'une politique étrangère', p.880.
37. Vera Tolz, Inventing the Nation, Russia (London: Arnold, 2001), p.123.
38. Shevarnadze interviewed by Fedor Burlatsky, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 10 April 1991.
39. See Tolz, Inventing the Nation.
40. 'Narodnost' in Russian.
41. See my last book, Marie-Pierre Rey, Le dilemme russe, la Russie et l'Europe occidentale d'Ivan le Terrible à Boris Eltsine (Paris: Flammarion, 2002).
42. Mitterrand to Thatcher, 31 July 1986. Quoted by Hubert Védrine in Les mondes de François Mitterrand, A l'Elysée, 1981-1985 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p.383.
43. This declaration was published in Newsweek, 27 Oct. 1986. On its impact on Soviet government, see Adomeit, The Imperial Overstretch, p.259.
44. Y. Bovkun, Y. Grishin and S. Guk in Izvestiya, 13 June 1989
45. quoted by David H. Shumaker, Gorbachev and the German Question, Soviet-West German relations, 1985-1990 (Westport: Praeger, 1995), p.95.
46. See La Croix, 26 Oct. 1989.
47. See Shumaker, Gorbachev and the German Question, p.96: 'Kohl later recalled a private meeting with Gorbachev in the FRG [in June 1989] in which Kohl assured his guest that unification was inevitable. It might be delayed, but could not be permanently prevented. According to Kohl, Gorbachev only listened quietly. Instead of responding directly to Kohl's remarks, Gorbachev asked whether he could count on West German economic assistance if he needed. This exchange, which Kohl later labelled "the decisive moment" in the process of German unification, captured an essential aspect of the unfolding Soviet-West German relationship.'
48. Quoted by Shumaker, Gorbachev and the German Question, p.96.
49. See Védrine, Les mondes de François Mitterrand, p.442.
50. Press conference in La Documentation française.
51. Mitterrand's New Year Declaration, 31 Dec. 1989. La Documentation française.
52. During their meeting at Latche, 4 Jan. 1990. See Le Monde, 5 Jan. 1990.
53. See for example Stuttgarter Zeitung, 5 Jan. 1990.
54. As shown by the Memorandum sent to all the European capitals by the Quai d'Orsay. Le Monde, 13 June 1991.
55. See Rey, Le Dilemme russe.