When
the USSR crashed, so did its foreign ministry and its well-trained
employees, who leached away into international commercial employment.
Now they have regained some state support and a clear objective.
by Yann Breault
The
27-storey Russian foreign ministry on Moscow’s Smolensk Square was
built after the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), its Stalinist bulk a
reminder of Russia’s superpower past. It was put up between 1948 and
1953, when the Communist cause was gaining ground and the USSR’s
diplomatic activities extended around the globe.
There
was no more prestigious career in the Soviet Union then than the
diplomatic service. New recruits were picked among academic high-flyers
who had been active in the Communist youth movement. They were trained
at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (founded
in 1934) or the Moscow State Institute of International Relations
(founded in 1944). Their knowledge of foreign languages was excellent;
that was rare in other Soviet ministries.
For
diplomats, the chance to experience the outside world appealed, and
they were even more excited to play a central role on behalf of the
Soviet motherland — synonymous with Russia — and of all humanity. In the
USSR, there was still a belief that the fate of world revolution
depended on Moscow. Given Russia’s long-standing inferiority complex
about Europe, it would be hard for a diplomat not to feel nostalgia for
Russia’s international standing in the Soviet era.
Stalinist
architecture may have encouraged Russophobia during the cold war, but
it did not alienate the westernised elite who were in favour of
dismantling Soviet power. When Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down as
president of the USSR on 25 December 1991 and handed over the nuclear
codes to Boris Yeltsin, the foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev had already
moved his team into the ministry. In an edict of 18 December 1991, the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic claimed all of the USSR’s
embassies and consulates abroad.
Joining the civilised world
Russia’s
leaders ensured complete diplomatic continuity; they were also keen to
be admitted to what they called “the civilised world” and reassured
western governments that Russia would fulfil all its obligations under
international agreements, in particular disarmament treaties. In a
letter of 24 December, President Yeltsin informed the UN secretary
general that Russia would take over the USSR’s seat on the Security
Council, as though that were a foregone conclusion.
Kozyrev
sent a brief note verbale (a special diplomatic communication) on
2 January 2002 to the heads of diplomatic missions in Moscow, telling
foreign governments that accredited Soviet representatives in their
countries should now be regarded as belonging to the Russian Federation;
this put non-Russians who still worked in the former USSR’s embassies
and consulates in a difficult position.
Kozyrev
wanted to speed up the rapprochement with the West that Gorbachev had
initiated, and even talked of possible Russian membership of NATO,
denying there were any differences between Russian interests and those
of liberal democracies. The Russian diplomatic corps were highly
sceptical of this; they had been trained at least as much in Realpolitik
as in Marxism-Leninism, not that they were incompatible. Yeltsin
mistrusted Kozyrev and publicly criticised him for incompetence in his
mission.
In the new world of slashed
budgets, the prestige of the diplomatic service was greatly reduced.
Between 1991 and 1993, Russia closed 36 embassies and consulates. When
new departments were created to manage relations with former republics
of the USSR, the ministry had trouble filling the posts. As knowledge of
European languages was much sought by foreign companies, many employees
left, enticed by private sector working conditions.
The
foreign ministry’s disconcerting ultra-occidentalist policy did nothing
to motivate its employees, and the international humiliations Russia
suffered throughout the 1990s degraded the profession’s prestige. Faced
with a 40% fall in economic output on 1990 levels, the political forces
that declared themselves the most democratic in Russia’s history lost
much of their credibility.
New NATO relations
In
January 1996 the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov as foreign minister
signalled a change in relations with NATO. His prestigious academic
career as an Arabist and director of the Institute of Economics and
International Relations was more important than his later role as first
deputy chairman of the KGB, a job Gorbachev asked him to take after the
failed coup of August 1991. But an intelligence chief taking charge of
the foreign ministry conveyed a message. The respect he commanded with
his classical vision of Realpolitik and his call for the creation of a
multi-polar world had a lasting impact on Russia’s international
standing.
Yeltsin was too suspicious
of Primakov to give him free rein in foreign policy. The president did
not want to compromise the rapprochement with the West that he had
backed, and he was concerned about the credit Primakov had gained with
many opponents for having modified Kozyrev’s line. Yeltsin appointed
Primakov prime minister on 11 September 1998, presenting it as a
concession to the opposition, but stripped him of all his functions in
May 1999, to the satisfaction of the oligarchs, especially Boris
Berezovsky, who had no hold over Primakov.
Things
are less sombre now in the Russian diplomatic service compared with the
early Yeltsin years. Vladimir Putin’s arrival as president was the
beginning of an impressive reconstruction programme for state
structures, made possible by reclaiming control of the energy sector and
the spectacular rise of hydrocarbon prices. The effects of this quickly
fed into foreign policy.
Efforts
have been made to raise the diplomatic service’s prestige, such as the
2002 decision to make 10 February “Diplomats’ Day” (10 February marks
the first mention of a “department for diplomatic missions” created by
Ivan the Terrible in 1569). Russia, through its civil service, is now
happy to look back more widely at its history; the rehabilitation of
symbols is not limited to the Communist period, but also borrows from
the glories of the Tsarist past.
The
foreign minister’s activities remain subordinate to presidential power.
But mutual distrust between president and diplomats has given way to
symbiosis, particularly since Sergei Lavrov took up his post in
March 2004. This seasoned diplomat held the post of Russian ambassador
to the United Nations for a decade.
The
symbiosis is based on a shared nostalgia for Soviet power and profound
disillusionment with the West. Russia’s diplomats know that the
messianic period of the Soviet regime is over, and are content to dream
of a renaissance of civilisation that is Slavophile and Eurasian. But
although post-Soviet Russia has given up its claim to bear the torch for
human destiny, it finds it harder to accept the US’s inability to do
the same. Putin’s article for The New York Times (1)
denouncing US exceptionalism touched a nerve in Moscow and Washington,
for different reasons. Exceptionalism exists, but resistance to the
present unipolar international order motivates a more active Russian
policy in international forums, where Russia can gather support for its
cause.
The Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation, which is demanding that US troops should not be stationed
in Central Asia after the end of their mission in Afghanistan, is one
such forum, and so is the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa), which is keen to see the dollar’s role as international
monetary standard reduced.
At the
G20 summit in Saint Petersburg this September, Russia took the lead in a
huge movement opposed to unilateral US intervention in the Middle East.
The bilateral US-Russian agreement on Syria’s chemical weapons may have
helped assuage Russian diplomats’ nostalgia for the past.
http://mondediplo.com/2013/11/03russiaAround the world
Besides the permanent missions attached to international organisations, Russia’s foreign minister directs the activities of 149 embassies and 93 consulates in 190 countries. The ministry’s administration in Moscow and its missions overseas employ around 12,000, one third of them diplomats; 25% are under 30, and 80% of those are graduates of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations or the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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