Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1983

Washington D.C., May 25, 2023 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 102nd birthday with the publication for the first time in English of his Diary for 1983. At the time, Chernyaev was deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee responsible for the International Communist Movement (ICM). Within three years, he became the chief foreign policy adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev and a leading theorist in the era of perestroika and glasnost.

After the Soviet collapse, Chernyaev transformed into one of the most important and reliable sources of historical information for Western observers about the Soviet system and the Kremlin’s Cold War. An invaluable contributor to international scholarship, including conferences and research conducted by the National Security Archive, he ultimately donated his diary—which Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Hoffman called “irreplaceable” and “one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years”—to the Archive. Every year, the Archive translates and posts another annual installment of this extraordinary chronicle.

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1983 was a strange year for Chernyaev. On the one hand, he was full of high expectations for changes, associating them with the new general secretary, Yuri Andropov. On the other hand, he kept working as deputy head of the International Department of the Central Committee under Boris Ponomarev, who was becoming more and more senile and ossified ideologically. The early hopes for reform got shattered in September 1983 by the shooting down of the civilian airliner KAL-007, the drastic deterioration of relations with the West, and, most of all, by the gradual realization that Andropov was very ill and unlikely to continue the reforms.  1983 was a dark year, where for the first time Chernyaev wrote about a possibility of nuclear war in his diary.  Perhaps as a result, 1983 is the shortest year in the diary.

In the beginning of the year, Chernyaev is looking with anticipation and approval for any kind of change, a breath of fresh air that he associates with Andropov.  He notes that people started “rushing to read the front page of Pravda” and that several of most important newspapers have changed since he came to power.  In Chernyaev’s opinion, regular people have noticed the change and welcomed it. He describes Andropov’s visit to the Ordzhonikidze Factory, where an old worker asked him, “Where were you all these years?” Apparently, Andropov replied: “Same place as you were.” Chernyaev concludes the episode by exclamation: “I believe in Andropov, may God grant him at least five good years!”

In 1983, Chernyaev does not write regularly, and stretches of several weeks at a time are often absent from the diary. He complains about his own physical decline and of a “strategic fatigue from life.” Most likely, this fatigue comes from a sense of wasting his own talents and life writing speeches for Ponomarev, whom Chernyaev describes as a “petty, vain official with a police-propaganda mindset, who is envious, cowardly, fussy, and ready to betray any idea.” Chernyaev gets into arguments with his boss—some even described them as “clashes”—and politely refuses Ponomarev’s requests from time to time, but his skills are valued, and so he stays on. Chernyaev laments “what a humiliating role I am in, doing everything I can to dress a naked, completely naked king.” He justifies it to himself as doing “his craft” honestly, even in this situation. 

At the same time, Chernyaev is closely connected to the loose network of people who would soon become the core of the future Gorbachev coalition:  Alexander Yakovlev, Georgy Arbatov, Karen Brutents, Vadim Zagladin, Georgy Shakhnazarov. For example, Yakovlev is serving as ambassador to Canada in a kind of diplomatic exile, but stops in Moscow in preparation for Gorbachev’s visit to Canada and tells Chernyaev about the spy scandal where eleven embassy officials were expelled from Canada several years ago. Yakovlev desperately wants to come back to the Center and tries to find out from Chernyaev what the current authorities still have “against him.”

Chernyaev’s main “field,” the international communist movement, continued to be in crisis, but some fresh thinking on the subject was emerging in the discussions at the Secretariat (May 22) and in the preparations to the June Central Committee Plenum. Andropov, however, is very sensitive to the state of the communist movement and says at the Politburo on August 25 that “every time a member of the PB makes any decision, he must keep in mind the state of the communist movement.” He notes instances when the USSR had a falling out with the Chinese and that recently relations with Cuba cooled down after the Soviets did not provide the requested military assistance. He notes the general cooling of relations where the Soviets could not provide the requested level of support, yet notes that such support could not be unlimited.

The most consequential development of the year is the shooting down of the Korean airliner on September 1 and lying about it. After the break of three months with no diary entries, Chernyaev describes the issue on September 6. He initially believes it was an American provocation and that the “tragedy is that we fell for it.” He blames the United States for the global uproar against the Soviet Union: “Reagan started such an anti-Soviet furor around the world that nothing will wash us clean of the stigma as murderers of innocent people in the eyes of regular people around the world.” Chernyaev believes that whether or not they shot down the plane, lying about it was awful, and that the Soviet leadership “behaved and continue to behave stupidly during this episode, inconsistently, helplessly. This episode showcased with monstrous obviousness the power and pressure of the ‘military complex’ over our entire life and politics.”

What is shocking to the reader who knows Chernyaev’s views and his ultimate contributions to Gorbachev’s perestroika is how he proposes the USSR should act in this situation of global moral indignation. He thinks that the Soviet Union “should go into deep isolation, separate ourselves from the world, not use our mental or financial resources on so-called international relations and prestige. Close ourselves off and work on ourselves. Create a new image for ourselves in the course of five to ten years, after internally rebuilding and really renewing our country.” Isolation and internal reform.  Chernyaev is deeply frustrated with the West, believing that no matter how well the Soviet Union behaved, they always had to play by “THEIR rules,” that it would be better to step back and just “remain a mystery to them,” and, consequently, to reduce the rank of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, removing the foreign minister from the Politburo.

On September 12, Chernyaev writes about his reactions from reading the secret memcon of the confrontational meeting between U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Chernyaev realizes that a nuclear war could really start inadvertently, by mistake, that “this vast world, full of fantastic achievements of the human mind and labor, can in a few short minutes fall victim to a nervous breakdown of one of the two ‘superpower’ leaders.” He watches “hundreds and hundreds” of people walking on the streets and not realizing the danger of war. The Soviet people “are not taught to believe in nuclear apocalypse, or that there will be a war. They do not think about it.” This is the first time in Chernayev's diary when he imagines a possibility of war. 

And the events seem to confirm the sensation of deeper and deeper sliding into danger. Cherneyaev writes about Andropov’s hard-line statement on foreign policy at the end of September, calling it “the most important step we have taken in many years” by showing toughness and “class dignity.” He calls again for the Soviet Union to withdraw to a “limited isolationism” and remain a mystery to the west. He thinks that “under Khrushchev and Brezhnev we squandered this powerful policy resource considerably” by cooperation with the West and trying to play by Western rules. He is very critical of Vice President George H.W. Bush’s travel to Eastern Europe and his speech in Vienna in October, filled with “contempt, disgust and blind hatred” to the USSR, which to Chernyaev provides more evidence that the West is trying to push the USSR around. 

And on October 27, Chernyaev reacts emotionally to the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which was “his” country (in his International Department portfolio), where he had traveled and where he was at the origin of establishing Soviet relations with the New Jewel Movement. He sees the invasion as further evidence that “Reagan proved once again that in his ‘crusade’ he would behave as outrageously as he wants, putting us in an increasingly more awkward position – a ‘superpower’ that is unable to stop him.” In Chernyaev’s mind, Reagan is following a “plan” of further aggression, with Nicaragua being the next on the hit list. In November and December, after the American deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe, Chernyaev goes even deeper into his “isolationism” and even supports the Soviet total withdrawal from arms control negotiations. He understands the contradiction between the Soviet traditional position on always bringing the opponents to the negotiating table, but feels that this time toughness was important.

The year ends with musings on domestic politics and the waning promise of the new era under Andropov. Andropov has not been seen in public since August. In the end of September, Chernyaev’s closest friend at work, Karen Brutents, was called to Crimea to be present for Andropov’s meeting with Yemeni leader Ali Nasser Mohammed al-Hassani, President of South Yemen. Brutents told Chernayev that during the meeting, Andropov “needed people to hold him up.” Chernyaev understands that the Soviet leader is very seriously ill and may never recover, and that probably means that “initiatives and high intentions are turning to dust. We do not get from words to deeds. [Andropov] probably hasn’t enough strength or interest (because of his health) to insist on results, control, to take risks. By God, it is a disaster!”