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Γιατί οι Αρμ&#
941;νιοι κάνουν
; άγαλμα στον
Μικογιάν;
By: mikitarian Date: January 10, 2016, 9:14 pm
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[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan.jpg?w=669&h=300[/img]Recently,<br
/>there has been a major controversy in Armenia over a proposal
to
build a statue of the Soviet statesman and Bolshevik
revolutionary Anastas Mikoyan in Yerevan.
Some Armenians regard Mikoyan as a remnant of the country’s
Soviet past from which they want to move beyond. Others ponder
possible political motives behind this sudden proposal. Why is
there a sudden effort to build a Mikoyan statue now? There was
never a statue of Mikoyan in Yerevan before. Some believe that
it is connected with Armenia’s recent decision to join the
Moscow-backed Eurasian Customs Union.
Most controversial was Mikoyan’s participation in the 1930s
Stalinist Terror in Armenia. Why, some wonder, would anyone
build a monument to a man who carried out Stalin’s orders?
At the same time, the Mikoyan statue project does have its
supporters. They point to Mikoyan as a statesman in the
post-Stalinist era and speak about his role in working to defuse
the Cuban Missile Crisis. Others look favorably on his brother,
Artyom, for his work on the Soviet MiG aircraft; and there have
also been proposals for statues of both Mikoyans in Yerevan.
So, who was this Mikoyan and why is he so controversial in
Armenia?
While basic narratives, focusing on the statue issue, attempt to
cast Mikoyan as a Stalinist henchman, in reality he is a far
more complex historical figure. Certainly he was involved in the
Stalin-era Purges, both in Armenia and in Russia. At the same
time, Mikoyan was also an enthusiastic supporter of the NEP, a
notable opponent of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, and the
man who played a key role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Most significantly however, it was Mikoyan who, together with
Khrushchev, led the effort toward de-Stalinization, who actively
worked to rehabilitate Gulag victims, and who helped form the
environment for the Khrushchev-era Thaw. Thus it was Mikoyan who
helped to pave the way for greater democracy and civil society
in the former Soviet space. It is this complex and multifaceted
portrait of Mikoyan that I shall present to the readers of this
publication in order that they attain a more complete
understanding of this historical figure beyond one-dimensional
debates.
From Sanahin to Stalin
Born in Sanahin in Armenia’s northern Lori province in 1895,
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was an Old Bolshevik and a constant
survivor “from Ilyich [Lenin] to Ilyich [Brezhnev].” Indeed,
time after time, Mikoyan somehow always managed to very narrowly
escape death. He was among the Baku Commissars who were arrested
by the British and executed in Turkmenistan. Yet, unlike the 26
who were actually shot, Mikoyan somehow miraculously managed to
escape. He also survived the worst of the Stalin years and,
after World War II, appeared to be a prime candidate in a
potential second Stalinist Great Terror. Only Stalin’s death in
1953 saved Mikoyan from such a fate. Finally, despite his close
association with Nikita Khrushchev, Mikoyan also managed to
survive the “soft coup” against that Soviet leader in 1964, in
which Brezhnev and his clique assumed power. After this, Mikoyan
assumed the position of the nominal Soviet head of state.
However, this would prove to be short-lived. In 1965, he was
forced to retire and spent the rest of his life writing his
memoirs until his death in 1978.
Hailed as the “Armenian wheeler-dealer,” Mikoyan’s penchant for
survival made him something of a legend in Soviet times. A
common anecdote was that Mikoyan was visiting friends when a
thunderstorm broke out. Mikoyan rises from his seat, gets his
hat and coat, and says, “well, comrades, it looks like I have to
go.” But his hosts protest. “No, Anastas Ivanovich! You can’t go
now! It’s pouring rain outside!” Mikoyan smiles. “It’s okay.
Don’t worry! I can dodge between the raindrops!”
Mikoyan was educated at the Armenian Orthodox Nersisyan
Theological seminary in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia and at the
Gevorkian Theological Seminary in Etchmiadzin. However, young
Anastas turned away from Armenian Orthodoxy and instead
eventually embraced the materialist revolutionary ideas of
socialism, Marx, and Engels. One of his closest friends and
fellow classmates was Georg Alikanyan, the future father of
Yelena Bonner, the human right activist, dissident, and wife of
fellow dissident and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov.
After the revolution and the civil war, which included Mikoyan’s
participation in the Baku commune and his legendary escape from
execution, Mikoyan went to Moscow. It was here where he began to
forge close links with Stalin, who saw a potential political
ally in Mikoyan, due to their shared roots in the Caucasus.
Subsequently, on Stalin’s recommendation, he was appointed
secretary of the Southeastern Bureau of the Central Committee.
He soon ran the Northern Caucasus Regional Committee for the
party. It was here that Mikoyan proved to be a competent and
effective administrator. He advocated an open and lenient policy
toward the Cossacks and other tribesmen who were opposed to
Soviet rule. He allowed them to maintain their unique way of
life and traditions. He even encouraged the Cossacks to engage
in their traditional horsemanship and integrated them into
regional units of the Red Army. He also worked to bring the
peasants, the Cossacks, and the tribesmen closer together and to
discourage animosity. All of these policies were very successful
and were assisted by the advancement of Lenin’s New Economic
Policy (NEP), a mixture of socialism and capitalism, intended to
put the country back on its feet.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-stalin-ordzhonikidze.jpg?w=930&h=666[/img]
Left to right: Anastas Mikoyan, Joseph Stalin, and Sergo
Ordzhonikidze
Between his success in the North Caucasus and the links that he
forged with Stalin, Mikoyan was able to maneuver his way to the
position of People’s Commissar of External and Internal Trade in
1926. At the age of 30, Mikoyan was the youngest member of the
Politburo. It was in this position that Mikoyan made his career.
In the 1920s, Mikoyan initially favored the NEP, whose positive
results he saw first-hand during his time in the North Caucasus.
According to his son, Sergo, Mikoyan was “so impressed by the
possibilities opened by NEP that he argued with Stalin openly at
the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927, and at other meetings,
Mikoyan spoke in favor of trade as the key to getting grain from
the village.” According to the Soviet historian and dissident
Roy Medvedev, Mikoyan also stood “firmly opposed to the severe
treatment of the individual peasant farmers and kulaks.” At the
15th Party Congress, he advocated moving forward “in the most
painless way,” disagreeing with Stalin who advocated for harsher
measures. He ultimately disagreed with Stalin’s policy of forced
collectivization, but was careful not go so far as to break with
the vozhd.
By the early 1930s, the country had entered into an economic
crisis. Stalin’s policies proved disastrous, especially in the
cereal, wheat, and grain-producing “breadbaskets” of Ukraine,
the North Caucasus and Northern Kazakhstan. Forced
requisitioning created famine conditions. Many citizens died of
starvation. The country was in an economic mess and the new
situation also required that the Trade Commissariat, which
Mikoyan headed, be changed as well. Neither the name nor the
methods corresponded with the reality on the ground, and thus
the Commissariat was reformed into the People’s Commissariat of
Supply. Yet to many Soviet citizens, supply was very marginal
and a black joke began to circulate: “We’ve got no meat, no
milk, no butter, no flour, no soap, but we’ve got Mikoyan.”
(“Нет мяса,
нет масла,
нет
молока,
нет муки,
нет мыла,
но зато
есть
Микоян.”).
“At the beginning of the first Five-Year Plan,” wrote the
historian Roy Medvedev, “there was an acute shortage of hard
currency in the country.” The Soviet government sought to gain
such currency through the sale of priceless art treasures and
artifacts from the Hermitage Museum and from the Tsar’s personal
collection which had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks. These
sales were staunchly opposed by Commissar of Education Anatoly
Lunacharsky and others who were ultimately overruled by the
Politburo. Mikoyan was tasked with heading this commercial
venture.
At first the sale was difficult. White Russian émigrés and
former aristocracy abroad led the charge in opposing and/or
disrupting such sales. As such, there was little success in
major émigré centers like France and Germany. Instead, Mikoyan
concluded his first big success with the Armenian businessman
and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian, famously known as “Mr.
Five Percent.” There were also substantial sales from the United
States, especially from former US Treasury Secretary Andrew
Mellon. Most of these works are now housed in the National
Gallery in Washington, D.C. Overall, these sales managed to
yield about $100 million for the Soviet Union.
In his capacity as the Commissar of Supply, Mikoyan also sought
to import Western ideas into the Soviet Union. He traveled to
the United States and brought back the innovation of canned
foods. He studied the American food industry, investigated
Macy’s in New York, and chatted with US Secretary of State
Cordell Hull and the industrialist Henry Ford. In the Soviet
market, he introduced ice cream, hamburgers, popcorn,
cornflakes, and more. He also increased the number of beefsteaks
into the Soviet Union. Today, in many former Soviet countries,
the best steaks and chops are still called “Mikoyans.” Mikoyan
also sought to curb the consumption of vodka, yielding some
impressive results, and also introduced the first cookbook in
the Soviet Union called The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food
(Книга о
вкусной и
здоровой
пище). Mikoyan continued his duties
into the war when he directed the supply of food and provisions
to Red Army troops. For the latter service, he was rewarded
Hero of Socialist Labor in 1943. Also during the war, Mikoyan’s
18-year-old son, Vladimir, a fighter pilot, died in Stalingrad
when his plane was shot down by the Germans.
The Purges
The question of Mikoyan’s role in Stalin’s Terror has stimulated
much debate in Armenian society. According to Medvedev, Mikoyan
was coerced and threatened to participate in the Terror by none
other than Stalin himself who perceived Mikoyan as being “too
soft” and “too lenient.” In his book All Stalin’s Men, he
writes:
People’s Commissars had to sanction the arrest of leading
members of their own staff, so it is difficult to believe that
Mikoyan knew nothing about the repression of many of the top
personnel in the food industry and in commerce. By contrast, G.
K. Orzhonikidze, who had tried to protect his staff, was driven
to suicide in early 1937. He had been a friend of Mikoyan, who
named the youngest of his five sons, Sergo, after him. Twenty
years later, speaking at the Red Proletarian Factory, Mikoyan
told the story of how Stalin had summoned him after
Orzhonikidze’s death, and had said, threateningly: ‘That story
of the shooting of the twenty-six Baku Commissars and how one of
them, you, managed to stay alive – it’s all pretty vague and
confused. And you’ve never wanted us to try and clear it up,
have you, Anastas Ivanovich?”
Living under constant threat that he might be accused of
betraying his comrades in the Baku commune, even Ordzhonikidze’s
solution was not an option for Mikoyan. So he submitted to
Stalin.
Among his assignments, Mikoyan was made chair of the
Stalin-appointed commission that ultimately doomed Nikolai
Bukharin and Aleksei Rykov. Both Rykov and especially Bukharin
were strong proponents of the NEP in the Soviet Union. Stalin
considered both a threat to his power. The fact that Mikoyan,
once a supporter of the NEP and a friend to both men, chaired
the commission was ironic. According to Roy Medvedev, the terms
of reference of the commission were “brief and to the point:
‘Arrest. Try. Shoot.'”
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-speech.jpg?w=930&h=813[/img]Mikoyan<br
/>Giving a Speech, 1930s
Further, Mikoyan, like Khrushchev, made speeches about the fight
against supposed “enemies.” Mikoyan represented the Politburo at
the 20th anniversary ceremonies of the NKVD. In his speech, he
condemned “enemies of the people” and praised NKVD chief Nikolai
Yezhov for his “Stalin way of work” and for creating a
“wonderful backbone of Chekists” that were “trained in true
Bolshevik manner in the spirit of Dzerzhinsky.” In reality,
Mikoyan had a less-than-positive attitude of Yezhov.
It was also Mikoyan who, along with others in the Politburo,
signed Stalin’s orders on arrests, executions, and deportations.
These included lists composed by Yezhov of supposed “enemies” to
be shot. They also included the order to execute the Polish
officers at Katyń and on the wholesale deportation orders
of various nationalities such as Chechens, Crimean Tatars,
Germans, and others. However, according to an Ossetian émigré
cited by Medvedev, Mikoyan was the only one of Stalin’s
ministers who expressed misgivings about at least the Chechen
and Ingush deportations. In general, while Mikoyan may not have
agreed with such orders, he really had no choice. The act of
vocally opposing such policies would have had serious
consequences in Stalin’s Soviet Union, not just for him, but for
his entire family and all of his relatives too. Indeed, the
threat was real. During the war, in addition to the death of his
son Vladimir, Mikoyan experienced another brief tragedy in his
family when two of his sons, Sergo and Vano, were arrested on
the orders of Stalin for playing a children’s game of
“government.” They were exiled and not returned to the Mikoyan
family until after the war.
Mikoyan was also dispatched to his native Armenia with Malenkov
in September 1937 to oversee the Purges there. The Soviet
Armenian republic’s newspaper Kommunist wrote at the end of 1937
that, “Comrade Mikoyan rendered a great service to the
Bolsheviks of Armenia” on the orders of “Great Stalin” by
“unmasking and rooting out the enemies of the Armenian people,”
a “cabal” of “Trotskyist-Bukharinist, Dashnak-Nationalist
spies.” It should be noted though that the Purges in Armenia
were already well underway by the time of Mikoyan’s arrival. In
the words of the noted scholar on Soviet Armenia, Mary K.
Matossian, in her book The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia:
From the foregoing it would appear that Mikoyan was a mere agent
of Stalin and Beria in the Great Purge, although he appears as a
leading protagonist in the culminating events of September,
1937. But it may also be observed that Mikoyan is not directly
implicated in the death of [Aghasi] Khanchian or of [Sahak]
Ter-Gabrielian. On the contrary, he appears in the role of the
purger of Amatouni, who had denounced Khanchian, and of
Moughdousi, who is said to have killed Ter-Gabrielian. Further,
if Mikoyan had a personal following, there is no evidence that
any members of such a following became heirs to power in
Armenia. It may be concluded that Mikoyan cannot be
disassociated from the guilt of the Great Purge, but that his
role in it was relatively minor.
Additionally, Mikoyan also sought to save as many people as he
could, both inside and outside of Armenia. These included people
who had not yet been arrested as well as friends and family
members of those who already had. Among those that Mikoyan saved
was the future hero of World War II, Ivan Bagramyan. He was a
student at the Staff Academy in 1937, a time when, in Medvedev’s
words, “a campaign of denunciation was raging there and
super-vigilance was the order of the day.” Eventually, Bagramyan
was accused of being a “Dashnak agent.” On the advice of his
friend, the military commander and future dissident Pyotr
Grigorenko, Bagramyan wrote to Mikoyan. Ultimately, it was
Mikoyan who intervened to save Bagramyan from arrest.
Another case was of Aleksei Snegov, a Communist Party official
from Ukraine and a friend of Mikoyan’s whom the dreaded
Lavrentiy Beria despised. Snegov was arrested in Leningrad in
1937, cruelly tortured and sentenced to be shot. All of Snegov’s
so-called “accomplices” in the trumped-up show trial had already
been summarily executed. Yet, suddenly, Snegov was spared, his
charges were dropped, and he was rehabilitated. Nikolai Yezhov,
the sadistic chief of the NKVD who directed the worst of the
Purges, had been dismissed. He left Leningrad for Moscow where
he called upon Mikoyan. When he told Mikoyan that Zarkovsky, the
head of the Leningrad NKVD had been shot, Mikoyan reportedly
remarked “one swine the less.” He was also sad when he heard of
the suicide of Litvin, a Party worker who was posted to the NKVD
but shot himself and left a letter indicating his refusal to
participate in the Purges. Snegov then told Mikoyan of his plans
to go to the Party Control Commission to report his detainment.
Mikoyan immediately advised him against such a move. Instead, he
gave him a permit for a holiday and some spending money. But
Snegov insisted and so Mikoyan grudgingly phoned Shkiryatov, the
head of the Control Commission, to investigate Snegov’s case and
to settle it. Shkiryatov, an associate of Beria, expressed
“concern” and asked Snegov to head to the Control Commission
headquarters. He did so, was asked to wait in the lobby, and in
less than half-an-hour was arrested by four NKVD men. Snegov
spent the next 14 years in a Gulag concentration camp.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-khrushchev.jpg?w=930&h=768[/img]
Khruschev and Mikoyan
De-Stalinization and the Thaw
Following Stalin’s death, Mikoyan soon emerged as a close
associate of Nikita Khrushchev. Like Khrushchev, he actively
sought repentance for his involvement in Stalin’s crimes. It was
Mikoyan who persuaded Khrushchev to give his famous “secret
speech” against Stalinism at the 20th Party Congress of the
Soviet Communist Party.
More significantly, supporting Khrushchev and Mikoyan in their
endeavors were individuals like Snegov and other former Gulag
prisoners like Olga Shatunovskaya and Valentina Pikina. Upon
their release from the camps in the 1950s, these former Gulag
inmates, nicknamed Khrushchev’s “zeks” (a Russian slang for
“inmate”), persuaded Mikoyan and Khrushchev to begin a
de-Stalinization initiative and to order the release of all
remaining political prisoners. According to Russian and Soviet
scholar Stephen F. Cohen in his book The Victims of Return, “in
private discussions and written communications, Shatunovskaya
and Snegov ‘opened the eyes’ of Khrushchev and Mikoyan, as the
sons of both leaders later confirmed, to the full dimension and
horrors of the terror.”
Khrushchev and Mikoyan actively sought de-Stalinization and
repentance for their involvement in Stalin’s crimes. By
contrast, others who served under the vozhd – such as Molotov,
Kaganovich, Voroshilov, and Malenkov – remained totally
unremorseful for what they had done and even attempted to
scuttle the de-Stalinizing efforts of Khrushchev and Mikoyan.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-family.jpg?w=930&h=624[/img]Mikoyan<br
/>and Family
Indeed, Mikoyan not only supported and encouraged Khrushchev’s
de-Stalinization endeavors, but also began many of his own. For
example, at the 20th Party Congress, prior to Khrushchev’s
de-Stalinization speech, Mikoyan delivered an address the crowd,
exonerating victims of the Gulag and Stalin’s Terror and
mentioning them by name. Additionally, according to Roy
Medvedev, after the 20th Party Congress, “Mikoyan organized
about a hundred commissions whose remit was to visit all the
labour camps and other places of detention and to carry out a
rapid review of the charges against all political prisoners.”
In a personal capacity, Mikoyan actively sought to help and
support victims of Stalinism, intervening on their behalf. These
included Bulat Okudzhava and his mother (a returnee from the
camps), the families of Bukharin and Rykov, and a young Yelena
Bonner who, it may be recalled, was the daughter of Mikoyan’s
old friend, Alikanyan. He also worked actively to help
rehabilitate many of these victims and even worked to give a
pension and apartment to Mikhail Yaubovich, a homeless and
destitute returnee. Mikoyan made personal visits to the families
of victims, including to Yuri Larin, the son of Bukharin.
Mikoyan had been a good friend of Bukharin’s but, at the same
time, had also been tasked by Stalin to chair the commission
that was ultimately responsible for his purging. Such
significant meetings, in the words of Stephen Cohen, “suggested
a need for absolution.” On the cultural front too, Mikoyan
assisted Khrushchev on de-Stalinization and extended crucial
support in, for example, the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Mikoyan’s efforts toward de-Stalinization were also not only
limited to Russia and the “center,” but also extended to his
native Armenia as well. In 1954, he traveled to Yerevan and
delivered a speech. Speaking to the crowd in Armenian, he
declared that the Communist Party of Armenia had been greatly
mistaken for purging the “talented Armenian poet” Yeghishe
Charents, a victim of Stalin’s Terror who was shot in 1937 for
“counterrevolutionary” and “nationalist” activity. Instead,
Mikoyan now told his audience that Charents’ works were
“outstanding in their great talent” and were “steeped with
revolutionary pathos and Soviet patriotism” that “must become
the property of the Soviet reader.” In his speech Mikoyan also
exonerated the poet Rafael Patkanyan and the revolutionary
writer Raffi:
Of course there are nationalist shadings in some of the works of
Patkanyan and Raffi, but on the basis of this can we renounce a
cultural inheritance which reflects several pages of the heroic
struggle of the Armenian people against Turkish and Persian
enslavers, which glories with love and high feeling the life and
work of the people?
The Soviet Armenian leadership took their cues from Mikoyan,
rehabilitating and republishing writers who had died in Stalin’s
Purges including not just Charents but others as well like Aksel
Bakunts whose work was praised for its “heroic, freedom-loving
spirit.” A ten-volume edition of Raffi’s works was set to print.
At the 20th Party Congress in Moscow, Soviet Armenian leader
Suren Tovmasyan gave a speech in praise of the works of
Charents.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sergo-mikoyan.jpg?w=930&h=714[/img]Sergo<br
/>Mikoyan
Yet despite this liberalization in Armenia, many Armenians to
this day believe that Mikoyan could have done more with regard
to the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh. Once the center of
the historic Armenian province and principality of Artsakh, the
majority of the population of this mountainous territory are
ethnic Armenians who speak their own unique colorful dialect of
the Armenian language. Armenian churches and cultural monuments
can also be found throughout the area. Despite this, the region
was assigned to Soviet Azerbaijan during Sovietization. The
Karabakh Armenians never accepted this decision and protested
periodically. In 1964, the Armenians of Karabakh sent a petition
to Khrushchev demanding unification with Soviet Armenia. This
appeal was left unanswered and it is unclear whether or not
Khrushchev (let alone Mikoyan) ever even received the letter. It
is likely that had Mikoyan lived long enough to see glasnost, he
would have supported the demands of the Karabakh Armenians,
especially since his son, Sergo, was a major advocate for the
unification of Karabakh with Armenia starting as early as 1987.
Speaking to an Armenian-American newspaper at the time, Sergo
said:
I think that it’s now much more realistic to demand the return
of Karabakh to Armenia. And I think it’s only now, during
perestroika, that we may not only speak about it, but have very
strong hopes that it will be done.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-khrushchev-che.jpg?w=930&h=621[/img]
Mikoyan, Khrushchev, and Che Guevara
In the Thaw era, Mikoyan also earned a notable reputation for
working to resolve issues without the use of force. For example,
with the rehabilitation and the return of the Chechens and
Ingushi to their native lands, Mikoyan tried to prevent conflict
between them and the local Russians who had come to the region
during the Stalin years. In 1956, Mikoyan stood against
Khrushchev’s decision to send tanks into Hungary to crush the
revolution there, warning that it would be a “terrible mistake.”
Finally, in Novocherkassk, Mikoyan worked to prevent bloodshed,
claiming that he “had thought it feasible to arrange talks with
workers’ representatives.” According to him, the hardliner
Mikhail Suslov, who was also there at the time, was to blame for
the subsequent violence.
In 1957, Mikoyan remained loyal to Khrushchev by refusing to go
along with the attempted Malenkov-Molotov coup against him. In
foreign relations, Mikoyan is still warmly remembered by many
Americans for his surprise high-level visit to the United States
in 1959 where he opened the Soviet exhibition in New York and
met with businessmen like Averell Harriman and John J. McCloy.
From here he traveled to other parts of the country. In
Washington, he met President Eisenhower and Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles. In Cleveland, he visited another business
leader, Cyrus Eaton and admired the city skyline with
Cleveland’s Terminal Tower reminding him of the Lomonosov State
University in Moscow. In Detroit, he held conversations in
Armenian with a local Armenian-American. In less positive visits
to Chicago and Los Angeles, he was met by protestors which
Mikoyan just shrugged off with sarcasm and humor. He also
stopped by San Francisco and Hollywood and met the stars there,
including Sophia Loren and Jerry Lewis.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-castro.jpg?w=930&h=702[/img]Mikoyan<br
/>and Castro
That same year, Mikoyan also paid a very important visit to Cuba
and fell in love with the island. On Castro, he wrote to Moscow,
“Yes, he is a revolutionary. Completely like us. I felt as
though I had returned to my childhood.” Moscow now had a new
ally in post-revolutionary Havana, and Mikoyan quickly became
Khrushchev’s go-to man for information on the island. Then
Khrushchev had an idea about which he consulted Mikoyan.
Khrushchev proposed placing missiles on the island which he
believed the US would accept calmly and, in return remove their
missiles from Turkey. Mikoyan doubted that Washington would
receive the news calmly and feared that it would lead to a
crisis. Khrushchev claimed later that he saw the dangers too,
but proceeded anyway. As the historian William Taubman notes, he
might have also solicited second opinions from others as well,
such as Anatoly Dobrynin and Oleg Troyanovsky. However, the plan
proceeded and the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis ensued.
[img]
HTML http://abovyangroup.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/mikoyan-ashkhen.jpg?w=726&h=300[/img]
Mikoyan and his wife, Ashkhen
Most Americans are quick to recall that the crisis ended when
Khrushchev withdrew the missiles from Cuba and that later it was
revealed that this was in exchange for the removal of US
missiles from Turkey. However, for Moscow, a “second crisis”
ensued shortly after this in which Castro, feeling like a pawn
on the superpower chessboard, refused to give the missiles back
to the Soviet Union. It was up to Mikoyan to go to Cuba to
persuade the Cuban revolutionary to give up the missiles, which
eventually followed. As the negotiations began, Mikoyan was
informed of the death of his wife, Ashkhen. However, the crisis
was too pressing. He was the USSR’s chief expert on Cuba and
could not abandon the negotiations. He had to miss his wife’s
funeral and sent his son Sergo instead. Had Mikoyan not been
present to persuade Castro to remove the missiles at that time,
the larger Cuban Missile Crisis would have continued.
This “crisis with Castro” was the subject of a recently
published book entitled The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro,
Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November based
on new, revealing research. It was authored by Mikoyan’s son,
Sergo, who went on to become a leading academic authority of
Latin America in the Soviet Union and, after 1991, Russia.
Notably, in a 2006 article in the Russian newspaper Izvestiya,
Sergo Mikoyan compared Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili
to Cuba’s Castro, calling Saakashvili the “American Castro.”
Mikoyan remained loyal to Khrushchev into the 1960s and
Khruschev even conferred with him on the possibility of
reforming the Politburo entirely into a new “socialist
parliament.” Mikoyan was impressed with the idea, but times were
changing and Mikoyan could sense a shift in the balance of
power. He ultimately decided to side with the Brezhnev’s “soft
coup” in 1964, though he himself was not one of the coup
plotters. He gained the position of the nominal Soviet head of
state but this did not last long. He was forced to retire in
1965, returned to private life, wrote his memoirs, and passed
away in 1978.
Given this entire historical overview of Mikoyan, the debate
over Mikoyan’s legacy remains. The statue controversy is just
the latest episode. However, understanding the realities of
Mikoyan is critical to any debate about him. While it is true
that he was an accomplice in Stalin’s Purges, his entire legacy
as an individual should not be limited to this, especially given
his role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and given that he
made the very heroic and courageous decision to support and
encourage Khrushchev in his major de-Stalinization efforts.
It was these efforts that paved the way for the development of
civil society and democracy in the former Soviet space today.
Mikoyan played a significant role in this development. When both
sides of this complex man are identified, will his legacy be one
of terror or of repentance and reform?
#Post#: 20246--------------------------------------------------
Re: Γιατί οι Αρ_
6;ένιοι κάνου&
#957; άγαλμα στο	
57; Μικογιάν;
By: Pinochet88 Date: January 11, 2016, 5:33 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Γιατί είναι
κρατικιστέ`
2;
και
υπάνθρωποι
όπως
καταμαρτυρ_
9;ύν
και τα
υπάνθρωπα
γύφτικα
φρύδια τους!
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