Geidar Aliev

Viktor Andriyanov Guseinbala Miralamov GEIDAR ALIEV MOSCOW MOLODAYA GVARDIA 2005 5 Translated by OOO Interdialect-M © V.I. Andriyanov, G.F. Miralamov © «NURLAR», 2005 ISBN 9952-426-01-1 6 FOREWORD Chance is often described as blind. There is even a set phrase in Russian–a blind chance. However, it is not blind at all. Blind are those people who don’t notice signs of fate. On November 27, 1944, General De Gaulle, leader of “Fighting France” movement, head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic and future President of the country, stopped in Baku on his way to Moscow where he was going to have negotiations with Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Soviet of People’s Commissars. This eminent–in direct and figurative meanings–guest was welcomed as the leader of the allied state. In his two-week journey throughout the Soviet Union Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin, Deputy Chairman of the Sovnarkom accompanied him, on Stalin’s personal instructions. Many years later Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, came to Paris on an official visit. Contrary to all rules of the diplomatic protocol President De Gaulle personally arrived at the airport to meet the Soviet Premier. But it is another case and another story... In Baku the General received all the prescribed honors. There were flags. Anthems. Guard of honor... Among the duty-bound welcoming people there was a young man by name of Geidar Aliev, a junior lieutenant of the State Security, in a civil coat and a fashionable hat. As later Geidar Alievich said, for a moment he met De Gaulle’s eye... That evening the famous Frenchman listened to opera “Keroglu”, and the very next day a train took him away to Stalingrad; planes didn’t fly because of bad weather. Political destinies of these two people have much in common. At one time they both found themselves out of job after many years of successful state service. The Paris exile was said to leave as a prophet who had lost his voice, who had failed to make him heard. 7 In Gorbachyov’s Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee nobody wanted to listen to Geidar Aliev either. And he chose to leave. In May 1958 General De Gaulle, being summoned by France, came back to Paris from his seclusion at the Colombee estate. In July 1990 Geidar Aliev, summoned by Azerbaijan, returned to Homeland from his Moscow seclusion. They were both 67 years old. People usually take care of grandchildren and write memoirs at this age. But cuddly family cares and memoirs had to be put aside. They returned at a critical moment to save their Fatherland. One was to guarantee unity and independence of France, the other–to ensure integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. As a politician Geidar Aliev was developing and moulding in the Soviet system of values. Words about internationalism were never just a standing phrase for him. At the end of the 20th century he opened for himself anew Charles de Gaulle’s idea about priority of the national factor over all other ideas, theories, slogans and principles. Yes, history proved that the national idea was more tenacious of life than many others. A realist politician could draw only one conclusion from it: rescuing the state was rescuing the nation at the same time. ...Karlovy Vary. Quiet Sadovaya Street. A hundred metres away from famous Mlinskaya (Mill) Colonnade there was “Bristol” sanatorium, a favorite resort among the Soviet functionaries. An elderly gardener, sprinkling roses, says that he saw Kosygin, Aliev, Shcherbitsky, and Marshal Konev there... From the high ground you can see blue domes of the Russian church in the distance–its chimes might be heard from there; the other side offers a panorama of the popular resort with its numerous sanatoriums and hotels. A chance talk with the elderly man, his kind “agoy”, which means “bye”, might have been forgotten at once, but later that evening in a Moscow TV program there were suddenly shown faces of those he remembered of with such warmth. The program was dedicated to the memory of Alexander Bovin, a political correspondent with the Izvestiya and the Central television, a diplomat, and a former Central Committee of the CPSU consultant, one of the trusted assistants to the two General Secretaries–Brezhnev and Andropov. There were photos of different periods and TV newsreel... There’s Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov at a large festive table, Aliev on his right, Gromyko and Gorbachyov on his left... A nice joke seems to have been just told; Geidar Alievich and Yuri 8 Vladimirovich are laughing in a catching manner, even stern Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, called Mister “No” in the West, is smiling. A smile appears for a moment on Gorbachyov’s face too, an “ordinary” Politburo member yet, not even the second person in the CPSU: after Brezhnev’s death Konstantin Sergeyevich Chernenko was destined to be the second to Gorbachyov’s envy. On those April days in 2004 Czech newspapers triumphantly wrote about Big Europe: the Czech Republic and nine more countries were to enter the European Union on May 1. Here we are 455 million people, reported the Dnes newspaper (formerly known as Mlada Fronta) to its readers, our territory is 3.9 million sq. km., there are 25 states... At night, sharp at twelve, a salute rattles over Karlovy Vary, the sky is tinted with bright, multicolored fireworks. Czechia is celebrating. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia are celebrating too... Europe wipes away its borders. Or to be more accurate it pushes them further to the East. In the new political map of the world there are neither countries of Socialist Commonwealth, nor states of the Warsaw Treaty Organization or the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, which accounted for a fifth of the world production by 1980s. There are 25 countries of the European Union in this map; there are new states in this map, which used to make up the Soviet Union–including Azerbaijan. Two thousand years ago a prophet remarked: God let us not live in times of changes. This concern of a common man is understandable at all times. He would like to hide under the roof of his house (fanza, izba, saklya, hut) and wait till the tempest is over. In nature lots of signs betoken a tempest, which any a little bit observant person can notice. For example, before a heavy rain a dusty whirlwind often gets up. The same holds for big politics as well–but in this sphere a few are able to foresee forthcoming thunderclaps... These shots of Andropov, Gromyko, Aliev, Gorbachyov were taken not earlier than November 1982 and not later than 1983, when Yuri Vladimirovich fell ill. It is marvellous that one of us saw these shots exactly on April days in 2004, when we conceived to write this book. It is often said that history does not know the conjunctive mood. But this fact does not prevent one from reckoning upon various scenarios: how events might have developed. What would have happened to the Soviet Union, if... The range of options was 9 the widest. The general conclusion–the Soviet Union was not doomed. Under sound reforms and provided that tendencies in the society development had been properly taken into account it could, renewing itself, evolve further. But unfortunately at the time the power was strongly held in the hands of dogmatists, whose lives’ major rule was to blindly follow mossy like sea boulder formulas that were nearly one hundred years old. Upon becoming the General Secretary, Gorbachyov promised renovation and acceleration to the society, to the country. Then the scale of his own immense and boundless state seemed insufficient to him. He proposed his (?) new thinking concept not only to the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Socialist States, but also to the whole world. While the situation within homeland was getting worse and worse. The leader chattered over everything he took up and rejected those who had courage to object to him. There were shrewd politicians who could see that the Union state was drawing near its disintegration, and Geidar Alievich Aliev with his extensive administration experience, political intuition and understanding of human soul impulses certainly was among them. One could already hear phrases about carriages that Russia had to unhook. They meant the Union Republics, the peoples that Russians, the citizens of Russia, had been living together in one state for one, two, three centuries and even longer. In any other country any politicians calling for the country’s disintegration were doomed to end up in a court, but in the Soviet Union muddled crowds made heroes of them. Separatist mood was gathering force in the republics. On the one hand, local elite that was striving for power and property roused it. On the other hand, let’s say it directly; impaired national interests also prompted people to action. In fact though having their own flags, anthems and constitutions the republics had very little independence. All top positions were filled from Moscow. It gave awards, brought to power and dismissed, put to death or spared. And then all of a sudden it turned out that it was possible to make some decisions without it. But to what extent? How far was Moscow going to slacken its reins? Various forces got involved in the struggle for power: those fattened by foreign benefactors, populists and a bit disguised black capital. In each Union Republic–Moldavia or Georgia, Ukraine or Azerbaijan–there was its own specific. At the same time a lot of other factors–historic, social and those of foreign policy–were at action as well.

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