Diplomacy Moscow Scales Back

By Christopher Ogden

There they were, shoulder to shoulder, about as disparate as a pair could be. The business-suited pragmatist and the fatigue-clad revolutionary. Mikhail Gorbachev and Fidel Castro. New thinking and old orthodoxy. Castro talked the most, but Gorbachev had the last word. He coolly rejected Castro's policy of exporting revolution, a central tenet of the Cuban leader's 30-year rule. Until a very few years ago, Moscow's leaders too preached worldwide support for wars of national liberation. But Gorbachev's words in Havana seemed intended to reinforce his professed determination to replace such vaporous ideology with solidly grounded pragmatism -- obtaining influence in Latin America, say, by diplomatic means and not just by Cuban proxy. But as Castro boldly rejected the Moscow model of perestroika and glasnost, Gorbachev bit his tongue and signed a new friendship treaty. The Soviet Union was not about to provoke an immediate change in its close relationship with Cuba.

The spectacle of Gorbachev in Cuba was an instructive one, more symbolic than substantive. Yet his message there echoed far more loudly in such far- flung corners of the globe as Poland and Kampuchea, where stunning events gave real meaning to Moscow's "new thinking."

In Warsaw the Communist government and Solidarity signed sweeping agreements to legalize the long-banned independent trade union and to allow Poland's first partly democratic elections since 1948. In Phnom Penh, Soviet client Viet Nam announced that it would end its occupation and withdraw all its troops, estimated at some 60,000, from Kampuchea by the end of September. That opened the door to a broad rapprochement between the U.S.S.R. and China, which had bitterly resisted the Vietnamese encroachment. Beijing made the Vietnamese pullout one of three conditions for making up with Moscow (the others: an end to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and resolution of conflicts along the 4,500-mile U.S.S.R.-China border).

Neither in Poland nor in Kampuchea could these dramatic reversals have been made without the sponsorship of Gorbachev. They follow a string of precedents set by the Soviet Union: its first contested elections in 71 years; withdrawal from Afghanistan; constructive mediation in southern Africa; offers of significant cuts in the Warsaw Pact's conventional-force structure in Europe; and even, despite reports of an unwelcome sale of jet bombers to Libya, suggestions of a generally more helpful approach to the Middle East.

The message everywhere is the same. The Soviet Union is scaling back its cold war commitments overseas in favor of a more pragmatic, diplomatic -- and potentially more successful -- drive to expand its influence abroad. The Soviets are moving in more subtle ways than of old to position themselves advantageously. The retrenchment from overt aggression, said a top adviser to President George Bush last week, discloses "a foreign policy of necessity designed to provide breathing space." But this necessity has bred a virtue: the plaudits for Moscow's policy shifts have led to an overall advance of the Gorbachev cause overseas. It is, of course, domestic imperatives that have forced Gorbachev to readjust, even reconstruct Soviet foreign policy. Henry Trofimenko, a specialist at Moscow's Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies, laid the Kremlin's newly realistic approach squarely on three forces: money, perestroika and the need for Western assistance. Said Trofimenko: "First of all, we should spend less money abroad. Second, there should be a concentration of people's efforts on our internal situation. Third, we are trying to improve relations with the West."

True, Gorbachev's temperamental preference is for the practical. But not even Gorbachev would be so eager to reduce expensive commitments beyond his borders if his country were not in such desperate straits. Though a military superpower, the Soviet Union is struggling economically. To make perestroika succeed, Gorbachev cannot afford to squander huge sums of money and material on foreign adventures.

At the same time he was curtailing exorbitant demands on his country's exchequer, Gorbachev was trying to establish peaceful conditions around the country's borders. Simply enforcing totalitarianism on restive East bloc neighbors was no longer a satisfactory solution; their own vast economic and political troubles were becoming an insupportable drain on Soviet resources and attention. Perhaps most important, Gorbachev recognized that it was essential to enlist economic, technological and managerial assistance from the West. The price of that was a curtailment of cold war aggression and regional agitation.

The Soviets appear to appreciate that the world out there has changed. "We have stopped using the Third World as a battleground for capitalism or socialism," says Trofimenko. The new battlefields are more economic and scientific than ideological and military. To play on those fields, the U.S.S.R. has to negotiate arms limits, pull back from regional confrontation and permit political change among its satellites.

Without that sea change in Moscow, it would be difficult to imagine the events of last week. There could hardly be more dramatic evidence of a break with the old thinking than the recent events in Poland. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa signing an agreement, smiling even, with Polish Communist officials. The union grew out of economic despair in 1980 and was crushed the next year by the imposition of martial law, one of the last ironfisted displays of Brezhnev-style authority.

For two months the parties negotiated over a 30-ft.-across round table for unprecedented political freedoms. "Why a 30-ft. table?" went a Polish joke making the rounds as the talks got under way. Answer: "Because the world spitting record is only 15 ft." In the end, however, the two sides managed to craft a new political order intended to save their country from economic ruin and social chaos.

The agreement calls for reorganization of the Parliament with a strong President, expected to be General Wojciech Jaruzelski. The legislature will offer unprecedented power to the opposition: a re-established upper chamber, the Senate, will have 100 members to be chosen in free elections in June; the Sejm, or lower chamber, will retain its 460 seats, of which the majority will continue to be reserved for candidates representing the ruling Communist Party and its allies, but 35% of Sejm members will be freely elected. The pact even provides for opposition media, complete with a newspaper and regular television and radio programming. And in separate negotiations, the government agreed to give the Catholic Church full legal status, a recognition dear to the deeply religious Poles.

"We are closing a chapter in our history and opening another one," said Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak. Solidarity leader Walesa, who co-signed the pact with Kiszczak, went further: "I think this may be the beginning of democracy in Poland." But if that prophecy is to come true, Poland must reverse its disastrous economic decline, and the accord is weakest in its economic provisions. It includes only limited measures to advance productivity and a highly risky plan to index workers' wages. The Bush Administration is thinking of rewarding Poland for its moves toward liberalization by extending new credits, the first since martial law was imposed in 1981. Even a generous loan, however, may not be enough to help Poland surmount its $39 billion foreign debt, aging industries and chronic consumer shortages. All too many Poles are gripped with a visible depression of spirit that even the astonishing political changes have failed to lift.

For the Soviet Union, the practical advantage of permitting such political experiments must be balanced against the threat they pose. Poland will test to the limits Moscow's professed willingness to let each country design its own version of socialism.

Half a world away, equally momentous but even more uncertain changes were coming to Kampuchea. More than a decade ago, with the U.S.S.R.'s blessing, Viet Nam invaded its next-door neighbor. Hanoi may eventually have tired of the unending war, which has cost it 50,000 casualties. But in the past few years, Gorbachev has had compelling reasons to withdraw Moscow's support.

And so last week the Vietnamese announced their retreat, a withdrawal that paved the way for a successful summit next month between Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The joint declaration was made by Viet Nam, Kampuchea and Laos, but it came largely at the instigation of the Soviets. "The military doesn't like it. They don't believe ((Premier)) Hun Sen's forces are ready," said a senior Vietnamese official in Ho Chi Minh City. "Basically, it's a political decision to withdraw. There's a lot of pressure to get out, especially from the Soviets." Moscow could ill afford to keep bankrolling the occupation of Kampuchea. Nor did that venture square with Gorbachev's promises to ease regional tensions and stop exporting revolution.

Whether because of Soviet pressure or its own fatigue, Viet Nam dropped its insistence that a fall pullout could take place only if all aid to the forces opposing its puppet government in Phnom Penh, including those of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and the murderous Khmer Rouge, was simultaneously halted. Kampuchea reserved the right to seek "assistance" once more if such aid continued, but many analysts believe Hanoi is more interested in concentrating on its own sadly deteriorated economy. The Vietnamese hope their withdrawal will ultimately open up economic links to the U.S., which has long made their departure a condition for diplomatic recognition.

But while Soviet and Vietnamese interests are well served by the end of the occupation, Kampuchea's fate remains extremely uncertain. A rearrangement of political power among all the contending factions has yet to be worked out. More ominously, diplomacy will have to move fast to forestall a triumphant return of the Khmer Rouge. Some 2 million Kampucheans died under their monstrous four-year tenure, and they are today the strongest fighting force among opponents to the Vietnamese-backed government.

Ironically, it was in London that Gorbachev's new thinking achieved its greatest success of the week. Despite serious disagreements over policy during their fifth get-together, Margaret Thatcher and Gorbachev still seemed devoted to their mutual admiration society. Their talks, cooed the Iron Lady, were "very deep, very wide ranging and very friendly." Grinning from ear to ear, Gorbachev enthused that their "mutual understanding is increasing." So much so that Queen Elizabeth even accepted an invitation to visit the U.S.S.R., a historic royal acknowledgment of the distance between Gorbachev and the Bolsheviks who murdered her Romanov cousins.

Moscow's about-face has mesmerized Western Europe, convincing many that there is no longer anything to fear from the Kremlin. A poll in the Times of London last week asked which nation "wishes to extend its power over other countries." The U.S.S.R. was named by 35% and the U.S. by 33%, compared with 70% and 31% respectively in a 1981 poll.

West Europeans seem less anxious at the moment about Soviet moves than about lack of action by Washington. Gorbachev seemed to find a sympathetic ear when he expressed to Thatcher his impatience with the lackadaisical pace of foreign policymaking in Washington, where a thorough "review" is still under way. Despite Bush's reiteration Friday that "Mr. Gorbachev knows there is no foot dragging going on," the U.S. has been left in the Soviet leader's diplomatic dust. Like nature, foreign policy abhors a vacuum. And if there is one certainty when Gorbachev is around, it is that the Soviet leader, for all his domestic problems, does not leave a vacuum when he takes to the foreign road.

With reporting by James Carney/Havana, William Mader/London and Nancy Traver/Moscow