COVER
from issue no. 09 - 2004
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The Vice-secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation speaks to us
Russia after Beslan
The massacre in Ossetia, international terrorism, Iraq, nuclear disarmament, the current relationship of Russia with the US and Europe. A wide-ranging interview with Nikolay Spasskiy. Starting from his new novel, The relics of Saint Cyril, a spy story set in Rome and Moscow in 1991 at the time of the break-up of the USSR
by Roberto Rotondo
Nikolay Spasskiy in the cloister of the Basilica of the Santi Apostoli in Rome. The former Russian ambassador to the Italian State has recently published his second historical novel, this time dealing with the relations between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
That more or less is the plot of the new historical novel by Nikolay Spasskiy, The relics of Saint Cyril, published in Italy by Rizzoli, a true and proper spy story in which reality and verisimilitude are interwoven, as are the ways of worldly power and those of the altar. Spasskiy, despite the fact that this is certainly not his first venture into publishing, is not a professional writer. In fact at only 43 he has a long diplomatic career behind him, he spent more than six years in Rome as ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Italian State, and is today the Vice-secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. He is number two to Igor Ivanov (who, for understanding’s sake, is, in his turn, the Russian counterpart of the American Condoleezza Rice), and despite being in the front line in dealing with the shock at the outcome of the terrible terrorist attack on the school in Beslan, has agreed to answer our questions on the current role of Russia in the world, not least because, as former USSR president Gorbacev has remarked, what happened in Ossetia was «an attack on Putin, who is trying to get the country back on its feet». Spasskiy says: «What we are facing is a long and tough, real and genuine war. We’ll be able to win it only if we treat it as such. It would be a tragic error to think of terrorism as a clash of civilizations, or to take it for an isolated phenomenon».
Should the massacre in Beslan be considered the Russian 11 September?
NIKOLAY SPASSKIY: In my view the comparison between the massacre in Beslan and 11 September is absolutely legitimate. It is a national tragedy that has shaken the whole country, everybody. In his television appeal President Putin expressed that feeling of anger and grief very well. There’s no doubt, Russia will come out changed by the tragic experience. We hope to find again that civilized attitude that was summed up forty years ago by American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the famous words: «Ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you».
Saint Cyril in a 9th century fresco in the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome
SPASSKIY: The war has been declared against all of us, America, Russia, Europe, the moderate forces in the Islamic world. Yes, it’s true that Russia is in the sights of terrorism. But there’s nothing strange in that. My country doesn’t deal with terrorists, doesn’t give in to them, instead it fights. Often our western interlocutors ask us where Chechen separatism comes into all this. Separatism as a mass phenomenon doesn’t exist in Chechnya today. Socio-economic problems do exist, tied up with the post-war period, with peaceful reconstruction. And as in other parts of the world these problems are instrumentalized by terrorism. Having failed in the aim of creating a terrorist enclave in the Caucasus, Al-Qaeda has unleashed its fury against Russia. The first thing to do in this situation is to destroy the threat through all possible means. But it’s important that the military response and the reinforcing of public safety be part of a global strategy in the struggle against terrorism, which includes political, diplomatic, economic, media aspects.
Let’s go back to your new novel, to your interest in the history of the relations between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church and to the political consequences of the evolving of that relationship. It’s not the first time that you’ve engaged with this theme, but this time everything makes one think that the protagonist of the novel who is trying to recover the relics of Saint Cyril is you yourself. Too easy?
SPASSKIY: Yes. Because in fact the real protagonist of the book is the collapse of the USSR, 1991, a period of vast chaos in which my country was in danger of collapsing. The whole plot of the book was completely invented, but I wrote it with my mind on my country, our history, the direct knowledge of certain circles and of certain of our public figures. What came out was the probable, and in a certain sense, real history of the recovery and restoration of the relics of Saint Cyril to Russia. A fictional plot, agreed. But the real history of the disappearance of the relics of the evangelist of the Slavs is also a genuine and very fine spy story covering a whole millennium. I make no secret of my desire to see, during my lifetime, the coming together of the two Churches. Consequently I’m very much concerned to see that the business of worldly politics not be used to prevent the achievement of this great dream. But I’d prefer to stop there.
Let’s keep to it, instead, leaving aside the ending, and asking you why you attribute such an important political and strategic weight in the book to a possible visit by the Pope to Moscow, and, more generally, to the path of reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox…
SPASSKIY: It’s said that the schism is the deepest brand of the doors of hell on the body of the Church of Christ. I fully share that view and I’ve devoted both my last books to the matter: both The Byzantine, which tells the history of the fifteenth-century diplomatic intrigues in the triangle Moscow, Rome Constantinople, and The relics of Saint Cyril. The schism between Orthodoxy and Catholicism has had its history, its mythology, its protagonists. It has had its horrible price, including the fall of Byzantium. But now it’s time to come back together, because all of us, whether Catholic or Orthodox, are first of all Christian.
Red Square occupied by tanks backing the coup during one of the most chaotic moments of Russia’s fateful 1991
Additionally, apart from terrorism inspired by Islamic radicalism, there are many things in the world to worry us: widespread attitudes of intolerance that end up in violence; totalitarianism and xenophobia that at times emerge even at the level of the official policies; the multiplying of sects that preach an inhuman and diabolical ideology. In this situation, if the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See are able to integrate their efforts, they could contribute much, apart from the struggle against terrorism, to the rescue of souls from the snare of hatred and of intolerance.
Might not direct interest in reconciliation between the Churches on the part of a secular government be read as interference? Not least because the relationship has gone from periods of arctic chill to periods of cautious dialogue, but nothing more…
SPASSKIY: I believe instead, and it’s the thing that comforts me, that, even if not in eye-catching fashion, a certain understanding between the two Churches is ripening. The healing of the ecclesiastic schism is a task proper to the two Churches, and the state has no right to interfere. The Soviet Union aspired to total regulation of ecclesiastical life and we are still paying the price for that past. But the State and civil society can’t say they look with impartial detachment at this enterprise. The State can facilitate ecclesiastical dialogue, can create favorable circumstances, but agreement on reconciliation can only be reached by the Patriarchate and the Holy See. Otherwise it can’t work.
Separatism as mass phenomenon doesn't exist in Chechnya today. Socio-economic problems do exist, tied up with the post-war period, with peaceful reconstruction.
And as in other parts of the world these problems are instrumentalized by terrorism
The problem of Islamic radicalism. Some
scholars see the starting point of aggressive fundamentalism in the Caucasus in
1988, when the USSR celebrated the millennium of the Baptism of the Rus’ in
solemn fashion. It was then that rigid state atheism was left behind, but it
also gave rise to a feeling of frustration in a part of Islam that felt it got
less recognition compared to the Christian religion…SPASSKIY: We always say that there is no overlap between Islam and terrorism, and it’s true. Islam is one of the greatest civilizations and religions in the world, and deserves all due respect, while terrorism is a different thing. It’s a phenomenon that has always accompanied the history of mankind. We could even debate whether the killing of Julius Caesar was an act of terrorism or not. Russia had to deal with terrorism in the ’seventies and ’eighties of the 19th century, and that experience has left deep marks in our culture. But returning to your question, at that time I was a young official in the Foreign Office, a member of the Communist Party, even if in my heart I was Christian, and I didn’t have the possibility of analyzing the phenomena we’re discussing, because in that period they weren’t so publicized. They were things that went on in the shadows a bit. I don’t believe that the celebration of the Baptism of the Rus’ stirred the wish for Islamic renaissance, but I don’t exclude that some attitudes can have had their influence in that.
More simply, when the USSR Communist Party loosened its grip on the country, absolutely disparate things came to the light and asserted themselves: on the one hand a wish by the people for democracy, freedom, human values, for religious renaissance. On the other, the presence of an extremist radicalism that received strong backing from abroad. Because it’s a fact that usually extremism grows when financed and instrumentalized from outside. The ideology of Al-Qaeda follows the most aggressive, extremist, bigoted and inhuman current in Islam. And we must not turn our eyes away from that reality for reasons of political correctness. We have to prevent terrorists passing themselves off as spokesmen of popular aspirations. We must take away the socio-economic basis. Young people must understand that there is a future possible, that it’s possible to work and participate peacefully in the life of one’s country. And that there is a better fate than dying as a kamikaze indoctrinated by Al-Qaeda.
A woman in the rubble of the school in Beslan, after the dreadful attack that Spasskiy describes as the Russian 11 September
SPASSKIY: The worse thing would be to find ourselves faced with the choice between capitulation and the setting up of a police regime.
In his very tough speech after the Ossetia massacre Putin reminded us that Russia is a nuclear power. A problem linked in certain ways with terrorism, but more generally with world security, is precisely that of weapons of mass destruction. And it doesn’t seem that any big step forward has been made since the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, today there are more countries in possession of the atom bomb. How are we to get back on the road to nuclear disarmament?
SPASSKIY: There is no simple answer. Terrorism apart, the biggest problem threatening the international community today is undoubtedly the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and, in a certain sense, the situation is more complex than in the period of the Cold War when, in a situation of mutually assured destruction, an agreement between the two superpowers was enough to reduce the danger of a nuclear war to a more or less acceptable level. Today, when we speak of countries in possession of weapons of mass destruction, we are speaking not only of those that have possessed nuclear weapons for a long time, but also of those that have recently joined the group of countries armed with the atomic bomb or that are striving to get there. The reason is that still today atomic weapons are considered an insurance policy, both at the regional level, to warn off or threaten neighboring countries, and at global level, to avoid possible attack if one has ended up on the list of dangerous countries drawn up by the US. Hence it isn’t realistic to think of sitting us all down at the same negotiating table and solving by common agreement the problem of weapons of mass destruction. According to the military doctrine of the Russian Federation we would use nuclear weapons only in the case in which we are attacked with weapons of mass destruction or in a critical situation for our national security, resulting from a massive invasion with conventional weapons. The US military doctrine on the matter, despite being more elastic, follows the same track. We in Russia have halved our arsenal in a few years, but the phenomenon is more complex. If there were a Third World country trying to make an atomic bomb, we might intervene, but very cautiously, and contribute to finding a peaceful solution to the reasons for the regional crisis. Additionally we can try to attenuate concerns about the United States, even if it’s their business to show that after Iraq there won’t be a series of military interventions in other countries, because otherwise in two or three years we shall get a notable increase in the effort to acquire atomic weapons. We must, in conclusion, get rid of the reasons that give rise to the need for a country to arm itself. It’s a long and complex road but if the countries that have a certain influence and that enjoy a certain respect in international relations get to work, the light at the end of the tunnel might become visible.
I make no secret of my desire to see, during my lifetime, the coming together of the two Churches. Consequently I’m very much concerned to see that the business of worldly politics not be used to prevent the achievement of this great dream
Despite everything one can be
optimistic? SPASSKIY: Not entirely, because if it’s true that the danger of a global nuclear war no longer exists, nevertheless the danger of an accident in the management both of military arsenals and of nuclear power stations remains. Furthermore, the danger of using nuclear weapons in regional collisions has not wholly gone away, and we must face the danger – almost non-existent a decade ago – of a terrorist attack with weapons of mass extermination, not necessarily nuclear. That is a real danger. It’s easier to get hold of chemical or biological bombs, and they are as lethal as atomic bombs. The scenario of a attack could be extremely simple, almost banal. In the literature on the matter a nightmarish example is always quoted: the case of a kamikaze who infects himself with anthrax and goes around the New York subway for a day causing an epidemic with tens of thousands of people infected. And there is the possibility that mankind must face a terrorist attack of that kind in the coming years.
So, they’re different problems. We certainly need to go on with the process of reducing the nuclear arsenals, bringing in the other traditional nuclear powers like England, France, China, and we must work with the countries that have exploded only one nuclear device to get them to join the non-proliferation pact. We need to strengthen the guarantees of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], especially as regards threshold countries. The Director General of the Agency, Mohammed El Baradei, has some interesting ideas on the subject. We need to strengthen technical security in the development of the nuclear energy sector. And, obviously, we need to plan all the measures necessary to prevent a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction and, on the hypothesis that should that most unfortunately happen, put in place all the measures for limiting the harm.
We mentioned the US. What is the current state of your relations?
SPASSKIY: Given their real weight in world politics and the economy, the US occupies a very important place among Russia’s partners. But there’s nothing strange in that, today all countries attribute particular importance to their relations with the US. And relations between us and them has a lot of effect on strategic stability in the world. Without close collaboration between our two countries it’s impossible to find an answer to challenges such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass extermination, regional crises. And Russia is interested in wider and more dynamic collaboration with the US not only in the strategic field, but also in the economic and cultural field. Despite our differences on a certain number of questions, we continue to work very intensely together.
The Russian president Vladimir Putin with Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow
SPASSKIY: Yes, that’s true. But we must keep in mind that different currents of thought and feelings co-exist in the American political establishment. There are the so-called neocons who, seeing America as the only global superpower, prefer it to act in unilateral fashion. This approach manifested itself in the American military action against Iraq that we have considered a serious mistake from the beginning. But it’s not possible to describe American foreign policy as the slave of neocon ideology, because it’s a very much more ramified and complex thing. Furthermore, the fact that these tendencies exist in American politics doesn’t mean that we can allow the US to follow them in indiscriminate fashion. Because world stability will suffer both from a doctrine of unilateral American intervention and from an isolationist doctrine. We wouldn’t want the US to shut themselves in by constructing a “Fortress America”.
But you have not given definite vetoes on Iraq…
SPASSKIY: We had a negative view from the beginning, but the US went ahead. What should we have done? Withdraw in pique and wait for them to get bogged down? If the United States gets into trouble, it will be trouble for everybody. We can engage in non-demagogical policy trying to influence US choices. The fact that UN resolution 1546 has been approved is a momentous step, fundamental to the development of the situation in Iraq. Miracles can’t be performed, of course, and one can’t hope that after the UN resolution the situation becomes tranquil in the blink of an eye. We must rebuild the stability in the country because that is now the real problem, stability and elementary security. We can’t allow the territory of Iraq to become the warehouse of international terrorism. That would be the worst imaginable scenario. We don’t agree with the line of our American friends, but we watch their efforts with sympathy. And we say again that there must be full and total sovereignty for Iraq, which would also facilitate UN intervention.
How are you following the presidential election in the United States?
SPASSKIY: On US elections we follow a strict rule: we never comment. Because our interest is not in people, with whom there can be human relationships or not. It’s a matter of another level. For us it’s important that, despite the election campaign, the positive development of relations between our countries continues, that there not be surprises, that projects we are working on go ahead. In short, that we continue along the road where we have succeeded, after years, of establishing relations. Furthermore, we must not forget that the period of the election campaign in the United States is also a time of fragility in their political system. It’s a time in which we, neighbors, partners, friends of the US, must see to it that internal American politics doesn’t affect their relations with the other countries of the world. That is the spirit in which, with great attention, we follow the campaign.
Above, Vladimir Putin, in his residence in Sochi, between the French president Jacques Chirac and the German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Below, president George Bush during a meeting at the White House with the people in charge of National Security and Communications
SPASSKIY: Our relations with Europe are something different than those we have with the US. For us Europe is not a foreign land. Indeed, Russia is an integral part of Europe. So we are interested in the formation of a strong European Union, that could become an effective partner of Russia. But we make no secret of the fact that we have our own interests. Hence we can’t accept that the EU tries to keep apart from Russia, for example with the wall of entry visas. We are very concerned when, through intransigence and the inertia of the bureaucracy, projects of important collaboration are not encouraged; when the enlargement of the EU creates complications in our relations with the new countries. We believe, in fact, that relations between Russia and EU must not be less than the bilateral relations that Russia has with individual member countries of the Union, such as Italy for example. But we are also convinced that the EU and Russia have a symmetrical interest in their mutual collaboration. Russia isn’t thinking of joining the EU, at least not in the near future. But without a close link with our country, the Union will never manage to affirm itself as a strong and autonomous pole in world politics.
We must keep in mind that different currents of thought and feelings co-exist in the American political establishment. There are the so-called neocons who, seeing America as the only global superpower, prefer it to act in unilateral fashion. This approach manifested itself in the American military action against Iraq that we have considered a serious mistake from the beginning. But it’s not possible to describe American foreign policy as the slave of neocon ideology, because it’s a very much more ramified and complex thing
The economic situation of the Russian
Federation is improving, but questions are often raised about the social
development of the country. SPASSKIY: The refounding of the Russian economy turned out to be a much more arduous challenge than we had imagined when the reforms were set going in 1991. During the ’nineties the economy moved in the direction of the free market, but the process was accompanied by a profound differentiation in the incomes of the population and by a considerable fall in production. That situation is to be explained also through a series of serious errors made by the Russian managerial class of the time. But perhaps it’s pointless putting the past in the dock. Today the Russian presidency and government consider the country’s growth in competitiveness, especially in economy, the principal task of the nation in marking a new stage in history. So far a decisive shift has still not been seen, but there is recovery and very promising it is. Suffice it to say that the GNP and industrial production are growing at 7 percent a year.
But you are often accused of depending too much on the sale of raw materials such as oil and gas, which creates little employment …
SPASSKIY: Of course in recent times the favorable prices of oil and gas have also played a certain role. But that does not mean that Russia has an unhealthy dependency on oil. The economic strategy of our government is aimed at the rebirth of the country’s industrial base, at the growth in the exportation of industrial goods.
That change of direction has also led to fierce clashes with some leading sectors in the production of raw materials
SPASSKIY: The ’nineties left us with a very heavy legacy, that sometimes overflows in our life today. But our interlocutors in the West must understand that it is absurd to look for a plan and a general direction behind everything that happens in Russia. We are a normal country, democratic and in the marketplace like yourselves, the only difference being that, for obvious reasons, we must face more complex and burdensome problems.
