In late September, 1992, AFPC sponsored a trip for senior policy analysts to Russia. The delegation sought to achieve a deeper understanding of the difficult and complicated circumstances there. The purpose of the trip was to study the economic, political and social situation in the country through a number of channels including meetings with Parliamentary leaders, government officials, journalists, business executives and others, and through general exposure to life in Moscow and its environs.
Trip members included Mrs. Beverly Danielson; Dr. John Lenczowski, former Director of Soviet Affairs on the National Security Council; Mrs. Renee Lickle; Mr. William Lickle, former Chairman of J.P. Morgan International Holdings Corp.; Mr. Seele Lodwick, former Undersecretary of Agriculture; and Ambassador Richard McCormack, former Undersecretary of State for Economics and Ambassador to the Organization of American States.
From September 20-25, the U.S. delegation met with numerous officials. These include Serge Filatov, First Deputy Chairman, Supreme Soviet; Ivan Frolov, former Pravda editor and member of the last Politburo; Vladimir Ispravnikov, Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, Supreme Soviet; Arkady Murachev, Moscow Police Chief and major figure in the democratic movement; and numerous members of the Russian parliament.
Dr. Lenczowski, in a post-trip report, made these observations: “There is a striking change in the general atmosphere in Russia. The omnipresent dead hand of the Party and its repression has been lifted from the country. One is no longer overwhelmed with the ubiquitous propaganda posters, red banners and billboards with slogans urging all to meet the goals of the latest Party Congress or 5-year plan.”
“Today, in spite of the growing material poverty that is aggravated by galloping inflation, the general feel of things is so much lighter. It is punctuated by so many signs of normal civil society rising as if from the dead.”
“Now that the predictable patterns of communist rule are gone, Russia has become a much more ‘normal’ country. Now, in contrast to before, it matters a great deal which personalities occupy which positions. And thus, having become so much more of a human place, as opposed to the predictable system run by robot-apparatchiks, Russia has taken on a new unpredictability.”