By Yu. F. Golovlyov[1]
Biography of Igor Fyodorovich Maximychev with great precision reflects the Russian/Soviet realities of the twentieth century. He was born in the Turkmen town of Takhta-Bazar near the border with Afghanistan in November 1932. His mother Ekaterina G. Shabanova was sent there by Komsomol from Ashgabat as auxiliary labour for land surveying work (the farming sector collectivization was nearing completion). His father Fyodor Yakovlevich Maximychev graduated from the economics department of Central Asian State University (SAGU) in Tashkent and held qualification of a road transport engineer. He was a talented designer, participated in the designing of the Turkestan Pavilion at the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow in 1923. After graduation from the university he worked in the Chief Directorate of Central Asia Motorways. In 1936, he was drafted into the Red Army. He participated in the bringing of Soviet troops in Iran in 1941, and later he became a teacher at the Academy of Logistics and Supply of the Soviet Army (Kalinin city).
A retired lieutenant-colonel, candidate of military sciences, he had the government awards. His mother before the war worked as a proof-reader in the editorial office of the ZvezdaVostoka (Star of the East) daily newspaper (Tashkent), got the specialty of teacher of French at a secondary school. During WW2 she was sent to the Tashselmash plant that was redesigned for the defence needs. She was awarded the Medal for Valorous Labour in the Great Patriotic War.
Both his parents were the descendants of peasants coming from Central Russia who were left without land after the abolition of serfdom and who moved within the state program of resettlement to develop new lands in Central Asia. The maternal grandfather remained a peasant, and the paternal grandfather became a foreman in a railway depot in Ashgabat, and then in Tashkent.
Igor Maximychev entered school in Tashkent in 1939 and finished his studies with a gold medal in Kalinin (Tver) in 1950. In the upper grades he had excellent teachers to whom he remained grateful for life. He read a lot going beyond the school curriculum. A rich collection of the library of the Academy of Logistics and Supply the services of which he could use helped him in it. The works of D.I. Pisarev criticizing any and all authority strongly influenced his personality. For some time he hesitated choosing a university and his future profession; history and philology appealed to him. Eventually, he applied for the History Department at MGIMO. The glamour of diplomatic work with maintaining of the history profile of education prevailed; he was also attracted by the prospect of deep learning of a foreign language.
In those years, the bulk of MGIMO students were recruited not from the "gilded youth." Former war veterans and guys who have served in the army were learning the secrets of the future profession along with those just out of school. Also, a few children of high-placed parents tried not to stand out from the background. For the long years of the study the aristocratic mansion near the Crimean Bridge became a second home to all. The political storms that were raging in the country could not but affect MGIMO students. They held passionate debates on the future of the country, at the same time in good faith carrying out the orders of the Komsomol Bureau to conduct among the population the propaganda of decisions of the party and government. They conducted political briefings among residents of densely populated basements on Arbat Street. Acted as sponsors to the Communist Youth League organizations of industrial enterprises in Moscow (Igor Maximychev was sent to the Krasnaya Roza (Red Rose) textile factory). They tried to comprehend the "doctors` plot"; participated in the funeral of I.V. Stalin; enthusiastically supported the first steps of the Khrushchev`s Thaw. Words of a student of the older generation were passed on by word of mouth: "The era of Stalin is over, it`s time to go back to Lenin."
The student life ended for Igor Maximychev in1956, which went down in history as the year of the 20th Congress of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union). His graduation work was on the theme Austria Independence Guarantees under the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. He graduated with honours as a certified specialist in international relations with Western countries. The fact that the emphasis was on relations with Germany and Austria was not specified in the diploma; there was also no reference to his knowledge of two languages (German and French). However, it contained a note about additional specialty - teacher of German at secondary school. All students of 1950 admission underwent teacher training and practical training at schools during their sixth year, organized for them in connection with the expected decline in demand for international relations experts.
After graduation, Igor Maximychev was taken into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and after a brief practical training in the Consular Department of the Ministry he was sent to the Soviet Consulate in Leipzig (GDR) as a desk officer. He went on his first foreign trip with the family (in November 1954, a student of the Romance and Germanic department of the Kalinin Pedagogical Institute, Anna Viktorovna Rumyantseva, became the wife of Igor Maximychev; in May1956, a daughter was born to them who at the time of their travelling abroad was two months old). They travelled by train from Moscow to Berlin, getting many new experiences. Early in the morning on July 17 the train made a brief technical stopover in Poznan, Poland, where, according to reports of various radio "voices," mass unrest took place a few weeks ago. Igor Maximychev will always remember the grim malevolence with which the people who filled the platform waiting for a commuter train were looking at the "Russian coach."
The feature of the work in consular agencies is that it closely familiarizes people with the widest scope of diplomatic and auxiliary activities. Over two years of work in Leipzig Igor Maximychev, along with maintaining contacts between the USSR and GDR youth organizations, making reports on the situation in the consular district, as well as interpreting and translating, had also to engage in:
- registration of civil status acts of the military servicemen from the units of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany located near Leipzig;
- exhumation of the remains of Soviet citizens buried in the GDR and sending them to the USSR following the instructions from Moscow;
- transfer the property bequeathed by the relatives who died in the GDR to the heirs residing in the Soviet Union and so on.
When the consular secretary typist fell seriously ill, Igor Maximychev "by virtue of the operational need" had to learn typewriting. All this experience and skills one way or another proved useful in the future. His wife was teaching German in a Soviet secondary school to the children of military servicemen. Under the impression of the first successes of the "thaw," Igor Maximychev applied for candidate membership in the Communist Party and his application was granted.
In May 1958, Igor Maximychev without coming to Moscow was transferred to the USSR Embassy to the Federal Republic of Germany to the position of a duty desk officer that has been recently included in the staff register. Diplomatic relations with West Germany were established in 1955. The Embassy that would open a year later, was being formatted at that time. It was located not in Bonn, but quite far away, in the small village of Rolandseck, in a former hotel building, sandwiched between an actively functioning railway line and the federal road No. 9 with heavy traffic along the banks of the Rhine. The conditions in which diplomatic personnel were accommodated were not very good. During the first several weeks Igor Maximychev with his wife and two-year old daughter were dwelling in a tiny room under the roof with the only window-hatch in the ceiling. Most of the room space was occupied by an orphan double bed. The girl slept in a suitcase brought from Leipzig.
The work in the capacity of a duty desk officer, i.e., a caretaker who can speak German (the position was introduced mainly for MGIMO graduates) gave not much to those who have already gained some experience of working abroad. Igor Maximychev and his wife only had to closer familiarize themselves with advanced capitalism that was new for them. Apparently, this process was successful. A few months later, Ambassador A. A. Smirnov appointed Igor Maximychev his personal interpreter, and representative of the Sovexportfilm organization in West Germany B. A. Medvedev invited Anna Viktorovna to a similar position in his office. Responsibilities of the interpreter included not only translation and interpretation on various issues, but also the functions of a secretary, chief of protocol and an escort in trips around the country.
The ambassador who himself had an excellent command of German (he had started his diplomatic career in the pre-war Berlin), informally explained the reasons for not refusing from the services of an interpreter as follows: while the interpreting is going on there is time to think over the answer; if the answer turns out to be not entirely successful it is possible to refer to the fact that it was inaccurately translated; after a conversation the translator makes its draft thus saving the time and strength of the chiefs. It should also be borne in mind that in the 1930s a ban on one-on-one meetings with foreigners was introduced for Russian diplomats, although such a situation excluded the confidential nature of discussions, which greatly impoverished the diplomatic tools. After 1953 this ban was not strictly observed anymore, however, the old school workers preferred to adhere to it wherever possible.
The subsequent two years of work together with A. A. Smirnov were for Igor Maximychev a top-notch school of mastering the diplomat`s profession. He witnessed the ambassador`s most interesting conversations with prominent representatives of West German political and economic circles. The ambassador`s contact list was topped by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, with whom he had almost friendly relationships, despite the sharp conflicts of the "Cold War" epoch. The ambassador was on friendly terms with West Germany`s business tycoons for whom the "eastern trade deal" with its boundless prospects was always of particular interest. The rapidly growing financial moguls of the West German giant, maybe seriously or jokingly promised to provide billions in non-refundable loans to the Soviet Union, if it agrees to influence the GDR leadership to refuse from the plans of building socialism in East Germany. A. A. Smirnov preferred to treat such proposals as buffoonery, but reported them to the country`s leadership.
The end of 1958 was marked by the worsening of the crisis around West Berlin (the "second Berlin blockade" according to the Western terminology). A. A. Smirnov who made a point of exerting "pressure" on the Western powers at their weakest positions in Europe, persistently headed for a compromise that would be acceptable to all stakeholders, including Germany. It was not his fault that Nikita S. Khrushchev who imagined himself a-jack-of-all-trades, missed opportunities to come to an agreement with the West that was ready to give ground in many ways (but not to capitulate).
Ultimately, Moscow had to resort to the erection of the Berlin Wall along the line of sectoral division between West Berlin that remained hostile to the entity within the Warsaw Pact, and the eastern part of the city that was functioning as the capital of the German Democratic Republic (the German-German border crossing regime was also tightened). The wall to a large extent solved the current East German state`s problems - both internal (outflow of the population, especially highly skilled workers to the West) and external (West Berlin was swarming with representatives of secret services of every kind that spared no time and effort to harm the East Germans, as well as the USSR). But in terms of propaganda it caused serious damage to the Soviet Union, East Germany and the entire socialist community. The situation around West Berlin normalized only ten years later as a result of a special agreement between the four powers responsible for Berlin and Germany as a whole. Observing developments in the centre of Europe, Igor Maximychev learned to see behind the everyday bustle of foreign political actions the strategic concept of their participants.
On August 13, 1961, Igor Maximychev was watching the Berlin Wall building already from Moscow - in the summer of 1960 his first foreign trip ended. He started to work in the records office for West Germany at the Third European Department of the Foreign Ministry, which was responsible for the Soviet Union`s relations with the GDR, West Germany, West Berlin and Austria. The then office was placed on the 9th floor of a high-rise building in Smolensk Square, which was important because it was located in close proximity to the minister`s office on the 7th floor. The minister, especially when A. A. Gromyko took the post, kept under his unremitting personal control everything that was somehow associated with German affairs.
From time to time, Deputy Minister V. S. Semenov, who once headed the political structure of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and who went down in history as the first Soviet Ambassador to East Germany, gave tasks to "the Third Europe." Fulfilling one of these tasks, Igor Maximychev prepared a comparative collection of statements made by the leaders of the Third Reich and West Germany on the national issue and foreign policy problems, that were striking in their similarity. The customer was satisfied and ordered to publish the collection in the International Affairs magazine. Igor Maximychev received the first in his life honorarium (the fee was small, but for a family of five - in January 1961, twin sons were born - every kopeck was important). Igor Maximychev began his long-term cooperation with the editorial office of the country`s main foreign policy journal. The work linked directly with the German affairs was interesting. He developed good relationships with the colleagues. Igor Maximychev was admitted to the Communist Party.
In 1961, a notable Soviet diplomat, head of the Department of Diplomatic History of the USSR Foreign Ministry I. N. Zemskov offered Igor Maximychev to take the post of head of the research department with the main task to carry out the minister`s instructions to prepare surveys of the history of the USSR relations with the leading international players. It became clear by that time that the country lacks system-based historical research, reflecting the formation of the Soviet Union`s foreign policy on which it would be possible to rely in the practical work. The works of Soviet historians that were suppressed by the ideological fetters were reflecting anything but the reality of the development of the USSR relations with the outside world after 1917.The access to the archives remained closed, and without it an objective assessment of what was happening was hardly possible.
Meanwhile, Soviet diplomacy intensified its actions in the international arena with the aim of not only expanding ties with foreign powers, but also bringing them to a higher and more constructive level. For the planning of the corresponding steps and prediction of reactions it was necessary to learn the historical facts without the propaganda tinsel distorting them. A. A. Gromyko supported the idea of drawing up for internal use the reviews of Soviet relations with the most important international partners, with the use of all the available factual materials and without any attempt to "smoothen" the historical reality. The chronology of the planned work covered a period from the October Revolution to the 1960th. The right to examine the reviews was given to the heads of the Ministry departments; they were classified as "Top Secret." Later, the main documentary collection studied by the reviewers served as the backbone for the Soviet Foreign Policy Documents publication that covered a period up to 1939, to which all serious historians make references in their works.
Along with the editorial and technical work to prepare the already drawn up reviews for printing, Igor Maximychev chose the most relevant, in his view, topic for independent research: he delved into the history of Soviet-German relations after Adolph Hitler`s coming to power in Germany (January 1933). The complete absence of any bias served as a starting point for the analysis of the relevant documents from the USSR Foreign Ministry archives, as well as those published in the West materials of foreign policy archives of Great Britain, the United States and France, the preserved archives of the German Foreign Ministry, the press of the time, the same as a boundless sea of scientific (and pseudo-scientific) literature. It was important to clarify how it all really happened. By the end of 1965, the events before the Second World War had been reconstructed in detail; the groundwork for the analysis of the period prior to June 22, 1941was created. This kind of work made it possible to track the connection between the reaction of politicians to changes in the international situation and the tasks that they initially set themselves. The factual material left no doubt of the USSR peaceful intentions and the sincerity of its efforts to organize collective resistance to the aggressor.
At that point, Igor Maximychev got an invitation from Soviet Ambassador to France V. A. Zorin to work in Paris. The ambassador, an expert in German affairs (he had been the first Soviet ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany), placed special emphasis on the Franco-West German relations and was looking for an employee of the corresponding profile. There were few men in the Foreign Ministry, who knew two languages: German and French. That`s why the candidacy of Igor Maximychev was proposed. The personnel officers demanded a quick decision. Head of the Department of History and Records was on a foreign trip. Igor Maximychev agreed, although initially V. A. Zorin could offer him a position of the third secretary(in a year Igor Maximychev became second secretary and in three years - first). I. N. Zemskov who returned from his trip said aphoristically: "Paris is worth a place."
In January 1966, the Maximychevs arrived in the French capital. Everything that is linked with France is perceived in Russia in a special way. The Russian intelligentsia traditionally has an almost reverent attitude to this country. Igor Maximychev retained a memory of how widely people in the Soviet Union in the 1930s were marking the anniversaries of the 1789 French Revolution and the Paris Commune of 1871, which were regarded by the official ideologues as rehearsals of the October Revolution; the then USSR people knew about them more than about their own revolution. Igor Maximychev spent hours looking through the L`Humanite, the main newspaper of the French Communist Party, that his mother used to bring home, when she was studying French. He learned La Marseillaise earlier than hу remembered the words of the Internationale, the then national anthem of the Soviet Union.
Life in Paris helped Igor Maximychev clearly understand the importance of the Franco-German reconciliation for the fate of Europe; it taught him to take a more comprehensive approach to the problems of the continent, highlighted the need for Russia to participate in the construction of a Greater Europe. Contacts in the diplomatic corps of the French capital (collaboration with colleagues from the mission of the German Democratic Republic was particularly close) demonstrated the effectiveness of a united position of the socialist countries. Five years of work at the Embassy in Rue de Grenelle were perceived by Igor Maximychev and his family as a gift of fate, as "a movable feast" (Ernest Hemingway`s formula). During the visit of A. N. Kosygin to France in autumn 1966, Igor Maximychev was presented to General de Gaulle. He happened to accompany Yu.A. Gagarin and A. A. Leonov during their visit to France.
In 1971, Igor Maximychev was appointed advisor at the information division of the General Secretariat of the Foreign Ministry (I. N. Zemskov became Secretary-General of the Ministry). Twice a day the division prepared summaries of reports coming from the Soviet ambassadors for the top state leadership. Thus, Igor Maximychev for the first time was able to cover the problems of the Soviet foreign policy in their entire complexity. The work was organized in three shifts, which gave him an opportunity to engage in off-the-job preparation of a thesis The Soviet-German Relations in 1933-1936 (supervisor - A. A. Akhtamzyan). In 1975, he successfully defended the thesis at MGIMO. The theses provided the basis for his book Peace Diplomacy against War Diplomacy. Essay on the Soviet-German Relations in 1933-1939, published in 1981. The book was published in German in 1985.
In the summer of 1976, Igor Maximychev was appointed Cultural Counsellor at the Soviet Embassy in Bonn. During the final years of V. M. Falin on the post of the USSR Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and especially with the new Ambassador V. S. Semenov (assumed his duties in 1978), the Soviet-West German cultural relations were developing successfully, covering new regions of Germany. The growth of personal contacts between cultural workers from both countries was gratifying. All who represented the Soviet cultural elite visited West Germany in those years. Many of them were guests at the Maximychevs place in Bad Godesberg, a suburb of Bonn. Of course, not everything went smoothly - in 1980 the diplomats failed to prevent the West German boycott of the Moscow Olympics. Professionally Igor Maximychev learned a lot from V. S. Semenov, whom he considers among his major teacher, along with A. A. Smirnov and V. A. Zorin.
In 1984, Igor Maximychev returned to the General Secretariat.This time he used intervals between the shifts to prepare a book on the history of the Franco-German relations, the material for which he has been collecting for a long time. The book Rhine Neighbours Yesterday and Today was published under the pseudonym M. K. Simychev in 1988. At the same time, he started to work on a doctoral thesis The FRG Place in the System of International Relations in Europe (scientific adviser: Professor A. A. Akhtamzyan).
In 1986, Igor Maximychev as an expert of the USSR delegation took part in a regular round of the US-Soviet Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva. The results of this round (the same as meetings of Mikhail Gorbachev with Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik held simultaneously with it) yielded no positive developments, but for Igor Maximychev contacts with U.S. representatives were useful, as he learnt the specific U.S. methods to conduct international affairs. During the final informal meeting of the working group to which he belonged, Igor Maximychev straightforwardly wondered why the delegation of the United States, unlike the negotiators from the Soviet side, had no desire to seek a compromise. The senior American said with a big smile: "Why? You will all the same eventually succumb." The subsequent course of events confirmed, unfortunately, the accuracy of his forecast.
In 1987, Igor Maximychev was sent to the USSR Embassy to the GDR to the post of Counsellor-Minister (Deputy Chief of Mission). The scope of his competence included not only the extremely complex relations with East Germany, which was the main ally of the Soviet Union in Europe, but also very sensitive issues related to West Berlin, which remained a thorn in the flesh of the socialist community. The Berlin Wall was still symbolizing the separation of Europe and the world. Germans (both Western and Eastern) saw it as a symbol that there were no normal contacts between people. The wall`s contradiction to the atmosphere of hopes and illusions generated by Gorbachev`s perestroika was growing sharper. It could easily be understood where the German population`s accumulating discontent would hit first. The embassy warned about it, but M. S. Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze preferred to wait and see.
Living standards of the GDR citizens were the highest among the socialist community, but they compared their life not with that in the Soviet Union or in Poland, but with West Germany that was considered an example of the "free world." The USSR policy of detente was bearing fruit, and the Cold War was coming to an end. This had its effect not only outside, but also within the socialist community. People`s willingness to put up with the natural constraints amid tensions was sharply declining. The USSR reacted to these changes with restructuring of its political and economic life, but the German Democratic Republic refused to follow the example of the "big brother": a significant part of its ruling elite believed that the course outlined by M. S. Gorbachev was disastrous. The political leadership of East Germany became split. While the emerged reformist wing demanded the earliest changes in the country, the conservative majority led by Erich Honecker refused to hurry, hoping that everything will be settled one way or another.
Disarray in the GDR leadership was accompanied by the worsening of the situation in the country, growing irritation and protest moods among the population at large. The motley opposition, united by the demand for freedom of movement, used the organizational structures of the influential GDR Evangelical Church. No methods to defuse the situation were found. Street demonstrations that started in Leipzig on Mondays after the divine service under the slogan "The people - that`s us!" quickly became a nationwide destabilizing factor. The change of the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany undertaken in this situation only crowned the turmoil.
The chaotic decisions of the new leaders of the GDR to open the Wall`s checkpoint and the German-German border for the free entry and exit of East Germans not only failed to calm the public, but also created a fatal impression that the street would continue to dictate the course of events in the country. The subsequent powerful political and economic pressure from West Germany blurred the initial determination of GDR citizens to preserve, at least temporarily, the independence of their state and its social achievements and stimulated a hasty annexation to the Federal Republic of Germany. Within one year the fundamental change in the strategic situation in Europe and the world has become a fact.
The active policy of the Soviet Union would have been able if not to prevent, then at least to slow down the liquidation of the German Democratic Republic, which could give the needed time lag to settle the post-confrontational situation by the beginning of the building of a "Greater Europe". The West orally promised it to Moscow in exchange for the lost GDR. Nearly half a million strong Western Group of Forces in the East German territory remained a fairly convincing argument in favour of reliable security of the USSR in the European sector. Berlin Embassy recommended steps that could contribute to the guarding of the Soviet interests at the new stage of development.
However, the top leadership of the USSR, and later Russia continued to regard unilateral concessions as the last word of statecraft. The destruction of the great power was not only a political disaster, but also a personal drama of people who had served Russia, regardless of its political system. Igor Maximychev summarised his Berlin experiences without any delay in a series of articles for the International Affairs magazine (1990-1995) and in the book The Collapse: Requiem for the GDR (1993). He actively published in the Russian and German press commentaries on the major foreign and domestic events. He paid special attention to cooperation with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, when V.T. Tretyakov was its editor-in-chief. German television regularly shows the docudrama Deutschlandspiel (ZDF, in two parts, premiere - October 2-3, 2000) in which not only a large interview with Igor Maximychev is used, but also one of the characters is Soviet envoy Maximychev, the role of whom was played by a popular actor of Russian descent - Sir Peter Ustinov.
On his return from Berlin Igor Maximychev resigned because he did not want to take part in the destruction of the Foreign Service that was conducted under the guidance of A. Kozyrev and others. In early 1993, he was invited to work at the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1994 he defended at MGIMO a doctoral thesis on political science. In subsequent years he has implemented a number of significant research projects: the Institute of Europe Reports included some of his notes written in Berlin under the title People will not forgive us. The Last Months of the GDR. Diary of Minister-Counsellor of the USSR Embassy in Berlin (2002), he wrote shapters chapters (The Role of Germany in World Politics; Russian-German Political Relations, Cultural and Civilisation Aspects) for the multi-author book Germany. Challenges of the XXI Century (2009), released the monograph The Fall of the Berlin Wall (2011).
In addition to the research activities, Igor Maximychev spares no time and effort making reports at international conferences, writing political essays, giving interviews to Russian and German media. Igor Maximychev is co-chair of the Scientific Council of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst (Museum of Surrender), an expert of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Council of the Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, member of the expert board of the Fund Historical Perspective (FIP).
Since 1995, Doctor of Political Sciences Igor Maximychev is the Institute of Europe Chief Researcher. He is one of the leading specialists in German studies, a master of German, a major expert in European security and relations with NATO, a tireless advocate of a Greater Europe with Russia`s equal participation. His strong point is the familiarity with the "behind the scenes" secrets, the perfect knowledge of how foreign policy decisions are taken.
I.F. Maximychev: Diplomat, Germanist, Advocate of "Greater Europe"
by Yu. F. Golovlyov.
[1] Yuriy Fyodorovich Golovlyov is a graduate of the MGIMO (U) of the MFA of Russia, 1956.
