Ten years of negotiations are better than one year of war.
― Gromyko's most famous quote
Andrei Gromyko USSR statesman, diplomat. He went from an ordinary Belarusian boy to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.
Andrei Gromyko held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs longer than anyone else in our country - almost 30 years. All these years he has been directly involved in key events taking place in the world. During meetings with American presidents Roosevelt and Reagan, he argued and did not deviate a millimeter from his clear position. I went hunting with Brezhnev, and was often shocked by Khrushchev’s actions.
Andrei Andreevich’s neat autograph appears on many fateful documents of those years.
Childhood[]
On July 5, 1909, a son, Andrei, was born into the family of a married couple from the Belarusian settlement of Starye Gromyki. According to the tradition of the village, most residents bore the surname Gromyko, and among themselves people gave each other family nicknames. The family of the future politician was called the Burmakovs.
The parents were descendants of poor but well-born gentry, which the minister himself preferred to keep silent about. In his official party biography, his nationality is listed as “Russian.” Andrei Andreevich also insisted on his peasant origin, although his father Andrei Matveevich worked in production.
According to some researchers, Gromyko Sr., during the time of Stolypin’s reforms, went to work in Canada, where he even managed to learn English. After some time, he injured his hand, which forced him to return to his homeland.
Gromyko Jr. learned hard work early on. From the age of 13, he worked in his father’s timber rafting team. Andrei listened to his parent’s stories about life overseas and the terrible years of the First World War, in which he happened to participate. The boy had three brothers, and the Great Patriotic War took them all away: two died on the battlefield, and the third died at home from his wounds. Having become a great politician, Gromyko always felt the invisible presence of his brothers behind him when it was necessary to show firmness on international issues.
The young man received his primary education in his native Gromyki, after which he went to study in Gomel. After graduating from vocational school, Andrei entered the regional agricultural technical school, where he first showed himself as a leader of Komsomol students. The active position of the young man was appreciated by senior party members, and he was soon appointed to the post of Komsomol organizer. At 22, Gromyko became secretary of the party cell.
In the early 1930s, the activist entered the Minsk Institute of Economics, where he studied two courses full-time, and then transferred to correspondence. A promising leader was appointed director of one of the village schools near Minsk.
Andrei was among the group of young leaders whom the Belarusian Central Committee of the Communist Party sent to study at the Academy of Sciences of the republic. Here, in graduate school, economists with a wide profile were cultivated. In 1934, among especially talented students, Gromyko was transferred to the capital of the USSR.
In Moscow, a Komsomol member defended his PhD thesis, the topic of which was the agriculture of the United States. Then he entered scientific work at the All-Union Academy of Agriculture, where he mastered the English language perfectly.
Since 1938, he worked as a scientific secretary at the Institute of Economics at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Gromyko was considered for a leadership position in the academy’s Far East branch.
Political career[]
People around Gromyko recalled his incredible desire for self-education. In an effort to understand economics as deeply as possible, he studied the works of scientists from the Soviet era and even the tsarist era. The works of economist-reformer Sergei Witte made a particularly vivid impression on Andrei Andreevich.
The politician took part in shooting competitions, which were popular at the time, with pleasure and was awarded the “Voroshilov Shooter” badge. I regretted that I had not become interested in the military topic earlier: when I decided to enter a flight school, it turned out that I was no longer suitable for my age.
Many years later, Gromyko will write memoirs in which there is not a single mention of the horrors of the repressions of the late 30s of the last century. But it was thanks to purges in the ranks of diplomatic staff that he ended up working at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
In 1939, Andrei Andreevich appeared before the Central Committee commission headed by Malenkov and Molotov. The task of these statesmen was to select promising and reliable employees for the diplomatic service. The main requirements for the candidate were worker-peasant origin, a “clean” reputation and knowledge of a foreign language. Gromyko fit perfectly in all these parameters. A native of a Belarusian village, he knew English perfectly, and at the same time had a definitely captivating simplicity.
Then the career of the novice diplomat began to grow at a rapid pace. After the Central Committee commission, he headed the NKID department, supervising work on the countries of the American continent. A few months later, he was invited to Joseph Stalin’s office, where he was announced to be appointed to the post of adviser to the Soviet embassy in America. The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasiliev, was entrusted with teaching the young specialist the intricacies of the diplomatic profession.
Gromyko worked in this position for almost five years, from 1939 to 1943 and in 1943, he replaced the retired Soviet ambassador to the States, Maxim Litvinov.
In those years, the country's top leadership was concerned about the upcoming conferences in Yalta, Tehran and Potsdam. Andrei Andreevich was personally present at the Yalta Conference held in 1945.
In 1946, the party member was appointed the country's permanent representative to the United Nations. The diplomat became the first Soviet figure appointed to this position, and held it for two years. During the same period, Gromyko became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union. Even then, the foreign press started talking about the exceptional competence of Andrei Andreevich.
But here the politician made a serious mistake that cost him his position. Without agreeing with the authorities, at the insistence of the Ministry of Finance and the State Planning Committee, he signed an interstate agreement between the USSR and the PRC on the exchange rate of the ruble and the Chinese currency.
Stalin personally supervised political and economic relations with China, so this action led to Gromyko’s removal from the post of first deputy minister. The international was sent to England, where he served as ambassador until the death of the Generalissimo. After the funeral of Joseph Vissarionovich, Andrei Andreevich was returned to the country and reinstated in his position. Already in 1957, the diplomat was appointed to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR.
The Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Dmitry Shepilov recommended the ambassador for this position, who gave an interesting description of him to Nikita Khrushchev. He compared Gromyko to a bulldog who clenches his jaw and does not let go of his opponent until he achieves his goal.
Andrei Andreevich served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union for a record long time - almost three decades. During this time, there were failures for which he was criticized, but there were also undoubted successes. He made a huge contribution to resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, helped establish control over the nuclear arms race, and participated in difficult negotiations with US President John F. Kennedy.
In 1970, with the direct participation of the minister, a historical agreement was signed between the USSR and Germany, the theme of which was the inviolability of borders in Europe, which suffered from the Second World War.
The politician flew abroad several times a year to conduct complex meetings with representatives of the United Nations and the United States. Gromyko was responsible for the visit of United States President Richard Nixon to the USSR. This was the first ever visit by a top American politician to the Soviet Union.
Gromyko was also the first to fly to Italy, the main ally of the fascist regime. He had to establish relations with this then unfriendly country.
It is interesting that Andrei Andreevich became the first high-ranking politician of the USSR to participate in a meeting with the Pope. They first talked in 1965, at a UN meeting in New York. After Gromyko, he met with Paul VI four more times, but this time at his residence in the Vatican.
Everyone who knew Andrei Andreevich was amazed at his diplomatic talent. His compatriots were proud of his inflexibility and firmness in negotiations, but his opponents were often irritated by this manner. Before each upcoming meeting, Gromyko carefully studied the smallest details of the issue in order to be fully armed before the enemy.
As a rule, the Soviet diplomat dominated the negotiations. He often used the tactic of many hours of conversations, when less experienced opponents could not stand it and gave up their positions. When Gromyko felt that “the client was ripe,” he laid out his main trump cards in front of his opponent.
When Leonid Brezhnev died, Yuri Andropov took over the post of General Secretary of the Party Central Committee. His first important personnel decision was the appointment of Andrei Gromyko to the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
After the death of Konstantin Chernenko, members of the Politburo were ready to elevate Andrei Andreevich to the post of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. But Gromyko refused, proposing instead the candidacy of Mikhail Gorbachev, then still a young, active politician. Some sources say that the diplomat later regretted his positive characterization.
Under Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze became the USSR Foreign Minister. Gromyko became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, but did not remain in this position for long. In the fall of 1988, due to health problems, the politician was forced to leave this post.
Death[]
On July 2, 1989, Andrei Andreevich Gromyko died suddenly.