VLADIMIR BARANOVSKY

In 1973 I joined IMEMO in Moscow as a postgraduate student. There, I got acquainted with a young researcher whose professional specialization was in the 'critical analysis' of peace research studies. It was from him that I first heard about SIPRI.

Like all others who were subjected to traditional Soviet-style indoctrination, I had been taught that war was an intrinsic characteristic of imperialism (i.e., Western countries) and could only be prevented by the continuous efforts of the USSR and other 'peace-loving forces'. That explains why 'peace research'-in contrast, for instance, to the readily understood notion of 'struggle for peace'-seemed to us a strange combination of words. It was a suspicious undertaking: probably carried out in order to conceal the genuine causes of war, which resided in the West, and to diminish the role of those (i.e., the 'socialist countries') who promoted peace; or to advance a vicious theory of both sides' equal responsibility for the arms race (or even to blame the USSR for it); and so on. This logic left no room for doubts about why a whole institute should have been established in the West to perform so-called 'peace research'.

Détente, on the one hand, and the decreasing attractiveness of 'real socialism' to those who experienced it, on the other hand, were both promoting the erosion of primitive anti-Western thought patterns. This also affected the image of SIPRI. Within the 'critical analysis' developed by the Soviet research community, the initial emphasis upon the first word (when 'criticism was most often synonymous with 'unmasking') was gradually shifting towards the second one. In IMEMO and other academic institutes dealing with international studies, the vigilance of the 'old guard' continued, but was step by step giving ground to the openness of a younger generation trying to find a common language with its Western counterparts.

In comparison to many other research centres in the West, SIPRI-by the very fact of its location in a non-NATO country-seemed to be a more unbiased potential partner. Perhaps this was the reason why SIPRI, in 1976, became a main theme of an epistolary interchange between IMEMO and the 'TseKa' (the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union-i.e., the country's key decision-making body that was respectfully called 'the authority', or in Russian, 'instantsiya').

The director of IMEMO addressed a memorandum to the Science and Education Department of 'the authority', referring to SIPRI's 'energetic research and publication activities on problems of arms race and disarmament'. It was stressed that these publications 'provide broad and systemic data characterizing the armaments and military expenses in the world, trends of military-technical developments, as well as disarmament negotiations'. The memorandum, had it not been classified, could have been used for public advertisement of SIPRI with such flattering expressions as: 'There is no other centre in the West capable of carrying out this kind of activities on so broad a scale'.

These gratifying compliments, however, were balanced by a warning that numerous SIPRI publications 'have a biased, mainly pro-Western, and recently also pro-Chinese [!] orientation'. As an example, the memorandum mentioned the Yearbook compendium Armaments and Disarmament in the Nuclear Age commemorating the 10th anniversary of SIPRI. The memorandum proposed offering a response to this book not only by printing critical reviews in various magazines, but also by publishing a book that would provide a Soviet view on this issue. The project proposal for such a book was attached to the memorandum; it was certainly a pure coincidence that the suggested title was word for word the same as SIPRI's.

In retrospect, I believe that this story speaks volumes. Arms control studies were a new area at the time for Soviet academic research, and attempts to promote them could only be successful if performed in accordance with the bureaucratic imperatives of the time and ideological rules of the game. As to the follow-up, I have not found any traces of published reviews criticizing SIPRI's pro-Western and pro-Chinese sympathies. But 'the authority' did bless additional efforts within the Academy of Sciences to analyse nuclear disarmament issues.

Also, this episode helps to recall the starting point of an intellectual interaction on issues of international security and arms control that later turned out to be essential for advancing arms control in a practical sense.

At the beginning of Gorbachev's era, IMEMO set up a new research department dealing with disarmament. With other staff members, I shared the enthusiasm of its director, Alexei G. Arbatov, for developing new ideas and promoting their implementation-in the INF, CFE, START and other disarmament agreements. Alexei launched the IMEMO yearbook Disarmament and Security, which was a real breakthrough at that time and was to a certain degree inspired by the SIPRI Yearbook model.

Against this background, it seems only logical that he later became a member of the SIPRI Governing Board.

My personal connection with SIPRI started in 1992, when I was invited to join the Institute as a Project Leader by the Director, Adam Daniel Rotfeld. He was active in promoting 'the Russian theme' in the SIPRI research agenda-both in terms of substantive analysis and by developing cooperation with research centres in Russia. IMEMO became a partner of SIPRI in preparing the Russian edition of the SIPRI Yearbook. This project has successfully continued since 1993 and has contributed to making SIPRI an exceptionally respected 'brand name' in the professional community of my country. At the same time, my own 'SIPRI credentials' played a role in my subsequent academic career in Moscow-when I was appointed a deputy director of IMEMO and then elected a 'corresponding member' of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Thus, SIPRI has set its mark-directly or via IMEMO-on my whole professional life. Much more importantly, it has signifi cantly contributed to the development of thinking on arms control and international security in my country. And this was done together with IMEMO- despite (or because of?) the warnings that were generated 30 years ago.