The passenger plane shot down by the Russians
By Udo K. Haafke
History repeats itself, particularly in Russia. Several years ago I wrote a novel, very straightforwardly entitled The passenger plane shot down by the Russians. Little did I know that its release would coincide with another passenger plane being shot down by the Russians. I like to think of myself as prescient, but I hadn’t foreseen the downing in 2014 of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine and the ensuing investigations. My novel, however, is not a “Whodunnit”. No, this was in a different genre altogether. It had more of a “Whydunnit” slant. It was not a spy thriller, but a political novel. It has no twists and turns of plot. We are out of John Le Carré country, and in the land of Arthur Koestler.
When the Moscow show trials happened in the 1930s, Koestler seized on the meagre facts that were released to the outside world: that some Old Bolsheviks, leading members of the Communist Party, had confessed to dreadful crimes against the state and were consequently executed. From these facts, Koestler constructed a world in which the motives and psychology that led to absurd accusations and equally absurd confessions could actually make sense.
Darkness at Noon sold only a couple of thousand copies in England upon its 1940 publication, but over half a million when published in France after the war. Koestler did not invent the story. He merely took the outline granted to him by contemporary history and filled it with the underlying thoughts and feelings. Whilst not claiming to approach Koestler’s artistry, I tried to do the same thing in my novel.
The novel is set in the Soviet Union and every character is a Soviet citizen. It describes a well-known episode in the final act of the Cold War, when Soviet fighters shot down a South Korean commercial airliner, Flight 007, carrying 269 civilians. The Soviet Union once again provided a very scant outline of events. All the West knew was that on the 1st September 1983 the plane had disappeared from all radar screens, last seen close to the border of the Soviet Union. The next day the Soviet newspaper, Pravda, reported that an unrecognised plane had breached Soviet airspace the previous day: “The Soviet Air Force made an attempt to help the intruding airliner and guide it to the nearest airport. However the plane failed to respond to the signals and warnings of the Soviet fighters and continued its flight in the direction of the Sea of Japan.” Stated clearly. The Korean plane had left Soviet airspace.
On 3rd September, Tass issued an English language statement confirming to the English-speaking world that the plane had indeed left Soviet airspace. Three days of silence followed. The next piece of information came on the 6th September in Pravda. It stated: “Since the intruder plane tried to evade pursuit the anti-aircraft defences fulfilled the order of the command post to stop the flight.”
Why? The question is not why they shot down the airliner. The question is why the third statement contradicted the first two. Surely their declarations that the airliner had left Soviet airspace were sufficient to wash their hands of the whole matter. Such techniques had been used in the past, the most glaring example being the mass murder of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn in 1940.
So why did they make an admission here? We should not forget that in 1983 change was already in the air. Mikhail Gorbachev, elected to the Politburo in 1980, had new ideas about running the Soviet Union. Among others he was in favour of telling the truth: a sea change in Soviet politics, where the accepted practice had been that if anything happened in the world contrary to Soviet interests (or that did not bring closer the ultimate victory of Communism) then, quite simply, that event never took place.
Who are the Dramatis Personae in my novel? Three characters are plucked from history: Andropov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, and two further members of the Politburo, Ustinov, the Minister of Defence, and Gorbachev, the would-be reformer. The rest are fictional. The protagonist is Nikolai Taranenko, Head of the Electronics Laboratory of the Soviet Armed Forces, who is allowed to attend conferences in the US to discover what kind of research is being conducted in the capitalist world. His father is a retired Ukrainian general; his Jewish mother perished in the Nazi massacre at Babi Yar in 1941.
What is the novel about? Thematically: the truth, the Politburo, and the relationship between the two at a time of extreme change. The plot centres on the Soviet leadership’s dilemma: how to approach the shooting down of the Korean airliner. Their opinions vary widely. The debates culminate in the printing of the admission on 6th September in Pravda.
Taranenko has his own subplot, revealing the extent of state surveillance. Every step of his travels in the US was monitored by the KGB. They conclude that he must have given information to the CIA; the fact that he is half-Jewish proves the case. His failure to develop a device that could distinguish between the radar signatures of passenger and fighter planes only furthers the charges. He is quickly arrested. Unlike most in his position, Taranenko has an ace up his sleeve — or rather, in his family tree. His father, Ustinov’s old friend from the 1930s and 40s, intervenes in his favour. He also benefits from the prevailing political wind: one which has never blown in Soviet circles before. When Gorbachev hears about the case, it is not the KGB version that he seeks. He wants to know the truth.
I don’t presume to describe the novel as an accurate picture of early 1980s Soviet society, but I have tried to depict the essence of Gorbachev’s rise and the declining influence of the KGB. It was a period when things started to change, when there was a hope that the USSR would “shuffle off the mortal coil” of its revolutionary heritage.
Forty years after my novel is set, are the themes it depicts still relevant? Do we give a Gallic shrug with a “plus ça change…”? Or has Russia been meaningfully transformed? Let us start with Gorbachev’s signature policies. What of glasnost? Do Russian politicians now tell the truth? Hardly. Take every announcement made by Russian media with a packet of salt.
What about perestroika? Has the state of the economy changed? Certainly. Back then the Soviet leadership still hoped that a socialist economy could be efficient. (Remember Khrushchev’s boast in 1963: “We shall bury you.”) That view didn’t last. Capitalism was restored in the sense that most state property fell into private hands, though this didn’t benefit the people. The ensuing chaos is well depicted in Bill Browder’s account of running a company in Russia, Red Notice. The modern Russian economy is not lawless: it obeys the rules of the jungle. Taxes are arbitrary. The only way to avoid them is to be on good terms with the authorities. Hence the existence of Putin’s oligarch cronies, who together own 15% of the country’s GDP. This is the highest proportion in the world.
What of personal freedom? As good as it was in the Soviet Union. To say anything negative about the head of state is a criminal offence. To avoid the present draft is a criminal offence. To call the war a war is a criminal offence. Freedom of speech? Non-existent. Freedom of the press? Non-existent. Freedom of assembly? Non-existent. This is what happened to perestroika, glasnost, personal freedom and all the other dreams of change.
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