SOVIET POLITICS AND THE MEDIA

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000619162
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: September 1, 1982

Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162TITLE:Soviet Politicsand theMediaAUTHOR:(b)(3)(c)VOLUME:26 ISSUE:FallYEAR:1982Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162..STU1ES ININTELLIGENCEA collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence.All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 0006191620Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162A conference reportSOVIET POLITICS AND THE MEDIA(b)(3)(c)L USt ONLYSome 40 students of Soviet affairs from the Central Intelligence Agency,the Department of State, the United States Military Academy, the RANDCorporation, and the Brookings Institution assembled in Rosslyn, Va., on 8April 1982 for a conference on -Soviet Politics and the Media.- Sponsoredjointly by the Analysis Group of the Foreign Broadcast Information Serviceand the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, the conference provided aframework for bringing to bear the latest evidence and judgments on wotliiing,assumptions and methodologies used in analyzing Soviet politics from open )sources. It was the hope of the sponsors that such an exchange of views would -cast new light on the contours of the Soviet political landscape in the 1980s andsensitize analysts both to alternative approaches to the evidence and to areas ofdisagreement.The conference addressed three issues:? The interpretation of the evidence of disagreement among Sovietintellectuals and second-echelon officials that suggests a degree ofpluralism in Soviet politics and policy-making.? The weight that ought to be lent to esoteric communication as a meansof interpreting power and policy conflicts in the Soviet leadership.? The value of Soviet public pronouncements on military/theoreticalquestions as a source of insight into Moscow's strategic intentions?giventhe softening of Soviet declaratory policy in the mid-1970s.Summary of the DiscussionsI. The Role of Policy Debate in Soviet PoliticsChairman: John HuizengaDiscussion Leader: (b)(6)Students of Soviet affairs have long been aware that the Soviet media arenot monolithic. A broad range of groups and individuals find ways ofexpressing their views in the media, despite the party's claim to speak with asingle voice for the Soviet people. Attentive study over the years has producedabundant evidence that debate takes place on a variety of issues, ranging fromartistic or literary integrity, on the one hand, to questions of foreign andstrategic policy on the other. The participants in these debates couch theirarguments ambiguously, seeking to avoid overstepping the bounds of officialtolerance by the selective use of authoritative texts, allegory, and Aesopianlanguage. Thus the problem of interpreting these utterances is difficult.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162OFF ONLY Politics and the MediaExamples of such debates can be found in the writings, speeches, andinterviews of such influential Soviet intellectuals and high regime officials asGeorgiy Arbatov, head of the USA Institute; Aleksandr Bovin, Izvestiyapolitical observer; and Vadim Zagladin, deputy head of the Central Commit-tee's International Department. (b)(6)  argued that the debatesembodied in this dialogue were genuine and that they reflected the efforts ofthe individuals involved to influence policy. Some of the other conferenceparticipants were less inclined to ascribe such autonomy to the debates,preferring to view the commentators as speaking on behalf of, or at least withthe backing of, top party leaders.In support of his interpretation,  (b)(6)  relied heavily on thetestimony of Soviet intellectuals themselves, with whom he is widely acquaint-ed. They are motivated, he said, by a wide variety of professional and personalconsiderations, including the desire, characteristic of Russian intellectuals evenin Tsarist times, to test the limits of official tolerance and their ability tooutwit the censor. Their main motivation, he believes, is genuine"gencernabout the great issues of national policy?a concern which,in the case of someof them has been expressed consistently over the course of many years. This view of the Soviet intellectual community provided the basis for(b)(6) belief in the relevance to policy of debates amongintellectuals and second-level officials. While conceding that these debatesmay have little connection with current policy issues, he argued that theyconcerned the main problems facing the Soviet intellectual community andreflected the positions of individual elites on basic issues. With this knowledge,(b)(6)  said, we would be in a better position to understand the potentialinfluence of this intellectual class?a knowledge that would be particularlyvaluable as some of them move up in the entourages of rising politicians.While the group generally accepted these propositions, there was consid-erable debate over how to make use of them analytically. A problem noted bysome was what was described as a widespread skepticism among nonspecialistaudiences concerning the existence of any policy debate in the Soviet Union atall. Thus the analyst of Soviet politics faces the difficulty of getting a hearingfor his analysis, let alone building a persuasive case for particular judgments onthe basis of the material at hand. Prescriptions ranged from better referencingand indexing devices to increasing the analytical effort devoted to what could,after all, prove to be a window on post-Brezhnev policy.II. Esoteric Communication and the LeadershipChairman: (b)(3)(c)Discussion Leader:(b)(6)The second discussion, though formally addressed to maneuverings of theleadership, returned essentially to the themes of the first discussion by way ofa critique of a recently distributed RAND draft study which disputed theimportance of  esoteric communication as an instrument of Soviet politics. (b)(6) upheld the authenticity of esoteric communication?and itsutility as a source of evidence regarding Soviet leadership politics?but in sodoing he revealed a view somewhat different from that expounded by76Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162.Politics and the Media __52E.E1C4A-E-ttSE15r---1LY .(b)(6)  In (b)(6)  view, manipulation by elements of the politicalleadership is usually involved in what (b)(6jjlescribed as genuine dialogueamong intellectuals. Thus, while both agreed that debates take place, onetended to interpret them as issuing from the Politburo, the other in morepluralistic terms.A large part of the discussion concerned a particular aspect of the RAND ,study, namely the view that anomalies in the Soviet press can usually beascribed to mere accident. In the view of some of the participants, the authorsof the RAND study went too far in accepting the opinion of their respondentsthat certain instances of what appeared to be partisan esoteric communicationin the press could best be explained as accidents. A number of the participantspointed out that Soviet readers themselves are convinced that everything thatappears in the Soviet press is deliberate, a conviction that tends to reinforcethe efforts of editors and censors to ensure accuracy and conformity lest thegive misleading signals to the public. The author of the RAND study,  (b)(6)  (b)(6)  while conceding the virtue of some of the criticisms, defended.,use of the accident hypothesis, arguing that those who contested the hypothesis-were obligated to construct an alternative scenario to eZblain how any --anomaly might have occurred.(b)(6)  bottom-line assessment of esoteric communications wasthat they remain -as important as any of us ever thought they were.- Hejudged the RAND study's skepticism on the subject as useful, but probably ex-pressed too broadly. He suggested that distinctions should be made betweenpartisan and nonpartisan esoteric communication, and between majority andminority uses of such communication. He argued that the use of suchdistinctions by the RAND study would have helped to clarify the fact that itwas sharply focused on only part of the spectrum, namely, -partisan esotericcommunication by a minority faction.- Within this framework, he said, thestudy took a consistent position that the phenomenon was so rare as to be ofvirtually negligible significance. Nevertheless, the study did admit that suchcases had occurred, and this, he believed, was enough to establish the pointthat minority esoteric communication does take place and is a continuingchallenge for analysis.III. The Politicization of Soviet Military' Theoretical DialogueChairman: (b)(6)  Discussion Leader: (b)(6)  The third discussion explored the hypothesis that foreign policy-inspiredchanges in Soviet declaratory policy on strategic issues in the 1970s may havesharply diminished the utility of unclassified Soviet ? pronouncements onmilitary doctrinal themes as a source of insight into Soviet military thinking.In opening the debate, (b)(6) uggested that there were threealternative ways of explaining t e c ange e had sketched:? That it marked the resolution of a doctrinal debate;? That it reflected an overall evolution in strategic thought away fromearlier war-fighting theories;? That it was a deliberate effort to influence the West.77Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Politics and the Media(b)(6) argued that alterations in Soviet declaratory policy onnuclear war issues and the doctrinal expression of that policy probably do notreflect the outcome of any great internal debate or of an evolution from a"war-fighting" to a -deterrence only- doctrine. Instead, he said, the alter-ations probably reflect primarily if not exclusively the politicization of Sovietmilitary doctrinal themes for the purpose of projecting a more benign imag9 ?of Soviet military policy in support of the USSR's broad -peace diplomacy"toward the West. This raises the question for analysts: what modified rules ofinterpretation should be applied in order to extract useful insight from thismaterial under today's altered circumstances?Other conference participants viewed the evolution of Soviet policy in lesspurposeful terms, stressing the importance of internal debate in the process. Itwas ar ued in particular that the change in declaratory policy adduced by(b)(6)(b)(6) had been accompanied by signs of debate in the Soviet press over theissue of the relative utility of military power versus diplomacy as a means ofinsuring security in the nuclear age. This debate, it was argued, stip,gestedinternal controversy that would have been unlikely had the.point been only toinfluence the West.The most extensive comment was offered by Ambassador RaymondGarthoff, who tended to see a broader range of  factors at play in the evolutionof Soviet military policy than allowed for by (b)(6)  logical alterna-tives. His interpretation of the trend in Soviet military statements placedgreater stress on an evolution of Soviet military thought and doctrine ratherthan on a deliberate effort by the leadership to influence the West. He alsosuggested that chance historical events, such as the death of Marshal Grechkoin 1976, might have contributed to the change.One  of the more  interesting aspects of the discussion was an exchangebetween  (b)(6)  and Ambassador Garthoff on the distinction betweenwhat the Soviets call the -political-theoretical- and the -military-technical-sides of their doctrine and the relevance of this distinction to the policy trendin question.  (b)(6) argued that there should be a parallelism betweenthe two and that the absence of any change in concrete military programscomplementary to the change in declaratory policy suggested that the latterwas primarily for political effect. Ambassador Garthoff took a reservedposition on this argument, declining to rule out the possibility that doctrinalchange had already affected policy and might do so in the future. At the sametime, he noted that factors entirely unrelated to doctrine and policy should notbe overlooked here, observing that a sense of inferiority could have played arole in the Soviets' earlier stress on superiority whereas their present coolerrhetoric might reflect a more secure strategic position.In his concluding remarks, (b)(6) observed that the issues he hadraised had been fruitfully discusses ut not fully resolved by the conference.He strongly recommended a further effort by the Intelligence Community toinvestigate the issues with a view to reaching conclusions, if possible, on:? Whether a change in Soviet doctrine has indeed taken place, and? If so, what implications it carries for Soviet strategy and policy on armscontrol.78 OFFICIAL USE ONLYApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162Politics and the Media --0E-E4G1,644:111rr?ConclusionsAny effort to draw conclusions from the conference should begin withrecognition that the most important payoff was probably that derived byindividual analysts as a result of mixing with their colleagues in a settingcalculated to encourage dialogue, sharpen perceptions, and generate ideas fornew research projects and approaches. At a practical level, both sponsoring 'organizations viewed the conference as an aid to the identification of rolesthey might play in the future to support the Community-wide analytic effort,and both see areas in which they might usefully contribute.The sponsors offer the following general views on tasks to be undertakenand ideas to explore:I. Steps should be taken to see that analysts have every possible accessto collateral information on the Soviet intellectual community. Thisshould include information from Western scholars who have visited Sovietpolicy institutes, from emigres who have had relevant professrotialcontacts in the Soviet Union, and from defectors. Several ,of the conferees _  suggested this. Since the conference, FBIS Analysis Group  (b)(3)(n)II. Research is needed to clarify the implications of the new evidencethat is accumulating on the role of intellectuals and policy advisors innational policy debate reflected in the media. The picture of thisphenomenon that emerged from the conference appears to call for a morecomplex theory of Soviet politics and policy-making than that provided bythe view that political initiative in the Soviet Union flows from the topdown only. The Office of Soviet Analysis and FBIS both have resnnticihilities in responding to this need. As a first step for FBISof the Analysis Group is writing an article which will attempt toprovide a theoretical framework for understanding current Soviet politicson the basis of evidence of .political debate over foreign policy in the1970s. On another level, Analysis Group is undertaking research aimed atsystematically defining the scope- of policy-related debate in the SovietUnion. This will include an identification of the principal personalitiesinvolved, the institutes which have been associated with them, and theissues which have provoked public controversy in the past and are likelyto remain controversial in the next few years.III. The Center for the Study of Intelligence, in consultation with theAgency offices concerned, should explore measures for encouraging thestudy of politics in the Soviet Union. This might include the sponsorship ofprograms under the auspices of the Center or the establishment of afellowship for rotational assignments to an ongoing research effort. Thegoal of the studies should be to ensure the fullest possible exploitation ofavailable intellectual resources on the internal political life of the SovietUnion.(b)(3)(c)This report is contro1ledfar77.--Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000619162