SOVIET SOCIETY IN THE 1980S: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83T00853R000200180002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 45
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 22, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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SOV 82-10206X
December 1982
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Intelligence
Soviet Society in the 1980s:
Problems and Prospects
A Research Paper
The author of this paper isl Ithe
Office of Soviet Analysis, with contributions from
Comments and queries may be
directed to the Chief, Policy Analysis Division,
SOYA,
Secret
SOV 82-10206X
December 1982
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Soviet Society in the 1980s:
Problems and Prospects
Key Judgments Both Western observers and Soviet officials recognize that the Soviet
Information available Union now faces a wide array of social, economic, and political ills
as of 30 November 1982 including a general social malaise, ethnic tensions, consumer frustrations,
was used in this report.
and political dissent. Precisely how these internal problems will ultimately
challenge and affect the regime, however, is open to debate and consider-
able uncertainty. Some observers believe that the regime will have little
trouble coping with the negative mood among the populace. Others believe
that economic mismanagement will aggravate internal problems and
ultimately erode the regime's credibility, increasing the long-term pros-
pects for fundamental political change. 25X1
Whatever the ultimate prognosis, these problems will pose a challenge for
the new Soviet leadership. The Politburo's approach probably will be based
on its assessment of the threat posed and the degree to which these issues
can be addressed by policy shifts. Three broad categories of problems-the
quality of life, ethnic tensions, and dissent-are surveyed in this paper. Of
these, popular discontent over a perceived decline in the quality of life
represents, in our judgment, the most serious and immediate challenge for
the Politburo. the 25X1
Soviet people are no longer confident that their standard of living will
continue to improve. Popular dissatisfaction and cynicism seem to be
growing. This popular mood has a negative impact on economic productivi-
ty and could gradually undermine the regime's credibility. Such discontent
has already led to some isolated strikes and demonstrations, developments
that immediately get the leadership's attention. Other manifestations of
discontent-crime, corruption, and alcoholism-are evident as well but
pose no direct challenge to the regime. Such ills, nonetheless, have a
detrimental effect on Soviet economic goals, are harmful to the social
climate in general, and in turn are made worse by the slow rate of
economic growth. 25X1
Ethnic discontent-rooted in cultural, demographic, and economic prob-
lems as well as political suppression-remains primarily a latent but
potentially serious vulnerability. Currently, there is no widespread, politi-
cally disruptive protest or dissent among the Soviet nationalities. The
regime's policies-granting to national minorities some linguistic, territori-
al, cultural, and administrative autonomy; raising the standard of living;
expanding the educational base; and using overwhelming police power
when needed-have been largely successful so far. Although the potential
for political unrest and sporadic violence in the Baltic republics remains
iii Secret
SOV 82-10206X
December 1982
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high because of economic, demographic, and cultural grievances, Baltic
concerns have little impact elsewhere in the USSR and can be suppressed
if necessary. With more time (perhaps decades), however, similar problems
could become much more consequential in Muslim Central Asia, requiring
the regime to manage this problem more adroitly.
Finally, the range of political, religious, and cultural discontent that is
expressed in the Soviet dissident movement does not, at present, seriously
challenge the regime's political control, but the regime deals with it as if it
does. Soviet dissidents cause concern because they have an international
audience and their activities embarrass the regime. Moreover, the leader-
ship remains psychologically insecure and is unwilling to allow any hint of
challenge to its authority, apparently because it fears such dissidents could
appeal to a wider audience by articulating more widely held discontent
over food shortages and the like. For these reasons, the regime, particularly
of late, has used widespread arrests and imprisonment of dissident leaders,
confinement in psychiatric hospitals, and exile to crush the movement. The
movement, however, is not likely to die and in the long run could grow if it
can capitalize on increasing discontent, cynicism, and alienation among the
populace.
The sharp slowdown in economic growth since the mid-1970s is the
underlying problem that ties all these issues together and makes them
potentially more troublesome for the regime. Unless this trend is reversed,
increasing alienation and cynicism, especially among young people, are
likely; and other social ills-crime, corruption, alcoholism-could get
worse. The regime, to be sure, has impressive resources for trying to deal
with particular economic problems-especially in its centralized control
over priorities and resources, but a return to the more favorable economic
conditions of the 1960s and early 1970s, when there were substantial
improvements in the standard of living, is highly unlikely. The pervasive 25X1
police powers at the Politburo's disposal, when coupled with the Soviet
populace's F -1 respect for author-
ity, should, however, continue to provide the regime with the necessary 25X1
strength to contain and suppress open dissent.
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Difficult decisions regarding resource allocation and new management
approaches, nevertheless, will probably be needed to deal with the Politbu-
ro's economic problems and to reverse the malaise that has set in. How the
new leadership will handle these issues over the long run is uncertain. Its
policy options range from undertaking major "reforms" and reallocating
resources away from defense to greater reliance on administrative controls
and repression. Some mix of policies involving both directions might be
attempted. No solutions it is likely to attempt, however, offer any certain
cure for its growth problem and the malaise related to it. This situation will
likely require the leadership to fall back even more on traditional orthodox
methods to control dissent and suppress challenges to its authority while
continuing efforts to avoid an overall decline in a "quality of life" that has
become the regime's real basis for legitimacy.
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2.
Personal Income and Expenditures on Alcoholic Beverages Per
Person Age 15 Years and Older, by Republic, 1970
14
3.
Native Language Affinity and Knowledge of Russian as a
Second Language
18
4.
Comparison of Russian and Baltic Population Growth, 1959, 1970,
and 1979
19
5.
Comparison of Russian and Central Asian Population Growth,
1959, 1970, and 1979
22
6.
Major Dissident Individuals and Organizations
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Preface Western observers have reported more on the array of Soviet social, economic, and
political ills in recent years than before.
Just how serious these problems will
ecome-and how successfully the Soviet leaders will deal with them-is an area
of great uncertainty. The Soviet regime still possesses great inner strength, but the
challenges are clearly growing. 25X1
This overview paper surveys a wide range of internal problems in the USSR-
consumer frustrations, alcoholism, ethnic tensions, dissidence, to name a few.
Treatment of many of these issues is necessarily brief, but the study, nonetheless,
provides a better basis for assessing the Soviet Union's internal strengths and
weaknesses in the years ahead.
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Soviet Society in the 1980s:
Problems and Prospects
The Soviet Regime and
the Quality of Life
Discontent over a perceived decline in the quality of
life in the USSR represents the most immediate and
important challenge for the new leadership. Under
Khrushchev in the 1960s and under Brezhnev until
the mid-1970s, wages were increased, more consumer
goods were made available, the diet was enriched, and
services were improved. These results stimulated pop-
ular desires for a better life but did not completely
satisfy them. As the rate of economic growth has
declined since 1978, the regime has had to cope with
unfulfilled rising expectations. The new leadership is
already having to make some hard economic choices
between defense spending, investment, and consump-
tion. The new post-Brezhnev leadership will also have
to decide the politically difficult issue of where to
place their investment rubles: in Central Asia, where
most of the growth in labor force will occur; in the
western USSR, where the industrial plants already
exist; or in Siberia, where the exploitation of natural
resources awaits the necessary industrial infrastruc-
ture.
The section below surveys what is perhaps the most
important domestic issue confronting the leadership,
the economy. Subsequent sections discuss the range of
other issues associated with the quality of Soviet life.
The Economy: A Leadership Dilemma
The primary source of economic growth in the Soviet
Union has been increased amounts of productive
resources (labor and capital) rather than increased
efficiency of their use. However, additions to the labor
force have shrunk and are projected to shrink further
during the 1980s. This has occurred as access to
necessary raw materials and energy supplies has
become more expensive. Moreover, Soviet agriculture
remains a drag on the entire economy, with four poor
harvests in a row, and the high cost of Soviet arma-
ment programs siphons off needed men, material, and
funds from other economic projects.
The Hard Choices
The Soviet Union now faces some difficult economic
decisions. In the late Brezhnev era, investment growth
apparently was sacrificed to maintain modest growth
in consumption and substantial growth in military
spending. Continuing this course will be harmful to
the economy, but changing priorities poses problems
as well. Under present circumstances, cutting con- 25X1
sumption growth probably would not solve Soviet
economic problems although additional funds might
be freed for investment and defense. Without positive
incentives, however, worker morale could plunge even
further, and growth in labor productivity could stag-
nate when a boost in both is needed.
The regime also recognizes that "social factors" are
an underlying cause of lagging productivity growth. 25X1
Cheating, bribery, black-market activity, and profit- 25X1
eering permeate Soviet society.
alcoholism, Russia's hereditary plagu(25X1
has apparently risen in the 18 years of Brezhnev's
leadership as have the disorders associated with 25X1
crime, family breakup, increased adult male and
infant mortality, absenteeism, inefficiency in the work
place, and industrial accidents. The leadership is
attempting to combat the range of social ills, but the
problems are mostly intractable.
The Regime's Course-Steady as She Goes 25X1
With the phenomenon of widespread disaffection in
Poland fresh in their minds, Soviet leaders are still
inclined to appease the beleaguered consumer. The
quality of the diet remains the key element in this
approach and is the standard by which the Soviet
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populace judges its well-being. The regime has pur-
sued various strategies to keep domestic food short-
ages manageable. At the November 1981 plenum,
Brezhnev described the food supply as the central
economic and political problem of the current Five-
Year Plan. The food program announced at the May
1982 plenum hopes to translate higher farm spending
into more food on Soviet tables. Imports of food
products will continue to play a large role as well. To
ensure that food shortages do not precipitate incidents
of worker unrest, the leadership is channeling more
food directly to industrial enterprises, but this has left
food supplies in retail outlets strained.
The Soviet propaganda apparatus is pointing to these
measures as proof of its continuing commitment to the
consumer. To counter the problems of worker produc-
tivity, the underlying social malaise that supports it,
and labor discipline, the party may resort to more
traditional palliatives. The ideological campaign of
last year, which attacked consumerist attitudes and
the sole reliance on material incentives to increase
productivity, may be stepped up. Tough measures to
increase discipline and decrease labor absenteeism
and turnover may eventually be put forward as well.
The leadership has heretofore lacked the political will
or consensus, on the other hand, to pursue more major
economic reforms or policy innovations that might
help resolve its dilemma.
Articles in the Soviet press indicate that the Soviet
authorities are clearly concerned about the forces of
social discontent in their nation, not only because they
impact adversely on worker productivity but also
because they tend to weaken the social fabric. The
crime and hooliganism that appear to be increasing,
the soaring divorce rates, and the apparent increase in
alcohol consumption suggest there is a palpable sense
of life going stale and sour for many in the Soviet
Union
there seems to be an increased readiness to
cheat, engage in black marketing, and peddle influ-
ence; and ideological countermeasures are ineffective.
The situation does not immediately threaten the
regime's stability, but over the long run it could
undermine the leaders' legitimacy.
The Ordeal of Daily Life
Soviet published statistics demonstrate that striking
material progress has been achieved in the USSR
since 1917, but they do not begin to convey the
frustrations of daily life. The seemingly endless list of
scarcities, the long shopping lines, the bewildering
variety of regulations and bureaucratic requirements,
and the indignities endured in even routine activities
add to the typical Soviet citizen's daily physical and
mental burdens. Although the regime constantly
launches campaigns to improve service and eliminate
shortages, the leadership is almost powerless to im-
prove the daily grind for most of its people.
"Horror Stories "About Shopping. The shopping rat
race, especially the queues, symbolizes the Soviet
citizen's predicament. In 1981, for example, a Soviet
correspondent for Literaturnaya Gazeta took off from
Moscow for Krasnodar, the capital of a resort area on
the Black Sea. He deliberately left behind all the
usual personal items (soap, razor, cologne, toothbrush,
shaving cream, and so forth) to investigate reports
that such items were unavailable in Krasnodar stores.
The correspondent systematically visited every store
in Krasnodar in an unsuccessful quest to buy the
articles. He managed to get only the last package of
razor blades in one store and a child's toothbrush at
another (the toothbrush broke the following day).
However, the correspondent later reported finding
most of the items he desired on the black market.
There are numerous anecdotal reports of a similar
nature
A few examples serve to illustrate the general 25X1
situation:
? A Soviet scientist indicated that he waited four
hours to get a single copy (multiple copies are
prohibited) of a few pages from a Lenin Library
reference book.
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? Longtime Moscow residents reported in the 1970s
that it took six hours in line to buy a hat, 10 hours to
buy a rail ticket (to the Black Sea resort area), 10
days (organized groups take turns in line) for a
chance to buy a new book of poetry, and two or
three years for a place in a sanatcUNCODEDLL
take two to 10 years
to get a city apartment. (c)
Unequal Burden. According to Western newsmen in
Moscow, Soviet citizens now, moreover, seem increas-
ingly aware that the burden is not shared equally, a
perception that exacerbates the normal frustrations
associated with everyday Soviet life. At some factories
and government agencies, for example, employees
may order meat and other commodities unavailable in
state stores. High party officials are entitled to shop at
special stores closed to the general public, where
stocks of imported and scarce goods are sold at
relatively low prices. Housing, especially, has become
more stratified with favorable treatment on the basis
of employment, bureaucratic position, personal con-
nections, and bribery.
money and contacts can reduce the waiting
less.
Cars and dachas (summer homes) are also high on the
consumer's most-wanted list. Like other consumer
goods in short supply, however, many new cars are
parceled out among the well placed or well connected,
leaving others who have the money with the option of
either placing their names on long waiting lists-a
year is the minimum for less popular makes, accord-
ing to a 1981 newspaper report-or heading for the
used-car lot. Even in the used-car market, moreover, a
dual system prevails. Many cars are sold for relatively
low prices through an "official" used-car market
where the pecking order and waiting lists rival those
for new cars. There is competition for dachas as well,
with the best being reserved for the top leadership,
followed by party and government officials and pro-
fessionals in turn.
25X1
Food on the Table? According to Soviet data, the
availability of quality foods increased sharply in the
Soviet Union between 1965 and 1975, but since the
late 1970s agricultural failures have led to the de-
creased availability of milk, vegetables, and fruit, and
the supply of meat has not grown. The result is acute
spot shortages across the entire range of foodstuffs.
The regime has attempted to channel a larger share of
foods directly to industrial installations to prevent 25X1
worker unrest, leaving food supplies in retail outlets
severely strained. 25X1
The most serious consumer food problem is meat
supply. At a time when meat has become a key
indicator in the public mind of progress or stagnation
in living standards, Soviet data show that the gap 25X1
between meat supply and demand has increased at
least 12 percent since 1975.
The poor prospects for the 1982 harvest
indicate that the food situation in the Soviet Union
will worsen still more. 25X1
The Soviet leaders have been extremely successful i125X1
the past in persuading their people to defer gratifica-
tions, and to take less now in exchange for promises of
a better future. This fact, along with the self-evident
25X1
progress for most under the system, explains the
Russian acceptance of the shopper's gauntlet, the long
queues, the poor quality of merchandise, and the 25X1
shortages of food, consumer goods, and housing.
Political problems, however, are rooted in the pros-
pects for an ever-receding fulfillment of the promise
of a better future and, for some, a perceived decline in
their standard of living.
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Crime and Corruption
The Soviet Union appears to be facing an increasing
crime problem. Ten years ago the Soviet media rarely
acknowledged the existence of violence or hooliganism
("intentional actions crudely violating public order
and expressing clear disrespect toward society," pun-
ishable by six months to a year of confinement).
Today, however, the press is full of articles on violent
crime. For example, in August 1981, Pravda reported
on an upsurge of street crime in Eastern Siberia,
blaming prosecutors, police, and the public for their
laxity. In September and October of 1981, a Lenin-
grad newspaper described a series of muggings that
had taken place in the city.
Despite the protestations of official ideology, this
upsurge in crime has little to do with bourgeois
influence from the past or susceptibility to Western
influence. Soviet crime, to judge from Soviet com-
mentary, is associated with social problems found
generally in modern society-alcohol abuse, low edu-
cational levels, broken homes, and the like. A 1971
study of crime in Moscow, for example, reported that
70 percent of those convicted of homicide committed
their crimes while drunk. Studies of criminal behavior
by the Institute for the Study of Crime in the 1960s
and 1970s found a high correlation between crime and
internal migration patterns. Crime has increased in
the developing cities of the far east and far north,
where the social infrastructure is weakest, making
these areas more undesirable places to live.
Economic Crimes. Economic crimes have probably
become the most vexing for the regime. The ineffi-
ciencies of the economic system and its failure to
produce sufficient quantities of food, consumer goods,
and services have produced a burgeoning black-
market economy amounting
to perhaps 25 percent of the Soviet GNP. Legal
restrictions on private economic activity are honored
only occasionally. Illegal speculation (purchase and
resale of goods for profit) is rampant. The most
common forms of economic illegality include: theft of
government property, large-scale cheating of custom-
ers by the managers of retail stores, private produc-
tion on the job, the unregistered private practice of
physicians and dentists, and underground manufac-
turing.
Bribes are viewed by the Soviet public as an effective
method of solving one's problems in the social envi-
ronment. In a series of interviews conducted with
Soviet immigrants in 1977, nearly half of those
questioned selected "bribery, pull, and connections"
as the most effective way of solving problems. More-
over, the prices of available consumer goods are often
quite distorted and do not reflect demand, supply, or 25X1
production costs.
Despite the pervasive nature of corruption within
Soviet society, the leadership so far at least has not
attempted to tackle it head on. Its rhetoric and
occasionally well-publicized actions against corrupt
officials have been largely cosmetic gestures that
made little progress in reducing corruption within the
elite or the society. Such half-hearted efforts
contrast sharply with the regime's stance on other
kinds of criminal activity. Elite involvement in corrup- 25X1
tion has probably contributed to the regime's lack of
vigor in combating this phenomenon. To actively
attempt to root it out among the elite risks confronta-
tion. The Brezhnev regime was probably also wary of
damaging the reputation, and hence legitimacy, of the
party by prosecuting important members for corrup-
tion.
The regime may recognize, in addition, that the
"second economy" does satisfy demands in a system
where state industry cannot or will not satisfy them.
In this sense, the black market serves as a safety valve
that helps to keep the entire system running. If the
black market helps to meet some demands of the
Soviet population, the dissatisfaction and discontent
that might arise over the lack of consumer goods in 25X1
the official economy are to some degree dampened.
illustrate the extent of the problems facing the
leadership:
25X1
25X1
? General Zotov was removed as head of the Office of
Visas and Registration recently after reportedly
selling visas for as much as 12,000 rubles (1 ruble
equals $1.34).
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25X1
25X1
? In Georgia bribes are reportedly necessary to guar-
antee everything from admission to Tbilisi Medical
Institute to letters of recommendation t *i the
Communist Party.
? During 1982 in Azerbaijan the party press reported
on endemic extortion and bribery connected with
gaining admission to institutions of higher learning.
? Rumors of corruption touching Brezhnev's family
proliferated in 1982.
Punishment. Soviet criminals are handled swiftly
under the flexible provisions of the republic criminal
codes. The Ministry of Internal Affairs enforces the
codes: its militia maintains public order and arrests
lawbreakers, and its prosecutors bring and prosecute
charges.
The Ministry of Justice runs the court system. The
criminal code gives the procurator (the Soviet equiva-
lent of the district attorney) wide latitude in determin-
ing the specific charge under which a particular
criminal act will be tried and permits the court wide
latitude in determining the sentence. Legal punish-
ments range from public censure, removal from office,
deprivation of rank, and banishment or exile to im-
prisonment, forced labor, or even death.
about half of
all sentences involve confinement, and probably more
than 90 percent involve some form of forced labor,
termed "correctional labor" in Soviet legal parlance.
25X1
approximately 1.5 percent of
the Soviet population (about 4 million people) are now
in the "gulag"-the Russian acronym for the Main 25X1
ons and over 1,000 labor camps in the USSR.
About 500,000 have been paroled but still must 25X1
perform compulsory labor. There are about 300 pris-
Administration of Corrective Labor Camps. (The
United States in 1980 had a prison population of
314,000-considerably less than 1 percent of the
population.) About 2.1 million Soviets are confined,
some 400,000 in prisons and the rest in forced-labor
camps (or "colonies" as the Soviet authorities prefer).
The inmates of prisons and the harsher labor colonies
live in cells, and the inmates of other camps live in
barrack-type accommodations.
25X1
The penal system includes three basic kinds of forced-
labor camps: correctional labor, educational labor,
and colony settlements. Correctional labor camps vary
in their harshness with the severity of the term.
Juvenile offenders are sent to educational labor
camps, and most prisoners receiving only light punish-
ment or who have been rewarded for good behavior 25X1
are assigned to correctional labor colony settlements.
25X1
Persons convicted of "crimes against the state" re-
ceive the harshest punishment; the number of people
being punished for such crimes is probably about
10,000. (Many of the offenses for which dissidents are
commonly tried are classified as such-see section on
dissent.) 25X1
The economic contribution of forced laborers to the 25X1
Soviet system is probably substantial. They are as-
signed to work in a wide variety of activities, particu-
larly those that are physically dangerous or taxing,
25X1
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including manufacturing, construction, agriculture,
and mining. These individuals have also been utilized
to develop the resource-rich areas of the Soviet far
Justice in the Soviet Union. In addition to the wide-
spread use of forced labor, the Soviet criminal justice
system differs in several other respects from Western
systems of justice. Law serves the interest of the party
and state. Soviet justice is designed to protect socialist
property, not primarily to protect the citizen, and the
courts are treated as one of many controls to ensure
implementation of party and state goals. Although the
legal rights of Soviet citizens have been substantially
increased since Stalin's death, many of the rights
considered important in the West-such as habeas
corpus (protection against illegal imprisonment) and
presumption of innocence-do not exist. The regime
has few constraints on its ability to use the law against
its people.
Soviet justice also emphasizes, to a degree not found
in the West, the role of the public in the administra-
tion of justice and the use of social groups (vigilantes)
rather than state organs to maintain law and order.
The Soviets have relied on two voluntary organiza-
tions: the Comrades' Courts (ad hoc courts set up in
factories, apartments, and so forth, with popularly
elected judges) and the Peoples' Volunteers (druzhin-
niki, who cajole citizens into obeying the law).
Effectiveness of Controls. The sharp rise in juvenile
crime indicates that the regime has fallen short of its
goal to create "the new Soviet man."
persons under 18 are response e or more
than half the crimes committed in the Baltic region.
Furthermore, it was revealed that these youthful
offenders, almost evenly divided between males and
females, are committing increasingly violent crimes as
well as the usual property crimes.
Much of the criminal activity in the USSR is connect-
ed to the "second" economy and involves economic
corruption. Soviet authorities, worried that public
opinion will be adversely affected by shortages, have
attempted to lay much of the blame on such crimi-
nals. For example, First Deputy Minister of Internal
Affairs, Yuriy Churbanov (Brezhnev's son-in-law,
who reportedly has been involved in corrupt activities
himself) recently charged in an interview on Radio
Moscow that black-marketeers are artificially creat-
ing deficits to line their own pockets. (A new law
adopted in September 1981 substantially increased
penalties for withholding goods from sale or accepting
money to procure goods and services not normally
available or in short supply.) The recent report by the
Soviet press of the execution of a deputy minister of
fish industries for corruption was apparently meant to
signal the regime's concern and warn against high-
level corruption. The removal of a high regional party
official in July 1982, reportedly for engaging in
corruption with this deputy minister, tends to rein-
force the idea that a strong signal is being given to
corrupt officials. The campaign, however, is not likely
to be very effective if other higher level officials who
are involved in corruption are allowed to remain in
office. In fact, the consumer remains unimpressed
with official attempts to fight corruption and end
shortages.
Youth Alienation
Soviet leaders devote considerable effort and re-
sources to indoctrinating Soviet youth with the old
socialist virtues of love of physical labor and a
willingness to sacrifice one's personal interest for the
party and state. The industrialization process has
inexorably produced a reward system, however, that
vitiates these ideals. Although young people are
taught in party youth organizations to believe that all
work is honorable, parents often attempt to pave their 25X1
children's way through procurement of preferential
treatment in university admissions and jobs.
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Materialism and Apathy. In spite of the barrage of
propaganda aimed at eliciting "socially productive
labor," most Soviet young people apparently remain
materialistic in outlook and are apolitical. In a poll
conducted by Sotsialisticheskaya industriya in Feb-
ruary 1982, Soviet youth clearly stated their prefer-
ence for a stable career and material comfort. Success
was defined by 34 percent of the respondents as the
"quantity and prestige of their possessions," such as a
new car or a summer house, and not as contributions
to the "collective welfare." This emphasis on posses-
sions is accompanied by a general cynicism toward
larger political issues and a recognition of the impo-
tence of individuals in influencing political affairs.F_
Party officials have expressed concern over the loss of
ideological vigor on the part of Soviet youth. The
series of regional Komsomol Congresses in 1982
provided a recent opportunity for party leaders to
address this issue. Ukrainian party chief Shcherbit-
skiy, for example, frankly acknowledged the lack of
ideological zeal among Soviet youth. He berated
young people not only for their theoretical shortcom-
ings but also for their "social passivity and relapses
into middle classness." Leningrad party leader Roma-
nov stressed the same theme, noting that for most
young Soviets, life may be getting too easy. Party
leaders Shevardnadze and Grishin even admitted that
drug abuse and alcoholism among youth were signifi-
cant problems, a strong indication that ideological
commitment is waning.
Western Threat. Soviet leaders continue to express
concern, moreover, that this interest in material well-
being is making people more vulnerable to Western
influences and "alien" ideas. The most explicit warn-
ing of this type was voiced by Komsomol chief Boris
Pastukhov in his speech before the All-Union Komso-
mol Congress in May 1982. Pastukhov stated that
"moral and spiritual decline" can result from an
uncritical acceptance of Western cultural models and
fashions. He mentioned Polish developments to under-
score the danger of allowing Western influences to go
unchecked, declaring that more must be done to
protect youth from acquiring a taste for the Western
lifestyle.
Since the Polish crisis began, such warnings have been
frequently repeated. Speaking at an April 1981 ideo-
logical conference, the now deceased party secretary
Mikhail Suslov emphasized the need to combat
"alien" influences at home. He attacked "consumer-
ist" attitudes and noted "the extremely dangerous"
consequences of allowing consumer demands to dic-
tate state policy. 25X1
Soviet officials, moreover, indirectly admit that West-
ern propaganda has been successful in exploiting the
materialism of its youth and in stimulating other
undesirable attitudes. An article by KGB First Depu-
ty Chairman Viktor Chebrikov described the goal of
"bourgeois propaganda" as nothing less than to "sab-
otage the Communist convictions of young people and
push them into antisocial positions." In a June 1981
Pravda interview, Estonian Party First Secretary
Vayno also stated that "bourgeois centers" are spar-
ing no efforts to instill in the Soviet people the "bacilli
of moral spinelessness, spiritual acquisitiveness, and
national chauvinism." 25X1
Competing "Ideologies. " Soviet officials must also
contend with negative attitudes toward military serv-
ice, revival of interest in religion, and nationalist
expressions. Pravda on 20 March 1982 provided
growing evidence of official uneasiness about creeping
pacifism on the home front. In an article on films,
USSR People's Artist Aleksandr Zarkhi reproached
Soviet producers of war films for being heedless of the
potentially demoralizing impact of these movies on
Soviet audiences. Similarly, Marshal Ogarkov, Chief
of the General Staff, in a speech given at an April
1981 ideological conference and in a followup article
appearing in the party journal Kommunist, deplored
"elements of pacifism" on the domestic scene. Ogar-
kov complained that the present generation of Soviet
youth were underrating the threat of war emanating
from the West. Such examples of domestic pacifism
may signal popular dissatisfaction with the war in
Afghanistan or indicate that this generation of Soviet
young people is less willing to make the personal
sacrifice necessary to maintain a high degree of 25X1
military readiness.
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Religion is viewed as a special problem for youth.
Pastukhov, in his Komsomol Congress speech, assert-
ed that various religious sects were becoming more
active and called for increased efforts to counter the
growth of religion among the young. Central Asian
leaders have also demonstrated their concern with this
issue. Kazakh Party First Secretary Kunayev recently
directed party workers to pay more attention to
atheistic work. (Refer also to section on religious
dissent, pp. 25-30.)
Linkages between growing interest in religion and
unacceptable expressions of nationalism have been
made as well. In Lithuania, Republic Party First
Secretary Grishkyavichus warned at an April 1982
plenum that "clerical extremists" were using religion
to promote "nationalist sentiments." Georgian leaders
have also been particularly worried by the emergence
of antinationalist trends among young people. The
Georgian Komsomol chief cautioned students against
"playing at politics and pseudonationalist heroics."
He also expressed regret that an increasing number of
young men were applying to enter the seminary.
(Refer also to section on nationality problems, pp.
18-24.)
Table 1
USSR: State Budget Expenditures for Health
Current Rubles
(billions)
Percentage
Share
1965
1970
1975
1980
14.8
5.0
1981
14.8
5.0
1982 (Plan)
15.4
4.8
Soviet Health Care
The Soviet Union made significant improvements in
its health care system during the first 50 years of its
existence, but the system seems increasingly inade-
quate to cope with changing health problems in the
country. Investment in the system has not grown
enough to head off problems. In fact, the share of the
state budget spent on health has been declining (see
table 1). The regime has also failed to distribute
medical care uniformly among various segments of
Although the attitudes among Soviet youth are a the population.
vexing problem for the regime, there is no indication
that they represent a threat to regime control. As one
young Soviet professional commented to US Embassy
officials, "as long as the system presents the opportu-
nity for advancement, no matter how slight, people
will continue to work within the system. No one really
cares about how bad conditions are throughout the
country, as long as one can see hope for improving
one's own life." At the same time, the regime's
attempt to isolate materialism to a small number of
young people has clearly failed. Massive improve-
ments in education resulting in an overabundance of
highly trained young people have only exacerbated
the problem. Moreover, it is now more difficult to
satisfy the youth by providing elements of the good
life. Current ideological efforts directed toward the
problem of youth alienation, rather than encouraging
self-sacrifice, appear only to increase cynicism. The
gap between the leadership and Soviet youth, there-
The leadership has evinced growing concern about
health care performance in the face of greater de-
mands on the system. In August 1982 a comprehen-
sive party Central Committee and Council of Minis-
ters decree addressed the most important issues. It
instructed the Ministry of Health to expand and
improve health services in rural areas and directed the
Ministry of Medical Industry to increase medical
supplies in the country. The decree also called for
improved training of medical workers and specified
worker incentives to improve on the performance of
the large medical service bureaucracy. Perhaps most
important, the recent decree draws attention to the
need to work on the prevention of illness in the USSR.
fore, remains and could grow.
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The new decree was probably related to growing
recognition of problems in health care that are dem-
onstrated in official statistics. The leadership action
comes as economic planners have looked to labor-
force expansion and efficiency to help the ailing
economy-health care impacts directly on the size
and efficiency of the work force. According to Soviet
data, the USSR appears to be the only nation in the
world with a lower life expectancy now than 20 years
ago.' Death rates rose significantly for every age
group between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, increas-
ing by 49 percent from its low point in 1964 of 6.9
percent per 1,000 to 10.3 percent per 1,000 in 1981.
Males in their forties were hardest hit, with life
expectancy for the average Soviet male falling from
66 years in 1965 to the present figure of 62. Infant
mortality rates, moreover, are high, may have risen
during the 1970s, and reflect sharp differences in
health care between the European and non-European
parts of the country. Poor health care in rural areas,
high rates of alcoholism and abortion in urban areas,
the effects of influenza epidemics, and environmental
pollution are contributing factors.
Differential Treatment. Although the Soviet health
care system is extensive (37 physicians per 10,000
compared with 19 per 10,000 in the United States)
and available to everyone free of charge, the quality of
service is uneven. The general public is served by a
system of hospitals and outpatient polyclinics that
provide a relatively low standard of care.
drugs are difficult to
find, hospitals are overcrowded and dirty, and a
patient's family must often bring food from home to
supplement the hospital diet. Facilities in rural areas
are particularly inadequate, largely because qualified
personnel find work in outlying regions unattractive.
In contrast, a closed system of hospitals, clinics, and
dispensaries with superior facilities is administered by
the Ministry of Health's Fourth Main Administration
for ranking party, government, and police officials.
Some ministries maintain their own health service
systems that presumably offer better care and serve as
an incentive to attract workers.
' The publication of some statistical data useful as health indicators
is restricted. The Central Statistical Administration has not re-
leased age-specific mortality rates or life expectancy data since the
mid-1970s, probably because the regime is embarrassed by the
Systemic Problems. Because of the disparity in.health
services, some Soviets are opening their pocketbooks
to buy better, more personalized care than the state
provides them free of charge. The few legal fee-for-
service clinics are apparently heavily used, and under-
the-table payments to medical personnel are perva-
sive. An illegal payment of 1,300 rubles, for example-
may be necessary to ensure that a patient gets a 25X1
surgeon with above-average skill. Beyond health care
availability, the system faces other challenges: con- 25X1
flicting institutional goals, lack of preventive care,
poor training, and technical bottlenecks. These are25X1
now being tackled, but whether successfully so re-
mains to be seen. To keep hospital death statistics low,
for example
(Soviet authori-
ties have encouraged "hopeless" patients to check out
and return home. At the same time, hospital stays are
prolonged, providing employment for many through 25X1
medical make-work, but this contributes to a higher
incidence of hospital-induced infection.
A major difficulty is that the Soviet system has 25X1
focused on curing illness rather than preventing it.
Soviet statistical data show that diseases that are
easily controlled in other countries run rampant in the
Soviet Union. Influenza, for example, kills tens of
thousands of Soviet babies annually, and rickets
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remains one of childhood's scourges. Whereas 70
percent of cervical cancer cases in the United States
are identified in their early, potentially treatable
stages, 60 percent of Soviet cases are not recognized
until they are terminal.
So far, the Soviet Union's economic plan has given
low priority to developing and producing equipment
that Western doctors associate with modern medicine.
the
USSR operates only a few dozen kidney machines,
and its few hundred available pacemakers are import-
ed. Disposable equipment-syringes, needles, tubing,
and bedding-are in short supply. The low priority
given to other consumer-oriented sectors results in
additional shortages. When output goals in other
sectors are not met, the supply to the medical sector of
such nonmedical goods as automobiles, building mate-
rials, and textiles becomes erratic. Because of fuel
shortages, for example, only 30 percent of the gas
requirements for emergency vehicles are being met.
Future Challenges. The Soviet health care system will
be facing growing demands in the coming decade. The
age distribution of the population has changed mark-
edly in the past 20 years, with the share of those 60
years and over increasing from 9.4 percent to 15.4
percent of the population. As the share of the elderly
increases, disease patterns alter. Health planners will
have to decide whether to distribute a larger share of
medical resources to the elderly, who have a higher
incidence of serious illness, or continue to focus health
resources on the economically active population.
An August 1982 decree is the latest in a series of
measures attempting to cope with problems in the
health sector. In 1980 a decree banned women from
460 job categories involving heavy and hazardous
work. A March 1981 decree aimed at stimulating the
birth rate provides for one year of partially paid
maternity leave. By encouraging mothers to stay at
home to care for their babies, the decree could reduce
the risk of exposure to disease at child-care facilities.
A January 1982 resolution calls for the expansion of
sanatoriums and health resorts to be sponsored by the
trade unions.
The regime has put more pressure on the managers of
the health care system by dramatically airing the
failures of the Ministry of Health at the March 1982
meeting of the Supreme Soviet Presidium. The Minis-
try was criticized for neglect of outpatient polyclinics
and emergency care as well as the insensitive and
uncaring attitude shown by health service personnel.
The press has also extensively publicized the short-
comings of medical care in rural areas and the need
for greater responsiveness to the population's requests
and complaints regarding health services. Regardless
of these resolutions and decrees, unless the regime
spends more money on health services, there is little
likelihood for significant improvement in the future.
The Family and the Role of Women
Lenin hoped Soviet rule would significantly improve
the status of women in the USSR. In reality there has
been much progress in achieving greater equality
between the sexes and of social advancement of
women under the Soviet system. Yet, Soviet women
cannot be said to be "liberated" in the Western sense.
Moreover, the Soviet family as an institution is also in
trouble. The high divorce rate, part of the price of
increasing industrialization and urbanization, shows
no signs of falling. It is especially high in urban
regions. Soviet sociologists continue to lament the
personal costs of marital breakups in their writings.
The leadership, whose prime interest lies in the
success of the economy, is chiefly dismayed by the
adverse effect on the birth rate and, consequently, on
the country's labor resources.
Women in the Workplace. The call of early Marxists
for women to enter the labor force did not actually
represent a radical break with the Tsarist past. By
1917 women constituted 40 percent of factory em-
ployees in Russia. What changed, of course, was the
spread of an ideology supportive of women working
outside the home. Work was portrayed not only as a
means of contributing to the national economy but
also as a source of personal development and even as a
prerequisite for a woman to serve as an appropriate
role model for her children. Expanding educational
opportunities facilitated women's employment pros-
pects:
25X1
25X1
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Contrasting dress styles of Soviet women in
Moscow symbolize differing status of women
This work ideology fit well with the leadership's goal
of rapid economic development, the result being that
women's labor today represents the backbone of the
Soviet economy. According to published data, the
Soviet Union has the highest female labor force
participation rates of any industrial society; over 51
percent of all workers are women. The questionable
work ethic among Soviet males has led to key jobs in
industry and construction being filled more and more
by women.
Despite the important economic role women play in
the economy, however, Soviet data indicate that wom-
en have not moved up the career ladder on a par with
men:
? Salaries for women are only 65 to 75 percent those
of men.
? Women predominate in low-skilled, low-paying oc-
cupations including service industry work and cleri-
cal positions.
? Women fill a disproportionately low share of the
more prestigious and powerful positions in Soviet
society.
Although women constitute 40.6 percent of all science
workers, only 10.9 percent of those. holding the title of
academician are female. In the political arena, no
women are on the Politburo, and only 8.5 percent of
Central Committee members (full and candidate) are
Beyond the professional restrictions Soviet women
face, they continue to bear most of the burden for
running Soviet households. Soviet men show little
inclination to share household duties, thus perpetuat-
ing a highly unequal division of domestic labor.
According to Soviet data, although men and women
devote equal time to paid employment, women devote
an extra 28 hours a week to housework compared with
12 for men. Child-care facilities, moreover, remain
inadequate, forcing women to take additional unpaid
maternity leave despite the loss of earnings and job
opportunities involved. 25X1
each Soviet woman has six abortions in her lifetime-
12 times the US figure. Even this estimate may 25X1
underestimate the actual figure in the European
sections of the country, because Muslim women have
fewer abortions than their European compatriots.
Discontent among Soviet women takes more destruc-
tive forms as well: female alcoholism and drug abuse
are on the rise, according to Soviet studies discussed
at a June 1981 psychiatric conference in Moscow.
Recent press articles have warned about the adverse
effects of alcohol and drugs on the health of both 25X1
on average,
Efforts by women to improve their quality of life have
centered mainly on limiting family size, with abortion
representing the primary method of birth control. 25X1
the individual for love and humanism.
women and infants.
25X1
The Family. The Soviet family is also coming under
stress. The Soviet divorce rate-3.5 per 1,000 popula-
tion-is exceeded only by that of the United States.
According to a number of Soviet sociologists, the
family is shrinking, dissolving, and doing a poor job of
creating the "new Soviet man." An article in Litera-
turnaya gazeta sums up these shortcomings in the
four major roles attributed to the family:
? The birth rate in the majority of Soviet families is
down sharply with the average family size now
between one and two children.
? The home takes too much energy, requiring some
billion hours of labor a year and an army of 120 to
130 million service workers.
? The family is falling short in its role of educating 25X1
the young.
? The family is not adequately satisfying the needs of
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The task of creating a stable family environment
appears fraught with so much difficulty that many
Soviets are opting out of the process altogether.
Singles now number in the tens of millions according
to a recent article in Novy mir, and some Soviet
authorities see a trend toward rejection of marriage
and child-bearing in favor of a more independent and
carefree lifestyle.
In explaining the deterioration of the family unit,
Soviet experts point to several causes including urban-
ization, industrialization, alcoholism, and the feckless
attitude of men toward marriage and family. Soviet
writers have only recently begun to recognize that
female liberation, rising levels of female education
and labor force participation, and family stability may
not be compatible. Living conditions, particularly
shortages in housing for newlyweds, scarcities of daily
consumables, and the deadening chore of searching
and standing in line for them, are also pinpointed as
obstacles to stable family life and having children. F_
Helpfor the Family. The key problem for the leader-
ship is how to achieve an optimal balance between the
contribution of women to the labor force and their
family roles. The irreplaceable contribution of women
to both production and reproduction militates against
measures that would seriously limit their roles in
either domain. The ongoing controversy is reflected in
the Soviet academic literature. Some family sociolo-
gists favor the present balance of work and family
roles and focus on reducing the tension between the
two by expanding the availability of consumer goods
and services. A number of Soviet scholars and jour-
nalists who are more concerned about present demo-
graphic trends, including Soviet demographer V. Per-
evedentsev, advocate an all-out effort to increase the
social status and material rewards of motherhood. For
now the Soviet leadership appears to be leaning in this
direction. The present Five-Year Plan, with its paid
maternity leave provisions, is designed to get Soviet
women, particularly in the European areas of the
Soviet Union and Siberia, to have more children.F_
Yet, the institutional resources committed to studying
and solving the problem remain skimpy. Two years
ago it was suggested that a "family council" be
established under the Academy of Sciences to encour-
age discussion of the ailing Soviet marriage and
family institutions. According to Pravda, this plan
still awaits implementation.
Soviet scholars are caught trying to 25X1
find Marxist-Leninist explanations for problems that
in theory should not exist under socialism. Empirical 25X1
research on this topic is also hampered by samplings
that are too small and uncoordinated to provide
reliable conclusions. Such shortcomings suggest that
the Soviets have an uphill battle to remedy this 25X1
problem.
Alcoholism
Almost every event or celebration in Soviet life, such
as a wedding, a funeral, a pay raise, or a bonus, is
marked by intense drinking. The press contains fre-
quent complaints about drinking bouts on payday by
factory workers that often end in public brawls or
domestic disturbances. Heavy drinking causes signifi-
cant disruptions in work, reduces labor productivity,
leads to industrial and traffic accidents, has a high
correlation with crime (including juvenile delinquen-
cy), contributes to family instability, and impacts
negatively on the health of the population. Although
Soviet authorities have on many occasions expressed
deep concern about the effect of alcohol abuse on
Soviet society, the regime's vested interest in the sale
of alcoholic beverages conflicts with measures de-
signed to reduce consumption. Moreover, alcohol con-
sumption functions as a kind of safety valve for pent-
up social discontent. Such discontent would be more
troublesome to the regime if it took different forms
such as demonstrations or strikes.
25X1
The seriousness of alcohol abuse in the Soviet Union
is implied by the paucity of statistical information
available on the subject. Since the 1960s, much of the
statistical data that had been published, including
information on the production, consumption, and dis-
tribution of alcoholic beverages, has disappeared from 25X1
standard reference sources.
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- Vt nocneAm aonpoc: KaK 8bt npoaogmTe caoe
cao6OAHoe apeMR?
In this cartoon an interviewer asks a Soviet how Krokodil O
he spends his free time. Alcohol abuse is ridi-
culed in Soviet media, but the lack of leisure
time activities probably contributes to the prob-
The principal conclusion
is that alcoholism is on the rise in the Soviet
mon. per capita consump-
tion of state-produced alcohol reached 9.23 liters in
1979, an increase of 285 percent since 1955. Accord-
ing to reliable estimates based on demographic data
and forensic medicine reports, moreover, deaths from
acute alcohol poisoning have been rising very rapidly
since the late 1960s and reached 40,000 in 1976 or
15.9 deaths per 100,000 population. (In the same year,
deaths in the United States from alcohol poisoning
were recorded at 400 or 0.18 per 100,000 population.)
Such grim statistics are believed to reflect both the
low quality of ethanol used in the production of
alcoholic beverages and the inadequacy of medical
attention to the problem (death from alcohol poisoning
can usually be prevented by prompt medical atten-
tion). 25X1
15 women at the beginning of the century.
Soviet press accounts affirm the dimensions of the
problem. For example, an article written jointly by an
economist and a sociologist recently argued that
"drunkenness is a threat to the social well-being of the
entire nation and is a threat to the vital capabilities of
the population." In a recent issue of Molodoy kom-
munist, R. Lirmyan, a professor at the Academy of
the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported that
37 percent of the male work force is chronically
drunk, compared with 11 percent in 1925. The num-
ber of drinkers under the age of'18 has also risen
sharply. In 1925 only 16.6 percent of those under age
18 drank, whereas the proportion of today's under-
age-18 drinkers exceeds 90 percent. Alcoholism
among women is growing as well. A study appearing
in Literaturnaya gazeta found that, in 1970, one in 10
alcoholics was female-a jump from the rate of one in
Published statistics based on consumption of state- 25X1
produced alcohol do not give the full picture, however.
Illegal samogon (Russian slang for moonshine) has
traditionally contributed a major share of the total
alcohol consumed in the USSR. Although the real 25X1
magnitude of this consumption is not known b, Is
the Soviets do not publish data on the subject,
one Soviet academician estimate that t125X1
daily consumption of samogon increased from less 25X1
than 1 liter per urban adult in the period 1955-57, to
over 2 liters per adult in the late 1970s.
25X1
Alcohol's Toll. The social consequences of drinking.)
are evident in Soviet publications, which have repo..
ed that more than half of all crimes in the USSR in 25X1
1971 were committed by intoxicated people, including
90.9 percent of the cases of hooliganism, 76.4 percent
of reported rapes, and 73.9 percent of all murders. In
the case of teenagers, according to an April 1979
edition of Trud, 70 to 80 percent of crimes committed
were linked to drinking.
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Consumption of alcohol is also a major contributing
factor to the rise in the divorce rate in the USSR. In a
study conducted in Orel (a region of the Russian
Republic) in the early 1970s, 71.4 percent of the
women who filed for divorce cited their husbands'
drinking as the primary cause for this action. A
similar study completed in Riga in 1977 found that
approximately 30 percent of the couples filing for
divorce mentioned alcohol abuse as the main reason
for the dissolution of their marriage. A recent study
by Soviet demographer V. Perevedentsev deemed that
nearly half of all divorces initiated by women were on
the basis of their husbands' drunkenness.
Losses to the Soviet economy caused by alcoholism
are significant as well.
otal medical and rehabilitation expenditures for
alcoholics approximate 2.2 billion rubles annually. In
addition, alcoholism is responsible for loses in produc-
tivity, reduced quality of output, industrial accidents,
and high turnover of personnel. A Soviet journal has
reported that drinking on the job reduces productivity
up to 30 percent. Regarding the impact of alcohol
abuse on the quality of output, one study in Eko (the
journal of the Siberian branch of the Academy of
Sciences) concluded that 40 grams of alcohol de-
creased a worker's precision of movement by over 10
percent. Every fourth industrial accident in the Soviet
Union, moreover, is the result of drinking as are
approximately 37 percent of all traffic fatalities. In
1975 nine out of 10 cases of tardiness or absenteeism
were reported to be caused by drinking.
Economic losses also result from the diversion of ever
larger amounts of the country's agricultural output to
produce alcohol. In addition to the agricultural prod-
ucts used by the state to manufacture alcoholic
beverages, the production of samogon preempts a
significant share of the agricultural output as well.
Particularly wasteful is the distillation of samogon
from such ingredients as bread-the price of which is
heavily subsidized by the state and thus less costly
than other ingredients for moonshiners to use.
Table 2 Rubles per year
Personal Income and Expenditures on Alcoholic
Beverages Per Person Age 15 Years and Older,
by Republic, 1970 a
Personal
Expenditures Expenditures
Income
on Alcohol
on Alcohol
in Personal
Income
(percent)
USSR
1,124
146.5
13.0
RSFSR
1,174
185.9
15.8
Ukraine
1,033
108.2
10.5
Belorussia
1,054
119.9
11.4
Uzbekistan
1,078
92.3
8.6
Kazakhstan
1,118
162.1
14.5
Georgia
1,027
65.1
6.3
Azerbaijan
942
61.3
6.5
Lithuania
1,289
141.9
11.0
1,012
86.9
8.5
1,276
179.1
14.0
Kirghizia
993
131.1
13.2
Tajikistan
941
65.0
6.9
Armenia
1,145
74.9
6.5
Turkmenistan
1,142
104.7
9.2
a Personal income data converted to income per person 15 years old
and older. Expenditures on alcoholic beverages include public dining
markup.
b Estonia is the only Soviet republic for which sales of "other foods"
including alcoholic beverages have not been published since the early
1960s. The value used here is a rough estimate.
25X1
25X1
25X1
percentage of retarded children. According to the
Moscow Psychiatric Research Institute, among alco-
holic women the frequency of miscarriages, stillbirths,
and deaths of babies in the first two years of life is
three to five times the national average. One-third of 25X1
all children born to alcoholic mothers are mentally
retarded.
Infant mortality is another serious consequence of
overconsumption of alcohol. F. Uglov, a full member
of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, has
called attention to this danger and also to the relation-
ship between alcoholic mothers and the increase in
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Dealing With the Problem.) (Soviet
experts attribute the severity of alcoholism in the
USSR to urbanization, industrialization, boredom,
and the lack of consumer goods. The regime has not
fought the problem by addressing fundamental
causes. Rather, authorities have relied on propaganda,
medical treaTment, and price increases. Soviet offi-
cials use the media, film, and lectures to publicize the
various negative effects of heavy drinking, but such
propaganda campaigns have fallen on deaf ears. F_
Although the Soviets maintain an extensive system of
treatment facilities for alcoholic patients ranging
from sobering-up stations to labor-treatment camps,
the effectiveness of these treatment strategies remains
low. At the All-Union Psychiatric Congress in June
1981, it was reported that in the Ukraine between 85
and 90 percent of those treated revert to alcohol
abuse. A Soviet medical report issued in 1974 also
revealed that at least half the patients at labor-
treatment camps resort to former drinking patterns
soon after release. The lack of success of the Soviet
medical establishment in treating alcoholism is ex-
plained by both the absence of a national program to
coordinate treatment and the fact that, according to a
study by a Soviet Ukrainian in 1981, 90 percent of all
alcoholics receiving treatment have had the problem
five to 10 years before receiving initial therapy. F_
The Soviets have also sought to enact stricter laws
against those who are found intoxicated at work,
including deprivation of bonuses and denial of permis-
sion to use recreation centers. The effectiveness of
these laws has been minimal, however, because labor
shortages often force employers to cover up for alco-
holic workers.
single production enterprise in the country.
Along with the monopoly on legal production and sale
of alcohol, the regime has attempted to use pricing to
control consumption as well. A September 1981 de-
cree raised the retail price of alcohol by an average of
17 to 27 percent. Soviet figures indicate that, on
average, about every tenth ruble in the family budget
is spent on alcohol and that in some rural areas
purchases of spirits consume nearly 30 percent of
family incomes (see table 2). In fact, the distilling
industry provides the largest income (10 to 12 percent
of all state revenues) to the Soviet treasury of any
Rather than curbing Soviet citizens' intake of alcohol,
the price increases appear to have led to more of the
family budget going toward the purchase of alcohol
or, in some cases, individuals switching to the cheaper,
illegally distilled samogon. How the regime copes
with costs of alcohol abuse in the USSR is a continu-
ing dilemma, with important socioeconomic dimen-
sions.
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Soviet Union
W. Ger.
1 E. Ge,
it S FS.R.I
Poland
r1i
Ukrainia
S.S.R.
Saudi
Arabia
Armenian
S.S.R.
O^
Georgian
S.S.R. _
Kirghiz
S.S.R.
S.S.
Kazakh
S. S. R.
The United States Government has not recognized
the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
into the Soviet Union. Other boundary representation
is not necessarily authoritative.
China
Sea
of
Japan
Jap
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Secret
Soviet nationality policy-the granting of nationalist
linguistic, territorial, and, to some extent, cultural and
administrative autonomy; raising the standard of liv-
ing; expanding the education base; and using police
force when needed-has been largely successful. Cur-
rently, there is no widespread, politically disruptive
protest or dissent among the 20 major nationality
groups. Recent social and economic trends that are
not readily responsive to policy, however, provide the
basis for development of nationality discontent in the
country: a rising national consciousness among the
many ethnic groups, demographic change and eco-
nomic problems, and the erosion of the supranational
Communist ideology as a legitimating force. Accord-
ingly, nationality discontent represents a latent
though potent vulnerability of the Soviet regime.F_
Some aspects of Soviet nationality policy create ten-
sion between the regime and its minority peoples.
Efforts to promote bilingualism-use of Russian as a
second, if not a first, language-have created some
resentment, and recent demographic policy has
seemed to favor Slavs. Ethnic issues have, moreover,
become interconnected with the party's efforts to
allocate scarce resources among competing regional
Russification
Language policy is a sensitive issue in the USSR.
Soviet authorities have consciously sought to make
Russian the lingua franca of the Soviet Union both to
facilitate communication and, most importantly, to
integrate, if not assimilate, many diverse people into a
common culture. Such linguistic Russification has
been partially successful. The 1979 census shows that
use of Russian as a second language is increasing (see
table 3), but complete linguistic assimilation is far in
the future. Only 13 percent of the non-Russian popu-
lation use Russian as a first language. Soviet efforts to
push it, moreover, have produced a backlash of resent-
ment. the US Embassy
reported that in Georgia, for example, there were
protests in 1978 against dropping Georgian as the
state language of the republic (the government backed
down). In 1980, 365 Georgian scholars issued a public
appeal for the retention of the native language in
academic life, and Western observers reported that in
March 1981 more than 1,000 Georgians staged a
public demonstration to express their concern about
language policy. In the Baltic republics there have
been similar protests over Soviet inno?auP nnhirieQ
Demographic Policy
Demographic trends are also likely to increase nation-
ality tensions and complicate Soviet decisions on 25X1
resource allocations. According to published Soviet
data, the Russians are losing their majority status,
and the Slavic and European areas of the USSR are
short of labor. Although the regime has adopted a
differentiated demographic policy designed to spur
population growth first in the Far Eastern, Siberian,
and European regions of the Soviet Union and then in
Central Asia and the Caucasus, this effort can have
an impact only in the long run. The policy, moreover,
will not allow the regime to avoid the important 25X1
economic, social, and political choices that will cut
across nationality concerns during this decade. F__1
Centralization Versus Decentralization
Economic administration and decisionmaking are also
made more difficult because of the multinational
character of the Soviet state. The need for greater
economic effectiveness generates pressures for decen-
tralization, which in turn could diminish the party's
political control. Khrushchev's decision to decentral-
ize economic management under Sovnarkhozy (re-
gional economic councils) was quickly reversed in the
early 1960s, at least partly because it appeared to
encourage localist tendencies. Decentralization, none-
theless, still has its proponents, with Georgian leader
Shevardnadze among the most vocal. The issue is
especially contentious now as aspects of the new
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Table 3
Native Language Affinity and Knowledge
of Russian As a Second Language
Percentage Regarding Language of Given Nationality Percentage Claiming a Good Knowledge
as Native Language of Russian as a Second Language
Uzbeks 98.4 98.6
Kazakhs 98.4 98.0
Tajiks 98.1 98.5
Turkmens 98.9 98.9
98.7 98.8
1979
99.9
82.8
74.2
98.5
97.5
97.8
98.7
97.9
1970
1979
0.1
0.1
36.3
49.8
49.0
57.0
14.5
49.3
41.8
52.3
15.4
29.6
15.4
25.4
19.1
29.4
Soviet food program (May 1982) are being debated-
with proponents of regional control of agriculture at
odds with Moscow-based proponents of centralized
Resources
Allocation of resources among competing administra-
tive and regional claimants is difficult in the best of
times. This issue has become particularly sharp in the
last decade and will undoubtedly be a highly conten-
tious issue in the 1980s as resources become increas-
ingly scarce. Put simply, the Soviets do not have the
resources to invest huge sums equally and simulta-
neously in the sparsely populated but resource-rich
areas of Siberia, the older industrial areas of Europe-
an Russia and the Ukraine, and the USSR's rapidly
growing, but underdeveloped, Muslim areas. The
regional investment issue contributed in part to a
leadership purge in the Ukraine in the early 1970s. F
Nationalism has not lost its political or emotional
force in the USSR. The main forces of integration,
modernization, and industrialization have themselves
contributed to the growth of discrete ethnic feelings.
Several areas-Central Asia, the Baltics, the Cauca-
sus, and the Ukraine-have populations that exhibit
aspects of ethnic self-assertion that could, over the
very long term, lead to ethnic unrest and nationalist
turmoil.
The Baltic Republics
Long-term demographic, economic, and social trends
in the Baltic republics-particularly in Estonia and
Latvia-favor gradual assimilation of these groups
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Table 4
Comparison of Russian and Baltic Population
Growth, 1959, 1970, and 1979
Latvians
114,114 129,015 137,397 13.1 6.5
1,400 1,430 1,439 2.1 0.6
989 1,007 1,020 1.8 1.3
into the dominant Russian mold. The pressures gener-
ated by these developments, nonetheless, have led to
sporadic violence and dissident activity and will make
Moscow's relationship with the Baltics peoples con-
tentious for some time to come. Moscow appears to
believe that these problems are manageable and al-
lows its local prefects some leeway in appealing to
local concerns. The Soviet leadership, however, has
done little to alter policies that endanger the identity
and native languages of the Baltic republics, and
continued social strife over this issue is likely.
Population Trends in the Baltics. Demographic de-
velopments pose a significant threat to the preserva-
tion of a distinctive national identity among Estonians
and Latvians (see table 4). Both groups have very low
birth and marriage rates, and high divorce and abor-
tion rates. The favorable economic conditions in these
areas-a comparatively high standard of living, a
good technical base, and relatively higher productivi-
ty-combined with a manpower shortage have, fur-
thermore, attracted huge numbers of Russian immi-
grants. As a result, both native groups are likely to
become minorities in their own republics by the end of
the century. Ethnic Latvians comprise only 54 percent
of their republic's population, and Estonians represent
less than 65 percent of theirs. In both republics,
moreover, Russians enjoy majority status in major
cities including the capitals of Riga and Tallinn.F_
Local Hostility. Latvians and Estonians recognize the
link between industrialization, Russian immigration,
and Russification pressure. Petitions have circulated
25X1
25X1
protesting various industrial projects and hydroelec-
tric and mining enterprises. In the late 1950s, even
party officials in Latvia opposed expansion of heavy
industry in the republic on the grounds that it would
require the importation of Russian workers and lead
to a further dilution of Latvians. This nationalist 25X1
opposition led Moscow to purge the native Latvian
party leadership. 25X1
the
recent economic slowdown and the subsequent deteri-
oration in food supplies have also had a souring effect
on relations between the Baits and the Russians. The
Baltic republics have traditionally enjoyed a relatively
plentiful supply of meat and dairy products and blame
the Russians for the reversal in the situation, dating
from the mid-1970s. In late 1976 meat virtually
disappeared from Latvian markets. Residents of the
republic were convinced that locally produced food-
stuffs were being exported contrary to republic needs.
A rash of violent incidents during 1977-78, including
the sabotaging of trains headed for the Russian
Republic and the setting of fires at meat warehouses.
suggested widespread resentment. By 1979 public 25X1
discontent had also reached serious levels in Estonia.
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Language policy has become an even more sensitive
issue. The migration of Russians into the Baltics has
brought with it increased demand for Russian lan-
guage schools and increased pressure to use Russian
in business transactions. In at least some areas of
Latvia and Estonia, Russian has become a prerequi-
site for getting a good job or a good education. This
threat to local languages has spurred the development
of anti-Russian feeling and led to civil disturbances
protesting the heavy promotion of Russian at the
expense of native languages.
Agitation over the language issue reached crisis pro-
portions in Estonia in the fall of 1980. According to
European press reports, several thousand students
staged protests in Tallinn and other cities against the
compulsory use of Russian, the scarcity of Estonian
language publications, and the replacement of the
Estonian Minister of Education with a Russian. Sixty
Estonian intellectuals later sent a letter to officials
calling for the removal of restrictions on the use of
Estonian and for measures to redress the heavy influx
of Russians to their republic.
The protests appear to have had some impact. Repub-
lic leaders seem more solicitous toward Estonian
culture and language usage, and an all-union confer-
ence on nationalities held in Latvia received wide
publicity.
Lithuania Is "Different."Russification pressures are
much less severe in Lithuania. The population growth
rate among Catholic Lithuanians is much higher than
in the other two Baltic republics (see table 4). The
republic remains predominately rural, and immigra-
tion of Russians has been limited. Lithuanians, as a
result, still make up 80 percent of the republic's
population.
Lithuanian nationalism, nonetheless, is very strong
and is directed against the Russians. As is the case
with Polish nationalism, the Roman Catholic Church
is closely identified with Lithuanian nationalism. De-
spite regime pressure on believers and restrictions on
the training of new priests, officials acknowledge that
75 percent of Lithuanians identify with the Catholic
faith. Regime harassment has, nonetheless, driven
much of the Church's activity underground. This
underground activity includes the publishing of the
samizdat (illegal) periodical Chronicle, the longest
standing dissident publication in Lithuania. In 1979
the Church even spearheaded a petition drive (collect-
ing 350,000 signatures) demanding Lithuanian inde-
pendence.
Ambivalence Over Poland. According to Embassy
reporting, developments in Poland appear to have
aroused mixed feelings in the Baltic area. On the one
hand, many native residents admire the courage and
initiative of Polish workers in pressing the regime. On
the other hand, they believe that Poland already has a
higher standard of living than the USSR and resent
Soviet assistance that subsidizes Polish consumption.
There appears to be widespread agreement, moreover,
that Solidarity-type movements are simply not possi-
ble in the USSR.
Local authorities, nonetheless, apparently believe that
Polish developments could produce some sympathy
and made some largely symbolic adjustments in policy
in the first months after worker unrest in Poland in
August 1980. Officials in Latvia and Lithuania exhib- 25X1
ited a new concern for workers' rights and interests in
an attempt to head off any local agitation inspired by
the Polish model. In both Latvia and Lithuania,
workers were elevated to membership in each repub-
lic's Central Committee Bureau, an unusual honor.
Despite the manifestations of nationalist discontent,
the nationalist movements in the Baltic areas appear 25X1
to suffer from a lack of formal leadership. Nationalist
groups lack consensus on goals, and they have failed
to attract a broadly based membership. Most of these
groups have quickly evaporated in the face of KGB
pressure. Although the Baltic peoples tenaciously
cling to their language and culture, political autono-
my or independence is not a realistic option, especially
in the face of long-term demographic trends. Given
this situation, the strategy of permitting some degree
of religious and cultural freedom while at the same
time dealing harshly with political dissent should
serve to isolate nationalist groups and undermine their
popular appeal.
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The Ukraine
The Ukrainians are the largest and most influential
national minority in the USSR. Their republic is the
most populous, politically powerful, and economically
important of the 14 minority republics. According to
the 1979 census, Ukrainians comprise 16 percent of
the USSR's population and 74 percent of the popula-
tion of the Ukrainian Republic. Politically, Ukraini-
ans have fared well in Moscow, gaining substantial
political representation since Stalin's death. On the
local level, the Ukrainian party is the largest regional
party organization in the USSR, and its upper eche-
lons are dominated by Ukrainians.
Although the Ukraine is relatively well integrated
politically and socially into the Soviet state, potential
problem areas remain. There has never been a strong
Russian presence in the western part of the Ukraine,
which was annexed by the Soviets during World War
II. Less than 5 percent of the population in most
western oblasts and under 8 percent in all of the
western oblasts are Russian. The Uniate Church,
moreover, a symbol of Ukrainian ethnic identity, is
also centered in the western part of the republic.
Despite the antireligious pressures on it and the
periodic repressions of the Stalin and Khrushchev
years, the Church remains loyal to Rome and main-
tains ties with coreligionists in Poland, Czechoslova-
kia, and Italy.
The active promotion of the Russian language has
been bitterly resented by Ukrainian dissidents as well.
Khrushchev's proposal in the late 1950s making
Ukrainian an elective (rather than required) language
in Russian schools in the republic generated consider-
able local opposition. Samizdat (illegal) publications
have continued to protest the regime's handling of
Ukrainian language and culture.
Recent reporting indicates that language assimilation
pressures have not abated. Russian remains the pre-
dominant language in higher education; in 1980 ap-
parently only 34 percent of lectures at universities in
the republic were offered in Ukrainian. A significant
portion of literary and scientific publications in the
Ukraine, moreover, are only offered in Russian.
Ukrainian dissent has evolved away from the armed
anti-Soviet resistance of World War II and the imme-
diate postwar years toward a nationalism that is
avowedly Marxist in content and appeals to Ukrainian
elites. Oles Honchar, for example, published a novel
critical of the Russification process while retaining his
position as head of the Ukrainian Writers Union. The
Ukrainian party leadership (under former party leader
Pyotr Shelest) has even used Ukrainian nationalism as
a manipulative tool to get the most from Moscow
while fostering relative toleration of such sentiment at
home. Shelest protected some Ukrainian nationalists
in the 1960s while he championed economic decen-
tralization and pushed to get the most for the
Ukraine's coal sector, while publicly complaining that
his republic was not receiving its fair share of resource
allocations in comparison with the Tyumen oilfields.
Shelest even wrote a history of the Ukrainian people
that veered away from heretofore traditional Soviet
interpretations of Ukrainian nationalism. Such ac-
tions made Shelest vulnerable to charges of bourgeois
nationalism and led in part to his removal as Ukraini-
an party leader in 1972 and dismissal from the 25X1
Politburo in 1973.
25X1
Regime Crackdown. Although there remains a perva-
sive sense of Ukrainian ethnic identity and pride in
Ukrainian language, history, and culture, nationality-
based separatism is a more latent than actual threat
now. The authorities have been very successful in 25X1
controlling all kinds of dissent in the Ukraine by
arresting the dissenters. Vladimir Shcherbitskiy, the
current party head, moreover, has moved effectively
to rein in the nationalist manifestations tolerated by
his predecessor through extensive personnel changes
among administrators of cultural affairs.
Impact of Poland. The Ukraine, like the Baltics, is
susceptible to East European influence. The western
Ukraine has historical ties with countries of this
region, and Ukrainians are on both sides of the Soviet
border. As with the Czechoslovak crisis in 1968, 25X1
Soviet Ukrainians have shown interest in events in
Poland. Ukrainians fol-
lowed events in Poland by listening to Polish television
and radiobroadcasts and by reading underground
25X1
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Table 5
Comparison of Russian and Central Asian
Population Growth, 1959, 1970, and 1979
Russians
Uzbeks
Kazakhs
Tajiks
Turkmens
114,114
129,015
137,397
13.1
6.5
6,015
9,195
12,456
52.9
35.5
3,622
5,299
6,556
46.3
23.7
1,397
2,136
2,898
52.9
35.7
1,002
1,525
2,028
52.2
33.0
969
1,452
1,906
49.8
31.3
The result of such
activity is hard to gauge. Although events in Poland,
prior to martial law, may have raised the vague hope
for eventual change in the Ukraine, the regime has
sought to counter the impact by stepped-up propagan-
da efforts.
Census data for 1979 indicate that Muslims are
strongly inclined to concentrate in their native areas.
For the major Muslim ethnic groups, at least 77
percent and as many as 93 percent reside in their own
republics. This stay-at-home attitude has complicated
the regime's efforts to use excess Central Asian labor
in European Russia and Siberia. The Kremlin appar-
ently will not be able to use this surplus labor pool
effectively without making significant cultural con-
cessions and providing more material incentives or
using coercion.
Central Asia
This area remains culturally and socially resistant to
Soviet assimilation. Islam, despite regime efforts,
continues to have a strong influence on the way of life
in Muslim areas and serves to preserve a strong sense
of national identity. This distinctiveness has compli-
cated Soviet demographic policy, resource allocation
decisions, and military conscription. It does not seem
likely, however, to produce significant violent opposi-
tion to the regime in the near future.
Demographic Trends. A demographic explosion is
occurring in Central Asia (see table 5). Birth rates in
the Muslim republics are from 1.5 to 2.5 times those
in predominantly Slavic republics. By the year 2000,
these republics will contain some 20 percent of the
Soviet population, up from some 15 percent at pres-
ent. Moreover, by the end of the century 40 percent of
all Soviet children under age 10 will come from
Muslim areas.
Allocation Demands. The growing population in Cen-
tral Asia is already increasing pressure on the regime
to increase allocations for industrial development and
for services to avoid a decline in the standard of living
and employment. Soviet planners have recently ac-
knowledged that such demographic considerations
should play a greater role in central planning. A
Gosplan deputy department chief even argued that all
new industries should be located in regions with high
population growth. Central Asian leaders (Kunayev,
Rashidov, and Gapurov), moreover, lobbied hard for
more funds for water diversion projects at the 26th
Party Congress. Yet, the Soviet economy is already
overburdened by defense expenditures, the need to
modernize increasingly obsolete industrial plants and
equipment in the European USSR, and the desire to
exploit the resources of the Far East and Siberia. In
Tashkent in March 1982, Brezhnev, in fact, went out
25X1
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The Soviet military may have to rely increasingly on Muslim
nationalities tool military ranks. Above, Corporal Abdyldayev, a
of his way to dampen demands for more resources and
to call for Central Asians to migrate to areas where
they are needed more
Sovfoto
25X1
25X1
number of Muslim conscripts in the Soviet military
could affect the army's capability, morale, and reli-
ability.
Implications for the Military. The demographic
problem also has ramifications for the military.2 The
increasing non-Slav share of the draft-age population
will alter the composition of the Soviet armed forces.
in 1980, non-Slavs
had risen to about a third of the-draft-age popula-
tion-for the first time Russians were in the minor-
ity-and it projects that nearly 40 percent of 18-year-
olds will be non-Slavs by the end of the decade. The
Muslim republics will contribute some 30 percent of
the draft-age population in that period. This growing
25X1
The Soviet military requires educated soldiers who 25X1
are proficient in Russian, but Central Asian recruits,
do not have such 25X1
proficiency. As a consequence, Muslim soldiers have
been relegated to rear services' menial positions and
The presence of a higher percentage of Central Asian
troops in the coming years will also place pressure on
the regime to integrate these troops into the military
more effectively. The military leadership has already
demonstrated sensitivity to nationality tensions in the
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armed forces and Russian chauvinism among its
officers. An article published in Krasnaya zvezda in
1980 appeared aimed at countering discriminatory
practices suffered by enlisted men and officers of
minority origin. Defense Minister Ustinov's Armed
Forces Day address (23 Febuary 1982) echoed this
theme, stressing the need to increase non-Slavic repre-
sentation in the officer corps.
Early in 1982 a new conscription law essentially
eliminated educational deferments. This stop-gap
measure will have only a marginal effect on the
Soviet military, however. It also
will add to the Soviets' difficulty in providing an
educated civilian labor force.
The Afghan experience, against the broader backdrop
of social and ethnic friction between Russians and
non-Slavs, suggests also that the Soviet General Staff
may become less confident about the loyalty or obedi-
ence of units in the event of potentially unpopular
future military interventions. The invasion, particu-
larly in its early stages, appears to have aroused some
resentment among Central Asians. Riots were report-
ed at a Tashkent induction center, and spontaneous
demonstrations against the intervention also occurred
at the military commissariats in Issyk and Chilik,
Kazakhstan. Muslim reservists in Afghanistan, more-
over, may have refused to fire on their Muslim
brothers in Afghanista
The rapid replacement of
Central Asian reservists in Afghanistan by regular
and mostly Slavic troops suggests in any case that
they were not effective in dealing with the situation
the Soviets encountered there.
Islamic Fundamentalism. Moscow has always viewed
religion as a competitor for the loyalty of the Soviet
people and has dealt directly with this threat in
Muslim areas. The regime has been fairly successful
in controlling the public manifestations of Islam by
limiting the number of mosques, supervising the prac-
tice of the faith through police and governmental
administration, and restricting the number of admis-
sions to its theological seminaries located in Bukhara
and Tashkent.
Islam, nonetheless, maintains a strong grip on the
culture of the Central Asian peoples and hinders the
creation of a uniform national culture. According to
Soviet sociologists virtually all
Soviet Muslims continue to marry within the faith,
circumcise their sons, bury their dead in their own
cemeteries, and observe a host of distinctive customs
that the regime has struggled for years to eradicate. 25X1
To judge by articles in the press and leadership
speeches, local officials are troubled, moreover, by the
number of "unofficial mosques" and the continued
existence of Sufi brotherhoods (semisecret religious
groups), which once formed the backbone of the most
militant anti-Soviet movement in the Caucasus. The
sensitivity to Sufi influence was indicated in a recent
article in a party journal by a Muslim party leader
who inveighed against "the acts of religious fanatics
and self-appointed mullahs."
The revolution in Iran and the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, moreover, have made Islamic funda-
mentalism a current issue for the leadership, and
these events play on the psychological fears of the
Moscow-based leadership. Numerous public state-
ments demonstrate official anxiety on this score. In
December 1980, in an address to republic KGB
officers, then Azerbaijan Party First Secretary Gey-
dar Aliyev emphasized the need for tighter security
measures on the Soviet-Iranian border. Aliyev's
speech followed a tough statement by the republic 25X1
KGB head warning that American intelligence ser-
vices would attempt to use the situations in Iran and
Afghanistan to influence Soviet Muslims. The regime
has also responded to the potentially destabilizing
effects of Islamic fundamentalism with an upswing in
antireligious propaganda specifically aimed at Central
Asia.
25X6
25X1
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The range of political, religious, and cultural discon-
tent that is expressed in the Soviet dissident move-
ment does not now seriously challenge the regime's
political control, but the regime deals with it as if it
does. The KGB has moved against "antisocialist
elements" with considerable zeal, and many dissident
activists have been arrested and harassed.
Although the government has succeeded in isolating
and repressing dissident activity (see table 6), the
regime's harsh reaction almost assures that the dissi-
dent problem will continue. The regime's actions,
moreover, reflect its own psychological insecurity and
its unwillingness to allow any hint of challenge to its
authority. The party, aware of its own evolution from
a small conspiratorial group enjoying little popular
support to a powerful body in control of the revolu-
tionary process, feels it can take no chances. The
leadership is also well aware that popular discontent
over issues involving living standards-food, housing,
and consumer goods-could in time form the basis for
new, and potentially more challenging, dissident
movements.
human rights groups into a cohesive whole.
Aside from official repression, the dissident movement
has been hampered by its own internal divisions; it has
been fragmented, with various groups appealing to
diverse internal audiences. The human rights move-
ment, for example, has been unable to broaden its
appeal to include workers. Religious and national
minorities, moreover, have tended to define their goals
narrowly, failing to relate them to the broader strug-
gle for civil liberties. The movement has also lacked a
charismatic leader who might through force of per-
sonality rally the disparate religious, nationalist, and
Soviet Marxists assert that religion should have no
role in a socialist state. The Soviet Communist Party,
in turn, has been unwilling to tolerate any rival claim
on the loyalty and behavior of Soviet citizens, and it
has tried since the first decree on religion in 1918 to
suppress religious activity and belief. Although the
constitution provides for freedom of religious worship,
25X1
25X1
it provides no procedural guarantees for exercising
this right. The constitution also endorses the right of
antireligious propaganda (Article 124) to combat reli-
gious beliefs. All former church property is owned by
the state, and state permission is required to use it for
religious purposes. Religious organizations wishing to
hold services must register with the Council for
Religious Affairs, the watchdog organ of the Council
of Ministers. 25X1
Religious groups that are not sufficiently compliant
are not registered by the regime, effectively denying
them legal status. Members of such unregistered 25X1
groups are subject to harassment, and their leaders
risk arrest and imprisonment. According to Embassy
reporting, various religious dissenters (especially Pen-
tecostals, whose sects are not officially recognized by
the state) have been arrested in large numbers. Jewish
emigration has slowed to a trickle-this probably has
meant a growth of the "refusenik" (one who has been
refused permission to emigrate) ranks-and the small
opposition group operating within the Russian Ortho-
dox Church has been decimated by arrests.
Religious belief, nonetheless, remains alive in the 25X1
Soviet Union. Although no firm count exists, Soviet 25X1
officials have admitted that as much as 15 to 25
percent of the population are believers.
Protest 25X1
In some Soviet republics the traditional religious faith
is reinforced by minority nationalism. The local
church often acts as a catalyst for nationality move-
ments and as the guardian of a cultural tradition that
resists assimilation into the Soviet mainstream. The
25X1
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Table 6
Major Dissident Individuals and Organizations a
Helsinki Monitoring Group Founded in May 1976 by Yuriy Orlov.
Branches in Moscow, the Anatoliy Shcharanskiy
Ukraine, Lithuania, Geor- Yelena Bonner b
gia, and Armenia Tatyana Osipova
Vyacheslav Bakhmin
Eduard Arutyunyan
Zviad Gamsakhurdiya c
Naum Meiman b
Sofia Kallistratova r
Ona Lukauskaite-Poshkeine b
Balys Gayauskas
Malva Landa
Oksana Meshko
Viktoras Petkus
Aleksandr Podrabinek
Ivan Kovalev
Feliks Serebrov
Vladimir Slepak
Anatoliy Marchenko
Psychiatric Abuses Watch Offshoot of Moscow Helsinki Group
Group (with some overlapping membership).
Aleksandr Podrabinek
Kirill Podrabinek
Anatoliy Koryagin
Feliks Serebrov
Vyacheslav Bakhmin
Amnesty International Founded in 1973. Officially recognized
USSR Chapter by London headquarters in 1974.
Zviad Gamsakhurdiya c
Sergey Kovalev
Yuriy Orlov
Mikola Rudenko
Andrey Sakharov
Anatoliy Shcharanskiy
Georgiy Vladimov d
Christian Committee for Established in December 1976 by Rus-
Defense of Believers' Rights sian Orthodox priests and laymen.
Father Gleb Yakunin
Viktor Kapitanchuk e
Monitor Soviet compliance Moscow Branch disbanded
with CSCE accords. 8 September 1982; others are
Publicize human rights inactive.
abuses.
Publicize official abuse of Inactive.
psychiatry to suppress politi-
cal dissent.
Supports position stated in Inactive.
the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights regarding
the rights and welfare of
political prisoners.
Leading spokesman for po- Internal exile in Gorkiy since
litical liberalization in the January 1980.
USSR.
Rallying point for many dis-
sident groups.
Ensure rights of believers to Inactive.
live according to their con-
victions.
Will assist anyone persecut-
ed because of religious be-
liefs regardless of specific
creed.
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SMOT (Unofficial Trade Founded in October 1978 by Vladimir
Union) Borisov.d Modeled on short-lived trade
union established by Vladimir
Klebanov.
Vsevolod Kuvakin
Mark Morozov
Nikolay Nikitin
Vladimir Skvirskiy
Valery Senderov
Vashchenko and Chymkha- Pentecostals from Siberia who entered
by families US Embassy in Moscow in June 1978.
Chronicle of the Lithuanian First identified in 1968. Due to severe
Catholic Church official harassment, editorial staff is
constantly changing.
Initiative Group for Defense Founded in May 1978.
of Rights of Invalids Valeriy Fefelov d
Yuriy Kiselev b
Olga Zaitseva d
Solzhenitsyn Fund Established in 1974 by A. Solzhenitsyn.
Sergey Khodorovich c
Malva Landa
Ivan Kovalev
Established in early 1970s.
Father Dmitriy Dudko
Lev Regelson e
Father Gleb Yakunin
Protect rights of workers. May be active underground.
Assist workers in bringing
grievances before authori-
ties.
Attempt to organize unoffi-
cial unions in factories.
Want exit permission to go No hope of receiving exit per-
to Israel. Lidiya Vashchenko mission in foreseeable future.
staged hunger strike earlier
this year in an unsuccessful
attempt to force regime to
grant exit permission. She
was allowed to return to her
home in Chernogorsk.
Reports on activities of vari- Active, but on reduced scale.
ous dissident groups and on
violations of human rights in
Lithuania.
Records nationalistic and re-
ligious activities of Lithua-
nians; publicizes these activ-
ities in the West.
Works to protect economic Inactive.
and social rights of handi-
capped.
Establish an official society
to ensure rights of invalids
are protected.
Provides support for political Active.
prisoners and families, and
those unemployed because
of human rights activity.
Also aids unofficial Baptist
organizations.
Supporters of Father Inactive.
Dmitriy Dudko, a Russian
Orthodox priest who openly
criticized spiritual emptiness
of Soviet life; accused Rus-
sian Orthodox hierarchy of
passive compliance with gov-
ernment repression of reli-
gion.
Free Russian Orthodox
Church from state control
and bring about a religious
revival.
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Table 6
Major Dissident Individuals and Organizations a (continued)
Poiski (Searches) Journal established in May 1978. Cir-
culated in Moscow and Leningrad.
Defunct as of 1980, but reappeared
under new title Poiski i razmy-shleniya
(Searches and Reflections).
Valeriy Abramkin
Vladimir Gershuni
Yuriy Grimm
Viktor Nekiplov
Viktor Sokirko
Petr Yegides d
Group for the Establishment Founded 4 June 1982 in Moscow; 14
of Trust between the USSR founding members; claims many sup-
and the USA porters. Has collected over 400 signa-
tures on petitions in Tallinn, Leningrad,
and other cities.
Sergey Batovrin
Yuriy Khronopulo
Yuriy Medvedkov
Mikhail Ostrovskiy d
Ludmilla Ostrovskiy d
Medium for expression of Probably inactive.
diverse views on political,
philosophical, and religious
issues.
Advocated democratic, non-
Marxist socialism.
Work to preserve interna- Active.
tional peace.
Promote arms dialogue be-
tween USSR and United
States.
Attempted to organize popu-
lar disarmament campaign.
a Unless otherwise indicated, individuals are in labor camps or
serving terms of internal exile.
b Has never been arrested.
c Served prison or jail term and released.
d Emigrated or forced into exile.
e Arrested; forced public recantation of views; released; inactive.
r Recently arrested.
Lithuanian Catholic church and the Ukrainian Uni-
ate church, for example, have played central roles in
nationality struggles in their respective republics (see
pp. 20-21).
More recently, recognizing that any change in regime
policy was unlikely, many evangelical Christians have
pressured the government for permission to emigrate.
The Vashchenko family, residing in the US Embassy
in Moscow for four years while seeking to leave the
Soviet Union, is perhaps the best example of such
discontent. Moreover, according to US Embassy re-
porting, some 30,000 Pentecostals and Baptists have
applied for exit visas, with only a few families being
granted approval.
Although the Russian Orthodox Church has long
occupied a privileged position in the Soviet state, its
obsequious submission to state interests and police
their imprisoned coreligionists:
Government policies to repress and control religious
activity have generated resistance as well. Although
the creation of religious councils has allowed the
regime to keep tight rein on officially sanctioned
religious activity, it has driven many religious groups
(for example, the Christian evangelists) underground.
Baptists and others have sought the right to establish
new religious councils free from government interfer-
ence, and they have petitioned international organiza-
tions to gain the world's attention to improve the lot of
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control has led to dissident activit amon some of the
Church faithful. unofficial
study groups and religious seminars, organized by
activists and functioning entirely outside the formal
Church structure, have succeeded in awakening inter-
est in the Orthodox faith among young people. So
close has been the Church's cooperation with Soviet
authorities that small groups of Orthodox believers
have charged the Patriarch (leader) with neglecting
pastoral duties and responsibilities. The Christian
Committee for the Defense of Believers Rights, for
example, founded by Father Gleb Yakunin in the
mid-1970s, indicted the Church hierarchy for at-
tempting to serve two masters, God and the atheistic
state. In a 1978 letter to Church officials, Father
Dmitriy Dudko, another activist priest, also attacked
the Church for accepting officially imposed limita-
tions on its growth, lacking "independent" bishops,
and not recruiting sufficient clergy. (Dudko was sub-
sequently forced to withdraw his criticisms.)
The consciousness of Soviet Jews rose during the
1970s, and many of them began to concentrate their
efforts on a new goal, emigration. The Soviet Gov r -
ment allowed increasing numbers to emigrate
because it
hoped to defuse Jewish dissidence at home without
resorting to internal repression. The downturn in US-
Soviet relations, especially after the invasion of Af-
ghanistan, has apparently minimized Soviet concern
over outside opinion. In 1979, 50,000 Jews were
permitted to leave the Soviet Union, but the number
declined to 9,100 in 1981 (see figure). Local Jewish
activists from a number of cities including Moscow
reported recently that emigration officials had
stopped accepting applications altogether. If the trend
of visas issued to Jews through September 1982
continues, the number of Jews permitted to leave in
1982 will be about 3,000.
According to US Embassy reporting, the regime has
responded to religious protest by arrests of activists,
by use of the media to discredit religion, and by the
imposition of overt legal controls on the activities of
believers. The arrest of Father Yakunin and the
public recantation of Father Dudko are typical of the
kind of pressure that both the official church leader-
ship and the state exert to keep the clergy and the
Jewish Emigration From the USSR, 1970-82
10,000
Projected
1 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1
0 1970 72 74 76 78 80
religious membership under strict discipline. Viktor
Belikh, bishop of an unregistered Pentecostal congre-
gation in the Ukraine, was reported by the US
Embassy to have been summoned to KGB headquar-
ters in March 1982 and warned that some 70 of his
colleagues throughout the Soviet Union faced arrest
unless they complied with registration requirements.
Nikolay Goretoy, another Pentecostal bishop, was
sentenced to seven years in a labor camp and five
years of internal exile for helping his parishioners to
emigrate. According to samizdat, the Western press,
and the US Embassy, a number of priests and nuns
active in the underground church in Lithuania are
under arrest, and three priests have been murdered
since 1980; their deaths, in the opinion of many
25X1
25X1
25X1
believers, officially condoned.
The antireligious theme has been prominent in the
press as well. Much of the recent media attack has
stressed the linkage of growing religious interest and
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nascent pacifist tendencies among Soviet young peo-
ple. Religion is also depicted as a Western-inspired
threat to the military strength of the USSR. Anti-
religious lectures and propaganda have picked up this
theme emphasizing that:
? Religious interest among youth is not compatible
with security requirements.
? Encouragement for religion comes from "Western
bourgeois circles."
? Religion is a form of psychological warfare inspired
by the Vatican and the CIA.
The regime has also encouraged the use of
secular rituals including formal wedding ceremonies
in the Palace of Culture to replace the ceremonial
aspects of religion.
The revival of religion is not solely spiritual in content
but springs from a desire to rediscover national
identity and escape from the barrenness of official
ideology. It is, thus, likely to continue.. The security
organs and party apparatus appear confident that
they can control religious discontent, but any increase
in repression could engender even more frequent
conflict and disturbances.
Like the Soviet religious activists, many Soviet intel-
lectuals have risked harassment, imprisonment, psy-
chiatric detention, and forced exile to express their
views about political, economic, and social conditions
in the USSR. Their perspectives are diverse, ranging
from the Westward-looking internationalism of
Andrey Sakharov to the introspective Slavophilism of
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Their tactics-letters and
petitions, public demonstrations, and samizdat publi-
cations-have also been varied. Regardless, the re-
gime has been flexible and sophisticated in bringing
this activity under control. Although dissidence em-
barrasses the regime and captures international atten-
tion, it does not threaten, at present, Soviet control.
25X1
25X1
The Dissidents
The Soviet dissident movement got its real start in the
post-Stalin political thaw. Stalin's successors permit-
ted novelists, poets, and historians to publicize their
views and, in a limited way, to criticize past state
policy. Khrushchev even used some of these intellectu-
als-notably Solzhenitsyn-in his campaign to dis-
credit Stalin. 25X1
Although the domestic environment became more
hostile to such activity under Brezhnev, international
conditions have provided dissidents with more oppor-
tunity to disseminate their views to a wider audience,
and initially with some protection against reprisals.
Sakharov particularly has used his visibility in the 25X1
West and his prestige within the USSR to good
advantage. He has spoken out against Soviet foreign
and domestic policy, criticized the Soviet human
rights record, and organized a Human Rights Com-
mittee. In 1982 he staged a hunger strike that forced
the regime to allow his stepson's wife to emigrate. F-1
Although Sakharov is the most visible symbol of 25X1
intellectual discontent in the USSR, others have
joined him in dissent by using the human rights 25X1
provisions of the Helsinki accords. The first such
group was established in Moscow in 1976 by physicist
Yuriy Orlov. Branches quickly followed in the
Ukraine, Lithuania, Armenia, and Georgia. Orlov's
group established extensive contacts with other pro-
test groups, and it was especially supportive of various
ethnic groups, particularly Jews and ethnic Germans
in their efforts to emigrate, a right guaranteed by the
accords.
An offshoot of this Helsinki Committee, the Psychiat-
ric Abuse Working Group, headed by Aleksandr
Podrabinek, researched psychiatric abuses in the
USSR. It collected and publicized information about
the uses of pyschiatry for political purposes and the
confinement of dissenters in mental hospitals as a
form of punishment. The resulting work, a 265-page
dossier entitled Punitive Medicine, was subsequently
published in the West by Amnesty International. It
detailed over 200 cases of forced confinement and the
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NATO Review
The 'father" o,/fSoviet dissent, Andrey Sakha-
rov, who is now under internal exile in the city of
widespread use of drugs to "cure" these patients (for
instance, get them to recant their views). This book
was instrumental in bringing condemnation of Soviet
psychiatric practices at an international psychiatric
conference held in Honolulu in 1978.
Although the Helsinki groups had concentrated pri-
marily on human rights issues and generally ignored
the economic grievances of the populace, two organi-
zations were formed in the late 1970s to protect the
rights of workers and to address this previously
neglected constituency. The Free Trade Union found-
ed by Vladimir Klebanov in 1977 attempted to offer
blue-collar workers some protection against the poor
working conditions found in the Donbas region. In
1978 SMOT (Free Inter-Professional Association of
Workers) was started by Vladimir Borisov to defend
worker interests and to protect employees from arbi-
trary dismissal and other punitive measures. The
organizations were hampered by the lack of a specific
political program and by the failure to involve a
sufficient number of workers. Shortly before his arrest
in April 1981, Vsevolod Kuvakin, the Moscow head of
SMOT, noted that the organization had mainly at-
tracted intellectuals, not rank-and-file workers. F_
Reaction and Suppression
The regime has not hesitated to move quickly against
opposition groups to ensure their isolation from one
another and from the population at large. Although
sensitive to Western criticism in the past, the down-
turn in relations with the West and particularly with
the United States has seriously diminished the limited
foreign leverage on the regime in the human rights
In their efforts to prohibit unsanctioned political
activity, the Soviet authorities are greatly aided by
legal restrictions on freedom of speech, a judicial
system that does not recognize fundamental rights of
the accused, and a compliant medical establishment
that is willing to label dissidents as sociopsychopaths.
Although the Soviet constitution guarantees freedom
of speech, press, assembly, and demonstrations, Arti-
cle 70 of the RSFSR criminal code qualifies these
freedoms by prohibiting both "fabrications which 25X1
defame the Soviet state and social system" and
"propaganda carried on for the purpose of weakening
the Soviet regime." This article is supplemented by
another (190), which forbids the circulation in oral or
written form of fabrications that defame the Soviet
state and social system. Conviction under these arti-
cles can entail imprisonment for up to seven years,
with an additional term of internal exile running from
two to five years. 25X1
These articles have been interpreted so broadly that 25X1
almost any statement or action can be considered
illegal. During Stalin's tenure, even the defacing of a
statue or the telling of a political joke could be
prosecuted under Article 70. Post-Stalin regimes have
generally instituted legal proceedings only as a last
resort, preferring to use lesser penalties and frequent
visits by the KGB to make the point that an individ-
ual's activities could have unhealthy consequences. If
warnings are not heeded, sanctions can be progres-
sively tightened from searches of apartments by secret
police, to loss of job, to arrests. Often, would-be
emigrants are fired from their jobs upon applying for
exit visas, denied other work in the field for which
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they are trained, and threatened with punishment
under Article 209 (parasitism-illegal failure to work
or be employed).
Once dissent has reached the point where legal action
is contemplated, the regime has several strategies to
choose. Prominent activists like.Anatoliy Shcharans-
kiy and Orlov may be sent to a strict-regime labor
camp. Under the ambiguous provisions of the correc-
tional labor code, these individuals are routinely
denied visits from relatives, medical treatment, and
proper diet. The regime may choose to avoid trial
publicity altogether-as it did with militant civil
rights leader Gen. Petr Grigorenko and many oth-
ers-by sending dissidents directly to psychiatric hos-
pitals. In those establishments administered directly
by the Ministry of Internal Affairs rather than the
Ministry of Health, political activists are treated to
the full array of therapy, including drugs and shock
treatment, as if they were truly insane. Upon comple-
tion of prison terms, the dissidents are frequently
exiled. estimates of "politi-
cal" prisoners (a characterization not recognized in
Soviet law) range as high as 10,000,
Most
imprisoned dissidents are in Vladimir Prison (about
160 kilometers west of Moscow) or in strict and
special-regime correctional labor colonies in Pot'ma
or Perm. Political prisoners are reportedly kept at 80
psychiatric institutions in the Soviet Union (there are
about 300 ordinary psychiatric hospitals in the USSR
and some 20 special psychiatric hospitals or prisons
run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs).
Forced exile abroad is another remedy that the regime
employs, usually after the dissident has served in
prison. For example, by the end of 1981, such dissi-
dents as Aksenov, Borisov, Daniel, Ginzburg, Grigor-
enko, Kopelev, Litvinov, Maksimov, Plyushch, Sin-
yavsky, Solzhenitsyn, and Voinovich were in exile in
the West.
In some cases Soviet dissidents are harassed without
ever being charged. They lose their jobs, their chil-
dren are denied a higher education, and their property
is confiscated. Soviet authorities on occasion have
incarcerated dissidents for up to a year without
bringing them to trial. (Human rights activist Anato-
liy Shcharanskiy, for example, was arrested in March
1977 and tried in July 1978.) By 1982 such dissident
groups as the Psychiatric Abuse Working Group and
the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Committee had
been rendered inactive, the Moscow Helsinki Moni-
toring Group was forced to disband, and the unofficial
trade union SMOT had been driven underground
(although some of its activity may persist
Andrey Sakharov has been exiled
to Gorky since 1980, effectively isolated from contact
with Western correspondents, and continually ha-
rassed by the KGB.
In the recent past the regime has been at least
partially responsive to the foreign criticism of its
treatment of dissidents, but it has never relaxed
internal control. In the early 1970s, for example, the
regime tacitly moderated its repression of dissidents to25X1
provide a more favorable atmosphere for reaching
agreements with the West, especially with the United 25X1
States, for its own reasons. It might be willing to do so
again if there appeared to be some foreign policy gain.
The leadership, however, remains insecure and overly
sensitive to internal discontent, and it will never
voluntarily relax its vigilant stance on dissent.
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Although the wide array of Soviet social and econom-
ic ills is evident and well documented, observers differ
in their assessment of the ultimate consequences of
these problems for the Soviet regime. SomeF___]
believe that the regime has been
generally successful in keeping popular ex ectations
within bounds and will continue to do so.
he older generation is
still optimistic about the future, and, more important-
ly, most Soviet citizens are so politically apathetic
that the pressure on the regime for significant politi-
cal, economic, or social change is not great. The
regime's coercive powers are so massive, moreover,
that development of organized resistance to Soviet
policies would be exceedingly difficult. Thus, al-
though these observers believe the regime probably
will make some change at the margins, they do not
think it will produce fundamental or radical transfor-
mation of the political system.
believe that social and eco-
nomic forces are coming together that could produce
pressure over the long run for profound political
change. This school of thought holds that the popular
perception of progress, upon which the regime's legiti-
macy rests so heavily, is eroding. Even the Soviet-
created middle class, according to this view, is becom-
ing more pessimistic and apprehensive about the
future. The younger generation
moreover, makes its judgments of Soviet performance
by comparing standards of living in the USSR with
those in the West and even Eastern Europe-a com-
parison in which the USSR comes up short. Gradually
and subtly, according to this analysis, such percep-
tions may influence the political establishment or
ultimately even lead to a fundamental change in the
political system.
Both of these assessments, of course, are highly
speculative. This type of analysis is fraught with
uncertainty, very incomplete information, and widely
divergent assumptions. It is possible, nonetheless, to
obtain a more systematic and integrative look at the
problems themselves, focusing particularly on how the
Soviet regime views, manages, and deals with these
problems.
25X1
The Soviet leadership, in effect, has formulated its
own assessment of its societal problems, and this
evaluation has guided its policy response. Its priorities
have been set by judgments concerning the immedi-
acy, seriousness, and solvability of the social and 25X1
economic ills it faces. Clearly, the regime gives priori-
ty to problems that: 25X1
? Are political issues (dissidence) as opposed to mainly
social phenomena (crime). 25X1
? Have immediate potential for producing popular
discontent (consumer frustrations) as opposed to
possible longer term threats (ethnic tensions). 25X1
? Are susceptible to new policies (health care) as
opposed to being largely intractable (alcoholism).
25X1
The rhetoric and actions of the current Soviet leaders,
in icate that the regime is most concerned now about
economic problems and their effect on the Soviet
populace. The leadership recognizes that economic25X1
problems have the potential for creating popular
discontent and political disorder-something the Po-
litburo sees as a serious threat, particularly in light of
developments in Poland. Such problems also adversely
affect popular morale and worker performance, which
tend to make economic performance in the highly
labor-intensive Soviet state even poorer. Economic
difficulties, in addition, exacerbate other internal 25X1
problems such as crime and corruption and make it
difficult for the regime to find the resources to deal
with such politically less significant issues as alcohol-
ism and health care. As a result, the economy is
central to achievement of the regime's goals, mainte-
nance of popular support, and control of many end,---
ic social problems. 25X1
25X1
The regime, to judge from its actions, does not view
many of these social ills as politically important. The
leaders may also feel that if they get the economy
moving, even the endemic social problems could be
better controlled. 25X1
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The regime has, from its inception, been very sensitive
to the nationality dimension in Soviet politics, and its
carrot-and-stick approach has generally been applied
most effectively. Today, for example, there is no
widespread, politically disruptive protest or nationalist
dissent among the Soviet nationalities. Moreover, it is
difficult to envision any serious political difficulty for
the regime in this area in the near term. Although
demographic trends and regime economic policies
could exacerbate ethnic tensions in the Baltics and
produce sporadic violence, Baltic grievances have
little impact elsewhere in the USSR, can be con-
trolled, and, if necessary, suppressed.
Over the long term, however, the nationality problem
will assume much greater importance and become a
potentially significant vulnerability. Demographic
trends, for example, will have the greatest impact in
the next few decades, adversely impacting on labor
distribution and probably increasing conflict over
regional resource allocation-developments that will
heighten nationality tensions. Thus, the regime's pres-
ently rather successful approach toward dealing with
Soviet nationalities will come under increased strain
in the decades ahead, and it will require more adroit
handling and perhaps changes in policies.
The regime treats any political challenge to its inter-
nal authority seriously. Although dissent in the Soviet
Union does not constitute a threat to the regime, the
regime goes to considerable effort to make sure the
dissident movement remains impotent. Thus far the
Soviet leadership has been very successful in isolating
and repressing political, religious, and cultural dissent
through widespread arrest and imprisonment of dissi-
dent leaders, confinement in psychiatric hospitals, and
exile. Over the next decade or so the dissident move-
ment has little prospect for developing a sufficiently
broad social base to challenge the regime. In the long
term, however, dissidence could become more wide-
spread-because of dissatisfaction with living stand-
ards, a continuing decline in ideological commitment,
and an apparent resurgence of interest in religious
faith.
Coping With Problems:
Present Policy and Future Options
From the perspective of the Soviet leadership, eco-
nomic difficulties impact on the entire range of.social
problems that it must manage. Unless it can find a
successful economic strategy, there is every likelihood
that economic growth will stagnate, consumer frustra-
tions will grow, ethnic tensions will intensify, and 25X1
discontent will become more threatening.
The Brezhnev regime, although concerned about the
economy, apparently believed its course would be
successful over the long run and felt no need to alter
it. Although the new Soviet leadership would proba-
bly prefer to continue Brezhnev's course for a while
(and has so far signaled its intention to do so), it is not
likely to have this luxury for very long. Reduced
economic growth-between I and 2 percent for this
decade-will probably compel the new leaders to
consider other options more seriously. The Politburo
will have to deal more directly with whether:
? Changes must be made in resource allocation strate-
gy that now favors defense and consumption over
investment.
? Serious management reform should be undertaken
that allows some decentralization, increased use of
material incentives, and a greater role for market
forces.
? More draconian and orthodox measures would rein-
still discipline in society and stimulate more produc-
tive labor.
? The regime should fall back on its Slavic base and
raise the banner of Russian nationalism as the basis
for political legitimacy.
These choices and other related ones are interdepend-
ent and define two broad policy directions future
Soviet leaders are likely to consider. A reformist
package would probably involve:
? Diversion of funds away from defense budget
growth to investment and, possibly, consumption.
? Movement toward greater decentralization in eco-
nomic management (perhaps including greater reli-
ance on market mechanisms to move resources and
labor).
? More political and cultural decentralization along 25X1
nationality lines.
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No Soviet leadership has permitted such a permissive
course. The regime could opt, on the other hand, for a
more draconian approach that emphasized discipline,
sacrifice, and order. This path in its extreme form
would probably lead to:
? Continued high priority for military spending.
? A shift in allocations away from consumption to-
ward investment.
? Much greater discipline in the workplace.
? Linkage of pay to work and performance and
perhaps increased sanctions against absenteeism
and idleness.
? Even more centralization of power in Moscow.
? Forced migration of labor and a more assertive
reliance on Russian nationalism to generate political
legitimacy.
These policies could also be coupled with a return to a
form of one-man rule as well. Such a choice would
require a commitment to use harsh measures to
repress the popular backlash and discontent that it
would be likely to generate.
Both options entail significant risks and uncertainties,
but both would probably address some of the prob-
lems the regime faces. A tilt in favor of the consumer
and economic reform, for example, might address
some of the root causes of the social malaise, spur
higher productivity, strengthen popular support for
the regime, and make societal problems more man-
ageable. At the same time such a course could
initially be both economically and socially disruptive.
Economic managers would lack clear and consistent
guidance for their decisions, and workers would be
forced to accept a greater measure of responsibility
for their livelihood. The authoritarian approach, on
the other hand, would increase control and preserve
the regime's resource allocation preferences at the
expense of a deepening social malaise, declining pro-
ductivity, possibly declining economic growth, and
perhaps the exacerbation of ethnic tensions.
Given the political realities-the controversy sur-
rounding either program and the difficulty reaching
consensus-some middle-range course involving ele-
ments of both options could be adopted. Various
economic reform measures might be coupled, and are
consistent, with a more demanding attitude toward
work; defense spending growth could be cut back at
the margin; and heavy investments in agriculture
might no longer be favored (such investment had
depended on Brezhnev's strong support). Investment
to spur long-term heavy industrial growth-the key to
economic revival-would get additional funds. F
It is by no means certain which course or combination
of policies the new leadership will adopt. Too little is
known about its own preferences, perceptions of c25X1
rent problems, and the impact that succession poli-
ticking will have on its deliberations.
however, many middle-level officials long
greater discipline and order are sorely needed. A 25X1
policy slant in this direction, thus, would seem more
likely. As the new leadership consolidates its position
and as younger officials enter the secondary ranks of
the Politburo, we should get some clues as to the new
leaders' perceptions of the problem and the course
that has the greatest support.
Implications for US Policy
25X1
25X1
US and other Western influence on the evolution of
the Soviet political system and its internal policies is
quite limited. The forces supporting "liberalization"
are weak and will probably become a factor only in
the very long term. Moreover, despite the evident
weaknesses of the system, Soviet history demonstrates
that the regime can still call upon deep patriotic roots.
It can probably also count on continued relative
passivity of the population, particularly to external
appeals. 25X1
Western policies, nonetheless, may be able to exacer-
bate continuing Soviet weaknesses. Although trade
does not determine Soviet internal policy, its denial
could force more difficult resource allocation choices
on the leadership, making it pay a higher domestic
price in terms of quality of life to continue the present
priority for defense or leading it to some cutback in
the rate of military growth. Western trade, in addi-
tion, would probably be essential to any major effort
at economic reform. The attraction some Western 25X1
values hold for the Soviet people, moreover, can
probably be marginally exploited to increase popular
pressure on the regime, but the regime's reaction
would be likely to be more harsh repression.
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Approved For Release 2008/08/22 : CIA-RDP83T00853R000200180002-4
Approved For Release 2008/08/22 : CIA-RDP83T00853R000200180002-4