GENERATIONAL CHANGE IN THE USSR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T01145R000200280012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 53
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: November 1, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

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MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for Intelligence
THRU: Acting Director of Soviet Analysis
FROM:
Chief, National Issues Group
Office of Soviet Analysis
SUBJECT: Generational Change in the USSR
You and possibly the DDCI might be interested in the
results of a recently held conference on generational change
in the USSR. Our approach was to match a generational change
specialist - -with a Sovietologist-~
~--to see whether generational change analysis could
be rigorously applied to the Soviet case. The 0 paper,
which compares the Soviet situation with generational change
in western Europe, is particularly enlightening in this
regard.
I would draw your attention to the attached Memorandum
for the Record. It contains a number of salient points along
with avenues for future research.
7cy1
25X1
25X1
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29 October 1986
SUBJECT: SOVA/Leadership Politics Branch Conference on Generational
Change
1. On 24 October the Leadership Politics Branch conducted an in-house
seminar on the implications of generational change in the Soviet elit
During the morning session papers we commissioned by E
~
25X1
of Emory University and of the National War College
25X1
were presented. of Harvard University commented
25X1
on both papers. At the afternoon session we discussed the policy
implications of generational change. The seminar was attended by analysts
and managers from NIG and OLDA's USSR-EE and Political Psychology Divisions.
2. The morning moved from a review of the papers to a more general
discussion of what constitutes a generation and whether studying
generational factors can help us better understand Soviet policy. Several
key points were raised that will be important to consider as we analyze the
Soviet leadership over the next several years:
--Given the long period of domination by the Brezhnev generation and
the rapid shift to younger leaders now taking place, generational
factors are probably a very important influence on the behavior of
Soviet elites and will likely play an increasingly important role in
the years ahead as additional members of Gorbachev's age cohort
take over top positions. estimated that it will be 25X1
another 5 to 7 years before Gorbachev's generation fully takes over.
--The characteristics of a generation are usually formed between the
ages of 15 and 25. Therefore Gorbachev may belong to a younger
generation than many other top Soviet leaders who are in their 60's
(such as Ligachev) and form a "transitional generation" between
Gorbachev's and Brezhnev's.
--More attention should be paid to the younger generation of leaders
coming up behind Gorbachev that is now in its 30's. It is the first
'Soviet generation that has not directly experienced the traumas of
World War II or Stalin and grown up in a period of relative prosperity.
It may well be an increasingly importance source of pressure for
change.
--A strong leader, like Gorbachev, can have much more impact shaping
the views of younger generations, still in their formative years.
--These factors--the passing of the older and transitional generations,
pressure for change from younger generation, and Gorbachev's ability to
shape youngest generation--suggest that generational factors may have a
snowballing effect and increasingly impact on Soviet policymaking over
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CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: Conference on Generational Change
the next 15 years.
Page 2.
--The effect of generational change at the top is less than on society
as a whole since bureaucracies tend to have a "homogenizing" effect on
the elite, making generation differences less of a factor at higher
levels.
--Generational factors are more likely to affect the decisionmaking
style of leaders than their values.
3. The Gorbachev Generation. In the afternoon we discussed the
characteristics of the Gorbachev generation and their likely impact on
policymaking. We tried to distinguish between characteristics we attribute
to Gorbachev and those that are generally shared by his generation. We came
up with a list of several characteristics that appear to describe
Gorbachev's generation in comparison to Brezhnev's:
--More secure and self-confident. They have grown up in a period of
major Soviet successes and feel their security is less threatened.
--More pragmatic. They are less bound by traditional ideological
considerations and more willing to find ideological justifications for
the policies they want to pursue.
--More materialist. They are less committed to the egalitarianism and
equal treatment for all and aspire to a higher standard of living for
themselves.
--Less committed to the status quo. They are less responsible for
current policies, thus are more willing to reject them if they are not
working.
--Higher Standards. They tend to measure Soviet performance against
world standards, not the hard times of the post-revolutionary period.
If these are indeed the characteristics of the up and coming generation
it would appear that they will help Gorbachev in his efforts to restructure
the domestic economy, make increased use of material incentives, and make
officials more accountable for performance.
.4. Due to the lack of data on the attitudes of different Soviet
generations all participants agreed that our conclusions are highly
speculative. Even for Western Europe where much more data are available,
specialists have found it extremely difficult to do productive research on
generational differences within elite groups. Participants agreed that
there does not appear to be any path of research on Soviet elites that is
likely to answer the questions raised at the session. Nevertheless, we did
discuss some areas where further research might be useful:
--Making better use of the Soviet Interview Project (SIP) to study
generational differences.
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CONFIDENTIAL Page 3.
SUBJECT: Conference on Generational Change
--Conducting surrogate interviews--along the lines of work at
USIA--that are designed to study generational differences.
--A study of generational factors among non-Russian nationalities.
No work has been done in this area and given the demographic trends
in the Soviet Union it appears to be a subject that is at least worth
thinking about.
--Do a content analysis of the speeches and articles of members of the
elite under Gorbachev. Due to increased openness in the Soviet media
such a study might be more productive than previous work in this area.
5. The possibility of making better use of SIP material appears to be
the best option for further research on generational factors. We plan to
look into the possibility of a project drawing on this material.
6. In all, the papers and conference succeeded in stimulating our
thinking on generational issues and gave us additional factors to consider
as we look at Soviet elite behavior in the years ahead.
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A GENERATIONAL APPROACH TO POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE USSR
National War College
POLITICAL SUCCESSION AND POLITICAL GENERATIONS
The Soviet Union and its East European satelites have
embarked upon the most significant period of leadership
change since the death of Stalin. What distinguishes this
period of. change from those of the past three decades is
that the leadership succession of the 1980 s is also a
generational changing of the guard.
The impact of this change has been magnified by the
long tenure in power of a generation now in its seventies
and late sixties, a stagnation associated with the
"stability of cadres" policy of the Brezhnez era. The
process begun in the USSR with the accession of the
Gorbachev leadership is sure to follow soon in the GDR,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.
In all these states the top leaders have been in power
from at least fifteen years up to over thirty years. The top
leaders of the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and
Bulgaria were all born between 1911 and 1918. A look: at the
Politburos (including candidate members) reveals that in
1985 leaders of Gorbachev's age or younger (born 1931 or
later) comprised 3 of 25 in the GDR, 1 of 14 in
Czechoslovakia, 1 of 13 in Hungary, none of 8 in Romania and
7 of 17 in Bulgaria. Only in Poland with the relatively
youthful Jaruzelsk:i (b.1923) was generational change far
STAT
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along (10 of the 21 Politburo and candidate members being
born 1931 or later).
This stagnation means that the new leaders will be
substantially younger than those who they are replacing, in
-most cases a generation younger. This large age gap also
reflects a generation gap as well. The emerging leaders are
not simply different chronologically but in terms of their
historical memories. They will be the first group of
leaders to not have been decisively shaped by World War II
or by Stalin. They mark the beginning of the post-post war
era in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Their interlocutors in
the West are also from the post war generations.
This paper will address the implications of this
generational sea change in the Soviet leadership in
particular. It is written by someone who is not a Soviet
specialist but who has examined the impact of generational
change in Western Europe. Its purpose will be to alert
Soviet specialists to the types of questions to ask in
assessing generational change in the USSR. It will state
the questions and some of the answers to them found in
research in Western Europe and will offer some speculations
on the USSR based on this experience. If it is successful
it will serve as a heuristic device for those with detailed
knowledge in Soviet politics and will open areas of fruitful
inquiry. It is accompanied by a paper by a Soviet
specialist which looks at the generational issue in the
Soviet context.
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KEY ASSUMPTIONS AND QUESTIONS OF A GENEF,AT'IONAL APPROACH TO
POLITICAL CHANGE
The origins of modern generational explanations of
.political change can be traced back to the work of Karl
Mannheim in the 1930 s. The approach rests on a number of
assumptions.
First, golitical generations will emerge in researnse to
either dramatic historical events or a radically changing
-------- ---------- ------ -- - --------
social context. Generations are distinguished from
different age cohorts in that age differences are associated
with sharp breaks in historical memories, assumptions,
values and attitudes. Generations do not refer simply to
genealogical difference but rather to ideological
differences associated with age and experience. Thus in
periods of slow social change unmarked by dramatic
historical events the passing of power from one genealogical
generation to another can not be defined as the transition
from one political generation to another. The new elite
willl simply share the same assumptions and perspective of
the outgoing one.
Political or intellectual generations are the result of
historical and social discontinuities so sharp that the
experience and values of the preceding generation are not
seen any longer as relevant to the new generation, creating
generation gaps.
Second, generations are shaped during the Frey formative
years of life when people are the most impressionable and
open to change. Most studies of political socialization
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identify these years as being between the fifteenth and
twenty fifth years. This is the age when politics begin to
directly impinge on a young person's life. It is during
this stage that he or she enters the university and is
confronted by political subjects and it is when males become
eligible for military service.
The generational approach assumes that once basic
values are formed they are unlikely to be substantially
altered. Subsequent political events are likely to be
viewed through the prism shaped during the early adult
years.
Third, what constitutes a dramatic formative event may
be difficult to define. Most analysts rely on macro
historical analysis, singling out major historical events
such as wars, depressions and political revolutions and then
deducing their implications. Micro analysis at the
individual personality level depends heavily on survey
research and elite interviews, data difficult to come by in
the Soviet system.
Wars remain the single most dramatic defining
historical event for a generation as it is the one most
likely to politically mobilize a collectivity. Other system
shaking events involving rapid and radical changes in
economic and political conditions such as depressions,
revolutions or purges are also likely to create generations.
Generations may also he shaped not by a single event
but rather by a rapidly altered socio-economic environment
which sets it off from the older generation. The rapid
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social and economic change of the European Economic Miracles
of the 1950 s and 1960 s fostered substantial value change
so that the generation of the 1960 s was in many .ways cut
off from the generation of the Great Depression.
Fourth, the size of a cohort also plays a role in
shaping generational consciousness and impact. As a rule,
the larger the size of a cohort relative to that of others,
the more likely it is that the cohort will develop a sense
of generational awareness and the more extensive its impact
on society. A recent example is the postwar baby boom
generation in the West.
Fifth, a key assumption is that a generation is
"represented" by a generation unit or units which shape
generational consciousness and "speak" for a. generation.
Generational approaches are elitist, they stress the
role of minorities in shaping political change. They assume
that although not all members of an age cohort may react the
same way to a formative event, an elite segment of that
generation will through its influence, shape and articulate
the generation's interpretation of the meaning of the event.
It is this aspect of the approach which is promising in
terms of understanding Soviet political change. The
centralized elite of the USSR makes- the problem of elite
identification easier. In addition, the impact of elites
much greater than in democratic systems.
In Western research a generation unit
defined as either the best educated portion of the
generation, i.e. the university educated, or that segment of
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the generation either in leadership positions or likely to
selected for leadership. As-the university educated group
.has increased in relative and absolute size in the postwar
period, it has become more socially heterogeneous and thus
more difficult to judge which segment is likely to emerge as
influential.
The expansion of the university segment has tended to
foster a split between the cultural intelligensia and the
political elite. Research on public opinion in Western
Europe and the US has indicated that the views of the better
educated can be good barometers of long term change although
their views differ from those more engaged in politics. It
may be useful to think of multiple generation units in those
cases where politically divergent interpretations of a
historical event emerge.
POLITICAL GENERATIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE
Generations are defined by national historical
experience and consequently diversity characterizes
political generations in Europe. Political generations are
most distinctive in those nations which have experienced the
most dramatic historical discontinuities.
The impact of wars varies from country to country with
WWII having the most decisive effect in West Germany and
Italy and the least in Britain and France. Spain, for
example, defines its generations in reference to the
Spainish Civil War and not to WWII.
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Similarly, the legacy of postwar economic growth and
value change has been most apparent in West-Germany and
Italy and weakest in Britain.
In summary, political generations seem to be the most
distinctive in the Federal Republic and Italy (and in Spain
because of the end of the Franca regime) and the least
distinctive in Britain, with France in the middle of the
spectrum.
There are four political generations in contemporary
Europe which have an impact on contemporary politics:
The Interwar Generation: Born between 1905 and 1915
and comprising 11% of the population of Europe in 1980 this
generation was shaped by the Great Depression and the rise
of Fascism. It was this group that won or last the war and
became decisive in constructing the postwar world, a cohort
preoccupied with Hitler and the lessons of appeasement. It
no longer plays a leadership role in European politics.
The World War II Generation: Born between 1920 and
1930 and comprising 12% of the population in 1980 this group
came of age during the war and was shaped decisively by it.
It along with the next generation was preoccupied with
rebuilding their countries after the war and enjoying the
fruits of the economic recovery. This generation includes
Helmut Schmidt, Francois Mitterrand, James Callaghan, Edward
Heath and the leaders of the 19701s. It had faded from
power by the early 1980's (with the notable exception of
Mitterrand).
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The Reconstruction Generation: Born between 1930 and
1940 and comprising 12% of the 1980 population, this was the
generation of the Flak:: Helpers in Germany, too young to have
played a major role in the war and shaped by the devastation
of the postwar period and the confrontation of the Cold War.
The current generation of leaders such as Thatcher, Kohl,
Rau, Craxi, Rocard and Chirac come from this cohort. A
generation of materialists and centrists, shaped by
"Butskillism" or consensus politics, which compromised
between capitalism and welfarism, a generation of social
democrats. (Here Thatcher is an obvious and important
exception in her distain for centrism but not in her
materialism). Atlanticists (except in France) who
identified the United States with power and economic
dynamism.
The Vietnam Generation: Born between 1945 and 1955 and
comprising 15% of the population in 1980, the large baby
boom generation. The critical formative event for this
cohort was 1968, the large scale student demonstrations
against the U.S. role in Vietnam. This too, place in the
context of an affluent society, a context radically
different from that which shaped the previous two
generations.
The rapidly changing economic environment and the
expansion of educational opportunities produced a generation
gap in values. The postwar group shaped by the
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international stability produced by detente in Europe and by
the economic security of the Economic MirAcles reacted to
the centrism and materialism of the preceding generations..
It became a generation of the new left, reacting to the
Grand Coalition in Germany, de Gaulle in France, the
Christian Democrats in Italy and Franco in Spain. In
Britain the change was less dramatic.
Thus the key factors shaping this group in the
universities were international and domestic stability and
the large relative size of the cohort. The affluent society
and the quiet international scene, at least in Europe,
contrasted sharpely with the formative experience of the two
preceding generations.
This generation will provide the leaders of the 1990`s
and includes LaFontaine, Schroeder, Voight, Ruhe and
Wissmann in West Germany, F?,innockk and David Owen in Britain,
Gonzalez in Spain and Fabius in France.
The Generation of the 1970's: Born after 1960 with its
adult portion comprising about BY. of the population in 1980,
this cohort is smaller than the preceding one. It is too
soon to tell how distinctive this group will be. It has
come of age in an environment of increased East-West
tension, of growing economic insecurity and in a period of
technological pessimism.
Lacking a consistent political profile it has
tended somewhat toward the right in Scandinavia and the Low
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Countries, toward the Socialists in France` and toward the
Greens and the SPD in the Federal Republic...
It is probable that this group will form part of the
larger postwar generation given its relatively small size
-and the general sharing of key values with the preceding
group. It may become a lost generation.
C. POLITICAL GENERATIONS IN THE SOVIET UNION
Given this generational profile of Western Europe, how
does the Soviet Union look in terms of political
generations? There are currently two generations of
interest in the Soviet Union, the Brezhnev generation and
the Gorbachev generation. There is as well, a transitional
group in between which is probably not distinctive enough to
be set aside as a generation. There is also the generation
of the 1960 s which is still far from the seats of power but
may be important to the Gorbachev generation as a source of
support for a reform policy.
The Brezhnev generation was born in the decade before
World War I. It is quickely fading from the scene as
Gorbachev moves to replace them. The last remaining
representative of this group in the Politburo is Gromyk::o.
It is the same generation that remains in control of the
East European states with the exception of Poland. Its
counterpart in Western Europe, the Interwar Generation, has
long ago left the positions of political influence.
If we assume that the formative years for this
generation occured between their fifteenth and twenty-fifth
years this would imply that they were shaped between 1925
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and 1940. If Bialer's classification (Stalin's Successors)
of an elite generation is accepted then th'e'crucial
formative years would be those coincident with their entry
into the CPSU, their recruitment into a bureaucratic
hierarchy or the assumption of an executive position. This
could push the formative years back somewhat, depending on
the individual.
The Brezhnev coalition shared the experience of the
great instabilities of the the Purges and Terror and the
Great Patriotic War. Arising from peasant and proletarian
origins with minimal technical educations, these groups
sought stability and incrementalist growth. Their task was
to consolidate after these great upheavals both the
achievements of the Soviet state and their own personal
positions.
The yardstick for these groups was the turmoil and
threat of the 1930`s and 1940`s and they measured
accomplishment by reference to this past. Risks were to be
minimized or avoided, stability and control was-to have
priority over efficiency and the prospects of great leaps
forward. Reform and innovation were seen as threats rather
than as opportunities. Their painful experience with the
costs of originality or dissent during Stalin's rule
reinforced their aversion to risk. Khruschev's "hare
brained schemes" and his great gamble in Cuba in 1962 were
viewed as the greatest dangers to the Soviet state.
They tool:: great pride in building the USSR into a
superpower and strove to gain American recognition of this
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status. Their insecurity about the Soviet: position in the
world stemmed from their close call with defeat in World War
II. Their continued concern, perhaps obsession, with
Germany for decades after the division of Germany was
evidence of this insecurity as was their growing sense of a
Chinese threat. Their continued willingness to use military
force if necessary to maintain the East European buffer from
the West is another example.
The Brezhnev generation, while recognizing the
shortcomings of the Soviet economy, continued to use as its
reference point the deprivations of the 1930 s and 1940 s.
The rapid growth of the Soviet economy in the 1950 s and
1960 s and the slow but steady rise in the standard of
living allowed for a complacency fed by the fear of the
destabilizing possibilities of reform.
The pre-Stalin Generation dominated for as long as it
did in part because the cohorts which preceded and followed
( the Great Purge Generation, the War Generation and the
Late Stalin Generation in Bialer`s terms) were either
coopted or decimated by the Purge and the war.
makes sense to speak of a generational
pre and post-Stalin generations.
The Gorbachev gener_Ation
dividing line between
experienced
its formative
years in the 1946-1956 period if,those years are defined as
being between the ages of 15 and 25. If Bialer's definition
is used, the formative years come somewhat later, in their
early 20's to their early 30's. This would place the focus
on the period 1951-1961, making this group part of the post
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Stalin generation in Bialer's classification and of the
postwar generation in Hough's. ' ?.
This generation is more middle class than the preceding
ones, more highly educated and technocratic. Its' crucial
'formative experience was Khruschev's anti Stalin campaign
and the air of reform and change after decades of orthodoxy.
It is materialist and careerist, raised on the cult of
professionalism and elitism. It is nationalist as well
taking the Soviet state for granted and impatient
with its inadequacies. It is a large cohort held back: by
Brezhnev's "stability of cadres" policy with its emphasis on
incrementalism, predictability and stability.
It is a generation less concerned about stability as
Brezhnev's was and more impatient with the technological
inadequacies of the system. It is likely to take more risks
at home and abroad. It is likely to wish to emulate the
promised dynamism of Khruschev without the latter's populist
peasant accent. In many respects this new generation
resembles the Reconstruction generation of Western Europe,
technocratic, non-ideological, reform minded and
materialist.
This generation then has been motivated by discontent
with the stagnation of the Soviet economy and of the party
accentuated by, a heightened appetite for power after
waiting too long for responsibility coupled with a distain
for the Brezhnev generation.
Gaining acceptance as a Great Power probably means
less to this group given that it matured in the past Cuban
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Missile Crisis era end has only known the USSR as a
superpower. It is likely to be a more self confident
generation taking the institutionalization of the Soviet
state for granted but yet aware of its economic and
technological deficiencies and their link to global
competition. It will remain sensitive to being treated as a
second class superpower in the West, and was embarassed by
the senile leadership and image of the late 197O's and early
1980's. ?It has probably been struck by the implications of
the Solidarity challenge to a moribund party in Poland.
The contrasts between these two generations is
reinforced by the size of the incoming leadership group and
its long time on the fringes of power. The new leaders
resemble American leaders in the Kennedy years, coming in
after years of old leaders and what they saw as stagnation.
The new group is likely to be more risk taking and
innovative and more future oriented than the past generation
of Soviet leaders.
In addition to Gorbachev, other new Soviet leaders of
this generation include Ryzhov (56), Medvedev (56), Nikonov
(56) as well as Yeltsin and Yakovlev. The group of leaders
in their sixties, Ligachev, Zaik(Jv and Chebrikov, fall in
between the two larger generations.
LIMITATIONS TO A GENERATIONAL APPROACH
----------- -- - ------------ Generational approaches have generated increasing
interest in the West because of the growing sense that the
Vietnam generation is on the verge of corning into power and
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that its values and perspectives represent a break from the
postwar consensus. It will be the first clearly postwar
generation in Western Europe. Yet most analyses and
critiques of the approach conclude that generation is only
one factor in the equation. Clearly partisan affiliation,
educational level, occupation and other factors must be
included in any analysis.
In the Soviet case a number of factors are likely to
diminish the impact of the generational factor. The most
important is the all pervasive role of the CPSU in the
socialization and recruitment of elites. It is important to
note that the Gorbachev generation has come to power at the
same age that the Brezhnev generation gained control of the
Soviet state. This means that they have spent a good deal
of time being socialized into the folkways of the party and
their promotion has been monitored by the Brezhnev cadres.
As Elizabeth Teague has noted,
the data suggest that forces for stability and
continuity remain strong and continue-to determine
the way in which the mature Soviet system selects
and grooms candidates for high office. On present
evidence it does not appear that Gorbachev's new
team is made up of men who arrived at their posts
any faster than their predecessors or by
significantly different routes. On the contrary,
they are in many striking ways very similar to
those they have replaced. (Radio Liberty Reseal_Ch
Bulletin, July (3, 1986)
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Beissinger has also raised this issue`in his analysis
of generational cleavages in the USSR. (Mark.Beissinger," In
Search of Generations in Soviet Politics", Warld?Politics,
(January 1986) :290) He argues that the important. issue is
not whether generational differences in attitudes exist, but
whether an elite running a highly centralized and
well organized political system can transcend
those generational cleavages... whether it is
capable of coopting members of the younger
generation who reproduce its values and outlooks
to prevent generation from becoming a major source
of cleavage within the elite itself.
As Beissinger notes, the key question is whether the
political controls of the Soviet system are capable of
counteracting the impact of formative experiences or whether
individual members of the elite carry with them
into their elite positions differences in
perspectives based on their specific generational
experiences despite the regime's efforts to
prevent this from happening?
In this respect the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
differ from Western Europe. The circulation of elites due
to competing political parties and elections allows
generational cleavages greater opportunities for expression
in the political system. The closest analogy to the CPSU
would be the elite bureaucracies of Western Europe. The
work of Ezra Suleiman on the French bureaucracy, for
example, suggests the impact of a cohesive bureaucracy on
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recruits. He found that the few working class French able
to enter the bureaucratic elite shifted their attitudes to
conform to the dominant milieu. (Powers Politics and
8Ltreaucracy in France).
The implications of this argument will be discussed in
the concluding section, but it does not dismiss the impact
of generational change, it just implies that the new elite
is likely to be as attached to the maintenance of its status
and the party which guarantees it as were its predecessors.
A second limitation on the impact of generational
change is diversity within the elite, both across
generations and within them. The changing of the guard is
moving at a rapid pace but there will remain substantial
opposition from older groups still in the system as well as
from segments of the Gorbachev generation which differ
because of regional, bureaucratic and other factors from the
views of the generation unit. The degree of generational
cohesiveness among the elite generation is still not known.
An important question to address is whether one.can spear:: of
general agreement between Gorbachev, Ryzhkov and the other
leaders of the generation.
Finally, generational analyses are limited by the data
problem and the gap between attitudes and behavior. Most
analyses in the West rely upon survey research , elite
interviews and elite background studies. These studies
reveal some important age related differences between the
general public and the better educated portions of the
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public, but there have been few studies which have dealt
with the degree of difference between old 'and new elites.
Even if these data were available the further problem
remains that attitudes and preferences do not necessarily
predict behavior. A number of important environmental
constraints can intervene. Thus a new generation of leaders
may wish to move in a certain direction but can be
constrained by resource limitations, resistance from the
public or other elites and constraints from the
international environment to name only a few.
Having listed these limitations and cautioning that
generational change is only one factor in a complex
equation, it is highly probable that generational change
will be a significant factor in the Gorbachev era. This is
likely because of the sharp breaks in historical and social
experience between the new and old leaderships, the
excessively long tenure of the old guard which resulted in a
twenty year drop in the age of leaders, the large size of
the Gorbachev cohort and the potential for change directed
by an elite generation in a Leninist state. The new
generation comes to power at a time when the nature of the
problems facing the USSR are reaching a crucial stage and
Would have to be addressed by any leadership.
IMPLICATIONS AND SPECULATIONS
In this concluding section a number of speculations
about the policy impact of generational change will be
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offered. They remain speculations because of the lack of a
data base to act as a foundation for more informed analysis.
In the case of research into generational change in Western
Europe and the United States a wide range of surveys and
studies exist on the nature and impact of age upon political
attitudes. The best that is available in the Soviet context
is a collection of emigre interviews, analyses of speeches
and social backgrounds and informed guesses as to the impact
of historical experience upon cohorts. A record of behavior
of the Gorbachev leadership is beginning to emerge as well,
and it is that which offers the best evidence of the
importance and limitations of generational change.
Secondly, these speculations can be helpful in
constructing null hypotheses. If they prove to be wrong the
alternate view that the impact of generations is
uriconsequential will have to be accepted.
Finally, these views are offered by someone who is a
specialist in West European, not Soviet, politics.
The discussion of implications will begin with a
consideration of areas of likely continuity and then will
move into those in which change is more likely to be more
pronounced. The most obvious area of continuity will be the
new generation's commitment to maintain the leading role of
the CPSU in the USSR, including the leading role of
Russians, and the superpower status of the Soviet Unions
including the maintenance of Soviet hegemony in Eastern
Europe.
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The new leaders are Russians and nationalists. They
are unlikely to be more willing to share power with the
other Soviet nationalities than the group they are
replacing. While perhaps less ideological than earlier
cadres the Gorbachev generation is acutely aware that their
status and future prospects rest upon the continued
domination of the CPSLI. They are unlikely to be, therefore,
tolerant of dissidents or opposition. The quick: rebuff to
Pravda' s
reprinting of a letter complaining about the
special shops and other elite priviledges is an indication
that the'new leaders are just as wedded to their status as
the Brezhnev group.
Similarly in the foreign policy arena, there is no
reason to believe from the new leadership's behavior in
Eastern Europe that it is any less jealous of its
perogatives than previous Soviet elites. The firm snub of
Kadar's efforts to act as an" elder statesman paternally
accepting Gorbachev into the family" at a Warsaw Pact summit
illustrates the point. (Vladimir Kusin, "Gorbachev and
Eastern Europe", Problems of Communism, Jan/Feb, 1986, p.
Yet within even these obvious continuities a new
approach is already apparent. This. new generational style
can be characterized by pragmatism, a greater degree of
openness, self-confidence and dynamism. What is most
striking is the swiftness that Gorbachev and his associates
have moved to replace the old guard. As Archie Brown has
noted, by this spring twelve of the top twenty-seven leaders
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had been already replaced. These changes were most notable
in the foreign policy and agriculture sectors. Change at
the top has been mirrored by change in the Central Committee
and the ministires. (Archie Brown, "Change in the Soviet
Union", Foreign Affairs, Summer 1986)
The rapidity of change has been accompanied by a new
style which encourages criticism and sees complacency as a
major problem. As Bialer has argued, the old generation was
incrementalist and measured progress by how much things had
changed from the past rather than by how much still remains
to be done. Much as Kennedy promised to get the country
moving again after a period of old leadership, the new
Soviet generation is clearly impatient after years spent in
the antechambers of power. It is impatient as well because
it is more self-confident about the stability and
predictability of the Soviet state. At the same time it is
unhappy with the state of the economy because its standard
of comparison is not that of the pre-war period, but rather
that of the thaw and rapid growth followed by the stagnation
of the 1970 s.
Again this impatience in the economic realm is clearly
closer to Andropov's approach, that is one of making the
system work better without restructuring it. This is clear
from the official reaction of the new Soviet leadership to
the reform course in Hungary which has been characterized as
one of qualified acceptance. The new leaders have indicated
they might take parts of the Hunagarian innovations while
making it clear that the overall refomist course will not be
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endorsed for either the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. (see
The openness of the new leaders to larger changes if
the more incremental approach fails remains likely. The
-pion-ideological approach characterized by Gorbachev's
failure to visit Marx's grave during his visit to Britain
indicates a willingness to try other approaches so long as
they do not compromise CPSU control.
It is in the foreign policy arena where the new
generation's impact may be the most profound. Research in
Western Europe has indicated a general decline in perception
of threat in those generations furthest from the experience
of World War II. It needs to be kept in mind, however, that
the Europeans no longer think: of themselves as Great Powers
and their attitudes are shaped by feelings of dependency and
limited autonomy not likely to be found among the population
of a superpower.
Yet it is quite likely that the post-Stalin generation
has a different perception of threat from the preceding
elite. The Brezhnev generation was fixated by the German
threat because of its experience in World War II. This fear
tempered its policies toward Western and Eastern Europe
after the war and resulted in a grudging acceptance of the
US role in Europe, in part because the Americans could Z,ct
as a check on German power.
It is quite likely that the new generation's view is
less apprehensive. The new leadership grew up with a divided
Germany. It looks at the GDR as a permanent and stable
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state, and one which is the keystone of the Warsaw Fact. It
is unlikely to view reunification as an option in return for
a neutralized Germany. The view of the FRG has been shaped
,as much by OsteolitiE and detente as by fascism or the Gold
War. While the threat of German revaunchism will remain a
useful tool in Soviet dealings with Eastern Europe,
especially Poland, it is likely to be taken less seriously.
This opens up new possibilities in Western Europe for
Soviet policy. The Soviets may be less concerned about the
possibility of American withdrawal from Europe and more
willing to drive wedges between the US and the FRG. It is
not a foregone conclusion that the new Soviet leaders will
be less fixated on the US, but the YaFtavlev-Dobrynin team
indicates that alternatives to the bipolar approach are
being actively considered.
It is quite possible that Western Europe will take on a
greater importance on its own in Soviet eyes over the next
decade. The new Soviet team dealing with propaganda is
appreciably more sophisticated in its approach to Western
opinion. With the accession of the post-Stalin generation
the Soviet leadership is back in the generational mainstream
of European leadership. The new Soviet leaders are of the
same age group as that of the leaders of Western Europe and
share many of the same experiences. Gorbachev's fregUent
trips to the West and his willingness to open himself to
press conferences and other confrontations with a critical
public are indicators of a new flexibility and
self-confidence.
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Given the importance of economic renewal to the new
leaders, Western technology is likely to strenghten their
interest in the region. In short Western Europe will be
.seen more as an opportunity than a threat.
In conclusion, generational change in the Soviet Union
should be taken seriously by American policy makers. It
will be more dangerous to overestimate the force of
continuity than to overestimate the forces of change. The
Rek javik:: summit indicated the dangers of underestimating the
openness of the new Soviet leadership and its willingness to
innovate. Similarly in Europe, it would be a miscalculation
to assume that the Soviets will continue to shoot themselves
in the foot. The US is now confronted by a new generation
of Soviet leadership which is likely to be the most
formidable one it has yet faced.
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Soviet Political Change and the Gorbachev Generation
Department of Political Science
Emory : University
Atlanta, GA 30322
1. Generations in Soviet Politics
The election of a new Central Committee at the 27th Party
Congress culminated a period of high turnover in the Soviet
leadership that has brought about a marked rejuvenation. Nearly
half of the 1981 Central Committee full members were 63 years old
and older. Only 40% of the 1986 Central Committee are 61 and older.
Those born between 1926 and 1936 now account for 134 of the 307
full members elected in 1986 (43.5%). The same cohort had only 79
members of the 1981 Central Committee (24.8%). Representation of
the "Brezhnev generation" (born in the decade of 1900-1909)
declined by an even greater magnitude. From 43 full members in
1981 (13.5%), this cohort dropped to 11 members in 1986 (3.6%).1
Among current provincial 1st secretaries whose birthyears are
known, those appointed from 1983 on are, on average, four years
younger than those appointed earlier. The average birthyear for the
post-1982 appointees is 1932. That for the pre-1983 appointments
is 1928. If birthdates were known for the remaining 37--35 of
whom were named after 1983--the age gap would doubtless be still
greater.2
A process of "juvenation" of the party at large has been
underway as well: 90% of the current members of the party joined
after 1945; of them 44% joined after 1970.3 In 1986, 41.3% of the
party's members were 40 or younger, compared to 38.8% in 1981.
58.7% were over 40, compared to 61.2% in 19814 Emphasis on
II am indebted to the calculations carried out by
the Emory Political Science Department for these figures.
2Calculated from information provided in Dawn Mann, "First
Secretaries of the Krai and Oblast' Party Committees," RL 256/86,
July 7, 1986.
3"KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' (July 1986), p. 25.
4Ibid, p. 24; "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' (July 1981), p. 18.
STAT
STAT
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recruitment of younger members, combined with deaths among the
World War II cohort, has lowered the median age of the party.
The present paper explores the possible impact of generational
influences on the Soviet political elite, focusing in particular on a
cohort _identified as the Gorbachev generation.
A. Do Generational Differences Mattek?
It is clear that consciousness of generational differences is
widely diffused in Soviet society. Jerry Hough observes, and a great
deal of published material, both in Soviet and emigre sources, bears
him out, that "In the Soviet Union...people are quite conscious of
generations and refer to them repeatedly both in print and in private
conversations."5 In particular, the generational issue in Soviet
politics, following the classical 19th century tradition, usually is
conceived in terms of a perceptible gap in formative experiences and
hence outlook between "fathers" and "sons," that is, generations close
enough in age to have had immediate contact but far enough apart to
have undergone significantly different socialization. Two examples
will suffice to suggest that. the "fathers" vs. "sons" cleavage remains
an active part of social consciousness.
First is an incident recalled by the writer Viktor Nekrasov,
born in 1911, that occurred at Red Square in 1961, just after Stalin's
remains had been removed from the mausoleum. A group of people
standing near the mausoleum were talking, and one, a passionate
youth, shouted at the older people around him, in accusation, "we do
not trust you, the fathers; you lied to us and are. still Tieing. We who
are in our twenties won't believe anyone over thirty." This was only
three years before the slogan of the Berkeley Free Speech movement,
"you can't trust anyone over 30."6
The other is taken from an article published in Sovetskaia
Rossiia in January 1986 by a writer named Ivan Vasil'ev. In the
third of a three-part series of articles appearing in the newspaper,
which calls for cadres inspired by "enthusiasm" rather than venality
5Jerry F. Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 8.
6See Valeri Chalid;e, Otvetstvennost' pokoleniia, interview with
Nekrasov, (NY: Chalidze Publications, 1981), pp. 35-6. The entire
book is an exploration, through interviews with some prominent
dissidents, of the question of the moral responsibility of the "fathers"
for the nature of the Soviet system.
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and legalism, Vasil'ev introduces the generational theme as his motif.
Musing on the responsibility his generation bears for the attenuated
sense of civic responsibility observed among the younger generation,
he imagines a kind of dialogue:
"My generation is [the] military [one]. We gained self-
consciousness in the war. Gained consciousness of our
responsibility before our ancestors and our descendants, before
land and people. All our rights and obligations turned into a
single word--duty. Passing into unbeing, my generation left our
children a free land and a great spirit. It left its successors a
priceless spiritual treasure."
"--It also left something else, not so praiseworthy. You
reproach us, the young, for a lack of faith, for parasitism
[izhdivenchestvo], for cynicism... Are these not the products of
your seed?"
The author proceeds to weigh the respective shares of
responsibility for the negative attitudes of the present day between
his generation and the younger generation, blaming his generation
for many of the problems which the party is now calling upon the
people to overcome. The article poses the problem of political change
as a test of the succession of generations, in particular the war-time
and the post-war generations, much as the generation gap in the de-
Stalinization period cited in the Nekrasov incident revolved around
the theme of complicity in the indefensible crimes of Stalin's rule.?
The "fathers and sons" theme in Soviet political consciousness refers
to discontinuities in experience and outlook between successive, self-
aware genealogical generations.
Moreover, several characteristics of Soviet society suggest that
generation might be a useful determinant of elite attitudes. In
discussing the US case, Samuel Huntington makes several
observations in support of a generational hypothesis that are
pertinent to the Soviet Union. The United States is, he notes, a
"founded" polity with a distinct starting point, conducive to the self-
differentiation of elite cohorts. Second, class, ethnic, confessional and
other social cleavages are relatively weak in American society,
facilitating the formation of a moving political consensus which
evolves, in part, with the succession of generations. Finally, he notes
that public favor for liberal or conservative domestic policies and
isolationist or interventionist foreign policies tends to oscillate in a
cyclical fashion, a pattern he suggests might be linked to generational
7Ivan Vasil'ev, "Ne chastnoe litso," Sovetskaia Rossiia, 22 January
1986.
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succession.8 Likewise, generations of Soviet political elites date their
history from the Bolshevik movement and the Soviet revolution, with
an idealized "Old Bolshevik" generation representing the first or
founding generation of fathers. Second, the concentration of power
in the Soviet political elite prevents other social cleavages from
becoming the basis for political mobilization and therefore magnifies
intra-elite differences. Finally, one might postulate that the cyclical
alternation between value patterns associated with "right" and "left"
policy orientations--or, in Stephen Cohen's terms, the "friends and
foes of change"--is associated with generational change.9 Alternation
of policy orientations between tension and relaxation, centralism and
decentralization, future and present welfare, orthodoxy and
pragmatism, world revolution and conciliation, and other values on
the left/right continuum might conceivably be correlated with
generational turnover.
B. The Significance of Definition
Both Jerry Hough and Seweryn Bialer define generations by the
different character of opportunities and experiences to which each
successive birth-cohort since the revolution has been exposed. For
Hough, the first of the four politically significant generations into
which he divides the political elite comprises those "who were of the
right age to be affected by almost all the events that shook Russia in
this century"--i.e., those born between 1900 and 1909 (the Brezhnev
group). Next are those born between 1910 and 1918, who were "too
young to be returned to college in the 1928-32 period" and "too
young to experience a sensational rise during the Great Purge." Third
are "those who entered adulthood just before or during World War
1I"--mostly born between 1919 and 1925--whom Hough terms the
"wartime generation." Last are those born since 1925, who were "too
young to have had their college education interrupted by the war"--
the postwar generation.10
8Ibid, pp. 13-16.
9Stephen F. Cohen, "The Friends and Foes of Change: Soviet
Reformism and Conservatism," in idem, Rethinking the Soviet
Experience (NY: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 128-57. Cohen
does not associate the reform impulse with the rebellion of sons
against fathers, but roots reformism rather in a persistent though
often dormant tradition in Russian political culture.
10Hough, ch. 3.
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An alternative formulation, at first glance not greatly dissimilar
to Hough's, is provided by Seweryn Bialer. Delineating four elite
generations by their exposure to key political experiences at a
particularly formative point in their careers--the period, normally in
his twenties and thirties, when an individual enters the party, takes
an administrative post, and finally assumes executive rank--Bialer
identifies a Great Purge generation, a war generation, a late-Stalin
generation, and a post-Stalin generation.11 By this definition,
however, many of Gorbachev's contemporaries, those born, let us say,
between 1926 and 1936, qualify as post-war for Hough but late-
Stalin for Bialer. The difference in definition has significant
implications for the characteristics ascribed to this group. For
example, Hough observes that the postwar generation (born between
1926 and 1937) "had to function effectively in the freer atmosphere
of the post-Stalin period." They also experienced the denunciation of
Stalin at an earlier and more' impressionable age than did their
elders.12 Hough also notes that compared with older generations, the
postwar elite rose more frequently from white-collar family
backgrounds and was more likely to have had uninterrupted higher
educations. 13
Like Hough and Bialer, I assume that generational influences
represent the interaction of salient events and a formative stage of
personal life-histories. Consistent with Hough's scheme, the present
paper distinguishes between those born early enough to have fought
in the war and those entering adolescence and adulthood after the
war. We will use 1926 as the birthdate marking the older end of this
cohort, and, considering a decade to be the maximum spread of years
compatible with generational homogeneity, 1936 as the latest
birthyear marking the first post-war cohort. By this definition, the
"Gorbachev generation" will be treated as a post-war but not
necessarily a post-Stalin cohort. In keeping with Bialer's treatment,
the imprint of political lessons at a time of initiation into politics will
be treated as more significant than influences at other times in
individual life-histories. The degree to which an event was
"formative" in shaping basic outlooks would thus be a joint function
of its salience and the openness of those experiencing it to its lessons.
11 Seweryn Bialer, Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability, and
Change in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980), p. 102.
12Hough, p. 60.
131bid, pp. 57-59.
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The paper also differs with. Hough and Bialer in certain
respects. For example, elsewhere Hough has drawn more direct
conclusions about generational differences in foreign policy outlooks:
men of the Brezhnev generation, he asserts, are likely to be
preoccupied with the threat Germany and Japan pose to Soviet
security, since these have been the country's major adversaries in
the -wars of this century, both of which directly affected the
Brezhnev generation. Their basic orientation accordingly disposed
them to treat Soviet-American relations as the key to global stability.
By contrast, Hough finds a "multipolar" outlook prevalent among
younger foreign policy elites, which he associates with their different
socialization. 14
In refutation of Hough, it has been observed that a test of this
generational hypothesis for the United States would fail to predict
the ready adaptation of American elite policy-makers to the changed
international alignments of the post-war period, when the defeated
Germany and Japan became, within a decade following the Second
World War, major US allies. Similarly a simplistic generational model
would fail to predict the emergence of "neo-conservatism" among a
significant part of the liberal American intellectual elite in the 1970s.
Evolution of views and divergences within generations cannot be
explained by experiential models, although life-cycle (maturational)
models can explain changes over time within a generational cohort.
As Bialer notes, even more striking than generational differences in
political socialization is the ability of society to maintain broad
continuities of outlooks across generations.
Likewise, Bialer would explain the outlooks of at least some of
Gorbachev's contemporaries by their exposure to the "re-Stalinizing"
phase of the post-war period when they were entering professional
political life. Bialer therefore expects significant political change to
be likely only when the post-Stalin generation reaches top
positions.15 An individual who, like Gorbachev, won a state medal,
entered the party, graduated from university, and rose to a senior
Komsomol post all before Khrushchev's secret speech, might better
be considered a member of Bialer's "late-Stalin" generation than his
"post-Stalin" generation. In any case, some, members of the 1926-36
group had to rise in the post-war period, then adapt successfully to
the post-Stalin period, whereas others of them, as well as most of
those born later, lived through the late fifties and early sixties
14Jerry F. Hough, "Gorbachev's Strategy," Foreign Affairs, vol. 64, no.
1 (1985), pp. 45-47.
1SBialer, p. 102.
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without having had exposure as adults to Stalin's rule. For Bialer,
therefore, the year of birth is less salient as a generational marker
than the point in life-cycle at which the individual enters
professional political life, and this criterion would probably divide
the 1926-36 cohort into "late-Stalin" and "post-Stalin" sub-groups.
. The test of the generational hypothesis conducted by Mark
Beissinger finds that these definitional issues affect the results.16
Classifying members of a sample of 74 officials who had published
articles on problems of industrial management by generation,
Beissinger found that the patterns of difference in key issues
identified by the authors were affected by which definition of elite
generation was used, Hough's or Bialer's. Overall, however,
Beissinger found that generation was a relatively poor predictor of
outlook, but that within categories demarcated by other
characteristics, particularly regional growth rates and educational
specialization, generational differences were observable.
A final theoretical issue to be raised is that of the importance
of the relative magnitude of a generational cohort in the population
structure of a society. In societies where market forces drive media
organizations to maximize audience exposure, those segments of the
populace. that, for reasons of size or relative affluence, constitute
important audiences are likely to find their values disproportionately
shaped and reflected in the communications media. A large group
(such as the postwar American "baby boomers") would have a higher
sense of generational distinctiveness than cohorts preceding or
following it. On the other hand, where generational cohesiveness is
fostered by the intensity of a common socializing experience,
generational self-consciousness would be enhanced by the
narrowness of the cohort, facilitating a high degree of interaction.
Examples would be certain groups -of "Oxbridge" elites in Britain or
the wartime generation in the Soviet Union, which suffered
extremely high casualty rates in comparison with the postwar
161dark R. Beissinger, "In Search of Generations in Soviet Politics,"
World Politics vol. 38, no. 2 (January 1986), pp. 288-314.
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generation.17 By itself, therefore, size of cohort, like other objective
characteristics, may have little direct impact on the outlook or self-
awareness of a generation.
Where a distinctive generational outlook develops, it is likely to
appeal: to a broader segment of the populace than only those
comprising the genealogical cohort. The cultural flowering of the late
1950s and early 1960s, for example, is associated with the
simultaneous attainment of both artistic and political self-
consciousness for a generation of younger poets and writers. The
dominant voices of the "thaw" period were "new" poets and writers
who linked themselves to the widening sphere of public freedom in
conjunction with Khrushchev's political reforms and denunciation of
Stalin and who challenged the ideological and cultural establishment.
Among the most prominent members of the new generation were
poets Evgenii Evtushenko (b. 1933), Andrei Voznesenskii (1933),
Bulat Okudzhava (1924), Evgenii Vinokurov (1925), Bella
Akhmadulina (1937) and Robert Rozhdestvenskii (1932); and writers
Vasilii Aksenov (1932) and Yuri Kazakov (1928), plus a few older
writers who were identified with the new wave: Viktor Nekrasov
(1911), Boris Slutskii (1919), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918), Vasilii
Bykov (1924), Daniil Granin (1919) and Yurii Nagibin (1920). The
latter had served in the war but identified themselves with the
"liberal" current of the younger generation. There clearly is a
generational effect at work here, but the genealogical "core" is joined
by a periphery of self-affiliated fellow-travellers.
Moroevoer, generational themes figured prominently in the
work of the "new" writers and poets of late 50s and early 60s,
including conflict between "fathers" and "sons" over compromise with
17 Taking the male part of the Soviet population and grouping it into
10-year age brackets, the group born between 1925 and 1934, of
whom only a minority served in the army, had survived in sharply
higher numbers to 1979 than their elders. There were over twice as
many of them as males born in the 1915-24 period--who were
between 17 and 30 during the war years. (15.2 million as against
6.7 million.) That the war by and large spared the postwar
generation is also indicated by the fact that- they were almost as
numerous as the next younger 10-year group (15.2 million : 16.9
million). Males are in a deficit vis-a-vis females, but the deficit is far
less marked for this generation than it is for their elders. See
Murray Feshbach, "The Age Structure of Soviet Population:
Preliminary Analysis of Unpublished Data," Soviet Economy, v. 1, no.
2 (April/June 1985), pp. 177-193.
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Stalinism and bureaucratism. Aksenov's stories dramatized
generational alienation and conflict. Universalism, individualism,
moral absolutism, intolerance for traits associated with
bureaucratism (such as self-protective secrecy, resistance to change,
pettiness, careerism, etc.) were important themes in the new
generation's writings. By and large, this literary generation did not
cling to nationalistic and patriotic values, being closer in spirit to
"Westernizers;" but some were drawn to,' Russian nationalism
(Solzhenitsyn; Vladimir Maksimov (1932)). Organizing motifs were
not the war and the revolution, but the struggle to reaffirm universal
human values in the face of soulless, morally compromised holdovers
from the Stalin era. For this group generation refers less to a pattern
of formative experiences than to the literary expression of a common
outlook by a predominantly youthful and -generationally self-
conscious group of artists.
So far the argument is that when generation is used as an
explanatory variable for outlooks, its explanatory power is low if
interaction or self-awareness within the cohorts identified is low.18
Common political experiences for a generation may have little impact
on outlooks if they are of low salience. When events of high salience
help forge an identifiable generational outlook, it will probably be
shared more broadly across genealogical generations. These general
observations are meant as cautionary warnings against assuming any
direct correlation between events and outlooks for a given birth
cohort.
All the same, having defined a Gorbachev generation, what
formative experiences might be thought to have affected its outlook,
especially as contrasted to the "Brezhnev" generation?
II. Generational History and Soviet History
To summarize: some generations, exposed to a common set of
socializing experiences, acquire a distinctive outlook on society,
particularly if they become conscious of themselves as a distinct
cohort. For all their diversity in other respects, their similar
response to salient events experienced at a -formative period in their
life-histories creates commonalities of outlook. The cohorts now
18Cf. Samuel P. Huntington, "Generations, Cycles, and their Role in
American Development," in Richard J. Samuels, ed., Political
Generations and Political Development (Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books, 1977), pp. 9-16.
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assuming positions of power in the Soviet political system are
generally those born too late to have fought in the war; the 1926-36
generation is now the senior segment of the post-war generations
and has become, by far, the predominant age group represented in
the Central Committee and provincial elite. In view of the long
tenure of members of the "Brezhnev generation," what might be the
formative experiences affecting the consciousness of the "Gorbachev
generation?" How might the national histhbry be reflected in the
generational history of the officials now coming to power?
First some observations about the historical experiences of the
Brezhnev generation. Following is a capsule summary of relevant
experiences for politicians born in 1906:
1914-18
age 8-12
war: privation, disillusionment, disorder
1917
11
year of revolution: intense class war
1929-32
23-26
violent collectivization, famine; industrial
expansion, reconstruction.
1934-40
27-33
purges and terror: rapid turnover;
commitment, insecurity and blindness
1941-45
34-38
war as test of generation and of system
1946-52
39-46
all-out mobilization for reconstruction;
ideological and political rigidity
1953-62
47-56
containing consequences of reform: cautious
managerialism
1965-69
59-63
restabilization of party and government
1970-79
64-72
managing parity and global power
As Hough has argued, of paramount importance for leaders of
Brezhnev's generation were Russia's vast social crises in the
twentieth century: foreign invasions; revolution and civil war; and
massive famines in 1921-22, 1931-32, 1946-47. Against such
primary values as the survival of the system, other values, such as
efficiency and productivity, must have been secondary. The
enormous importance this generation placed on systemic stability,
combined with the long hold on power it enjoyed, helps account for
the diminished vigor and flexibility observed in the system's
leadership in the 1970s.
Among other common experiences that might have affected
outlooks--their salience helping make up for the less impressionable
age at which the Brezhnev generation coped with them-- are two
worth citing: the management of global power in the nuclear age, and
the stress of de-Stalinization. If the goal of the first was to expand
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power while avoiding crisis, that of the second lay in the need to
revitalize a stagnant political system while maintaining overall
political and ideological control over change. It is more than likely
that the net impact of these phases for middle-aged elites was. to
reinforce a preference for incremental over radical change, for
stabilization of change processes rather than risk-taking, and for
policies. and processes that would minimize personal political
insecurity. This hypothesis would be coiisistent with the Brezhnev-
era policy of a "tranquil atmosphere" and "stability of cadres."
The point is that the long-term decline in system performance,
which became so visible to Western observers of Soviet affairs at the
end of the 1970s and has since become a standard topic in Soviet
discussions under Gorbachev, is likely to have been largely invisible
to the older generation. The gradual but steady slowing of Soviet
progress would not have constituted a critical situation for a coterie
of septuagenerians that had survived invasions, civil war and near
civil war, and the decimation of the populace by terror and famine.
By contrast, consider the experiences of a member of the
"postwar generation" and specifically of a leader born in 1931. [See
the timeline in the appendix.]
By and large, this generation would not have been conscious of
the Great Purges; the war would dominate early memories as a time
of national unity, privation, sacrifice and heroism; perhaps the
symbolic identification of Stalin and the feats of national resistance
and conquest would have left an indelible impression. Still more
salient for those in their late teens and early twenties would have
been the urgency of reconstruction after the war, the desperate
struggle to avert famine, the remobilization of the populace.
In this deeply tense environment, the contradictions of post-
war reconstruction were at their sharpest. The regime reestablished
pre-war controls over agriculture while seeking to raise production
levels; pressed for reconstruction and expansion of the industrial
base; rapidly reimposed social discipline on the basis of a particularly
dogmatic and xenophobic ideological policy.19_ There were
immensely ambitious, grandiose plans advanced in the twilight late
Stalin period--"agro-gorods" (developing urban-type living and
working conditions in the farms), the reforestation project of
surrounding the country with new forests, the grand scheme for the
19 Werner G. Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and
the Defeat of Moderation, 1946-53 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1982), p. 67.
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"transformation of nature," the advance of socialism through Asia
and Europe. But technology was stagnant, the populace was
demoralized and apathetic, agriculture was in a state of near crisis,
and political leaders were deeply insecure. The last impulses of
revolutionary modernization and national reconstruction were being
played -out along with the stagnant, ritualized, personalized, fear-
ridden aspects of the late Stalin period. High politics was violent and
paranoid, illustrated by the excommunication of Yugoslavia, the
Leningrad case, the Varga affair, and the doctors' plot. The political
system grew inflexible and stagnant. For those just entering political
life, the pressure for performance must have been equivalent to that
of the war for their elders but the system itself far more stultifying.
My guiding premise is that it is neither the "re-Stalinizing"
influences of the 1946-53 period nor the reformism and utopianism
of the 1950s that constitute the major formative influences on
members of the 1926-36 generation, but rather the need to perform
well in both phases and the opportunity to compare them. The
1926-36 cohort is the last generation to have had first-hand contact
with the Stalin era and the first to respond to post-Stalinist change.
Straddling the last impulse of revolutionary Bolshevism and the first
"modern"_ period, the Gorbachev generation is a product of both.
The next phase brought equally demanding challenges,
requiring adeptness of another kind as political elites sought
simultaneously to eliminate the worse effects of Stalinism while
containing the consequences of the reform process. Those who came
of age in the immediate post-Stalin period experienced ideological
disorientation. Soviet specialists have alluded to this and are apt to
talk about "fortunate" and "unfortunate" generations. The ideologist
G. L. Smirnov notes that those born in the 1930s and 1940s had to
experience "complicated political changes tied with criticsm of the
cult of personality and subjectivism" as they were forming their
views. As a result, they tended to look critically at the past, and not
all were able to cope with these dislocations.20 A study published in
1981 studying the age make-up of discipline-violators in the
construction industry found that the generation born between 1931
and 1940 was over 5 times more likely to be a discipline violator
20G. L. Smirnov, Sovetskii chelovek: formirovanie sotsialisticheskogo
tipa lichnosti (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1980), p.
344.
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than a conscientious worker and was thus an "entirely unfortunate
generation."21
The "thaw" seems to have had the strongest impact on, first,
the cultural intelligentsia, whose anti-Stalinist searchings contributed
to the emergence of the public dissent movement; and, second, those
born just after what we have called the "Gorbachev generation,"
which was born in the late twenties and early thirties. It would have
been those born in the late thirties who came of age as Khrushchev
denounced Stalin. In contrast, politically involved members of
Gorbachev's generation probably escaped personal disorientation: for
them de-Stalinization was a managerial problem. Zhores
Medvedev's comment on this is apt: "Life was difficult for a
professional Komsomol propagandist in 1962. Young people in the
early 1960s had neither the inhibitions nor the inertia born of fear
that kept the more experienced, older generation silent. They asked
difficult and uncomfortable questions.... It must, therefore, have been
difficult for Gorbachev to follow the controversial instructions from
the Komsomol Central Commitee...without offending the more
traditional and conservative views of the local Party bosses in
Stavropol."22 In the generation gap between "fathers" and "sons"
(illustrated by the incident cited at the beginning) over complicity in
Stalinism, Gorbachev's generation is intermediate, and the political
elite that rose out of it would not have shared in the ethical soul-
searching characteristic of the cultural intelligentsia, the tendency
which the political elite pejoratively calls "abstraktnoe
moralizatorstvo." But the impatience for change, the intolerance of
complacency, the preoccupation with global solutions, may well unite
the post-Stalinist "sons" and the political elites of the post-war
generation.
The related complex of problems of the Khrushchev period,
when successive waves of organizational and policy reform yielded
diminishing and eventually negative returns, again posed the
problem of the relationship between openness and change at the
level of the political system and the pace of progress in its
performance. The contrasts and parallels between the late Stalin
period and the Khrushchev period must have had an impact on a
generation attaining political maturity in time to experience both
phases: the dilemma of system reform must have been acutely
challenging--how to find the right balance between flexibility and
21Cited in "Aktual'nye voprosy politiki KPSS i pressa," Zhurnalist, no.
3 (1983), p. 32.
22Zhores A. Medvedev, Gorbachev (NY: Norton, 1986), p. 52.
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firmness in rule, orthodoxy and revisionism in ideology, centralism
and decentralization of bureaucracy, initiative from above and from
below; how to guide public debate; how to handle social and political
deviation; how to define the party's role vis-a-vis government and
society.
In this period policy changes, while essential to improving the
system's productivity, also clearly served political purposes in the
power struggle among Stalin's successors. I The objective of change
was to open the political system without encouraging pluralism or
parochialism. Under Khrushchev utopianism became a deliberate
and effective policy for raising social productivity, along with certain
populist and reformist measures: their impact, however, derived
from the regeneration of a spirit of enthusiasm and urgency,
especially among youth, among whom a revolt against discredited
"fathers" was encouraged. A limited return to social mobilization was
fostered by opening the political process: given the erratic quality of
policy changes, it must have been apparent to young cadres that
organizational reform alone accomplished little, though it could well
jeopardize the power base of a leader, if it failed to generate a
dynamic momentum of change. It would be in keeping for a political
leader thirty years later to remember the lesson that good policy
alone did not guarantee results: that the content of policy was
irrelevant if it was not backed up by improving the mixture of moral,
material and coercive incentives for executing policy.
Few politicians of the Gorbachev generation could have taken a
significant part in the decision-making on foreign and defense policy
that occurred in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev's
fall, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the strategy of detente. On
the other hand, the deterioration of social and political performance
that became marked in the 1970s would have assumed great
importance for the Gorbachev generation, not because it coincided
with the age window associated with formative experiences, but
because it was linked with frustrated mobility, and because it eroded
the system's legitimacy and its international power at a point,
moreover, when shortages of both labor and material resources were
growing severe. The exceptionally high re-election rates to the CPSU
Central Committee under Brezhnev--80%, 80%, 89%, and 87% in 1966,
1971, 1976, and 1981 respectively23--created evident frustration for
23These are rates of reelection of surviving full members of the
Central Committee, calculated and presented by Thane Gustafson and
Dawn Mann, "Gorbachev's First Year: Building Power and Authority,"
Problems of Communism, vol. 35, no. 3 (May-June 1986), p. 4.
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younger cadres. One prominent theme in the press, especially before
the 27th congress, for example, is the difficulty of persuading older
officials who have outlived their usefulness to retire. Obstacles to
the adoption and implementation of effective policy, along with
various -bureaucratic pathologies such as fraud, window-dressing,
and ritualism, have been attributed to the weakness of the party as a
mobilizing and energizing force in government and society.
"Bureaucratism," abetted by the tendency for officials to remain
entrenched in power till death, seems to be the diagnosis of the
system's malady. This view would reinforce the lessons learned
under Stalin and Khrushchev: that without reviving a spirit of
national renewal, policy change simply worsens the erosion of central
power through bureaucratic self-aggrandizement.
In short, for younger officials poised to take over senior party
and government positions as the Brezhnev generation left power, the
performance problems of the system, the chronic failure of
agriculture, low or negative growth rates, lack of innovation, false
reporting, corruption, flourishing illegal commerce, declining social
discipline, rising alcohol abuse and associated mortality rates, must
appear as far more central, even critical, than was the case for the
Brezhnev. generation. Having less to protect and more to lose, the
younger generation's sense of the urgency of the need for change is
more acute. As Gorbachev put it in the April 1985 Central
Committee Plenum address: "the historical destiny of our country, the
position of socialism in the contemporary world depend in large
measure on how we conduct matters henceforth." Here, however,
"usable history" would not necessarily point toward reformism in the
sense of decentralization, legality and marketization. An idealized
image, drawn from the thirties and wartime, of a mobilized, solidary
society, is part of the Gorbachev generation's historical memory,
assuming that the argument above is correct. Among cultural elites,
reformism (though without a unifying symbol of evil such as that
provided by Stalin) may revive. Writers of Gorbachev's generation,
such as Evtushenko and Voznesensky, have again become spokesmen
for change, championing such Gorbachevian themes as anti-
bureaucratism, glasnost', "new thinking," and creativity. But the
critical intelligentsia and the political elite must be distinguished in
their patterns of opinion and value orientation, as a number of
surveys inside and outside the country indicate. For the late-Stalin
and post-Stalin cultural elite, Stalinism would be an overwhelmingly
negative symbolic reference point. But to the political elite, in all
likelihood, the "Stalinist" system is a very contradictory reference
point: it mixes dynamism with stagnation, popular mobilization and
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demobilization, chauvinism and internationalism, pragmatism and
orthodoxy. It would not be surprising, therefore, if members of the
Gorbachev generation imagined they could combine the most
effective aspects of Stalinism with those of the period of reform that
followed it in order to find the right balance of openness and
mobilization to ensure a rapid pace of social and economic progress.
the case for formative influences on the Gorbachev generation
is therefore modest and in some respects $mbiguous. No one set of
common experiences that defines the generation as "sons" against
"fathers" or the reverse stands out: it has been in many ways an "in-
between" generation that mediated between Stalinism and de-
Stalinization. That part of it that came to prominence in the arts in
the late fifties and early sixties was characterized by generational
self-consciousness, but such attitudes should not be imputed directly
to the political elite which first entered positions of power in the late
Stalin period. The argument here is that political elites of
Gorbachev's generation were uniquely positioned to gauge the effects
of system-level change on social performance. The regularization of
procedure and incrementalism in policy under Brezhnev led to a
perilous degree of decay. Neither liberalization (not least among its
risks is the danger of antagonizing key power blocs) nor personal
dictatorship would be an acceptable means of popular mobilization.
But some combination of openness to new ideas, risk-taking,
innovativeness and reformism with the social discipline and
solidarity of Stalinism must appear the ideal. Particular policy ideas
are probably of secondary importance compared to the need for
invigoration of the system itself. The best case for a clear stamp of
experience on the Gorbachev generation is the evidence for its
awareness of and frustration at the long, slow slide toward
impotence under Brezhnev and memories of attempts at remobilizing
the society for rapid economic development under Stalin and
Khrushchev.
Ill. Policy Perspectives of the Gorbachev Generation
The major influences on the _ 1926-36 cohort, as outlined above,
are, first, that system-level change, even radical change, is required
to achieve significant progress in productivity: policy measures
serving to invigorate popular energy may tend to mobilize society
around common policy goals but stagnation may arise either from
overconcentration of political power at the center or pluralization
and parochialism in society. Second, the generation reacted strongly
against the immobilism and decay of the 1970s, doubtless idealizing
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earlier phases of national unity, achievement and conviction. This
perspective probably contains rather few substantive policy ideas.
"Left" ideas--more centralism, social discipline and solidarity--are
probably joined with "reformist" ideas, such as greater pragmatism
and openness in ideological policy, plant-level autonomy, and
economic incentives for private farm production. Probably different
groups -within the generation lean more- towards the "Stalinist" or the
"Khrushchevian" outlooks.
Can some characteristic generational outlooks on particular
policy issues nonetheless be inferred? In the final section, possible
views on five problems will be discussed: law, ideology, nationalities,
US-Soviet relations, and military security.
The years 1955-62 were a period of significant legal reform,
together with the dramatic rehabilitation of many thousands of
Stalin's victims. These changes gave rise to hopes in the West, and
among many in Soviet society, that a secular shift in the direction of
a Soviet "Rechtsstaat" had begun. There is little reason to think that
the Gorbachev generation, the political elite among it, that is, would
wish to resume this direction of change. Apathy, demoralization, and
fear were the consequences of a terror-ridden police state; legality
thus served Khrushchev's aims of reviving the popular Elan
necessary to improve system performance. Today the political elite
must fear a possible increase in the level of organized dissent if
individual legal and civic rights were to be reinforced. Liberal
individualism would find little support in the political ideology of
this generation or among the cultural intelligentsia with which it is
allied. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that many leaders of
this generation would regard the KGB's political power and autonomy
as excessive and threatening; and that legal reforms might be
enacted as a way of curbing it.
Gorbachev's leadership began with clarion signals about the
need for reform of ideological policy, and there is every reason to
think that these views are widely popular among the post-Brezhnev
political elites. The turn from ritualism, formalism, bureaucratism
and the dull repetition of hollow orthodoxy has been demanded time
and again by members of the new power elite -both in political and
media positions. Presumably, therefore, a phase of sustained
pragmatism in ideological policy has begun: propaganda and mass
communications should be oriented around problem-solving, not
with the ethical dimension so strongly expressed in the immediate
aftermath of Stalinism, but perhaps with greater openness and
objectivity of discussion. With this, values of public-mindedness and
social discipline are underlined. In the face of socially pathological
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forms of private behavior--drinking, drugs, hooliganism, speculation-
-ideological policy attempts to restore the primacy of the public
interest.
The reversal of tendencies toward "bureaucratic pluralism"
under - Brezhnev, considered now an impediment to the renewal of
the socialist community, would extend to nationality policy.
Tolerance for the development of corrupt private fiefdoms under the
guise of the "flourishing of nationalities" ,ror liberality toward ethnic
minorities would no longer find sympathy among Brezhnev's
successors. Here one would expect the emergence of tensions
between upwardly mobile members of non-Russian nationalities,
sympathetic to elements of the reform program but aspiring toward
still greater national autonomy, and the centralizing, mobilizing spirit
of the ethnic Russian core among the Gorbachev generation. One of
their principal points of reference is the national effort during World
War II, when Soviet nationalism and Russian nationalism were
virtually indistinguishable. On the other hand, Russian nationalism,
which also gained significant ground in the Brezhnev period, will find
its potential checked. The final cancellation of the river diversion
schemes, apparently a victory for Russian nationalists and a defeat
for the Central Asian lobby, may be vitiated by large-scale energy
development in Siberia.
In the realm of foreign policy, Soviet history has probably
taught the Gorbachev generation no single set of lessons other than
the need to infuse old instruments with new life. For example, the
current opening to China simply repeats a policy attempted when
Khrushchev first succeeded to power, then again with Brezhnev, and
still again when Mao died. In all likelihood there are significant
differences among members of the Gorbachev elite over how much
Japan or the United States should be accommodated. The diplomatic
and media offensives that began under Andropov resemble the
opening to the West and the third world initiated in the mid-1950s.
Probably the current line (associated with Alexander Bovin and
Georgii Arbatov) to the effect that 'we don't need to deal with the
US--we will deal instead with Europe and Japan'--a line associated
by Jerry Hough with the Gorbachev generation's sophistication and
multi-lateralism--should not be taken too seriously. Two factors
suggest a long-term interest in a new accommodation (a new
"detente") with the United States: the first is urgent economic
pressure, particularly the long-term prospect for insufficient foreign
exchange earnings from energy and arms exports, resulting in large-
scale credit requirements; second is the urgent need for stabilization
of the arms race. In this field, we are not dealing with a new
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outlook, but rather of the pressure of circumstances combined with
an adroit use of existing policy instruments.
Finally, the Gorbachev generation, as good "neo-Bolsheviks,"
and in keeping with both Stalin's and Khrushchev's policies, might
well be more attuned to the benefit-cost ratio of political, as opposed
to military, instruments of foreign policy. After WWII, in the face of
what was called an implacable imperialist enemy bent on eventual
war ' with the socialist camp, Stalin demobilized the bulk of the Soviet
armed forces. Khrushchev, faced with similar economic pressure,
also reduced the size of the standing army. Both relied heavily on
political measures--international organizations, front groups,
propaganda, clandestine measures, alliances and diplomacy--to
achieve foreign policy goals. Brezhnev's relentless pursuit of
extravagantly expensive military superiority seems an anomaly by
comparison, to be explained by his leadership's strong reaction
against the erratic policies of their predecessor. The opportunity for
the new leadership to implement significant changes in investment
priorities from the military to the civilian sectors will depend on two
circumstances: sufficient stability in the international security arena,
and consolidation of power domestically.
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Appendix: Timeline of events for a leader born in 1931
Age: Event:
1936-38 5-7 elementary political consciousness:
faith in system24
1941-45
10-14
war. privation and national purpose.
conscious respect for sacrifices
and heroism
1946-53
15-22
post-war reconstrugtion. Critical
time:
1946
famine. Struggle to raise agric.
production:
[Gorbachev
at 18 is awarded Order of Red Banner of Labor--helps
him get in
MGU]25; intense pressure to reconstruct and expand
industry; assimilation and sovietization of newly annexed or
reconquered regions.
1948 Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform. First
open rupture in communist movement. Exposure of "Leningrad plot;"
height of "Zhdanovshchina" and of fear of contaminating foreign
influences.
1949-50 establishment of communist government in
China and of alliance between PRC and USSR.
1950 outbreak of war in Korea
24Cf comments by Arkady Shevchenko, in Breaking with Moscow
(NY: Knopf, 1985), p. 54. Shevchenko was born in 1930. Living in
the Crimea, too young to follow political affairs, he seems to have
been completely unaware of purges and terror.
Born in 1927 and living in Moscow, Mstislav Rostropovich also
understood nothing of the Great Purges (he writes, "I knew
absolutely nothing"), but became aware of something strange when
once in 1937 his father warned him against ever visiting a certain
family again. But he indicates that such experiences had no lasting
effect on him: he believed that in general everything was normal.
Valerii Chalidze, ed., Otvetstvennost' pokoleniia (Interview with
Rostropovich) (NY: Chalidze Publications, 1981), pp. 52-3.
Even many who were adolescents lived through the period of
the Great Terror without any sense of fear or oppression, as is
attested by Dina Kaminskaya. See Final Judgment (NY: Simon and
Schuster, 1982), pp. 20-21, 40.
25Zhores Medvedev, Gorbachev (NY: Norton, 1986), p. 34.
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1950-51 discussion of "agro-gorods," it intensive
development of villages to bring them to level of development of
cities. Raises issue of urban-rural gap (class-political, economic
dimensions). Scheme rejected as too radical.
1.952-53 "doctor's plot" and wave of suspicion directed
against `Jews. Last campaign of Stalinist repression.
1953 death of Stalin. Country gripped by
uncertainty. Early limited reaction against Stalinism--openness in
culture, openness to West.
1953-56 2 2 - 2 5 period of succession struggle and limited de-
Stalinization.
1953 Malenkov and Khrushchev assume
government and party leadership. Presidium unites against Beria,
secret police. Beria removed, police lose independent political power.
Rivals appeal to political constituencies for favor--policy alternatives
serve political interests.
1953-55 Khrushchev initiatives in agricultural policy
consolidate his power: 1953, reforms of state-kolkhoz relations;
1954, Virgin Lands scheme; 1955, new agricultural program
emphasizing milk and meat; 1953-62, pressure to plant corn--North
Caucasus to be Khrushchev's "corn state".26 In same period, Lysenko
loses most influence--falls from presidency of Academy of
Agricultural Sciences. But retains Khrushchev's confidence.
1955 Khrushchev defeats Malenkov, who resigns as
head of government. Party and party leader clearly preeminent.
1955-57. reexamination of cases of persons convicted of
counterrevolutionary crimes; release from labor camps and legal
rehabilition of great majority of victims.27
1955-62 Period of significant legal reform.
26Roy A. Medvedev and Zhores A. Medvedev, Khrushchev: The Years
in Power (NY: Norton, 1978), p. 127.
27Harold J. Berman, Justice in the USSR, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1963), p. 71.
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1956 25 start of de-Stalinization. Need for political
agility. Excitement of possibility of change but consciousness of need
to manage reform carefully. Awareness that reform capable of
getting out of hand. Major cultural ferment--new literature of
criticism, truth-seeking, reform. Significant impact on youth and
intelligentsia.
19 5 6 Riots and rebellion; in Poland and Hungary.
Beginnings of break with PRC.
1957 26 1. Feb.: indus. admin. reorg.--indus. branch
ministries dissolved; regional eco. councils created
2. May: Khrushchev scheme to overtake US in
milk, meat and butter production in 3-4 years
3. June: crisis in leadership. Intense
Presidium effort to remove Khrushchev; countered by gaining CC
majority; removal of "anti-party" group
4. August: successful test flight of SS-6 ICBM
5. October: SS-6 launches sputnik into orbit
6. Oct.: Zhukov dismissed as Minister of
Defense
7. Stavropol krai becomes test site for
experiment to dissolve MTS's and merge them with kolkhozy.
Experiment is successful.
8. Major new program of housing construction
begun
1958 27 Khrushchev replaces Bulganin as govt. head;
launches major chemicals industry drive;
institutes major accelerated campaign to
dissolve MTS's and sell their inventory to kolkhozy;
school reform enacted
1959
28
Khrushchev visits US, PRC
1960
29
Sharp
reduction of size of armed forces;
U-2
open
incident;
breach with China
1961 30 22nd party congress. Adoption of new party
program (utopian commitments to building communism); new party
rules--including mandatory rotation rule
failure of US Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba
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1962 31 New scheme for agricultural organization--
territorial production administrations
Cuban missile crisis;
November--separation of party at oblast level
into. agricultural and industrial branches
1963
32
Test Ban Treaty
new ideological
f
crackdown
1964
33
Khrushchev falls.
1964-65
reversal of certain Khrushchev-era
reorganization schemes: ministries reestablished; division of party
ended; calls for new style of leadership, condemnation of impulsive
decision making and promises of respect for cadres
1965-66, 1966-67 new measures to expand rights of PPO's
and of central party apparatus
1965 34 "Kosygin reform"--expanded enterprise
responsibility + restoration of ministries. Reform fails.
Significant shift in plan priorities: all-services
increases in investment in defense production. Significant campaign
to develop blue-water navy, conventional forces, tactical and
strategic nuclear forces.
1965-70 Substantial increase in investment devoted to
agricultural production
mid-1960s beginning of experiments with "link" system
in agriculture; Khudenko affair; conservative pressure kills idea
1966 35
intellectual dissent
1967 36
1969
1971
1973
1977
1978
1968 37
Beginning of series of waves of repression of
Shchekino experiment .begun
endorsed strongly by CC;
endorsed strongly by Brezhnev
again endorsed by Brezhnev
new round of favorable press publicity
new regulations permit modest revival
Prague Spring and invasion of Czechoslovakia
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1969
38
USSR
SALT
evident
achieves strategic nuclear parity w/ US;
negotiations begin;
victory of "arms control" lobby
1970
39
Soviet military intervention in Egypt;
non-proliferation treaty ratified;
Soviet-German treaty signed
I
1971 40 Brezhnev's "Peace Program" adopted at 24th
party congress; likewise commitment to expanded development of
consumer goods production; avowed policy of increasing foreign
trade to obtain benefits of technology infusion from West; announces
strong support for consolidation of production and R&D into
production assocations
Nixon visit to China announced
Berlin agreement signed
PPO's "right of control" extended
1972 41 Nixon visits USSR: summit meeting in Moscow
Soviet advisers expelled from Egypt
1973 - 42 Middle-East crisis: US-Soviet confrontation
over Arab-Israeli war
Brezhnev pushes for expansion of inter-farm
cooperation
1974-75 43-44 Collapse of US-Soviet trade agreement; Nixon
resigns; following 1973 US withdrawal from Vietnam, 1975
reunification of Vietnam under Northern rule
1977 46 Brezhnev Constitution adopted; Brezhnev
reaches peak of formal power and status and begins to decline in
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vitality. Gap between rising cult of Brezhnev and visible loss of
powers becomes acute and embarrassing.28
1979 48 SALT II signed, aborted; detente collapses
fall of Shah regime in Iran, establishment and
consolidation of Khomeini regime
Crisis of Afghan regime; invasion
Enactment of set if economic measures to
stiffen plan discipline and contract fulfillment. Weak law, even more
weakly implemented
Promulgation of major CC resolution on
restructuring and revitalizing party ideological work
1980-81 49-50 Polish crisis
1981 so At 26th party congress, Brezhnev stresses
agriculture (calls for major food program) and energy development.
Soviet economy in middle of serious slow-down and agricultural
decline. Recognition of serious demographic problems.
1982 CC adopts Food Program
1981-82 50-1 Brezhnev regime in final throes. Rise and
coalescence of political opposition to Brezhnev; beginning of
Andropov manoevres to replace Brezhnev.
281t is apparently acceptable to refer to this, obliquely at any rate, in
public now, as opposed to merely recounting Brezhnev anecdotes in
private. Among the political experiences which Ivan Vasil'ev
mentions having undergone, together with his generation, are the
following regrettable phenomena: "the cult of personality... the results
of subjectivism and voluntarism... unrestrained praise for certain
leaders.... This is the voice of my generation. Yes, we ourselves have
to remove the * gilding from the icons we ourselves have painted. The
cult, voluntarism, flattery and servility.... It's quite a lot for one life,
no doubt about it." See above, note 4.
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