THE EMERGENCE OF GORBACHEV

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000705870009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STnT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07 :CIA-RDP90-009658000705870009-9
~~itQ t;~'ny NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
3 March, 1985
~~~ ~chlnemann
rr i ICIAL SOVIET BIOGRP,-
phies make for specialized
reading, somewhat in the
style of classified ads: "Gor-
bachev, Mikh. Sen. (b. 1931),
Sav. Fart., Govt. Official.
Mbr. CPSU 1952- .1970 1st
Sec'y Stavropol Kraikom .
CPSU. i9,7 Mbr. CC CPSU. 1978 Sec'y CC
CPSU. lJi9 Card. Mbr. Politburo CC CPSU.
1980 Aibr. Politburo CC CPSU :.."
V~'itb practice, a message emerges from
t:7o`? aril*.ed lines. Tne CPSU is the Commu-
nis P2.rty o' *-:ee Srn~zet Union. The CC is iu
Ceatr~l Cc:~ittee. And Mi]chail Sergeye-
vich C-crb~:he~ is the youngest of the 11
ma-, who sit at the pinnacle of Sovi?t cower,
Those few lines bracket a career that has
become the focss of some of the most inten-
sivespeculation ever to have focused on the
future of the Soviet state. The generation
that led the Soviet Union from the ravages
of Stalinism and World War II through the
enormous expansion of power and might
-over the past tl'see decades is approaching
an end.
Now a new guard stands poised to take
charge, a generation of men in their 50's
and EA's, and the question is whether they
will prone ready or capable of breathing
new life into a system that seems to have
followed is leaders into debility and fa-
tigue. None than any other Sm'iet leader,
Gorbachev }.es come to personify the new
breed. At only 54 years of age, the peasant's
son and career parry official has emerged
from the shadow of Kremlin politics to be-
come No. 2 it the party hierarchy, end to be
e major contender to succeed the ailing
Konstantin U. Chernenko, a man 20 years
his se:uor.
It was as if in recognition of his impor-
tance that a group of heavyset men in dark
coati and heavy fur hats marched across
the frozen tarmac to a waiting Aeroflot
jetliner in December. At the foot of the for-
ward ramp they bid goodbye to Gorbachev,
who mounted the steps, pausing for the stiff
wave required.by the ceremony of a Polit-
buro member setting off on a Ktemlin mis-
sion. Isis wise, Raisa Maksimovna, unob-
trusively mounted the back steps.
In Londaa, the front door opened and the
two popped out together, jubilantly waving
to the we]coming officials and the banks of
photographer.
It was a classic magician's trick: Put a
Kremlin heavy inw one end, quietly slip an
attractive woman into the other, wave
through the air and -Presto 1-out comes
a New Soviet Leader, smiling, charming,
gregarious and complete with elegant, edu-
cated and cultured wife.
Few in Britain were disappointed. The
Gorbachevs ooh'd
and aah'd at Westminster
Abbey and at Chequers. In the
reading room of the British
Museum, where Ksrl Marx
once worked, he joked that "if . ?
people don't like Marxism,
they should blame the British
Museum." She ventured
charmingly halting words in
English and demonstrated a
keen interest in literature and
philosophy, which, it turned
out, she had studied at Moscow
State University. He suavely
checked swarming photogra-
phers, saying. "Comrades,
economize your supplies.
That's enough." She capti-
v~ted the gossip columnists:
"What a duo lady is Mrs. Gor-
bachev l "gushed Peter Tory of
The Londan Daily Mirror.
He wore business suits that
made him indistinguishable
from the Westerners he court-
ed. She wore a dark suit one
day; an executive Pin-stripe
with satin blouse the next, a
white woolen suit with high-
heeledpatent-]eatherahoes the
third, and, at a Soviet Em-
bassy receptian, a cream satin
two-piece dress, gold lamb son- i,
dais with chain straps and
Pearl-drop earrings. ~,
It was a measure of Gorba-
chev's success that he man-.
aged to generate exdtement
without diverging one whit
from standard Kremlin lines.
He faithfully pushed Moscow's
current propaganda ~P~
against President Reagan's
..Star Wars" space defense
project, and he turned batty at
any mentian of Moscow's re?
pressian of human and reli-
giousrights.
"I can quote a few facts
about human rights is the
United Kingdom," he fired
back at ane Member of Parlia-
ment who raised the issue in a
private session. "For example,
you persecuteentire communi-
ties, natianalities." After some
thought, his listeners con-
cluded he probably meant
Northern Ireland.
And, like any san of the Rus-
sianearth, he could not avoid a
bit of classic Soviet bravado:
"If you send us a flea, we will
put horseshoes oa it," he told a
mystified Paul Chaanan,
Trade Minister. The allusian
was to a popular Russian tale
whose moral is, in effect, that
if you think you have done
well, we can always top it.
That was hardly enough to
darken the cheery glow of the
visit. "A Red Star Rises in the
East," declared The Sunday
Times of London over a pro-
file of Gorbachev. But it was
Prime Minister Margaret
E;Ontinued
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Ttsatcher who provided the
most fitting epitaph to the
visit. "I like Mr. Gorbachev,"
said she. "We can do business
together."
The scene of Mr. Gorba-
chev's return to Moscew,
alas, is not recorded. He re-
turned hurriedly on Dec. 21,
six days into his visit, on
learning of the death of De-
fenceMinister Dmitri F. Usti-
nov. But given the immutabil-
ity of Soviet civic ritual, it is
safe to assume that she
slipped out the back, while he
gave a stiff wave up front to
the dark men in fur hats gath-
ered to welcome him back,
and then stepped down to
merge into their midst.
~ T HO IS THE REAL
,~\ / \ / Gorbachev? The
y Y Soviet politician
poured from the same mold as
his dark comrades, except for
a bit more polish and pizazz
and a knack for public rela-
tions? Or the nice man who did
the sights of London with his
lady, bantered easily with the
high and mighty, and charmed
the Eritish?
Kremlinologists are wary of
spotting another "liberal" in
the style of the late Yuri V. An-
dropov, and the debate over
the real Gorbachev has gone
back and forth. But if the out-
lines of the man remain a bit
fumy still, what has emerged
with startling clarity is that
this stocky, balding peasant's
son from southern Russia, with
his pleasant style and calm
face, has achieved one of the
most dizzying rises in the .an-
nals ofmodern Sovletpolitics.
A scant three years ago, he
was known to the West, where
known at all, largely as the
youngster of the Politburo, a
farm boy two decades younger
than most of his comrades, a
competent and apparently
smart politician whose no-win
responsibility for agriculture
would probably break his
heart or his career. He presid-
ed, in fact, at a time when the
perennially poor grain crop
figures became a state secret.
In May 1983, on the rise under
his last and most powerful pa-
tron, Yuri Andropov, the
young Agriculture Secretary
toured Canada and was barely
noticed by the rest of the
world.
Yet by the time Chernenko
came to power, Gorbachev
', was the aclmowledged second
in command of the Soviet Com-
munist Party, an enormously
werful secretary charged
o
greater efficiency and mana-
gerial innovation. He was call-
ing for a transformation of so-
cial relations in the Soviet sys-
tem, for an upheaval that, as
he indicated later in his
speech, would lure the working
p
with ideology, party cadres
- _ man back into the fold. "Indus-
. ? end :roost of the eco:-omq; ss - trialization" was another word
-well;-::appar~tty, as ngricul_ '. that made people listen. He
turn. Ae has become the;ral~y.. ', seemed to be calling for a
~~;; Paint for an increesiagly- tra.-isformation of the nation as
vocal portion of the white-cal- . radical as the one wrought by
1Fir elite :hat is convinced that Stalin in the brutal industrieli-
the`?5oviet Union's solvency
and ctedibility are at .peril
dear to a Western heart, and it
seems unduly callous to won-
der whether the West should
not, in fact, be hoping for
someone more in the tradi-
tional mold, perhaps a coarse;
gray functionary like Grigory
V. Romanov, or an aging unin:
spired professional like Viktor
V. Grishin.
? That goes against nature.
Beyond all the other reasons
for Gorbachev's allure is a fa-
tigue, in the West as in the
without a thorough overhaul of his late mentor Andropov, Gor-
theeconomy. bachev argued that the Soviet
Ivlost irportant, he had L'rion wetild never achieve its
emerged as a leading c:on- global ambitions if it was un-
tender for the top job in the able to seed and clothe its own:
Kremlin, as the man who could "So:.ialism has exerted and
lead a new generation to power continues to exert its main in-
in a leadersh:p firmly gripped Iluence on world ~velopmerit
fer 30 years by old Stalitists. `.~~ 3ts eoonnmlc ;policy
vrhy such a possibility ex- -_~ _.~~, ~
cites, rather than alarms, the ??thesocioec~eld.;a="~-..
West is not always clear. It r. - Themessagewas~nambigu=
could be argued quite con- .,
vincingl}? that a Kremlin in ~ ous: Only.aninteasive,.highly
the hands of a bright new !developed economy=can ~guar-
uard, not handica b antee the consolidation of -the
g PPS y country's positions in the inter-
the memories of Stalin or the national arena, can permit the
insecurities of their war- ce~~, ~ enter?the new mil-
scarred elders, could actually lennium as a .great and flour-
make the Soviet economy fishing state ,, _
hum, making the Soviet
Union a vastly more formida-
ble and daunting adversary
than it now is. One Western
military attache returned
awe-struck from a recent
voyage across the Soviet ex-
panse and exclaimed: "My
God, ran you imagine what
There is something in the no-
tion of a young, educated and
smooth leader advocating
change and lambasting the bu-
reaucracy that the West finds
irresistible. It is a feeling
~ based on far more than wishful
thinking - it draws on a deep-
. ...... ...i ....~....-?i... aL..? ~~..L.J..
could make all that work?" ,
At a mee`~ing of party work-
ers last December, Gorbachev
spelled out his program in un-
uall clear terms
~
pragmatic enough to see the
obvious flaws of Communist
systems can only move his
country closer to the Western
world. A Gorbachev marveling
y at the stained-glass windows of
"We will have to carry out Westminster Abbey evokes an
profound transformations in ;image of the Soviet Union edg-
the economy and in the entire ~ back at last from the para-
system of social relations. The noia and absurd claims that
~ process of the intensification of h ve k t it 1 tad fro
a e
so a
the Economy must be .given s
roily nationwide character,
the same political resonance
that the country's industriali-
:ztiano~ncehad.
Hyperbole, of course, is
hardly riew to Soviet rhetoric,
and ra_*e is the project not
ranked with history's great ex-
ploits. But Gorbachev's words
stood out for other reasons. He
vas not simply calling, Like all
5o~~iez leaders these days, for
p t
m
large parts of the civilized
world for six decades. -
There is, too, an instinctive
identification with someone
who in years, style and career
seems so much more familiar
than a Siberian peasant like
Chernenko or a L'ltrainian
party hack like Leonid I.
Brezhnev. Law school gradu-
ate, .successful politician, fce
of bloated bureaucracies and
inefficiency, an advocate of
change -these are elements
whose public leaders are of in-
terest only as indicators of the
stage of their decrepitude, of
old men who cling to scraps of
paper for the simplest pro-
nouncemeau, who have re-
duced leadership to ritual and
tired slogans.
All Gorbachev had to do to
impress the West, noted one ',
Moscow cynic, was "to walk
.unaided and to talk without
notes." It was a situation
somewhat akin to Andmpov's
coming to power in November
1382. Never mind that he had
been 15 years at the head of the
K.G.B., or Ambassador to
Hungary when Soviet tanks
rolled through in 1856. After
Brezhnev's long, tedious slide
into senility, it was enough that
he was ambulatory, that he
seemed to be intelligent and to
have a Program, .that he was
someone with whom we could
once again talk. It was hardly
surprising whm rumors
spread that he even sipped
whisky and liked jazz
The Image may have bacon
trifle overdone. But even 3abis
few months in power, Andro-
pov managed to live up m
much of the advance billing.
He set in motion extensive eco?
nomic experiments, he kicked
truant workers out of bath-
houses, and he made inroads in '.
the corrupt and ossified bu-
reaucracy. The immediate re~
salts were marginal, but more
important for Gorbachev and
the future was the fascinating
rise of an Andtnpov legend, of
a posthumous image amomg
common people and sophists-
cated intellectuals alike of a
man who might have trans-
' formed his nation into a rich
and powerful land had he only
had time.
Continued
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;,,orbachev has inherited the The fickleness and dangers But if tre world in which His official biography says
legacy of Andropov and has of Soviet politics are best iliac- 'hey grew up was powerful and L}:a*, he worked at a machine- .
emerged in the popular mind trated by the list of also-rans ~sertive, it also remained ob- t: actor station wnile still a stu- .I
as the one man who might pick who litter Soviet history: Trot- sessively defensive and sacra- dent. Real advancement
up where Andropov left oif. ;sky, Bukharin, Malenkov, Bul- rive. It was a system that re- sts:tPd in .950, when at the age
During his trip to Canada in gaain, Kirichenlto, Kozlov, roamed as intolerant as ever of o, 1, he entered the law school ';
May 1983 - in contrast to his ~ Kirilenko. What generated sus- any independence of spirit, of ~,oscow University, a dra-
December tour of Britain - pence around Gorbachev. how- !that resolutely crushed disci- merit siift from the agricui-
Gorbachev was exposed to ever, was not only the question denu and maintained the ~4Y-al 1-.:nterland_s to :2~e most
some tough public grilling by of whether he was destined for world's biggest political police ,prestigious .Soviet institution
Members of Parliament, and 'this list or for the shorter one of force to hunt down any hint of of higher learning. He is the
he quickly let it be known that successful candidates. The defiance. If Moscow and only graduate of Moscow Uni-
behind the affable visage lay a ' larger anticipation was the Leningrad bred a new urban versify in the Politburo, and
very quick temper and a keen i transition to a totally new cast intelligentsia, then. the rest of the only member with legal
sensitivity to perceived slights ~ of characters on the Soviet ~ the Soviet Union remained 1,-~~ning.
to his country. At one point, a stage, a new generation of men f mired in a dismal provincial- Moscow University's law
?Member of Parliament de- far better educated than the isrn? And if younger Russians school, of course, hardly
mended to know why the Brezhnevs and Chernenlcos of lost faith in Ma~~cist-Leninist ; paves a career path the way
Soviet Union stuffed its embas- Yore, probably more secure, ideology, they remained error- ' an Ivy League institution '
sies abroad with so many worldly and materialistic, and mously ignorant of the values does: Even with his degree in
spies. Gorbachev angrily fired less puritanically or ideology- and life styles cf the West. hanti, Gorbachev started his
back with charges of deliber- tally inspired. I Zbigniew Brzernski wrote. per' career at the bottom, as
ate provocation, following at the time Andropov first the secretary of a Komsomol
Wasiington's practice, and ., -Young Communist League
E KNOW TANTA- carne to power: It s wrong to
simvar charges' hzmgly little about divide these people into conser- - organizaticm in Stavropol,
If Gorbachev was guaran- ,~N these men. Official vatives or liberals, hawks and and IO years later, he still
teed attentlon in the West, his Soviet biographies generally doves, Stalinists or non-Stalin- deemed it necessary to enroll
prospects under Chernenko consist, in addition to the dry fists. The paint is that they're in a correspondence course in
were never so sure. Shortly .agriculture.
after his return from London, chronological lists of positions ~ all tough and brutal. The dif- ~ the other hand, Soviet
the banter at an embassy re- held, of a set of speeches in the f2rence is that some are more -law studies are highly politi-
ception in Moscow was about torturously boring prose of intelligent, more sophisticat- I cited, and the record of Gor-
Communism and an air- ed, more experienced and ~ ,
his successes. The handful of i _ - ._. . . - _-- --~_L._, bachev s career in Moscow
who Were there -members Of w` vau,cv a wac, a ya..aaaaaac+a~ tta., v n-uu.uua-~+ ?--??+ ". -?. waS poliLlCS. Within iw0 years. j
birthmark on his balding pate srzpid.
the urbanized intellygeatsia is carefully removed "L'niess you expect the Hof entering law school, Gor-
who naturally fall into Garbs- bachev joined the Communist
chew's camp -listened to the Kremlinology is largely a Soviet system to coIIapse
reports with growing unease. 'study of "formative" influ- unde* a stupid leader, it's ' org~ant~d fboratmhe schoolmoa
"Gorbachev is our only antes deduced from the few probably safer for us all if our sition that marked him as a
hope," one of the R,~c;anc ex- known facts. For men of Gor- principal rival can be more ia- ,, Po
g telli ant." promising politician.. ?.
plained in hushed tones. "But bachev s a e, the dominant g These were particularly in-
this kind of popularity is very one is that they were in their' teresting years at the univer-
dangerous. You've got to un- teens when -the Red Army ERTAINLY NOTHING
derstand how it works here - sacked Berlin and laid the m Gcrbachev's appear- city. Stalin died in 1953, and
foundations for the Soviet ante betrays a radical the discontent and rumblings
a politioian is not supposed to that eventually found expres-
attract rsonal attention un- Union as a global superpower. departure. He is stocky and
Pe sion iz Khrushchev's secret
less he's at the top. You're Their youth was punctuated balding, and ~ Public appear- speech attacking Stalin's
building up Gorbachev be- by proudly hailed ~: the antes he wears much the same "cult of personality,. are said
cause you're not used to a Soviet atomic bomb; the ~ dark suits and mutEd ties that to have been strong at the law
Soviet leader who can talk for launching of Sputnik, an event C his comrades do. Basically, he ,faculty. Russia~-is who claim
himself and act normally. But that jarred America from her looks to be what he is, the son I, they knew of Gorbachev m
his enemies might seize on this postwar complacency; the of Russian peasants. i those .ears say he was a
and start saying, 'Why is it launching of the first man into He was born on March 2, ', critic of Stalin even before of-
that the West likes him so?' " space. Theo' careers coincided 19.31, in the village of ?rivolye, ficial de-Stalinization. That
It was a reaction that re- with a 8 of Soviet power ~ the Stavropol region, afar- I passibility is made. moot,
fiected the instinctive ins undreamed of by the czars or tile, black-earth fsrtniag zone ~,I however, by the -..record,
ctuity of Soviet politics and the eves by Stalin, with rapid ur- north of the Caucasus Moue- !, v,?:l;ch shows Gorbachev to
batuzation and the emergence
fact that the qualities by which rains renowned for its sheep have been active in the Kom?
~ yo~8 P of a new class of urban intelli-
b ' t men ash to the and grain. It was a region somol by 1952, when paeans to
top in the West are not at aII gentsia hungry for the good overrun by the Germans and Stalin were still mandatory
things of life, immune to the one curious an6 unarLSwered for an your~? C9tnmunist.
the qualities that vin m the ~ Y,.. ----
brutal, Byzantine corridors of old slogans and_impatient with ~ question is whether Gorbachev ~ Pm:a Moscow, C~rbachev
the Kremlin. Soviet politics, in the ossified party bttreaucra~ lived as ::.*, adolzscent through ~ returned to Stavropol and
a system stripped of most cy. the o::cupation or whether he began a classic rise through
forms of public accountability, was eva.custed to ~he east. the parry, advancing in
is a raw struggle for power. ~ steady steps from Komsomol
Succession is determined secretary to first secretary of ~
largely by the handful of men - the regional parry organiz~-
in the Politburo. tion and a seal on the Central i
Committee by the age of 39.
l.ltfllin,.~
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?robably the most sigaifi-
ca~--t aspect of Gorbachev's
' 22-yea: service in Stavropol,
however, was the patronage
of Milu~:ail A. Suslov, the
powerful ideologue and king-
maker in Brezhnev's Kremlin
whose power base was in
Stavropol. Gorbachev's elec-
tion to full membership on the
Central Committee in 1971-
without the usual stint as a
candidate member-was one
sign of special favor. The
major break came in 197A
when Fyodor D. Kulakov, the
party secretary for agricul-
ture and yet another Stavro-
poi man, suddenly died. Gor-
bachev, 47, Lenin's age at the
time of the Revolution, was
tapped to take over, and he
moved to the center of power
in Moscow.
In the waning years of the
Brezhnev era, Gorbachev
managed a program of mas-
sive investment in agricul-
ture personally sponsored by
Brezhnev as his "food pro-
gram." He pushed through
new ideas such as shifting
control over agricultural
operations from ministries in
Moscow to regional agro-in-
dustrial authorities. He also
moved to shift agricultural
work to the "brigade meth-
od," giving groups of workers
responsibility for a specific
fifth of the regional first sec-
retaries and nine of 23 'Carr- ~
tral Committee department
heads. They cracked down on
corrupt officials and on lag-
gard workers, and launched
experiments to inject more ,''.
incentives into industry and
agriculture. As Andropov's
health deteriorated, Gorba-
chev's role expanded, until,
at the end, he was the sole
link between the dying leader
and the party hierarchy.
There is no evidence that
Andropov meant for Gorba-
chev to succeed him. But to
many in the party sad in the
white-collar intelligentsia,
Gorbachev was the logical
heir to Andropov's policies,
the one man who could sus-
tain- the -chaAges. -Exactly-
what happened in the Polit-
burp cartuot be known; but the
~ popular interpretation is that
j the old guard concluded it ,
~ was not yet time for a man so
many years their junior to
seize the power they had
wielded for some 30 years,
I and they opted to delay the
inevitable with Chernenko,
the oldest man ever to come
~ to power and already ailing
~ when he came there.
But Gorbachev emerged
from the process the effective
second in command, with
more responsibility than any
previous leader in a similar
position.
Impressive as Gorbachev's
rise has been, the evidence is
inconclusive about his skills
in political combat. Several
times this past year, he
seemed to slip. His speech
piece of land and paying them
according to the results. The
thrust in both these reforms
was to restore some of the
bonds that had once linked
the peasants to the land, and
which Stalin had so bloodily
severed in the collectivization
driveof the 1930's.
Gorbachev's experiments
brought marginal improve
meat in some areas of agri-
culture, but not enou?h to off-
set asuccession of crop fail-
ures.
What did work well for Gor-
bachev was the accession of
Andropov.
The shrewd, tough former
K.G.B. boss found in Gorba-
chev the perfect lieutenant to
execute his ambitious efforts
at sorting out the corruption
and stagnation Brezhnev had
left behind. Taking advan-
tage of campaigns then under
way in the party, Andropov
and Gorbachev replaced one
nominating Chernenko after ,
Andropov's death was never I
acknowledged in the Soviet
press. At one awards tale
mony in the Kremlin, he mys-
teriously shifted from the
center of a Politburo lineup to
the sidelines. At the October
plenum of the Central Com- '
mittee, his name was not
mentioned even though the ,
subject was agriculture, his ~
field.
_ -There is_.also the_ impr
sion, among Russians that he ,
~ lacks an element of ruthless- ~
near. His rise, after aII, was i
due more to patronage than to ''
brute force. Suslov and An- I
dropov may have launched
him into an orbit far higher
~ than he could have achieved
on his own, while less-tale- I
brated but tougher members ~
of the Politburo, like Grigory
Romanov, the former Lenin-
grad party chief, made it to ~
the top by clawing their way '
up.
What he does have, prob.
ably to a greater degree than
any previous candidate for
Soviet power, is a platform.
He is identified, more closely
than any member of the Polit-
burn, with calls for funds- i
mental changes in economic,
organizational and social
thinking: He has the mantle
of Andropov, whose memory
has swelled into a legend of a
man who combined the stick
of tough discipline with the
carrot of economic reorgani-
zation. He seems to have the
backing of the brighter and
younger minds in the Soviet
leadership.
OBODY IN THE
N Soviet leadership is
against economic
changerThe long lines outside-
_stores alone make any other
position politically untenable.
But Soviet thinking on the issue
has split roughly into two
trends. On one side are the
"hard-liners," men like Roma-
nov and Prime Minister Niko-
lai A. Tikhonov, whose solution
has been ~to cry out for more
discipline within existing
structures, for stronger cen-
tralized control, increased
party supervision, for ruthless
treatment of, managers who
don't achieve. Against these
are ranged the ' `reformers,"
.with Gorbachev at their head
-men who advocate loosening
of centralized controls, less
parry meddling, more self-
management, greater use of
market mechanisms and
financial incentives.
Ardent as Gorbachev has
been in crying out against
"inertia, conservatism of
thinking, inability or unwill-
ingness to change established
ways of work and shift to neap
methods,., there are distinct
limits to what he would,. ct1
could, do.
One telling incident was the
furor that erupted after the ,
jnumal Voprosy Istorii (Ques-
lions of History) published an
article by Evgeny.Ambartsu-
mov, one of the leading advo-
- cater of_reformTcalling-for
more private enterprise in the
Soviet ecoaotny. ~:! ~~ ~
his authcttfry ~tbe ??~, a~0o-
nomic policy, ~ ~. ~
vival of private ~~
I e?nin Permitted fn 1921 t0 !!
pair the initial ravages p f gp~,
shevism. Rommutust, the peg.
mier theoretics] jou-ssai ai lira
Communist party. soon ~.
,gated Ambartsuaov io: Zstt
shallow approach" and ~
e^.~iccrs of Voprosy Istnrii !or
their lax controls. ~~
months later, Komtn~ re?,
ported a special meeti~ at
which the editors of Voprtasy
Istorii '7eco~ized the justice
of the criticism."
The greatest barrier belrne
the "reformers" is the iasttta-
tional resistance of a parry ba
reaucracy that derives !rs
F'~~ and .Privilege Iipan
thin~pe ES they are. It is an
elite, the defector Aricady
S?~evchenko wrote in his reorat
memoirs, that "will permit no
one to transform that sodety
or alter its foreign or domestic
policy in airy way that may af.
fecK their perquisites..'
It was this ossified elite that
smothered Aleksei N. Kosy-
gin's attempts at reform fa the
1960's, simply by doting nathinY
to implement them. Aadropo~v~
too, recognized iu ioroe, sad
parallel with his campaign to
discipline and motivate wont.
era he set about firing party
serxetaries and cracking down
on the corrupt.
what makes the prospect of
internal change more ptoQd-
tious now is a sense oS a'tsis
that seems to be spreading
among Soviet economic man-
agers, a sense that somethiaY
must change and change fart.
Oi] proauctioa has fallen all,
industrial output is climbfag at
a Snail's pace Bad BgriCLtltllr'e
remains in dismal straits. The
military is clamoring for more
money to match President
Reagan's military buildup,
and consumers are becoming
more vocal in their frustration.
On the political front, the
27th Parry Congress. which is
said to be scheduled for
November, is expected to
adopt a new partyy program i
and to acme a new C~tral
Cu.-nmittee. Atleast IS percent
of the current Central Commit- '
tee membership is slated for
replacement. j
All this could give a new i
Continued
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 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07 :CIA-RDP90-009658000705870009-9
leader -Gorbachev or an-
other member of his genera-
tion -some scope for action.
Yet in setting up the central-
ized and overlapping system of
bureaucratic cwatrol that. still
holds sway over Soviet life,
Stalin insured that change
could be imposed only from the
top -and only by a leader who
could gain control over the
..enormous apparatus of power.
Accumulating such power
could take years.
One lesson of Soviet history
is that any real than a is likely
to be -accompanied by in-
creased repression. Change
has always made Russians and
their leaders nervous, -and at
such times the authorities
have invariably become more
authoritarian, less tolerant of
debate or dissent.
It was so under Andropov,
and Gorbachev would not be
likely to net any differently.
Nothing be has said or done
suggests eay greater degree of
tolerance for unorthodox
thinking than any of his col-
leagues, and it is wise to keep.
in mind that his two primary
mentors were Suslo~v and An-
dropov, among the most stern
of postwar Soviet leaders. ,? _ -
Foreign affairs is the field of
Soviet endeavor least likely. w
change under a new genera-
tion. Gorbachev's public state-
ments on foreign issues have
demonstrated no marked
originality, and his ideological
discourses on differences be- ~
tween Communist and demo-
cratic systems have been dull
and standard. lie would likely .
favor detente, if only to give
breathing space to domestic
programs. But nothing sug- ,
gents that he or any of his peers
would react any differently
from their predecessors to the
-insecurities, expansionist !
forces or sensitivity to loss of
face that govern so much of ~
.Soviet behavior abroad.
A Soviet Union under Gorba-
chew or another of his ilk would
not be radically different in the
immec'.iate future. Yet Gorba-
chev is a man Mrs. Thatcher
found likable and possibleto do
business with. That and his
youth and the pragmatism his ,
statements reflect probably ~
make him as good a Soviet
politician as the West can ex-
pect. ~
Serge Schmemann is The T1mes's bureau
chief in Moscow.
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