THE NEW BOSS
Paradoxically, to have stood a chance of success in 1982–3, the leader (or leaders) would have had to recognize not only that the system was ailing (that had been clear to an Andropov or Kosygin for some time), but that several of its vital organs were already dead.
As early as 1965, the economist Nemchinov had foreseen dangers ahead when he castigated ‘an ossified mechanical system in which all the key parameters are fixed in advance, so that the system is paralysed from top to bottom’. When an individual is pronounced dead, we know he cannot be resurrected. But when what is involved is a mode of government, dismantling and rebuilding remain an option. This may sound puzzling, but governmental models have been rebuilt using a significant number of old components.
As has already been indicated, it is clear that Kosygin and Andropov knew the situation better than any Western historian, thanks to the reports they read, which only became available to us twenty-five years later. Among them was a solid, unpublished work, commissioned by Kosygin when Prime Minister, from the economic section of the Academy of Sciences. Three years after Nemchinov’s warnings, the academicians presented a systematic comparison between American and Soviet economic structures – productivity, living standards, technological progress, incentive systems, the direction and character of investment. Their unvarnished verdict was as follows: the USSR was losing on all fronts, except in coal and steel. The latter was the pride of the regime, but it attested to the country’s backwardness, for this sector had been the benchmark in the previous century. The message was clear: it was that of the old Aramaic inscription on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace in Babylon – only now it read differently. The threat no longer came from God, but from the United States. There was not a minute to lose.
Underlying the stagnation – but also constituting its main symptom – was a deadlocked Politburo around a brain-dead Brezhnev: a humiliating impasse exhibited before the whole world. It was impossible to remove Brezhnev, for contrary to the case of Khrushchev no majority could be mustered in favour of a new leader. The other aspect of the picture, which was blatant enough to be widely known throughout Russia, was the spread of a tentacular corruption. Members of Brezhnev’s family were ostentatiously involved in it – a subject poor Leonid did not like to hear spoken about. Mushrooming mafia networks, with which many highly placed party officials were associated, were something else the country (if not certain leaders) was aware of. Nothing on such a scale had been known before. No doubt the KGB had all the information it required.
Just as the country learned of a major drive by the KGB against this scourge, and even as the noose around the Brezhnev family and other heavyweights was tightening, a shot suddenly rang out on the political stage: on 19 January 1982, Andropov’s first deputy, Semen Tsvigun – Brezhnev’s shadow over Andropov – committed suicide. Other such shots were to follow. A few days later, the second most influential conservative in the party – the grey eminence Suslov – died of natural causes. This conjunction of events was the key to the altered balance of forces within the Politburo, to the detriment of the ‘swamp’.
If it reads like the screenplay of a political thriller, so be it. Inside the KGB, Tsvigun (under Suslov’s supervision) was in charge of the main files on corruption – those involving people in high places, including Brezhnev’s family. Personally beyond reproach in this respect, Suslov nevertheless forbade him to use these files or to show them to anyone. Thus, Andropov supposedly had no access to them. When the two men died, Andropov got his hands on them and began to dig further. Tsvigun himself, it turned out, was involved in several corrupt transactions, along with various people connected to Politburo members.
We shall pass over the details (there are many). Brezhnev died just in time in 1982. The anti-corruption drive had broken the capacity of the ‘swamp’ to maintain a favourable balance of forces within the Politburo and Central Committee. And thus it was that the unusual KGB chief Andropov became general-secretary, almost by accident. He was only in power for fifteen months – another accident – but this brief period raises interesting problems that can only be treated tentatively, and partly as an exercise in counter-factual history (‘and if… and if…’).
The various characters I have sketched were dynamic and capable. The obtuse and inept ones who comprised the ‘swamp’, or the sheer dead weights, have been omitted. But it is worth lingering for a moment over one aspect of internal manoeuvrings in the Politburo. The general-secretary had power over all nominations: he could co-opt or exclude whomever he wished. It was up to his supporters to ensure approval of these decisions by the Politburo and Central Committee. Another scenario, which had a precedent, indicates that a group which wanted to select a new general-secretary could oust the incumbent on condition of obtaining sufficient support in the Central Committee and being able to count on the army and KGB. In fact, the army would suffice even against the KGB, which was no match for it in such circumstances.
Conversely, and paradoxically, weak leaders like Brezhnev or Chernenko could block the situation if there was a majority of mediocrities at the top who depended on an enfeebled general-secretary for their position. Thus Brezhnev, a cunning but not a malicious figure, became the cement and guarantor of the status quo: he was not a threat and the dead weights felt safe. The situation became even more paradoxical when such a general-secretary was still in post, but in practice completely absent because he had been ill for years.
When Mikoyan criticized Khrushchev’s ‘erratic’ policies, he was factually accurate. But they were not exclusively attributable to his character. Khrushchev’s shortcomings were in part made possible by the absence of constitutional rules within the Politburo, which was supposedly the all-powerful summit of a hyper-centralized system. In the absence of a proper constitution, a general-secretary intent on acquiring or regaining the ability to pursue some particular policy, or simply retaining his position, had to plot to obtain total control of power with the help of his personal following (which was never wholly reliable). The old model of personal dictatorship just popped up again as if the institutional vacuum could only be filled by one man. This prompted members of the Politburo to support an autocratic position, or to aspire to it personally, as if no other modus operandi was conceivable. This is what made possible the ‘impossible’ Khrushchev, who could have been an important player in a genuine team in a constitutionally regulated system. This quasi-structural weakness, which pushed the general-secretary into behaving like a dictator, or at least allowed him to, was a congenital feature bequeathed by Stalin – part of his legacy that was not eliminated.
However, not everything was fixed on the chessboard of power at the summit (Politburo, Central Committee, ministries). The top position could certainly be filled by a mediocre or weak figure (Brezhnev or Chernenko). But it could also fall to a strong, dynamic character (for better or worse) – a Stalin, Khrushchev, or Andropov. Ousting a mediocrity and changing course proved impossible for quite a time, until the appropriate moment arrived: such, to my mind, was the occasion when the tentacles of corruption extended to various members of the ‘swamp’, rendering them vulnerable and malleable.