That Puzzling "Politburo Plague"

THE Soviet Union commemorated International Health Day last week, but the timing could hardly have been worse. No fewer than five of the eleven full members of the Politburo were reported to be incapacitated by various ailments.

Confined to hospitals or to their homes were Premier Aleksei Kosygin, President Nikolai Podgorny, Communist Party Ideologist Mikhail Suslov, Trade Union Leader Alexander Shelepin and Deputy Premier Dmitry Polyansky. Such widespread contagion within the U.S.S.R.'s ruling body--some spoke of the "Politburo plague"--revived last month's rumors of a Kremlin shake-up (TIME, March 23). It is, of course, medically possible (if statistically implausible) that all are genuinely ill, especially in view of the advanced age of some of the patients: Kosygin, Podgorny and Suslov are all over 65. But many analysts speculated that Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, lately seen to be fit and cheerful, was consolidating his position, and that some, if not all, of the disabled leaders were suffering from maladies that were more political than physiological.

Several experts in the West theorized that a decision to oust some of the top leaders has already been made, perhaps at a secret Politburo meeting rumored to have been held on or around March 30. After that date the five Politburo members were conspicuously absent from several state occasions and began canceling travel plans. According to this argument, the announcement of the ousters, which must be formally approved by the Central Committee, is being delayed until after next week's mammoth Lenin centennial celebrations. Stories are already circulating in Moscow that a meeting of the committee for this purpose may be imminent.

Under a Blanket. Speculation about important shifts in the Kremlin was reinforced last week by the dismissal of at least four top Soviet officials in charge of ideology, propaganda and culture. Most notable was the demotion of Vladimir Stepakov from head of the powerful Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee to the ambassadorship in Peking.*

Amidst the ideological trumpetings and fanfares preceding the Lenin anniversary, such a purge of the nation's top ideologists sounded a discordant note, to say the least. Some analysts saw a connection between the dismissals and the Politburo illnesses, especially since some of those fired are associated with Shelepin and all come under Sus-lov's authority. In a biting analogy, British Sovietologist Leopold Labedz observed that "the dogs are fighting under a blanket, but all we can see is the blanket moving. We don't know which dog has his teeth in which other dog." Other specialists point out that such clean sweeps of party and government agencies in the post-Stalin era have always taken place after, not before a change in the top leadership. Still others, however, believe that the propaganda officials were punished for failures, most notably for so overselling the Lenin celebrations that they have become a bore to many Russians.

Signs of trouble in the Kremlin began mounting after Dec. 15, when Brezhnev made a secret speech to the Central Committee about the lagging Soviet economy. Since his predecessor, Nikita Khrushchev, was ousted principally because of poor economic performance, Brezhnev took care to blame economic planners and managers for the failures. To many Sovietologists, the postponement of the next Communist Party Congress from this month to an indeterminate date late in 1970 or even 1971 suggested high-level disagreements. Said Yale's Wolfgang Leonhard: "It means either that the leaders can't agree on policies or that there's profound disarray in the Kremlin."

There was some evidence that Brezhnev was trying to shore up his power. He was the only Politburo member to review the massive army maneuvers in Byelorussia last month and was photographed with the Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, prominently at his side. It seemed that, as party General Secretary, he was asserting his position as first among equals in the Politburo and pointing to the support he personally commands in the Soviet army. Kremlinologists were also struck by the fact that Brezhnev, on his return to Moscow from a three-day trip to Budapest last week, was met at the railway station by Grechko, Marshal Ivan Yakubovsky, Commander of the Warsaw Pact forces, and Secret Police Chief Yuri Andropov. Such a turnout, which would ordinarily pass unobserved, seemed to indicate the source of Brezhnev's present strength.

Kremlin Silence. One indication of a possible change in leadership is that the Kremlin has not moved to halt the rumors by denying them. Another way to quash the rumors would be to rouse the sick Politburo members from their beds long enough for them to gather at some official occasion. Just such an occasion was provided last week at a Kremlin party for Soviet cosmonauts. Only one of the ailing leaders felt well enough, in body or spirit, to put in an appearance. He was Shelepin, who looked pale and wan.

There is a possibility that the collective leadership is still intact and that the propaganda apparatus was reorganized because of failures on the part of specific officials rather than as part of a titanic power struggle. In spite of disagreements about who is doing what to whom, however, most specialists in the West agreed that something certainly seemed to be brewing in the Kremlin. They also agreed that a Kremlin shake-up would not mean a drastic change in the present rigid and repressive Soviet policies at home and in Eastern Europe, but simply a more vigorous application of those policies. In other words, even if there are major changes in the cast, the new players are likely to follow roughly the same script.

* Another official removed from his post was Aleksei Romanov, chairman of the State Cinematography Committee, better known as the former Soviet intelligence officer who denounced Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1945 and was thus responsible for sending the great novelist to prison and exile for eleven years.

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