Whoa, Comrade Brezhnev

Since last spring, Leonid Brezhnev has unofficially ranked as the primus inter pares in Russia's collective leadership. But Brezhnev is handicapped by a bothersome pecking-order peculiarity of the Soviet system. As General Secretary of the Communist Party, he is the Soviet Union's most powerful official. On diplomatic protocol lists, however, he stands only No. 3. First is Nikolai Podgorny, who as chairman of the Presidium holds the position of head of state. Second is Aleksei Kosygin, who as Premier ranks as chief of government.

According to diplomatic custom, Brezhnev is not entitled to the top red-carpet treatment accorded to foreign dignitaries of higher official standing--elaborate airport ceremonies, big honor guards and 21-gun salutes. On his recent visit to Paris, the French did not decide to accord Brezhnev full head-of-state honors until the Russians dropped some very strong hints that he wanted it that way. When Brezhnev meets with President Nixon in the spring, he is certain to be painfully aware that he is receiving a man who holds the overwhelming protocol advantages of being at once a) party leader, b) government chief and c) head of state.

Politburo Opposition. Since last September, a campaign has been under way to elevate Brezhnev to the No. 1 spot in name as well as fact. There was some speculation in Moscow that Brezhnev's backers would seek to create for him a new all-powerful Council of State, along the lines of similar bodies in Bulgaria, East Germany and Rumania, that would give him the top state job as well as the ranking party post. Other speculations held that Brezhnev would shove Kosygin aside and take over both government and party leadership just as Nikita Khrushchev did in 1958.

Brezhnev's backers were expected to make their move at last week's plenum of the 240-member Central Committee.

Apparently, however, the issue did not even come up at the sessions. What happened? Some Western experts speculate that Brezhnev sensed that there was so much opposition within the 15-man Politburo that he backed away from making a grab for power. According to some accounts, Brezhnev could count on only five votes. At least seven Politburo members are implacably opposed to granting greater governmental authority to Brezhnev to go along with his party leadership; to do so would be to scrap the collective leadership system that was instituted after Khrushchev's ouster as a safeguard against one-man dictatorship.

Shades of Nikita. Podgorny's position may have proved to be stronger than Brezhnev had suspected. In recent months Brezhnev has somewhat softened his positions on Yugoslavia's independence, mutual troop reductions and diplomatic deals with the West; he has even personally forced the intransigent East Germans to agree to concessions in the Berlin negotiations. As a result, a number of disgruntled marshals and industrial managers have rallied round Podgorny, who has become the rep resentative of the extreme hard line within the Kremlin.

Some Western analysts suspect that Brezhnev will seek to enhance his own position by undermining Kosygin, whose stewardship of the Soviet economy has recently come under severe, if still indirect, criticism. When the Supreme Soviet, Russia's rubber-stamp parliament, approved the new five-year plan last week, Kosygin declared that by 1975 the Soviet Union would surpass the U.S. in total production. That forecast is as empty as the boast made by Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 that Russia would overtake the U.S. by 1970. Kosygin, a competent economist, must have known this. As he fully realizes, the Soviet economy is plagued by poor quality, haphazard planning and sloppy work habits. But the very fact that Kosygin felt compelled to inflate his importance by making such a farfetched promise to the Supreme Soviet may well be a reflection of his uneasiness.

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