An Alter Ego

Brezhnev shows he is still firmly in control of the Kremlin

Leonid Brezhnev, 71, is patently not a well man; according to Western intelligence experts, his various ailments may include gout, leukemia, emphysema and a heart condition. But whatever the current status of his health, the Soviet Union's President and party chief last week demonstrated that he is still firmly in control at the Kremlin. In a shuffle of top-level Communist Party jobs, he elevated one of his staunches! allies to the 13-member ruling Politburo, gave the boot to a prominent nonloyalist and further consolidated his hold on the country's decision-making apparatus.

By Soviet standards, the career of new Politburo Member Konstantin Chernenko, 67, has zoomed upward meteorically. A husky, silver-haired bureaucrat, Chernenko has for years served in effect as Brezhnev's chief of staff and virtual alter ego. He is a member of the so-called Moldavian Clan, the group of Soviet apparatchiks who hitched their careers to Brezhnev's when he served as first secretary of the Moldavian Communist Party in the early '50s. Chernenko headed the Moldavian party's propaganda department. After Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as party chief in 1964, his protege first became a candidate member of the Central Committee, then, five years later, earned a full-fledged slot. In 1976 Chernenko was elected a secretary of that 287-member body, and 14 months ago he was named an alternate (nonvoting) Politburo member. He was frequently observed deep in conversation with Brezhnev at public functions, only to slip into the background when actual ceremonies began. Chernenko was the only Politburo member to accompany his boss on a lengthy rail voyage to the Southern Caucasus last September.

If Chernenko's thoughts have ever differed from Brezhnev's on any issue, he has kept quiet about it; one Western diplomat in Moscow refers to him as Brezhnev's "paper shuffler." Nonetheless, Chernenko now ranks fourth in the party hierarchy, after Brezhnev, Ideologist Mikhail Suslov, 76, and Central Committee Secretary Andrei Kirilenko, 72. Chernenko now must be considered as a possible successor to his patron, or at least as a behind-the-curtain bossmaker in a post-Brezhnev era.

As notable as Chernenko's rise was the political eclipse of Kiril Mazurov, 64, a Politburo member and First Deputy Premier since 1965. He was ousted from both jobs last week "for reasons of health and at his own request." Mazurov's backer was Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, 74, who is not in the best of health, and whose influence has long been on the decline.

Mazurov's downfall had much to do with his lackluster performance as the Politburo member with specific responsibility for Soviet industry. Since the tenth Five-Year Plan began three years ago, the Soviets have placed special stress on increasing industrial productivity and technological modernization. At a plenum session of the party's Central Committee last week, Brezhnev complained about continuing industrial snags and bottle' necks. He singled out "central economic bodies, ministries and departments" as particularly responsible for the inefficiency.

But Brezhnev also had some good news. He proudly reported that this year's Soviet grain harvest was 235 million metric tons, the largest ever. The crop is 39.5 million tons larger than last year's, but still will not be large enough to meet livestock feed needs as consumers demand more of that Soviet luxury, meat. The U.S.S.R. is already committed to buying at least 6 million tons of grain from the U.S. next year. Agriculture experts predict that purchases will eventually amount to nearly double that.

Later, at a Supreme Soviet session, Brezhnev sat back and listened as Soviet Finance Minister Vasili Garbuzov made the second half of this year's guns-and-butter announcement. The Soviet defense budget for 1979, said Garbuzov, would remain the same as last year's: $26.6 billion. Western diplomats and intelligence experts were amused by the announcement. They knew that Garbuzov's arithmetic was off by a little matter of 400%; the real figure is more like $ 100 billion.

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