Brezhnev: A One-Man Band

When Leonid Brezhnev summoned his Polish comrades to Moscow last week he must have been feeling especially sure of himself; the 26th Soviet Communist Party congress had just finished showering him with glory. Through session after session, Brezhnev had listened impassively to a stream of eulogies on his wisdom, his leadership, his "tireless" struggles for peace. Then after eight days it was over, and Brezhnev stepped to the podium last week to bring the congress to a close. Looking relatively vigorous and speaking forcefully, though with his usual slur, the 74-year-old leader announced his election as party chief for another five years. Then he called for "immense effort" from the 5,002 approving delegates in the Kremlin's vast Palace of Congresses. "Our supreme goal will be reached," he declared. "Communist society will be built " Thus ended one of the least eventful party congresses in recent Soviet history, a gathering whose importance lay not in what it did but in what it did not do. It approved a new Five-Year Plan virtually devoid of any new approaches for tackling the Soviet Union's deepening economic woes. Unlike most past congresses, it admitted no fresh faces to the party's 14-member ruling Politburo (average age: 70) The congress was above all an affirmation of the status quo.

Brezhnev himself produced the only surprise at the congress in his keynote speech. His offer of "an active dialogue" with the U.S. and a resumption of the SALT process amounted to a change in tone, if not a change of policy As most Kremlinologists saw it, the lack of strident anti-American diatribe demonstrated that Moscow is not anxious to provoke an immediate confrontation with the assertive new U.S. Administration. The Soviets insisted last week that Brezhnev s gesture was genuine. "He offered concrete, practical measures," a Central Committee official told TIME Moscow Bureau Chief Bruce W. Nelan "We have extended our hand, and we await an answer " On Moscow's other important front--the sclerotic Soviet economy--the congress broke no new ground at all. The 1981-85 economic plan recognizes that new growth can come only from increased productivity, and it requires each worker to be diligent, efficient and thrifty. But, such exhortations have been is sued countless times before without conspicuously inspiring the labor force. The congress did not really come to grips with any of the basic problems " says an analyst in Moscow. "The consumer was shown a future that is implicitly dismal. There is no sign of reapportioning resources, no adjustment in who gets a larger slice of the pie. There is no clue about how, specifically, they will deal with the shortage of labor and the need for higher productivity "

Nor was there any hint about Brezhnev's eventual successor. The cult of personality that surrounds the ailing leader may have reached its apogee at the congress. But his iron grip on the helm may doom the Kremlin to a nasty power struggle after his passing. "They are postponing the day of succession to the point that it will now be a blowup, rather than a gradual shift," predicts William Hyland of Georgetown's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

If significant rivalries do develop, they could seriously disrupt East-West relations. "I don't know whether it will change the direction of Soviet policies," says U.S. Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer, "but I will look for confrontations, divisions, splits -- a volatile situation within the leadership. It will be a dangerous, unpredictable period."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.