Soviet Union the Succession Problem

By George Russell

For more than a month, the questions and rumors have been piling up like snow flurries around the red-brown walls of the Kremlin. Where is Konstantin Chernenko, who was last seen on Dec. 27, handing out awards at a televised ceremony? How sick is he? Is the frail Soviet party leader and President, who suffers from a pulmonary disorder, dying? Is he about to resign? Above all, who will succeed him?

The mystery of the missing General Secretary of the Communist Party intensified last week. In Moscow, Politburo Member Mikhail Gorbachev, 53, viewed by many as the heir apparent to the leadership, canceled a trip to Paris, where he had been expected to attend the 25th congress of the French Communist Party. Two weeks earlier, the Kremlin had announced that a conference of Warsaw Pact leaders, set for mid-January, had been postponed. In Bonn, West German Socialist Leader Willy Brandt announced that a visit to the Soviet capital in mid-February had also been postponed at Moscow's request. So great was the climate of uncertainty in Moscow that foreign diplomats and journalists became nervous every time the radio broadcast somber symphonic music, frequently the first indication of a top leader's death. There were other signs and portents as well for Kremlin watchers: at week's end, for example, the long-running world chess match between Anatoli Karpov and Gary Kasparov was abruptly moved out of the House of Unions, the elegant building where Soviet leaders traditionally lie in state.

All the frenetic activity might prove to be a futile exercise. Chernenko could reappear in public at any moment, or be seen on Soviet TV. But even if the General Secretary resurfaces soon, it is apparent that the Soviet regime is once again face to face with one of its fundamental shortcomings: the lack of institutional means to ensure the orderly transfer of power. Given Chernenko's age and evident frailty, the Soviet Union may in any event soon be undergoing its third leadership succession since 1982. Indeed, Soviet analysts around the world are busy trying to assess the likely makeup of the next regime.

With speculation about Chernenko running wild, Soviet officialdom finally took a clumsy hand. Last Thursday, Stuart Loory, the Moscow-based American correspondent for Cable News Network, was summoned to the press department of Moscow's Foreign Ministry, where Official Spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko handed him typewritten answers to four questions on U.S.-Soviet arms-control negotiations that Loory had submitted to Chernenko on Jan. 9. The unsigned document, Loory was told, came from the Soviet leader himself. It reiterated standard Soviet positions: "serious and purposeful" discussions with the U.S. about nuclear-arms reductions were possible, but only if tied to restrictions on the Reagan Administration's Star Wars space-based missile defense. Then the conversation turned to the question of Chernenko's health, with Lomeiko assuring Loory that the Soviet leader would be back at work.

Lomeiko specifically knocked down speculation that Chernenko might resign at a Central Committee meeting, possibly next month. When Loory asked whether Chernenko was seriously ill, Lomeiko denied it point-blank. Said he: "All Politburo members are entitled to a monthlong winter vacation, and the General Secretary is taking his." Where? Somewhere outside Moscow.

Lomeiko's denial was a standard Soviet ploy, aimed at buttressing the Kremlin's image of monolithic authority. Veteran observers in Moscow quickly decided that Chernenko's purported answers were probably the work of Leonid Zamyatin, head of the Central Committee's international information department. But Lomeiko's bland suggestion concerning Chernenko's whereabouts was eerily similar to the explanations given out about Chernenko's predecessor, Yuri Andropov, who died last February after being out of public view for six months. Just a few weeks before his death, Andropov was said to be recuperating from a slight ailment. A similar denial was issued shortly before Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov died from a heart attack on Dec. 20.

The regime's insistence on maintaining a facade of normality reveals the leadership's deep fear of political discontinuity. The same conservative instinct is an important reason why there is no codified process for changes in command and no real tradition of how such changes should be made. The Kremlin's obsession with continuity is confirmed by former Diplomat Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking Soviet official to defect since World War II (see SPECIAL SECTION). Says he: "They have never decided on a new leader before the old one is dead"--or, in the case of Nikita Khrushchev, deposed by collective agreement. Adds Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a Soviet expert at Washington's Brookings Institution: "How could it be otherwise when it is an autocratic, dictatorial, almost monarchical system? The only difference is there is no biological heir."

The speculation that poured forth last week reflected Western eagerness to plumb, however erratically, the Kremlin's unfathomable ways. In Washington, Syndicated Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak reported that Rumanian intelligence officials had passed word to the U.S. that Chernenko, 73, had suffered a stroke. The conservative U.S. journalists also floated the notion, citing sources in the Reagan Administration, that Politburo Member Gorbachev was out of the running for the top Kremlin job. Instead, they reported, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, 75, might take over.

In Paris, the left-leaning French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur said that Chernenko had suffered a "brain (stroke) or cardiac attack." The attack occurred a week ago and robbed Chernenko of his speech, the magazine claimed.

In London, the Sunday Times reported that Chernenko was ready to step down voluntarily as Communist Party General Secretary because of his deteriorating health. But the newspaper insisted that Gorbachev was still the likely successor, even if Chernenko might remain, in a strictly ceremonial capacity, as President of the U.S.S.R. Gorbachev's main competitor for the leadership, the Sunday Times said, was still Politburo Member Grigori Romanov, 61. Yet another rumor circulating in the corridors of Whitehall had it that the late Defense Minister Ustinov had left a last will and testament urging the Politburo to choose Gorbachev as party leader.

There was no substantiation for any of these stories. However, in private, a few Soviet officials have been freely admitting for quite some time that Chernenko has been "quite seriously" ill. Last week they also began to admit the possibility that Chernenko, like Andropov, might reappear only at his funeral in Red Square. The unofficial grapevine is increasingly specific about the nature of Chernenko's illness. According to both Soviet and East European officials, he is suffering from a heart ailment resulting from emphysema, a pulmonary condition that has possibly been aggravated by pneumonia.

Soviet officials have also begun to murmur the name of the "vacation spot" where Chernenko may be staying. It is the so-called Kremlin Hospital, a heavily guarded facility seven miles northwest of the Kremlin in an exclusive, wooded suburban area known as Kuntsevo. Traffic police who may be KGB men are stationed every quarter-mile along the two-lane road that leads to the heavily guarded hospital, which is nestled among silver birch and oak trees and surrounded by an unpainted, 10-ft.-high cement wall.

Along with its seclusion, an important factor in the Kremlin Hospital's location is its proximity--only a quarter-mile--from Moscow's $117 million U.S.S.R. Cardiology Research Center. The center's director is the eminent cardiologist Yevgeni Chazov, who is also a full member of the Soviet Central Committee. As director of the Ministry of Health's Fourth Department, Chazov is in charge of caring for the health of Soviet leaders.

President Yuri Andropov, too, was hospitalized for the final six months of his tenure. There was no inkling during that time that Chernenko, a member of the Politburo old guard who had already been passed over once for the leadership, would emerge as the next choice. Many senior diplomats in Moscow, however, think that this time the Politburo may already have made up its mind in favor of the amiable, polished Gorbachev, the youngest member of that organization's young guard, who made a favorable impression on the West during his seven-day trip to Britain last December. Along with Politburo Members Geidar Aliyev, 61, and Vitali Vorotnikov, 59, Gorbachev was an Andropov protege. His standing as the probable front runner appeared to get a powerful endorsement last month: the official Communist Party daily, Pravda, listed him as one of four candidates to represent Moscow districts in elections for the rubber-stamp Supreme Soviet, or parliament, of the Russian Republic scheduled for Feb. 24. The other three candidates: Chernenko, Soviet Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, and Politburo Member and Moscow Party Chief Viktor Grishin.

The most important aspect of Gorbachev's status is that he is simultaneously a member of the Politburo and of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, which runs the country on a day-to-day basis. Only Chernenko and Leadership Hopeful Romanov share that distinction. It is a vitally important one: because of the leadership vacuum created by Chernenko's failing health, the Secretariat now appears to have greater control of the entire Soviet system. ; As "Senior Secretary" in the organization, Gorbachev has been able to increase his sway throughout the bureaucracy and fill the key positions of the institution with officials from his own generation. Indeed, Gorbachev finds the position so pivotal that he is said to prefer to work out of his office in the gray and pastel green Central Committee building on Old Square, rather than his more prestigious Politburo quarters in the Kremlin.

The office site favored by Gorbachev is symbolic of how authority has flowed away from the center of the regime during Chernenko's waning leadership, which in turn came after the truncated rule of Andropov and the final, enfeebled years of Leonid Brezhnev. Other branches of the Soviet system have also benefited, especially Andrei Gromyko's Foreign Ministry. Gromyko's increased standing in the Politburo under Chernenko has been widely noted, as has his unquestioned command of Soviet foreign policy. For that reason, Gromyko is regarded by some foreign diplomats as a possible candidate for Chernenko's job. Another factor in Gromyko's favor, paradoxically enough, is his age. At 75, he might be chosen, like Chernenko, as a "transitional" leader, especially if the remaining old-guard members are still chary of appointing Gorbachev, who could conceivably hold power for as long as 20 years.

At 61, Romanov might be the ideal age to please both the old guard and younger Politburo members. Yet Romanov, the secretary in charge of heavy industry and the military, has apparently not gained much in political clout or influence lately. Also, his Leningrad background is a handicap in the Moscow-centered world of Kremlin politics. Nonetheless he remains a major candidate in the eyes of many analysts, on the basis of having avoided appointment as the successor to Defense Minister Ustinov, a job that would probably have taken Romanov out of contention for party leadership.

Ultimately, no one really knows what factors come into play when the succession is decided. The process is still an enigma, enveloped in nearly 70 years of Bolshevik devotion to intrigue and secrecy. As far as experts can tell, a tiny handful of powerful Politburo members, perhaps as few as five or six, and usually only those based in Moscow, normally control the process. Says a Kremlinologist at the U.S. State Department: "There are no votes taken. They palaver until the consensus is reached." In the final hours of the decision, the military and the KGB may become more influential, as they < were in helping to swing the balance in favor of Andropov. There is no guarantee, however, that next time they will have anything like the same significance.

When next time will come is still anybody's guess. But increasingly there seems to be an irritation in the Soviet Union at the sense of drift that old and enfeebled leaders have imposed on the country. Says Kremlinologist Donald Zagoria, professor of government at Manhattan's Hunter College: "There is a lot of evidence of widespread impatience with old leaders. The people want to get the country moving again."

The Politburo members are undoubtedly aware of that. They also surely know that the most hallowed of Soviet virtues, their image of strong leadership, is also suffering. As recently as 1981, respect--and fear--surrounding the leadership was so great that Soviet dissidents only dared tell jokes to foreigners about the ailing Brezhnev out-of-doors, where conversations would not fall prey to bugging devices. It is a sign of Moscow's current troubled times that anti-Chernenko jokes are now widely told without any concern about who might be listening.

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow, with other bureaus