Alexei Kosygin was never a central political player and not a flamboyant one either. Moreover, he never wished to be in the ‘race’ for the post of general-secretary. Nevertheless, his remarkable administrative skills made him indispensable. It was known in top circles that the economy rested on his shoulders – and that nobody else possessed such broad ones.
The career of this phenomenal administrator reads like a history of Soviet government, from junior jobs to the highest posts, and contains some genuinely heroic chapters during the war. Among the latter, as has already been mentioned, were evacuating industry from territory about to be overrun by the Germans and breaking the Leningrad blockade by organizing the construction of a supply route and pipeline on the bottom of Lake Lagoda. But he was also sometime Finance Minister, head of Gosplan, Deputy Prime Minister, Prime Minister, and Politburo member; and admired and envied by general-secretaries because he knew better than anyone else how to make the administrative machinery work. The people around him really did work! But he was also known in government circles for having challenged Brezhnev over the right of the general-secretary to represent the country abroad – a function which he believed should fall to the Prime Minister, as in every other country. This was actually implemented for a period until Brezhnev, who could not have been very fond of such a figure, put an end to it. Kosygin was also known for the interesting economic reform he launched, which was scuttled by the conservatives, who continued to hold it against him.
The book edited by his son-in-law, Gvishiani, offers a glimpse of Kosygin’s thinking.1 Dedicated to the system, he was also well aware of the need to reform it; and around 1964 everything still seemed possible. He believed in semi-public companies and cooperatives. He was conscious of the West’s superiority and the need to learn from it. He believed in initiating gradual changes, setting in train a transition from a ‘state-administered economy’ to a system in which ‘the state restricts itself to guiding enterprises’. He was in favour of a multiplicity of forms of property and management – something he tried to explain to Khrushchev and then Brezhnev, but to no avail. Khrushchev had fully nationalized the producers’ cooperatives and Gvishiani was present on an occasion when Kosygin tried to convince Brezhnev to elaborate a genuine economic strategy and discuss it at a Politburo meeting. As was his wont, Brezhnev used delaying tactics, which amounted to burying the idea. Kosygin emerged from such conversations completely demoralized: ‘He warned against a blind faith in our power and the danger of incompetent policies.’ He was strongly opposed to harebrained schemes for ‘reversing the course of Siberia’s rivers’, and was against the interventions in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. He said out loud that massive military expenditure or the aid to ‘friendly countries’ was beyond the USSR’s means. However, the Politburo refused to tackle these real problems and ‘instead busied itself with all sorts of nonsense’.
Under Brezhnev, many important questions, including foreign policy, were dealt with on the Staraia Ploshchad. But it was difficult to find anyone there with a good intellectual education. The role of grey figures like Suslov and Kirilenko was ‘considerable’, says Gvishiani, who was present at numerous meetings or commissions of the Central Committee when nobody spoke. They all just sat there obediently in silence, until a document appeared stating: ‘The Politburo (or Secretariat) considers that…’
No one would dream of attributing a role in some ‘intellectual effervescence’ or ‘renaissance’ to an austere, non-flamboyant person like Kosygin. However, something like that actually did occur with the economic reforms of the mid-1960s (in fact, from the late 1950s). The cautious Kosygin, who had never uttered the least heterodoxy in public, promoted, supported and protected a real renaissance in economic thinking and publishing. A genuine economic literature, accompanied by a wealth of data, was published, including utterly subversive texts parading under innocuous titles. This brought about an explosion of creativity in the social sciences, which coincided with the economic debates by challenging various ‘sacred cows’ and their political implications. All this occurred under the prime minister’s protection.
The debate took apart, bit by bit, all key aspects of the economic system. In 1964, academician V. Nemchinov published a powerful indictment in Kommunist of the whole system of material and technical supply, demonstrating that it was the main obstacle to economic development. Many well-known economists participated – Novozhilov, Kantorovich and Yefimov among them – as well as a group of mathematical economists. They all attacked Gossnab directly, showing that it was merely an outgrowth of an administrative planning system that handled the economy in terms of physical units and fixed prices arbitrarily. The capital required for investment was offered cost-free – hence the enormous pressure from ministries, enterprises and local government for ever more investment, but without any constraints on them to use it productively.
This in itself was a barrier to an expanded reproduction of capital at a higher technological level. Over-investment lay behind falling growth rates and had a further inevitable consequence: permanent shortages. In such conditions, planning ultimately amounted to perpetuating a routine.
The lively debates of the 1960s extended to numerous publications. Even though many authors avoided drawing direct political conclusions from their analyses, they were implicit. Everyone knew that there was a political ‘owner’ in charge of the economy and the system, and that there was no way to keep the genie in the bottle. A letter to the Central Committee from three dissidents – A. D. Sakharov, V. F. Turchin and Roy Medvedev – reached Le Monde, which published it in its edition of 12–13 April 1970. It warned of the dangers looming on the horizon if political reforms were too long delayed. The production situation was critical, as was the plight of citizens; and the country was doomed to become a second-rank state. At least one book – V. P. Shkredov’s Ekonomika i Pravo (The Economy and Law), published in 1967 – engaged in a powerful, head-on critique of the state and its ideological underpinnings, which was all the more remarkable in that it defended a Marxist perspective. According to Shkredov, the state – a politico-juridical institution that claimed ownership of the economy – was forgetting that the politico-juridical aspect (however important in economic life) came second to the actual state of the country’s socioeconomic development. Consequently, the owner’s claim to impose its vision on the economy, to plan and run it directly as it wished, would inflict great damage if the level of economic and technological development did not yet (if ever) allow for administrative planning. The relations of production were not to be confused with legal forms like ownership. That would be Proudhonism, not Marxism. An usurper state, hiding behind its right not to conform to economic reality, could only breed bureaucratization and constituted a major obstacle to economic development. Shkredov stressed that basic property forms had not changed for long stretches of history, whereas forms of production – as Marx had shown – had evolved in stages into developed capitalism.
The book received a positive reception in Novyi Mir (no. 10, 1968) from V. Georgiev, a Kosygin supporter. The reviewer praised Shkredov for having directly tackled what was now the country’s central task: ‘overcoming voluntarism in managing society’s system of production’, by integrating it into the framework of a broader theoretical problem – ‘the correlation between objective relations of production and the subjective, voluntary activity of human beings’. No one was naive enough not to read in these words the message that the state, by running the economy as it currently did, was doing enormous damage.
Economics was not the only science to flourish in this period. Other fields of knowledge were in a state of effervescence, uncovering new dimensions of social and cultural life, asking pertinent questions, and verging dangerously on the political. The journal Novyi Mir had become the outlet for critical thinking in many areas, not just literature. Its 150,000 monthly copies, which were distributed to the farthest reaches of the country, were eagerly awaited. It carried plenty of information on and analyses of the West and an embryonic social-democratic vision for the Soviet Union. Its initial sponsor had been Khrushchev, and Kosygin protected it as best he could, at least until 1968. As we have seen, Tvardovsky was removed as editor in 1970 and died the following year. He was buried in the Novo-Devichii cemetery in Moscow, with a small, inconspicuous grave stone amid a profusion of sumptuous ones for highly decorated nonentities.
Sociologists were also knocking at the door with studies of labour, youth and many previously neglected topics – especially urbanization (migration, families, women). They raised the problems of a new society in the making, which required novel approaches and novel solutions.
The legal world, particularly criminologists and jurists, pressed for reform of the criminal law and the abrogation of purely punitive elements. A commission was appointed for this purpose, comprising three authoritarian ministers and six liberal judges and scholars (including Strogovich), who were thus assured of a majority. It can safely be assumed that someone high up had taken care with the commission’s composition. In 1966, the same Strogovich – one of a small but combative group – published his Fundamental Questions of Soviet Socialist Legality, in which he argued strongly in favour of the rule of law with no exemptions or exceptions. The book contained powerful arguments, supported by numerous concrete examples, for protecting citizens’ rights against arbitrary infringement. Much remained to be done in this domain. He came out unequivocally against a retrograde, essentially repressive legal system – one more inclined to punish than to seek solutions, and indifferent to the many other avenues open to courts when it came to fighting crime. In effect, prison served only to transform inmates into hardened criminals.
The flourishing of econometrics and cybernetics, and the creation of a Ministry of Scientific and Technological Development (assigned to Gvishiani), mainly staffed by reformers and enjoying considerable prestige – these were so many signs of the times, with its news ideas and hopes. We may assume that Kosygin was not antipathetic to all this, even if he never openly challenged the status quo with provocative statements. Others could speak out without mincing their words in the official media. Thus, academician Nemchinov declared that ‘a system which is so harnessed from top to bottom will fetter technological and social development; and it will break down sooner or later under the pressure of the real processes of economic life’.
So we can see that it is false to claim that ‘no one’ predicted the collapse of the system, as has often been maintained in recent years: Nemchinov’s declaration dates from 1965.2 Readers will already be aware that the years ahead became known as the ‘period of stagnation’; and now they know that they were preceded among the elite, and possibly ordinary people (but this requires research), by a ferment of considerable intellectual and practical import. It was attributable to the ‘men of the 1960s’, who many hoped would one day assume control of the party and transform Russia. But all this came to an end with ‘Brezhnevism’ and its debilitating ‘maturation’. When Gorbachev launched perestroika, the ‘men of the 1960s’ were already worn out.
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, who closes the period we are studying, remains little-known. Here we shall touch upon various aspects of the regime’s history that are directly bound up with his personality. Then we shall sketch his short stint as general-secretary, even if the relevant archives remain closed. In May 1967, when he left the leadership of one of the Central Committee’s international departments to head the KGB, Andropov became the system’s shield. His biographers say that the scenes he had witnessed in 1956 during the uprising in Budapest, where he was ambassador, haunted him. It would also appear that the Hungarian leader, Janos Kadar, was an important influence.
Under Andropov, the KGB’s status attained its zenith. A year after he took over the agency, on 5 July 1968, the KGB became a state committee directly attached to the USSR’s Council of Ministers – something that elevated it above other committees and ministries – and its chairman became a member of the government. A candidate member of the Politburo since 1967, Andropov became a full member in 1973. The jurisdiction of the KGB, based in Moscow, extended to the whole of the Soviet Union; and it had its equivalents in all republics. Its statutory duties were espionage, threats to state security, frontier guard, the protection of official secrets and confidential documents, investigating acts of high treason, terrorism, smuggling, large-scale currency crime, and the defence of all lines of communication against electronic espionage. Which of these many tasks consumed most time and resources is not as yet clear, though intelligence and counter-intelligence may be a safe bet.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the KGB acquired considerable influence in all spheres of life. It watched over the whole state apparatus, the uniformed police, and churches; it ran military counter-intelligence, initiated legal proceedings against opponents, and fought against the intelligentsia. These activities earned it an appalling image and reputation, as they did its master, who managed to tame the dissident movement – an issue at the heart of the propaganda war fought by and against the West. Andropov was a loyal Brezhnevite, but what else could he have been? We should add to the picture the abusive recourse to psychiatric asylums – probably the regime’s most reprehensible act.
Nevertheless, rumours and attested characteristics complicate our image of Andropov. Why was it that this rampart of an ultra-conservative system was also constantly reputed to be a ‘liberal’? To fool people? Maybe not. For a start, unlike other KGB chiefs he was first and foremost a politician, not a product of the firm. When still in charge of one of the Central Committee’s international relations departments, he was described by his aides (he had recruited some very bright ones) as someone who was very open to discussion, a great reader, with a gift for analysing foreign and domestic affairs. For his principal lieutenants (Arbatov, Burlatsky, etc.), working with and under Andropov was an unforgettable experience. In the midst of that bastion of dogmatism, the Staraia Ploshchad, Andropov’s office was the ‘free world’. They discussed all subjects with him with absolute freedom and openly expressed their disagreements. If he disapproved of one of his aides’ viewpoints, it entailed no sanctions. He himself had told them: ‘Remember that in this office we can say what we want. But don’t get carried away: once you’re out the door, don’t forget where you are.’
Such a statement from a politician interested in intellectual issues, but who was also a realist, attests to the presence of a second persona – intelligent enough to talk freely, but also to act cautiously. Much can be gleaned about this ‘other’ Andropov from the memoirs of Markus Wolf, the former secret service head of the German Democratic Republic, who knew and admired him.3
During the 1950s, the KGB played a sinister role in the countries of the Eastern bloc. But things changed radically for the better when Andropov became its head, argues Wolf: ‘Here at last was a figure I admired, unbound by protocol and aloof from the petty intrigues that had marked the tenure of his predecessors.’ Andropov was free of the habitual arrogance of Soviet leaders, who considered their empire invulnerable. He realized that the interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia were signs of weakness, not strength. In his political and human qualities, he was entirely different from his predecessors and successors. His expansive horizon of interests and his ability to grasp the major problems of international and domestic politics convinced him that reform of the Soviet Union and its bloc, albeit risky, was imperative; and he intended to get down to the task. During official visits to East Germany and the banquets given in his honour, Andropov was relaxed and courteous, and a few drinks never altered his demeanour. In conversation on political matters like Czechoslovakia or relations with West German Social Democrats, he rejected any purely ideological approach. He implied that the Czechoslovak communists had been slow to realize the extent of discontent and to remedy the situation. He also favoured a dialogue with social-democrats and was unperturbed that this clashed with the East German leadership’s hatred of the SPD. Wolf appreciated such candour ‘in a forum where flattery and rhetoric were otherwise the order of the day’.
Andropov’s ideas about foreign intelligence methods, and the greater accountability and new managerial structure he introduced into the KGB, are of less interest to us here. However, we should perhaps mention his disapproval of the arrogance of KGB agents towards their own diplomats or government agencies in Eastern bloc countries: he had sharp words for the ‘imperial manner’ of some of his officers.
Andropov’s numerous conversations with Wolf demonstrated his awareness that the Soviets were lagging behind the West. Excessive centralization, obsessive secrecy and the total divorce between military and civilian sectors deprived the Soviet Union of the huge benefits that Western countries derived from advances in military technology. The two men discussed ways to overcome this damaging compartmentalization. Observing the stagnation all around him, Andropov mused about a social-democratic ‘third way’ led by Hungary and certain factions in the GDR, and about forms of political as well as economic pluralism.
The conversations between Andropov and Wolf confirm one key point: in the light of the mass of information on the West and the USSR at his disposal, Andropov had arrived at the conclusion that his country was in need of profound restructuring. According to one of his deputies, Bobkov, even the propaganda war strengthened his conviction that change was the only course. We do not know when he began to think that it was up to him personally to assume this mission. But his mind was engaged and, within the context of his KGB and Politburo duties, he prepared for such an eventuality.
The KGB was a complex organization, sometimes sloppy and undisciplined. But Andropov turned this ‘conglomerate’ into a highly effective instrument. There is much evidence to this effect, though I am not in a position to make a definitive judgement. Andropov had his own views, but shared them only with close associates and people like Markus Wolf. Those who knew and worked with him are unanimous in their view that he was a convinced anti-Stalinist – an important trait in view of the forces around Brezhnev. This was reflected in his style and working methods. In transforming the KGB and its methods of repression, he demanded ‘professionalism’ above all. He was always extremely curious about the Western world – particularly the United States – and his knowledge in this area earned him the admiration of the best Soviet diplomats and even some of the system’s critics.
For Andropov, a policy of repression had to be conceived as a way of resolving a problem. Faced with Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Medvedev and other dissidents, the approach he adopted aimed to limit the political damage they could cause – and not to destroy the persons themselves, as a Stalinist or any species of derzhavnik would have done. Andropov was an analyst, not an executioner. Whereas the hard-liners wanted to isolate Solzhenitsyn by dispatching him to Siberia, he opted to exile him abroad. I do not know what their preference was in the case of Sakharov, but Andropov’s solution – exile to Gorky – threatened neither his health nor his pursuit of his intellectual work.
It has often been said that Andropov was simply the old system’s policeman – a conservative, a supporter of repression, and hence a KGB boss like any other. However, this is to miss the point. Of course he was the system’s shield and put political opponents in jail. How else should he be expected to have behaved, given that he was under close surveillance by hawks in the Politburo and his own agency? Andropov performed his duties faithfully and carefully. His country’s security was certainly of concern to him and he believed that its enemies, who were often allies of the Western world, should not be tolerated. The fact that his own position and safety were at the mercy of Brezhnev’s whims was another aspect of the rat-trap he found himself in.
Nevertheless, his analytical mind and the politician in him made him an unusual KGB chief. For his predecessor Semichastny, there was a list of threats on the one hand and of enemies on the other: the latter were automatically guilty as charged. They had to be repressed: full stop. Andropov asked himself: What is the nature of the threat? What are its causes? How is it to be guarded against, given that serious problems, if left unresolved, become open wounds? He sought to come up with a political solution and reforms. Because he was regarded ‘on high’ as a hard-line defender of the system, he was in a strong position, affording him the possibility of neutralizing certain influential supporters of a hard line, or even enlisting their support, and thus dividing their ranks. (This was the case, for example, with his good relations with the ultra-conservative Ustinov.)
His option for analysis, as opposed to a repressive approach, emerges from two reports on the situation in student circles that he submitted to the Politburo, the first on 5 November 1968 and the second on 12 December 1976. They contain very different messages.4
The first report, containing an extended analysis of the ‘group psychology’ – the mentality, aspirations and political attitudes – of students in the city of Odessa, had been produced by a student who was working for the KGB. Andropov recommended that members of the Politburo read it carefully because, notwithstanding some naivety on the part of its young author, what it had to say was important. Its main message was the total, abysmal failure of the whole party structure and its politicoideological arsenal among the student body. The argument was straightforward: students knew their city very well and were perfectly well aware that local leaders were accumulating material privileges; they were shocked by the cynicism with which the latter exploited power for personal advantage. Documents, data and quotations were adduced to demonstrate the stupidity of Komsomol and the party in higher education institutions. The author pointed to the complete intellectual disarray of party functionaries, who gave standard ‘idiotic’ lectures and were unable to answer questions logically and cogently. The level in the social sciences was very low – hence students’ preference for the natural sciences and technology, which enjoyed prestige. The social sciences were held in disdain – of interest only to those set on a career in the party. Students’ preference for anything Western was scarcely surprising given their lack of respect for those whom they heard criticizing the West.
So this is what Andropov, shortly after his appointment, wanted the Politburo to hear. A few years later, he would know better. We do not know how long it took Andropov to realize that his first deputy Semen Tsvigun, who was appointed at the same time as him with the rank of general, was in fact a Brezhnev plant, charged with keeping an eye – and reporting – on him (such were the habits of the time); and that he was not the only one.
The second document, eight years later, was produced by the fifth directorate (dealing with ideological subversion), headed by Bobkov. It was signed by the latter and likewise dealt with students’ state of mind. It began by maintaining that Western intelligence and propaganda agencies targeted Soviet youth in particular (which was not wrong), before proceeding to a statistical analysis of ‘events’ of a political nature in the student milieu in recent years: distribution of leaflets, small demonstrations, and so on. According to Bobkov, the most alarming thing was the number of young people sanctioned for heavy drinking and other ‘immoral’ habits. Some KGB observers noted that such behaviour led directly to political opposition. We do not know what Andropov thought of this document or why he had agreed to extend the fifth directorate’s remit well beyond the realm of counter-intelligence. In any event, this move was certainly to the taste of the hard-liners.
The difference in approach between the two texts is striking. Not unlike Semichastny, Bobkov lays the blame on the West and the culprits themselves; he says nothing about the system’s responsibility. Andropov submitted the report without any recommendations, listing the names of its five recipients (first among them Suslov, the ‘grey eminence’ of the Politburo). He simply attached a note indicating that the KGB intended to employ its usual methods (‘prophylaxis’ and arrests in the case of actual clandestine organizations). And the five recipients merely appended a ‘Yes’ to the document, probably indicating nothing more than ‘Yes, I have read it.’
If Andropov forwarded the report without comment, it was because its contents did not meet his wishes. However, in the book he wrote after the fall of the regime, Bobkov maintains that the KGB and the fifth directorate were often opposed to all kinds of ‘persecutions’ attributed to them by ‘uninformed’ critics.5 They were simply obeying orders from the Politburo or party apparatus. His key argument – often heard from Andropov himself – was that, faced with the West’s intense anti-Soviet propaganda, there was a better way of responding than by simply turning the accusations back against the United States. The battle could have been won by instead recognizing the system’s weaknesses and failures and seeking to correct them. Analysts from the fifth directorate had often argued along these lines, but the leadership had brushed them aside, as if the KGB was sticking its nose in business that was none of its concern. According to Bobkov, Andropov was the only leader who actually undertook to change Soviet domestic policy radically. Fully apprised of the other side’s strategy for undermining the system, he proposed a broad strategy of counter-measures developed by scientific researchers (psychologists, military specialists, economists, philosophers). The plan was radically to alter the character of propaganda, to adopt an entirely different attitude to religion and political heterodoxy, to step up the fight against corruption and nationalist tendencies and, above all, to tackle the most urgent economic problems. The fifth directorate had carefully prepared the arguments deployed in Andropov’s report to the Politburo, ‘which could have led to a democratization of the party and state’.
Andropov presented the report at a Politburo meeting. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Mazurov, Shelepin, Shcherbitsky and even the main ideologue Suslov pronounced themselves in agreement with this dual programme of reform and a propaganda counter-offensive. Bobkov confides that he does not know whether the Politburo was serious about this, but the fact is that nothing actually happened, despite the fact that the text circulated by hand inside the apparatus. Thus it was that the only remaining card was squandered.
It is unclear why Bobkov does not date this meeting. Yet it seems unthinkable that an experienced KGB general would simply have invented such an episode. The report must be sitting in more than one archive. If true, the manoeuvre was an elegant one: table proposals for reform while making them palatable to conservatives by indicating that they also represented powerful propaganda counter-measures, in a phase of the Cold War when the Soviet Union’s position was fragile. Gorbachev’s phenomenal popularity on the world stage at the beginning of the perestroika indicated that a reforming Russia could score a big success with world opinion.
Yet either the idea was too clever given the intellectual level of Politburo members; or they were too shrewd to accept their own suicide. At all events, the KGB’s fine strategists saw their hopes vanish, leaving Bobkov to deplore the fact that those who held the trump card did not know how to play it. This event, which proved to be a non-event, confirms the uniqueness of Andropov’s profile. But it would be more convincing if we could read the famous report for ourselves.
We now possess data on the repression of political dissidence for most of the 1960s and ’70s, and we cited some of it in chapter 15. The number of arrests and type of punishments meted out are revealing. Under Andropov, the key method was prevention: he favoured ‘prophylaxis’. This affected many people, but mass arbitrary arrests were a thing of the past. And many Russians confirm that from the 1960s onwards, the fear of the secret police and its arbitrary intrusions, familiar in Stalin’s day, had mostly faded. This in itself made dissidence and other forms of political activity more feasible.
Andropov, who knew some of the dissidents (including Roy Medvedev) personally, studied their characters, read their work, and often appreciated it. As head of political security, however, his agenda ranged far wider. His agencies had to be in a position to provide a precise map of sources of possible trouble. According to his estimates, the number of people with a potential for active opposition was in the region of 8.5 million, many of them ready to spring into action when the circumstances were right. The existence of such a potential offered some leading dissidents the chance to play a catalysing and unifying role. As far as Andropov was concerned, police methods were indispensable in confronting this – all the more so because not a few dissidents openly identified with the ‘other side’. Even so, the performance of the system was the key for him. The discrepancy between its growing needs and its ever scarcer means (not just in material terms, but also in the limited intellectual resources of its leadership) was widening. And this was true not only of the economy, but also of the system’s political foundations.
Paradoxically, to have stood a chance of success in 1982–3, the leader (or leaders) would have had to recognize not only that the system was ailing (that had been clear to an Andropov or Kosygin for some time), but that several of its vital organs were already dead.
As early as 1965, the economist Nemchinov had foreseen dangers ahead when he castigated ‘an ossified mechanical system in which all the key parameters are fixed in advance, so that the system is paralysed from top to bottom’. When an individual is pronounced dead, we know he cannot be resurrected. But when what is involved is a mode of government, dismantling and rebuilding remain an option. This may sound puzzling, but governmental models have been rebuilt using a significant number of old components.
As has already been indicated, it is clear that Kosygin and Andropov knew the situation better than any Western historian, thanks to the reports they read, which only became available to us twenty-five years later. Among them was a solid, unpublished work, commissioned by Kosygin when Prime Minister, from the economic section of the Academy of Sciences. Three years after Nemchinov’s warnings, the academicians presented a systematic comparison between American and Soviet economic structures – productivity, living standards, technological progress, incentive systems, the direction and character of investment. Their unvarnished verdict was as follows: the USSR was losing on all fronts, except in coal and steel. The latter was the pride of the regime, but it attested to the country’s backwardness, for this sector had been the benchmark in the previous century. The message was clear: it was that of the old Aramaic inscription on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace in Babylon – only now it read differently. The threat no longer came from God, but from the United States. There was not a minute to lose.
Underlying the stagnation – but also constituting its main symptom – was a deadlocked Politburo around a brain-dead Brezhnev: a humiliating impasse exhibited before the whole world. It was impossible to remove Brezhnev, for contrary to the case of Khrushchev no majority could be mustered in favour of a new leader. The other aspect of the picture, which was blatant enough to be widely known throughout Russia, was the spread of a tentacular corruption. Members of Brezhnev’s family were ostentatiously involved in it – a subject poor Leonid did not like to hear spoken about. Mushrooming mafia networks, with which many highly placed party officials were associated, were something else the country (if not certain leaders) was aware of. Nothing on such a scale had been known before. No doubt the KGB had all the information it required.
Just as the country learned of a major drive by the KGB against this scourge, and even as the noose around the Brezhnev family and other heavyweights was tightening, a shot suddenly rang out on the political stage: on 19 January 1982, Andropov’s first deputy, Semen Tsvigun – Brezhnev’s shadow over Andropov – committed suicide. Other such shots were to follow. A few days later, the second most influential conservative in the party – the grey eminence Suslov – died of natural causes. This conjunction of events was the key to the altered balance of forces within the Politburo, to the detriment of the ‘swamp’.
If it reads like the screenplay of a political thriller, so be it. Inside the KGB, Tsvigun (under Suslov’s supervision) was in charge of the main files on corruption – those involving people in high places, including Brezhnev’s family. Personally beyond reproach in this respect, Suslov nevertheless forbade him to use these files or to show them to anyone. Thus, Andropov supposedly had no access to them. When the two men died, Andropov got his hands on them and began to dig further. Tsvigun himself, it turned out, was involved in several corrupt transactions, along with various people connected to Politburo members.
We shall pass over the details (there are many). Brezhnev died just in time in 1982. The anti-corruption drive had broken the capacity of the ‘swamp’ to maintain a favourable balance of forces within the Politburo and Central Committee. And thus it was that the unusual KGB chief Andropov became general-secretary, almost by accident. He was only in power for fifteen months – another accident – but this brief period raises interesting problems that can only be treated tentatively, and partly as an exercise in counter-factual history (‘and if… and if…’).
The various characters I have sketched were dynamic and capable. The obtuse and inept ones who comprised the ‘swamp’, or the sheer dead weights, have been omitted. But it is worth lingering for a moment over one aspect of internal manoeuvrings in the Politburo. The general-secretary had power over all nominations: he could co-opt or exclude whomever he wished. It was up to his supporters to ensure approval of these decisions by the Politburo and Central Committee. Another scenario, which had a precedent, indicates that a group which wanted to select a new general-secretary could oust the incumbent on condition of obtaining sufficient support in the Central Committee and being able to count on the army and KGB. In fact, the army would suffice even against the KGB, which was no match for it in such circumstances.
Conversely, and paradoxically, weak leaders like Brezhnev or Chernenko could block the situation if there was a majority of mediocrities at the top who depended on an enfeebled general-secretary for their position. Thus Brezhnev, a cunning but not a malicious figure, became the cement and guarantor of the status quo: he was not a threat and the dead weights felt safe. The situation became even more paradoxical when such a general-secretary was still in post, but in practice completely absent because he had been ill for years.
When Mikoyan criticized Khrushchev’s ‘erratic’ policies, he was factually accurate. But they were not exclusively attributable to his character. Khrushchev’s shortcomings were in part made possible by the absence of constitutional rules within the Politburo, which was supposedly the all-powerful summit of a hyper-centralized system. In the absence of a proper constitution, a general-secretary intent on acquiring or regaining the ability to pursue some particular policy, or simply retaining his position, had to plot to obtain total control of power with the help of his personal following (which was never wholly reliable). The old model of personal dictatorship just popped up again as if the institutional vacuum could only be filled by one man. This prompted members of the Politburo to support an autocratic position, or to aspire to it personally, as if no other modus operandi was conceivable. This is what made possible the ‘impossible’ Khrushchev, who could have been an important player in a genuine team in a constitutionally regulated system. This quasi-structural weakness, which pushed the general-secretary into behaving like a dictator, or at least allowed him to, was a congenital feature bequeathed by Stalin – part of his legacy that was not eliminated.
However, not everything was fixed on the chessboard of power at the summit (Politburo, Central Committee, ministries). The top position could certainly be filled by a mediocre or weak figure (Brezhnev or Chernenko). But it could also fall to a strong, dynamic character (for better or worse) – a Stalin, Khrushchev, or Andropov. Ousting a mediocrity and changing course proved impossible for quite a time, until the appropriate moment arrived: such, to my mind, was the occasion when the tentacles of corruption extended to various members of the ‘swamp’, rendering them vulnerable and malleable.
Thus, if the system was prone to paralysis, with no one really at the helm, this did not prevent the emergence of a real pilot capable of imposing a change of direction, starting with a shake-up at the top. Sheer chance unquestionably played a role at the outset. But once that chance had been seized, it was possible rapidly to drain the ‘swamp’ by means of a vigorous purge of its supports in the party apparatus. With the arrival of new leading cadres, new initiatives became possible. And this is precisely what happened with Andropov.
One of his close associates in the KGB, Viacheslav Kevorkov, a high-ranking official in counter-intelligence, adds to our picture of him.6 Kevorkov carried out various international assignments – in particular, running a ‘secret’ channel with West German leaders. In this capacity, he frequently met with Andropov and is thus a primary source. According to Kevorkov, Andropov reflected on the possibility of coming to an agreement with the intelligentsia whereby it would aid him to reform the system. His model was manifestly Lunacharsky who, under Lenin, had known how to communicate and cooperate with this social group. A highly intelligent man, Andropov was acutely conscious that the party suffered on account of the low intellectual level of many of its top cadres and leaders. The frequent sneers about his ‘pro-Brezhnevism’ are disingenuous: his job was in Brezhnev’s gift. My claim that Andropov appreciated the true worth of the top leadership is confirmed by Kevorkov, who quotes his chief’s opinion: ‘Virtually none of the party or state’s current leaders belongs in the class of talented politicians who could confront the problems the country is facing.’ For Kevorkov, Andropov did belong to this class, and he concludes his book with this sentence: ‘Andropov was no doubt the last statesman who believed in the vitality of the Soviet system, but not the system he had inherited when he came to power: he believed in the system he intended to create by carrying out radical reforms.’
From this and other accounts, it seems clear that an intelligent politician like Andropov understood that the system was in need of reconstruction, because its economic and political foundations were by now in a parlous state. Reconstructing it could only mean replacing it in a phased transition. Did he really think in these terms? Even though his personal archives remain inaccessible, the decisions he took (or was intent on taking) permit us to answer in the affirmative.
He took over power rapidly and smoothly. He started off very cautiously, but the country soon learned that something serious was afoot in the Kremlin. The first steps were predictable: restoring discipline in the workplace. But this extended beyond the workers to re-educating the elites, who were not a shining example when it came to their work ethic. He scoffed at their addiction to dachas and other amenities (he was known for his rather austere lifestyle). As soon as this became common knowledge, his popularity grew. The country had a boss – visibly so. Reforms required preparation and time: task forces and commissions were set up. Some measures were temporary; others were irreversible – notably, a rapid purge of a whole layer of powerful, backward-looking apparatus officials that had been the linchpin of the previous leadership. The account given by one of those nominated to replace them furnishes some details.7
The dismissal of N. A. Shchelokov, a Brezhnev protege running the Interior Ministry, was widely acclaimed. In the Central Committee apparatus, the heads of departments like ‘business organization’, ‘party organizations’, ‘research and academic institutions’ and the ‘general department’, who formed what was called the ‘small working cabinet’ (or sometimes the ‘shadow cabinet’), prepared many of the most important policies. Andropov put an end to their omnipotence.
The intelligentsia was delighted by the pensioning off of Trapeznikov, another Brezhnev protege who considered himself the ideological luminary of the party. A grand inquisitor and inveterate Stalinist, he pursued writers and academics whose statements displeased him. Such people were the hard core of the party leadership: eliminating them at one stroke sent a very powerful signal.
Under Andropov, Gorbachev’s role carried on expanding. New people arrived in key positions in the party apparatus. Andropov invited Vadim Medvedev to head the ‘research and academic institutions’ department. Medvedev had been violently criticized by its previous head for his ‘insubordination’ in trying to make the party’s Academy of Social Sciences, of which he was the director, a serious research institution. Andropov told him that new approaches were needed to accelerate technological and scientific progress and to improve the situation in the social sciences, which had been given a hard time by Trapeznikov. The Academy should engage in serious research, rather than producing utterly empty ideological texts.
V. I. Vorotnikov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, was appointed its Prime Minister and a member of the Politburo by Andropov in 1983. In the private diary he published,8 he adds to our picture of Andropov. He was very impressed by his intelligence, which was evident from their conversations. His notes, taken during Politburo meetings, disclose a vigorous, incisive Andropov, not reluctant to broach ever more complex problems, from workplace discipline to the functioning of the economy and the search for a new model. The way he approached change was highly pragmatic: he wanted to proceed by gradually enlarging the scope of the reforms. The first important step in the economic sphere consisted in allowing factories to operate on a fully self-financing basis – that is to say, taking account of costs and profits. However, Vorotnikov – a novice who was not as yet fully integrated into Politburo practices – says nothing about the high-ranking commissions set up to prepare such moves and was not in the know as regards Andropov’s plans for reforming the party. For that we shall have to look elsewhere.
As Andropov’s first modest initiatives began to unfold, he was preparing others and alluded to them: ‘We have to change the economic mechanism and the planning system.’ A task force, which may have existed before he became general-secretary, set to work. In the meantime, private plots, which Khrushchev had reduced or outlawed, were rehabilitated. And the state administration was put on notice: ministerial departments had not given a good example of efficient organization and had failed to create the conditions for a ‘normal, highly productive work atmosphere’.9
These initiatives were significant, if rather predictable, and more seemed in the offing. But excerpts from the minutes of Politburo meetings that have become available cast new and surprising light on the emerging strategy. As the campaign for the re-election of party bodies approached, accompanied by the reports habitually delivered on these occasions, Andropov suddenly declared in an official party resolution in August 1983: ‘The party’s electoral assemblies are conducted in accordance with a pre-existing script, without serious and frank debate. Candidates’ declarations have been edited beforehand; any initiative or criticism is suppressed. From now on, none of this will be tolerated.’10
This was a bombshell. Criticizing sloppy, self-interested party bosses, and making it clear that they could be removed just as the re-election campaign was opening, created an absolutely novel situation for the whole ruling stratum. Most of them were ex officio members of ‘elected’ party bodies at all levels, from party offices and committees, via regional committees, to the Central Committee itself. Changing this set-up would be a momentous step. It would create an entirely different atmosphere from one in which ‘election’ simply meant ‘nomination’. Andropov openly stated that he wanted to see real elections. This meant he knew that the so-called ‘party’ was in fact a corpse, that it could not be resurrected and must be destroyed. And the incumbent rulers understood this full well. The notorious ‘security of cadres’ (security of tenure regardless of performance) was about to disappear – and, with it, the impunity of the ‘good old days’. The cosy, parasitic power of the class of party-state bosses was nearing its end. Genuine elections inside the party betokened the re-emergence of political factions and new leaders; and this could mean the advent of a new party, whatever its name might be. Such a party, still in power but planning reforms, could have served to steer the country during the difficult transition to a new model.
Of course, this is all counter-factual history. Andropov, who suffered from an incurable kidney disease, soon departed the stage in 1984. He was replaced by another very sick man, Chernenko – a faceless apparatchik who lasted only thirteen months. Thereafter, the ‘party’ was headed for some spectacular novel experiences. First, in 1985, came a young general-secretary, Gorbachev, who was Andropov’s heir, had many of the right ideas, and was destined for a downfall that was as pitiful as his rise had been meteoric. Next, the state-party (or party-state) would disappear, without any blood being spilt, with its formidable security forces still intact but receiving no orders to shoot. This was another of Gorbachev’s merits, but it did not prevent him from sinking into impotence and losing power. In fact, there was no one to shoot at, since the system had not been toppled by enraged masses. There then ensued the slide into ‘reforms’ that have plunged Russia into a new form of underdevelopment.
Terms like ‘paradox’ and ‘irony’ are wholly apt for characterizing Russia’s historical destiny. But so is the image of a heavy burden borne by its people, in the manner of the bargemen of the Volga who hauled heavy barges while singing: ‘Those smart English have an easy time of it; they use machines to haul their loads.’ For their part, the Russians had only their song to give them courage.
This troubled history, with its twists and turns, has induced a deep existential anguish in many Russians (or, more precisely, inhabitants of Russia), which is best expressed by the term toska, with its wealth of nuances from melancholy, through sadness and anguish, to depression. We may add to it unynie (despair), as well as a touch of self-pity of course. This is a powerful brew of sorrows – one that could perhaps only be drowned by another brew … These sentiments, plus an unbearable dose of cynicism, are to be found in popular songs about the underworld, with their sentimental attachment to the knife – a tool for settling scores and the symbol of a whole way of life. Prior to pere-stroika, singers like Okudzhava, Galich and Vysotsky rarely sang cheerful songs: they expressed a mood – theirs and their country’s – poised between rejection, commiseration, entreaty and despair. Not because people knew no gaiety in the USSR (there was plenty of it), but because these artists perceived that the country was on the wrong track and that history would not treat it kindly. In times of decline, decay and stagnation, the rich party and the bards despair.
Our data are drawn from the archives of Gosplan and the Central Statistical Office, which were unavailable when the songs of the bards were reverberating in Russia. Yet putting these two types of ‘source’ together, we find that they were telling the same story after all.