Rubber-Stamping the Status Quo

Kremlinologists in the West have long speculated that Soviet Communist Boss Leonid Brezhnev would sing his swan song at this year's 25th Party Congress. Some swan song.

When the Congress concluded its eleven-day session in Moscow last week, Brezhnev, 69, appeared to be more secure than ever in his power. He was reappointed to the all-powerful Politburo and re-elected party General Secretary. While the collective leadership is certainly not dead, Brezhnev is indisputably primus inter pares. He gave a five-hour keynote speech, belying speculation that he is incapacitated by ill-health. Throughout the Congress, he received tributes surpassing anything that has been said about a Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin. Uzbekistan Party Secretary Sharaf R. Rashidov, for example, rhapsodized over his leader's "excessive modesty and brilliant talent, his spiritual beauty and personal charm."

In contrast, Premier Aleksei Kosygin, 71, seems to have slipped, although he too kept his Politburo seat. His address on the economy ran only two hours, and, as he spoke, Brezhnev's chair on the dais was conspicuously--and un-precedentedly--vacant. That could indicate that Brezhnev intended to rebuff Kosygin, or that he was bored with the proceedings, since he and the rest of the Politburo had already read and approved the Premier's remarks. What may be more revealing than Brezhnev's absence, suggested U.S. analysts, is that Kosygin limited himself to economic matters. Noted a State Department Kremlinologist: "Previously, it never bothered Kosygin to speak on a wider range of issues, but this time he avoided poaching on any Brezhnev territory."

Without a single dissent or abstention, the 5,000 Soviet delegates to the Congress ratified the new five-year plan, tenth in the country's history. Running from 1976 through 1980, the plan aims to boost output by 38% to 42% a year in heavy industry, by 14% to 17% in agriculture. Consumer goods are to grow at 30% to 32%; this sector enjoyed priority over heavy industry during the ninth plan, which ended in 1975 (TIME, March 1), but as Kosygin conceded, "Light industry and other industrial branches on which consumer goods depend have not yet lived up to requirements."

No Incentives. Kosygin tried to cushion the disappointing prospects for Russia's consumers by dramatizing the recent recession in the West. "The capitalist world has been in the grip of a grave economic crisis," he declared, "an organic disease of the capitalist system aggravated by the protracted militarization of the economy." This was resoundingly seconded by American Communist Party Boss Gus Hall, who described the economic situation in the U.S. as horribly bleak. Kosygin deftly skirted the chronic shortages plaguing the Soviet consumer. He blamed poor weather for last year's disastrous harvest that resulted in a 76-million-ton grain shortage. This forced Moscow to buy 35 million tons from the U.S. and other foreign suppliers. The Premier, of course, made no mention of Moscow's own massive militarization (expenditures totaled $141 billion last year, v. $94 billion for the U.S.).

Kosygin's prescription for his country's economy was increased productivity based on "scientific and technological progress and utmost thrift." Experience teaches, however, that those words will prove empty unless greater incentives are given to the Soviet laborer for working harder and more efficiently.

According to a U.S. analyst, the Kosygin speech meant "a more-of-the-same approach, on a more realistic basis." There were a few changes in the Politburo--Agriculture Minister Dmitry Polyonsky was made a scapegoat for the dismal harvests, and was dropped from the ruling body, while two candidate members were promoted to full membership. But the aging Soviet leadership remains basically unchanged and will probably continue pursuing essentially the same policies.

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