Caution Is The Watchword

By John Kohan

Andropov talks of change, but moves slowly

Sessions of the Supreme Soviet rarely attract much notice outside the Soviet Union, where the legislative body is dismissed as a rubber-stamp parliament. However, last week's gathering in the vaulted, neoclassical chamber of the Great Kremlin Palace was different. As the 1,500 Deputies filed in to take their seats, diplomats and journalists who crammed the visitors' gallery animatedly discussed only one topic: Would there be a selection of the next President of the Soviet Union? Since Leonid Brezhnev's death on Nov. 10, the ceremonial and highly visible post has been vacant. Kremlin watchers now wondered if Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief who had so swiftly succeeded Brezhnev as General Secretary of the Communist Party, would also aspire to a second title as head of the Soviet state.

After the Deputies had paused for a minute of silence in memory of Brezhnev, Moscow Party Boss Viktor Grishin made his way to the podium. "Comrade Deputies," he began as a hush came over the huge hall, "the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ... proposes the election of General Secretary Comrade Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet." The Deputies burst into perfunctory applause. Onlookers in the gallery turned to each other to make sure they had heard the word "Presidium" rather than "presidency." They had. Andropov had been nominated for the 40-member ruling Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, but not as its President. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, all 1,500 delegates raised their hands in unanimous approval. For the moment Andropov would do without Brezhnev's second title.

The delay in naming a new President could have been a sign that a Kremlin power struggle was still in progress, but the prevailing view in Moscow was that after moving so smoothly to take control of the party, Andropov thought it more prudent to hold back from assuming the post that Brezhnev himself had waited 13 years to take. Indeed, caution seemed to be the watchword for the Soviets' new leader. Andropov had been expected to put his own stamp on the party hierarchy almost immediately, but he made only two important appointments last week. In his first major speech as General Secretary, he offered no bold initiatives in domestic or foreign policy, although he did surprise the Soviets with an unusually blunt critique of the way in which the country's ailing economy is managed.

As Andropov started his second week in office, Kremlinologists watched every move for hints of possible changes in style or policy. The day before the inconclusive session of the Supreme Soviet began, party officials and editors across the Soviet Union had closely monitored bulletins from the government news agency, TASS, for word from a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee. In theory, all decisions from the Politburo must be ratified by the Central Committee, and it was thought that Andropov would use the closed-door session to announce changes in the top ranks of the leadership.

As expected, Party Secretary Andrei Kirilenko, 76, who has been absent from a number of official functions in recent months, stepped down from the Politburo, presumably because of poor health. There have also been reports that Kirilenko is in political disfavor. Counting the openings left by the deaths of Brezhnev and Party Ideologue Mikhail Suslov, Andropov had three vacancies to fill. But, to the surprise of most experts, the Central Committee announced that only one man would join the Kremlin's inner circle this time around. The new face: Geidar Aliyev, 59, a onetime head of the KGB in the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan and later party chief there.

Aliyev was considered a Brezhnev favorite, and the decision to elevate him from nonvoting status on the Politburo to full membership may actually have been made before Brezhnev's death. Aliyev may have been promised the seat after failing to get Andropov's old job last May. The fact that Aliyev is on the way up was confirmed later in the week when he was given a key government post as a deputy to Premier Nikolai Tikhonov.

Andropov also did little to change the Brezhnev lineup in the Central Committee's Secretariat, a powerful nine-member executive board that handles the day-to-day business of the party. He has apparently decided to keep the job of overseeing ideology and foreign affairs that he inherited after the death of Suslov. The only new appointment was that of Nikolai Ryzhkov, 53, the former head of a Sverdlovsk engineering factory, who was tapped to supervise heavy industry for the party.

The new Soviet leader's first policy speech covered familiar ground in praising the policy of detente with the West and in urging Soviet workers to increase their productivity. In one respect, it marked a radical departure from the past. Andropov's language was crisp and precise and at times brutally frank.

Describing the national economy, he candidly admitted that there were "many pressing tasks" but that he "did not have ready recipes for their solution." He noted that "inertia and adherence to the old ways" were crippling national growth, and called for more initiative, enterprise and experimentation. Said Andropov: "You cannot get things moving by slogans alone." In an apparent reference to economic reforms that have loosened rigid centralized planning in Hungary, making the country's economy the most vigorous in the Soviet bloc, Andropov urged party leaders "to take account of the experience of fraternal countries."

Andropov called for tougher measures to spur the Soviet work force. In a remark that could have come from a capitalist, he said that "shoddy work, inactivity and irresponsibility should have an unavoidable effect on the earnings, official status and moral prestige of workers." He stressed the need to "place personnel correctly so that in decisive sectors we have politically mature, competent and resourceful people with a sense of the new," a hint that pruning might begin on the tons of deadwood in the bureaucracy.

Although the economy was clearly the highest priority on Andropov's agenda, he also outlined his views on foreign policy. The Soviet Union, he said, would continue to seek better relations with "our great neighbor" China, and it would pay "great attention to every positive response" from Peking. There was no hint, however, that the Soviet Union would stop blaming the U.S. for the present cold relations. Said Andropov: "We did not introduce sanctions against anyone, we did not denounce treaties and agreements that were signed, and we did not interrupt talks that were started." In an allusion to the two sets of arms negotiations being conducted in Geneva, Andropov said that "any agreements have to be based on reciprocity and equality." He warned: "Let no one expect unilateral disarmament from us. We are not naive people."

The official party daily, Pravda, echoed Andropov in its reaction to President Reagan's decision to deploy the MX missile. The Soviet Union, said the commentary, did not intend "to chase the U.S.A. in the creation of such new weapons systems." Pravda went on to say that Moscow would, if pressed, respond to any U.S. arms buildup with a further escalation of its own.

In Washington, Secretary of State George Shultz had lunch for the first time with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, and State Department Spokesman John Hughes said the Reagan Administration appreciated Andropov's "expressions of interest in relaxing East-West tensions." But he repeated U.S. demands that Moscow make the first move. Said Hughes: "We would welcome constructive Soviet actions, especially on human rights, Poland and Kampuchea, to accompany these words." In an effort to dampen speculation that the new Andropov style reflected a softening in Moscow's attitude, Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger bluntly observed: "Just because a man wears a Western suit with cuffs on his pants does not necessarily make him a liberal."

Andropov's overtures to the Chinese drew a similarly guarded response from Peking, where the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that it was up to Moscow to "make a new effort in eliminating the obstacles hindering the normalization of relations." In an interview with the Paris daily Le Monde, French President Franc,ois Mitterrand noted that Brezhnev's death did not really change the way power was wielded in the Kremlin. Under its new leader, he said, the Soviet Union would try "to continue its ideological and political progression on every continent."

It was still too soon to know how much had changed in Moscow, but Andropov did seem intent last week on rousing the Soviet Union from the lethargy of Brezhnev's final years. Trying to sum up the new national mood, a Soviet official turned to a foreign guest at a dinner party and said, "We are apprehensively expectant. Everyone is expecting some changes and hoping they will be for the better." The hope, and the apprehension, were reflected around the world.

--By John Kohan. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow, Johanna McGeary/Washington

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