Severe, Unwavering Efficiency

Andropov attacks "shirkers, slackers" and corruption

He is a sober man, precise, who shows no emotion, who sticks to the facts and to a mathematical reasoning." Such was the impression of Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov that French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson took back to Paris last week after a five-day visit to the Soviet Union. Cheysson, who has never been known to hide behind diplomatic euphemisms, is one of the first Western government ministers to have conferred at length with Andropov since the Communist chief replaced the late Leonid Brezhnev last November.

The visitor conceded that Andropov was "very courteous," but went on to describe him as "a modernist, in the sense of a computer, in the sense of precision of word and gesture." The party chief, said the Frenchman, made "a cold, objective presentation" that was "extraordinarily devoid of the passion and human warmth" he encountered elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Others in the Cheysson party described Andropov as looking considerably older than his pictures, or his age, 68, might suggest. They noted that the Soviet leader was tired when the meetings began and that he seemed to have lost weight. The French visitors' firsthand impressions supported the generally accepted portrait of Andropov as a cool, tough-minded leader. The Soviets have tried to present the former KGB chief as an urbane, affable, liberal and therefore less threatening adversary.

At home the new leader has never had any such softy image. An apparently modest and retiring man who rarely makes TV appearances, Andropov has been trying to impress the masses not with his charisma but with severe and unwavering efficiency. Last week he contributed an 8,000-word article to the theoretical journal Kommunist in which he unequivocally condemned "socalled rolling stones, shirkers, slackers, who, as a matter of fact, sponge off society." Encouraging thriftiness and responsibility, he firmly denounced those who treat state property recklessly or guard private property jealously. His clear implication: the blame for an economic growth rate that last year was the lowest since World War II lies not with the machinery of the system but with the men who are its imperfect cogs. In essence, the article sternly reiterated Andropov's first policy speech, in which he decried Soviet inertia, incompetence and corruption with surprising frankness.

Andropov has persistently worked to shake up the torpor that afflicts Soviet institutions. While what Soviet citizens are calling Operation Trawl tracks down truant workers who show up late at the factory, Andropov is seeking to free his creaking bureaucracy of its habitual corruption. Since assuming office, he has reshuffled some 20 top officials and summarily dismissed six others. He pointedly chose Crime Buster Geidar Aliyev, 59, former party boss and KGB chief in Azerbaijan, as Deputy Premier. He also fired Leonid Brezhnev's crony and Interior Minister, Nikolai Shchelokov, and replaced him as head of the bribe-prone civil police with his successor at the KGB, General Vitali Fedorchuk, 64.

Last week Andropov showed more of his housecleaning intentions by sacking Mikhail Mikhailov, 53, a deputy minister of the aviation industry, and S. Andriasov, his deputy in charge of foreign relations. Neither was accused of any crime, but one of their subordinates, Nikolai Laikov, responsible for organizing aviation exhibitions abroad, was found guilty of misappropriating the equivalent of $80,000 in foreign currency. While Laikov was sentenced to 15 years in prison and his property confiscated, his two bosses were sacrificed for neither stopping nor spotting the swindle. Their example serves as a warning that even faint contact with corruption will be punished and that Andropov is a man who acts on his words. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.