Eastern Europe Communism's Old Men

By Frederick Painton

Smiling and affable, Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in East Germany last week. Emerging from his Aeroflot IL-62 jet, the Soviet leader, followed by his wife Raisa, flashed his friendliest grin as he greeted East German Party Chief Erich Honecker with a hug and kisses on both cheeks. Gorbachev had come to East Berlin for the East German Communist Party Congress.

The message that Gorbachev brought with him, though, was not really one of smiles and kisses. His visit was aimed at quietly strengthening Moscow's hold on its Warsaw Pact allies. From Poland to Hungary, Eastern Europe is being summoned to join a Soviet-led drive to prevent the bloc's economies from falling even more hopelessly behind those of the West. In a 40-minute speech to the 2,600 delegates in East Berlin's modernistic Palace of the Republic, Gorbachev called on his allies to meet the challenge of swift economic and technological change by moving toward close and intense cooperation "on a whole new order of magnitude." Said he: "Socialism's appeal and its strength in the international arena will depend, to a decisive degree, on this."

During the long twilight of Leonid Brezhnev's era and the infirm leadership in the Kremlin that followed, Eastern Europe was granted an unprecedented degree of latitude. Each country reacted differently to the chance to take some independent action. Hungary, for example, introduced many Western-style incentives for workers and managers. Czechoslovakia stagnated, though, and Poland lurched toward freedom until Moscow ordered a crackdown.

Gorbachev is now moving gradually, but determinedly, to bring his allies into line and push them toward better economic management. He chose East Germany's eleventh party congress as a platform in tribute to the front-line country whose economy, by Soviet standards, is a model of efficiency.

But despite all the public camaraderie, an undercurrent of tension reportedly has run between Gorbachev and Honecker. Noted one leading West German expert on East bloc affairs: "There is no love lost these days between the East Germans and the Soviets." Once considered among the most dutiful of Moscow loyalists, Honecker, 73, according to another West German observer, "now wants to be accepted as the leader of an important national state, not a provisional one, or a colony of the Russians. One wonders how long Honecker can get away with this policy. Gorbachev cannot be comfortable with all the old leaders of this generation."

Most of the top command in Eastern Europe dates from the era of Brezhnev or before. With the exception of Poland's Wojciech Jaruzelski, 62, all are over 65, and four out of six have passed 73. Moreover, they have all shown a greater capacity for political survival than for the kind of shake-up of the bureaucracy that Gorbachev is trying to bring to the U.S.S.R.

While Gorbachev has been steadily easing his country's aging leaders out of power, he apparently has no desire to see the East European party bosses forced into retirement anytime soon. Despite his commitment to revitalize the Soviet bloc's economy, he values stability even more. Explains a veteran U.S. Government analyst: "Gorbachev is preoccupied with the Soviet economy and with superpower relations. He knows that with major changes in either the economic policies or the leadership of his allies, all hell could break loose. He has shown he will not risk that."

For now, Gorbachev is demanding better economic performance from his allies not through any drastic reform but simply through attacking the familiar abuses of the Communist systems: waste, corruption, sclerotic bureaucracy and poor workmanship. Instead of policy and leadership changes, $ Eastern Europe's regimes are under marching orders to take the slack out of the existing economic systems. Central planning remains, but better and younger economic management is expected to bring improved results.

The Soviets have also been cracking down on the economic performance of their allies. Shoddy goods and late delivery of imports from the bloc are no longer acceptable. Shoes and other consumer goods from Hungary and Czechoslovakia have reportedly been turned back at the Soviet border in recent months. Gorbachev's energy policy toward his allies has been equally tough. Their main source of imported power is Soviet oil, but supplies have been cut back by as much as 30% in the past six years. At the same time, East European countries are forced to buy Soviet crude at two times or more the price on world markets. All the while, Soviet leaders have been dragging the rest of the bloc into huge cooperative industrial projects that drain them of the technology and manpower needed for hard-currency exports to the West. The most ambitious joint program, launched by the Soviets in December, aims at pulling the East bloc into the computer age over the next 15 years through 93 research projects in electronics, biotechnology and automation. All these policies, which often in reality amount to nothing less than recruiting East European help for the faltering Soviet economy, have increased the dependence of other Warsaw Pact countries on the U.S.S.R.

Since the Soviet party congress in February, three East European countries have had their own meetings. At the first congress in Czechoslovakia last month, Gustav Husak, 73, signaled that no winds of change would be blowing through his regime anytime soon. Echoing Gorbachev, Husak inveighed against mismanagement, but his dominant theme was self-congratulation. Husak has maintained absolute control by offering a Communist version of a consumer society while stifling opposition with one of the most efficient police states in the Soviet bloc. Czechoslovakia's relative prosperity, however, has been bought at a punishing price: by starving industry of needed investment for modernization. Notes a report by PlanEcon, a Washington-based business consulting firm specializing in Eastern Europe: "The leadership is driving the economy systematically in the direction of long-term stagnation."

Bulgarian Leader Todor Zhivkov was the next to get the party faithful together. Zhivkov, 74, has been in power for 32 years and is the doyen of East European party bosses. He had incurred Gorbachev's displeasure earlier because of Bulgaria's faltering economy, but in his keynote speech he paid glowing tribute to the Soviet leader. Zhivkov stridently called for "profound change" in the economic system, such as linking wages to performance and conducting a "scientific and technological revolution." But the veteran Bulgarian leader offered little of substance that would suggest he had plans for bureaucratic reforms along the lines of those already accomplished by Gorbachev, let alone profound shifts of economic policy.

In East Berlin last week, Honecker's speech to his party congress could have been written by Gorbachev, who listened attentively. The concerns were the same: greater emphasis on high technology, more worker initiative and increased concern for consumers. Hundreds of signs plastered around East Berlin extolled the virtues of quality and efficiency. Even though Gorbachev is not pushing the older leaders out of power, age and illness suggest that change in any of the countries, with the exception of Poland, could come soon and suddenly. In the meantime, the Soviet chief is pressuring local parties to rejuvenate the middle ranks and trying to spot future leaders. Most of the aging party chiefs will almost certainly be replaced by technocrats in the Gorbachev mold. In Bulgaria, for example, Mining Engineer Chudomir Alexandrov, 49, has just been promoted to the powerful post of central committee secretary, and looms as a potential successor to Zhivkov. In Czechoslovakia a quiet changing of the guard is under way. Says a highly placed official in his 40s: "The older ones are going, and we're taking over." In Hungary the fading power and health of Janos Kadar, 73, are sparking a succession debate at the top level of leadership. Some officials would like to use this opportunity to return to highly disciplined central economic planning on the East German model, but others are pushing for an even greater move toward Western-style reforms.

Rumania's Nicolae Ceaunsescu, 68, appears to be in failing health, and Gorbachev may already have a protege waiting. He could be Ion Iliescu, 56, who reportedly studied with the Soviet leader in Moscow. In East Germany the likely successor to Honecker is Egon Krenz, 48, a former Communist youth leader.

Poland is the only East bloc country where a succession seems unlikely to take place in the near future. General Wojciech Jaruzelski had to prove himself to Gorbachev, who at first was skeptical about the military man's ability to run that troubled country. But Jaruzelski demonstrated that he could control the opposition Solidarity trade union, and Gorbachev openly praised his leadership at the Soviet party congress in February.

Simply installing a new cast of younger leaders, however, will not necessarily mean real change in Eastern Europe. Communist bureaucracies like those currently in power are reflexively opposed to change of any kind. Thus innovation is likely to continue receiving a very cold reception in Eastern Europe.

With reporting by Kenneth W. Banta/Prague and John Kohan/East Berlin