balance-sheet of Brezhnevism, when at the twenty-fifth congress of the CPSU Brezhnev appeared as the "uncontested chief," a man of great merit, as the delegates recalled on so many occasions? Nevertheless, if one analyzes what has happened in the Soviet Union during the past ten years, the position of strength of the Brezhnev team seems paradoxical, for the real balancesheet is far from positive. More precisely, if the balance-sheet of the period 1964-1976 is compared with that of the Khrushchev period, which ended in the ouster of Khrushchey, it becomes clear that the failures that served as the pretext for deposing Khrishchev still persist in large part and could just as well be used to justify sending Brezhnev into retirement. The reasons for the ouster of Khrushchey are well known:
*the difficult economic situation, especially in agriculture, which had provoked growing social fen-
*reverses in international policy, the Cuban missile crisis being the most striking event,
*the first fragmentation of the international Communist movement, with the consumation of the break with China. On these three points, Brezhnev's performance has not been very different:
*important economic difficulties: many of the targets of the ninth five-year plan were not achieved, primarily in Sector B (consumer goods); as for agriculture, in spite of the considerable efforts made since 1965, particularly in investments, the agricultural system is now mired in one of its worst crises ever, with the catastrophic grain harvest of 1975;
*internationally, the situation is more complex.
The victory of the MPLA in Angola has served to divert attention from some previous setbacks, in the
Middle East for example;
*aggravation of the crisis in the international
Communist movement. Relations with China have not
----- pull-quotes on this page ----- for the regime of the bureaucracy. BALANCE SHEET OF BREZHNEVISM by ERIC LAURENT 22
The second part of the dossier consists of two interviews. The first, with Zhores Medvedev, was taken in L ndon on November 23, 1975, during a conference organized by the magazine Critique.
The second, with Leonid Plyushch, was taken in Paris at the beginning of March; extracts of it were published in the first issue of Le Quotidien Rouge, the new daily newspaper of the French section of the Fourth International. These two interviews shed light, often from different points of view, on the problems and contradictions of present Soviet society. The different points of view expressed by Medvedev and Plyushch on the democratic opposition, the working class, and the national question testify to the debates going on in the left wing of the Soviet opposition, an opposition that is now going through a significant crisis, as both Medvedev and Plyushch agree.
But Plyushch and Medvedev also agree on a basic point: the necessity and importance of the international workers movement's taking up the systematic defense of all political prisoners in the Soviet Union today. The release of Leonid Plyushch is a first victory won against the bureaucracy.
Today if is important to develop a broad international campaign to demand the immediate release of all the oppositionists still held in the camps and special psychiatric hospitals, both in the USSR and in the other countries of the East. been normalized, and relations with the big Wester Communist parties have deteriorated rapidly. The conference of Communist parties, which originally was supposed to have been held before the twentyfifth congress, is now scheduled for the vague and distant future. But this quick balance-sheet does not allow us to account for Brezhnev's current position of strength, especially since Khrushchev had been deposed on the basis of a balance-sheet that was hardly any more negative. In our view, the difference between the Khrushchev period and the Brezhnev period must be sought elsewhere, in the internal situation of the bureaucracy. In fact, the elimination of Khrushchev marked a final end to an especially turbulent period in the history of the bureaucracy. This period, which opened with the death of Stalin, was marked by a whole series of "turnabouts": the affair of the "antiparty" group, the twentieth congress and the dynamic it set in motion, a dynamic that very quickly went beyond the cautious limits the bureaucracy had wanted to maintain. In addition, the party reform of November 1962, with the division of the party into agricultural and industrial branches and the policy of "systematic renewal" of cadres, provoked profound discontent among middle-level bureaucrats, who saw the reform as a challenge to one of the things they hold dearest: job stability, with all the prerogatives and privileges it implies. To this were added Khrushchev's frequent public attacks on party leaders. All these factors stimulated deep discontent among the bureaucracy, which increasingly came to see Khrushchev, with all his disordered initiatives, as the sorcerer's apprentice of de-Stalinization. His ouster was a clear indication of the desire to reestablish a more collective and infallible regime of the bureaucracy and to avert any open crisis. Hence, the period 1964-76 appears as one of relative stability within the bureaucracy. (It is sufficient to recall that the first demotions in the leading group did not occur until 1972, and even then they took place "peacefully.")
It is important to examine the factors that permitted this stability, for the simple desires of the bureaucrafs cannot explain it. The analysis of these various factors shows that this stability was obtained only thanks to a day-to-day policy, a policy of "stagnation" that has in no way resolved the basic contradictions of the regime but that on the contrary has exacerbated them. In addition, the various factors that have permitted this stability are now becoming exhausted. From this standpoint, the twenty-fifth congress, although it should not be considered a milestone, does open a transitional period that threatens to entail the sudden end of the stability-stagnation that has characterized the Brezhnev period. Internal political situation Politically, there are three essential factors that account for the stability of the Brezhnev period:
*the blocking of de-Stalinization;
*the partial defeat of the democratic opposition movement;
*the passivity of the working class. The desire to put an end to the internal crisis of the bureaucracy and to restore the party's monolithic facade, which is what governed the ouster of Khrushchev, was reflected in a number of measures. For example, the 1962 party refom was annuled and the middle-level bureaucrats regained the job security so dear to them. The increasingly open policy of rehabilitating Stalin, manifested very quickly after the fall of Khrushchev, reflected not so much the Soviet leaders' unbridled love for Stalin himself (in fact, most of them began their careers during the 1930s and feared for their lives at one time or another during the Stalin period) as the desire to halt a dynamic that appeared uncontrollable to them: They had clearly understood that continued criticism of Stalin would inevitably and rapidly lead to an even more radical criticism, this time of Stalin's heirs. The challenging of de-Stalinization was aimed above all at reaffirming the correctness of the line
23
of the party throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Reaffirming the infallible character of the party required clamping a heavy lid on a process whose antibureaucratic dynamic appeared increasingly obvious to the bureaucrats as the masses themselves began to grasp the problem. This desire to reestablish bureaucratic order was also reflected in a strengthening of the policy of centralization at all levels - centralization in the policy toward non-Russian nationalities, for example, in which Khrushchev's mini-concessions were very quickly challenged. The policy under Brezhnev consisted of systematically regaining a grip on the national parties (Ukrainian, Georgian, Azerbaijani) in order to cut short any tendency toward autonomization, Beginning in 1965, this policy of stepped up control and Russification was accompanied by a very severe repression of the national movements, especially in the Ukraine. It is in this context that the ouster of Shelest and Myavanadze, respectively members of the Ukrainian and Georgian CPs, must be viewed. Economically, the sovnarkhozes set up under Khrushchev were eliminated and the all-powerful authority of the federal ministers was reestablished. As we will see further on, the halting of the economic reform also reflected this policy of centralization to excess, which, in the eyes of the major leaders, appeared as the only measure capable of assuring their power. The second aspect of this policy of stabilization of the bureaucracy was repression, first of all against the democratic opposition among the intelligentsia. This opposition had developed beginning with the twentieth congress and the illusions to which that congress gave rise: that there would be a real reform of the bureaucracy, which would allegedly be prepared to commit itself to the road of a gradual democratization of society. The partial failure of the democratic opposition movement (in other words, the movement of the intelligentsia), the reasons for which must not be sought solely in the policy of repression by the organs of the KGB (Committee on State Security, the secret police), is olso one of the factors that has permitted the stability of the bureaucracy during the Brezhnev period. To understand the reasons for this partial failure of the opposition and the evolution of an important number of dissenters toward increasingly open anticommunist positions, it is important to recall the social and political origins of the movement and the objectives it set for itself. As we have said, the movement for democratic rights was essentially a product of the intelligentsia. This fact heavily marked both the objectives and the modes of action of the movement. This movement had its origins in moral and individual revulsion against the return to systematic violation by the bureaucracy of its own legal system (new political trials, layoffs for reasons of opinion, etc., and the manifest desire of the bureaucracy to whitewash Stalin and all his crimes) and in the reformist hopes that had been awakened by the twenfieth party congress. By putting forward essentially demands for freedom of the press, speech, and assembly, the intelligentsia was in fact primarily defending its aspirations as a social layer seeking to win an improvement in its position within Soviet society. The point was to demand that "the best, * "the most capable, " really be allowed to participate in running society, against the bureaucracy, which was considered to be totally incapable. This "elitist" character of the intellectual opposition movement was reflected, among other ways, in the fact that other demands capable of rallying broader layers of the population to the movement (such as the demand for the right to strike) were not taken up by the intellectual opposition, Some passages of the interview with Zhores Medvedev published below concretely illustrate this chasm between the movement of the intelligentsia and the other layers of the population. Everyone knows how the bureaucracy decided to respond to the demands for democratic rights: It considered these demands a direct attack on its monopoly of power. For the bureaucracy, any concession would introduce an uncontrollable dynamic, as the preceding period had shown. In addition, the bureaucracy moved very quickly from a policy of selective repression (the first year after the fall of Khrushchev was a relatively "liberal" year) to an increasingly intense and systematic repression, especially after the Czechoslovak events of 1968. The spread of the practice of interning dissenters in special psychiatric hospitals testifies to this desire to break the movement at all costs. But as brutal as it has been, the repression does not suffice fo explain the present crisis of the opposition. The absence of any mass movement during this period increased the isolation of the intelligentsia in its struggle against the bureaucracy. This isolation is both subjective and objective. Subjective in the sense that the intelligentsia has done
nothing to broaden the movement through the content of the demands advanced. "We have our problems, let them (the workers) resolve theirs, like the Polish workers did in 1970, " one Soviet oppositionist was able to write. The weakness of the Marxist current in the democratic opposition movement, as Plyushch has stressed in various interviews, could only bolster this tendency. It is important to note that the most progressive elements of the opposition - Grigorenko, Yakimovich, Kosterin, Plyushch - have understood the importance of the movement's developing links to the masses and very early committed themselves to total support to the Crimean Tatar movement, which appeared as the only movement with a genuine mass scope during this whole period. This subjective isolation of the intellectual opposition is also the result of the theorization of the apparent passivity of the working class during the 1960s. Finally, it must be recalled that the whole policy of the bureaucracy consciously aims at setting the various layers of society against each other. The internal political vacuum in which the movement of the intelligentsia developed explains why some of its members, confronted by the wall of repression erected by the bureaucracy, have cost their glance abroad in seeking the linkup that they do not see inside the USSR. This is what explains, of least partially, the appeals of a Sakharov and other dissidents to the American Congress to put pressure on the Soviet bureaucracy. This analysis of the democratic opposition must not make us lose sight of the importance that this opposifion has nonetheless. On the other hand, it is the first time since the crushing of the Left Opposition at the end of the 1920s that the struggle against bureaucratic arbitrariness has taken on such scope. Not only has the movement attained a certain cohesion, but also, through the samizdat (self-published) documents, it has permitted a broad exchange of ideas, confused as they may be, outside the ossified framework of official bureaucratic thought. In itself, this process of repoliticization is an extremely important phenomenon. On the other hand, it is necessary to stress the importance of the struggle for democratic rights, which takes on a particularly explosive character in the Soviet Union. These demands are and will remain essential demands of the antibureaucratic struggle. More fundamentally, we have no intention here of weighing the merits and demerits of the opposition by comparing it to a structured revolutionary Marxist apposition (for such an opposition is still, alas, imaginary), but rather of understanding how the opposition, with its ideology, action, and present crisis, is a more or less direct reflection of the social and political reality of the USSR during the past fifteen years. The evolution of the opposition and the divisions that have emerged within it are not at all stable and definitive. They are above all the consequences of the freezing of the objective situation and of the intellectual opposition's inability to really get its teeth into social and political reality. The end of the passivity of the working class and the development of a broad antibureaucratic movement may provide an opportunity for a process of clarification and radicalization of at least an important part of the intelligentsia, as has been shown by the experiences in Hungary in 1956 and Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The passivity of the Soviet masses, the working class in the first place, is also the cause and consequence of the stability the Soviet bureaucracy has succeeded in enjoying. It is important to understand what we mean by passivity of the working class as well as the reasons for this passivity. In speaking of passivity, we do not deny the existence of deep discontent, which has sometimes taken the form of strikes and street demonstrations, as in Depropetrovsk and Dneprodzerzhinsk in 1972 and 1973. But this discontent is essentially reflected in forms of resistance, whether individual or collective, at the factory level: absenteeism, mobility, low productivity of labor, In other words, the working class has not yet reappeared on the political scene as a class. It seems that this passivity may be explained not only by permanent features of Soviet society under the reign of the bureaucracy — the systematic policy of depoliticization, atomization, and repression applied by the bureaucrats - but also by reasons that are partially conjunctural, that is, certain economic concessions the bureaucracy granted in the wake of the period of profound social tensions that had preceded the ouster of Khrushchev, These economic concessions were linked - especially during the years 1965-70 - to the relatively more rapid growth of Sector B of the economy (consumer goods), which was in large part linked to the initial effects of the economic reform. Concurrently, during these same years, wages rose relatively rapidly (up 26 percent between 1966 and 1970), while productivity increased only slowly. The bureaucracy's inability to guarantee that Sector B would continue to grow into the 1970s, combined with the clear slowdown in wage increases, is now
25
USSR creating conditions for a new important rise in social tensions, which could lead to an open crisis. As we shall see below, the discrepancy between the needs of the Soviet masses and the bureaucracy's ability to satisfy these needs appears quite clearly in the results of the ninth five-year plan, which has just ended, Moreover, this discrepancy can only be aggravated in coming years, to judge by the objectives that have been set in the next five-year plan. A reading of the table of the results and objectives of the three past five-years plans gives an initial idea of the economic difficulties the Kremlin leaders are Facing today.
Results and Objectives of Soviet Five-Year Plans (percentages indicate growth rates over five-year periods) 8th Plan 9th Plan 10th Plan (1966-1970) (1971-75) (1976-80) results objectives results objectives
Sector A 51% 46% 46% 38-39%
Sector B 50% 49% 37% 26-28%
Productivity 32% 39% 34% 30-34%
Agriculture 23% 22% 13% 14-17%
Wages 26% 22% 20% 16-18%
Income per capita 33% 31% 24% 20-22% Apart from the general slowdown in Soviet economic growth, this table indicates the major stumbling blocks and potential factors of crisis: agriculture and the consumer goods sector (Sector B), which has direct consequences on the standard of living of the Soviet masses. The objectives of the ninth plan, which ended in 1975, testified to the bureaucracy's desire to assure priority development to Sector B over Sector A. That plan was the first one that broke with the traditional logic of lending priority to the development of the means of production sector (Sector A). The results indicate patent Failure: 37 percent growth over the five year period instead of the 49 percent called for in the original plan. The reasons for this failure have been analyzed in several articles in INPRECOR (see "The Soviet Economy in 1974, " in No. 26, May 22, 1975, and "The Crisis of Soviet Agriculture, " in No. 37, November ó, 1975). Thus, here we will simply recall these reasons briefly:
* The permanent crisis of agriculture, which has not been resolved by the considerable efforts undertaken since 1965 (investment, improvement of the standard of living of the collective farm members), as is indicated by the particularly catastrophic harvest of 1972 and 1975. Light industry, especially the food industry, directly suffers the side effects of the catastrophic agricultural situation. 28
"The hypercentralization, which is the characteristic feature of bureaucratic management of the economy, tends to favor the development of Sector A.
*The action of interest groups within the bureaucracy, which have been formed around the priority development of Sector A (the "steel eaters, "as Khrushchev called them. The problem of assuring sufficient growth of Sector B in order to guarantee a rise in the living standards of the Soviet masses has been a constant concern of the bureaucrats since the death of Stalin, for the bureaucrats understand that failure to guarantee such growth entails the risk of a rapid rise of discontent among the Soviet masses. But at the same time, the development of this sector implies choices that threaten to place a question mark over the bureaucracy's absolute control over the functioning of the economy. What happened with the economic reform of 1965 is significant in this regard: The elaboration of the reform, which implied the return to certain market mechanisms, was supposed to allow for more rapid progress in the consumer goods sector. And, as we have indicated above, this is what happened during the years 1968-70. But the minimum of decentralization of decision-making at the factory level very quickly emerged as a factor fueling centrifugal tendencies that were in contradiction with the absolute control the bureaucrats wanted to preserve over the economy. The response to this contradiction was to bury the reform. During the December 1969 plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist party Brezhnev reaffirmed the leading role of the party in the economy, against the so-called managerist tendency. The central problem was said to be to bolster labor discipline. The massive import of Western technology - combined with recipes provided by American psycho-sociology - constituted the second aspect of this policy. The appeals for discipline and efficiency were reflected primarily in a growing subordination of wage increases to rises in productivity. On the other hand, the economic effectiveness of the measures adopted was debatable at least, as is shown by the results of the latest plan. But this did not prevent Brezhnev From absolving the party of all responsibility for the current economic failures; in his report to the twenty-fifth congress he once again blamed the "managers, " who had allegedly misapplied the correct line of the party. The partial failure of the ninth five-year plan confronts the bureaucracy with certain choices:
*Whether or not to continue the considerable effort that has been undertaken in agriculture;
*Whether or not to continue the massive import of Western technology, which involves an increase in economic dependence on the world market, in addition, given the structure of East-West trade, the crisis in the West threatens to have serious consequences on the continuation of this trade;
*Rapid development or not of the consumer goods sector.
Kosygin's report to the twenty-fifth congress, in which the principal ob ctive of the next plan was presented, shows that there will be no break with the preceding plan on the first two points. The policy of massive investment in agriculture will be continwed. As for relations with the world market, while a slowdown is envisaged, it does not seem that the Kremlin leaders have any possibility of challenging this dependence today. The most striking fact about the new plan - and it is difficult to assess this point of innovation — is the return to priority of development to Sector A, for which a relatively high growth rate has been set, between 38 and 39 percent, In addition, because of the consequences of the agricultural difficulties, the projected growth in Sector B seems to rest essentially on increases in the production of long lasting, or relatively long lasting, consumer goods: electrical appliances, televisions, automobiles, etc. On the other hand, it does not seem that significant progress will be registered in the food industry, in particular because of the extreme dependence on the agricultural situation. For example, meat production will remain at it 1975 level all the way through 1980, that is, about 15 million tons. As for wages, the growth rate here will be in the image of that of the consumer goods sector, and possibly even lower, for the predicted growth is only 16-18 percent. Once again, the bureaucracy is seeking to resolve its economic difficulties on the backs of the workers. The end of stability? This rapid balance-sheet of the policy applied by the Kremiin leaders during the past twelve years has tried to highlight the underlying reasons for the stability they have enjoyed, Brezhnev's position of strength at the twenty-fifth congress testifies to the fact that the man who represents the brains behind this policy has achieved relative success in the objectives he had set. But the underlying reasons for this stability now seem to be on the point of exhaustion, in spite of the outward image the bureaucracy is trying to present, In fact, as we have tried to demonstrate, the apparent stability masks an actual deep fragility, since the stability has been the result only of the evasion of the fundamental contradictions of bureaucratic society, an evasion effected with a certain zest, it must be admitted. This exhaustion of the underlying reasons for stability is being manifested on various levels:
*The aging of the present leading team is symbolie here, Even though Brezhnev has apparently recovered from his illness, the extreme age of most of the leaders objectively poses the problem of succession, or even of their departure. The fact that the old men of the Politbureau (Pelsh, who is 78, and Suslov, who is 75) remain in their posts indicates the tension among the various currents in face of the problems raised by any renewal of the leading team. Succession problems generally lead to the crystallizafion of factions and cliques, which is linked to a rebalancing of the various interest groups and fiefs within the bureaucracy. The "colonization" of the Ukrainian CP by bureaucrats loyal to Brezhnev after the ouster of Shelest is an example of this.
*The bureaucracy has not responded to the demands for democratization coming from the intelligentsia except by resorting to repression. Such a response could be effective only in the short run. The problem cannot be solved by throwing those who raise it into camps or special psychiatric hospitals. In a somewhat paradoxical manner, the importance of the struggles now being waged in the camps around the question of the status of political prisoners and for a general amnesty indicate the permanence of the problem.
*On the national question, the intensification of the policy of excessive centralization and Russification, combined with a very hard repression of the various national opposition movements, also achieved some results in the short run. In fact, however, this policy has only strengthened the national demands, which are now emerging as among the most explosive contradictions.
*The bureaucratic management of the economy is clearly revealing its bankruptcy in the objectives of the next five-year plan, which once again goes back to the old Stalinist logic of lending priority to the development of Sector A over Sector B. The consequences of this policy on the standard of living of the masses, in which virtual stagnation is on the agenda for the coming five years, threatens to stimulate ever stronger social tensions and to lead to a sudden new rise of the movement of the masses. All these factors stimulate the disequilibrium within the bureaucracy itself, for the problems of succession threaten to be posed in a period of intense social and national tensions. This could lead to the crystallization of increasingly intransigent factions and to an open struggle within the bureaucracy. The stability of the present leadership, which is both the cause and consequence of the absence of significant mass movements, threatens to come to an end rather sharply. The bureaucracy's capacity to preserve tranquility in the period now opening requires the maintenance of the present balance of social and political forces. It is likely to be a period of transition-stagnation, for one can only be skeptical about the bureaucracy's ability to lessen the contradictions, which have been building up for too long, simply through a calculated liberalization. In any event, there is no indication that the bureaucracy is prepared to commit itself to the road of liberalization, for experience has shown this to be dangerous. Is it the end of the Brezhnev period then? To be sure. But it is still difficult to predict how quickly this will occur, for that depends primarily on a more or less short term rise of the moss movement, which will shake up all the factors in the situation.
27
The positions expressed by Zhores Medvedev in the following interview, taken at our request in
London in November 1975, reflect the analyses and perspectives advanced by one current of the
Soviet opposition, generally called "party democrats" (Med vedev also uses the term "liberal Marxists"), the principal inspirer of whom is Roy Medvedev, Zhores's brother. The label "party democrats" derives from the analysis of the various currents in the CPSU as developed by Roy Medvedev.
Basically, he distinguishes three currents: the neo-Stalinists, the conservatives, and the liberals.
The present leading team, according to this analysis, is composed of a majority of conservatives they are present only in the lower echelons of the apparatus; their weight is relatively small. For Medvedev, democratization requires the strengthening of the liberal current and the accession of members of this current to the leading posts. Thus, — and this is what distinguishes this current both from oppositionists like Sakharov and from communist currents represented by Grigorenko and Plyushch - the liberals direct their action essentially toward the party itself.
These positions are expressed very clearly in the various recent documents and statements of Roy
Medvedev, For example, in "Problems of Democratization and Détente" he wrote: "Any advance toward a more consistent democratization, toward greater tolerance of dissidents, toward a more flexible and reasonable internal policy is possible in the USSR today only as the result of certain initiatives 'coming from above' and 'supported from below,' The need for a brood democratization of Soviet society has been felt for a long time, It is, in fact, the most important condition for an acceleration of economic, political, social, and cultural development of our country. Only o genuine socialist democracy can give rise to the new motor forces that are needed to restore the health and life of the whole system of Soviet institutions and organizations, Nevertheless, the political passivity of the population 'from below' is equally obvious. People have learned to be so silent and are so subject to guilt that neither the oppositionists nor even certain small groups of oppositionists are capable of generating a mass movement capable of stimulating real political
(headed by Brezhnev) and As for the liberals, In the 1960s, the various dissident groups exhibited a certain degree of unity. However, a process of differentiation has set in since that period and some of the best known leading figures have been forced to emigrate, In addition, violent disagreements have broken out among the different oppositional groups both within the Soviet Union and abroad. Do you think, therefore, that we would be justified in speaking of a crisis inside the opposifion in the Soviet Union today? And, if so, for what reasons?
Certainly we con say there is a crisis, one that has resulted in major disputes and profound disagreements among the different groups on the one hand, and in a decline in their influence inside the Soviet Union, and in some ways in their popularity abroad, on the other hand. Several factors account for this crisis. First, obviously, there are the energetic measures taken by the authorities against the movement. This became brutally clear in 1973 with the trial of Yakir and Krassin, who had enjoyed substantial reputations as leaders both inside the USSR and abroad. But they cooperated completely with the KGB* during the investigations leading up to the trial; they admitted their mistakes, recanted everything, and compromised a great many people. More than 200 witnesses were called in for questioning at the time of the Yakir-Krassin affair, including nearly all the octive members of the different groups. So, the Yakir-Krassin affair did discredit the *KGB: Committee of State Security, the