RUSSIA

Kremlin coma

TIBOR SZAMUELY

Party congresses have always been the major, perhaps even the only, important events of Soviet political life. The bleak mono-. tony of the frozen tundra of eventlessness, datelessness and namelessness that is official Soviet history is only broken by a straggling row of party congresses—misshapen land- marks pointing the way to somewhere or other, nobody quite knows where. Some congresses did mark decisive turning-points: the tenth (1921), which introduced the New Economic Policy and prohibited factions within the party; the fourteenth (1925), when Stalin emerged as the party's leader; the twentieth (1956), when Stalin's crimes were first exposed. But even the lesser congresses all contained their share of revelations or at least of embellishments to the party line.

The twenty-fourth is the first congress in Soviet history at which nothing whatever happened of the slightest importance or interest to anyone at all. And therein lies its significance. For today, as at any time in the past, the party congress reflects the state of mind and the character of the party leadership. By this token, the current leader- ship is, quite simply, too boring for words. Petrifying boredom—that, far more than police terror, is the deadly weapon with which the Soviet bosses keep their 240 million subjects in check. The message comes in every soporific speech and restful resolu- tion: To Sleep, ye Wretched of the Earth!

The tone was set by the report of the. party's General Secretary, Mr Brezhnev. It was a speech of infinite blandness. No sharp edges, no imprecations, no loud boasting, no new policies, no new ideas (no ideaS "at all, come to that). Mr Brezhnev declared himself opposed equally to 'right-wing revisionism' and 'left-wing adventurism', to 'anarchical dissoluteness' and 'bureaucratic over- centralisation', to the 'cult of personality' (i.e. Stalin) and to 'subjectivist errors' (i.e. Khrushchev). He came out smoothly against both 'attempts to evaluate the historical path of the Soviet people from non-party, non- class positions' (i.e. de-Stalinisation) and 'dogmatic conceptions which ignore the great positive changes of latter years' (i.e. re- Stalinisation). In short, Mr Brezhnev, like President Coolidge's preacher, is agin sin— only he took six hours to say so.

Mr Brezhnev proffered goodies for every- one. He even promised supplementary benefits for all families whose income did not reach fifty roubles per head. Since this would comprehend probably between one- third and one-half of the population it would involve an astronomical sum of money. Where was it coming from? Mr Kosygin, in his report, solved the conun- drum by explaining that the fifty roubles would be calculated on the basis of all sources of income, that is including the cost of free schooling, free health service, future pensions etc—perhaps even free police service. Clearly, in the end precious few, if any, will qualify.

Mr Kosygin's report on the new five-year plan was as unremarkable as every speech he has made in the course of a long public career. One baffling feature: while he claimed that the last plan for gross industrial production had, as always, been overful- filled, his actual figures for particular industrial products show that only two or three even reached the planned target, and in almost all cases the plan had been under- fulfilled by anything up to 55 per cent.

The 'election' of the new Central Com- mittee illustrates the main source of the suffocating blandness. The degree of hier- archical stability achieved in the Land of the Purge is one of the wonders of the world. Only one-fifth of the old Central Committee failed to be re-elected; most of these had either died or were just honorary specimens of the working class, who are customarily rotated every term, The composition of the Central Committee provides no new insight into anything. Military representation has remained the same: thirty-two members and candidates. Considering that the overall size of the cc has been increased by exactly one- tenth, the soldiers' proportion has fallen somewhat, to about 8 per cent of the total —probably a fair reflection of their weight.

The changeless nature of Soviet life at the top became even more pronounced with the 'election' of the ruling Politburo. Every one of its eleven members was reappointed— an event unprecedented in seventy-three years of party history. Four others have been added, but these are hardly new men—three were candidate members and one a secretary of the Central Committee. No new can- didates have been selected.

Much has been made of the Politburo members' average age being lowered from sixty-three to sixty-one. In reality it is three

years higher than at the time of the last election. And when I add that ten of the

fifteen have been in the Politburo for ten years or more then it will not escape the attentive reader that meanwhile they have grown at least ten years older. The youngest member of the Politburo is still Mr Shelepin, invariably described here, over the past six

or seven years, as 'young' and `up and coming'. Yet this youthful paladin is fifty- three—only two years younger than Mr Heath or Mr Wilson,

An elderly, tired and boring leadership for an elderly, tired and boring regime. All they want is some peace and quiet: no adventures, no initiatives, no changes. Safety first— everything stays as it was. Some of the earlier congresses are known by explanatory titles. The fourteenth is the 'Congress of Industrialisation', the fifteenth, the 'Congress of Collectivisation'. The twenty-fourth is surely the Congress of Stagnation.

• Finally, did Mr Brezhnev emerge, as long expected, in the role of the party's authentic and acknowledged leader? Con- trary, to the assertions of most commen- tators, there is not the slightest evidence for this. To be sure, the speakers singled him out for praise. The Great Russians limited themselves to stating that such-and-such a success had been achieved 'under the leader- ship of the Central Committee and the Politburo headed by Comrade Brezhnev'. Representatives of the national minorities, to show their enduring loyalty to the Rus- sian 'elder brother', used a more ornate formula: 'Comrade Brezhnev, by his tireless activities and his constant solicitude for the people's welfare' (or his simplicity, his modesty, his humanity, his thoughtfulness— one fills in the space provided) 'has won universal love and respect'. Both stereotyped formulas are entirely meaningless: the party is too accustomed to personalising the regime for the habit to be given up painlessly.

Some of those whose praise was most fulsome got promoted, others did not. Nor is there any more reason for believing that the new Politburo members are 'Brezhnev men° than there is for accepting the Thnes's description of them as 'all distinguished by their managerial competence'. SycophancY towards Soviet Top People is all very well, but it should be kept within reasonable bounds. The plain truth is that we have n° way at all of knowing what the new men are like. Judging by the standards of the grey gang in power they can hardly he geniuses. Persistent rumour has it that Mr Brezhnev is the dimmest, the most narrow' minded and least civilised of the lot. If true, this provides the perfect explanation for Ms advancement to seeming pre-eminence.

It is time we stopped expecting the im- minent appearance of a new Stalin or even a new Khrushchev, and got used to the idea of Russia being ruled by a third-rate collec- tive leadership. Under the Soviet system the only viable method of exchanging or rejuvenating the leadership is by means of the Purge; now that they have renounced this weapon it seems the world is stuck with them until they gradually grow quite senile and die off and are replaced by men of a°, even inferior calibre. A peculiar and inefficient way of running a great countrY, but then Russia always has been a peculiar and inefficient place.