From Brezhnev to Andropov: Orderly Succession or Crisis?
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1983.tb00148.x |
| Date | 01 February 1983 |
| Published date | 01 February 1983 |
| Author | Peter Frank |
| Subject Matter | Article |
FROM BREZHNEV
TO
ANDROPOV: ORDERLY SUCCESSION
OR
CRISIS?
Peter Frank
Both the Constitution of the
USSR
and the Statutes of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU) emphasise the collective nature of leadership in the Soviet
political system, and this is consistent with the underlying collectivist ideology.
In practice, however, there has been a tendency towards strong, individual leadership:
Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev all attained positions of personal power that
were considerably at odds with the spirit of the written constitutions. One reason
forthe extraordinary power of these leaders, and also the main reason why, other
than by death, they have been
so
difficult to remove or replace, is that there is no
we1
7
understood
,
regular, conventional or statutory mode of succession. Consequently,
succession in the
USSR
tends to be uncommonly disruptive and accompanied by crisis
(Frank, 1980). Yet the changeover from Brezhnev to Andropov in November
1982
seemed
to take place smoothly and efficiently;
so
does this mean that leadership succession
in the Soviet Union is no longer a problem?
Rites
de
passage
The late leader's funeral went off without a hitch, Andropov having already been elec-
ted the new General Secretary at a plenum of the
CPSU
Central Committee held on
November
12
1982.
Then, at a second plenum on November 22nd, at which the state plan
and budget for 1983 were discussed, Andropov made a major speech which was direct, to
the point, and refreshingly short of cliche's. The same identification of shortcomings
that has characterised
so
many speeches to the autumn plenum was there; but there was
also a briskness and note of confidence to encourage the opinion that the new man might
help the system to break out of the 'inertia, the preference for old practices'
referred to near the beginning of his speech. Similarly, the personnel changes
announced at the close of the plenum displayed a blend of valediction (the retirement
with fulsome tribute of Brezhnev's longstanding colleague and friend,
A.P.
Kirilenko)
and unanticipated promotion (of a former
KGB
chief and then Party first secretary
of the Azerbaidzhan central committee,
G.A.
Aliev) that suggested the end of an era.
Just as suggestive of a new approach, but less widely noticed, was the appointment
to the Secretariat
of
N.I.
Ryzhkov. He was a technocrat who had joined the Party only
in
1956,
had never held Party office, and who rose from the shop floor to be head
eventually of the giant industrial combine Uralmash before his more recent appointment
as a deputy head of Gosplan. Together with indications given in Andropov's speech,
these two appointments symbolise the twin approach to solving the USSR's current
domestic difficulties: the need for greater discipline and a more expert, competent
stimulation of the economy.
to have occurred quickly, cleanly, smoothly, efficiently, and with a complete absence
of crisis. Does this mean, therefore, that the Soviet political system has matured
to the extent that
it
can now cope with changes of leader
no
less effectively than
can other kinds of political system, including mu1 ti-party, competitive democracies?
Indeed, given the manifest tranquility of the Brezhnev-Andropov transition, is the
Soviet Union now better able to do this than systems which require, for instance,
prolonged election campaigns and substantial turnover of both legislators and (as
in
the American case) administrators, as well as of the leader him/herself?
From the moment of Brezhnev's death was announced Andropov displayed a sure touch.
In short, then, the transition from Brezhnev's leadership to Andropov's appears
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