With their customary dazzling display of stagecraft, the Russians opened the Kremlin gates this week for the 25th performance of the classic miracle play of Communism: the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The onion domes and crosses atop the Kremlin's cathedrals and churches coruscated in the winter sunlight, while the renovated brick battlements of the ancient fortress loomed over the elegant imperial palaces, freshly painted in pastels. Outside the walls of the ancient fortress, huge posters dominated Red Square, proclaiming the principal theme of this year's political extravaganza: SUCh as GLORY TO THE GREAT SOVIET PEOPLE, THE BUILDERS OF COMMUNISM. More than 5,000 party delegates from every corner of the world's largest country will attend the 11-day congress. Also present will be delegates from other Communist parties (notably missing: representatives of China and Albania), who will attend in apparent recognition of Moscow as Marxism's shrine of orthodoxy and its seat of power.
The real business of the 25th congress* will take place not before a backdrop reminiscent of Boris Godunov but in the 6,000-seat auditorium of the Palace of Congresses, a hulking multimillion dollar marble-and-glass edifice that exemplifies the Soviets' conspicuous striving for modernity. Western Kremlinologists expect few surprises from this congress. According to one feeble joke current in Moscow last week, the delegates will in fact be treated to a performance of Mnogo Shuma iz Nichego, otherwise known as Much Ado About Nothing.
The Soviet press, as usual, has given the congress an extraordinary advance buildup. According to newspapers, radio and television reports, the entire nation is engaged in an orgy of self-congratulations for past achievements and eagerly waiting to learn about future goals to be elaborated at the congress. The official news agency Tass reported that "virtually the entire adult population of the Soviet Union" was discussing the 21,000-word five-year plan for 1976-80, which was published in December and will be the subject of most of the major addresses. The plan is officially described as "a new, important stage in creating the material and technical basis of Communism, in improving social relations and molding a new man, in enhancing the socialist way of life." At the same tune, the Soviet press has noticeably intensified its coverage of strikes, bankruptcies, unemployment, inflation and crime in the capitalist West, while maintaining that Communism has triumphantly resolved all of these burdensome problems.
To judge from the banners and slogans that garlanded every major Moscow thoroughfare, all 15 members of the Politburo are joined in "monolithic unity" with the people. Reinforcing this impression was the announcement that Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, 69, would deliver the Soviet equivalent of a "state of the union" address. This traditionally lasts from five to six hours—scarcely an undertaking for a man long rumored to be suffering from a fatal physical or political illness. Premier Aleksei Kosygin, 71, whose survival in power is often linked to Brezhnev's, is scheduled to deliver the crucial report on the economy.