Kremlin receiving lines often provide some clues about who is up and who is down in the Soviet leadership. But when Yuri Andropov failed to appear at the annual gala marking the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on Nov. 7, his ten comrades on the Communist Party's ruling Politburo neatly sidestepped the protocol problem. Instead of forming a line to shake hands with their guests, they bunched together behind their table in a Kremlin banquet hall. It was symbolic confirmation of the vexing problem that faced the Soviet Union as it prepared for the second transition of power in only 15 months: there was no obvious candidate to fill the vacancy left by Andropov. Says Cornell University Political Scientist Myron Rush: "Since nobody is in a strong position, practically everybody is in a strong position."
The rules of thumb that have applied in past races will undoubtedly hold true this time as well. The new Soviet leader will be chosen from among the twelve voting members of the Politburo. He is likely to be a member of the powerful party Secretariat, which controls the day-to-day affairs of the Communist Party, and he will probably be an ethnic Russian. To rule effectively, he will have to count on the support of some combination of backers from the three main pillars of Soviet power: the party bureaucracy, the military and the technocratic elite. But imponderables remain. Will the small group of men, whose average age is now 67, choose a successor from the older group and risk another short-lived regime or will they make the bold decision to turn power over to a younger generation that is thinly represented in the inner circle of power?
Should the Soviet leadership opt for age over youth, there was always standby Candidate Konstantin Chernenko, 72, who took Andropov's place on the Lenin Mausoleum during the military parade through Red Square in November and was named chairman of Andropov's funeral committee last week. Chernenko worked his way to positions on the Politburo and the Secretariat largely by serving as an aide to Leonid Brezhnev, and he was thought to have been his boss's hand-picked heir. But he lost out, probably when the military and party colleagues decided to back Andropov. Since then, Chernenko has given every appearance of being a team player; he nominated Andropov for the top party post after Brezhnev's death, and for President of the Soviet Union seven months later.
The white-haired, grandfatherly Chernenko might still be the nostalgic favorite of entrenched and aging bureaucrats who remember the old days under Brezhnev. But Chernenko's experience outside the cumbersome party machine is limited, and he has failed to project an image of strong leadership. The impression has no doubt been reinforced by his unfortunate tendency to stumble over long words while reading prepared speeches.