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Romanov has the unflattering reputation of being abrasive and arrogant. Sovi ets quip that the imperial manner comes with his surname, the same as that of the Russian royal family, which was deposed in 1917. According to a widely told anecdote, Romanov ordered Leningrad's Hermitage museum to open its china clos ets so that guests at his daughter's wedding reception could eat in grand style. Several priceless items from Catherine the Great's dinner service were broken during the revelry. One U.S. diplomat who met with Romanov was taken aback when he rudely interrupted his interpreter to correct the translation of one of his titles. Recalls the American visitor: "The impression Romanov gave was one of boorishness and arrogance. He strutted around as if he were lord of all he surveyed."
Unlike most Soviet leaders, Romanov has traveled widely outside the Soviet bloc. He has been to neighboring Finland five times, France twice, and to Italy and Norway. Last January he traveled to West Germany to attend a Communist Party congress. But increased exposure to the outside world does not appear to have mellowed him much. Romanov once told a visiting U.S. delegation that he found it hard to believe that the leaders of the Democratic Party could not take steps to discipline members who did not follow the party line. Given Romanov's strong ties to the defense industry, such dogmatic views might enhance his appeal to the old guard and overcome whatever reluctance they might feel to hand the reins of power back to someone named Romanov.
Geidar Aliyev, 60, from the Muslim Transcaucasian Republic of Azerbaijan, is the most prominent of the other young contenders. Shortly after Andropov succeeded Brezhnev, Aliyev was promoted to full Politburo membership and named First Deputy Premier. Even if Aliyev is passed over, says Cornell's Rush, "he certainly has a future as somebody's strong-arm lieutenant."
Vitali Vorotnikov, 58, a party bureau crat whom Brezhnev once banished to the Soviet embassy in Havana, advanced rapidly under Andropov. But he is too new to the Politburo to figure prominently in this race. The handful of men who govern the Soviet Union now stand at a great historical and psychological divide. Most of them can measure the history of the Communist regime by the decades in their lives. They were born and reared amid revolution, reached maturity during despotism and global war, and grew old building a fortress nation second to none. As they choose a successor to Andropov, the old guard may feel reluctant to pass this awesome legacy to an untried younger generation, as if the transfer were somehow not inevitable. But the paradox remains that the longer the old men cling to power, the more they endanger the very thing they have sought to preserve: stability. — ByJohn Kohan. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof /Moscow and Raji Samghabadi/New York, with other bureaus