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Without naming any of his predecessors, Gorbachev made it clear that his criticisms were aimed mainly at Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled from 1964 to 1982. Said Gorbachev: "At some point, the country began to lose momentum, difficulties and unresolved problems started to pile up, and there appeared elements of stagnation and other phenomena alien to Socialism. All this badly affected the economy and the social, cultural and intellectual life."
Kremlin watchers in Washington, who have become accustomed to unexpected moves by the Soviet leader, were surprised by both the tone and content of the speech. State Department officials began immediately to examine it closely. One expert burst out of his office after he finished reading the diplomatic dispatches from Moscow and said, "This is big stuff. This guy is serious." Added another top American policymaker: "This speech has made a number of us take a much more serious look at Gorbachev as a man who is not just making broad, sweeping pronouncements. He's considering some very serious changes in the system. He is determined to reinvigorate it."
Others were far less impressed with Gorbachev's calls for reform. Said Mikhail Tsypkin of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington research organization: "This is just an effort to strengthen the party apparatus. These are attempts to make the system more workable." He was correct in that nothing in Gorbachev's plans would fundamentally change such Soviet shibboleths as central economic planning and the total political dominance of the Communist Party. Indeed, Gorbachev several times downplayed the notion that he was planning anything really revolutionary.
Even though last week's call for contested elections for party office was hedged, it was an illustration of Gorbachev's ability to capture the political initiative. On the surface it was one of his most startling proposals to date, a chance to inject new blood into a stultified bureaucracy. Much, though, will depend on how the idea is carried out.
Many Western Kremlinologists are skeptical. British Sovietologist Martin McCauley, for one, predicts that Gorbachev plans to use the device "to make sure that his own people get in," presumably by arranging for candidates of his choice to challenge unwanted incumbents. Dimitri Simes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out that the party apparatus already has the right to nominate several candidates at party meetings. And as for secret ballots, it all depends on who will do the vote counting. Western observers noted that last week's Central Committee meeting did not adopt any resolutions that would put the voting proposals into practice.
The personnel changes announced last week contained mixed signals. As expected, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, 75, party chief of Kazakhstan, was dropped from the ruling Politburo, "in connection with his retirement," thereby eliminating one of the longtime Brezhnev hangers-on who had led the resistance to Gorbachev's changes. But the closest Brezhnev crony left on the Politburo, Ukraine Party Boss Vladimir Shcherbitsky, not only held on to his seat but was one of the few delegates aside from Gorbachev invited to address the Central Committee. This seemed to indicate that while Gorbachev has consolidated power, he does not yet totally dominate the party and appointments.