nically better-equipped, and prob- | years ago that the Soviet popula- sors. In a related context, I found the exchanges on dissent realistic. It is an advance that Andrei Sakharov should be able to voice and publish his critical views on the Soviet system and that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others should be exiled instead of shot or sent to labor camps. Samizdat is a phenomenon inconceivable under Stalin or even for some years after his death. But I go along with what seems to have been the majority view in the colloquy that the dissenters, for all their admirable courage, are few in number, unable to organize effectively, and unlikely to change the nature of the regime in the foreseeable future. For the most part, even they are advocating change from within the present system. The KGB, operating with much greater sophistication than in the past, seems to have the problem of dissent well under control. In many respects, the relative cultural and intellectual relaxation under Khrushchev has been reversed under Brezhnev. I found in the general discussion of the internal Soviet scene confirmation of my experience 15 tion is mainly concerned with the leaders in the Kremlin have plenty of problems to cope with. The main problem areas, to my mind. are: (1) how to improve Soviet agriculture, still the Achilles' heel of the Soviet economy (it is scandalous, in a world threatened by inadequate food production for the increasing populations of the Third World, that a country which was a grain exporter in Tsarist days should now so frequently have to draw upon US and Canadian harvests or stocks); (2) how to keep up with the Western meas-Joneses in the build-up of increasingly complex and expensive modern technologies, military and civilian, requiring inter alia— the development of natural resources in Siberia and the Arctic and a concomitant improvement in the range and distribution of consumer goods; (3) how to enhance or at least maintain a degree of efficiency in the cumbersome party and government bureaucracies in the conduct of a vast range of nonpriority business (as well as in such priority areas as defense, police, and space); and (4) how to keep in check nationalist and separatist tendencies in the non-Russian republics in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Baltic States, and-most important, if perhaps less immediately pressing the Ukraine. is very little interest in Marxist ollary that there is even less inter- Yet it also rains in the Soviet FASCINATING though the internal scene is to all who have lived in the Soviet Union, the outside world is more concerned with the international position and behavior of the Soviet Union as a superpower. Here the lesson of the colloquy is very clear. Since we are concerned with an "adversary" relationship, we must think in terms both of capabilities and of intentions and clearly distinguish the two. The first can be assessed with cer tainty; the second are more open ties as arise to weaken its main World and more especially at When we turn to Soviet intentions, the situation is less clearcut. Unquestionably, the Soviet Union's objective is to become the most powerful state in the world; it will use such opportuni suffered a major setback in the Moscow, the advantages cited by Kennan are more than outweighed by the perceived threat of the military strength of the US and its NATO allies, including the greater part of the old Germany; by the hostility of the new China; and by the continued presence of Japan in the adversary camp, this time as an ally of the US. What, however, must surely matter most to us is the ever-increasing military strength of the Soviet Union, which is more likely to be used for diplomatic blackmail than for actual war, in the pursuit of national ends and/or for ideological motives. State interest and ideology were both invoked in the Soviet defense of the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; they could be invoked again over China or, more probably and perhaps quite soon, over Yugoslavia. While the Soviet Union's military might is generally accepted as an accomplished fact, the full implications of its power tend to be ignored by a Western public opinion reluctant to make the necessary defense and financial sacrifices to deter Soviet expansion or possible aggression, direct or indirect. Here the fashionable concept of "détente" plays a dangerous part. Very few people in the West give it its secondary French meaning of a "trigger" or "detonator," and fewer grasp what lies behind the Soviet interpretation of détente as peaceful coexistence. The latter is a concept which enables the Soviets to push their interests by all means, fair or foul, short of war. Tsarist Russia and the modern Soviet Union have usually been patient enough to wait for the fruit to fall from the tree into their laps, although prepared to move in and shake the tree if in a particular moment it was not properly pro tected. The future could well be tempted by the en- WE COME to the main question posed in the colloquy-the degree of change in the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1975. In reading the relevant commentary, I was reminded of my return in 1960 to a Russia under Khrushchev, my previous experience there having been in 1945-48 when Stalin was in power. Our British diplomatic practice is, or was, to set down. initial impressions, especially upon returning to a post where one has previously served. I started to prepare a draft account highlighting the many changes for the better, but was soon confronted with experiences only too reminiscent of the Stalinist past. I prepared another draft emphasizing the regretable elements of continuity, some favorable trends. In the end, my dispatch, I hope balancing the good with the bad, was sent off only shortly before my departure two years later. I suspect that I would be faced with much the same problem if I returned to Moscow today. The colloquy has to my mind brought out the essential fact for countries dealing with this totalitarian superpower: the Soviet regime continues to use what is still an effective if somewhat outdated ideology in the pursuit of traditional state interests in a word, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Surely, we should welcome the improvement in material conditions and in huin material conditions and in human relationships inside Russia since Stalin's excesses and also the more sophisticated and agreeable conduct of diplomatic exchanges by the Soviet Union since Khrushchev's rumbustious behavior. But this should not blind us to the far more significant and disturbing changes in Soviet military, economic, and political strength or to the continuity in strength or to the continuity in traditional national and Soviet long-term objectives. These ele ments of both change and continuity are not designed to produce a world of "live and let live." Nor are they likely to lead to a convergence of the Communist and free-enterprise systems, with each settling on some middle ground akin to social democracy and the German market economy. In the last analysis, however, Soviet policy remains cautious rather than aggressive; it is we in the West and not the Soviet planners who can decide the issue. In Voltaire's words, "il faut cultiver notre jardin." If we retain our unity and defensive strength within the Free World and more especially within the Atlantic Alliance, if we overcome our current economic and social problems, if we work out a satisfactory relationship with the Third and other Worlds, the Western fruit will not fall from the tree into the Soviet lap, and the leaders in the Kremlin will probably hold back from aggressive actions and overly dangerous probing. A correct understanding of Soviet strengths and weaknesses will help us to achieve these goals, and the more people who benefit from the insights in this colloquy the better. Bureaucrat in the Kremlin By Jiri Valenta JOHN DORNBERG: Brezhnev: WHAT SORT OF person is Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev? What motivates him? And what has been his role in Soviet decision-making? These are not easy questions to answer. A major problem is the existence of a sharp discrepancy between the image of Brezhnev that took shape in the 1960's and the one that prevails today. In the late 1960's, most Soviet-watchers saw Brezhnev as an unprepossessing, mediocre caretaker, a faceless apparatchik, a champion of the military lobby, and a hardliner. A similar estimate was also prevalent among well-informed Communist party bureaucrats in Eastern Europe. However, after the successful Soviet diplomatic campaign vis-à-vis the West in 1972-73, this image was supplanted by quite a different one the image of a sophisticated apparatchik-turned-stateman and foremost proponent within the Soviet leadership of the policy of East-West détente. It would seem in retrospect that the rather superficial image of the 1960's unjustifiably underestimated and downgraded Brezhnev, while the recent one appears perhaps to❘ overexaggerate his importance and role in Soviet decision-making. It is much to the credit of the two authors whose works are under review that they try to avoid as far as possible oversimplified generalizations and clichés and attempt instead to provide the reader with well-documented insights into the make-up and character of the mysterious man in the Kremlin. Both Dornberg and Morozow depict, with great richness of detail, Brezhnev's private life and his professional career, especially the ten years of his tenure as First Secretary and then General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). Their descriptions of this latest phase of the Soviet leader's career are of special value to students of recent Soviet politics as documentation of facts and chronology for a period of Brezhnev's life on which little else has yet been published. The two books differ slightly in focus and thus complement each other in providing a remarkably rounded and convincing portrayal of the Soviet leader. Morozow, with a careful eye for Kremlinological details, pays more attention to the substance of Brezhnev's views and policies, particularly his stand with respect to Soviet Westpolitik, while Dorn berg is more interested—and more successful-in probing the motivations behind the substantive positions that Brezhnev has taken. As is probably true in the case of other participants in the Soviet decision-making process, Brezhnev's stand on many political issues is probably to be explained largely in terms of bureaucratic politics-particularly his past experience in various bureaucracies such as the party apparatus and the army and his present bureaucratic position as General Secretary of the CPSU. He does not play the Stalinist role of Vozhd (supreme leader) but rather that of primus inter pares. Even though the office of party General Secretary constitutes a potential base for enormous personal authority and power, the emergence of collective leadership as the normal pattern of Soviet decision-making in the post-Stalin era has constrained Brezhnev from becoming a personal ruler. In sharp contrast to an American President's capacity to accept or reject the views of the National Security Council, or the similar capacity of a British Prime Minister vis-à-vis his cabinet, the General Secretary of the CPSU functions under the constant constraint that all his decisions must have the support of his colleagues in the party Politburo. Thus, maintenance of a broad consensus among the leadership group, cautious exercise of power, and constant efforts to avert the creation of "anti-primus" coalitions are necessary for the political survival of the General Secretary. As both Dornberg and Morozow perceptively argue, even though though Brezhnev has expanded his power since 1964, he is not an unchal-❘ lenged leader, and his power is not unlimited. He is the most prominent but not a dominating figure in the Soviet leadership. In short, he is a consensus politician: as Dornberg notes, Brezhnev has been called "the Kremlin's great compromiser" (p. 19). The constraints under which Brezhnev has to operate were well illustrated on two particular occasions. First, when the Czechoslovak crisis erupted in 1968 on the eve of a planned US-Soviet summit meeting, Brezhnev-as depicted by Dornberg-was very hesitant, vacillating between a coalition of advocates of military intervention and a group opposed to intervention. Only in the final Politburo debate (the time, often disputed, is persuasively argued by Morozow to have been August 17-18) did Brezhnev join with the coalition of senior Soviet decisionmakers, led by top Ukrainian Party leader Piotr Shelest, in arguing, and probably voting, for intervention.' The second occasion came in May 1972, just before US President Nixon's scheduled visit to Moscow, when the United States 1 For a fuller treatment of Brezhnev's performance during the Czechoslovak crisis, see the author's article, "Soviet Decision-making and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968," Studies on Comparative Communism (Los Angeles), Spring-Summer 1975. mined Haiphong harbor to bring pressure on North Veitnam to end the Vietnam war. With another US-Soviet summit meeting at stake, the Soviet leadership had to decide what course to take. This time Brezhnev sided with a Politburo coalition of moderates in voting, over the opposition of Shelest and others, to proceed with the summit in spite of the development in Vietnam. These quite different Brezhnev moves clearly demonstrate that pinning an ideological label on him or, for that matter, on other Soviet leaders can be very misleading. A shift in position does not necessarily signify a permanent reorientation of Brezhnev's ideological thinking. As Dornberg and Morozow show in several cases though unfortunately without adequate emphasis, primarily because their studies are biographies rather than political analyses-the key to an understanding of Brezhnev's position on any particular issue is to be sought in the requirements of his office at the moment much more than in ideological factors. Brezhnev's primary concern is what he must do to remain primus inter pares in the Politburo; his primary ideology is political survival. It may be noted in this connection that the planned Soviet-US summit of 1968 was to star Premier Kosygin and not, as in 1972, General Secretary Brezhnev. The Soviet leader's conduct during the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968, as described above, shows beyond any doubt that the socalled "Brezhnev Doctrine" was merely an ex post facto ideological justification of the decision actually taken by the collective leadership. As Frederick Barghoorn has argued, Brezhnev has been above all a "consensus leader" whose "position thus far seems to rest in large part upon his ability to avoid alarming or antagonizing other members of what has been perhaps the most genuinely collective leadership in the history of the CPSU." 2 CONSEQUENTLY, this reviewer finds it misleading to portray Brezhnev as Dornberg does in the last chapter of his otherwise perceptive biography-as a conservative in contrast to a progressive Khrushchev. True, Brezhnev's political style is very different from that of his predecessor: as Paul Smith, Jr., has observed, "Khrushchev's Bolskevik voluntarism and flamboyant populism are obviously not his [Brezhnev's] style." Rather than the emotionalism and dynamism of Khrushchev, caution is a dominant Brezhnev trait. Yet, no less than his predecessor, he is a skillful manipulator and bureaucrat. Since the political position of the First Secretary/General Secretary in the post-Stalin era depends above all on the precarious balance of power in the Politburo, Brezhnev strives to be always on the side of the winning coalition and to be identified with successful policies. There is no question that Khrushchev was a great innovator and that the credit for initiating the destalinization of Soviet society belongs rightfully to him. Yet it should not be forgotten that many of his policies were no less aimed at preserving the status 2 Frederick Barghoorn, "Trends in Top Leadership in the USSR," in R. Barry Farrell, Ed., Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Chicago, Aldine-Atherton, Inc., 1970, p. 67. 3 Paul Smith, Jr., "Brezhnev: Ascent to Power," Orbis (Philadelphia), Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 1971, p. 68. |