Succession in the Kremlin
The reign of Yuri Andropov was a time of especially poor East-West relations. This state of affairs he had inherited rather than brought about through actions of his own. His death coincides with a renewed enthusiasm in the West for a rapproche- ment with the Soviet Union and the revival of the optimistic faith that the fundamental clash of interests between East and West can be resolved through a change of rhetoric on the part of political leaders. A retrospective on the Andropov era and a tentative projection of what we may expect from its successor ought, however, to in- duce caution.
Of the effects of Andropov's rule within the Soviet Union we can say little: he had been in power for too short a time. The fruits —if any — of his policies of economic incentives and decentralisation will be discernible in his predecessor's paradoxical policy of intense campaigning against the stationing of Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Europe while continuing unabated the deployment of the SS-20 missiles, which had caused all the problems in the first place. All his disarmament initiatives, predicted as they were, on no American missiles being deployed in Europe at all could never be acceptable to the West, especially not to West Germany, and were hence doomed to failure. The arrival of the first missile was greeted by a histrionic abandonment of the INF talks in Geneva together with a menacing threat to deploy yet more missiles — this time in Eastern Europe. This lack of flexibility may have been due to Andropov's illness or merely to an unimaginativeness of Soviet policy which he had neither the ability nor the will to change.
The accession to power of Chernenko tells us a lot about the bizarre nature of the Soviet State. If somebody other than Chernenko had become leader we would have been justified in hesitating to predict what would happen. However, a number of possible outcomes can now be safely eliminated and a reasonable set of expecta- tions delineated. Of all the candidates for the leadership, Chernenko was the one least likely to effect any significant change in the economy. Given that the explanation for the chronic inefficiency lies in the maintenance of an economy where produc- tion targets are set from above, rather than in response to any effective demand, where the vast hierarchy of party organisation serves no useful economic function in its task of supervision and control, it is unlike- ly that a man with Chernenko's back- ground will have the inclination or the strength of purpose to free the economy from the effects of national economic plans.
Chernenko's close personal association with the detente policy of Brezhnev should not lead us to expect the inauguration of a new era of close East-West relations. The presuppositions that formed the basis of the detente policies of both the West and the Soviet Union in the early 1970s have disap- peared. For the Russians the idea of using cheap Western credits and sophisticated technology to solve their own and their East European allies' economic problems foundered on the crisis this policy led to in Poland and on their being forced to con- cede to the West the power, through invok- ing the Helsinki Accords, to point to Soviet transgressions of human rights. For the West, the policy of using economic incen- tives to liberalise the Soviet system and to induce a more co-operative diplomatic at- titude was shattered on the reefs of Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Angola and of the unremitting growth of Soviet ar- maments, especially those SS-20s. In the light of the subsequent crisis of the Western banking system, it is most unlikely that governments will rush in again to guarantee soft loans to the East.
What then are the options open to Chernenko? The Soviet campaign to pre- vent the intermediate range missiles coming to Europe having failed, he may find it advantageous for his own position at home to make the best of a bad job and put his name to an agreement with the West which would scale down substantially the NATO missile deployment. In an election year there is an almost irresistible pressure on an American president to sign a treaty — any treaty — with the Russians. If this does take place it will be interesting to see whether Chernenko will have the subtlety to challenge the West to include the British and French nuclear deterrents in any arms reductions. Given the likely consequence of confusion within the Western camp, this policy might pay the Russians dividends.
It seems likely, therefore, that arms con- trol will remain the most significant area of East-West negotiations. Soviet co- operation in resolving the crises in the Mid- dle East or in Central America should not be expected — the West has too few incen- tives to offer for any substantial political `trade-off' to take place. The likelihood of further Soviet expansion has little connec- tion with the change of power in the Kremlin; Soviet policy calculations are made on the basis of reasonable expecta- tions of response and on the ready at- tainability of certain objectives. While Reagan remains in the White House the new Soviet leadership will avoid taking un- due risks.
For the time being, then, no significant changes should be expected and therefore it would be advisable for the West not to underestimate the continuing hostility of the Kremlin leadership and not to allow itself to be bemused by unfounded hopes for the beginning of a new and better era.
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