SOVIET TWENTY-THIRD CONGRESS

The Chalices of Opposition

By ALEC NONE

MHE twenty-third congress of the Communist I Party of the Soviet Union is opening next week, and delegates are gathering in Moscow. Why have a congress at all? Why bring thousands of people from all over the Soviet Union, and senior party officials from many foreign countries, to applaud prepared statements and to approve unanimously the proposals put before them?

The most obvious answer would seem to be that the party rules, adopted at the last congress, specify that one must be held at least every four years.

We may be sure that there will be numerous references in speeches to the restoration of the 'Leninist norms of party life.' No doubt the right to criticise will be reasserted, and the so-called subjectivist arbitrariness of the recent past con- demned. It will be interesting to see whether the convention of not actually naming Khrushchev will be observed. There has also been some dis- cussion of late concerning the rights of party members to elect their own local officials. All this may lead to proposals to revise the party statutes.

Yet the trouble did not and does not lie in the formal wording of the rules, but rather in the power exercised by the top leadership to ignore the rules and prevent criticism. It is hard to see how a change of words could guarantee the non- recurrence of arbitrariness within so highly centralised a party. There already exist formal provisions for the election of party committees and officials, but the practice of voting unani- mously for a list chosen by the higher party organs is none the less a well-established conven- tion. A blow would be struck at this convention if the congress itself exercised its right to elect the central committee, in the sense of actually voting for or against particular individuals, with more candidates than the number of those to be elected, rather than adopting by acclamation a list pre- sented to them. It is nearly forty years since this has happened.

The agenda of the congress is known to include the adoption of the five-year plan covering the years 1966-1970. The draft has already been pub- lished and approved in principle by the central committee of the party, and so one cannot expect any significant changes to be made as a result of the congress debates. Yet the debates need no longer be assumed to be a mere formality. It is quite on the cards that some delegates will voice dissent and propose amendments, even while vot- ing unanimously in accordance with long-estab- lished tradition in favour of the plan as a whole. Sectional or regional interests could find spokes- men who would deplore the lack of investments in some branch of the economy or in some area, or ask for additional attention to housing or drains in Sverdlovsk or Omsk.

As for the plan itself, it is a relatively moderate document, by contrast with the over-grandiose plans of the Khrushchev period. Just how moderate can be seen by making a simple com- parison. It so happens that at the twenty-second congress, which was held in 1961, Khrushchev presented a series of targets for the years 1970 and 1980. We now have new targets for 1970, the last year of the present five-year plan, and these can be compared with those proposed by Khrushchev. The following figures speak for themselves:

1970 PLAN TARGETS 1961 1966

version version

National income (m1rd. roubles) .. 367 275 Gross industrial output (mlrd. roubles) 408 350 Electricity (m1rd. Kwts.)

950 845 Steel (mil. tons) .. • • 145 127 Artificial fibres (mil. tons) .. 1.35 0.8 All fabrics (rolrd. sq. metres) .. 13.6 9.7 Footwear (mil. pairs)

825 620

(note: some figures are midpoints of ranges) Readers may recall that Khrushchev announced these targets as part of his campaign to catch up and overtake the United States. By 1980 he ex- pected the Soviet economy to reach a degree of abundance which would enable major steps to be taken towards Communism, including free cart- teen meals, free transport and the abolition of rent. The present leaders have already hinted that their predecessor was given to somewhat far- reaching and unsound schemes. Yet they may not wish to draw attention to the extent to which the over-sanguine hopes of 1961 have now been aban- doned, and replaced by more sensible and hard- headed planning, of a markedly more modest character. They may prefer to pass this point over in silence. Or they may prefer on the contrary to take credit for their greater realism. Unexpectedly high levels of military expenditure, for which blame can be attached to the Americans, might be cited as one reason for the downward revision.

The congress is usually the occasion for a size- able ration of ritual and dogma. One must there- fore expect some rather bleak statements on ideology and culture, with a reassertion of social- ist realism and warnings about the non-admis- sibility of bourgeois influences in the arts. However, despite the Sinyaysky-Daniel trial, the real situation may not change much. The liberals do not seem to be in flight, and we may in fact have another good speech by Tvardovsky, the editor of the liberal monthly Novy Mir, who is himself a member of the central committee of the party, and who is capable of eloquent argument on the need to avoid literary repression. He made just such a speech at the twenty-second congress. As for the possible reassessment of Stalin and of party history•, the official adoption of a more 'generous' view of Stalin would certainly encour- age the more hidebound members of the party hierarchy, which explains the opposition of many intellectuals to an even partial rehabilitation.

What else will the congress discuss? There are difficult questions connected with the siatus of peasants and of collective farms, but these matters are still unsettled, and it is doubtful whether the leadership is yet ready with a report or recom- mendation on this complex and frustrating sub- ject. The question of a revised constitution of the Soviet Union might be raised. A constitutional commission is supposed to be still in existence, charged with the task of revising that document, but Khrushchev was its chairman and it has given no sign of life since his fall. Finally, due note will be taken of the fact that 1967 will see the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian revolution, a circum- stance which may call for the summoning of perhaps a world congress to coincide with the ceremonials, and certainly for a major political campaign, as well as the organisation of some great eye-catching achievement, if not on earth then in the stratosphere.