T

he spectacle refle..; s
the power. Bathed in
while light , Moscov..s
Red Square at night is one of
the most impressive symbols
of strength in the world-as
large and brooding as the land
itself. The flat. stark lines of
the Kremlin's forbidding and
protective wall dominate Le- .
nin's tomb and the glorious
domes ofSt. Basil's CathedraL
The Soviet Union, an empire
whose expanse dwarfs the one
ruled by ancient Rome, now
confronts a pivotal decade in
its history. Before long, an en
tirely new generation of lead
ers must replace that of Pres
ident Leonid Brezhnev and
his aging associates on the Po
litburo. There is, meanwhile,
growing tension between East
and West, with the world's
two superpowers increasingly
seen to be in confrontation.
The military strength of the
Soviet Union is clearly the
equal of the U.S. 's; the Krem
lin is seeking to project its in
fluence in Africa, Asia and
the Middle East: with rising
anger and suspicion, the So
viet Union and the U.S. as
sail each other on'a dozen geo
graphic and economic fronts.
Never before has it been
so important for Americans to
be knowledgeable a bout the
Soviet Union. to understand
what it has become. In this
special issue, TIME examines
the "other" superpower, ex
ploring the diversity of its so
ciety and the vigor of its peo
ples, the deep sources of its
strength and the roots of its
persistent weaknesses.
19
r
.,.". J
~
--"
-
A Fortress State in Transition
Brezhnev slegacy: stability, securityand- perhaps-stagnation
Wretched and abundallt,
Oppressed and power/ul,
Weak and mighty.
Mother Russia!
-Nikolai Nekrasov, Who
Can Be Happy in Russia?
he Union of Soviet
SociaJjst Republics
is not just a country,
but an empire-the
largest, and proba
bly t he last, in history.
Occupying 15% of the earth's
land surface, the Soviet Union
stretches from a cluster of
virtual colonies in Eastern
Europe to the Bering Strait off
the tip of Alaska, across two con
tinents and eleven time zones;
more than 3,000 miles- roughly
the distance from New York
to San Francisco-separate the
ice fields of the Arctic Ocean
from the sun-parched Kara
Kum Desert. The 262.4 million
citizens of the U.S.S.R. belong
to more than 100 ethnic groups
and claim descent from Varan
gians. Turks, Mongols and
countless Eurasian tribes. Their
government preaches to them.
in Russian, about the supreme
wisdom of a 19th century
German atheist. They, however,
speak in more than 100 tongues
and worship Jehovah, God,
Buddha, AJlah. or the ani
mist spirits of nomadic hunters in
Nature and human enterprise have endowed the Soviet
Union with wealth and power. The prodigious achievements of
the U .S.S.R. in mining, agriculture and energy production still
conjure up images of the infamous Siberian mines, collective
farms and hydroelectric projects of the [930s, where armies of
political prisoners, conscript peasants and idealistic volunteers
"built Communism" under the cruel supervision of Joseph Sta
lin's armed guards and commissars. Today's reality is less harsh,
but the profile of the country scill bulges with muscle; the rec
itation of its endowments and achievements is still r e ~ o l e n t of
brute force, monumentality and projects that dwarf and some
times devour men.
The U.S.S.R. has moved ahead of the rest of the world in
the production of steel, pig iron and cement. It ranks second in
(he manufacture of aluminum as well as the extraction of gold
- the two metals that respectively symbolize the modern and
the primitive strengths of an economy. The Soviet Union's farms
produce more barley. cotton fiber, wheat. oats and rye than
(hose of any other country and-an incongruous sweet touch
- more sugar and honey. Huge petroleum reserves. second only
to those of Saudi Arabia, have made the country self-sufficient
in energy, although that could change by the middle of this dec
ade because of the difficulty in finding and exploiting oil and
Bamer-wavlng crowds jam Red Square to celebrate May Day 1980
Prodigious achievements 0/a society that bulges with muscle.
the far north.
gas in remote and inhospitable
expanses. By numerous indexes
--electrification. physicians and
nurses per capita. teacher-to-pu-
I pii ratios, books published per
annum-the U.S.S.R. is an ad
vanced. and still advancing so
ciety. Despite censorship and an
official ethos that discourages in
novation, Russian culture of the
Soviet era has produced master
pieces of Western civilization.
especially in music, poetry and
dance.
Militarily, the Soviet Union
is a true superpower. It ranks
first in annual defense expendi
tures (about $165 billion) and
second (after China) in men un
der arms (3,658,000). Nearly one
OUI of every six soldiers on earth
serves in the Soviet armed forc
es. Over the past 30 years, its
navy has evolved from little
more than a well-armed coast
guard to an armada of global
rea.ch; it challenges the U.S.
Seventh Fleet for command of
the Indian and western Pacific
oceans, and the South China Sea.
Technicians of the Soviet Stra
tegic Rocket Forces man com
mand-and-control silos that can
launch intercontinental ballistic
missiles, some of them with as
many as ten independently tar
getable warheads, at the U.S. in
30 to 35 minutes. Soviet rCBMs
arc bigger, more numerous and more powerful than those' of
the U.s.
Yet for aU its size and strength, its human and natural rich
ness, the U .s.S.R. remains' strangely impoverished, even cursed.
While its gross national product is second only to that of the
U.S. ($2.4 trillion VS. $1.4 trillion), it ranks 17th in The Book 0/
World Rallkillgs on a scale of combined social and economic in
dicators. after such countries as Sweden, Australia and Iceland.
The U.S.S.R. also gets poor marks for conservation. The So
viet constitution of 1977 promised "to preserve the purity of air
and water, ensure reproduction of natural wealth and improve.
the human environment." That lofry goal is honored mostly in
the breach. Pollution in most urban areas is getting worse every
year-not yet as bad as Los Angeles' or Detroit's, but getting
there. The campaign to clean up the industrial filth in Lake Bai
kal- which became an international cause celebre-has been
the exception that proves the rule. Soviet environmentalists usu
ally lose their battles against economic planners who arc trying
to meet short-term production quotas even if that means wast
ing resources or fouling the air, soil and water.
It is as though the Soviet Union were too sprawl.il),g for its
own good. too diverse to take care of itself without hurting it
self, or as though none of those gods or prophets in whom its peo
ple believe-particularly Marx- had intended for so heteroge-
TIME. JUNE 23.1980
20
....___....;,j SOO mL
ARCTIC O CEA N
,
, ..
KAZAKHST AN
tIt!1
Bal konUf
UZBEKISTAN $. p o! c e
'1 ft Center
KMENISTAN '" \ 4
.=v"............. \ .
I ' , 0' ,,'
", :l
WCoal fields
Gas lield.
co.1 beain
Operating nuclear reactors
TIME Map ':1-; P.!ul J Pugli ese
o
ncous and far-flung a swath of humanity and real estate to be
one nation. The, manifestations of the curse have been rough.
often brutal. totalitarian rule and a populace that seems forever
aggrieved, deprived. yet often submissive.
These twin misfortunes were not born with the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917. They were present when the Soviet So
cialist Republics known as "All Russia" and their ruler
cailed himself Tsar (from CaesarL One major theme thaI res
onates through writings from the golden age of Russian liter
ature. the 191.h century. is national self-pity. ' Oh. God, how sad
our Russia is! " sighed Alexander PushIcin on reading Nikolai
Gogol's Deod Souls.
Today's Soviet citizens are better off than the peasants and
urban poor thaL Poet Nekrasov eulogiLed. Lndeed. they are some
what better off than they were ten years ago. But if not wretch
ed. they are still oppressed and unhappy. Their state is might
ier than ever. yet its ability to provide for their daily needs is
inadequate.
T
hc main rcason is a system that will not. and per
haps Call1lOt. work_ The Soviet economy has always
been stultilled by too much central too lit
tle entrepreneurIal Incentive. Faetones. farms and
individual workers are caught up in a machine that
spews forth quotas and directives. sucks up output. ineflkiemly
manufactures and distributes goods. and rarely rewards initia
tive. Those deficiencics. inefficiencies and inflexibilities are now
catching up with the economy and slowing it down. During the
19805. Western experts predict, the Soviet growth rate wi II drop
even lower than last year's estimated 0.7%. Moscow's econ
omists will also face a plaruling nightmare: trying to meet the
needs of the military and heavy industry_ and at the same time
sat isfying the ex pectations of consumers.
Those expectations are subjected to constant. ubiquitous
frustrations. "The shopping Lines almost define thc society," re
ports TIME Moscow Bureau Chief Bruce Nelan. "The stores
are always out of something, Iowan something else. sometimes
<:

UJ
o
o
rationing flour. meat or butler. As the lines grov.' longer . the
mood grows sour. Someone tries to jump a place. 'Get back
l
Don't think you're special
l
' protests tbe chorus_ At the meat
counter. two women carry suitcases. They draw knowing. re
sentful glances. They are hoarders_ But they will bribe the butch
er. fill their suitcases and perhaps be back later in the morning.
"Cashiers overcharge routinely. often refuse to make cbange.
or ignore custOmers while they chat on the phone. Muscovites
complain about 'the cult of rudeness' of salespeople. who seem
to take perverse satisfaction in disappointing. bullying or cheat
ing customers. as though tbey were working off the frustration
they have built up during their own hours in line shopping for
their own families.
' 'The Soviet Union has one of the industrialized world's worst
distribution and retail trade systems. Thus this spring there are
no sheets, underwear or children'S shirts_ 'We have money but
nothing to buy: is a refrain of everyday Soviet life. Those who
can make their own clothes find material scarce and expensive.
For example, four yards of Rolyester fabric costs tbe equivalen t
of $30: the same in an American store costs $2.50. Needles,
thread, thimbles and buttons are also dejilsimy (the term for
items in short supply. which often reaUy means impossible to
find). The derks do not care. because they get paid whether or
not they sell anything. When goods can be purchased. they are
likely to self-de-strucL The lining might come out of a suit on
the third or fourth use. Household appliances burn out. Fur
njture splinters and loses its veneer. But never mind. The plan
is being fulfilled."
Leonid Brezhnev has complained in several recent speech
es about factories , costing millions of rubles, that have remained
unfinished for more than a decade. The skyline along the Mos
cow River bas. for five years now. featured the new headquar
ters for the government of the Russian Federation, the largest
of the 15 Soviet republics. lL just stands there. ullopened . its in
terior unfinished-a joke among many Muscovites. but an em
barrassment to many others.
"1 love my country. " a Moscow economist says. "1 certainly
TJM. JUNE 23. t980
21
munist Party of the Soviet Union!). But pedestrians and mo
Why does it have to be so h a r d ~ Everything in our history has al
don't wam to leave it. But I'm so frustrated by the conditions,
LOrists ignore the slogalls. Virtually no one ever uses the wor
ways been a struggle. Everything is LOO centralized, There's no slava in everyday conversation, except in tbe very common
initiative. I feel so belpless. I can '( change anything. I want the phrase, Slal'a BoglI. which means "Glory be to God." Yet the
future to be better. But will it be? I know the statistic.:s on out state goes right on repainting the billboards every year,
pm. butl don't see the results. " People do read newspapers. listen to the radio, watch tele
The daily gri.nd and the seemingly ineradicable deficiencies vision and go to the movies. where they are also barraged with
of the system have had a corrosive effect on the morale of the so propaganda, But with a lifetime of constant practice. Soviet
ciety, Akoholism is a growing problem. Demon vodka is a major citi zens develop a mental filter that allows them to block
cause of divorce and crime. as well as of absenteeism, acciden ts OUI the ideological exhortations and Concentrate instead on en
on the job and the poor productivity of Soviet workers. The cap lenaillment or just-the-facts news-to the extent that facts are
italist world. of course. is in no position to preach lemperance printed.
to Communists. But Soviet drinking-- and dmnkenness--dif Most neighborhoods have a storefront agflpunkl (agitation
fers qualitatively from the proverbial American three-martini and propaganda point). which is festooned with slogans and
lunch. When a Soviet opens a bottle of vodka. he frequently piled high with party literature. But when local residents stop
means t,o finish iL. He is not just iJl to study tbe bulletin board and
seeking relaxation or a release from ask questions of the official on duty,
anxiety into elation: he will often the chances are they are interested
drink himself straight into oblivion, in new regulations that might af
The Moscow press has reported fect their lives or gossip about apart
a disturbing increase in drunken ments about to become available,
ness and crime--or "hOOliganism." They have minimal intere.st in the
as it is called-among youth, So proper Marxist interpretation oflhe
viet parents. in talks with Western latest event in international affairs
ers. complaLn openly about the cyn or who is likely to win the upcom
icism. acquisitiveness. materialism Lng election !O the district council.
and "bourgeois values" of young Since all elections are limited to a
people. single slate of candidates, there is
Writing in the Teachers Gazelle, lillie suspense. Propaganda, in
Secondary School Instructor A.I, short. has become the background
Gusev voiced a common concern: noise of Soviet society.
,,[ was dismayed when I asked my The leadership is aware that tbe
pupils why they took summer jobs people are tuning out. Bre7..hnev has
at a collective farm. Nearly all their complaLned that the state's "strong
answers began with the words 'to and qualified propaganda appara
buy' and 'to get'-jeans. a watch. a tus" is not doing a good job. "Not in
motorcycle. a tape recorder, Why frequently. newspaper materia],
are so many of our youngsters be television and radio broadcasts are
coming overwhelmed with the pas not convincing enough. lack a se
sion to make money?" rious overall view," He urged "ideo
The answer. in pan. is that oth logical front workers" to improve
er passions-to make a revolution. their product. especially in the
to establish justice, to build a LrtI highly simplistic presentation of
Iy egalitarian society-have long foreign news. Meanwhile, Pravda
since dimmed in the U .S.S, R. Teen editorialized lasi year against "lhe
agers and students have absorbed fear of discussing Ihe problems fac
more completely than their parents in.g our society. the tendency to
the most discouraging and disillu smooth over and avoid unresolved
sioning facts of Soviet Life. One fact problems, to blur real shortcomings
is elitism, At universities and tech and d i fficuities."
nical institutes. students see a few As any responsible government
of their classmates granted special would be. the regime is clearly wor
privileges, admitted to more desir ried about the catalogue of social ills
able programs and eventually given -increasing alcoholism. crime. di
better jobs. all because their par vorce and youth problems-not so
ents are prominent or well-connected, Talent, brains and hard much as a breakdown in ideology but as a breakdown in social
work do bring opportUtlities for upward mObility in the system. discipline. n is also c.:oncerned that these problems are occur
But so do status, pull. hustling and ruthlessness. rin.g just as the U.S.S,R, becomes more vulnerabl.e to "contam
ination by agitation and propaganda" from the West. Short
-ne of the lessons of a sov.iet edu.cation is th.at while
0
wave broadcasts by the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, BBC
one must know the Marxist-Lenllllst catech1sm. and and Deutsche Welle in Russian and other languages of the
pany membership is a great asset. being a true be U ,S.S,R. provide generally reliable reporting and less ideolog
liever is not necessary; it may even be a disadvan ical filler about events inside the Soviet Union than The Bea
tage in a society where power enjoys more respect COIl, the nationwide hourly news program beamed from Mos
and earns more reward thall ideological purity, A British For- cow. The Western radio stations also offer Soviet listeners
eign Office expert on the U .S.S,R. sees the country as "rulllling tantalizing glimpses of capita.list life through feature stories and
out of ideological elan with which to face tbe many challenges interviews. while playi ng the siren song of rock and folk music,
of the future."
- One awesOme statistical distioction of the U.S.S.R, is {he number of its movie
Ideology is still an important. indeed inescapable, aspect of
thealers, there are \ 54.000 of them , which is 58% of all the cinemas in the
Soviet life. Its trappings are everywhere. The country is plas world. The U,S, is second with only 16,000. One mason for this am3l1ng pro
tered with huge billboards. on buildings and highway overpass
lit'eratiun is thai Soviet doctrine- especially before tbe advent Oflelevisioll- em
pha;izcd fIlm as a ntedium of propaganda and indoctrinalinn. AnOlher and
es, proclaiming in white letters on red backgrounds, SLiVA
perhaps more important ('cason is thaI tbe Soviets are eager for any enter
TRUDU/ (Glory to Labor!) and SLA VA KPSS' (Glory to the Com lain ment as a relief from bored'1m.
Massing to buy shoes in Moscow's GUM department store
pie;;,)' a/steel, but try tafi lld sheets or a needle and Thread.
TIME, J U NE 23. 1980 22
which are immensely popular
among Soviet youth.
Yel despite all of their
hardships and disenchantment s.
despite their fascination with
the world beyond their borders.
most Soviets remain essentially
apolitical and certainly patriotic
-an ideal combination of at
trihutes, from the standpoint of
the state. Their principal con
cerns are fairly familiar among
people the world around: mak
ing ends meet. get ling ahead
as much as possible, staying
out of trouble. The West is
much more enticing to them
ror its image of material abun Veterans of World War \I proudly display their medals in Red Square
dance. physical comfort and
Alter celllllries o/illvasions. l/ sel/se 0/embaTtled vulnerability.
sense of vitality than for its dem
at least temporarily with an ill
defined "authoritarian order
founded on love of one's fellow
man." The Soviet Union's other
giant of opposition. Physicist
Andrei Sakbarov. has been pro
mulgating a very different sort
of dissent lately from his inter
nal exile in the industriaL city of
Gorky. Sakharov is a liberal in
the Western mold, a believer in
pluralist democracy. But neither
alternative seems to reflect the
aspira tions of the Soviet masses.
For all their admirable courage.
the few thousand Soviet dissi
dents still at large have their
principal following in the West.
They sometimes behave like
high officials of a shadow gov
ocratic values. intellectual freedoms and political institutions.
I
na recent article in Foreign A/fairs. Altxander Sol
zhenitsyn describes from his exile in Vermont how a
peasant family in the middle of Russia wams simply
to be left alone: "If only the petty local CommunJst
despot would so:uehow quit his uncontrolled tyran
ny. if only they could get enough to eat for once. and buy shoes
for the children. and lay in enough fuel for thc winter. ifonly they
could have sufficient space to live even two to a room."
Few Soviets accept Solzhenitsyn's messianic vision of a Rus
sia straining against its chains. yearning for some spiritual
revolution that will throw off Communist rule and replace it
ernment. hoping to get their manifestoes played back into the So
viet Union by Western radio. but the resonance of those mes
sages among their countrymen seems to be very faint. To the
ex.tent that they have an impact. the dissidents are often dis
missed by the general public as reckless dreamers or denounced
as traiwrs. which is just the way the official press ponrays them.
One reason for the man in the street's aversion to dissent is
that political troublemakers historically have very often ended
up in prison. or dead. SL,{ decades of totalitarianism have made
most Soviet citizens submissive. As a consequence of the
U.S.S.R .s current social and e c o n ~ m i c ills. there is even a cer
tain amount of popular sentiment that the leadership is not
cracking down hard enough.
Most Equal of the Equals
T
he political system that eventu
ally will choose Leonid Hrezh
nev's successor as leader would
appear to be a model democracy. It is
headed by the Supreme Soviet of the
U.S.S.R.. which is composed of 1.500
members and which elects a select body
of 39 representative3 known as the Pre
sidium. Cn fact , political power rests
with a gigantic, self-protecting and self
selecting bureaucracy that is effectively
controlled by a small and cautious elite.
The constitution adopted in 1977
-the fourth in the history of tbe
U.S.S.R.- was the first to assert the
primacy of the Communjst Party in
Soviet government and Ii fe . The
country's only lega.l party is identified
as the "nucleus" of the system and
its sole authority on ideology. To main
tain control. the party tightly restricts
its membership: a candidate must
have been a member of Komsomol,
the Communist youth organization,
be recommended by three people who
have each been members for three years,
and pass other screening procedures,
including serving a year on probation.
Of the 193 million ci tizens who were
18 and older in 1979. only 16 million,
or 9%, were party members. (In Khru
shchev's day the figure was 6%. ) Ex
cept for a few scientific administrators.
virtually every responsible official in
the Soviet government is a party mem
ber. Although it is impossible to sep
arate party from government. one point
is clear: lhe party makes policy.
At the lOp of the party pyramid is
the Central Committee. whose 287
members include the most powerful
individuals in the nation. Fourteen
of the most equal among the equals
on the Central Committee constitute
the policy-setting Politburo. which
has been carefulJy controlled for most
of the past 16 years by Brezhnev and
his circle.
The Central CommiLtee chooses the
General Secretary of the Communist
Party, the most powerful position in the
nation. The authority of the office that
Brezhnev now holds is not defined by
the constitution. nOf is its term. Stalin,
who never held the presidency. was a
dictator from 1929 until he died in 1953;
Khrushchev was largely able to run
things his way until he made a number
of blunders (harming Soviet agriculture.
widening the split with China) and the
Central Committee threw him out.
Brezhnev has relied on a coterie of al
Iies and ex.ercised his power much more
discreetly.
Decisions of the Politburo are. in ef
fect . adopted and carried out by an elab
orate system of local. regional and na
tional governments whose apex is the
Supreme Soviet. an elected parliament.
This body consists of the Soviet of the
Union. composed of750 members, each
of whom represents a district of about
350,000; and lhe Soviet of the Nation
alities. also composed of 750 members,
including 32 from each of the 15 repub
lics. The Supreme Soviet. which meets
twice a year in the Kremlin, can raise
and debate issues, and hence may af
fect the decisions of the Central Com
mittee. Officials claim that the general
attitudes of a newly elected Supreme So
viet sometimes influence the Politburo.
But the legislators would never advocate
a position known to be at variance with
the views of the leadership. Indeed .
members of the Presidium of the Su
preme Soviet often also belong to the
Central Committee.
The Soviet masses who are oot par
ty members can work through local or
ganizations. such as trade "unions" and
newspapers. lo influence policy; but
these LOO are controlled by the party.
The Supreme Soviet is elected every five
years: there is just one slate of candi
dates: the partys. Tn March 1979, when
the Supreme Soviet was last chosen,
99.990/0 of the eligible voters were said
to have cast their ballots. TASS, the So
viet news agency. declared: "By their
unanimolls voting for the candidates. the
Soviet people expressed complete sup
port for the domestic and foreign pol
icies of the Communist Party and the
Soviet state."
TIME, JUNE 23. 1980
23
l
At its most macabre. this law-and-order semime.nt has crys
tallized as scattered nostalgia for Stalin. Postcard-size photo
grap s of the dictator sometimes decorate the windshields of
UU k.s and taxis. Seeing Stalin's picture in a book, over the shoul
er of a Westerner. a Russian woman in her 50s sighed. "Ah,
t ere was a real man , a real leader!"
:\nother reason for the Soviets' basic acceptance of their lot
' - hat despite all the discontents and deprivat ions. their stan
dard of living has unquestionably improved. Says a Moscow
housewife: "You have to remember where we started, After the
ar. my mother had to get water from the courtyard. then heat
ii on a kerosene stove, shave the soap and do the washi ng on a
.hboard, Now we have hot running water. "
She. like most of her compatriots. wants to be proud of her
... umr). She dings to the notiol1-whjch official propaganda
does everything it can to encourage-that the Soviet Union is
:'is good as any other cOlmtry. or at least if it lags behind in
- me ways, then that is because the world is a dangerous place
and the U.S.S.R. must look first to its defenses.
Soviet love of country has
an elemental quality that tran
scends politics and ideology, As
patriots, Soviet 9itizens tend to
be fundamenralists-- and very
forgiving ones where the sins of
their father figures are con
cerned. Even after the horrors
of Stalinism, they are mucp less
inclined than other peoples
--notably including Americans
- -to question the basic virtue of
their nation or to question their
rulers' commitment to peace. 11
is difficult to imagine the
U .S.S. R. undergoing the sort of
national paroxysm of self-doubt,
self-criticism and self-flagella
tion that gripped the U,S. dur
ing the Viet Nam War.
Most Soviets instinctively
share their leaders' professed
nightmare of "encirclement by
our enemies." Even without the
reminders of official propagan
da, many citizens vividly re
member the devastating horror
of World War II, in wh.i ch 20 million Soviets died. "The Great
Patriotic War" is a deep, painful wound that has yet to beal. Jn
conversations with Westerners about current events and the dan
ger of World War HI. Soviets often run through an honor roll
of/ong-dead relatives "who never returned from the front. At
a concert in the theater of Moscow's Rossiya Hotel. Soviet Bari
tone Joseph Kobl on brought an audjence of 3,OOO- -many of
them wearing campaign medals-to tears with patriotic bal
lads. Behind him. a giant screen showed scenes of starvation dur
ing the siege of Leningrad, the carnage of the Batlle of Sta
1 ingrad , and the ecstatic trainside reunions of homecoming
soldiers with their loved ones.
A
lmost every city and to'wn has an exquisitely land
, sca ped, monumentally columned s?rine to local war
i dead , The eternal flame IS sometImes guarded by
smartly uniformed teen-agers, frequently girls. who
. often carry Kalashnikov assault rifles, Memory of
the war easily transjate-s into public willingness to make eco
nomic sacrifices for the sake of military preparedness.
Soviet policy toward both tbe world outside and
the U,S.S.R. 's own ethnic minorities is deeply rooted in
long-standing Russian xenophobia, Over the centuries, the
Russians beat back wave after wave of foreign invaders, ab
sorbing some but seeking to ward off others by the continual
concentric accretion of buffer terrilory around the core of
Muscovy, At the center of Muscovy-Moscow, At the center
~
Muezzin Gamid Javadov calling Muslim believers to prayers in Baku
Tolerance (IS Islamic militancy rises on the borders,
of Moscow-the Kremlin. The very word means fortress.
This historical experience left the nation with a deep-seal
ed sense ofembattled vulnerability-insecurity in the face. of Asi
atic hordes to the east, inferiority in the face of more sophis
ticated. more cohesive European civilizations [0 the wes!. Other
lcgacies are a faith in strong armed forces and weak neighbors.
and a reliance on institutionali zed distrust in the form of an
al l-powerful secret police.
espite the fact that he was a Georgian who never
learned to speak Russian without a heavy accent ,
..
Stalin succeeded in consolidat ing the most formi
dable tyranny of all time. partly because he made
himself the guardian of Mother Russia in the face
of real and perceived fore ign enemies, Since thcn . the U.S.S.R,
has made a fetish out of strengqleni ng its mi litary defenses
agaiJlst external challenges.
But Stalin's successors have yet to deal with a burgeoning in
ternal threat to fonress-Moscow. Trus is the growth of national '
<00' 0 pride and self-assertion on the
part of non-Russian peoples of
Wo
the Soviet Union. Their awak
ened nationalism now competes
tau
with the Russian nationalism
k.n
that has underlain the coulltry's
pel
highly dc.fensi ve brand of patri
Fn
otism for more than 60 years, Be
ag(
calise of high birth rates in rna ny
cas
of the non-Slavic regions of the
nat
U.S,S. R, and their own virtua.!
zero population growth. Rus
spe
sians now constitute only 52.4%
on
of the citi zenry. By the end of
erl1
the century they wilJ lhemse.!ves
ani
be a minority of the entire
fes:
population.
nel
This demographic time
pel
bomb is rick.ing away slowly in
d ~
side the Soviet economy, Further
th
industrialization is increasingly
of
vital to Soviet economic prog- l
ress: most factories. however. are
in the western part of the coun
try, wh.ile in largely undeveloped
Central Asia overpopulation is
accompanied by underemploy
meni. So far. Soviet economic planncrs havc not come up 'Nith
a way of moving either the industrial base or the growing work
force so as [0 bring them together.
The prospect ofa Soviet Ullion in which non-Russians out
number Russians has prompted some reactionary impulses
a mong the old men of the KremLin. who believe deeply in the
fundamental Russianness of the country. The innocuous-sound
ing but powerful All-Russian Society for the Protection of His
torical and Cultural Monuments has served increasingly as an
outlet for all officiaUy sanctioned resurgence of Slavophi lism,
Many top officers of the armed forces worry about non-Rus
sians some day dominating the military, Th.is fear has con
tribuled to thc growth of a mystery-shrouded fraternal society
called Rodina (the Motherland). wh ich has come perilously close
to crossing the boundary from Soviet patriotism to Russian
chauvin ism ,
,Even among feUow Sla vs there are sharp tensions. Russians
tend to regare! Ukrainians as ne'er-do-well country cousins. an
alti tude that UkraIJlians. with thei r distinct cultural traditions
and strong eihnic pride,' resent and resist. Out of deference to
their I1umbcrs-42 million. the second largest nationality-the
Soviet leadership has sought to create a bmited partnership with
the Ukrainians. They are the only non-Russians to have sig
nificant representation in the central elite,
Meanwrule, in the urban areas of Transcaucasia and Cen
tral Asia, Russian is steadily encroacJling on natj ve languages
among young people. They have the option of attending classe.s
T
TIME. J UNE 23. 1980 24
In those cases, the Soviet army garrisons out
side those cities were put on alert and used for
crowd control. A U.S. Government Kremlin
ologist has hypothesized that if it were not for
the presence of Moscow's military and security
forces, as many as seven of the J5 Soviet re
publics would exercise their constitutional right
to secede from the U.S.S.R.
But it i's not just force of arms that keeps
the union whole. The central government has
deliberately pursued a policy of relative permjs
siveness toward Islamic culture, which unites
about 43 million Soviet citizens, nearly one-sixth
of the total popuiation. Since Lenin's time. the
Kremlin has been sensitive to the danger that
heavyhanded atheistic propaganda and cultural
repression migh t trigger a replay of the 1916
Muslim revolts that broke out against the Tsar
in Central Asia. With Islamic militancy em
broiling the Soviet Union's southern neighbors,
from Turkey to Pakistan, the Kremlin leader
ship is treading carefully lest it stir up restless
ness among its own Muslims.
Officials insist that Marxism-Leninism re
spects the separation of mosque and state. Re
ligion. they say, must be given a chance to die a natural death;
they will do nothing to hurry it along. Nonetheless, Khelyam
Khudaiberdiyev. an official of Uzbekistan's radio and televi
sion station in Tashkent, insists that "only one in 100 of us is a
practicing beLiever* In a big family. there might be an old aunt
who will still pray. My mother prays, for instance. She's 80."
Salyk Zimanov, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Ka
zakhstan. sums up the official view, with its overtones of con
descension: "Religion seems to exercise its strongest influence
at funerals. That's when these people who call themselves mul
lahs turn ouL"
imanov may miss the point of his own observation:
a cultural or spiritual force that is strongest in so
ciety when people deal with death is not necessar
il y a dying force. Perhaps the cont.rary. In Central
Asia, local authorities have tried to give military fu
nerals to soldiers kjlled in aClion against the Afghan rebels; on
"There are no rel iable figures on religious observance in the U.S,S,R .. but in
their own propaganJa pamphlets. printed in Arabic for distribution in Islamic
countries of the Middle East , Soviet authorities claim lhal more than half of the
country's Muslims are believers. Thal statistic may be an exaggerati on. in
lended 10 enhance tnc Soviel claims of religious tolerance. but the percentage of
practicing Muslims is certainly many limes grealer than 1%.
Wori<er in a machine-tool manufacturing plant In Georgia
taught in local languages. but they know-and their parents
know-that upward and outward mobility in Soviet society de
pends on being able to converse fluently with a Muscovite. In
Frunze. ca pital of the Central Asian republic of Kirgizia, middle
aged government officials speak heavily accented Russian: oc
casionally they need help in translating expressions from their
native language, which is related to Turkish.
In the provinces, visiting Russians are still toasted as "our re
spected elder brothers," but Soviet propaganda plays skillfully
on the theme that the country as a whole-the entire broth
erhood of nationalities-is doing spectacular things in the world.
and that all ethnic groups are benefiting. Says Harvard Pro
fessor Adam Ulam: "There is a consciousness of national great
ness, a sense that the Soviet Union is now ooe of the two su
perpowers, that its influence js rising while the West's is
declining. Psychologically, that has been a very strong factor in
the average Soviet's attitude toward the regime. He is conscious
of his prestige in the world. ,.
Will Moscow's two-track policy of Russitkation and So
vietization enable the U.S.S.R. to survive as the world's last mul
tinational empire? Some Western experts, with more than a
touch of wishful thinking in their speculation. predict that the
U.S.S.R. will come apart along its Muslim seams in the south
and east. Others, including National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski, also look for trouble in Eastern Eu
rope, particularly in Brzez.inski's native Poland.
Columbia University's Seweryn Bialer agrees.
Until now. he says. the Soviets have been for
tunate that uprisings have broken out in only
one country at a time in Eastern Europe-East
Germany, J953; Hungary. 1956; Czechoslo
vakia, 1968. "They will not be so lucky in the
'80s." he predicts.
At the moment. however, there are no signs
that any unrest is getting out of control, nor
would a fresh outbreak of trouble necessarily
threaten to break up the empire. In Eastern Eu
rope the presence of 31 divisions ofSoviet troops
discourages excessive independence or disorder,
such as the food-price fiots that rocked Poland
in 1970. There are also garrisons outside the
capitals of the Central Asian republics. The
soldiers stationed there, in the main, are from
other parts of the country rather than local boys:
if they were ever ordered to quash an uprising,
they would not be firing on their ethnic
kinsmen.
There were scattered but serious anti-Rus
sian riots by the Uzbeks of Tashkent in 1966 Aphalanx of humming generators In a hydroelectric plantin Bratsk, Siberia
and 1969 and the Tadzhiks of Dushanbe in J978. An advanced, and still advancing, society o/humall and natural ric/mess.
TIME. J UNE 23, 1980 25
Lenin's portralt-and legacy-looms over the meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. In the Kremlin's Palace
a few occasions, these attempts met with violent resistance by vil
lagers who wanted their sons buried according to Islamic cus
tom, not the dictates of the state. The authorities moved quick
ly to hush up the incidents.
n addition to treading carefully in its policies toward
Islam, tbe regime has also tried to neutralize anti
Russian sentiment by buying off the populations of
Transcaucasia and Central Asia with material ben
efits and protection. The citizens of Soviet Azerbai
jan live more prosperously, and certainly more calmly, than their
ethnic cousins in the northwestern provinces ofTran. The Mus
lim groups that straddle the Sino-Soviet border, for example,
have traditionally fared somewhat better under Moscow's tute
lage than Peking's. The Russians' fast-approaching status as a
minority in their own country forces them to be more compro
mising than the Han Chinese, who make up more than 90% of
the 1 billion citizens of the People's Republic.
Largely because of its huge population-four times that of
the U.S.S.R.-China remains an obsession with the Soviets. I
When Kremlin leaders look to the east, they see two nightmares
coming together: their
most numerous and im
placable foreign enemies
in China, and the demo
graphic challenge of their
fast-breeding, ethnically
alien compatriots in Cen
tral Asia. It is for this rea
son that the most intense
manifestation of Russian
xenophobia is Sinophobia.
On the streets of Moscow,
for example, the occasjon
al Chinese visitor inspires
something palpably di fTer
ent from and deeper than
the resentment that Mus
covites display toward the
thousands of Third World
exchange students who at
tend Patrice Lumumba
Friendshi p of Peoples
University. Those foreign
ers are unpopular because
they have access to hard-currency stores, and because of their
comparatively generous government stipends and their notori
etyas black marketeers. On a bus or a metro car, a dark-skinned
foreigner will often hear someone behind him muttering "Cher
nomazy " (literally blackface, but every bit as insuiting as
"nigger") .
Orientals, however, inspire a reaction that is tinged not just
with racism but with fear. Vietnamese, Koreans, Mongolians,
and even Soviet Central Asians often find that early in a con
versation with Russians they have to establish clearly that they
are not Chinese, or pro-Chinese, before their hosts lower their
guard. Says a young Muscovite: "Wheo we see yellow skin and
slanted eyes, we automatically walJ.t to know, is this guy nash
fone of ours]? Is he on our side?" 'If an American talks inter
national politics with a Russian, the subject of China is sure to
come up. Sooner or later, the Russian is likely to lean forward
and say, almost in so many words, "We white folks have got to
stick together."
Soviets of all nationalities seem more offended by Wash
ington's increasing cooperation with China than by the Olym
pic boycott, the grain embargo, or any of the otherpost-Af
MEYER ghanistan anti-Soviet pol
icies.ofthe Carter Admin
istration.
Yet for all their fear
of the Chinese and their
anger at the American tilt
toward Peking, Soviets ap
pear somewhat more san
guine about their ability to
contain what some still
call "the yellow peril"
than they did a decade
ago. Says Alexander Va
kov!ev, a leading Sinolo
gist at Moscow's Institute
for the Study of the Far
East: "China does not
have the military strength
to threaten world peace on
its own, and even the mil
itary and economic aid of
the U.S. and other West
ern countries will not
make a big difference."
Politburo leaders: Klrilenko, Suslov, Brezhnev; second row, Pelshe, Vietor Grlsh
in, Nikolai TIkhonovj third row, Romanov, Andropov, Ustinov, Gromyko
TIME. JUNE 23, 1980 26
- - -- - - - - -- --
The U.S.S.R. ~
No maHer how self-serving and dubious, such predictions in
dicate a new confidence that has come with the U.S.S.R.'s recent
auainment of superpower status. That accomplishment has been
largely the work of Leonid Brezhnev and his comrades. When
the present collective leadership took over from Khrushchev in
1964, the Soviet armed forces lagged bebind the U.S. in every im
portant category of strategic weaponry. Now they have caught
up across the board and pulled ahead in some areas.
his fact reinforces the average Soviet citizen's pa
triotism, even ifhe is otherwise apolitical. Says Har
vard's Ulam: "The Soviet pa.triot believes that the
function of tbe state is to be as powerful as pos
sible. He remembers that tsarist Russia was defeat
ed in World War I; now his co.untry is one o.f the two greatest
influences in the entire world. This is a son of surrogate for his
sufferings. Whatever else it has done to him, Co.mmunism has
made Russia a much more powerful country."
Brezhnev and his comrades, moreo.ver, have accomplished
the buildup without resorting to. mass terror Dr wholesale purg
es. They have presided over 16 years of political stability-"the
first such period since the rev
Olution," says British Histo.ri
an Leonard Schapiro.. Nikita
Khrusbchev, while a much
mere sympathetic figure in
many ways, ordered reforms
o.ne day. crackdewns the next.
and engaged, as his cecnrades
turned-usurpers charged, in
"hare-brained schemes." His
was a manic-depressive lead
ership. Before him were 25
years ef Stalin's go.vernment
by massacre. The to11: at least
20 million dead in camps,
prisons and famines. Before
that, the civil war, the reve
lutien, and centuries o.f up
heaval under the Tsars.
The Brezhnev leadership
has. for a while at least,
brought some erder to tbe tur
moil ofSoviet history. For that
be sure, the present leaders
have not fo.und a way to. keep meat in the grocery sto.res o.r un
derwear in the department sto.res. Nor have they loosened the
reins o.f repression during the past 16 years. AI the same time,
ho.wever, material conditio.ns are easier, and life has settled into
a co.nsistent, predicta ble no.rm that avoids the extremes of Khru
shchev's erratic liberalization and Stalin's relentless terror. Fer
many Soviets, that is reassuring, especially against the backdrop
o.f their co.untry's new prestige and power abroad.
The Soviet leaders claim to. be the cuslOdians o.f a great rev
o.lutionary tradition. No.thing could be further fro.m the truth.
They are among the most co.nservative leaders en earth, and
their conservatism is basically co.mpatible with the aspirations
of a people whose lives have been torn apart at regular in
tervals throughout their history. Soviet foreign policy, with all
its unabashed sponsorship of radicals and "wars of national lib
eratio.n." is essentially a means of keeping the U.S.S.R .'s en
emies off balance if not under control and thus making the
world safe for Soviet Communism. That same mOlive lay. be
hind the invasion of Afghanistan in December.
The hallmark of the Brezhnev leadership has been to. com
bine an expansive fo.reign policy, a fonnidable military buildup
and a period of sustained do.mestic political stability. Says Co
lumbia's Bialer: "I see the 1960s and ' 70s as a very benign pe
riod in Soviet histo.ry. It is quite possible thal future historians.
wiLl say this was the greatest, the best period in their history. It
was a society that for the fil'St time was able to. provide both
guns and butter, to. raise the standard o.f living a bit, and to
reach military equality with the West. They had many prob
lems, but no.ne that developed into. a systemic crisis. Therefore
it has been generally an extraordinarily successful period in
their histo.ry. Nor has it been a sho.rt period. Brezbnev has been
in office longer than Roosevelt was. It is a whole era."
Nonetheless, the Brezhnev leadership has not prepared well
either fer a transfer o.f power at the top o.r for the future of the s0.
ciety as a who.le. Sensing that failing, many Soviets are fearful
that there may be harder days ahead. Reports TIME Corre
spondent Nelan: "Go.vernment officials admit privately that the
econo.my is a mess, that things are unquestio.na.bly going to. get
worse. There is an atmo.sphere of a.pprehension. Everyone is
waiting to. see what will come after the present aging, ill and in
flexible o.ligarchy passes from the scene. The ho.pe is for more dy
namism-if not a,fter Brezhnev himself, then after an interim,
transitional successor. But that is only a ho.pe."
The o.dds are against such hopes being realized. One reason
is that the present leadership and the leadership system as a
whole work against dynamism. A management team that can
not, or will net, transfer po.wer to a younger generatio.n of ex
ecutives except by the at
trition of mortality is by
definition guilty of misman
agement. The Brezhnev Polit
buro is like an aging board of
directors that bas no compul
sory retirement policy, no ad
equate pension plan and no.
tradition of heno ring emeritus
directo.rs. So each board mem
ber hangs on and on, becom
ing increasingly shortsighted
as he beco.mes increasingly
sclerotic. Such a corporation,
no. matter how large and pow
erful, wo.uld net recommend
itself as a long-term invest
ment. There is no. reason to
expect that the members of
the post-Brezhnev leadership,
or tbe one after that, will re
form .the gerontocracy once
they have risen to the lOp.
it almost certainly gets credit Brezhnev being awarded tile Lenin Peace Prize on March 3 Whatever its other ac
with much of the populace. To complishments, the Brezhnev
Credit/rom the populace/or bringing order fo turmoil.
leadership has done nothing
to. amelio.rate the pro.blems of excessive centralizatio.n in eco.
nomic planning, of the stagnatio.n and proliferation of bureau
cracy and of political patrenage that rewards sycophancy and
caution while discouraging innovation. These facts of Soviet
life, which have stifled dynamism for decades, are now more
deeply embedded in the system than ever. Inefficiency and in
flexibilit y have been institutionalized, not just in the econo.my
but in the political system itself.
Curing that problem wo.uld almost certainly mean making
drastic changes in the very structure o.f Soviet society, as well as
in its ideolo.gical foundatio.ns. To do so would require a degree o.f
fo.resight and boldness that , up until now, the system has sup
pressed, and it would risk unleashing sudden, unpredictable
change and upheaval in a country where both are anathema.
Nevertheless, fer all their hankering after ord.er and con
tinuity, the Russians have surprised the world, and themselves,
before. They could do so. again. It was in the co.ntext of an ad
mission o.f his inability to "forecast to you the actio.ns" of the
U.S.S.R. that Winston ChurchiH made his famous statement in
1939: "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enig
ma." Less well remembered but equally trenchant was what he
said next: "But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian na
tional interest. " Fo.ur decades later, the U.S.S.R. is still enig
matic, even- perhaps especially-to itself; and it is still trying
to unlock the enigma of its own future by figuring o.ut where its
interests Ii.e.
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
27
Moscow's Military Machine
An elite officer corps, and all the conscripts an army could want
An honor guard of air force cadets braces smartly at Moscow's airport
from their birthplaces, they
"You are urged 10 appear." says the postcard/rom the draft board.
home and support infirm par
1 is a ritual as reg
ular as the seasons.
On one day every
spring and autumn,
railway stations across {he
Soviet Union are festooned
with patriotic banners, bands
blare stirring martial
rhythms, and local dignitar
ies make speeches praising
soldierly virtues. Then, as
crowds of tearful friends and
relatives wave farewelI, anx
ious young men climb aboard
the waiting train: they are the
current crop of 18-year-old
Soviet draftees--about 1 mil
lion a year- heading off to
begin their military service.
After basic training and in
doctrination at the camps, in
variably hundreds of miles
will take a solenU1 oath to de
fend the motherland "with all my strength
and in honor, without sparing my blood
and without regard for my life."
With this vow, they formally become
part of one of their country's most im
portant institutions. The role played in
World War IT by what was then called
the Red Army as savior of the mother
land is still vividly remembered and cel
ebrated. Military themes pervade Soviet
literature. cinema and television. Beyond
that , the might of the Kremlin's military
juggernaut alone gives the Soviet Union
legitimate claim to superpower rank.
There is much pride but little exagger
ation in the statement by Moscow's De
fense Minister Dmitri Ustinov that " the
Soviet military has everything it needs to
fulfill worthily its sacred mission . . . The
Soviet Union has the military capability
to complement its foreign policy."
In the critical area of strategic weap
onry, the Soviets now enjoy, overall, what
some expens call "essential equivalence"
with the U.S. SALT 11 will not affect Mos
cow's numerical lead in several categories.
The U .S.S.R. is ahead 1,398 vs. 1,054 in in
tercontinental ball istic missile launchers,
950 vs. 656 in submarine-launched bal
listic missiles and an estimated 7,836 vs.
3.253 in megatonnage, an important mea
sure of a nuclear arsenal's sheer destruc
ti .... e force.
Soviet conventional military muscle is
equally impressive. While the U .S. and
many of its NATO allies have been trim
ming their armed forces for the past dec
ade. (he Soviets have been expanding
theirs. As a result, their 3.6 million-man
active force is nearly twice the size of the
US. military and second in the world only
to China's 4.4 million. During the past
are minor crimi.nals. political
1
dissidents and those who
. barely pass the physical and
~
mental examinations. These
I
battalions often work in re
mote. harsh regions of the
U\
country.
E
The Soviet na vy demands
three years of service; army ~
and air force draftees spend
two years in uniform. Al
though women are not being
conscripted. an estimated
) 0,000 volunteers now serve
in such noncom bat roles as
nurse and clerk. Only about
12% of Soviet males escape
military service. Many of
these fall below the armed
forces ' physical and mental
standards; others are given
hardship waivers to stay
decade, the Soviet tank force has grown
by 35%, artillery by 40%, fixed-wing tac
tical aircraf t by 20%. On average, one new
medium-range SS-20 mobile missile sys
tem, with three warheads, is deployed
every week. Twenty new warships are de
livered to the Soviet navy every year. vs.
twelve for the U.S. in 1979.
While Moscow's ever enlarging arse
nal is expensive, its military manpower
is relatively cheap. accounting for less
than 30% of defense spending. By con
trast , personnel costs devour 53.4% of the
$131 billion U.S. military budget. Mos
cow's source of cheap manpower: con
scri ption. Every Soviet male must regis
ter with his local draft board at age 17. A
year later, under the Universal Military
Service Law of 1967, he receives an of
ficial postcard that simply states, "You
are urged to appear" at an induction cen
ter. Those who fail to do so without a le
gitimate excuse are subject to arrest and
face up to ten years of hard labor. Un
derstandably, draft dodging is very rare.
When reporting for service, the draft
ee is channeled into a military branch.
Though he can indicate his preference, he
must accept the draft board's decision.
Generally, those with good records and
the highest inteLlige.nce are sent to the air
force, the strategic rocket forces or the
navy. Non-Slavs, however, are usually ex
cluded from these elite units. Says Rand
Corporation Analyst S. Enders Wimbush:
"Soldiers are clearly recruited in a way
tha t reflects the worries ofsociety. The a v
erage Russian citizen and Soviet decision
maker have questions about the allegiance
of the non-Slav, especially the C e ~ l t r a l
Asian. " Typically, ethnic minority draft.
ees are sent to construction bat talions, as
ents or wives. Some Western
experts believe that it is relatively easy for
uni versity students to avoid active mili
tary service. Technically, however, every
able-bodied male at a university or other
advanced institution is supposed to take
reserve officer training and become a ju
nior lieutenant at graduation. After serv
ing six months in uniform. they enter the
active reserves and undergo frequent re
training. All Soviet males have some re
serve obligations unt il age 50 and are pe
riodically called back into uniform.
fter two months of basic {rain
ing that is similar to U.S. boot
camp, the draft.ees join their as
L-_":-'" signed active units. They have
already received extensive paramilitary
preparation. Before draft age, all Soviet
males are given 140 hours of military
training at school or work. The armed ser
vices, moreover, sponsor voluntary orga
nizations whose activities have military
application. Among them are sports clubs
that specialize in marksmanship. grenade
throwing, navigating and parachuting.
The life of the Soviet draftee is not
easy. Indeed, Soviet authorities often jus
tify its harshness by citing the famed 18th
century Russian General Alexander Su
vorov, who said: "Difficurt in training,
easy in baltle.'
Suvorov would probably be pleased
with today's Soviet military. The typical
barracks is a long t. wo-stOry wooden hut
with beds so crammed together tbat they
touch. The soldier's only token of privacy
is a small wooden locker in which he
keeps his uniform, two sets of underwear,
shaving gear. a toothbrush and a few oth
er permitted personal items, such as pho
tos and letters. Latrines are often no more
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
28
reporting on the poli ticaI reLia bility of
ter is rare and usually saved for "sanitary
and fleet admirals of the Soviet U11 ion thana row of holes in the ground. Hot wa
their fellow officers and the enlisted men.
day," when troops take their once-a-week
are paid 2.000 rubles monthly. about the
In Stalin's day. political commissars
shower. One hygienic measure that is rig
same as a Cabinet minister. More impor
tant than salary. however. is the officers' could countermand the orders of line of
orously enforced: draftees' heads are ficers. This is no longer (rue. but the party
clean-shaven. Among other advantages.
access to luxuries unavailable to most So
viet citizens. Officers enjoy ti'ee annual va still dominates thc military. No profes
' the young troops are easy to spot off base. cations at exclusive resorts, top-quality sional soldier serves on either the Polit
Cabbage. potatoes, macaroni. kasha housi ng and privileges at shops that car buro or the Central Committee's power
(cooked buckwheat), bread, fish. tea and ful Secretariat. (Defense Minister Usti
a bit of meat normally make up the draft
ry scarce imported foods.
nov's primary military experience was
ees' diet. On special holidays. fruit and otential career officers are re managi ng defense-related industries.)
jam are added. The troops down their fare cruited when still in high Not that the military is without clout.
quickly. Reason: The last to finish must school. After passing a difficult There appears to be a symbiotic relation
clean the mess-hall table. Soviet draftees written examination and two ship between the military and the party
have little chance for female contACt. interviews. they enroll for five years in one leadership that Rand Corporation Expert
While they can leave base olle day each of the Soviet Union's more than 150 mil- Benjamin Lambeth sums up as a "mu
month, many do not do so, because the itary colleges. At graduation they become tual accommodation in which the mili
nearest village is often beyond walking jUIlior lieutenants. All eventually join the tary accepts the legitimacy of the party's
distance. Longer furloughs are granted Communist Party and are expected to re- supremacy in return for getting resources
only as a special favor or for emergency main in uniform th.roughout their profes for force development."
reasons. On rare occasions, a divisional sional careers, even if repeatedly passed The Soviet military faces some prob
command may organize "social evenings" over for promotion. The best officers are lems that could impair its capabilities in
and bring prostitutes onto the base. sent to one of the U.S.S.R.'s eleven gener- extended combat. One difficulty is mount
Between 6 a.m. reveille and 10 p.m. al staff colleges for up to three years of ad- ing ethnic tension as more non-Slavic mi
lights out, the conscript normally has vanced tr auling. Graduates of these insti- norities join the ranks. Name-calling is
about two hours of free time. One familiar tutes are much respected by their peers in common and fights are frequent. Another
escape from boredom and routine is alco the West. Says a West German defense problem is the reluctance ofSoviet officers
hoL Buying liquor, however. is difficult. expert: "In theory. strategy and tactics, to take initjative. They have been trained
Draftees earn a mere four rubles a month Soviet military training is top grade." Es- to prize iron discipline, they believe in
(about $6), enough for 13 bottles of beer or pecially admired are the senior com- conforntity (0 a highly centraUzed com
a third of a liter of vodka or a dozen packs manders. such as Marshal Nikolai Ogar- mand system. and-above all-they fol
of cigarettes. Because draftees are short of kov, 62. the Chief of Staff, and Fleet low orders. But on a modern battlefield,
cash, the Soviet military has a theft prob Admiral Sergei Gorshkov. 70.. Command- communications can easily be cut and unit
lem. Auto parts, grease, rope, felt boots. er of the Navy. Says KJ'emIi nologist John formations disrupted. Under these condi
heavy overcoats and other items in short Erickson. director of defense studies at the tions. Soviet officers might not be able to
supply for civilians are smuggled off base University of Edinburgh: "'They are very take advantage of sudden opportunities
to nearby viUages and sold or bartered for able. very tough and on a par with the best and improvise winning tactics.
liquor. Soviet soldiers are as adept as their military brains in the West. " Despite these problems. the Soviet
counterparts elsewhere in the world at In a special group, without counter- military is likely to become even more for
concocting an alcoholic brew from such parts in the West. are the estimated 100,- rnidable i.n the 80s. If nothing else, it is
unusual sources as after-shave lotion. 000 zampolil, or political officers. As- gaini.ng its .first intensive combat expe
brake Huid, plane deicer and even shoe signed to every unit down to the company rience since World War 11 in trying to
polish. level , they are responsible for indoctrinat- quash guerrilla opposition in Afghanistan.
Less than 6% of the recruits decide to ing the troops with Communist Party ide- Although it now appears that Soviet forc
remain in uniform beyond their draft ology. They give lectures on patriotic du- es are having more trouble tban they
term. The backbom: of the Soviet military, ties, recite editorials from the Soviet press. probably anticipated, Western military
as in most nations, is its corps of 4{)0.000 stage amateur theatricals and lead eXCUf- experts believe that the initial invasion
commissioned officers and 1 million non sions to local war memorials and battle- was an impressive military operation. The
coms. The gulf between draftee and offi grounds. One other important task: Soviet forces. which were commanded by
cer is enormous. Neos live
51<.Ov- S1 " ,,,,,,,,," Marshal Sergei Sokolov, 68,
with their families in rela demonstrated that they had
tively comfortable housing mastered the techniques of I
either on or off base, shop in airlifti.ng enormous quanti
commissaries carrying spe ties of men and supplies. co
cial food and goods and ordinating air and ground
have one month of vacation attacks. and controlling the
each year. They earn com act ion on a distant battle
paratively high wages; the field via complicated satel
Soviet equivalent of a staff lite communications sys
sergeant with ten years of tems. And. as the U.S. did
experience makes 60 rubles in Viet Nam, the Soviet
15.90) a month-roughly command is battle-testing
""hat a high school teacher its weapons and officers.
is paid. Assessing the Afghan inva
Commissioned officers sion, Edinburgh's Erickson
do even better and rank says. 'If Brezhnev had
'gher in prestige than law asked the general staff back
_ers and doctors. An army in 1973: 'Can you carry off
rs of service
t
10neI's 500
ih is roughly equal to
earnings of
'or lieutenant with three such a campaign?' the an
makes swer would have heen no.
150 rubles monthly. Now the general staff says,
rubles a ' We can.' This is a devel
opment that the Western al
a factory li ance can ignore only at its
r; peril. " the 48 marshals Young trainees hustling througtl a drill duringtheir session In boot camp
29
)
VVhat Ever Happened etente?
Eyeball to eyeball with the bad news bears
etente means the relaxation of len
D
sions between nations. By that def
inition, the detente era in Soviet-
Amer ican relations is over. Since Soviet
troops poured into Afghanistan in De
cember. Washington's policy toward Mos
cow has been almost exclusively punitive:
a boycott of the Olympics, a partial em
bargo on grain sales, tightened restrict ions
on higb-technology exports. The SALT"
treaty that Jimmy Carter and Leonid
Brezhnev signed a year ago this week may
die on tbe Senate sheU. After more than
a month in office, Secretary of State Ed
mund Muskie has yet to meet with So
viet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin. Mus
kie did meet on May 16 with Foreign
Minister Andrei Gromykoin Vienna,
but their exchange consisted largely
of reviewing mutual recriminations.
Each side has a long list of charges
against the other.
Beyond the immedjate points of
contention, anti-Soviet opinion in the
V .S. has crystallized around three
general, related concerns: first, the
U.S.S,R. continues to build up its
military cap.'1bility beyond levels that
seem justified by the legitunate need
to defend itself; second, it has be
gun in recent years brazenly and dis
ruptively to project its power into
the Third World; and third, Soviet
reductions in the Soviet arsenal: his un
seemly rush to normalize diploma[ic re
lations with Peking, grant China most
favored-nation status and sell it military
equipment; his saber rattling over tbe be
lated discovery last August of a Soviet
combat brigade 1n Cuba.
As an overall complaillt, the Soviets
say the Carler Admulistration has been
guilty of "vacillation and inconsistency,"
of sh iftulg policies and switchmg signals.
' The present leadersl1ip in Washington
has never adopted one line to which we
could adjust or respond," says a Soviet dip
lomat. echoing a view shared by many
critics of the Administration m Western
encroachments in mineral-rich Af- Carter and Brezhnev at 1979 meeting to sign SALT II
rica, the oil-rich Middle East and The need next lime is to blink simultaneOll sly.
the sea lanes of the Pacific threaten
the vital economic interests of the West
ern democracies and Japan. The Soviet
Union is seen as exploiting-if not ac
tually instigating- new problems for the
capitalist world. ''The Soviet tendency
in recent years to take advantage of tar
gets of opportunity- incrementally, de
liberately, persistently- raises questions
in Congress and among the public about
the V.S.S.R.'s commitment to detente,"
Muskie told TIME last week. "It raises
questions whetber they really share our
perception about the world. whether they
believe in domination or coexistence:'
Soviet-American relations have been
on a downward slide since 1974, when
Richard N.ixon resigned over Watergate
-an event that some Soviets still regard
as pan of a sinister plot by American
hard-liners to unseat a President who then
favored a policy of accommodation with
the U.S.S.R. Those relations fell off a cliff
when Jimmy Carter became President.
Looking back over the past 3 ~ years, So
viets launch into a long, angry, but ob
viously one-sided litany of grievances: the
President's letter to dissident Physicist
Andrei Sakharov barely three weeks into
Carter's presidency; Carter's ill-fated
-and ill-considered-opening move in
SALT, wIDch would have required drastic
Europe and the V.S. The Soviets are es
pecially bitter over one shift in Carter's
policy. They say he deliberately tricked
the U.S.S.R. into thinking tha.t it might
be a diplomatic partner i.n the Middle
East. In the fall of 1977, a jOlllt u.S.-Soviet
statement on the Middle East was finally
scrapped after Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat's surprise initiative toward Israel
Carter then launched the Camp David
process. Tn the Soviet view, tbe U.S. was
deliberately excluding the U.S.S.R. from
the mediation Ul order to deprive it of
credit and influence.
O
f all the Carter Administration's
military moves, the Kremlin ob
jects most to [he decision last year
I to deploy intermediate-range nuclear
weapons Ln Europe to counter Soviet rock
ets aimed at the West. Says Oleg Bykov,
a top specialist on [he U.S. at Moscow's
Institute of World Economics and Inter
national Relations: "That decision epit
omizes the fact that negative forces have
got the upper band in the U.S. Those
weapons are targeted on our territory."
The Soviets accuse the U.S. of insen
sitivity to their legitimate security iJller
ests. and they claim t.hat those interests
are endangered by the new mood of mil
itancy in the U.S, "Your desire to control
the oil-producing areas of the world is
driving a frantic effort to enlist other
countries in (his region to that goal ," says
Bykov. "What is so often forgotten in the
U.S. is tha t for us, that area is on our door
step. The situation is similar to what
might arise south of the Rio Grande:
America would certainly be sensitive to
instability on its borders: '
III other words, the Kremlin argues
that it would be more tolerant ofa U.S. in
vasion of Mexico than the Carter Admin
istration has been over the Soviet thrust
into Afghanistan . What is officially eu
phemi7ed in Moscow as "the recent events
ill Afghanistan" is, according to Bykov,
"a peripheral issue that exacerbates the
overall strained relationship between our
countries."
Afghanistan, however, is clearly any
thing but peripheral. By their virtual an
nexation of the country, the Soviets
have made its fate central to their
most fundamental disagreement with
tbe V .S. At issue: What rules should
govern the rivalry now that the
U.S.S.R. has emerged as a true su
perpower. coequal with the U.S. in
mili (.ary migh t?
That question has arisen only
in the past few years, as the U.S.S.R.
has caught up with the V.S. in the
accumulation of weapons that would
be used if the two countries ever
went to war with each other. From
Moscow's viewpoint, the question
was given particular force by the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when
John Kennedy faced down Nikita
K hrushchev and forced him to re
move Soviet rockets from the is
land. A relieved Dean Rusk, then Sec
retary ofSta[e, added a memorable phrase
to the annals of diplomacy when he com
mented at the time: ;'We were eyeball
to eyeball. and the other fellow just
blinked."
An aide to Brezhnev told TIME that
the party chief came to office in 1964
m.indful of one lesson learned from the
missile crisis- namely that the Soviet
Union must pursue "a lessening of ten
sions" with the U.S. On the other hand,
the humiliation of having seen their coun
try accept Kennedy's ultimatum over
Cuba made Brezhnev and his comrades.
particularly those in the military, vow
(hat never again would the U.S.S.R. blink
first. They undertook ao all-out campaign
to match the U.S. in intercontinental
nuclear weaponry, so that the next time
a Soviet ruler faced an American Pres
ident eyeball to eyeball. be would do so
as an equal. By the late 1970s Moscow
had achieved that goal. For the first
time in [he long and uneasy relationship
betwee.n the two nations, there is an ap
proximate balance of strategic might.
sometimes called "parity" or "essential
equivalence...
At first blush, it might seem par
adox.ical that [he V.S.S.R. 's catching up
TIME, JUNE 23, t980 30
\\; th the U.S. as a superpower should pro
ioundly upset the relationship. After aIL
strategic equality would seem to be {he
most logical and equitable basis for peace
ful coexistence. Certainly that is what rhe
Soviets say. "The problem with you
Americans." asserts an official of Mos
cow's Institute for the Study of the U.S.A.
and Canada, "is that you can't bring your
self to live with us now that we've finally
corrected the imbalance. All this talk
about 'the Soviet threat ' ill your counlry
is nothing more than disguised nostalgia
for what you regard as the good old days
when YOll had a monopoly or at least su
periority in power."
T
here has never been anything more
ofTensive than a Russian on the de
fensive. The Soviet quest for abso
lute security has. with good reason, gener
ated insecurity on the part of other
nations. Will the U.S.S.R. be
less paranoid and less predato
ry now that it has attained the
status of superpower? Recent
history is not encouraging. The
more powerful the Soviets have
become in the past two dec
ades, the more they have used
their power to aid and a bet the
forces of violence, instability
and radicalism around the
world. They have been the bad
news bears.
Tn the Middle East. they
are backing terrorists and re
jectionists among the Arabs.
In Africa, Moscow has often
worked against negotiated set
tlements, urging guerrillas to
fight rather than talk---and
particularly to fight any re
gimes that had U.S. backing.
Whenever possible. the Soviet
Union has tried to convert
sponsorship of a "national
liberation movement" or a
or at least naked aggression and
the exploitation of regional instabi.1ity. At
their summit meeting in Moscow in 1972.
Nixon and Brezhnev actualJy tried to for
mulate such a code. but it was hopelessly
vague and rhus catered to [he Soviets' love
of lofty-sounding principles and giant
loopholes. The key phrase in the twelve-
point declaration of principles they
signed: "Both sides recognize that efforts
[by onelLO obtain unilateral advantage at
the expense of the other. directly or indi
rectly, are inconsistent with" detente. So
viet behavior since then has made a mock
ery of that pledge.
Raw military power is the principal
foreign policy resource of the U.S.S.R..
hence its reliance on strong-arm tactics in
seeking to influence other countries.
While the U.S. has dispatched aid mis
siems. Peace Corps volunteers and cultur
al exhibits, Moscow has mostly sent mil -
LOCHO N-
Soviet t roops and equipment at airfield on the outskirts of Kabul
rccelll visir to the U.S.S.R. deeply discour
aged: ''There is a sense in Moscow that we
may have passed through a watershed and
may be entering a long period of tensions.
The Soviets recognize that what is now
happening between us is of hislOric pro
porrions. They believe that detente is dead
for the foreseeable future. They know that
by invading Afghanistan, they buried
detente. But in their view it had already
been fatally poisoned by the U.S. They re
fuse to come to terms with their own re
sponsibility for the disintegration of U.s.
Soviet relations."
Nonetheless, there may still be hope
for halting that disintegration and restor
iug some version ofdetente. The main rea
son is [hat it is overwhelmingly in the ill
lerests of borh sides to do so. BOlh need
peace to survive. Moreover. neither the
U.S., with its recession, its dangerous in
fiat ion and its need to improve its conven-
GA M" ,, _,.,so, tional forces. nor rhe Soviet
Union. with its economic stag
nation and mOllnting consum
er demands, can easily afford
another round of the strategic
arms race. one that would be
unfettered by even the modest
constraints of SALT.
Says Bykov: "In a world
where there are many shifts
and realignments. there has
got to be more political re
straint on the pan of both the
U.S. and the Soviet Union."
Such rhetoric would be more
reassuring if the U.S.S.R. were
not waging a brutal war against
the Afghan people, pouring
weapons into the Yemens, and
supporting Viet Nam's take
over of Indochina. No wonder
there is a resurgence of feeling
in the U.S. [hat the Soviets can
not be trusted. No wonder pro
detente liberals like Muskie are
less certain than before that the
"people's revolution" into sub
Deep split over what The Kremlin dismisses as a "peripheral issue. ,.
Kremun is genuinely commit
jugation of a country. Afghan ted to peaceful coexist.ence.
istan is only the most recent example. itary advisers. Unlike the U.S.. the The onus of showing more resrraint is
Soviet exertions of power abroad have U.S.S.R. has made little effort to assist squarely on the Soviet Union these days.
a seemingly irresistible, irreversible qual Third World countries in economic Until the Soviets modify their behav
ity that makes them much more threaten development. ior. especially in the Third World. i[ will
ing to world peace than American adven be virtualJy impossible to resurrect
tures. In justifying tbe occupation of
Afghanistan, Soviet spokesmen argue that
the U.S. has been deploying its troops. es
S
Pokesmen for official Soviet think
ing are at once disillusioned, dis
trustful and implacably sci f-
detente. In the meantime. one task for
America is to correct any dangerous gaps
that have developed in the Soviet
tablishing bases and throwing its weight righteous about who is to blame for the de American m.ilitary relationship. Another
around for decades: the U.S.S.R. should be cline of detente and who, therefore, must task is to face the Soviets with political
entitled to pursue its interests and protect make the first move in a joiIll salvage op firmness and sophistication. That means
its security in similar ways. erat.ion. "It will take years to undo the eventually resuming carrot-and-stick di
"You still assign to yourself a global I damage done in the past few months," plomacy-with an effective stick, to be
role and to us a very limited, regional warns a member of the U.S.A. Institute. sure, but also with the restoration of those
sphere of influence," says a foreign min Moscow officials say pri vateiy thar the Po carrots that the Soviets complain have
istry official in Moscow. "Well. you' ll have litburo's decision to invade Afghanistan been thrown away. Only thus can tbe su
[0 get over that notion. It's outdated and was made much easier by three years of perpowers reverse the vicious cycle of
unjust. We too are now a global power, "hostile" Carter policies. "We had little to retribution and recrimination that is driv
and we have the tight to compete with you lose," says an expert on foreign affairs in illg them toward more and worse con
on a global scale. That is only fair if we are Moscow. "Your Government had long frontations. The suspense 18 years ago
truly your equals." since thrown away aU irs carrots and was who would blink first. The chal
That claim ought to be rejected until reached for every stick in sight." lenge now is for the superpowers to find
and unless the Soviet Union shows some Robert Legvold, the senior Kremlin some way of bliJ1king simultaneously so
sign of agreeing with the U.S. on a joint ologist for tbe Council on Foreign Rela that they can start looking at where to
code of superpower conduct that forbids. tions in New York City. returned from a go from here. - Strobe Tillbott
TIME. J tJNE 23. 1980 32
Grigorl Romanov Andrei Kirilenko Nikolai Tikhonov Konstantin Chemenko
ond stage of the inevitable transfer of au
After Brezhnev: Stormy Weather thority to a new generation, Officials now
holding 5,000 to 6,000 top jobs will be re
A new generation 0/pragmatists faces tough decisions placed. These wiJl include not only mem
bers of the Politburo, but also Secretaries,
t is 63 years since the revolution, presumably come to the fore. The imme the Secretariat of the Central. Committee,
and the political leadership of the diate successor in Brezhnev's key post as ministers and deputy ministers, heads of
Soviet Union has still not devel General Secretary of the Communist Par provincial party organizations, leaders of
oped a tradition or institution to assure a ty is expected to be Andrei Kirilenko. who the republics and chiefs of departments.
smooth transfer ofauthority. The U.S.S.R. is three months older than Brezhnev, but Not a great deal is known about these
is a nation where supreme power chang in beller health. Another contender for bureaucrats whose background, psycholo
es hands only through death or coup. Vla the job of party chief is Konstantin Cher gy a.nd views are crucial to the world's fu
dimir Lenin's demise was hastened by an nenko. 68; like Kirilenko. he is a long ture. But some Sovietologists-notably
assassin's bullet. There is a lingering, but 'Political Scientist Jerry Hough of Duke
unproven, suspicion that Joseph Stalin
time Brezhnev supporter. But Chernen
-have prepa.red profiles of the upcoming
was murdered. Georgi Malenkov and Ni
ko's present low ranking (seventh in the
elite on the basis of education and other
leita Khrushchev were ignominiously
Politburo hierarchy) and his lack of ex
significant data. These show that the new
ousted from office. What fate is in store
ecutive experience may rule him out for
leaders will be better schooled than the old
for the collective leadership now ruling
the top post in an interim government.
rulers, some of whom, like Kirilenko, had
the U.S.S.R.? Sovietologists agree that the
The most obvious candidate to replace
no real college education. Others, like
oldsters clustered around 'Presiden t Leo
Premier Kosygin is First Deputy Premier
Brezhnev, attended the vocational col
nid Brezhnev in the Kremlin will merely
Nikolai Tikhonov, 75. who has already as
leges that were characteristic of the 1920s
succumb to the inexorable logic of the ac
sumed many of his boss' s functions.
and 1930s. Since the younger men began
tuarial tables. In the 16 years of Brezh their careers around the time of Stalin's
nev's rule the average age of the PoHl
T
hree Politburo members are ex
death in 1953, they are likely to be less
buro has crept forward until it stands this
cluded as contenders for supreme
fearful and more self-assertive than their
year at 70, thus making the U .S.S.R. one
power because they are not ethnic
predecessors, whose lives were under con
of the oldest gerontocracies in the world.
Russians-an unacknowledged but key
stant threat from the paranoid dictator.
It is also, of course, one of the most ex
qualification for the job of party boss.
Nearly all the newcomers will have had
perienced. At a time when Jimmy Carter
They are: Vladimir Shcherbitsky, 62. Din
mukhamed Kunayev, 68. and Arvid more exposure to the West.
was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval , Some experts doubt that these new
Academy (1943-46), virtually every man
Pelshe, 81 . Others. like Defense Minister
leaders will be any more favorably dis
in the 14-man Politburo was a member
Ustinov and Foreign Minister Gromyko.
posed to democratic reforms than their
of the power elite. Brezh.nev was a major
70, and Party Ideologist Mikhail Suslov,
predecessors. In fact, as Soviet planners
general. Andrei Gromyko was Ambassa
77, would appear to be disqualified be
face tough priority decisions about spend
dor to the U.S. Today, however, none of
cause of their narrow specializations. The
ing on military vs. consumer goods in the
these lOUgh, hard-working old leaders is
youngest member of the Politburo, Le.n
economic hard times of the mid-'80s, the
exceptionally robust. Brezhnev, at 73, suf
ingrad Party Boss Grigori Romanov. 57,
leaders may be forced to demand greater
fers from several illnesses, including ar
may be a contender for power in a few
discipline and more sacrifices from the
teriosclerosis. Alexei Kosygin, 76, has had
years. For the time being, however, he
population. Such policies will present haz
two heart attacks. Dmitri Ustinov, 71, is
has no political base in Moscow; citizens
ards for any new regime. Soviet elite
currently ailing. "When Brezhnev dies the
of the Soviet capital jokingly observe that
- members of the party, favored intelli
rest of the Politburo will be gone with
even his surname, the s<'\me as the Rus
sian imperial family's, works against him. gentsia, and so on---could become politi
the wind," says one Soviet bureaucra.t. cally disenchanted with any government
Though the present rulers will surely
The next government will almost cer
tainly pursue the conservative policies of that severely restricts their perks. Stiff la
not be swept away quite that precipitous tbe Brezhnev era. The leaders, though. bor discipline, cutbacks on wage increas
ly, Kremlinologists believe that in the five will probably make overtures to China in es and higher prices for consumer staples
years following Brezhnev's death, most of an attempt to repair the 18-year-old Sino could lead to popular uDrest-lls they
the top leadership will be replaced. Ev Soviet breach. Meanwhile, thousands of have in Poland and other East bloc sat
ery effort will be made to give the im middle-level officials who are now in their ellites. In sum, the most probable fore
pression of an orderly succession. An in 4{)s and 50s will be jockeying for power be cast for the Soviet Union's next gener
terim leadership group composed of some hind the scenes. By the late 1980s, if not ation of leaders is stormy weather
of Brezhnev's surviving associates will before, they will have completed the sec ahead.
TIME, JUNE 23, 1980 33
Beria
helped
porta.nt
cret
Big Brother Is Everywhere
The KGB is watching, watching, watching every minute
ountless espionage thrillers and
spy movies have celebrated its ex
ploits to Soviet citizens. Officers of
the organization are regularly awarded
the country's highest decorations, and
their chief, Yuri Alldropov, 66, is a mem
ber of the ruling Politburo. Andropov
himself has said that a typical member
of his agency is "a man of pure honesty
and enormous personal courage, impla
cable in the struggle against enemies,
stern in the name of duty, humane and
prepared to sacrifice himself for the peo
ple's cause." The object of this official
adulation is the Committee for State Se
curity- acronym: KGB.
Most Soviet citizens do not share An
dropov' s high regard for the KGB. They
view it with deep distaste and fear , in part
because memories are still vivid of the
murderous role played by the secret po
lice in Staljn's dreadful purges. Although
his successors halted mass terror and
greatly reduced the KGB'S autonomy, the
agency continues to keep stern watch over
every aspect of Soviet citizens'lives.
The KGB is the latest acronym for
an organization that was founded in 1917
as the Cheka and was successively known
as GPU, OGPU, NKVD and MGB. A fief
within the Soviet state, the KGB is an in
telligence agency, counterintelligence
organization and internal security police
with its own uniformed military branch.
Administratively it is divided into var
ious "directorates" whose number and
function are frequently scrambled, part
ly to confuse rival foreign intelligence
services.
The KGB's First Chief Directorate is
in charge of the world's largest forei gn
espionage operation. Says one West Ger
man analyst: "U's safe to assume that
there's not a place in the world where
the KGB does not have its man."
The KGB's top external priority is
gathering Western military technology se
crets in order to avoid costly parallel re
search and development at home. A seC
ondary but nonetheless vital concern is
the collecting of political intelligence and
the manipulation and recruitment of for
eigners who might influence-their govern
ments' policies. Though the CIA, accord
ing to U.S. intelligence specialists, is far
superior to the KGB in "cornint" and "el
int" (communications and electronic in
telligence), the Soviets excel in "humint"
(intelligence gathering through human
contact). This was spectacularly demon
stra.ted in Bonn last year, when West Ger
man counterintelligence finally caught up
with a KGB agent functioning as a madam.
For three years the operative had run a.
brothel catering to politicians and diplo
mats from whom she obtained political
and military secrets.
For every KGB spy abroad there are
five working within the Soviet Union.
The Second and Fifth Chief Directorates
employ an estimated 50,000 to 100,000
agents who are responsible for domestic
security, including operatives assigned to
the surveillance of dissidents, foreign stu
dents, journalists and diplomats in the
U.S.S.R. American security officers who
searched the residence of one U.S. di p
lomat in Moscow in 1978 found 42
microphones.
Western intelligence experts estimate
the KGB's present strength at 500,000. Of
these, 90,000 are believed to be directly in
volved in intelligence and counterintelli
gence work. An estimated 300,000 are
uniformed troops responsible for tbe safe
ty of the country's leaders and the pro
tection of its borders_ The other KGB
employees perform administrative duties
and help run prisons, concentration
camps and those psychiatric institutions
in which dissidents are often held.
KGH headquarters in Moscow is a
grim, gray, seven-story stone building at
No.2 Dzerzhinsky Square; in tsarist times
it housed the All-Russian Insurance Co.
Behind the headquarters is the most cel
ebrated KGD structure, Lubyanka Prison,
through which tens of thousands of So
viet citizens have passed on their way to
concentration camps or execution. These
probably included three of Stalin's own
secret police chiefs-----Genrikh Yagoda,
Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenti Beria-who
were shot following their fall from pow
er. The KGB has administrative offices
in every major center, and KGB officers
occupy key posts in the Soviet armed forc
es and the regular police, as well as in
factories, government offices, universities
and most other major Soviet institutions.
The day-to-day work of keeping
watch over the Soviet people is done by
part-time informers, or stukachi (squeal
ers) , as they are contemptuously called.
The system of informants is so perva
sive that most Soviets take it for grant
ed that a stukach is always near by. At
work, a factory laborer may be fired
from his job for telling political jokes
that an informer has repeated to the
head of the personnel department, who
is invariably working for the KGB. At
home, an apartment dweller knows that
his superintendent regularly reports on
any unfamiliar visitors he may receive
-especiaUy overnight. Pressures on or
dinary citizens to turn informer are great.
Black marketeers and others arrested for
petty crimes are offered freedom from
prosecution in exchange for cooperation.
Plainclothes KGB operative-s take pains
to blend in a crowd, but can often be
spotted. One giveaway: good shoes on
somebody who is otherwise sha bbily
dressed.
Backing up the stukachi network is
a gigantic mail and telephone surveillance
operation. A Soviet dissident now in ex
ile once ran a test of the KGB's postal mon
itoring system by sending 100 letters to
a West European town from various mail
boxes in the U.S.S.R . Only six got
through. Selective surveillance of mail
and telephone calls has been made much
easier in recent years by computers that
enable the KGD to monitor specific
targets.
Andropov is the first KOD head since
to sit on the Politburo. He is a
party man, not an agency professional.
His most notable previous post: Soviet
Ambassador in Budapest, where he
put down the 1956 H ungarian
Revolution. Among Andropov's most im
func tions is to keep the KGB
under firm party control so that the se
police can never again wield the
power it possessed under Stalin, when it
arrested, tortured and kil led thousands
of loyal party officials.
O
ne highly publicized KGB respon
sibility is to rid the country of dis
senters. Of the 2 million people
currently imprisoned in the Soviet penal
system, about 10,000 are so-called pris
oners of conscience, who ha ve been jai led
for their religious, inteUectua I or polit
ical beliefs. In the past year the KGB
has employed increasingly sophisticated
methods to discredit dissidents; Jewish
activists have been charged with spec
ulation and other economic crimes in
order to whip up local anti-Semitic
feelings.
In the Ukraine, 36 human rights ac
tivists have been convicted since 1976
on charges ranging from hooliganism to
sexual offenses. In Kiev, both Jewish
and Ukrainian activists have been se
verely beaten by KGB agents. In one cel
ebraied case last year, witnesses say they
saw two men force a popular Ukraini an
nationalist composer, Volodymyr Ivasiuk,
31 , into a KGB car. Three weeks later
his body was found hanging from a tree:
his eyes had been gouged out. Such acts
of brutality-still rare but apparently on
the increase-are strictly illegal. The KGB.
however, remains capable of acting as a
law unto itself. _
T1ME, JUNE23,1980
35
who happens 10 be
my IIncle. "
"Please sil down. We 1/
take care ofeverythi1lg."
How to Succeed by Rea'lly Trying
Caviar and limousines/or a Communist nobility
All animals are equal. but some an
imals are more i'qllal than orhers.
- George Orwell. Allimal Farm
ike the inmates of Orwell's barn
yard, citizens of the Soviet Union
enjoy vastly different degrees of
power, privilege and material comfort. de
spite the country's egaLitarian ideals. So-.
viet Communism has theoretically abol
ished hereditary classes. but it has neither
uprooted the ladder of success nor stifled
the urge to scale it. While there are ob
stacles to social mobil ity in the Soviet
zens queue up for scarce consumer goods,
members of what one Soviet journalist
calls the "Communist nobility" shop in
special stores for caviar, French cognac,
Swiss chocolate.s and Japanese stereo sets.
They p<'ltronize tailors, hairdressers and
cleaners who serve them exclusively.
Lesser pri vi lege.s are enjoyed by thousa nds
of midd Ie-level managers. local panycad
res and other important citizens.
One key to advancement is education.
By age J5, all Soviet students are slotted
into distinct scholastic groups: only one of
every five applicants wins entry into one
tions are slow in coming. since top of
ficials tend to remain at their posts into
their 70s or 80s. 111 general. the aspiring
apparatchik must rely on patience. hard
work and diligence, plus a certain Dale
Carnegie-like skill for flaLtering and im
pressing his bosses.
As in most other countries, success in
the Soviet Union can depend' on family
and personal connections. With the right
contacts, one has a lot less trouble get
ting into a LOp school. landing a good job
and winning advancement. Soviet Pres
ident Leonid Brezhnev's elder son Yuri.
for example, was named First Deputy
Minister of Foreign Trade last year at the
relatively tender age of 47. Foreign Min
ister Andrei Gromyko's son Anatoli, 48,
was appointed director of the African In
stitute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
011 the suggestion
of Ivan lvanovich
Union, those who make it to the top rely
on the same factors that Jead to success
in the West: education, bard work, tal
ent, connections-even corruption.
At the peak of the social hierarchy is
an elite . known as the nac/lll/slvO
(roughly, the Establishment), which in
cludes perhaps a million people. This
privileged group consists of a ruling class
- thosc wielding power in state. pany and
military circles-and an upper class, com
prising party-favored intellectuals, artists
and top athletes. Whether they enter this
exclusive club via lhe committee room,
tbe Bolshoi stage or tbe hockey rink,
members of the nachalslvo are assured of
hidden perks denied to ordinary citizens.
Politburo members and other top po
litical officials, for example, live in ex
clusive apartment enclaves and speed to
work in chauffeur-driven ZIL limousines.
Although their salaries are relatively
modest , they have little need for money:
not only are they housed by the govem
ment. they also receive a special Krem
lin ration that allows them to feed their
families well for a nominal monthly fee
of 50 to 70 rubles. (An average family of
four in Moscow might spend 180 to 200 ru
bles a month on food).
These political leaders, along with
other Soviet elitists, enjoy the use of coun
try dachas, yacbts and Black Sea vaca
tion resorts. While ordinary Soviet citi
of the country's 63 universities or 800
technical institutes. Compecition is espe
cially stiff for the top universities of Mos
cow and Leningrad and the Institute of
Foreign Relations. To help get their chil
dren through che rigorous entrance
exams, many parents hil'C private tutors at
five rubles ($7.65) an hour. Others bribe
admjssions officers. In a case reported by
Izvestiya last month, tbe woman in charge
of a scienti fic prep school in Tomsk got an
eight-year prison semence for selling ad
missions. According to Izvestiya, she "ac
cepted almost anything as a bribe. from
mink coats to pails of berries."
The ambitious young Soviet must also
be careful to choose the right profession.
Engineers, once revered as the guardians
of Soviet technological might , now glut
the market. Nuclear physics remaills one
of the most respected and best-compen
sated fields. Journalism is another sought
after career; top Soviet reporters can boost
t heir incomes by writing freelance arti
cles and often arc able to travel abroad.
For those who aspire to political pow
er. membership in the Communist Party
is a must. BUI the party card alone is nO
guarantee of success: few of the party's
16.5 million membel'S ever make it into
the e.lile class, just as many privileged cit
izens in tile scientific and cultural fields
never join, Lhe party. Moreover. party re
sponsibilities are demanding and promo-
III 1976. fnfluence peddling-called blaT
in Russian-prevails at all levels of So
viet society, from the KremJjn down to
the local butcher. who can set aside a
choice cut of beef for a friend or perhaps
his plumber- who willlhen come and fix
his Icakiljg pi pes.
.. he social stratification that exists
T
in the Soviet Union obviously con
flicts with the ideal of equality.
which Marx caBed "the groundwork of
Communism." Such an inconsistency was
denounced by Yugoslav Dissident Milo
van Djilas in bis 1957 classic Tire New
Class, and elitism ranks high among the
ideological sins for which the Chinese
c,ondemn the Soviets. Soviet theorists in
scrutably justify such inequality as a "noo
antagonistic contradiction." Others. in
cluding some Marxist dissidents, claim
that the system has not really created an
elite class, since political power and its di
rect perquisites cannot be inherited. But
there is one flaw in that argument: the
case with which the nadlalslvo can ar
range good educations aud careers for
their offspring tends to perpetuate tbeir
privileged status. Despite the Jlistorical
gulf that separates them from tbe pre
revolutionary regime, the Communisl elit
ists enjoy their prerogatives as unabashed
ly-and guard them as jealously-as their
tsarist predecessors ever did.
TIM E. JU E 23. 1980 36
TELLTALES OF TWO CITIES
Pitfalls
In the
Planning
Industry develops,
but growth does not
ne joke that Muscovites tell
about their economic system
involves Stalin, Khrushchev
and Brezhnev, who are rid
ing a speciallrain. When the
engine breaks down. Stalin has the crew
shot. Nothil'tg happens_ After a while,
Khrushchev rehabili tates the engineers.
Still no movement. Finally, Brezhnev
pulls down the shades and sighs. "Well,
let's pretend we are moving."
In recent months Soviet leaders have
had a hard time pretending they were
moving. Afi cr more than half a century
of often spectacular progress in building
heavy industry, the Soviet economy has
slipped into a serious slump. While growth
zipped along at 5.3% annually from 1966
to 1970 and was a strong 7.2% as late as
1973, it fell to an almost invisible .7% last
year. Steel production, always regarded
as a major sign of a healthy Soviet econ
omy, declined by 1.6% last year-the first
drop since World War n.
Instead of delivering on its promise
to create a wor kers' paradise with am
ple material goods for ali , Marxism-Le
ninism as practiced by Moscow has fash
ioned something of an inertia-bound
bureaucracy that limi ts incentive and sup
presses inventiveness. Says Economist
Judith Thornton of the University of
Washington: "Imagine a whole economy
organized and run like the Department
of Energy or the Pentagon. Of course,
I
there is a problem. Public organizations
work le-ss efficiently than do private ones,
which are eliminated if they are not
competitive."
The law of the land for the Soviet
economy is the nat ional Five-Year Plan.
The State Planning Committee (GOS
P L A . ~ ) allocates all investment capital ,
sets every price and production goal and
determines all foreign trade. The plan.
which sets policy for some 350,000 en
$33
terpri ses. affects every Soviet citizen. Law
;e. - must try their quota of cases. bar
::.ers must shear so many heads and taxi
.\ers must log so many miles. The plan
c..ter>nines the amount of raw materials
3. p:.ant ""ill receive and the number of
e:s it :5 assigned: fulfilIing the plan's
Cost of living
typical current prices.
Hours worked per week
Manufacturing worker's
earnings per week
Monthly rental
3-rooma
All figures are
Moscow
..
.. Vacations: the New York figure represents a peak
season coat with meals at a major Florida resort city;
70%of the Moscow flg..-e is paid by the w.er's union.
TIME C/la,\ by Nlgl l Hoi",
TIME. JUNE 23, 1980
T
would immediately fall behind in its pro as much as 40% in annual harvest yields.
stick.
quotas is the only economic measuring
duction quotas. The geographical and climatic problems
Soviet economists would argue that it Though Soviet leaders periodically are compounded by the system's self
was only by following government dic urge managers and workers to be more ef inflicted wounds of rule by decree.
tates that the country was able. to recover ficient, little if anything ever seems to Though collectivization is sometimes
from the devastation of World War II. come from such pleas. Tn 1965 Premier com pared wi th the spread of so-called ag
Following massive investments of both Alexe.i Kosygin endorsed administrative ribusiness conglomerates in the U.S .. the
capital and labor. agricultural output has changes that would have given state firms differences are enormous because workers
risen by an average of 3;", annually since more authority to initiate plans on their have little concern about production re
1953. Even though the diet remains own, enter into direct contracts with their sults on a state farm. Proof: the 2% to
starchy and the nation's overburdened customers, and retain a larger proportion 3% of the Soviet Union's farm land that
and inefficient distribution system pro of their profits for investment purposes. is privately owned produces about 25%
duces periodic shonages of everything But the reforms were eventually watered of all Soviet agricultural output, primarily
from pork to potatoes, per capita food con down so much that they became mean vegetables, fruit. milk and meat.
sumption has nonetheless more than dou ingless. Economic refonnsalways run into Farm efficiency is further crimped by
bled since 1951, a feat unmatched by any problems because they ultimately involve the scarcity of trained manpower. With
other advanced nation. Industrial growth forbidden political reforms. more aod more young people leaving the
has also been heady; the Soviet gross na Despite an investment of more than farms and heading for factory work in
tional product, a mere 40% of the U.S. 's the nation's cities, agricultural output is
in 1955, is 60% today. being left increasingly in the hands of the
j TARGET AND REALITY
BUi Soviet leaders today are having to elderly and the less skilled.
Soviet GrowthDl'lllned '76-110
stJuggle with new and difficult problems. Indeed, shortage of labor is a serious
At the heart of the trouble lies the inabil problem for all sectors of the Soviet econ
ity of the system to make better and more omy. Employment in industry is now
efficient use of its plants, factories and growing at only .7% annually. as com
technologies. Says Professor Alexander pared with 1.8% per year in 1976-78.
Erlich of Columbia University' s Russian When small problems in agriculture
Institute: "The Soviet system of overcen or industry fester into large ones. the So
tralized planning was clearly helpful in
eo.l
G- 3.0%1
viet bureaucracy revs up huge counter

the past, when it was just a matter of mar attacks that become economic overkill.
s....
shaling large amounts of labor and capi Whenever Soviet grain harvests exceed
3.6%1
tal. But now thaI the situation calls for expectations, for example, officials scour
- j1,2"
using what they have more efficiemly. the the count ryside commandeering man
eoneumer produce.
system is simply not workiJ1g well at aIL" power and trucks from projects that they
I n the five-year growth plans. production
4.6%1
I have to temporarily abandon.
targets are as often as not chosen because I
they look impressive. The Soviets have, i.n Agriculture he result is a continuous
eirect, created an economic system that and inefficient scramble for
values the production of 100 clunking, i scarce resourc.es, as planners
T
breakdown-prone trucks more highly i lurch uncertainly from one
than that of ten smoothly running ones, high-priority project to the
simply because the plan demands higher next. One such enterprise is the 2.000
unit production and makes no allowance mile-long Baikal-Amur Mainline rail\ a}
for quality. across Siberia. This has become an en
gineer's nightmare, as any study v.
, nlike the capi talist economies have shown. Huge stretches freeze" .....
' of the West. which reward in the winter and then beeo. e q;;ag
successful risk taking, the So mires during summer.
viet system rewards caution Though the Soviets hunger for West
and conformity. Any plant ern technological imports like ;:or;:} -eIS
T't.tE Chatt by Jooat Romeu 'l\CIIlClel pt$I,mlnaty 'n figu(es
and machinery, they have pro' ma-
perimenting with new ways of doing
manager who might be interested in ex
keting their own products - e Wes' in
things runs the risk of failing to meet his return. The only Soviet exporu ' ; eas
assigned production or deli very quota, as
$500 billion. agriculture remains the most
ily abroad, in addition to \
traumatic a worry to a Soviet manager as
troubled sector of the Soviet economy.
The nation employs eight times as many materials such as petrole ' age De-
the fear of red ink is to an American cor spite attractive prices for Ya'" jlaS.. ""n
porate executive. Observes Haverford
farm workers as does the U.S" or about
ger je'ts or Lada cars. \lies:e;-' m es
College SovielOlogist Holland Hunter:
23% of the entire Soviet work force. The
have shown li ttle interes ill -quali.y.
"Everyone finds the traditional way of do
farm sector soaks up about one-quarter of
dowdy Soviet merchan ise TIe So\;ets
ing things- no innovation- the most con
all investment capital, five t imes more
than that spent in the U.S. Yet for all this, usually are forced ti.
genial. The supreme challenge is not to on the soft-curren_ tries f Eastern
rock the boat. New styling or technology
actual farm output remains only 80% of
Europe or (he Third \\
would require change, and that would in
the U.S.'s. Says Soviet Economic Expert
After seeing his standard 0 -living rise
evitably mean at least some faltering in
Gregory Grossman of the University of
California at Berkeley: ''The organization steadily since \Y rI War Il and ha \ ing
prOduction." is wrong, the prices are wrong, th.e tools been pro ' sod more 0 come. t:he a 'er
Examples of Soviet-style conserva are wrong. Basically, everyt hing is age So,iet citizen nov. fa es t' e prospect
tism are widespread. The Soviet chem wrong:' ofd.xlinin,g prosperit , . Says A ram Berg
ical industry was reportedly unable to True. Soviet agriculture is plagued by son. direct r of Harvard' s Russian Re
replace corrosion-prone cast iron pipes climatic problems beyond the control of search Cente . "Over the coming decade,
wit:h more up-tO-date plastic piping be any government. Though the lush fields the So\ iets will be lu;;ky if the increase in
cause no factory could be persuaded to of the Ukraine produce grain in abun nsumer goods is half what it has been
make the lighter product. Reason: pipe dance, much of the country's arable land lately. " The central planning thaL helped
production quotas are set by GOSPLAN lies in far northern latitudes. where enor achieve rapid industrialization has be
in tons, and any factory that switched mous swings in seasonal temperatures and come the roadblock to further economic
from cast iron to plastic pipe output
development. _
erratic rainfall can lead to variations of
TIME. JUNE 23.1980
45
shoi Theater. On a side street near
the Moscow Planetarium. /ansovshchiki
ILiving Conveniently on the Left (black marketeers) have set up an un
derground supermarket. dealing in ev
Y
erything from gin to chewing gum, jeans
and Western POP records. One of the hot
elizaveta Tyntareva, a lawyer liv- the left. " At its simplest. it is nothing more
IA thriving network 0/hidden entrepreneurs
test selling items in any market is in
ing in Vilnius, Lithuania. a few than passing on to the local butcher tick formation. Some hustlers charge one or
years ago sold her Zhiguli car for ets for a popular soccer game or concert two rubles for "a sentence." The mys
2,000 rubles (about $3,000). She then used in return for a good cut of meat; tipping terious sentence: a valuable tip-off that
that small amount of venture capital to off the plumber about a shipment of shoes an item in short supply will be delivered
buy so-called deficit goods. consumer af- that is due to arrive in a shop as payment to a certain shop the following day.
tides like sunglasses and wigs that are al- for fixing a leaking pipe; or holding down Whole industries have sprung up to
most always in short supply and high de- a second job as a furniture mover or apart service the markets on the left. Printers il
mand in Soviet shops. As she bought, ment painter. .Na levo can and does. licitly run off copies of scarce books. while
Tyntareva also sold. Gradually she built however, also extend to smuggling con entire hidden factories make jeans and
up a stock of everything from gold rings. sumer goods in from the West , running a cosmetics. Truck Drivers Nikolai Butko
watches, wigs and jeans to velvet suits. hidden factory, stealing state-owned and Alexander Konovalov developed a
umbrellas and cameras. The business materials and skipping out from work very elaborate triangular trade from the
Caucasus Mountain city of Krasnodar
near the Black Sea. They picked up pur
loined steel from a state factory, delivered - - llYTb - YYTb Be""Kv
Balbi, HO 3dTO )O{e it to government farms in exchange for
off-market tOmatoes, grapes and peas, and
then sold the produce in Siberia, where
fresh vegetables were in short supply.
'The amount of bribery of public of
ficials is enormous," notes Berkeley Econ
omist Gregory Grossman, an expert on
the illegal Soviet economy. "It is an ex
tremely corrupt society where graft and
bribery of officials is enormously wide
spread and where stealing on the job is
commonplace and far more sophisticated
than crude break-ins or thefts at state
warehouses." One of the biggest frauds of
the 1970s was the caviar caper. in which
officials of the Soviet Ministry of Fisher
ies shipped expensive black caviar abroad
in large cans marked "smoked herring."
Western firms coopera ting in the fraud re
packed and resold the caviar. They put the
Soviet conspirators' share of the profits
into Swiss bank accounts. The swindle is

st ill officially denied by the Kremlin, but
P>jCYKOI< the Fishing Minister abruptly resigned af
C. HACblPOBOA
ter some of the "herring" was mistakenly
sent to domestic shops.
"A trifle large, but still a bmnd name!" Though Soviet officials are aware of
the booming second economy. the'y gener
prospered; she acquired a regular clientele on a state job to moonlight privately. ally ignore the dealings of Ivan the Terri
among Baltic Sea vacationers, hired four ble Capitalist. Major violators are some
assistants, and even set, up a mail-order
The economy on the left exists at ev
ti mes arrested. and officers of the MVO'S
service. Unfortunately. tbough, Tymare
ery level of Soviet society. For city dwell
ers the private economy provides plumb Administration for Combatting the Em
va was an economic cri.minal under tough bezzlement of Socialist Property and
Soviet "speculation" laws. Early this year
ers. clothes and even legal services
Speculation have infiltrated the black
she was arrested and sentenced to twelve
through the homemade advertisements
markets. But the Kremlin grudgingly ac
years in prison. The penalty could have
that cover billboards. Farmers go under
ground to get tools or fertilizers that are cepts the underground economy because
been death. unavailable in the regular economy. it fills the gaps left. in the inefficient Soviet
Tyntareva and her customers were Economist Gur Ofer, an a.ssociate profes system eases shortages and makes con
part of the Soviet Union's thriving Under sor at the Hebrew University of Jerusa sumers' lives bearable. Collective-farm
ground economy. This involves more than lem. calculates that up to 12% of the av managers admi t that often the only way to
just the familiar black marketeers. dealing erage citizen's income derives from the meet their production targets is to buy
in Levi's and ballpoint pens, icons and private economy and that 18% of all con supplies on the black market. "If they
caviar, who greet Western visitors around sumer expenditures are made there. tried to shut down every illegal activity,"
the main tourist hotels. It is, in fact, a sec Despite their illegality, private mar says one Western diplomat in Moscow,
ond economy, parallel to the official state kets are readily visible in Moscow and "t.he economy would come close to col
controlled one. In a thriving permanent other Soviet cities. The gathering place lapsing and the party would face serious
network, illegal and quasi-legal entrepre for Moscow apartment hunters is the sub problems of public disorder." The under
neurs, speculators and thieves sell hard way SLOP on Leningradsky Prospekt. The ground economy is nowhere to be found in
to-get goods and services to workers, peas place to buy women's goods, such as lip the theories of Marx or Lenin. but it has
ants and even state officials. stick, lingerie and dresses, is inside the become an integral pan of society
The Soviets call it living na levo-"on public toilet two blocks from the Bol today.
G
J
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
TI
many years. "The goals of managemem
and the pro/soyuz are the same here. " says
Kazimir Kaspirovich, deputy chairman of The Making of a Minsk Tractor
the professional union at the factory.
"We have no major disagreements with
management. "
Red banners and "thirteenth pay" bonuses stimulate workers
Soviet propaganda both sentimental
izes andglorifies il/dustrial workers as the
backbone o/the revolulion. Like the leg
endary miner Alexei Stakhanov. who dug
an unprecedented 102 lOllS 0/ coal in olle
six-hour shift. workers are constal/tly
praised lor scaling greater heights 0/ ;n
dustriul prodllctivity, led on by the guid
ing spirit 0/ Communist Pany leadership.
AI an internarional nOllgovernmental
tribunal held laST year in Washington.
D. C . TO inquire inlo the status 0/ human
rights ill th.e U.S.S.R. and East bloc coun
tries. Soviet emigrants painled a different
picture. They described a sullen labor force
CISE RHYTIiM, HIGH TEMPO, EXCELLENT
QUAUTY, says ooe. The portraits of out
standing workers, only slightly smaller
than the pictures of morose Politburo
memberstbat adorn buildings before na
tional holidays, line the factory's cen:tral
avenue. The plant runs on two shifts
from 7:40 in the morning until midnight,
but the assembly line workers, whose av
erage age is about 30, seem relaxed. At
times they even stand around joking. De
spite the ever constant exhortations to
increase productivity, the Soviets have
an easygoing attitude. Minsk employees,
for example, are not required to dress
Almost every aspect of a Minsk em
ployee's life is centered around his fac
tory. The tractor plant provides schools
for workers and their children, summer
camps for kids and vacation cabins for
adults. The factory-built "palace of cul
ture" boasts 65 amateur theatrical groups,
choirs and dance companies, and there is
also a giant sports stadium.
Such extensive services and facilities
are maintained at the cost of a smaller
paycheck for the Soviet worker than for
his American counterpart. The average
wage for a 41-hour week at the Minsk
plant is 205 rubles ($308) a month. But a
Young woman tending the assembly line at the huge fann machinery factory
A five-year plan. a yearly plan, a monthly plan-alld no trouble with the union.
griping abouT low wages. unsallitary or
hazardous working conditions and trade
unioll leadership that execufes manage
mellt 's dictates rather than representillg
employees. Drunkenness on The job and ab
senreeism were said 10 be chronic problems
that often resulted in shoddy goods. Al
though workers were assigned quotas. ,here
was little incel/five to exceed rhem because
once someolle overproduced. everyone else
was driven to work at the new level.
The reality is surely somewhere be
tween these fwo extremes. TIME Reporter
Researcher John Kohan visired rhe Minsk
Tractor factory. olle 0/ the largesT manu
/acturers 0/ farmillg equipment in rhe So
viet Uniol/. liis report on The vaST indus
Trial complex that spreads our over almost
250 acres and employs 25,000 people:
he tractors clank down the 200
yd.-long assembly line like gigantic
metal insects: 7,500 tractors a
month, 90,000 a year, all bearing the
trademark Belarus MTZ. Brigades of
young laborers clad in work clothes or
jeans swarm over each monster, slipping
front axles and gear boxes into place, bolt
ing on metal casings, attaching three or
four giant wheels.
Finally. after 53 stages of manufac
ture, the machines lumber off the assem
bly line; the bright blue ones are destined
for the vast farm lands of the Soviet
Union, the brilliant red ones for more
than 70 nations around the globe. About
3,000 of them have even found their way
LO tbe U.S.
The overriding preoccupation in any
Soviet factory is fulfilling the five-year
plan that has been agreed to in advance
by an individual factory and the govern
ment. Says Serafim Dedkov, deputy di
rector of the Minsk plant: "We have a
five-year plan, a yearly plan and a month
ly plan. If we have set the goal of 90.000
tractors in a year. that works out to rough
ly 330 a day. We have to work rhyth
mically, turning out the prescribed num
ber every day. If we only make 100 today,
we simply can' t make 560 tomorrow. "
Red and white banners hanging from
the walls and rafters exhort the workers
to strive for higher productivity. PRE-
in work uniforms on the shop floor.
The plant has what Dedkov calls "a
fund for economic stimulation." The fund
rewards brigades of productive workers
with bonuses called the "thirteenth pay"
at year's end. Inducements to greater out
put are also built into the wage system.
Most employees of the Minsk factory are
paid a piecework rate for each item they
produce. The amount is determined by
the quality of the work, the number of
pieces turned out and whether that ex
ceeds production norms. Dedkov claims
that managers are very careful before they
raise goals so that a worker does not end
up receiving less pay for better work.
Should a worker feel he is not being
properly compensated, he can complain
to an official of his union called a prof
soyuz. Unions are almost like state agen
cies; indeed the former chief of the KGB.
Alexander Sheiepin was the official head
of the U.S.S.R. trade union movement for
full-course lunch in the factory cae leria
costs only 50 or 60 kopecks 175c ( 0
and rent for a factory-subsidized
room apartment, including hea: . e
ity, water and telephone. is a s... -an L to
15 rubles ($18 to $23) a month.
care is free, and outstanding "" rkers are
eligible for factory-sponsored trips to
Black Sea and Baltic resons.
hus tbe mcen iVe to keep produc
tion at high levels is strong. even
away from the shop floor. and Ded
kov insists that at the Minsk factory
there are no discussions about whether
workers can fulfill the plan. The talk is
only about ways to overlhlfill it. "If we
work welL we can build more rest cen
ters, pioneer camps and preventive med
ical centers," he says. "If we don't, we
must cut back. Everyone from the fac
tory director on down works with this
in mind! _
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980 47

. -' -" - .
Ins'ide the Big Red Machine
An athletic program/or everyone Yields Olympic gold
n a Leningrad gym, a class of ten
year-old schoolgirls begins one of
its twice-weekly sessions by exe
cuting handstands on the parallel bars, In
Moscow's Central Army Sports Club,
teams of soldiers exchange their combat
boots for skates; a hockey puck is soon
cracking like gunfire against the wooden
boards. Near by, in Luzhniki Park, a
group of middle-aged citizens sets out on
a supervised 10-km walk, picking berries
along the lA(ay.
A few vignettes from everyday sport-
The Soviet sports program, supervised
by the Physical Culture and Sports Com
mittee of the U.S.S,R. Council of Minis
ters, is organjzed down to the level of nur
sery school and factory, At. the top are 39
"voluntary sports societies" run by region
al labor uoions. Each has its own teams,
facilities, and badges; Spartak, for exam
ple. has 4 million members, mostly wrute
collar workers, each of whom pays 30
kopecks (45) annual dues.
Then come the nearly 1.5 million
sports clubs, ranging from the tiny Kolos
Young athletes on parade at the National Children's Sports Games In the Crimea
Grenade throwing. stipends from the state and a crash program for handball.
ing life in the Soviet Union, where fitness
is virtually a state reljgion and millions of
citizens take part in an elaborate system
of athletic instruction and awards, De
signed for the masses, the Soviet sports
machine has nonetheless produced an
athletic elite of a.wesOme proportions,
with all the international political benefits
that implies. Just as do many other coun
tries, .tlle U,S.S.R. views sport as a useful
political weapon, Since participating in its
first modem Olympiad in 1952 in Helsin
ki , the Soviet Union has won 685 medals
in the Summer Games- more than any
other nation during those years (the U.S.,
in second place, has collected 603). The
Kremlin considered this year's Games in
Moscow-the first ever held in a Commu
nist nation-not only as another quadren
nial chance to demonstrate Soviet athlet
ic prowess, but also as the best possi ble
way to show off its society to the rest of the
world.
of the Kalinin collective farm near Pinsk
in Belorussia to the nationwide Central
Army Club, which draws its members
from the armed services. According to of
ficial figures, enrollment in the societies
and the sports clubs totals 57 million
-one-fifth of the nation's population.
To encourage mass participation,
Moscow pushes a set of nationwide phys
ical tests for citizens aged ten to 60 called
G.T,O. (Gotov k Trudu j Oborone, or Pre
pared for Work and Defense). To earn a
gold badge in the Strength and Courage
(ages 16 to 18) category, for instance a cit
izen must be able to do twelve chin-ups
and toss a grenade 40 meters, among oth
er feats. In 1976, the last year for which
figures are available, 20.5 million Soviets
of all ages won silver and gold badges.
Starting at age seven., school children
must take part in two 45-rninute physical
education classes weekiy. By age ten or
eleven, those who show promise attend
one of 5,000 "jun ior spans schools" oper
ated after regular classroom hours. One
result of this ea,rly introduction to sport
and fitness is the development of an en
thusiasm for athletics that encompasses
the whole society,
The most skilled young Soviet athletes
graduate to one of the country's 600 Olym
pic reserve schools, located in the larger
cit ies, The schools offer complete academ
ic programs as well as athletic training,
and their yearly graduat ing classes form
the pool from which members are select
ed for national and individual republic
squads in such sports as basketball and
volleyball. Top athletes may also be draft
ed by the army specifically to play on the
service's various teams,
hrough this gleaning process the
Soviet Union eventually selects its
Olympic athletes, The best in team
spons are selected through regional and
national championships, while the tinest
in individual sports are determined in the
qua.drennial Spartakiad, a sort ofdress-re
hearsal Olympics held in Moscow the
summer before the Games. In 1979, 90
million Soviet athletes tried out in local
and regional contests. and 10,000 eventu
ally took part in Spanakiad.
The best Soviet athletes win more
than just medals, An Olympic-caliber
competitor is a kind of professional ama
teur, with a saJary paid by the state and a
standard of living roughly equivalent to
that of a successful factory manager. Vla
dimir Yashchenko, 21. a world-class high
jumper busily training for the Olympics,
recei ves a st ipend of $400 from the gov
ernment. Irina Rodnina, 30, and Alexan
der Zaitsev, 28, the 1980 winter Olympic
champion figure-skating pair. live in a
two-bedroom apartment in downtown
Moscow. a privilege seldom granted to a
couple so young. Once their playing days
are over, many OlYl11pic athletes can look
forward to careers as coaches and sport
administra tors.
Soviet authorities deny that their ath
letes use steroids. chemicals that promote
muscle development but are outlawed in
international competition. A few athletes
have defected to the West with tales of
widespread steroid use, but such charges
are difficult to prove, Still the Soviet ath
letic establishment is under intense pres
sure to succeed, and athletes are some
times asked to take up unpopular sports.
Several years ago, the Spons Committee
decided that Olympic gold could be mined
from handball- a sport not seriously pur
sued in the Soviet Union, Word went out
to the local sports schools to set up crash
training programs for gandbolisty. "We
are proud of such 'interference,''' said
Sergei Pavlov, Minister of Sports. At the
nrst Olympiad after that decision. in Mon
treal in 1976, Soviet players entered both
the men's and women's handball matches
and walked away with gold medals. _
TIME. JUNE 23.1980 48
Popov dispenses laughter cure
The audience watching the
new show. A Cure by Laughter.
at the Old Moscow Circus al
ready suspects what "doctor"
from outer space is goillg to
pop out of that tiny spaceship
landing in the single ring, and
cheir delight is tangible. Sure
enough. what emerges is no as
tronaut , considering the over
size checkered cap perched on
unruly shocks of blond hair,
black velvet jacket, red scarf,
clodhopper shoes and, of
course, trademark potato nose.
After 30 years with the circus,
Oleg Popov, 49, is regarded as
the king ofclowns even beyond
Soviet borders. How long did
it lake to dream up the med
ical mayhem in his latest laf
fer? Says Popov: "Six months.
plus my entire life."

For a Jew. his is an un
derstanda ble crusade: for a
Muscovite, it is an uncomfor t
able one. But Dancer Yutl Sher
ling, 35. seeks a renaissance of
Yiddish culture, which, he la
ments. is "decaying all over
the world and has been ne
glected by many Jews in this
country." A graduate of three
famed institutes- the Bolshoi
Ballet School. the Moscow
Conservatory Musical School
and the Moscow School of The
atrical Arts-Shcrljng is direc
tor-founder of the two-year
old Jewish Chamber Musical
Theater. He has written the
music. choreographed the
dancing and starred in two
hits with his company of 25.
One show was an 01 io ofjazzed
up Jewish folk songs and danc
es. The other. a folk-rock mu
sical called A Blllek Bridle for
a White Mare. got its title from
an old Yiddish proverb: "Pov
eny suits a Jew Iikc a black bri
dle on a white m.arc." Sher
ling has other works in
preparation but. he says. find
ing space and suppon is be
coming difficult. "It 's as if the
authorities had let a genie out
of the bOllle and don' t know
what to do about rum now.
push him backinorwhal."
She sings. She dances. She
plays the piano, plunks the gui
tar. pumps the accordion. She
recently won raves for two
movies, Siheriada and Five
Evenings. Now Actress Lyudmi
la Gurchenko, 44. is an author
acclaimed for her autobiogra
phy. published in a literary
monthly. about growing up in
war-lOrn Kharkov. The muse
moved her while sbe and film
friends watched Peter .Bogda
novich's Paper Moon . ' They
kept saying how marvelous the
Tatum O'Neal character was.
So I said. Listen. guys. I was
the same type of child. only I
Channing Nelli Kim digs into watennelon between training sessions
gre..... up with German troops
and hunger and death.' They
told me to write it all down."
The result: A4y AdulT Child
hood. a mosaic of young life
under Nan occupation that
has brought such a flood oflel
lers it may end up as- what
else?- a movie.

Since she is now the coun
try's leading gymnast. the Sovi
et press has naturally begun to
refer to Nelli Kim as "Charm
ing Nelli," Wben she pauses to
chomp watermelon in the
midst of an otherwise rigid
training regimen. she fits that
title, bul Nelli and her coaches
agree that she can often be
much less than charming. The
on ly thing that justifies her
moods are the results. In Mon
treal four years ago. Kim not
only won two individual gold
medals but scored two all-but
unprecedented perfect tens
- one in the floor exercise pro
gram and one in her specialty.
the vault. In Fon Worth last
December she took the all
round women's title. Kim. now
training near her home in
Minsk, is the odds-on favorite
for further honors in the 1980
Olympics. But she is not so
sure. Kim will be 23 in July. an
aging gymnastic veteran. She
also has domestic distractions:
foremost among them, Hus
band and Fellow Gymnast Vla
dimir Achasov. Says Kim: "1
hale to lose, but it's gett ing
more difficult to win ."'
Sounds rather like a Sovi
et football team: the Moscow
Virtuosos. But what an all-star
lineup. Tbese Virtuozy AfoskllY
are 25 top musicians. organized
into a chamber orchestra 18
months ago by Violinist Vladi
mir Spivakov, 35. World-re
nowned virtuoso hffilself. Spi
vakov alternates between bow
and baton to direct his skillful
charges with intensity and
impishness: "Let's not be bull
dozers." he will grin as the
tempo speeds up during re
hearsal of a Vivaldi passage.
The virlllozy were the hit of
Moscow's Russian Winter Fes
tival and will play for Olym
pic audiences this summer.
Spivakov would like to bring
them to the U.S .. but for him
Jinlmy Carter's cultural em
bargo hits a sour note.
Jewish Chamber Musical Theater Head Sherling makes up cast member
Spivakovat Virtuozyrehearsal
TIME, JUNE 23, 1980 49
I
Closing the Gap with the West
To drive the system, an offensive in physics and technology
" Olle cannot be satisfied wilh the col
/apse 0/ capitalism. Jr is I/ecessary to take
all ils science, technology . . . Without that
we will nol be able to build Communism . "
ince Lenin uttered those clangor
ous words in 1919. the Soviets may
have muted their tone. But they
continue to view the mastery of science.
along with its offshoot- technology- as
essential 10 the triumph of their sysiem.
Indeed. in areas deemed cr itical by the
Kremlin, notably defense.
space and agriculture, Soviet
scientists are lavishly sup
ported in their research. They
can buy the best lab equip
ment from abroad. are al
lowed to travel to the West
for scientific meetings and
are treated to personal priv
ileges-housing, clothing.
cars-beyond the reach of or
dinary cit izens.
Partly in response to such
encouragement. Soviet re
searchers have made enor
mous strides in narrowing the
scient ifi c gap with the West;
in some cases. like the phys
ics of fusion, certain aspects
of metallurgy. jlnd mathe
matics, they mllY be ahead of
the U.S. In the near future,
the Soviets are likely to ad
vance in other areas as weI! ;
they are now spending about
3.4% of their gross national
product on research (ccm
tific record is much easier to evaluat.e.
Moscow may well be the world's capital of
theoretical mathematics. in part because
the Soviets lack the computers that enable
Westerners to solve complex problems by
brute force "number crunching. " Says
Yale Physicist O. Allan Bromley: "We've
become lazy because of our digital corn
puters. The Soviets don't have easy access
lO good computers: they do a lot more an
alytic mathematics in their heads." The
Soviets are also stroog in other "black
__.._-_ -...,.,....,..,.,...... ' .. ' " ,"O M 50"'0-0
ment building. they some
times fail embarrassingly:
their giant six-meter (236 in. )
telescope in the northern
Caucasus. after years of ef
fort . remains flawed by a de
fective mirror. Says M.I .T.
Physicist Herman Feshbach:
"They have never been able
LO exploit machines." Nor are
they anywhere near the West
in the a bility to produce phar
maceuticals. pla.stics and
other chemicals or to pursue
the hottest of contemporary
sciences. molecular biology.
ow can these short
comings be accounted
for? Part of the prob
lem. as in so many other in
Slances, lies with the system.
Priorities are set not in the lab
or institute but by stale plan
ners. often w i t ~ o u t regard to
scientific realities . Says
perhaps the most promising route toward
harnessing nuclear fusion as a future en
ergy source. Soviet scientists are pre
eminent. too. in applied areas like ocean
ography. polar research, climatology and
meteorology. and seismology. But even
here they show some blind spots; though
Soviet investigators made early break
throughs in earthquake prediction. the
geological establishment was slow to ac
cept plate tectonics- a kind of unified
field theory for the earth sciences that ex
plains everything from mountain building
to volcanic eruptions.
As their interest in Western technol
ogy shows. the Soviets still have a way to
go. Almost all advanced instrumentation
in their labs is imported. When the Sovi
ets do try their hand at instru
pared with 2.2% by the U.S.) Rocket carrying Soyuz spacecraft lIfts off from launch pad Bromley: "In our society.
and an: training young scien ideas boil to the surface more
For some, lavish support, Ihe beSI equipment and trips abroad.
tists and engineers at a rate
three to four times that of the U.S. Still, for
aU the Iriumphs of Soviet science, it is
plagued by major problems. some of
which may be endemic to the very system
that has made science a national priority.
One sign: since 1917, the U.S.S.R. has won
only eight Nobel Prizes in the sciences,
less than a tenlh as many as the U.S.
Most of the best and heavi ly support
ed research is done under military auspic
es, which means that the work is kept
tightly under wraps. For this reason,
Western analysts long could only guess
about Soviet progress in, say, lasers and
electron beams. Both of these technologies
are essential to achieving a key Soviet de
fense goal : an anlisatellite satellite. After
word that tbe Soviets had developed such
a killer satellite reached Washi ngton, the
Carter Administration quietly ordered the
Pentagon to step up its own studies of
these devices.
In nonmilitary areas. the Soviet scien
board" sciences, like astrophysics and cos
mology. where absence of up-lo-date in
strumentation is not critical to success.
Exploration of the cosmos is another
key objective of the Soviets. Last year they
launched payloads into orbit at a rate ten
times that of [he U.S. Many were military
satellites. but they also included a number
of manned flights. Indeed, only last week
two more cosmonauts returned from a vis
il to the Salyut 6 space station. which has
been ci rcling the earth for nearly three
years. By contrast, although the U.S. has
scored a flurry of spectacular successes
with unmanned planetary probes, no
American has flown in space since 1975.
The Soviets are leaders in more down
to-earth branches of physics, especially
the search for heavy elements. Their
doughnut-shaped tokamak machines. in
which hydrogen plasma is contained and
compressed by powerful magnetic fields
and heated to sUllJjke temperatures, offer
than they do in the Soviet
Union. There is no intellectual ferment.
no give-and-take." Also. the senior scien
tists who run research institutions some
times do so with an iron hand. making it
more difficult for young. imaginative sci
entists to press ahead wilh daring ideas.
By contrast. most institutions in the U.S.
are on.!y too eager to advance promising
newcomers with an innovative spirit. Says
MJ.T.'s Loren Graham: "That's the glory
of American science."
Finally. there are the polilical com
missars who are part of virtually all re
search establishments. They not only en
force ideological purity-for example.
blackballing dissidents- but can veto
projects that do not fit in with their con
ceptions of research. Indeed. only now is
Soviet biology catching up l'\'ith the West
after years of backwardness under Trofim
Lysenko. Sta[jn's chief scientific hatchet
man. who regarded work in traditional ge
netics as heretical. _
TlME.JUNE23. 1980
co
U
TIM
50
ci
Al Medicine Al
Amid the latest equipment, a team performs an operation in a special Moscow hospital
Mustard Plasters to Heart Surgery
A revolution in health care that is still being fought
owering, superbly equipped re
search institutes contrast with hos
pitals that are bleak, antlquated
and poorly staffed. Some Soviet physicians
are equal to the best in the West in such
fields as orthopedics and ophthalmology:
yet doctors still use such primitive ther- ,
apies as mustard plasters and cupping and
even leeches. Trealment is administered
free and drugs are inexpensive, yet pa
tients often must bribe doctors and nurs
es for medication, operations. even to have
linen changed and bedpans emptied.
Such is the parcluoxical state of So
viet medicine. Even so, the Soviets have
made greal strides in health care since
1917. Says Washington, nc., Internist
William Knaus, who lived in the U.S.S.R.
for 18 monlhs and is the auchor of a forth
coming book, IT/side Russian Medicine:
"They took a country that was 200 years
behind the rest of the world and provid
ed the basics at a fraclion of what we
charge. They eliminated epidemics. Life
expectancy is up and infant mortality is
down. That has to be judged a success."
Just before the revolution, the aver
age life expectancy was about 30 years.
By the 196()s men were living on average
to 66, women to 74 (about the life ex
pectancy ofUB. citizens). In 1950.84 chil
dren out of every 1,000 died before the
age of one. By 1971 infant mortality had
dropped to 23 deaths per thousand. Late
ly, though, these ga.ins seem to be erod
ing. Life expectancy for men has been
dropping, in parl because of rampant al
wholism, and observers say that the
U.S.S.R. is losing 30 of every 1,000 new
citizens (double the U.S. figure),
Spearheading the medical care effort
are the nation's 900,000 physicians. twice
as many as in the U.S. , and a fourth of
aU the world's doctors. A bout 70% ofthem
are women. Backing them up are 2.7 mil
lion nurses and /eldshers. or paramedics.
Notes Knaus: "Theirs .is a people-inten
sive system, ours is machine-intensive."
Nevertheless, the Soviets have gleam
ing facilities that are equal to anything in
the U.S. TIME Moscow Bureau Chief
Bruce Nelan recently toured three such
centers in or near the Soviet capital. His
report: "The Bakulev lnstitute of Cardio
vascular Surgery, nlll by inlernationaUy
recognized heart surgeon Vladimir Bura
kovsky, has performed at least 20,000
heart operations since it was established
in 1956, 2,000 of them on children under
age two. There are now 40 operations a
week in its nine operating theaters.
"Eight miles away. on the city's south
eastern outskirts, is the Soviet Union's
most imposing medical institution: the
Cancer Research Center of the Academy
of Medica.1 Sciences. Back in 1969 pro
ceeds from the Soviet Union's annual day
of voluntary work. called the subbotnik,
were turned over to the academy for a
new cancer center. About $128 million
was contributed to help build a huge com
plex covering three city blocks, with 1,000
beds for patients. A staff of 4,000 works
with the besc equipment. purchased from
all over the world. In the radiation ther
apy department , the doctors are partic
ularly proud of thei r high-energy electron
and proton accelerator from France. Pro
fessor Nikolai Trapeznikov, the center's
deputy director-general. stresses that the
work here is mostly experimental: 'For
routine treatment there are 250 other spe
cialized cancer hospitals in the Soviet
Union. almost one in every large city.'
"In a wooded area in northern Mos
cow stands the Research Institute of
Transplantation and Artificial Organs.
Though its present Quarters are two dec
ades old and cramped. the scientific
equipment is the newest and best. from
the U.S. , West Germany, Italy and the So
viet Union. Jokes its director, famed Sur
geon Valeri Shumakov: 'Our equipment
is an international tean.' The institute
does most of the kidney trilnsplants in the
Soviet Union (sometimes exchanging the
organs with European and American hos
pitals). and will soon begin doing liver
transplants and resume attempts at pan
creas transplants as well: '
Yet' outside showplace institutions,
Pediatrician attending a youngster who is reCOVering from major surgery
"Theirs is a people-intensive system, ours is machine-intensive. "
TIME. JUNE 23.1980
51
medical care is surprisingly primitive for
a developed country. Most Soviet physi
cians are unaware of current medical de
velopments outside their country, largely
because of limited access to foreign pro
fessional publications. Boston Endocri
nologist Aron Lurie, who has been tutor
ing emigre doctors, reports that a standard
teaching tool in the U.S.S.R. is the 1950
edition of Harrison's Principles of Inter
nal Medicine . When asked why Soviet
doctors did not use more up-t.o-date edi
tions. Lurie's exile students replied that
translations are costly. and besides, sajd
one. "not much new has happened in
medicine since 1950:'
part from the leading institutes, So
viet hospitals are mostly old, di
~ lapidated and sometimes incredi
bly filthy . Drugs, equipment and
techniques that Americans t.ake for grant
ed are rare or Jacking in the U.S.S.R. Most.
blood tests are done manually rather than
by automated equipment, and doctors
must sometimes wait three or four days
for the results. Disposable syringes and
needles are virtually nonex.istent. There
are few kidney dialysis machines, and
most physicians have not seen a CAT scan
ner, tbe computerized X-ray machine that
is the rage among doctors in the West.
Medications frequently run out.
Birth control is another area where
the Soviets are Jagging. The government's
ideal family has three children, but cou
ples are forced to use the unreliable
rhythm method or coitus interruptus, with
abortion as a back-up. According to Dr.
Knaus, Soviet men do not like condoms.
dia.phragms come in only one size, and
the pill (which isjust beginning to be man
ufactured within the U.S.S.R.) is regard
ed with skepticism and fear. Intra-uter
ine devices are popular but in shon
supply. The result: in 1980 Soviet doctors
performed an estimated 16 million abor
tions. Says Dr. Knaus: "The average
woman has six abortions during her life
time. A woman in Odessa told me, with
out hesitation, that her mother had
had 24."
While better equipment and treat
ments are a vailable for the political elite,
they also have problems. Dr. Warren Za
pol, an anesthesiologist at Boston's Mas
sachusetts General Hospital, tells of being
asked to tend the daughter of Heart Sur
geon Burakovsky. The patient, herself a
doctor, had entered a general hospital in
Moscow with abdominal pain, but tben,
as can happen in hospitals anywhere, "she
got into trouble," says Zapol. She appar
ently had an infected fallopian tube and
then a "misadventure" with anesthesia.
followed by cardiac arrest and blood in
fection. When Zapol arrived in Moscow.
she was having difficulty breathing and
her chances ofsurvival seemed slim.
In the end, she survived-with the aid
of equipment and drugs from the U.S. and
the care of dedicated doctors from both
countries.
Paramedic comforts cardiac patient being whisked to a hospital by ambulance
Dial 03 for Speedy Emergency Aid
On dUly with Ihe Soviets' efficient ambulance corps
~ broughom most of the Soviet
I Union, dialing the number 03
brings almost instant medical help.
This emergency service works best in
Moscow, where 800 ambulances staffed
by 2.000 doctors, 5.500 medical assistants
and 2.400 drivers answer an average of
8,000 calls a day-at 110 charge. TlME Re
porter-Researcher John Kohan rode with
one ambulance team for pan ofits twelve
hour toW" and filed this report:
3:35 p.m. A call comes in to the cen
tral ambulance stat jon at 10 Koptelsky
Lane. One of 34 telephone operators notes
on a. lavender slip of paper the time, name,
address and problem- chest pains and
dizziness. The slip is relayed to a second
room of dispatchers who stay in constant
touch with the 36 ambulance substations
in the city. Most substations serve a radius
of two to three miles, but there are special
ty brigades in such disciplines as cardiol
ogy that cover the city at large.
This call is referred to a cardio-resus
citation group, one of 34 medical teams in
a substation adjoining central headquar
ters. Dr. Vladimir Serov. 33, two feJdshers
(paramedics) and a driver climb into a
white minibus with the words Skoraya
Meditsinskaya Pomoshch (Quick Medical
Aid) stenciled on its side. It is equipped
with stretchers, medications and dress
ings, an electrocardiograph machine,
heart resuscita.tor and a respirator. The
driver flicks on the flashing blue rooftop
light and pulls out into traffic.
4:05. At the Vernadsky Prospekt
apartment complex, the team finds a
corpulent 55-year-old man, clad in an
undershirt and slacks, silting on a couch.
Serov asks: Is there pain or shortness of
breath when he walks? No. Is he under
medication? Yes, for high blood pressure.
Does he have a recent cardiogram? The
patient's wife nervously flips through a
book until the cardiogram drops out. Ser
ov quickly decides that the man should
be hospitalized.
4:40. The ambulance pulls up at Hos
pital No. 51 in the Kievsky district; the pa
tient, clutching a plastic bag filled with
personal articles. is escorted inside. While
one of the feldshers completes her notes.
Serov and the other paramedic take a per
ekur (smoking break) .
4:45. The team is back on the road,
heading for Frunzenskaya Street to an
swer another call.
5:10. A plump 74-year-old woman in
a faded nightdress answers the door. Al
most incoherently, she explains how she
collapsed that morning after walking into
the kitchen. Vials of medicine for a heart
condibon litter the bedside table. The
paramedics move in the EKG equipment
and take a tracing. "An arrhythmic heart.
Arteriosclerosis, " announces Serov. "You
know it often happens that the best we can
do is offer help but not a cure. We can only
make things easier for her. ' Serov decides
against hospitalization-the woman did
not want to go anyway-and orders her to
stay in bed for a day or two. As the team
leaves, the old woman, in a quavering
voice, offers profuse thanks.
5:30. The ambulance sets out for
Koptelsky Lane. Only 3 Xhours left on the
shift.
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
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52
With Justice for (Almost) All
The system that was to fade away is now arbiter 0/everyth ing
oon in the Babushkinsky District
People's Court in northern Mos
cow, The judge, a petite brunet in
a striped blouse and skin, enters the room,
Two citizen-jurists called " people's asses
sors," an elderly man and a young woman,
follow her to (he high-backed chairs be
hind the bench, On the docket: BorisoVll
vs. Borisov. a divorce case.
Boris Borisov. a researcher at a Mos
cow institute. and his wife Nadezhda, who
have been married for 15 years, sit apart
in the front row of seats fac
ing the bench. They might
have been able to dissolve
their marriage after a three
month waiting period sim
ply by applying a.t the civil
registry office. but because
a child is involved, a boy of
four, a court proceeding is
required.
The judge begins by
questioning Mrs. Borisova,
who tells about how her
husband has been unfaith
ful and even ran offwith an
other woman during her
pregnancy. That ended all
trust between them.
Judge: But you have
lived together these four
years?
WIfe: If you call that
living.
Judge: How does he
treat you now'!
W,je: We ouly commu
nicate because of the child.
After eliciting a few
more details-{)ne point of
contention has been Mrs.
Borisova' s dinners of pota
toes or kasha-the judge Flanked by two citizen-jurists, a judge hears a case in a People's Court
seems as resentful of his
wife's unforgiving attitude as she is of his
infidelity, Eventually, the judge and the
assessors reach their decision: no divorce,
for now. A final judgmenl wiIJ be post
poned until August in hope.s that the Bo
risovs can settle their differences by then.
Laws and courts, like the stale, were
supposed to fade away as the Soviet sys
tem developed. Instead they have flour
ished. The Babushkinsky District People's
Court. one of 32 in Moscow. is a typical
tribunal empowered to try practically all
civil and criminal cases. It employs ten
full-tinl e judges (seven of them women)
and 750 people' s assessors; these lay jur
ists, elected by co-workers or neighbors.
consider the job an honor. Judicial busi
ness is booming, explains the chief judge.
L_:olina Gorelova', because "here any cit
T1ML!. J UNE 23. 1980
izen can take his case to court. '
Many do. Civil cases account for
about 85% of all judicial activity. reflect
ing the fact that courts have become not
onJya guardian of the state's authority but
also the arbiter of all sorts of social mat
ters, Says Columbia Law Professor John
H.azard: 'They spend most of their time
determining who should get what apart
ment space. who has earned what salary,
who should do what job, and so on."
J uslice, Soviet-style. is relativcJy
turns to the husband. He -they cannot be convicted
Ell/orciflg han.l' all "speculatillg . .. bad goods and bigamy in Uzbekistan,
cheap and quick. Lawyers are not re
quired in civiJ cases: The anorney's role
is often played by tbejudge. who not only
sets aside time to hear citizens' legal
plaints but also prepares the person's case
if the claim is valid. Courts hear disputes
involving employment and alimony free
of charge; in other civil actions. such. as
complaints abom living quarters. the fee
can be as low as 75. Divorces, which are
011 the rise, if still less frequent than in
the U.S. (.3 divorces per marriage. vs.
America's .5). are also inexpensive: the
basic filing fee is aboUt $15. though ad
ditional charges can I'un the final divorce
bill tip to $ 150. a big chunk of the av
erage worker's $24D-a-month wage.
By law. a civil suit should be wrapped
up within a month after it is filed. and
a criminal pretrial inve.stigation is to be
completed within two months, unless an
extension is granted. In some circum
stances. accused persons can be held for
nine months before trial. although this
limit may be extended in cases of polit
ical crimes. Indeed, dissidents and other
government targets live in an entirely
different legal world. Once authorities
decide that they. wallt to convict a trou
blemaker. they bend any rules that
interfere.
The U.S.S.R'"s legal system is a prod
uct in part of reforms launched by Ni
kita Khrushchev in the late 1950s and
early 1960s to make Soviet justice fairer
than it was in Joseph Stalin's era of ter
ror. Each of the 15 republics has its own
' <.,"' " ", criminal code: they are ba
sically similar to one, anoth
er. dealing not ollly with
standard crimes like theft
and rape but also with pe
culiarly Soviet offenses. Tt is
forbidden. for example. to
"sPeculale" )buy and r ~ s e l l !
products for profit) and to
issue repeatedly poor-qual
ity or nonstandard goods.
Some of the codes. partic
ularly those of the Central
Asian republics. reflect old
regional attitudes. in Uz
bekistan. which is predom
inantly Muslim and has a
tradition of men tuki.ng
many wives. bigamy has
been made a crime punish
able by a fine of $150 or a
year of hard labor, but there
is no law. or need for it.
aga inSl bigamy in the
Ukraine. where European
monogamy prevails.
The Soviet system
roughly follows the French
and German model. While
defendants have many legal
safeguards. including a few
that even Americans lack
on the basis of a can fession
alone. for instance----the concept of the
righ ts of the accused is not as developed as
it is in the U ,S. Says Political Science Pro
fessor Paul Zinner of the University of
California at Davis: "The key difference is
that society's in terests in the U.S,S.R .. as
interpreted by the judge. are paramOUlltlO
any individual interest. So there is no
question. as there is in the U.S .. about pro
tetting individual rights per se."
Crimi.nal cases feature a pretrial ill
vestigat.ion supervised by a state official
called the procurator. who acts as both
the proseclltor and protector of the sus
pecl's interests: the defendant may not
have counsel participate until the inves
tigation is completed . Generally. procu
rators strive to be objective. Defendants
whose cases reach court arc almost al
53
----------------------
ways convicted. bUL lhat is because the
procuraLors drop weak cases before they
are tried. The accused are presumed i.n
nocen! in theory. In practice. a person
\\ ho is tried frequenLly has the burden of
proving that he is nm guilty. There are
no juries; the judge and the lay assessors
alone decide cases. While Ln U.S. eotlrts
only the defendalll may appeal. Soviellaw
extends this right LO both panics.
Matters of Communist Party disci
pline are sell led in secretive party lribu
n als. Commercial disputes between state
enterprises. typically involving delivery
delays and complaims about quality. are
dealt with by special arbitration panels.
Minor civil and criminal matters are han
dlcd by Comrades' Courts. which deal
with stich pelty matters as tenant griev
ances and driver's license suspensions.
Under an antihoo]iganism law enacled in
1966 to cover crimes ranging from dis
orderly conduct lo assault. a parrolman
can write up a citizen for minor olfenscs
like rowdyism and public drunkenne,ss.
and within 24 hours the chief of police
will decide whether to fine the offender
or forward the case to the Peop[e's CourL
Sentences can be harsh: some eco
nomic crimes. such as major embezzle
ment of state property. can even brlng
dea th . Judges generally do not ha nd down
the long prison hitches that U.S. couns
often mete our in antidpation of early pa
role. but Soviet convicts are more likely
to serve full terms. And lhey toil hard.
both in the prisons where repeat offend
ers or dangerous criminals are kept and
in the work camps housing most of the
conviCl population of about 2 million.
In the U,S, the Constitution is par
amount. and cOLlns can toss llut laws
judged inconsistent wiLh it. In the
U,S.S. R.. laws enacLed by the Supreme So
viet take prccedence over conflicting pro
visions in the constitution. which is less a
[egal pillar rhan a policy statement:
among other things. it limils the work
week to 41 hours, and it obliges children
to care for and help thelr parents. While
rhe Soviels do have a Supreme COlin. it
does not , in effect. have, the power to make
law, nor can it strike down statutes en
acted by the legislature.
Traditionally the Soviets have held
lawyers in [Ov,,' esteem. which may be apt
for a country in which laws were S\lpposed
to be necessary only during the transi
lion to a self-governing society that would
not require courts. prosecutors and polke,
But increasingly the Soviel authorities
fi nd themselves resorting to 1aw to accom
plish goals and deal with change.
One resull has been a heavy demand
for allorneys. The number of law schools
has risc,n from 36 LO 50 since 1970, and
an unprecedented measure of prestige is
accruing to the profession. Some observ
ers have even suggested something lhat
Marx, Lenin or Stalin would have found
unthinkable: in 30 years or so. the coun
try's Establisllment could include a lib
eral sprinkling of lawyers.
A Bit Wild in the Big City
Youih crime grows, as booze spreads and Babushka recedes
M
ark Kasakevieh. 19. a Soviet em
igram to rhe U.S .. has a haunting
recollection of his old life in Mos
cow. " It is amazing how cruelty to an
imals was so accepre,d:' he says. "Boys.
lorally unprovoked. would kick dogs uo
til they were hal f dead. You would see
cats and dogs limping around wilh an ear
ClIt off or Slab wounds in the side."
Animals. sadly. are not the only lar
gets ofdcstrllctive youths, who account for
about half of lhe nation's street crime.
theft and burglary. and one out often mur
ders. ]0 Georgia last year two girls of 15
were charged with killing two other teen
agers JUSt to get their prized blue jeans. In
Moscow pollee arresting a young man suspected of having committed a robbery
A spreadinf{ phenomenoll fhaT "hits the regime where it hurts the mOST. "
Belorussia. eleven youths were arrested
after a rampage in which they beat a po
liceman to death, In Leningrad vandals
thought to be youlhs smashed 29 statues in
the garden of the Sum mer Palace.
Moscow is still safer than New York
City. but the U.S: s high juvenile crime
rate is smaU comfort to Soviet officials.
What they eall hooliganism--public dis
orderliness. minor assault and vandalism
-is widespread: gangs of youths often
lurk around the paths and stairwells of
Moscow's apartment complexes. bullying
residents. As a result. the city is encour
aging the growth of volunteer auxiliary
police and bolster ing the already highly
visible, regular police force,
It is not only Lhe extent of juvenile
crime thaI. worries the Soviets but the
ideological contra.diction that is involved:
in a Communist society antisocial behav
ior should be on the wane. "It hits the re
gime where it hurts most." says the Uni
versity of South Carolina's Gordon Smith.
who has writLen extensively on Soviet
youth and criminal jusr,lce. At the rooL of
the problem are stich social ills as alco
hol abuse. broken famiJies. crowded liv
ing conditions--and boredom. "Drun kcn
ness," says Police Lieu!. General Pyotr
Oleinik. "is the mother of hooliganism. "
A Leningrad sLUdy found tbal in most
families of youthful offenders one or both
parents had a drLnkillg problem. Accord
ing to an official Soviet repon. 8 4 ~ ' ( of
young people begin drinking before the
age of 16. Because of the high di vorce rate
and because most wives have jobs. young
sters are too frequently left. to their own
devices. The days of the extended family.
when Babushka (Grandmmher) was a
stabilizing influence. are disappearing.
Urbani zation. restricted living space
(many Moscow famiJies still live in a sin
gle room) and growing independence
mean that Grandmother is no longer
available to care for grandchildren. With
no supervision and lillie to do. particu
larly in the suburbs. youngsters are
primed for trouble. Explains Criminology
Professor Louise Shelley of American
Ulliversily ill WaShington. D,C.: "One of
the stereoLypes in the U,S.S,R. is the kid
who lives on the edge of Moscow. comes
in for the day. gets drunk in the trail1 sta
tion and goes a bit wild in the big city, "
Offenders may be tried in adult couns
if lhey are over 16 and the crime is se
rious. Otherwise they are handled by the
Commissions on Juvenile Affairs. which
emphasize rehabilitarion by counseling
rather than imprisonment (though in
some cases parents may be tined for their
children's transgressions)' There are ex
ceptions. though. LasL year two technical
school students were sent to a labor camp
for seven years after they stabbed to death
three of the Moscow Zoo's kangaroos,
T1Mt.IU , E2J 1980
B
Pn
ball
Bon
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pros
eign
a e,
cart.
refe!
54
Black and White, and Red AI Over
Pravda prints all the news that fits the party line
n periods of East-West tension.
passages from its pages are quoted
in the Western press like captured
battlefield communiques. Specialists in
Bonn. London, Paris and WashiJlgton sift
through its stilted. often impenetrable
prose searching for subtle shifts in for
eign policy. Photographs of the ruling elite
arc scrutinized for changes in status, and
cartoons are scoured for arcane politica.1
references. "Pravda," says its editor. Vic
tor Afanasyev. "is read on the lines and
between the lines."
Indeed. few newspapers are read as
closely or laken as seriously as Pravda
(circ. II milEon). the Soviet Union's lead
ing daily. (Second in impartance is Iz
vestiya. the government dail)i. eire, 8.6
mill.ion.J The paper is published by the
Central Committee of the Soviet Commu
nist Party and [Des the party line. hence
the government line, on matters great and
small. Pravda me.'lnS truth, but when facts
and ideology coUide, ideology prevails.
Says Thomas Kolesnichenko, Pravda cor
respondent in New York: "We try to give
people a story that is true. but in terms of
a historical perspective, in terms of our
understanding of world events,"
Pravda is skinny compared with U.S.
dailies (only six pages mOst days), partly
because there are no advertisements, part
Iy because newsprint supplies are chron
ically short. But the paper's production
and distribution system dwarfs anything
in the West. Pages are transmitted by sat
ellite to printing plants in more than 40
cities. so the whole country gets delivery
the same morning. Pravda employs 180
editors and writers in Moscow, 60 staff re
palters around the country and 40 for
eign correspondents. Fewer than half of
these journalists come (rom journalism
schools; the rest have worked their way
up from small papers or party positions.
Each morning at L l , Afanasyev and
his 30 deputy and department editors
meet to make final changes in that day's
edition and 1.0 layout most of the fol
lowing day's paper. All decisions are
made with the party in mind. A full mem
ber of the party Central Committee, A f
anasyev has direct access to top govern
ment leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev.
The paper's two dozen departments (di
vided by geographical area and subject
matter) are in close contact with the par
ty's propaganda department and with
government bureaus. Yet Afanasyev de
nies that everything in the paper is dic
tated by apparatchiks. Says he: "Tn real
ity, we do the majority of our sLOries
ourselves. Our commentators IIhe equiv
alent of U.S. columnists] often express
their own point of view. As a whole. of
course, it coincides with the view of the
party. but shadings could be different."
Because Pravda is. in effect, the voice
of [he pany, the paper does not have a
government censor. The editors are reo
sponsible for blue-penciling incorrect
tlllnking. but they rarely have to, Explains
Arkadi Polishchuk. a New York-based
emigre who sometimes writes for Prav
da: "A Soviet journalist knows what will
pass and what wont. He has an ' inner ed
ilOr' within him, One Slep out of line and
a journalist's career is washed up."
The most important news in
is not always on the front page-which
consists of major editorials, official al]
nouncements. and fanfare about grand
Soviet achievement s in industry. agricul
ture and foreign affairs. Page 2 contains
Factory workers poring over Pravda
"Read on rhe lines and be/ween Ihe lines.
mostly economic reports and party news;
page 3. science. culture and reader let
ters; pages 4 and 5 cover items from So
viet bloc count ries, international and
breaking news: page 6. sports, television
listings and feature stories. Thus, in one
issue last week, a slOry about SlIllliller
health resorts for factory workers is fouod
on Page One. while an analysis of the U,S.
presidential race is on page 5,
Stories about the West almost invari
ably emphasize doom and gloom, with
such headlines as SOC IETY or VIOLATED
RIGHTS or WORLD OF CAPITAL: SOCIA L
PROALEMS, Correspondents overseas do
not deny t hat their primary duly is to pro
mote socialism. Nor lon.g ago. for instance.
Pravda s man in London joined a picket
line of str iking steelworkers. "' for whom
the class struggle is a daily reality, a neces
sity. a duty: ' Correspondents are restrict
ed, however. in what they can say about
foreign leaders. Says Afanasyev: "We
don' t attack Caner personally and we
don't publish cartoons of him. We criticize
him as a politician, not as a personality."
Abrupt changes ion Soviet foreign pol
icy sometimes force Pravda into improb
able arabesques. Until late December. Af
ghanistan President HafizuUah Amin was
ha i led as a dear friend of the U .S.S,R.: the
day after his assassination in a coup. he
was pilloried as an "agent of American
imperialism," Without mentioning that
the Soviets had helped t.opple Amin. Prav
da ran a fron t-page congratulatory mes
sage to his successor. The newspaper re
ported the invasion several days later, and
then only \','ith a brief item from TASS. thc
Soviet news agency, disclosing that the
U.S,S.R, had acceded to an Afghan re
quest for military aid, A few days after
that Pravda described the invasion force
as "a limited Soviet military contingent to
be used exclusi vely as aid in repulsing out
side armed interference." This became
the official Soviet line.
P
ravda makes no mention of train
crashes, crime rates. consumer
purchasing power. state security
mat ters. subsidies for athletes, or political
disputes. Several years ago. wben a num
ber of workmen were killed a[ the site of
own new headquarters building on
Pravda Street. the paper ignored the acci
dent. Pravda has an aversion to admitting
mistakes. preferring to run a second. and
accurate article a[ some future date.
The paper seems to be doing more
muckraking these days. usually focusing
misfeasance by major and minor of
fici als. Afanasyev says the editors approve
such articles when they feel that the re
ports will "improve the situati on." Says
he: "We are not interested in scandals in
private life or discrediting an official. We
do not do anyt hing that can hun our way
of life, Ollr system. our principles:'
To what extent readers believe Prav
da sidealized version of Soviet life is dif
fic ult to determi ne. The paper's various
re,gponses to reader requests for informa
tion and advice are followed avidly (see
box ). mdeed. New York corre
spondent says he gets calls li'om Soviet
emigres who want the paper to write
about their problems in finding jobs and
housiug. All told. Pravda received (and
answered ) more tban 600.000 letters last
year. a measure of reader loya Ity that most
Western editors would envy.
But readers who like their newspapers
free, fat and unfettered will l1atlike Prav
da . h is best known abroad not for its
news coverage but for the pseudonymous.
party-commi ss ioned pieces by"!. Alex
androv" that are used to send ignal s to
the West. The composite Alexandrav is
a fitt ing meta phor for journalism in the
U.S.S.R, Says Polishchuk: "Soviet jour
nali sts are in complete unison with the
voice of the stale. Any of them could be
r. AJexandrov at any given time:'
TIME, JUNE23,1980
I
its
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55
The Tough Search for Power
A different kind 0/oil problem: getting at a bountzful supply
Soviet UDiOtl.. like the
U.S.. faces serious energy
11
he
problems in the 1980s. The
U.S.S.R. is by fur the world's
largest oil producer (11.9 mil
lion bb1. per day, Vol' . 9.5 million bbJ. for
Saudi Arabia). Nonetheless, in the view
of many Western energy analysts. the So
viet Union will soon run into a petrole
um bind even though the country is an
Eden of energy riches.
The Soviet squeeze, however. is dra
matically different from the American
one. Energy wildcatters and big oil COID-
Drilling rigs march to the horizon in the Baku fields near the Iranian border
The enemy is geography, and its allies are mismanagement and poor equipment.
panies have exhaustively drilled the West
ern Hemisphere for more than a cen
tury, and the U.S. has been forced to
rely on imports for half its oil because it
has simply outgrown its readiJy available
reserves. The Soviets. on the other hand.
still have enormous amounts of oil in
the ground. with estimated proven re
serves of 67 billion bbl. of oil, compared
with 26 billion for the U.S. and 166 bil
lion for Saudi Arabia. But even though
Moscow planners are not hindered by
environmental protest groups or disagree
ments between government and industry.
they have greater trouble finding the oiL
getting it out of the ground and. finally,
transporting it to where it is needed.
Just how prolonged and ho..... severe
the U .S.S.R.s energy gap will prove to
be is a subject of widespread discussion.
The CIA. in a controversial and crit
icized report in 1977, predicted that the
Soviets would have to start importing
petroleum before 1985. The CIA updated
that study last year and said that Soviet
oil output could fall as low as 8 million
bb1. in 1985. I f this view is accurate. the
Soviet Union will soon have to halt its
lucrative oil exports. including J29 mil
lion bbl. to such Western nations as Italy.
West Germany and Austria. Last year
petroleum was the largest Soviet export,
with about $6 billion i.n precious foreign
exchange coming from Western Europe
alone. An end LO oil exports. moreover.
would weaken the political and economic
hegemony the Soviets have over their
East bloc satellites and Cuba. which are
heavily dependent on Soviet petroleum
supplies_
Should [he Soviets CUt back their own
energy consumption, or that of their sat
ellites in Eastern Europe. the move would
surely hun their economic growth. Even
in a dictatorship with the power to en
force harsh conservation measures. the
political consequences might not be pleas
ant. Some feel that the country's growth
is already slowing because of the power
squeeze. Says former Department of En
ergy Chief James Schlesinger: "There's
just no doubt that Soviet economk
growrh has been constrained by energy
shoI"lages.'
Alexander Krylov, a top Soviet oil
expert and a member of the A:cademy
of Sciences, has pre.dicted that "national
oil output wiJI peak in a relatively short
time and then start to fall." Yet other
energy experts in both the East and the
West are more optimistic about Soviet
pOtentiaL Leadi1lg Kremlin officials in
sist that their country will remain a net
exporter of oil and natural gas for [he
next 50 years. Economist Marshall Gold
man of Wellesley CoUege maintains in
his book The Enigma 0/ SOVieT Petro
lewlI : Half Empty or Half Ful!? [hat the
Soviets will actually increase production
of energy by 21k to 3% a year through
1985 and possibly more in the years af
terward. Most experts believe that the
Sovier Union will eventually solve the
difficult problems of extracting its re
serves. In a Communist command econ
omy. Soviet managers are able to bull
doze important national priority projects.
like energy development. through normal
roadblocks.
Whatever theil- longer term views.
independent observers agree tha_t the
U.S.S.R. will suffer some Western-style
energy headaches in the next few years.
Indeed. the Soviets are already suffering
the first symptoms of the cOIning crunch.
Gasol ine prices have doubled during the
past two years. to roughly $1.25 per gal.
Plans to expand car prodUCtion beyond
the present million-a-year JeveJ ha ve been
shelved: talk of buiJding a second large
automobile and [ruck factory has ceased:
and Pravda, the Communist Party news
paper, has primed. lengthy exhortations
to conserve energy. Except at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo Airport. where many for
eign flights arrive. jets of Aeroftot. the
natjonal airline. no longer use their own
engines to taxi into takeoff position: to
save fuel , they are towed into position
by tractors. NATO radar bases report that
Soviet air force training flights, already
30% below those of [he U.S. and Eu
rope. have been cUt back even further.
he basic cause of the Soviet
energy problem is geography.
The bul k of the nation's pop
ulati on- and most of its in
dustry- is in the western half
of the country. The major oil reserves.
as well as [he sites most likely to yield
new supplies. lie thousands of miles away.
ill Siberia. Gelling the oil from where it
is to where i[ is needed requires more
railroads and pipelines than the U.S.S.R.
possesses or will be a ble to build in thc
near future.
Another difficulty is management. Oil
experts say that the Soviets have not
done a good job of handling their re-
TlM C. J UN [ 23. 1980
p
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r
1
a
S.
IT
d.
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fa
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rr.
IC
dl
nl
m
TIM
56
II
How can the Soviets meet their en sources. Reports Arthur Meyerhoff, a enough energy to meet tbeir own needs,
ergy needs? Certainly not through con they have two alternatives, neither of Tulsa, Okla., oil engineer who has trav
servation by consumers. Leonid Brezhnev which bodes well for the rest of the world. eled widely in the U.S.S.R. : "To say that
and other Soviet leaders ha.ve called re They could use their gold reserves to com the Soviets have mismanaged their pe
peatedly for conservation, but there is not troleum industry is the understatement pete with Western buyers on the already
much fat to trim in the consumer sector. strained world oil market. This would of the year." Western oilmen say that
A nation that has only one automobile push prices higher and cause incalculable the Soviets made their first serious mis
for every 42 people (the U.S. ha.s one for economic turmoil . Or the Soviets could take when they set drilljng targets in
every two people) and does most of its terms of meters drilled, thus making a try to conquer Persian Gulf oilfields,
long-distance hauling by rail cannot cut deep dry hole as good as a gusher in which begin just across their southern bor
back much on gasoline consumption. terms of fulfilling the plan. der. Kremlin leaders flatly deny that they
Some savings might be possible in fac covet oil vital to the industrial West, but Another serious mistake, say U.S. ex
perts, was deciding to accelerate produc tories, since Soviet industry is notoriously intelligence sources report that even Sau
tion by employing a technique known as wasteful of energy. largely because tbe di Arabian leaders have held informal
government sells energy to industries at water injection, whereby water is forced talks with the Soviets about the possibil
low rates, which invites managers to into wells to make the crude petroleum i ty of selling crude in exchange for Soviet
easier to pump. Result: more oil in the squander it. But significanr conservation aid in refinery construction. Given the po
short run, but less in the long term. Some may be impossible without economic de litical instability of most Middle Eastern
older wells in the Volga-Ural region now centralization, and that is politically regimes, many Western experts fear the
pump five barrels of water for every bar unfeasible. Soviets could intimidate them into bar
rel of oil; and the average Soviet well To some degree, the Soviets can sub tering their oil for a token amount of tech
pumps 50% water. stitute other energy sources for oil. The nical aid. Says Schlesinger: "Unless the
Soviet energy policy has been plagued Soviet Union has 28 trillion m
l
of nat U.S. is prepared to put more muscle into
ural gas, which is a third of the world's by bureaucratic infighting and indecisive its position in the Persian Gulf. we can ex
ness. No fewer than 15 different govern proven reserves and enough to last 70 pect increased Soviet pressures."
ment ministries are involved in energy years at current rates of consumption. Few U.S. authorities believe it is to
policy. Indeed, it was not until late 1977 Gas production is currently booming. American advantage for the Soviets to
A cluster of JOG-ft.-high reactor cooling towers pour out steam into the night at Novo\loronezh u c l e a r power station south of Moscow
that the Communist Party authorized an
all-out program for oil exploration and de
velopment. necessitating a rush of orders
for U.S. equipment.
The Soviets have not kept up with
progress in the petroleum industry, a sit
ualion exacerbated by Western trade
restrictions, like those imposed by the
U .S. after the Afghanistan invasion. Vla
dimir Dolgikh, the Communist Party
secretary for heavy industry, admitted
last January that the only way to realize
ambitious plans for developing energy
sources in Siberia would be "to intro
duce new equipment, improve technology
and raise labor productivity."
Soviet oil-drilling equipment is es
timated to be about 40 years behind
that found in the West. The standard
Soviet turbodrill, for example, bores much
more slowly than American equipment.
It takes a Soviet team 14 months to dig
down 10,000 ft .; U.S. drilling teams can
reach that depth in 34 days. Seismic tech
nology, essential for exploration, also lags
far behind. The best Soviet gear probes
down to 7,000 ft. ; U.S. equipment is
more accurate and goes down to at least
10,000 ft . Given the state of their in
dustry, says Meyerhoff, "there is simply
no way that the Soviets are going to
meet their crude oil requirements."
Coal. which the Soviets also have in .
abundance. is unlikely (0 fill much of
the gap. Soviet coal reserves total 7 tril
lion tons, or enough to last 350 years,
but most of the coal. like the other fu
els, is in Siberia. where distance and cli
mate make exploitation difficult. The coal
is primarily low-grade, high-polluting lig
njte, and much of it is pyrophoric, that
is to say, it can ignite spontaneously
upon contact with oxygen. Still, Western
analysts are baffled by the U .S.S.R.'s de
clining coal production. In 1979 output
was 3 million tons less than in 1977 and
33 mjDjon tons under the goal set by
the national economic plan.
N
uclear power should be a ma
jor help. Not h.indered by
Jane Fonda-like ecology
zealots, the Soviet Unjon is
____..I moving ahead on nuclear en
ergy. The country currently has 23 re
actors in operation, providing 10% of its
electricity. about the same percentage
as in the US. But the Soviets intend to
build fast. The present Five-Year Plan
calls for construction of ten reactors a
year.
Yet even if their nuclear program goes
as planned, tbe Soviets will stilI need oil,
and lois of it. If they cannot produce
suffer from an energy shortage. But some,
like Samuel Huntington, a Harvard for
eign policy strategist, advocate keeping a
tight rein on shipments of all oil tech
nology and equipment unless the Krem
lin is willing to make political concessions
in return.
Others find such an approach short
sighted. They believe that the U.S. should
help the Soviets to expand and exploit
their fuel reserves. Says Theodore Sha
bad, a U.S. expert on Soviet natural re
sources: " It is not in our interests to cre
ate an energy problem for the Soviets; it
is in our interest that they be self-suffi
cient." American attempts to deny the So
viets much-needed drilling technology
have not been totally successful. After
U .S. firms were stopped from making
sales, the Soviets turned to Italian and
French firms for the equipment.
Because energy is the lifeblood of a
modern industrial society. the Soviets will
undoubtedly make an all-out effort to tap
their hard-to-get reserves. It remains to
be seen, though, whether the country can
accomplish the job in time to avert se
rious shortages. Concludes Jack Ray, a
Tenneco petroleum specialist who is of
ten in the Soviet Union: "With brute
strength and will power they'll muddle
through,just as they always do."
TIME. JUNE 23,1980
57
.: .'
, _ . .' .' .' c - _ . _;.' .. r;
Unseparate Church and State
After six decades, uneasy coexistence is a victory for Orthodoxy
light rain is falling upon the Trin
ity Monastery of St. Sergius in Za
gorsk. The monastery stands be
hind a fortress wall, haU a mile around
and SO ft . thick, that protects the weath
ered stones and ancient relics of Trinity
Cathedral.lt is graduation day at the most
important of the Soviet Union's three sur
viving Russian Orthodox seminaries. The
78 graduates, clad in black tunics and
trousers, take their places in the cathe
dral before the ornate screen, hung with
treasured icons, that separates the sanc
tuary from the congregation. Hundreds
of candles shimmer against the gold and
silver on the walls, and tbe smell of hot
wax mingles with that of flowers.
Later, in the seminary builcling-a
former tsarist palace-Pimen, Patriarch
of Moscow and All Russia and head of
the Russian Orthodox Church, bestows
his blessing in a deep, resounding voice
and offers a few words of instruction. The
candidates stride forward to receive their
diplomas and then bend to kiss the Pa
triarch's hand. Afterward. new graduates,
friends, proud families and church dig
nitaries, assembled from all over the
U.S.S.R., cline on bread, cheese, sausages
and potatoes.
Something is stirring in Russian
Orthodoxy. Congregations are getting
younger. Applications for seminaries are
increasing. About two-thirds of the new
priests come from families that are
nent of religious renewal is exiled Writer
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but its keenest
and most significant supporters are in the
Soviet Union. Members of the Christian
Seminar on Problems of Religious Re
naissance, formed in 1974. proclaim: "We
heard a call to salvation-the voice of our
ancestors, our fathers, our saints. We
found Russia."
The religious wing of the human
rights movement is another inclication
of vigor. About half the samizdar (un
derground writings) that reach the West
are religious in content. Young religious
rights activists are bolder than their eJ
ders. The official Communist response
to new religious stirrings has been mod
ified reprisal. Five of the Christian Sem
inar members are under arrest; others
are being harassed or undergoing forced
"psychiatric" treatment. In January au
thorities arrested Father Dmitri Dudko,
a Moscow priest whose tierysermons
attacked official atheism. In what dis
sidents consider a pre-Olympics "clean
up," many other prominent Orthodox
believers were rounded up in late 1979
and early 1980. Among them: Father
Gleb Yakunin, an Orthodox priest who
appealed to the regime and the World
Council of Churches for religious liberty
and founded the Christian Committee
for the Defense of Believers' Rights
in 1976.
Even so, the Soviet government and
the Orthodox Church leadership continue
in an odd embrace---one that leaves the
church semifree to operate, though it is
politically controlled and thus compro
mised. Despite Marxist dogma, Ortho
doxy as a living faith in the U .S.S.R.
represents continuity with the na
tion's pre-Soviet past. It also serves
to legitimize the Communist gov
ernment and its claims to "ac
knowledge" religious practice.
Considering the fact that the
1917 Revolution was dedicated to
the destruction of religion, the pres
ent standoff is something of a tri
umph for Orthodoxy. The early
Bolshevik regime confisca.ted
church lands and abolished reli
gious influence in schools. Intense
atheism campaigns in the 1920s and
' 30s led to the imprisonment and
death of thousands of priests and
the desecra.tion of countless church
es. In the Ukrainian city of Kra
matorsk, workers boasted that they
burned 20,0()() icons in socialist
competition. By 1939, when Stalin
signed his pact with Hit.ler, the Rus
'The Russian Orthodox, the 4 million or
more other Eastern Orthodox and the 43
million Muslims in the Soviet Union are
much Jess harassed than the 2 million Soviet
Jews, 4 million Roman Catholics and a small
percentage of the country' s 3 million Protes
tants who bitterly resist all .\ale control of
the church. Seven of these Protestant dissent
ers have lived in the U.S. embassy in M05COW
for I.WO years, seeking in vain to emigrate.
TIME. JUNE 23, J980
indifferent or hostile to religion, a
dramatic indication that youthful
un believers are converting to Chris
tianity, despite the atheist orienta
tion of Soviet schools. The gradu
ates at Zagorsk are about to take
up their duties with a church that
still maintains II ,O()() active parish
es after six decades of Soviet rule,
often marked by systematic perse
cution. Official Soviet statistics
admit two out of five burials are ac
companied by a church service, and
one out of six babies is baptized. In
the Kbarkov cathedral there are
120 to 170 baptisms every Sunday.
Today the Russian Orthodox
Church has 73 bishops, IO,()()O
priests and, according to U.S.S.R.
government estimates, 30 million
members who regularly attend ser
vices. Some Orthodox priests put:
baptized membership at 60 million.
Intellectuals are converting,
and long dormant theological de
bates are reviving on such matters
as whether to replace Old Church
Slavonic with modern Russian in
the liturgy. According to Anatoli
l.evitin-Krasnov, a Soviet exile who
- ....
A prelate In full panoply
Finding Russia in icons andancient music.
wri tes on religious affairs, the new vigor
in the Orthodox Church is due to "wide
spread disillusionment with Marxism"
among the young. Others believe that the
rediscovery of Orthodoxy, complete with
icons and ancient liturgical music, like a
revival of interest in the nation's pre
revolutionary religious philosophers, is
part of a new concern for Russia's his
torical culture. The best-known propo-
Throngs 01 worsblpers In Zagorsk at Easter service
T S8
sian Orthodox Church had only 100 or so
churches open throughout the Soviet
Union, compared with 4(),437 before the
Revolution.
The historic turning point came when
Hitler violated the pact, and his mecha
nized divisions drove deep into the Soviet
Union. The all-but-crushed church called
upon the faithful to defend Mother Russia
and quickly raised 300 million rubles for
the Red Army. In desperate need ora spir
itual force that could bolster national sol
idarity, StaHn alJowed the church more
freedom. Since then, except for a strong
antireligious period in the late 1950s and
early 19605, the church's right to peaceful
coexistence with atheism has not been se
riously threatened.
, he price of survival is high. Arti
cle 52 of the 1977 Soviet constitu Graduating seminarians at Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius in Zagorsk
tion assures citizens the "right to
Among The young, "widespread disillusionment wilh Marxism . ..
profess or not to profess any religion and
to conduct religious worship." BUl the Religious Affairs, a government agency proached at some point by the KGB secret
church is not permitted to give formal re police and asked to spy on colleagues.
ligious instruction to those under age 18.
that supervises aLI religious matters. Un
der these circumstances, contends Father Some observers charge that promotion in
H is against Soviet law for a congregation Michael Meyerson-Aksyonov, a convert the hierarchy tends to go not only to me
to worship in public unless its members CO Orthodoxy who tried unsuccessfully to diocrities but to men with known char
are officially registered. The state wields enter a Soviet seminary and is an emigre acter weaknesses-which leaves them
total control over whether a parish can use now living in the U.S., ' the priest is not subject to blackmail.
or repair a building, indeed whether a par the spiritual or moral leader of the com A high official of the World Council
ish can exist at. all. munity. He is a performer of rites and of Churches, which the Russian Orthodox
Within the church. government con nothing more. " Church was permitted to join in 1961,
trol is pervasive. The appointment of points out tbat the Orthodox hierarchy
every cleric, from Patriarch Pimen on
State supervision is reinforced by ex
tralegal methods. Most ofthis year's grad consists of "churchmen who are strug
down, must be cleared by the Council for gling to safeguard their Christian integ
rity against great odds."
"What is amazing," notes Father
Meyerson-Aksyonov, "is not tbat the
church leadership is corrupt but that it is
not so corrupt. " In a possible sign of new
uates at Zagorsk were probably ap
independence. the Soviet delegates to the .. . And an Atheist IBestselier
W.c.c. Executive Committee did not reg
HI.. hen the new edition hit the bookstores late last
ister opposition to a resolution expressing
...." year, 100,000 copies were snapped up in a matter "serious concern" over the Soviet "mil
of days. The smash seller? A revised and expand ita.ry action" in Afghanistan. and other
ed version of the ATheist's PockeT Dl:clionary, first issued world con t1 icts.
in 1973 and put out by a state-run political publishing Government spokesmen profess plea
house called Politiz.dat. The 280-page paperback, though sure with things as they are. So does Arch
"designed for propagandists, lecturers and organizers of bishop Nikodim, 59, who is substituting
atheistic work," has some of the appeal of forbidden fruit ; for the ailing Metropolitan Yuvenali as
few books are ever published in the U.S.S.R. that deal foreign affairs direclOr of the church . ''In
with religion, even in a backhanded way. the West, for some reason, thousands of
Definitions in the Atheist's Dictionary are written Karl Marx Orthodox priests in Russia are considered
to conform with the basic Marxist line that religion is nearly as traitors, and two or three [dissi
either 1) pure superstition or 2) " the opium of the people." God? An idea dent] persons are considered to be the
"used to justify and protect (he social order of exploiters." Heaven? It dis churcb," says Nikodim. "I don' t know Fa
tracts peopLe from "the real tasks of the Communist rearrangement of life on ther Dudko. Maybe he is a wonderful per
earth." Conversely, hell dampens "the rage of the working people against son. But 1 think groups that exist. or would
their oppressors by planting a hope that [he latter will be punished after like to exist, around Dudko and others are
death." Easter fosters "ideas ofa class peace and forgi veness." Christ's love-thy not for the benefit of the church, since our
neighbor teachi.ng is "egotistical and antihumane." church finds its beauty in unity. The ac
The Russian Orthodox Church wins grudging praise for gradually surren tion of the church is not for sensation or ef
dering to "the strengthening of Soviet power" and for denouncing "fascist ag fect. In our diocese in Kharkov. all the
gression" during the "greatj:>atriotic war" (World War IT). Still, its essence is priests work zealously every day, take care
defined as "reactionary." Judaism comes off less well, though the lexicon avoids of the people and preach. Thousands of
anti-Semitism. Zionism is dismissed as "an ideology of chauvinism and a policy priests work the same way and have no
of anti-Sovielism by the big Jewish bourgeoisie closely connected with impe conflicts with the state." When problems
rialistic circles of capitalist countries." arise with the state's watchdog agency,
The word is not all negative, however. Atheism, readers learn, expresses "we have respect for each other, and we
the interests and aspirations of the working class and "serves the cause of spir always try to find a reasonable solution
itual liberation of the working masses from the burden of prejudices and de that would not destroy the harmony of re
lusions of the past." lations between church and state, nor
harm the freedom of action of the
church."
TIME, JUNE 23. 1980 59
'
Ritual of continuity: graduating students of Moscow Academic Choreographic School debut on the Bol shoi Theater stage
. ~ ' Dance ~
A Cultural 'Marvel in Crisis
Defections and artistic disputes rock the Bolshoi Ballet
t was a mild spring evening in Mos
cow, and the city's balletomanes
had turned out in force. The set
ting was familiar: the ornately gilded.
plush-trimmed Bolshoi Theater. So was
the program, which included an adagio
from Sleeping Beauty and variations from
DOli Quixote and Le Corsaire. But wail.
Up onstage were none of the usual Bol
shoi Ballet stars. no Plisetskayas or Va
silyevs, no famlUar figures at all. In fact,
although the dancers showed flashes of
the rigorous technique and expressive line
that mark the Bolshoi style. there was here
and there an unaccustomed slip, a slack
fouette, a leaden lift. What, then, account
ed for the electric atmosphere in the the
ater? Why was the audience applauding
so encouragingly. pointing out dancers
and scribbling notes in programs?
Answer: a great cultural ritual
was being enacted. The occasion,
two weeks ago, was the graduation
program of the Moscow Academic
Choreogra phic School. training
arm of the 204-year-old Bolshoi.
The young dancers were making
their traditional debuts on the stage
where they hope one day to reign as
soloists. Bolshoi training-indeed.
Soviet ballet training in general
-imbues the students, from their
first moments at the barre, with a
deep sense of style and history. Says
the Bolshoi Ballet's administrative
director. Pyotr Khomutov: "When
our classical heritage is made a part
of the educational program, the stu
dents. afterward, can do anything.
In the West, you seem to be anti-this
and anti-that, as if such an ap
proach were modern and novel. BUl
Pavlova andHusband Gordeyev performing in RomeoandJuliet
of both companies. in 1968 he cre
ated a hit, Sparlacus, with its surg
ing mass movements, virile male
roles and a long. lyrical pas de deux.
60
then, however, his work has
begun to seem monotonous and ec
centric. Two years ago, in an unusu
al article in Pravda, the much be
loved Liepa accused Grigorovich of
showing a "disrespectful attitude"
in his sweeping revisions of tradi
tional productions like Romeo and
Juliet.
Grigorovich had a lot riding on
last year's U.S. tour. A smashing
success could have reconfirmed the
Bolshoi's stature, boosted morale
and quieted the critics. His dancers
certainly won their share of bravos:
his wife Natalya Bessmertnova,
G odunov before his departure, and
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
anything new must be bolstered by a true
knowledge of things past. '
No doubt. But Kbomutov is mistaken
in suggesting that the Bolshoi's classical
heritage is under auack in the We.';t. At
the moment, it seems far more endan
gered from within. Even as the company
celebrates its latest crop of dance grad
uates, it is torn by internal dissension and
wobbling in its artistic course. Its trou
bles broke out into the open last summer.
as the company began a U.S. tour. One
of its most forceful stars. Alexander Go
dunov, asked for asylum in New York
City. Three weeks later. in Los Angeles,
two of its lesser known principals. Leo
nid and Valentina Kozlov, bolted as well.
At the center of the troupe's difficul
ties is its wiry. intense artistic director.
Yuri Grigorovich. 53. There is a wide
.
spread feeling among the dancers that he
is arbitrary and dictatorial. plays too
many favorites and tampers heavyhand
edly with (.he traditional repertory, while
st ifling new choreography by reserving
the major assignments for himself. Pri
ma Ballerina Maya PIisetskaya. now 54
and a revered figure in the U.S.S.R .. has
become leader of a rebellious faction of
Bolshoi veterans.. including Maris Liepa
and Mikhail Lavrovsky. Many younger
dancers, not outspoken, are nevertheless
known to feel that Grigorovich denies
them opportunlties if they fail to catch
his capricious favor.
If some of Grigorovich's problems ap
pear to be backstage ego jostling, many
others involve fundamental questions of
policy. A former character dancer, he
came to the Bolshoi in 1964 from its great
rival , the Kirov. bringing successful new
works with him. Then as now, the Kirov
exemplified the ideal of a pure, classical
style. The Bolshoi, by contrast. champi
oned a more soulfully Slavic style, often
bold and gaudy. Grigorovich seemed to of
fer the hope of synthesizing the best
11
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near Barcelona. Spain.
Exponed since 1870. Torres wines are now shipped
to 83 different countries. Don Migucl\r. is the fifth Torreo
generation (0 carryon the family wine-making tradition.
Their tradition of excellence will be appreciated by
those who enjoy good wines.
APPELLATION OF ORIGIN PENEDEs
Torres wines come [rom (he
Penedeo region of Catalonia which ha
the strictest winemaking controls in
Spain. This appellation you tbat
10nes wines are truly the nobility of
.:Ill Spanish wines.
the young ballerina Lyudmila Semenya
ka. In particular. audiences took to their
hearts the husband-wife team of Vyache
slav Gordeyev and Nadezhda Pavlova.
But Grigorovich's choreography only
came in for more lumps. Then there were
the defections. Grigorovich returned to
Moscow more embattled than ever. He is
well connected in the bureaucracy. but his
company faces stricter KGB surveillance
and curtailed foreign travel.
The Bolshoi' s ten-month season,
which normally finishes in June, is being
extended through Aug. 3 this year to ac
commodatc Olympics visitors. To the in
ternational audiences that will soon flock
to the Bolshoi Theater. tbe company may
still seem to be a marvel of Moscow. au in
stitution that glories in lavish productions
and virtuoso dancillg. But to dance buffs.
the current season has been lackluster, re
lying heaviJy on stock repertory and a
dwindling pool of leading dancers. The
most eagerly anticipated new production.
Plisetskaya's The Sea Gull. which she per
formed to music composed by her hus
band, Rodion Shchedrin, evoked the at
mosphere of Chekhov's play in stylized
vignettes but contained
Ii HIe real da nci ng.
Particularly with
Godunov gone. there is
a shortage of IIp-and
coming stars. Hence all
eyes are on Gordeyev
and his wife Pavlova
-"Slava" and "Nadya,"
as they are affectionately
known-the young corn
ets of the company. Gor
deyev, 32, a Muscovite
and a product of the Bol
shoi's school. has been
dancing with thecompa
ny since 1969. Pavlova.

ing need to reach out
ner of the
competition, she
23. is an example of the Bolshoi's grow
to regional Com
panies for new soloists. A former co-win
U.S.S.R.'s national dance
was recruited in 1975
from the ballet company in Perm. Five
months later. on the same day that she
made her debut in Giselle. she and Gor
deyev were married.
Gordeyev is an immaculate classical
dancer. When he lea ps. he seems suspend
ed in air. an illusion that never fails to
audiences. He is also fiery enough
to fill up a role like Spartaclis. Paviova is
soft and romantic next to his virility. more
an ingenue than a dramatic performer.
But she cuts the air with quicksilver leaps
and pirouettes, and her precision and con
trol. especially in adagio movements, can
be breathtaking.
So far the pair appear to be basking
in Grigorovich's good graces. as well as
enjoying the blessing ofPlisetskaya. Ded
icated and rather conservative, they re
main apart from the controversies raging
within the com pany, Says Gordeyev: "Our
lives, after all . revolve around the ballet.
our art." It will be a good thing for the Bol
shoi if they. and dancers like them, can
keepitthalway,
TIME. J UNE 23.1980
S
ince the 17th Century, the Kings and cicizens of Spain
have enjoyed the first quality wines from the
10nes family vineyards in Vi!a[ranca del Penedcs,
61
. t General Education School
A
. ( No. 402, in the Perovsky district
of eastern Moscow. 30 fourth-
grade pupils rise to their fect when their
teacher enters. Respectfully. they address
him as Alexei Grigoryevich. using bis first
name and paLronymic. The pupils. who
wear uniforms (brown frocks and orange
neckerchiefs for girls, blue jackets with
shoulder Labs for boys). remain standing
WI til their presence is ac
knowledged by the teacher, a
short. bald man in his 50s.
Then he turns brusquely to
business.
"What do the words !uf
bol, sfadioll and patrioE have
in commonT' he asks. Hands
shoot up across the class
room, but the pupils are si
lent, and there is no squirm
ing to catch the teacher's
attention. Alexei Grigorye
vich points to a girl in the
third row, who rises to ex
plain that all these words are
Neat and attentive children listen to their teacher in a Siberian elementary school
Why Ivan and Tanya Can Read
Six days a week: drill, drill and still more drill
The pattern of School No. 402-day
book, drill and the use of specialized sub
ject-matter instruction as early as the
fourth grade-is repeated in 147.000
"general education" schools across the
U.S.S.R. Soviet children go LO school six
days each week, typically from 8:30 a.m.
to 1:30 p.m. The required curriculum gen
erally runs through tenth grade and cov
ers about the same amount of schooling
that U.S. students get attend
ing five days a week from kin
dergarten tluough twelfth
grade. City schools are bet
ter than rural schools. but
most Soviet students study
the same standard curricu
hlJn. Usually there is only one
current textbook authorized
for each major subject.
though Lhe 15 republics of the
Soviet Union are allowed to
have special courses in the
history and geography of
their regions.
The curriculum is stiff
of foreign origin . The teacher Vocationalstudentatwori< and compulsory. On the aver
draws back a c\-lrtain cover
ing part of the blackboard. disclosing a
chart ofverbs. Asked to explain where the
accent falls in various verb forms, students
respond by reciting grammatical rules. In
variably, they answer in complete sen
tences. Each pupil is graded 011 his perfor
mance in a daybook, a running report that
is sent home to be initialed by his parents
at the end of every week. The daybook
keeps track of misbehavior with notes
such as "Created a disturbance in the
gym" or "AHived five minutes late for
physical culture."
age, two mathematics courses
are required in each grade (including
heavy doses of geometry and algebra. plus
a year or two of calculus in the final
grades). And 5;1, years of biology. five
years each of physics and geography. four
years of chemistry, one year of astronomy.
ten years of shop and mechanical drawing
and up to seven years of fon:ign language
(most frequently English and French).
Apart from languages, the humanities are
largely taken up with the detailed study of
Marxism-Leninism. Zoya Malkova, the
director of the Institute for General Ped
agogy in Moscow. defends the standard
ized curriculum as "one way toward the
equalization of our society. "
In theory at least, Soviet schools avoid
grouping pupils by ability. Says Malkova:
"We are in principle against the JQ the
ory. We consider that e"'cry healthy child
is capable of effectively mastering the
school program. " Even so, a few gifted or
privileged students are selected for spe
cial schools.
U. ' - hile public schools in the U.S. have
I'" swung from open classrooms to
back-to-basics during tbe past two
decades. the Soviets. like Europeans gen
eral.!y. have kept fairly steadily to tradi
tional teaching methods. Says Malkova:
.. [n the U.S .. you ha ve a tendency to do
things in extreme-so first one direction.
then another. We never had this prob
lem. We are concerned. though. about try
ing to encourage reasoning about prob
lems rather than rote memorization. A
central task of contemporary Soviet ped
agogy has been just how to develop in
dependent lhinking.
Pupil independence, however. plays
second balalaika to the pressure for top
marks on the nationwide exams at the
end of the eighth grade. which decide the
careers of pupils. Top scorers are bound
for higher education as scientists. engi
neers. teachers and economists. The mid
dle-ranked enter fow'-year schools for
technicians. Those at the bottom get vo
cational training and jobs on the assem
bly Line or i]1 sma.II workshops. in the U.S"
54% of high school seniors go on to some
sort of higher educalion, compared with
roughly 20% in the Soviet Union.
The drill and discipline do risk mak
ing Ivan a dull boy. In Stalin's time, a ped
agogical textbook defined initiaTive as
' the search for the best way to fulfil.! an
order. ' Today initiative is given more en
couragement-but not all that much
more. Especially in such humanistic sub
jecr.s as literature and history, the empha
sis on ideology Jeaves lillie room for per
sonal interpretation. Recalls Vita Kronik.
42. a Moscow-born academic who emi
grated to Detroit in 1976: "If a student is
asked to write a composition describing
an anticapitalistic heroofa novel. he must
underline the political tendency of this
hero. not the humanity or the values of
this character."
But iJJ science and engineering, the
Soviet system does increasingly well. In a
report for the National Science Founda
tion last December, Ma.lhematics Profes
sor Tzaak Wirszup of the University of
Chicago, an expert on Soviet scientific ed
ucation. concluded that the Soviets.
through "an educational mobilization of
the entire population." had far out
stripped the U.S. in the quality of scien
tific and mathematical education at el
emelllary and secondalY levels.
Wirszup based his conclusions on a
TIME. JUNE 23, 1980
r
r
(
('
s
r
s
r.
d
e
o
g
62
-- ---- ---- ____ .....r -----------,.... ____ __ ____________
study of Soviet school texts and educa
tional magazines. The Soviet mathematics
program he found "modern in contenL in
novative in approach. well integrated and
highly sophisticated." Most remarkable to
Wirszup were magazines aimed at stu
dents. One, an illustrated monthly on
math and science for ninth- and tenth
graders, called U1IiTechnic Journal, had a
circulation of 1.6 million. Among the con
tents: a serious mathematical article thal
discussed Einstein's equations and anoth
er thaI presented a complex analysis of
the aLOm and nuclear power. As Wirszup
notes, the periodical is more colorful and
clearly written than similar materials
available even to advanced high school
students ill the U.S.
While Soviet schoolchildren are now
taught algebra. geometry and some cal
culus, Wirszup points out that even col
lege-bound U.S. high schoolers usually
manage only eight years of arithmetic.
one or two of algebra and two or three
, of science, He estimates that in 1978 and
'79 more than 5 million Soviet high school
students took advanced calculus. com
pared with 105,000 U.S. students at the
secondary level. Significal1tly. Wirs7up
found that more than 56% of U.S. school
districts reporting to the National Sci
ence Foundation ill 1977 required only
one or no math course for high school
graduation.
'he Soviet Union insists on very
T
close lies bet wecn parents and
schools. First-grade leachers are
required to vjsitthe homes of entering pu
pils during tbe first eight weeks of school.
And schools seek out neighborhood adults
to serve as counselors for after-school ac
tivities: model building. rocketry. dancing
instruction. chess clubs. Wi lliam Green.
24. a U.S. citizen and a graduate student
at the University of Southern California.
went to a Soviet middle school for two
years while his father was stationed in
Moscow as a U.S. Foreign Service offi
cer. Grcen recalls that his parents were re
quired to attend a special classroom ses
sion with his teacher at least four times a
year: "Parents would sit at students' desks.
and the teacher would lay il on the line.
H would be very explicit criticism. like
'Your child isn' l working hard enough'
or 'We don't think you' re encouraging this
or that development.' ., If parents faillo
respond. school officials may notify the
parents' supervisors at work. who ill turn
strenuously urgc employees to do a better
job of child rearing. Many Soviet emigres
--no friends of Communism- vigorously
defend Soviet education for its seriousness
and rigor. if not its ideology. As Emigre
Emi IDrailser, 42, currently a teaching feJ
low in the department of Slavic languages
at {j.e.L.A. , puts it,"-Frankly. I am in thi s
country just five years. and I see no harm
in [the Soviet approachJ." Drailser faults
the leniency and lack of seriousness of
American education. Says he: "This is ri
diculous. If a man SLOpS school in the So
viet Union after eighth grade. at least he
knows something"
TI ME. JU:-tE 23.1980
Osman Conteh: Hungry, hopeless and
confused. Family exists on 53 a month
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the 'worl d litt le of fi ve live happy.
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more :ould be posible - - if onl y
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63
Socialist Realism's Legacy
As much as in the '3Os and '40s, modernism is anathema
O
~ ne wet Sunday in September 1974.
a couple of dozen Soviet painters
. carried their canvases into a patch
of wasteland in Cheremushki. an out
lying district of Moscow, and began to
set them up on makeshW stands. A small
crowd of onlookers gathered. and so. to
culture
ciaJly ironic
was
ern
one side, did a platoon of KGB agents
with bulldozers. dump trucks and water
cannon. The secret policemen were dis
guised as civjJians doing volunteer work
on the abandoned site. As the specta
tors peered at the paintings and a SOVfO'.
few Western reporters clicked their
cameras. the agents a[[acked, fling
ing the canvases into rubbish trucks.
Then the bulldozers and water can
non moved in. grinding over falJen
works and chasi.ng the drenched an
ists from the site.
Within 40 minutes the ballle was
over. Eighteen paintings had been
mutilated and burned: four painters
were under arrest. The infectious
spores of bourgeois formalism . car
ried by Jews and other rootle-ss cos
mopolitans, had been sanitized: the
integrity of the official style of So
cialist Realism stood vindicated.
Provincial by Western standards.
the artists whose work was vandal
il.ed by the state at Cheremushki may
not have been ofhjgh interest. outside
the U.S.S.R .. to a historian of style: it
was as though the New York City po
lice had been sent to crush one of the
weekend art shows at Washington
Square. Yet the meaning of the event
lay not in the meriL<; of this "dissi
dent" art as art. but in its power to
provoke repression simply by exist
ing. Of aU the major Occidental pow
ers, only the U.S.S.R. treats art as
though it were politically dangerous.
By doing so. it ensures that art does
matter politically. So a cycle of self
to aeate its models of dissent.
This deep hostility to modernism. a
permanent legacy of Stalln. seems espe
to Western eyes because it
in Russia, between 1910 and 1925.
[hat one of the great experimenrs of mod-
an was carried ouL The leaders of
the avant-garde, among them Kasimir
Malevich. Naum Gabo. Vladimir Tatlin.
Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissi tz.ky.
wanted [0 serve the new power of the left
by combining revolurionary art with rev-
fulfilling repre.ssion continues. Alexander Gerasimov' s Marshal Joseph Stalin (1944)
In the West , artists succeed or fail Sill is abstraCTio1l, virme is blalld. piolls idealism.
in the marketplace. There is no of
fi cial line on art. in any useful sense of
the term. But in the U.S.S.R .. art must
toe the ideological line. If dissident
-which generally means "modernist"
- artists are not persecuted as systemat
ically as dissident writers. and fewer of
them actually end up laying rails in Si
beria or being shot full of drugs in KGD
madhouses. this merely reflects the fact
thaI art is not as forceful a channel for
maverick ideas as Literature. Neverthe
less. state approvaJ governs every aspect
of rhe production. exhibition. sale and dis
cussion of painting and sculpture. The es
sence of totalitarianism is that there must
be no gaps in (he monoli th. nowhere for
olutionary politics. Russian constructiv
ism was, in fact. the only heroic modern
ist style that drew its strength from the
revolutionary impetus. Yet its sin was in
being abstract. and for (hat it was con
signed to darkness by Stalin and his cul
tural a.pparatchi.ks after 1929.
According [Q the dogma of Socialist
Realism. all an and literature must con
form to the triple standard of parrinost
(party character). ideinosr (socialist con
lent) and /larodnosl (closeness to the peo
ple). For Stalin. this ideal was most faith
fully reflected in the work of his favorite
painter. Alexander Gerasimov. whose
portraits of the dictator in various noble
poses hung in museums. offices. factories
and homes everywhere. A r the same time.
in the '30s and '405. Stalin llsed every kind
of coercion to apply rhe Socialist -Real
ism doctrine. destroying the avant-garde
and rhe contacts with Western artists that
it needed. By 1953. when Stali.n died. no
Soviet artist could sec. except ill the most
fragmentary way. any modernist an at
all: the work of the constructivists. that
heritage of Russian intellect and radical
enthusiasm. was invisible.
"Sucialist Realism is the only meth
od of our art. " wrote one of the sUJviving
hacks in 1954. "Any other method is a
concession to bomgeois ideology. In our
country. where socialism has been victo
rious. where there has arisen a moral and
political unily of the people unprec
edented in the history of mankind.
there is no special basis for different
directions in art." Thus the lid
cl amped clown. and it has remained
down ever since. condensing the
bland . dull. obsequious and piously
idealistic nature of official "realism."
T
oelay lhe most powerful state
weapon against the dissident
paiJ1ler who cannot or will not
join the Union of Soviet Artists-a
closed Socialist Realist shop- is the
law on tlllleyac/stl'O tparasitism). An
unemployed artist (and all nonun.ion
members are. by definition. unem
ployed) ca.n be punished with one to
two years of prison. Apart from this.
the "unofficial" artist must deal with
a hundred resismnces unknown to hjs
Western counterpart .
Whcre can a sculptor find bronze.
steel or plaster ..... irhout union approv
al? How can a painter get access to
studio space. even paints and can
vas? How and where can the work
be exhibited.' Hov. can 3Jlyone hear
about it except by word of mouth.
SiJ1Ce all art writing in magazines like
IskllSS1VO (An) or Sovie/sk(lYu KIII
Illra is a direct emanation of union
views. themselves determi11ed by the
Ministry of Culture)
Most unofficial Soviet art is ear
nestly provincial. dotted with quota
tions from Western modernist styles
-abst raet ex pressionisl11. Pop. III i n ima 1
ism- which cannot be assimilated prop
erly because of the scarciry ofinformation:
one copy of a Western art magazine. a f
feelS painters mon:. in this samizrl(// at
mosphere .. than do five m.useum shows in
Manhattan. But the surprise is ihat such
art exists at all. The dissident artist must
expend so much enc.rgy on survival that
he has less Jeft for self-development.
There is still no room for hi m in a socie
ty whose art has one purpose: to reinforce
the narcissism of slate power. under the
guise of edm:ation. And the biller moral
dignity of his predicament callnot be
much comfort. - RobertHughes
TIME . J U NE .23 1980
a
a
64
Movies for the Masses
Film makers must edify as well as entertain
inema is for us the most impor
tant of the arts," declared Lenin
in 1922, and not since Pope Julius
ii commissioned Michelangelo to paint
the Sistine Chapel ceiling had the proc
lamation of a chief of state resulted in
such a sunburst of high art. A troika of
young film maker- theoreticians-Sergei
Eisenstein. V.I. Pudovkin and Alexander
Dovzhenko-seized the movie LOy and re
made it into a sophisticated machi ne that
dazzled the world intelligentsia, even as
it instructed the Russian proletariat. As
long as the party hierarchy was amused
too. all was well. But in !924 Sta.lin re
phrased the famous dictum, and his di
aphanous threat holds to this day: "The
c.inema is the greatest means
of mass agitation. Our prob
lem is to take this matter into
our own hands."
There the matter has
rested for the past half a cen
tury. and the hands of the So
viet film industry's "edi tors"
(censors) can be heavy in
deed. The t.wo men who by
international critical consen
sus are the heirs of Soviet fi.lm
greatness- Andrei Tarko,,
sky and Sergei Paradjano ....
-have been harassed, ca
joled and officially criticized.
Tarkovsky. best known for
the chilling sci-fi parable
So/aris (1972), recently was
named "People's Artist of
the U.S.S.R.," but the film
bureaucracy has refused to
fund some of his projects,
delayed the release of others
or exhibited them for only a
few weeks in out-of-the-way
theaters. Paradjanov aston
~
Whit e hats and Red ideals: Yetena Sotovey In Mikhalkov' s Slaye 01 Love comedy. There. are other
ished Western film buffs with the extra v
agantlyricism of his Shadows of Our For
gOTten Ancesrors (J 964), but the state saw
him as a troublemaker and sent him to
prison- for almost four years.
Paradjanov' s more cautious col
leagues have referred to him as "kind of
mad." It may be equally delirious for
Westerners to demand of today's Soviet
film makers that they bring to their craft
(he passionate recklessness of their pre
decessors. Revolutionary fervor, like first
love, passes quickly; in the long run. any
marriage of art and the state demands
fidelity and fealty. Official Soviet cinema
is settling into middle age with all the vir
tues of a Chekhovian "good wife": it is
handsome, thoughtful, often charming
and, above all , disc.reet about the mas
ter's excesses and failings.
It is precisely this Chekhovian quality
-the rueful romanticism, the generous fa- A scene from Gubenko's The Orphans
talism. the belief that everyone has his
reasons- that permeates the best "ap
proved' Soviet films. and perhaps the
spirit of the men and women who make
them as well. In the Soviet system. ev
eryone has his function . Some people
make films (about 150 features a year
from the three major and 20 regional stu
dios) . Some people "edit" them (there are
often three censors assigned to a produc
tion). Some people exbibit them (though
theater managers. who have admissions
quotas to meet, frequently pair Soviet
films with livelier fare from abroad) . And
some people go to see them (80 million
tickets were sold every week in 1977. at
an average cost of 501t each).
The Soviet public may get to see only
bland or self-critical films from the West,
but the elite are permitted to study the
works ofieading film makers from all na
tions. As a result, the best Soviet movies.
whatever their content. have
the look and feel of the best
European films.
There are directors who,
if they worked elsewhere,
would surely have achieved
in tern a tional recognition.
Among them is Georgj Da
neliya, who made the appeal
ing, comic Autumn Mararhon
(1979). It is about a teacher
translator trying to balance
the requirements of his over
extended double career with
the equally pressing demands
of a suspicious wife and a pos
sessive mistress-a situation
familiar to members of the
Western bourgeoisie. The
movie offers an agreeable in
sight into the life of the ed
uca(ed. privileged class in the
Soviet Union.
Daneliya is working safe
terrain here: the romantic
comfortable places for a So
viet director to work-screen adaptations
of classic novels and plays. for example.
Pictures that show the suffering and stead
fastness of ordinary citizens during World
War II also win the approval ofthe editors
- and of the public. As the Revolution of
1917- which provided the first Soviet film
makers wi th their great subject-recede.s
in memory, World War II has replaced
it in the country's hagiography.
Nikolai Gubenko's The Orphans
(1978) takes place in a state orphanage
right after the war. Hthe institution's staff
is seen as rather too noble, the problems
of the children- ranging from withdrawal
to rebelliousness-are sensitively por
trayed. It is a strong and absorbing work.
So is the somewhat ungainJy but po
etic Siberiada (1979), directed by Andrei
Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky. The Soviets
have lost neither their taste for, nor their
skilJ with. the epichistoricai drama. Si-
TIME, JUNE23. 1980
6S
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - ~ - - - - - - - - - ~ ,
A wedding In Sergei Parad,lanov's ShM/oW$ ofOurForgottenAncestors
A marriage ofan and the state demands./idelity al/dfealty.
beriada traces the history ofan obscure Si
berian village from snowbound primitiv
ism and isolation at the beginning of this
century through war and revolution, to
the discovery of a great oilfield in the late
'60s. Like Dovzhenko before him, Mikhal
kov-Konchalovsky has a way of linking
a peculiarly Russian feeling for the sa
credness of native ground with the de
veloping force of the revolution.
Most-favored-director status goes to
Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky's brother Ni
kita. Mikhalkov, 34. His Slave of Love was
one of the few recent Soviet films to re
ceive critical acclaim and a measure of
box office success when it was released
i.n the U.S. last year. A touching, gently
comic portrait of a movie company on lo
cation in 1917, Slave of Love shows a
group of innocents trying to avoid being
caught up in the revolution. In Five Eve
nings, Mikhalkov tells the story of a mid- .
dle-aged man and woman trying to pick
up the threads of a romance they were
forced to sever during World War II. And
in his latest film, Oblomov, he tackles the
. elusive, lethargic hero of Ivan Goncha
rov's 19th century masterwork.
Mikhalkov, who recently returned to
the U.S.S.R. from a trip to the U.S., sees
similarities between the best films of both
countries. Says he: "It seems to me that
the time has come to return to a type of ro
manticism-to Chaplin, to films that give
people some hoper-Breaking Away, One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nashville,
Paper Moon." But as a Soviet film mak
er, is he not asked to make cuts in his mov
ies to satisfy the cultural bureaucrats? Mi
khalkov shrugs his shoulders. "Of course,
that's only natural,' he replies. "Whoever
pays can call the tune. Here i! ~ s from
Goskino [the centralized film bureaucra
cy]; in America it would be the producer.
But as far as I am personally concerned,
if I have to be financially dependent, I
would prefer that I not be dependent on
one or two producers but on what is called
the fatherland. I just try to do my job as
honestly as possible."
The question is whether "honesty"
and "fatherland" are, in the U.S.S.R., ir
reconcilable enemies. Soviet film makers
work under many ideological restraints
-some subtle. some blatant-that began
with a five-year plan set down by Gosk
ino. Like the production schedule of an
oldtime Hollywood studio, the code calls
for production funds to be divided among
pictures in a variety of genres. But the
genres in question touch on themes that
only an apparatchik could love: tales of
young workers and peasants heroically
exceeding their quotas.
A
ll scripts must be filtered through
. an editor, who claims that his de
sire is merely to "clarify" the writ
er's aims. Says Mikhail Bogin, an emigre
Soviet director: "The editor wonders,
'What can be learned from this film? How
does it serve the Soviet people?' He'll
probably begin to think, 'I'm afraid. I'm
worried.' " He should be, for he will share
the blame with the film's creators ifsome
thing offends someone further up the line
-a cultural bureaucrat in one of the re
publics, or perhaps even the Central
Committee in Moscow. Like Stalin before
him, Brezhnev has been known to enter
these debates. He once got a movie
shel ved simply by inquiring after a screen
ing, "Who needs it?"
Usually, however, a film is welllaun
dered before the party boss gets to play
movie mogul. One director found himse\f
squabbling with censors when he made a
comedy about corruption in the wine in
dustry: in one scene a bad barrel was la
beled "48," which happened to be pre-
Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-II parable Solari.
The look and feel ofthe West.
cisely the number ofyears that had pa.ssed
since the revolution. Was he perhaps im
plying that the revolution had gone sour
too? Another film maker got into trouble
when he included a song called Bring Me
a Piece ofthe MoolI---<:luring the time that
Americans had landed there and the Rus
sians had not. Was he belittling the So
viet space effort? Edward Topol, an
emigre screenwriter. once tried to explain
a picture about juvenile delinquency to a
Soviet official, who said that in his trav
els round the Soviet Union he had never
seen any youthful criminals, so how could
they exist? Re-edited and reshot, a new
version was permitted to go forth by KGB
Boss Yuri Andropov.
This hassling creates a climate of self
censorship and an implicit demand to
pretty-up reality. Says Topol: "If you just
set up a camera anywhere in the Soviet
Union and shoot life as it is, it looks ter
rible. It jumps out at you from the screen."
Yet the directors soldier on. Some search
patiently for a historical or fantastical
work that will not overstrain the censori
ous mind. Still others find a style of shoot
ing an approved scene that will change its
meaning without altering a word of the
preapproved script. A happy ending dark
ly Lit will not, for example, play in quite
the way the editors thought it would.
For some directors, the endings are
darkly lit. The first director assigned to
Slave of Love was a wildly talented young
Uzbek named Rustam Hamdamov, the
hope of the Soviet film school, who seemed
destined to drag this once proud na
tional cinema back to glory. But ac
cording to a friend , when the editors
saw Hamdamov's lyrical-surreal footage.
they fired him and brought in Nikita Mi
khalkov to reshoot the film. Hamdamov's
an. it seems, no longer appears in state
cinemas: it hangs on the walls and in
the closets of private homes. At last re
port, the U.S.S.R. 's most promising di
rector was in Soviet Georgia, working
as a painter and dress designer.
I
The Children of Pavlov
Pills, pep talks. and outpatient clinics/or mental well-being
IiiiPI he old building on Chekhov Street.
I just off Moscow's Pushkin Square,
was the town house of a wealthy
man in prere.volutionary times. Now it is
Psycho neurological Dispensary No. [4.
one of the outpatient psychiatric clinics
that deal with the day-to-day problems
of the anxious. the alcoholic and the ser
iously disturbed in the So
viet Union.
More than 200 patients
a day silently wander the
halls. beneath a sign that
reads REMEMBER. CON VER
SATIONS AMONG PATIENTS
ABOUT YOUR DELIRIUMS
ARE FORBIDDEN. In one
room [5 elderly women are
putting together white ball
point pens and costume
jewelry; such work is re
garded as therapy, but the
pens and decorat ive chains
are sold to help the center
financially . A basement
room decorated with film
and travel posters is the Undergoing sleep t herapy recently sponsored a sym
center's Sobriety Society
-the Soviet equivalent of Alcoholics
Anonymous. There a young reformed
drunk is sanding wood for a remodeling
program that will expand the society's fa
ciJities to include billiards and Ping Pong.
Like community mental health cen
ters in the U.S .. Soviet clinics mostly dis
pense pills and pep talks. Some patients
at Dispensary No. 14 are expected to stay
the whole day; they come at 9 a.m .. are
fed two free meals and released at 4 p.m.
Psychiatrists, about 70% of them wom
en, have a good deal of power in dealing
with patients. They not only direct treat
ment. but also help recuperating patients
get jobs on the outside. and even track
down citizens who fail to show for reg
ular visi ts.
Most staff psychiatrists at the dispen
sary spend two hours after work each
night making house calls. Particularly in
the cities, the dispensaries double as so
cial centers to give lonely and deprived
people somewhere to go. Dr. Fira Passer,
a short, energetic, middle-aged woman
who runs the center, says that most Mus
covites who come in are considered to be
borderline cases, that is. people in basi
cally good mental health who are tem
porarily having trouble coping with life.
Says she: "They are afflicted with the
problem of loneliness and the inability to
find a partner or friend- neuroses con
nected with life in a large city."
Psychotropic drugs, such as chlorpro
mazine and haloperidol, are the main
form of treatment. Because the Soviet
pharmaceuticaJ industry is small and cau
tious. it is slow to put new drugs into pro
duction. Soviet hospitals and dispensaries
frequently treat schizophrenia with insu
lin shock therapy. After an insulin injec
tion cuts blood sugar and induces coma,
the patien t is revived with glucose-a pro
cedure repeated 20 or 30 times.
For less serious ail
men ts , the dispensaries
have their own form of talk
therapy. At No. 14. these
take place in a large room
lined with seven couches.
beneath portraits of Pavlov
and Freud. the contempo
rary giants of modern psy
chology. Pointing to Freud.
Dr. Passer smiles and says:
"See, we're not. so cIose
minded." However. Freud
ian analysis, unlike Pavlov's
behaviorist ideas, has never
taken hold in t.he Soviet
Union. although the Geor
giaH Academy of Sciences
posium on the concept of
the unconscious. In the U.S.S.R .. talk
therapy or "rational psychotherapy." is
mostly a series of admonishing lectures.
The doctor listens to the patient. then tells
him how he ought to behave. If the com
plaint is deemed too tri vial-anxiety. or
mild depression-a patient may be told
not to come back at all. Hypnosis is often
used by doctors to encourage healthier be
havior. like trying to get an alcoholic to
slop drinking. Says Dr. Vyacheslav Ko
tov, chief doctor-psychiatrist for the cit y
of Moscow: "A psychiatrist should under
stand his patient. but only up to a certain
point. He doesn' t have to turn his brains
inside out in an effort to understand the
patient fully ."
The U.S.S.R. handles as many cases
as it can by outpatient treatment. None
theless. statistics gathered in Leningrad
and Moscow indicate that I /So/c of the
population is in mental hospitals at any
given time, for an average stay of 60
days. The comparable U.S. figures are
.8% and 30 days. Western visitors are
generally impressed by the large num
ber of staff members available. Says Dr.
Gerald Klerman. the U.S. Alcohol. Drug
Abuse and Mental Health administrator:
"There are a good many nonprofessionals
feeding, walking and checkIng on pa
tients. They use the hospital system as a
way to keep down unemployment. and
I think this results in a lot of tender lov
ing care." Patients also are kept busy at
such tasks as gardening or cleaning thei r
rooms, an approach that impresses U.S.
visitors.
When patients are released. their rec
ords go to the local mental health cen
ter, which follows up on the case wheth
er the patient cooperates or not. That
way. says Yale Psychiatrist Walter Reich.
an expert in Soviet therapeutic methods.
"no one suffers from neglect. but it is
very difficult to get away from the sys
tem. If you don 't want to be involved
with the mental health service. once you
are identified as a patient. you get fol
lowed nonetheless."
1i
here is a dark side to Soviet psy
chiatry: its m.isuse as a politi
cal weapon to punish dissidents.
in \970 Biologist Zhores Medvedev. who
now lives in London. was committed to a
psychiatric hospital . on the order of his
city commune. He was released 19 days
later, after a wave of international pro
test. Medvedev had struck a deal with hos
,
Therapist Passer, at head of table, meeting with former alcoholics In dispensary
Blit there is a dark side to psychiatry too. especially for dissidents.
TIME. JUNE 23.1980
T
68
bevy
been
"
pital authorities that if discharged he
would write nothing about his hospital
ization or the struggle to get him out: when
he learned that he would have to report
regularly to mental health centers for fol
low-up care, he and his brother, Histo
rian Roy Medvedev. published their now
classic study on Soviet political psychi
atry. A QJiestion o/Madlless.
The rise of political psychiatry in the
Soviet Union has paralleled the rise of
Dr. Andrei Snezhnevsky, who since 1962
has been director of the Insiitute of Psy
chi-'ltry of the U.S.S.R . Academy of Med
ical Sciences in Moscow. Snezhnevsky is
the virtual czar of Soviet psychiatry. The
standard Soviet t.heory is that schizophre
nia is caused by environmental factors.
But in the 1960s Snezhnevsky began pro
moting his idea that the disease is genet
ic. permanent and diagnosable even in the
absence of such classic symptoms as hal
lucinations and delusions.
O
ne of his most controversial con
cepts involves what he calls
"creeping" or "sluggish" schizo
phrenia, which is said to show itself early
in difficulties with parents and authority
figures. and with stubborn "reformist
tendencies. "
In Snezhnevsky's view, many people
experience nervous breakdowns as chil
dren or adolescents, and think they re
cover completely. But their SChizophrenia
remains latent and can blossom 20 or
30 years later-often in the form of po
litical dissidence. ExiJed Writer Vladimir
Bukovsky, now at Cambridge University.
notes: ''This means nobody knows wheth
er he is schizophrenic or not unless Pro
fessor Snezh.nevsky diagnoses it." That
theory has proved convenient to the KGB.
particularly since Soviet law allows for
compulsory commitment by the courts
when the accused has been classified as
mentally ill. Indeed. the proceeding may
be held without the dissident because he
is considered too sick to attend. Thus,
as Reich says, "dissenting views are
pronounced the sick products of sick
minds."
Roughly 1.000 dissidents have been
misdiagnosed as latent or active schizo
phrenics and confined to mental institu
tions. After the World Psychiatric Asso
ciation condemned the Soviet Union's
psychiatry in 1977 for its political abuses,
many Western doctors believed that the
Kremlin would find less embarrassing
ways of dealing with dissenters. They
were apparently wrong. Amnesty Illler
national reports that incarceration of po
litical dissenters as mental patients is just
as prevalent as ever in the Soviet Union,
and may even be increasing.
The politicization of psych.iatry has
in fact produced a kind of schizophrenia
of the profession itself. As Bukovsky
points out: "It is not easy for the or
dinary person to get admiited for treat
ment in a psychiatric hospital. For a
political case, though, it is very easy.
They are taken to a hospital without mak
ing any request." _
Sexual Equality-More or Less
Frustrated wives, lazy husbands and signs a/change
M
arx proclaimed it. Lenjn insisted
on it . and the Soviet. constitution
guarantees it: equality of the sex
es. including comparable pay for compa
rable work. Some of the statistics are im
pressive: most of the doctors. three
quarters of the teachers and one-lhjrd of
the engineers are women. So are half of
all university and institute students and
nearly 60
C
/o of those with techllical or vo
cational tminillg in high school or beyond.
Still. Soviet women are second-class
comrades. Top jobs have a way of going
Female roadsweepers on the job
to men. In medicine. a profession with
much less prestige in the Soviet Union
than in the West. virtually all the elite sur
geons and administrators are male. Math
ematics and the sciences are masculine
preserves. Though a third of the Supreme
Soviet and 25 % of Communist Party
members are women. none occupy posi
tions of real power. including membership
in the Politburo. Even in what are con
sidered traditionally female professions
-education. health. post office. telephone
and telegraph operations. and shopkeep
ing-the majority of managers and de
cision makers are men. As Nikita Khru
shchev once admitted to an agricultural
conference. ,It turns out that it is men
who do the administrating and women
who do the work."
The rhetoric of women's lib may be
little known in the U.S.S.R., but the bat
tle of the sexes seems to be heating up.
One recent underground feminist publi
cation issued by bitler women in Lenin
grad attacked the typical Soviet husband
as a brutal, drunken. selfish lout. The doc
ument charged that "the male contribu
tion ill the home is almost nonexistent.
Any man who even knows how to ham
mer a nail is considered a rarity."
The point is well taken. A Soviet sur
vey showing tha.t while women were
spending hours in long shopping Lines, ar
guing with bureaucratic clerks and doing
household chores without the benefit of a
of modern appliances, husbands
were lazily watching TV. reading news
papers, tippling with their cronies or oth
erwise being idle.
They are not very good lovers either.
Many a Soviet male has never seen his
wife naked, and creative lovemaking is
not high on the husband's list of living pri
orities. Ignorance is partly to blame, and
some of that is being overcome by West
ern influences. One Moscow woman says
her 'naive. inexperienced husband" has
performing heroically since she
showed hjm a smuggled copy of The Joy 0/
Sex. A slowly improving standard of liv
ing has had an impact too. Many couples
who once made love under the covers in
an apartment crowded with relatives now
have their own apartments and are more
relaxed about sex. Says one such wife:
Now I feel freer to tell my husband what
gives me pleasure and what doesnt."
S
ome Soviet commentators have
suggested that many of the typical
husband's attitudes-which are
not exactly unknown in the West-are
signs of disguised aggressiveness. In ef
fect , the man is saying. "You're so free
and capable. why don't you handle the
chores for both of us?" Nonetheless. re
ports Victor Perevedentsev. a specialist on
socioeconomic affairs in Moscow. the So
viet family is slowly changing from a pa
triarchy into a "biarchy"-equality in the
home. Says he: "Women are rebelling, and
they. of course, are correct in doing so."
The real irritant, though. is [hat the
frustrated Soviet woman faces inequality
both at home and at work, yet must shoul
der the responsibilities of both. On the
one band. a dreary full-time job; on the
other, the problems of raising kids and
keeping her marriage together. That is in
creasingly hard to do: divorce is rising rap
idly. and one marriage in three now fails.
The state gives women some help in the
form of child care and maternity leaves.
but that is hardly enough to ease their
dual burdens. One solution being advo
cated by an increasing number of women:
part-time jobs, and plenty of them, to
lighten the load and allow a little more
breathing space for self-development. _
TIME, JUNE 23.1980
69
,
:
:
ou can cover the whole world with
asphalt, but a few blades of green
grass will always break through,"
concluded Soviet Novelist I1ya Ehren
burg, as the Stalin era faded. And still
they come: surprising new writers who
have shattered the deadening conven tions
of the past. They have recoiled from the
novel, viewing it as prefabricated Stalin
ist architecture. The genre of choice is the
short story or novella. Many writers have
managed gradually to escape from Social
is{ Realism, with its obligatory jargon and
hortatory themes, traveling a world a.way
- back to 19th century realism. Even
Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhe
nitsyn, the two major Russian writers t. o
produce big novels, did so in the classical
manner.
Of all the short story writers to emerge
since Stalin's death, Vasili Aksyonov, 47,
continues to display the greatest virtuos
ity. Although he has written enormously
popular stories in a realist vein. Aksyo
nov has gone on to explore a variety of
modes and permutations of language, en
tering the I 980s as the Soviet Union's only
truly modern prose writer. His evolution
is instructive. Aksyonov's first fiction
dealt with a previously unheard-of theme:
the real life of Soviet teen-agers.
In his 1961 novella Starry Ticket, for
example, a group of Muscovite dropouts
run away to the Baltic beaches to escape
the crushing conservatism of their elders.
Old guard critics were scandalized. as
much by the "uncivic" behavior of Ak
syonov's heroes and heroines as by their
use of colloquial speech, mixed with un
derworld and concentration-camp slang,
invented words and such Americanisms
as glldbai, Brodvei and bugi-vugi. Funny.
fresh and richly expressive, Aksyonov's
idiom has been his contribution to the
larger effort of modern Russ'ian poets to
rescue the Russian language from dead
emng officialese.
Much of Aksyonov's fiction has a
dark and enigmatic cast that i.s the shad
ow of the Gulag. Like many other con
temporary Soviet writers. he is the child
of Stalin's victims: Aksyonov was brought
up in one of the infamous orphanages
called Homes for the Children of En
emies of the People. Few writers can re
produce the lingering stench of brutality
and fear better than he. Ln his story Vic
tory. a gem of Russian short fiction , a
chance game of chess on a train be
tween a brutish but canny player and
an intellectual becomes a moral life and
death struggle.
The Steel Bird, which was published
last year in the U.S.. marks Aksyonov's
break with realism in favor of the gro
tesque. This novella features a ghastly
Fazillskander ValentIn Rasputin
TllOlljfilthey from Socialist Realism the hounds keep biting attlieir heels.
Excerpt
He came to see me and complained about his appetite. His stomach ac
tually was swollen and covered with blue lines. My appetite has dis
appeared, he said. Then take the matter to the police, I advised boldly. What
"
about the digestion tract. he asked. Some rivets in the gut really had worked
loose, there were bolts rattling around. and some welded seams had come apart.
When all's said and done I'm no engineer and we're not Living in some science fic
tion novel. but in ordinary Soviet reality, I announced to him and washed my
hands of it. Very well. Doctor Zeldovich, you'll end up in here. he said and
slapped his swollen belly. I opened the window and suggested he vacate the
flat. He flew out of the window. His flight was heavy, sometimes he would faU,
like a plane in air pockets, but then he would suddenly soar and disappear. Of
course I realize I'll have to pay for my boldness. but the prospect of ending up
in his stomach. in that steel bag, I tell you straight, r don 't relish in the"
least.
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
hL
bl

lh
lh
in,
co
Ul1
\..
en
M
un
el
I u
an
M
sia
gn
an
en
off
au
era
ex
ali
of
a
an
\. e
fie:
pa
clif
bet
70
humanoid with a metal carapace who
blackmails the superintendent of an
a partment house into letting him live in
the elevator. Acting with Stalinist guile.
the steel bird takes over the entire build
ing and its tenants. The structure soon
collapses; the creature is left to roost tri
umphantly atop the elevator shaft, sur
veying the debris.
This aUegory of dictatorship sea.rcely
endeared Aksyonov to Soviet authorities.
Much of his recent work has been deemed
unacceptable, including The Burn, a nov
el that will be pubUshed in Russian in
July by Ardis Press in Ann Arbor, Mich ..
and in English next year by Houghton
Mifflin. A masterwork of modern Rus
sian literature. The Burn offers an en
grossing view of the life of party officials
and literary bureaucrats in the Brezhnev
era. Aksyonov. who has been under heavy
official pressure to leave the U.S.S.R ..
ought to be in the U.S. in time Lo help his
translator render 230,000 words of racy
experimental prose.
The reigning Soviet master of re
alism. Yuri Trifonov. 54. is also a child
of the Gulag. Among his first writings is
a biographical work about his father,
Valentin Trifonov an old comrade of
Stalin's whom the dictator ordered shot
in the late I 930s. Trifonov's forte is the
noveUa evoking the mean-spiritedness
and venality afflicting much of the So
viet urban middle class, Trifonov's sto
ries turn on moral choice-seemingly
paltry everyday decisions that make the
difference between a life of decency or
betrayal of self, family and friends.
rifanov's most important recent
work is his novella The HOllse on
the Embankment, which deals with
the ultimate Soviet dilemma: whether or
not to turn in a fellow creature to the se
cret police. The book explores the pro
cess by which a student comes to de
nounce the teacher who is also his
benefactor and prospective father-in-law,
all the while justifying his actions as per
fectly reasonable. A dramatization of the
novel was cut by censors, who removed
unflattering references to Scalin before al
lowing the play to open. In spite of these
deletions, Trifonov's powerful theme riv
eted audiences when the play opened in
Moscow Last month.
A different strain of realism is rep
resented by tbe derevenshchiki (village
writers), who celebrate Russia's tradition
al rural values and lament the woes of
the peasantry. The most promising de
revenshcJtik is a Siberian writer. Valentin
Rasputin. 43, author of numerous stories
and small-scale novels. including Live and
Remember, published in tbe U.S. in 1978.
Live and Remember is an unsentimental
yet compassionate depiction of a peasant
couple; a World War II deserter on the
run and his wife, one of the strong, suf
fering women who have remained the
queens of Russian literature.
These works have not appeared in
print without a struggle. Many remained
in limbo for years until cuts and revisions
TIME. JUNE 23.1980
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were made to fit political demands. Books Some of the Soviet Union's most im
by such established writers as Andrei Bi portant writing has never been published
tov and Fazil Iskander have been dis there at all. Instead. it circulates widely
membered or suppressed altogether. Only from hand to hand in the process known
odds and ends of Bitov's novel. Pushkin as samlzdal (literally. self-publishing).
HOllse. have appeared in various Soviet Varlam Shalamov's lapidary concentra
magazines. The full text of this elegant tion-camp stories. some of which were
portrayal of a Leningrad literary family recently published in the U.S. by W.W.
is only available from Ardis Press, PUb- / Norton under the title Kolyma Tales,
Usher of Iskander's wonderfully funny have been in samizdat for 20 years. Cur
cycle of stories, Sandro from Chegem. , rently the most prized samizdat work is
Venedikt Yerofeyev's Moscow-Petushki.
The account of a phantasmagoric drunk
en excursion on a suburban train, Yero
feyev's novella may be the most inno
Pop Fiction Lives vative piece of prose written in the
U.S.S.R. for more than four decades. The
, ooks for the masses are pub Russian text has been published in
lished in huge numbers in the France.
U.S.S.R., but they are not al Once a book has been forced into ex
ways the uplifting tracts that Marx and ile, its author often follows. Solzhenitsyn
Lenin envisioned as the people' s lit was ostentatiously deported in 1974, While
erature. New police and spy thrillers Andrei Sinyavsky, Joseph Brodsky, Vic
and science fiction are snapped up by tor Nekrasov. Anatoli Gladilin. Yuz
fans on publication day. The country's Aleshkovsky and others were pressured
top mystery writer is currently JuHan in various ways to emigrate. Vladimir Voi
Semyonov, 48, whose latest, Tass Is novich, the author of The LIfe and Ex
AlI1horized to Stale . ... was published traordinary Adventures 0/ Private Ivall
in an edition numbering 100,000 cop Chonkin, a samizdat favorite published by
ies. It is the stirring tale of intrepid Farrar, Straus & Gir oux in 1977, was
KGB agents vs. the CIA in an unnamed warned by the Soviet authorities in March
African country-manifestlY Angola. that his life would become "intolerable"
Because pubHshers base the size of unless he left the Soviet Union.
printings on polit ical, ideological and
other noncommercial considerations, eorgi Vladimov. 49, is another ex
Soviet bestsellers cannot be reckoned ceptionally talented writer who has
by Western standards. Even when been cut down in mid-career and
books sell out they are rarely reprint who is being hounded by the KGB. One
ed because of the arbitrary mechanics reason for the persecution is his celebrat
of the system. The real gauge of a ed novella. Faithful Rl/slall, which has
work's popularity is how much it is ul circulated all over the country tl1 samiz
timately wort.h on the flourishing black dar; it was published in the U.S. last year
market. An example is Heavy Sal/d. by Simon & Schuster. Ruslan tells of
by the popular adventure and mystery a concentration-camp dog, pitilessly
writer Anatol i Rybakov. Despite the trained t.o guard con victs. that becomes a
large printing (150,000). readers could stray when most of the Stalinist camps
not get enough of this bathetic story are closed down in 1956. Ruslan, and oth
of love and death among Jews in the er dogs of his kind. keep a vigil at the I
Ukraine during World War II: copie.s local railway station. hoping for the ar
now fetch $1 SO on the black market. rival of the familiar con voys of prisoners
Some hugely successful novels whom they can once again herd to the
have spawned a curious mass-market camp. "Anyone who waits with such sin
samizdat that differs sharply from the gle-minded devotion is always rewarded
writings of dissidents. The newest un in the end." Sure enough. one day "an in
derground rut is Ar the Last Frontier, credible horde" came tumbling out of a
a trashy historical novel by Valentin train . laughing and shouting. "In a mo
Pikul about Grigori Rasputin. the sexy, ment Ruslan was transformed: flexible,
self-styled holy man who held the Rus alert. his yellow eyes sharp and keen."
sian imperial fam ily in thrall. Origi The dogs mistake for prisoners a group
nally published in the magazine Our of construction workers who have come
C01l1emporary, which has a circulation to turn the abandoned camp site into a
of 300,000. the novel caused a sensa factory. When the young people begin
tion as much for its scenes of debauch strolling toward the site in a disorganized
ery as for its virulent ant.i -Semitism. column, some singing and even dancing
Unfavorable reviews. which criticized to the music of accordions. the dogs know
the book for its non-Marxist attitudes what to do: attack.
and hostile treatment of Jews, merely Vla.dimovs allegory of contemporary
piqued readers' interest. Not only are Soviet society, which was inspired by an
black market second-hand copies of actual event. hardly needs to be explained
Our Contemporary selling at $1 SO, but to Soviet readers. As a fable of literary
typewritten copies of a. longer, unex life, it signifies that the official hounds
purgated text of At the Last Froll/ler schooled under Stalin are likely to keep I
Elgin Blvd . at Laurier Ave.
Ottawa, Canada
are being passed from hand to hand. biting a1 the heels of insubordinate writ
ers in the Soviet Union for a long time I
to come. - PatriclMBIMk"
TIME. JUNE 23. 1980
72