President Chernenko

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 20

President Chernenko

The election of Mr Konstantin Chernenko to the position of President is a mark of how quickly he has consolidated his power in the Soviet hierarchy. His leadership has been based on his position as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Mr Leonid Brezhnev, who was elected to the position of secretary in 1964, did not become President until 1977, when Mr Nikolai Podgorny resigned. Mr Brezhnev was the first person to be both the party leader and Head of State. Mr Yuri Andropov, who succeeded Mr Brezhnev, did not assume the Presidency until seven months after he had become leader of the party. Now Mr Chernenko, a bare two months after Mr Andropov’s death, holds both positions. Combining the offices in one person makes sense. The party leader has the most powerful position within the Soviet Union; in the Soviet Union’s external relations, what the party leader says is most important. As President, Mr Chernenko will also be able to represent his country’s views with all the formal authority of the State. The combination resolves any doubts in the minds of other countries about the authority of Mr Chernenko. Mr Chernenko assumes the Presidency at a time of serious trouble between the Soviet Union and the United States. The sooner these troubles are dealt with, the better for the whole world. Even if filling the vacancy left by Mr Andropov looks like a formality, the readiness of the Soviet Parliament to endorse the nomination points to a behind-the-scenes determination to create an impression of single-mindedness. How Mr Chernenko will use his authority as party leader and as Head of State is another question. He had been passed over in favour of Mr Andropov when Mr Brezhnev died. Mr Andropov was considered by many to be a sharper and generally more intelligent man. So far, Mr Chernenko appears to be more given to ceremony than was Mr Andropov and less given to trying to make the Soviet Union more

efficient. He has pledged himself to continue Mr Andropov’s policies, but observers detect a return to the more comfortable feeling of the Brezhnev years in the Soviet Union. The appointment of Mr Mikhail Gorbachev to chairmanship of the powerful Parliamentary foreign affairs committee is being interpreted as a concession to the more vigorous, and younger members of the Politburo. Mr Gorbachev proposed Mr Chernenko as President. In Mr Andropov’s time, it was Mr Chernenko who proposed him both as General Secretary and later as President. Just as Mr Chernenko previously missed out in the selection of the party leader, Mr Gorbachev is reported to have missed out to Mr Chernenko. According to the elaborate rituals of the Soviet Union, Mr Gorbachev stands a good chance of succeeding the 72-year-old Mr Chernenko one day. Mr Chernenko has made it clear that he will not negotiate over the control of nuclear arms while the improved American arms remain in Europe. Many of the nuclear-arms control treaties were negotiated during Mr Brezhnev’s years. There had been some hope in the United States that Mr Brezhnev’s preferred successor, Mr Chernenko, would be more amenable to returning to the negotiating table than was the dying Mr Andropov. Mr Brezhnev put his own reputation and position on the line over developing a better relationship with the West, especially with the United States over nuclear arms controls. For all this, he was not prepared to sacrifice what he considered to be important Soviet interests; and he was not prepared to forgo opportunities, such as presented themselves in southern Africa and in northern Africa to further Soviet influence in spite of Western annoyance. At present, paranoia rather than opportunism seems to dominate Soviet thinking. The United States may have to help the Soviet Union to get over this mood before some progress can be made again in reducing nuclear armouries.