Paramount concerns

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 10

Paramount concerns

NZPA-NYT Moscow For the taxi-driver in Yerevan, the main question .of the day was whether the Ararat soccer team would go ahead with its game on Monday night. For the young mother in Moscow, it was whether Chekhov’s “The Sea Gull” would be cancelled on evening television.

Throughout the main cities of the Soviet Union red flags with black borders were dutifully hung out, and solemn music was played on radio and television. As it has been for a series of recent deaths in the ruling Politburo, the House of Unions was dutifully prepared to receive the body of Konstantin Chernenko, the Soviet President. But throughout Moscow and elsewhere in the nation the overwhelming sense was one of business as usual, of people turning their radio dials to another station as soon as they heard the announcement of their leader’s death.

Shops and offices remained open, and strollers in Red Square seemed hardly aware that on the other side of the red-brick Kremlin walls a change in leadership was taking place that could affect their lives for the next decade or more. "Yes, yes, we’ve heard,” said one young woman. "Another has died.” The Kremlin leadership went to remarkable lengths to foster the sense that business was being conducted without a break in stride.

In the midst of approving a new leadership and making funeral arrangements, two members of the ruling Politburo found time to meet the visiting French Foreign Minister, Mr Roland Dumas.

The impression grew that Mr Chernenko had been an interim leader of convenience to the Politburo, that he was already ill when named to the post 13 months ago and was simply marking time.

In a break with precedent Mikhail Gorbachev was named within hours of the announcement of his death. The lying-in-state was reduced to one day from the four or five days accorded to Mr Chernenko’s two immediate predecessors.

An official announcement that schools would be closed in honour of the late leader today, the day of the funeral, was later withdrawn. And within moments after his black-bordered portrait was shown on the evening television news, a more brightly coloured photograph of his successor filled the screen. Under Mr Gorbachev the Soviet Union appeared eager to move vigorously ahead. When Muscovites awoke Monday morning it was not an official announcement, but music, that told them their leader had died. For 13 hours solemn music continued on radio stations, and normal morning television shows were replaced by nature films

and classical music, before the announcement at 2 p.m. of Mr Chernenko’s death. On the evening news programme, the members of the Politburo were shown lined up stiffly at Mr Chernenko’s bier in the House of Unions.

As with his predecessors, Mr Chernenko’s body lay on a high bier decorated with boughs of fir, red flowers, and wide red ribbons bearing gold-lettered tributes. His 16 medals, including four Orders of Lenin, lay on red satin pillows at his feet. Mr Gorbachev led the mourners, pressing the hands of Mr Chernenko’s widow, Anna Dmitriyevna, and offering condolence to other members of the family. The television programme did not show Mr Chernenko’s face as he lay on his bier in an open casket, and there was little to distinguish the rites from those for the five other Politburo members who have died over the last four years.