If Mr Brezhnev has struck a highly optimistic note in his report to the 25th congress of the Soviet Communist Party, it is not just because the occasion demands it. The Soviet Union has without doubt come a long wav both at home and abroad not only since 1964 when he took over from Mr Khrushchev as the first secretary of the CPSU but also since the last party congress in 1971.
Even in the field of agriculture which remains the weakest point in the country’s economy, the overall output in the 1971-75 period rose by 13 per cent -12.4 million tonnes a year – compared to the previous five years, and that despite the massive crop failures in 1972 and 1975. Similarly, while the plan targets have not been met in several industries the overall growth rate of 6.5 per cent a year has been fairly impressive.
As for the gains in the military and the international field, these have been truly spectacular. Though it has by now become a commonplace that the Soviet Union has achieved parity with, or perhaps superiority over, the United States in strategic nuclear weapons, and that it is likely to catch up with the latter in respect of naval power in a few years, the point needs to be made because America’s lead in both these fields was overwhelming in the early ’sixties. For without it, it is not possible to appreciate the true magnitude of the Soviet achievement. It is only when it recalls that Washington enjoyed four or even five to one superiority over Moscow in strategic nuclear weapons, and perhaps a greater one in naval power, at the time of the Cuban crisis in l962, that the world can grasp the distance the Soviet Union has travelled under Mr Brezhnev and his colleagues in the collective leadership.
Prowess
Unlike the United States in the ’fifties and the ’sixties, the Soviet Union has not flaunted its military prowess. Indeed, as late as October 1973, it desisted from sending its troops to the rescue of Egypt because President Nixon refused to join it in enforcing and policing the ceasefire between Cairo and Tel Aviv and ordered a nuclear alert. But there can be no question that the growth of military power has strengthened the Soviet leadership’s capacity to achieve its objectives and enabled it to impose a certain measure of restraint on the United States.
Lebanon and Angola illustrate the point. Though it is indisputable that the trauma of defeat in Indochina and the widespread distrust of the executive as a result of the shattering disclosures of abuse of authority by it and its agencies, specially the CIA, have been important factors in immobilising the United States, it could not even otherwise have imposed its will in either case as easily as it could some years ago. For example, while in 1970 it was enough for Washington to drop a hint that intervention by Damascus in Jordan – King Hussein was then engaged in a plan virtually to decimate the Palestinian guerillas – would attract an Israeli attack on Syria in order to compel the Kremlin to use its influence with President Assad to persuade him to play it cool, in the case of Lebanon this time the roles have been more or less reversed. The United States has been keen to ensure that Israel does not retaliate against Syria’s intervention and Tel Avis has been more than willing to comply with Washington’s wishes.
It is true that in Angola the US senate’s resolution of last December barring all forms of American aid to the FNLA and the UNITA has facilitated the Soviet task of ensuring the victory of the MPLA. But continued covert and not so covert American assistance to the FNLA and the UNITA could have only prolonged the civil war in that country. In view of the presence of over 10,000 Cuban troops on the MPLA side, President Castro’s willingness to send more men and the Soviet ability to transport them quickly and provide them with sophisticated military hardware, the final outcome could not have been very different.
Attention
The Soviet Union’s success in Angola has attracted a great deal of attention. This is justified not only because the Kremlin has demonstrated its capacity and readiness to help its friends in far-away places, but also because the MPLA’s victory there has dramatically transformed the scene in southern Africa. The white supremacists in Rhodesia have begun to see reason so much so that Mr Smith has invited Britain to play a role in the proposed constitutional talks between his government and the Joshua Nkomo faction of the African National Congress. In South Africa itself the authorities have begun to be concerned about the loyalty to the state of the coloured men and women whom they have so far treated as worse than chattel.
But despite its dramatic character, the Soviet success in Angola may not be the most significant. Two other developments may be said to be equally, if not more, significant – the de jure recognition by the West of the frontiers resulting from the second world war and the collapse of the Chinese challenge within the international communist movement.
It is self-evident that the western alliance headed by the United States has been neither keen nor in a position to alter the status quo in eastern and central Europe. But the importance of a de jure endorsement cannot be over-emphasised. As for China, it is even difficult to recall the atmosphere in the early ’sixties when it was widely taken for granted that Peking would be able to split communist parties all over the world, win over a vast majority of the dominant factions in Asian, African and Latin American countries and replace Moscow as the headquarters of the international communist movement. Not even the most ardent Maoists believe in that scenario any longer.
But despite these highly impressive achievements it will not be surprising if in retrospect the 25th congress comes to be seen as representing the end of the road the Soviet leadership has traversed since the overthrow of Mr Khrushchev in 1964. For, it is open to question whether the Soviet Union can continue to repeat its successes of the past ten years without significant changes in its domestic and foreign policies.
It is doubtful, for instance, if increased investments alone can make Soviet agriculture efficient when it common knowledge that, despite the sharp increases in the prices of their produce, farmers continue to pay much greater attention to their private plots than to the collective farms, that hundreds of thousands of tractors, harvester combines and trucks are found out of order at the crucial time of sowing or harvesting for want of spares and proper maintenance and that qualified drivers and mechanics in the countryside are anxious to find jobs in the cities. Agricultural investment has risen from 14 per cent of the total in the ’sixties to 31 per cent this year.
Similarly, while in the past Soviet industry could draw on the vast pool of manpower in the countryside, it cannot do so any longer. In future 90 per cent of the planned rise in output will have to be achieved through increased productivity. The Soviet leadership is accordingly importing high-level technology from the West. This itself is an expression of the weakness of the system because man-to-man Soviet scientists and technologists are as good as their Western counterparts. But even these imports at heavy cost Moscow ran a trade deficit of about five billion dollars with the West in 1975, may not produce the desired results so long as individual managers are denied the necessary powers and incentives to innovate.
Response
In the realm of foreign policy, it is inconceivable that the Soviet Union can continue its military build-up at the present rate without provoking in course of time an angry response from the United States, a possible SALT II agreement notwithstanding. It is equally difficult to believe that detente between the two super-powers can survive Soviet moves to push its advantage either in southern Africa or West Asia. Support for detente has more or less already disappeared among the American people as is evident from the latest public opinion poll in Massachusetts. According to it, 70 per cent of those polled said that detente favoured Russia and only five per cent felt that it favoured America.
As for the third world nations, as economic development takes priority over politics in one developing country after another, they will be making demands on Soviet resources which the Kremlin leadership is likely to find it difficult to meet. This may lead in some cases to dramatic shifts in policy a la Egypt. Above all, the repudiation by the French Communist party of the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat, its criticism of the treatment meted out by the Kremlin to dissident intellectuals and the assertion of the right to independence by it and other West European communist parties can turn out to be a graver challenge than the one posed by Marshal Tito in the ’fifties and Chairman Mao in the ’sixties unless the Kremlin shows sufficient resilience.
The Times of India, 3 March 1976