IN THE SOVIET WAITING ROOM 107crisis. Politburo members, though, were conscious of the many very
disturbing symptoms. In their confidential deliberations they tried to
make an assessment. They provided no realistic cure. They did some-
what better as diagnosticians even though they failed to deal with the
entirety of the Soviet Union’s malaise.
They knew that the countries of advanced capitalism were striding
ahead in productivity and realizing their achievements in all sectors of
their economies. The functionaries who were drafting a new Party
Programme felt obliged to recognize that the West had a higher stan-
dard of living.^27 Western technological superiority was unmistakable
- the Soviet timber industry was four times less productive than the
American one.^28 There were only a few flickerings of optimism – one
example was Comecon’s agreement in June 1984 on a joint ‘Complex
Programme of Scientific-Technical Progress’. This was an attempt by
the USSR and Eastern Europe to match American scientific progress.^29
The French were doing something similar with their Eureka pro-
gramme as a rival to America’s Strategic Defense Initiative.^30 Soviet
ideology was adjusted in order to reflect an acknowledgement that the
USSR would not overtake Western countries in material production
in the foreseeable future. Marxism-Leninism had traditionally rested
on comprehensive optimism. Spokesmen suggested that the country’s
claim to superiority lay in its ‘style of life’. Whereas America gave
priority to the rights of the individual, the USSR espoused collectivist
principles and took pride in its guarantees of employment, free educa-
tion and health care, affordable housing and cheap utilities.^31
Even so, they recognized that Soviet agriculture was in a dreadful
condition. Chernenko told the Party Central Committee in October
1984 that America might exploit Soviet dependency on cereal pur-
chases to exert political pressure.^32 Forty-five million tons of grain and
grain products would be imported that year along with half a million
tons of meat.^33 Tikhonov prolonged the sombre mood. The latest har-
vest had yet again fallen far below expectations and drought affected
wide regions. Costly irrigation schemes had failed to rectify the situa-
tion. Eleven million hectares of agricultural land had fallen into disuse
in the past two decades. Budgetary plans would have to be rewritten,
and Tikhonov wanted to make it compulsory for collective farms to
find seventy per cent of the costs of necessary repairs from their own
funds. He added that this showed the wisdom of the gigantic scheme
to turn the USSR’s north-flowing rivers to the south.^34 This scheme
was so controversial among ecologists that Tikhonov’s comment, like