5. SYMPTOMS RECOGNIZED,
CURES REJECTED
As Party General Secretary, Andropov exercised unmatched personal
power. There was a paradox in this. Although there was no higher post
than the party general secretaryship, the holder was constrained by the
whole framework of the Soviet order. The USSR was a one-party state
and the communist party acted as its government in all but name. The
ideology since the revolution of October 1917 was based on the ideas
of Vladimir Lenin – Marxism-Leninism. The constitutional structure
had been the same for decades. The economy rested on state owner-
ship and gave precedence to heavy industrial output, and the military
industrial sector was prioritized within it. The biggest ministries, the
security police and the armed forces were directed and controlled by
the territorially based hierarchy of party committees. Joseph Stalin had
consolidated this system in the 1930s by brutal deployment of party
and police rule. Nikita Khrushchëv introduced a modicum of reform
and relaxation from the mid-1950s, but his policies offended the elites
and he was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964. A long period of
political and economic consolidation ensued, and the system of power
acquired a force of inertia as elites worked to defend their interests.
Andropov was conscious of the defects in the country’s capacity to
satisfy the demands of society as well as to compete with America; but
he was timid about adopting measures to rectify the situation.
He was conscious of the need to carry the party leadership along
with him. Every five years there was a party congress that elected a
Central Committee whose membership included leading officials of
the party, the government, the armed forces and the KGB. The Central
Committee seldom met more than twice a year. Between its plenary
sessions it delegated its powers to a small internal body known as
the Politburo. The General Secretary could never afford to ignore the
Politburo’s collective opinion.