SYMPTOMS RECOGNIZED, CURES REJECTED 63Pelshe commented that the man who most needed to look after him-
self was none other than the General Secretary.^48 Andropov’s kidneys
required regular dialysis, and he was frequently compelled to take
periods of recuperation when he had to put public business aside. He
was an ill man even before he assumed supreme power.
The confidential records of his period in office show that the
Soviet leadership frequently discussed a wide spectrum of external
and internal problems facing the USSR. Anxiety was not limited to the
secret reformers who would reveal themselves in 1985. The entire
Politburo under Andropov wrestled with the dilemmas of a growing
emergency.
But it was one thing to have some awareness of the difficulties and
entirely another to recognize the need for radical solutions. As ever,
the leadership’s instinct was to look for improvements by means of
palliative measures. It held tight to Marxism-Leninism, the October
Revolution and the one-party police state as the rock-hard founda-
tion of stability. But Marxism-Leninism itself was in trouble. It was
hopelessly inadequate in the struggle against Islam and Christianity.
The Turkmenistan Central Committee First Secretary M. Gapurov
reported that even civil weddings in his Soviet republic were always
followed by a religious ceremony led by a mullah. Circumcision was
a universal practice there. F. D. Bobkov, KGB Deputy Chairman,
reported a growth of anti-Russian and anticommunist attitudes in
Turkmenistani society; he also noted that eighty-five per cent of
women of working age ‘sit at home’ just as their ancestors had done.
Gorbachëv and the other secretaries expressed amazement that such
a situation could prevail nearly seventy years after the October Revo-
lution.^49 The obstacle to inculcating Marxism-Leninism was equally
strong in Russia itself. Everywhere party propaganda departments
were reporting attitudes ranging from apathy and cynicism to outright
hostility. The discrepancy between official claims and the experience of
reality was obvious, and the Politburo sensed a gathering crisis in
popular consent to communist party rule.^50
Though air was escaping from the tyres of Soviet ideology and
society, Andropov remained essentially committed to tradition. In the
late 1960s he had rejected advice from his aide Georgi Shakhnazarov,
who advocated basic political and economic reforms and cast doubt
on the sense of aiming at comprehensive military ‘parity’ with Ameri-
ca. He had no intention of adopting a more modest foreign policy
after Brezhnev’s death; he also took pride in Stalin’s collectivization