IN THE SOVIET WAITING ROOM 105stresses that Andropov had introduced. The campaign against corrupt
or inefficient officials ceased. Gorbachëv would remember the year
1984 with distaste, telling how Politburo members fought with each
other to own the Lincoln Continental limousine that Nixon had given
to Brezhnev: ‘They almost killed each other.’^13 Urgency disappeared
from governance. The leadership had thrown away its opportunity to
set about the overdue reforms.
Gorbachëv did what little he could to counteract the trend. He
was brusque and demanding with officials below the Politburo level.
In August 1984 he led a discussion with provincial party secretaries
on current difficulties with the harvest in Russia. He stamped on inaccur-
acy and evasiveness. His reaction to waffle was withering: ‘Sit down,
you haven’t thought out your contribution!’^14 His self-belief was excep-
tional. He even told the Party Secretariat to end the growing cult of
Chernenko in press, radio and TV. Though he had consulted Cher-
nenko in advance, he took the risk of appearing to covet the general
secretaryship.^15 The atmosphere was undergoing refreshment at the
higher party levels. When the drafting group met to draw up the new
Party Programme, people felt free to make jokes about Brezhnev and
even about Chernenko and Gromyko.^16 At the Central Committee in
October 1984 Gorbachëv played a gramophone record of a speech by
Lenin. The sound engineers had done a good job in restoring aural
quality. The effect was to sharpen the contrast between the masterly
Lenin and the ailing Chernenko.^17
At the Politburo’s Afghan Commission, he supported the military
commanders who argued that the sole way to finish the war was by
political methods and wanted to aim at the Soviet Army’s withdrawal.
The high command sensed that there was at least one man in the
political leadership who was willing to sort out the mess. Valentin
Varennikov liked how Gorbachëv spoke at the commission: ‘Well,
what a fine fellow!’^18
Gromyko was the main stumbling block to his further ascent. He
and Ustinov acted as if they owned the Kremlin after Andropov’s
death. If Gorbachëv wished to impress himself on world affairs, he
would have to deal with a Foreign Affairs Minister who had never
been more powerful. Gromyko was a political mountaineer but he was
no explorer: he had no interest in discovering about the foundation of
Reagan’s thinking. He thought in Marxist-Leninist clichés and sieved
out all data that jarred against his ideas.^19 No ministry official dared to
contradict his opinion.^20 But people knew where they stood with him.