Parallels to Khrushchev’s Fall Noted : Hard-Liners Could Oust Gorbachev, Adviser Hints

A thinly veiled warning was published here Wednesday that Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet Communist Party leader, could be ousted by political conservatives and bureaucrats opposed to his reforms.

In a two-page account of the ouster of the late Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1964, an adviser to both Gorbachev and Khrushchev provides much of the inside story of Khrushchev’s removal as party leader and implies that Gorbachev faces the same type of opposition.

Fyodor M. Burlatsky, writing in the influential weekly newspaper Literary Gazette, stops short of saying that such a conspiracy is already taking shape, but striking parallels emerge as he describes the plotting that led to Khrushchev’s replacement by Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Burlatsky describes the conspiracy against Khrushchev by ideological conservatives, party and government bureaucrats opposed to his reform efforts and political opportunists in terms that could be applied to Gorbachev’s apparent opponents.

He outlines very similar key issues--the debate then over the late Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and now over the correctness of past party decisions--as rival groups fought over fundamental policies. And he warns, in references to the future, against the selection of a new national leader by the type of party cabal that chose Brezhnev, whose 18-year rule is now condemned as the “period of stagnation.”

“It is time to end, once and for all, the tradition under which people come to lead the country not as a result of public activities in the party and the state, but rather as the result of behind-the-scenes alliances or even conspiracies and bloody purges,” Burlatsky says.

The tenor of Burlatsky’s article almost suggests that similar, preliminary plotting is under way and that there might even be a tentative candidate to replace Gorbachev if there were a successful conservative coup.

Allusions Dot Article

“Not every (regional party) secretary can lead our country,” Burlatsky warns as if he had a particular party official in mind. Similar allusions, unusual in a country where leadership politics are not discussed publicly, dot much of the article.

Extraordinary in its detail of the political plotting within the Kremlin, in its characterization of recent Soviet leaders and in its length of more than 8,000 words, the article by Burlatsky--chairman of the Soviet Human Rights Commission and a member of Gorbachev’s informal “kitchen cabinet”--appears to be part of an intense struggle within the Communist Party leadership over the country’s future--the scope of political and economic reforms, its development strategy and its foreign policy.

“Given Burlatsky’s closeness to Gorbachev, the national stature of Literary Gazette and simply the subject he is writing about and the confidential information he is disclosing, this article has great significance,” commented a veteran Soviet political analyst, an avowed Gorbachev supporter, asking not to be quoted by name.

“First of all, it means that, at the top, they are fighting--and that our side, those backing Gorbachev, is concerned that it may lose. Secondly, our side is trying to rally support for Gorbachev, to tell people that there is danger ahead.”

Discrediting Opposition

The Burlatsky article appeared to many readers intended to thwart any attempt to oust Gorbachev by discrediting in advance anyone who might try by likening them to those who forced out Khrushchev.

The possibility of such an attempt was underscored by Burlatsky’s personal standing as well as the decision of Literary Gazette to devote two pages to what might seem simple history.

Burlatsky, however, does disclose a number of Kremlin secrets:

-- How the conspirators who ousted Khrushchev met at soccer matches to avoid surveillance.

-- Which Politburo member was in which faction and how they agreed to cooperate.

-- Their recruitment of security officials to change Khrushchev’s bodyguards.

-- How they seized upon a rash comment by Khrushchev’s son-in-law about possible German reunification to convene the Central Committee meeting at which Khrushchev was ousted.

-- How they then chose Brezhnev as an interim leader because of sharp differences among themselves.

He also discloses that Gorbachev’s basic reform program was first laid out in December, 1964, by Yuri V. Andropov, then a Central Committee secretary, later head of the KGB, and in 1982 Brezhnev’s immediate successor as party leader. But, he says, the reforms were rejected by Brezhnev and the late Premier Alexei N. Kosygin.

Campaign Against Brezhnev

The Burlatsky article was the latest effort in a prolonged campaign of denunciation of Brezhnev, his style of leadership and his 18 years in power and, by implication, those conservatives who might want to return to that era.

“The main lesson from Brezhnev’s era is the total collapse of the system of administration by command,” Burlatsky says. “His rule demonstrated that it has no future.”

Burlatsky also quotes Brezhnev as once telling friends that when he was a student he had earned money by unloading supply wagons on the principle “every fourth bag for myself. . .”

“That’s how everyone lives in our country,” Burlatsky quotes the former Kremlin leader as saying.

“The saying ‘a fish rots from its head down’ is very true,” Burlatsky writes. “Brezhnev thought the shadow economy, mass embezzlement in the service industries and bribes for civil servants was quite normal.”

Burlatsky’s article comes both amid growing conservative resistance to many of Gorbachev’s reforms, known as perestroika, and at a time of mounting popular discontent over the lack of improvement in living standards despite the reforms.

Even before the Burlatsky piece, there were other long articles in the official press that suggested that not only is a major policy debate under way within the top leadership but that it could soon lead to a power struggle among rival factions and even a direct challenge to Gorbachev.

Already, senior members of the ruling party Politburo are differing publicly on the essential elements of perestroika , on economic strategy, on the basis for Soviet foreign policy.

Touring Siberia, Gorbachev has been confronted this week by angry residents complaining about shortages of food, consumer products, housing and public facilities of all types, about unsafe working conditions, about damage to the environment and about the failure of local officials to implement his reforms.

Challenge to Party

While respectful toward Gorbachev himself, the questioners--who sometimes turned into hecklers--have publicly and forcefully challenged the Communist Party to justify not only its present policies but also its leadership of the country.

Gorbachev’s response has been to given them a patient hearing and then to defend perestroika , to ask for their support and to challenge them to put the reforms into action locally themselves.

“You are using perestroika feebly now,” he told workers in Norilsk, a huge metallurgical center in northern Siberia well beyond the Arctic Circle, although 40% to 60% of local party officials are being replaced in current elections. “You have to shake up your leaders soundly.”

But, referring to the danger of polarization within the country, Gorbachev said, “We are pursuing the restructuring, and we are responsible for preventing the country from being split into camps, for preventing the people from getting into head-on clashes.”

Soviet leaders faced the temptation, Gorbachev suggested, of yielding to those supporters of perestroika who urged them to “fire upon the headquarters”--much as the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung called upon Chinese to “bombard the headquarters” early in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in an effort to depose party and government bureaucrats.

‘Firing at the Headquarters’

“We all know about the ‘firing at the headquarters’ in China,” Gorbachev said, attempting to quiet angry workers wanting to oust all local leaders. “It then took the people (in China) 15 years to try to understand what they had done. Let’s not repeat the experience. Let us not destroy the house and break everything in it and then ask ourselves, ‘What have we done?’ ”

Burlatsky suggests that Gorbachev wants to cut two-thirds of the country’s 18 million bureaucrats and to reduce the total number of government ministries and departments from more than 100 to about 15 or 20. This, he suggests, is the basis of much of the opposition that Gorbachev now faces.

Meanwhile, Brezhnev’s grandson Andrei complained in another article published Wednesday that criticism of the late Soviet leader was turning into a smear campaign and that the whole family should not be blamed for his grandfather’s mistakes.

“I’m 27 years old, and my independent life is only beginning, but I already feel that my surname ever more frequently has become a stumbling block in the most varied situations,” Andrei Brezhnev wrote in Moscow News. “I am just like everyone, but many don’t want to see anything in me except my surname.”

Agrees With Criticism

The son of Brezhnev’s son Yuri, Andrei said he agreed with much of the criticism appearing now in the Soviet press of the country’s late leader, but he stressed that relatives should not share the blame.

He recalled that under Stalin, relatives of those accused of political crimes were arrested or shot simply because of their family ties.