Will Cassandras See the Light Now ? : By Sweeping Out ‘Dead Souls,’ Gorbachev Shows He’s in Charge

The changes in Moscow this week demonstrate how misleading all those Western voices are--to be heard not least in the United States--which warn that Mikhail Gorbachev’s position as Soviet leader is insecure and that his political life expectancy may be very limited.

Contrary to Cassandra, whose prophecy was on the mark but not taken seriously, the latter-day Cassandras have been accorded respectful attention even though their track record scarcely justifies it.

It is more than two years since I first heard a prominent American commentator on Soviet affairs give Gorbachev “one more year.” The reality is that in each successive year since he became general secretary in March, 1985, Gorbachev has advanced his political agenda and consolidated his power. In particular, he has brought more like-minded people into the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, though the larger body--the Central Committee itself--lagged behind the pace of personnel change in the country as a whole and was less supportive of radical reform than Gorbachev and his principal allies in the leadership desired.

So many people had lost their senior party or governmental posts--which earned them the Central Committee membership they continued to enjoy--that the point was approaching when there would be almost as many comparatively functionless Central Committee members as there were those with important jobs to do. Not all of these “dead souls” were as old as the former foreign minister and head of state, Andrei Gromyko (who will be 80 in July) or the former chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nikolai Tikhonov (84 next month). Some were young enough to harbor resentments concerning the fact and manner of their removal from executive office, and collectively they formed a pool in which those who wished to fish in troubled waters might have hoped for some success.

It was never likely that Gorbachev would allow his opponents to make too much of that hypothetical opportunity, however, and now he has firmly preempted the possibility of any such action. To remove 110 full and candidate members of the Central Committee at any time other than at the party congresses, held every five years, was hitherto unheard of. The device of the collective letter of resignation was a useful way of keeping within the party rules, which stipulate that only at congresses can people be dropped from the Central Committee--other than the occasional expulsions for serious offenses, usually criminal as well as political.

Gorbachev still did not have a completely free hand when it came to replacing those who have just departed, for the rules allow between-congress promotions to full membership in the Central Committee only from the ranks of those who are already candidate members. Accordingly, there were just 24 promotions against 110 resignations on Tuesday. The present candidate members of the Central Committee were chosen when Gorbachev had been general secretary for less than a year and they were formally elected at the 27th Party Congress in early 1986. They include a good many people who are by no means in the reformist mold.

Meanwhile, there could be more demotions from the Central Committee before the year is out. No action was taken this week against those party officials who had failed to be elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies in last month’s election, even when--as in a number of cases--they had enjoyed the luxury of not having an opponent running against them. The word is that it is up to the local party organizations to consider whether they should continue to be led by someone the electorate has rejected. If they decide that they need a first secretary who can command more authority, then there could be more functionless “dead souls” ripe for removal from a Central Committee that, normally more than 300-strong, is already down to 251 full members.

That would, of course, have broader political implications, ones all the more interesting in view of the regional and local elections due to take place this year in a political climate (as the election to the Congress of People’s Deputies showed) in which millions of Soviet citizens demonstrated not only that they had independent minds but also that they were prepared to exercise their independent judgment in the voting booths. If it became the norm that a party first secretary defeated in the election of deputies to soviets were expected (or forced) to resign by his party committee, this would give the 90% of Soviet adult citizens who are not members of the Communist Party a veto over the continued tenure of their local party boss. That would hardly constitute Western-style democracy, but it would be one more step along the road of “democratization.”

But at least as important for the long-term prospects of Gorbachev and the reform process, this week’s Central Committee spring cleaning makes still less likely than before a palace coup against the Soviet leader. It would now take something closer to a revolution than a Politburo or Central Committee volte-face --with the main participants coming from outside the leading organs of the party--to remove Gorbachev from office. And that, with all due respect to the Cassandras, is not about to happen.