Word: brezhnevs
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Though the present rulers will surely not be swept away quite that precipitously, Kremlinologists believe that in the five years following Brezhnev's death, most of the top leadership will be replaced. Every effort will be made to give the impression of an orderly succession. An interim leadership group composed of some of Brezhnev's surviving associates will presumably come to the fore. The immediate successor in Brezhnev's key post as General Secretary of the Communist Party is expected to be Andrei Kirilenko, who is three months older than Brezhnev, but in better health. Another contender...
...next government will almost certainly pursue the conservative policies of the Brezhnev era. The leaders, though, will probably make overtures to China in an attempt to repair the 18-year-old Sino-Soviet breach. Meanwhile, thousands of middle-level officials who are now in their 40s and 50s will be jockeying for power behind the scenes. By the late 1980s, if not before, they will have completed the second stage of the inevitable transfer of authority to a new generation. Officials now holding 5,000 to 6,000 top jobs will be replaced. These will include not only members...
...notably Political Scientist Jerry Hough of Duke -have prepared profiles of the upcoming elite on the basis of education and other significant data. These show that the new leaders will be better schooled than the old rulers, some of whom, like Kirilenko, had no real college education. Others, like Brezhnev, attended the vocational colleges that were characteristic of the 1920s and 1930s. Since the younger men began their careers around the time of Stalin's death in 1953, they are likely to be less fearful and more self-assertive than their predecessors, whose lives were under constant threat from...
...most other countries, success in the Soviet Union can depend on family and personal connections. With the right contacts, one has a lot less trouble getting into a top school, landing a good job and winning advancement. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev's elder son Yuri, for example, was named First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade last year at the relatively tender age of 47. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's son Anatoli, 48, was appointed director of the African Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1976. Influence peddling-called blat in Russian-prevails at all levels...
...joke that Muscovites tell about their economic system involves Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, who are riding a special train. When the engine breaks down, Stalin has the crew shot. Nothing happens. After a while, Khrushchev rehabilitates the engineers. Still no movement. Finally, Brezhnev pulls down the shades and sighs, "Well, let's pretend we are moving...