Word: brezhnevs
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...power struggle had broken out within the Kremlin. Citing sources in Belgrade and Prague, the article said that three Politburo members-Ideologue Mikhail Suslov, Trade Union Leader Alexander Shelepin and First Deputy Premier Kirill Mazurov -had taken the extreme step of writing a letter that blamed Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin for failures in the Soviet economy...
...rumors with a denial. Neither in Moscow nor abroad was there the slightest evidence of a power struggle-or even of a letter. On the contrary, the Soviet capital was stolidly quiet. There were no signs of unusual military activity except for huge Soviet army maneuvers in Byelorussia -and Brezhnev was on the scene reviewing the exercise with Defense Minister Andrei Grechko...
...supporting evidence, however, what made last week's rumor so intriguing to Kremlinologists was the serious economic plight of the Soviet Union. Once before, a similar situation presaged a change of leadership; that was in 1964, when Nikita Khrushchev was ousted mainly because of economic troubles. Ever since Brezhnev's secret speech to the Central Committee in mid-December, which stressed grave economic problems, there has been speculation that a change might take place in the top leadership some time this year...
During the past three months, the substance of Brezhnev's speech has been published in Pravda and discussed at closed party meetings throughout the Soviet Union. By all accounts, it was a scathing attack on shortcomings, waste, inefficiency and mismanagement in the economy (TIME, Jan. 26). Brezhnev spoke of lost productivity because of rampant alcoholism. As one example of mismanagement, he reportedly told of a shipment of four expensive construction cranes from East Germany. All four were shipped clear across the country to Vladivostok, but two of them actually were supposed to go to Odessa. They finally arrived...
There was much for Brezhnev to deplore. Due to a combination of mismanagement, bad planning and severe winter storms, industry and agriculture are undergoing sharp slumps. Though the Kremlin claims that industrial production last year increased by 7%, U.S. sources say the actual figure may be as low as 3.5%; in any event, the 1970 planned increase, 6.3%, is the lowest goal for any peacetime year since the first Five Year Plan was introduced in 1928. Agricultural production actually fell 3% last year, and 1969 grain production dropped 10%. Anticipating severe shortages, the Soviets were forced to buy $150 million...