Word: politburo
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...domes of St. Basil's Cathedral. The Soviet Union, an empire whose expanse dwarfs the one ruled by ancient Rome, now confronts a pivotal decade in its history. Before long, an entirely new generation of leaders must replace that of President Leonid Brezhnev and his aging associates on the Politburo. There is, meanwhile, growing tension between East and West, with the world's two superpowers increasingly seen to be in confrontation. The military strength of the Soviet Union is clearly the equal of the U.S.'s; the Kremlin is seeking to project its influence in Africa, Asia and the Middle...
...being realized. One reason is that the present leadership and the leadership system as a whole work against dynamism. A management team that cannot, or will not, transfer power to a younger generation of executives except by the attrition of mortality is by definition guilty of mismanagement. The Brezhnev Politburo is like an aging board of directors that has no compulsory retirement policy, no adequate pension plan and no tradition of honoring emeritus directors. So each board member hangs on and on, becoming increasingly shortsighted as he becomes increasingly sclerotic. Such a corporation, no matter how large and powerful, would...
...party pyramid is the Central Committee, whose 287 members include the most powerful individuals in the nation. Fourteen of the most equal among the equals on the Central Committee constitute the policy-setting Politburo, which has been carefully controlled for most of the past 16 years by Brezhnev and his circle...
Decisions of the Politburo are, in effect, adopted and carried out by an elaborate system of local, regional and national governments whose apex is the Supreme Soviet, an elected parliament. This body consists of the Soviet of the Union, composed of 750 members, each of whom represents a district of about 350,000; and the Soviet of the Nationalities, also composed of 750 members, including 32 from each of the 15 republics. The Supreme Soviet, which meets twice a year in the Kremlin, can raise and debate issues, and hence may affect the decisions of the Central Committee. Officials claim...
...literature forbidden. Meanwhile, Solzhenitsyn had discovered an instructive fact about the Soviet authorities: "That strength and steadfastness are the only things these people fear; those who smile and bow to them they crush." He harried the enemy all the more. He issued protests, declarations and open letters to Politburo members, to the head of the KGB and to officials of the Writers' Union. His friends and supporters slipped copies to Western correspondents. The documents were published abroad, then broadcast back to the Soviet Union by the BBC, Radio Liberty and other foreign short-wave stations...