Word: shelepin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Whether or not Shelepin conspired to grab the U.S.S.R.'s top job, he has long been a formidable and potentially troublesome contender for it. At 56, Shelepin is a mere stripling in the ruling Soviet gerontocracy. He was the youngest member in the Politburo, where the average age is 66, and probably the healthiest. Moreover, as George Washington University Kremlinologist Carl Linden sees it, his impatient approach probably clashed with that of his cautious elders. "While Brezhnev and the other old men wanted to pursue glacial tactics, Shelepin was an activist, always looking for opportunities to shake things...
Tacked on to the end of a long-winded account in Pravda of the latest Central Committee meeting was a laconic one-line communique: "Comrade A.N. Shelepin has been relieved of his position as a Politburo member at his request." Thus did Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin, the Kremlin's star ascendant of the 1950s and '60s, plummet last week into the particular oblivion reserved for disgraced Soviet leaders. No one was fooled by the official contention that the most ambitious, the most artful and potentially the most powerful man in the U.S.S.R. had willingly relinquished his post...
Sovietologists agreed that the shake-up was highly significant-but of what? Some Western commentators jumped to the conclusion that it was a triumph for Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev's middle-of-the-road policies at home and detente abroad as against Shelepin's supposedly hard-lining Stalinism. Actually, Shelepin has consistently praised Brezhnev not only for his "vast personal contribution" to economic and political cooperation with the West but also for his handling of key domestic issues...
...Mere Stripling. In Moscow, the consensus among foreign diplomats was that Shelepin's fall had not been caused by policy differences but by power politics. According to one scenario, Shelepin was caught organizing a faction that would have seized power when the ailing Brezhnev retired or died. Now Brezhnev can probably count on eight votes, including his own, on issues that come before the 15 remaining Politburo members. This might enable him to engineer an orderly transfer of power at the 25th Party Congress that is scheduled to begin next February. Current favorite to succeed him, at least...
Although actively in pursuit of détente, Britain was discomfited by Shelepin's presence, even though he is widely regarded as a contender for Leonid Brezhnev's job when the Soviet party chief retires. As for the T.U.C., it defended the bungled visit in a statement claiming that the trip had led to "constructive conversations held in a friendly atmosphere...