DISCONTINUITIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001000030016-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2009
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: January 24, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET
The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20505
National Intelligence Council
NIC #00581-84
24 January 1984
(off . ~ 8-J -~- 7
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Cent
Deputy Director
ral Intelligence
of Central Intelligenc
e
THROUGH : Vice Chairmen, N
ational Intelligence C
ouncil
Chairman, Nation
FROM : Fritz W. E rmarth
National Intelli
: Discontinuities
al Intelligence Counci
gence Officer for USSR
in the Development of
l
-EE
the Soviet System
1. The paper that you sent to me for comment, "The Coming
Crisis in the Soviet Union," is part of a reviving debate on the basic
development of the Soviet system. How stable is it? Where is it heading?
What are the prospects for real system change, either by evolution or
perhaps revolution, and how fast? Interest in the policy implications of
these questions is rising too. Are the pressures on the Soviet system good
for us or bad for us? What, if anything, should US policy do with regard to
prospects for Soviet system change? Developments inside the USSR have
fueled interest in these questions. The current administration's
willingness to raise fundamental questions about the political and moral
legitimacy of the Soviet system have also contributed to the debate. For
the last twenty years, Western Sovietology has been stuck in an analytic
blind alley asserting: Given the Soviet system's weaknesses it cannot
last. Given its conservatism, it cannot evolve. Given its tenacious hold
on power, it won't succumb to revolution. Yet all these statements cannot
be true.
2. Interestingly, it?is not so much younger scholars from a new school
of thought that have contributed to this debate. I've been away from the
academic field for some time, so I cannot comment authoritatively on who
stands where on this issue. But I have the distinct impression that it is a
segment of the old Soviet and East European area specialists who are more
attuned to the discontinuities of Russian-Soviet history and the
CL BY SIGNER
RVW 24 JAN 90
DECL OADR
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET
possibilities of sharp breaks of pattern in the future.
who believe that
the Soviet system as become inherently unstable, a is evolution can be
affected by external influences, and that change beneficial to us should be
actively promoted by policy.
Thesis, Strengths and Weaknesses
3. thesis is this: Since their creation after World War II,
the Soviet-style political systems in East Europe have been vulnerable to
popular political upheavals -- he calls them "landslides" -- which seriously
threatened their survival and would have led in most cases to their demise
had not Soviet military intervention or threat thereof saved them. These
landslides had their origins in a range of economic, social, and political
stresses, leading to a combination of popular disaffection and elite
demoralization. Most cases on the list are familiar: East Germany in 1953,
Poland and Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland and Croatia in
the early to mid 1970s, Poland again in 1980-81.
4. rgues that there are enough similarities between East Europe
and the to warrant looking for the prospect of similar Soviet
landslides in the 1980s; he sees at least a 50% probability. He points to
current evidence of social and economic stresses within the Soviet system.
He cites historical evidence (mass desertions in World War II) of the lack
of system legitimacy. And he predicts that a combination of continued
trouble in Poland and leadership turmoil in the Kremlin could rupture system
stability quite suddenly.
5. 0 critics (among them a former NI0/USSR Arnold Horelick)
maintain that it is all wrong to equate East Europe to the USSR, or even
draw parallels. The political systems in East Europe have no legitimacy and
the national political cultures involved are more prone to dissent. The
Soviet system does, by contrast, have some roots in real patriotism and
Soviet peoples are more patient in suffering than are East Europeans.
(Horelick does agree with that conditions for discontinuity in the
USSR are ripening.)
6. I believ[ hs basically right, although his particular
analysis has weaknesses. East Europe is a kind of laboratory that shows us
how Soviet-style systems can come unstuck. The parallels don't have to be
exact to be pertinent. More to the point, we don't have to look to East
Europe to become sensitive about discontinuities in the USSR. Russian and
Soviet history has itself displayed such discontinuities. The Russian
revolution was the culmination of a long string of them. In the Soviet
period, the purges and collectivization were discontinuities imposed from
above. In the first year of the war, the system nearly cracked. It showed
signs of a landslide after Stalin died. The Soviet crackdown in
Czechoslovakia was very much inspired by the fear of spillover into the USSR.
SECRET
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
25X1
25X1
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET
7. My quarrel s that he doesn't carry his argument far
enough. It is virtually certain that the Soviet system will see repeated
local outbreaks of popular discontent in coming years, as it has in the
recent past. may be right in giving a 50 percent chance to such
outbreaks being large enough to be very visible and warrant very visible
repression. But Russian history is full of examples of uprisings, large and
small, eventually suppressed. What we are really concerned about is
prospects for fundamental change. Can the accumulation of stresses,
repeated and perhaps escalating outbursts of popular discontent, put enough
pressure on the system to produce rapid evolutionary and even revolutionary
change in the system? At some point, the differences between the USSR and
East Europe favor change in the Soviet system; there is no one outside it to
save the Soviet system.
8. The next major weakness of thel Iview is that it doesn't credit
the importance of external factors in future Soviet system change, except
for the so-called" ernational demonstration effect" which raises Soviet
popular expectations. In the light of Soviet and Russian history one can
say clearly: Positive Soviet change depends on a) the survival of a healthy
West to serve as a moral and political beacon, b) the conduct of Western
foreign and information policies in such a way as to separate patriotism in
Soviet society from support of the ruling elite, and c) inflicting external
defeats on the aggrandizing policies of the USSR whose success is vital to
system legitimacy.
9. 0 time horizons are too short. I would say that repeated, if
not continual, "landslides" could afflict the USSR in the next decade. More
interesting, there is a 50 percent chance over the next 25 years of major
system change, in my personal view.
Implications for Intelligence
10. A number of very weighty questions arise that we have to pay much
more attention to in the years ahead:
+ What are the social, economic, political sources of stress on the
system that generate popular disaffection? We are, of course,
looking at these issues, but not enough. The PFIAB Panel chaired
last year by Herb Levine (on which I served) called for more
analysis of the "soft" aspects of the Soviet social and economic
scene to get at these issues.
+ At what point do the problems of society wear thin the tolerance of
significant segments of the population for the system? Here we are
much weaker, as is the whole academic community.
SECRET) 25X1
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SE CRET
+ The most important question of all: When do stresses and
challenges so demoralize the elites and leadership that they start
"defecting" from their prime task of holding power, and
communicating to the people that they are losing their grip? This
is the crucial moment that shows up in all revolutionary
situations. In my opinion, we pay too little attention, through
open or classified sources, to the mood, morale, and
self-confidence of the Soviet leadership. Soft though it may be, a
grasp of their changing psychology and mood is more important to US
security, even in the shortrun, than predicting by a week or so
whether the Soviets will rejoin some negotiation.
+ The ultimate question is what is likely to replace the current
totalitarian, inherently expansionist Soviet system. Clearly we
would hope for a more liberal, constitutional system. But it could
well be another authoritarian system that we would also find
distasteful. The most important thing for us, however, is that a
new system not have the Marxist-Leninist manichean view of the
world and not be driven to extend its sway over even larger parts
of the globe. If we were more cognizant of the various strains of
thought competing inside the society, we should be able to help
shape the outlook of whatever system might replace the current
one. All of which underlines once again the importance of keeping
up with the society, not just the regime.
11. How do we operationalize an attack on these questions? I'll be
working with others in the analysis and collection communities to improve
our posture on these issues. Meanwhile, I offer the following thoughts:
+ The Soviet-watching elements of the community must simply remind
themselves that throughout Russian and Soviet history abiding
continuities have given way to sharp discontinuities. We are
blinded more by mental habits than lack of information. Many
younger scholars and analysts regard the tranquility of the
Brezhnev years as "normalcy." It is not.
SECRET
-4-
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET/
+ HUMINT sources need to be developed and better exploited where
possible, particularly on leadership morale and basic perspectives
as to "where they are in history."
What are we doing about it?
12. In the last year or so, three important papers dealing with Soviet
systems survival were published: SOVA's Soviet Societ in the 1980s:
Problems and Prospects, SOVA's Soviet Elite Concerns out Official
orru tion and Popular Unrest, and the NIC Memorandum on Dimensions of Civil
Unrest in the Soviet Union.
13. This year we are doing an NIE on The Significance of Political and
Social Discontent in the USSR. With your approval we have disseminated t- e
Rs to the community attac ed) and the drafter, is now doing
research for this pathbreaking NIE that will pu the issue on the
intelligence community's agenda.
14. In conjunction with that NIE we are also sponsoring a conference on
29 and 30 March that will bring together academic experts, emigres, and
government officials. The attached letter of invitation to one of the
participants (Attachment 3) will give you a feel for what we plan to do. We
expect both good education and methodological instruction.
15. Andy Marshall in OSD is sponsoring similar kind of work and will be
invited to our conference.
17. In sum,
-- Thel view.-- that we must be alert to sharp ruptures in the
established patterns of Soviet politics and social development --
must be represented in our work; it has important implications for
intelligence and policy.
-- I plan to press the intelligence community to continue and improve
its collection and analysis of Soviet societal developments.
SECRET
-5-
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET 25X1
A whole range of new policy
be emerging from our intensified analytic
subject for another day.
could 25X1
-6-
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
SECRET
DCI/NIC/NIO/USSR-EE/FERMARTH:BB (25 JAN 84)
Distribution:
DCI
DDC I
ER
VC/NIC
C/NIC
NIO/USSR-EE
NIO/USSR-EE Chrono
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
Next 26 Page(s) In Document Denied
Iq
STAT
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886R001000030016-4
ACTION INFO
N ., S.
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886R001000030016-4
 proved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
 Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4
STAT
Approved For Release 2009/08/14: CIA-RDP86M00886RO01000030016-4