STAFF NOTES: SOVIET UNION EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00608R000400110017-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 21
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 31, 2005
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: November 25, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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Secret
gUj~p Kn, UE~
Soviet Union
Eastern Europe
State Department review completed
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SOVIET UNION ? EASTERN EUROPE
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CONTENTS
November 25, 1975
The Soviet Leadership. 1
USSR: Industry. 6
Ceausescu on the LCPC. 8
Ceausescu Postpones Kuwai4- Visit . . . . . . . . 9
Sino-Albanian Ties Appear Unchanged. . . . . . . 10
CHRONOLOGY C H R O N O L O G Y .. . . ... . .1.1
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The Soviet Leadership
The Soviet political elite, the party Central
Committee, wilt. meet on Monday to discuss next year's
economic plan and budget and hear a repcrt on leader-
ship activity since the last plenum in April.
it is also expected to announce the agenda and
speakers for the party congress next February, and
it may make some changes in the positions of second-
echelon leaders. Any of these would provide clues
to leadership and policy decisions to be made at the
Congress.
Aging Prompts Speculation
Most pre-Congress speculation has centered on
the health of party chief E; ezhnev and the au ntinn
of whether or not he will stay in office.
These circumstances have encouraged East Euro-
pean officials and Soviet officials abroad to predict
leadership changes before or at the Congress. The
most frequent theme is that Brezhnev will retire or
transfer to an honorary post
Most reports .^arry no suggestion
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of a coup or major policy conflict.
The Shape of the Leadership
If change at the top is to be other than medi-
cally related and voluntary, what is the engine that
will drive it? The senior leaders are not contenders
for Brezhnev's job, and they probably identify their
own security with keeping Breziinev in place. Junior
leaders who have long been waiting in the wings are
still doing just that--waiting. Many are handicapped
because they are poorly placed, lack a clear claim
to a higher post, or have been ill. Those younger
leaders who have shown impatience for power have ;-I-
ready been weeded out.
In fact, the past year has reinforced Lhe im-
pression that if Brezhnev were to relinquish his post
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in the near future, Kirilenko would serve as an in-
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November 25, 1975
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Brezhnev Faces D.i.:3alapointmeats
Recent events could give rise to misgivings over
various policies. The glow has worn off the two major
programs announced by Brezhnev at the last Party Con-
gress: detente and consumer welfare?
In Soviet eyes, the value of detente probably
seems somewhat obscured now by political losses in
the Middle East, the aggressive response in the West
to CSCE, and uncertainties over SALT and the Wash-
ington summit. This ial l , rezhnev has devoted at-
tention I..(-) domestic matters and the communist move-
ment, pcrl,apps in an effort to mend fences before the
Party Congress, perhaps in direct response to reported
criticism of his preoccupation with detente.
This year's harvest failure will have a dis-
piritiny effect poi.'tiL'ally and ;;potiights the fail-
ure to ;c,aet t:-,.e ti~als :;f the cote,um r pioyram. Drezh-
nev has already had to admit this failure to the Cen-
tral Committee, and a debate over emphasizing the
growth of consumer industries has surfaced in eco-
nomic and party journals.
Other business is pending. The draft of the
next five year plan must be completed soon. Drafting
the fifteen year plan haE3 evidantly run into diffi-
culty. Progress on other projects mentioned in the
past by Brezhnev, including a new constitution and
rationalization of agricultural. and industrial
management, looks even more problematical.
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Despite these problems, the leadership seems
willing to make adjustments in its basic policies
without altering them fundamentally. Attractive al-
ternatives to present policies have yet to be put
forward with con,."iction.
The harvest disaster, tor example, reflects poorly
on the agricultural programs associated with 13rezhnev,
and politicians have already sought to head off crit:--
icism. In the end, hc?.;ever, the drought will prob.
bably be soon as an argument against abandoning the
present heavy investments in agriculture and the de-
velopment of the central Russian regi;'n. in addition,
the drought makes the Soviet Union more dependent on
grair, imports from the West and, by exLension, on
detente--a dependency quietly given :Corm in the re-
cent five-year US-Soviet agreement on grain purchases.
Leadership Signals Awaited
The modest turnover in the membership of the
Central Coitunittee since the last Congress argues for
stability at the Lop. No patterns ha,v'2 emerged in
personnel changes that either strongly favored or de-
tract from one or another leader. The series of party
elections building up to the Congress are proceeding
on schedule and in an unremarkable iashion.
The most tel~ing indication of Laiiuie to pre-
pare for succession is the absence of upward movement
of junior members of the leadership. Recent additions
to the Politburo have been older officials concerned,
with foreign policy who are not candidates for higher
office. Meanwhile, full membership on the Politburo
continues to be withheld from potential comers'like
RSFSR Premier Solomentsev. Other leadership posts,
such as party secretary for culture and trade unions
chief, have been left vacant.
The Outlook
The Soviet leadership seems to be coi',sting on
past momentum and the strength of !-_Litu:xl forms that
could carry it through the Congress wi_'.h little
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change. The need for a generational change is press-
ing; it is a growing factor for instability. As yet
there is little evidence, however, of moves to unseat
Brezhnev or other senior leaders or even of prepara-
tions for an orderly succession.
Deterioration in Brezhnev's health, of course,
could at any time prompt a decision to retire or to
assume an honorary post. He would be unlikely to re-
tire strictly for political reasons. A voluntary de-
cision, especially in favor of an interim succession
under K:'rilenko,.might be made with little advanced
warning and probably, in the short term, with a min-
imum of disruption to the leadership.
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USSR: Industry
Sovi. t industrial. production in the last year of
the 1971-75 plan period will grow by more than 6.5
percent--only slightly below last year's healthy in-
crease of nearly 7 percent. Industrial growth for
the five year plan, however, will fall short of the
target by about one fifth.
Effects on consumer industries of the 1975 har-
vest failure are as yet only slightly apparent. Hence,
the boost in he overall level of consumption posted
for the first nine months of 1975 will continue for
the balance of the year. Although the growth rate in
meat production for the final three months of 1975
will be below the 11 percent increase achieved
through the third quarter, it will be high enough to
sustain meat supplies. Also, because of tight live-
stock feed supplies, we do not expect the output of
dairy products to be maintained at the third quarter
growth rate of 4 percent.
The machinery sector, led by instruments and
computers, is up 10 percent through the third quarter,
although production of oil equipment, diesel locomo-
tives, and freight cars is below last year's levels.
A decline in the growth of agricultural machinery
from a 4-year average of 12.5 percent to 9 percent
this year coincided with the poor harvest. The So-
viets must sustain unusually,high growth rates in this
sector because a large share of past production is
perpetually out of service as a result of high break-
down rates, shortages of spare parts, and a lack of
skilled mechanics.
Growth in output of most consumer durables is
accele.;ating slightly this year. The troubled cloth-
ing and textile sector, however, is facing an -accumu-
lating inventory and is shifting emphasis to quality
rather than quantity.
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Most branches producing industrial materials have
posted higher growth rates through September, with
major increases in paper and paperboard, forest prod-
ucts, and chemicals. The improvement in paper pro-
duction is significant because of the severe paper
shortage of last year and early this year. Else-
where in the materials sector, the failure of the
ferrous metals branch to achieve the plan for rolled
metals and steel pipe is adding to supply problems
in some machinery branches.
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Ceausescu on the ECPC
Romanian media still have not commented on last
week's preparatory meeting in East Berlin for the
proposed European Communist Party Conference (ECPC).
A Turkish news interview with President Ceausescu
just prior to the session was printed in the party
daily Scinteia on November 23. In the absence of
anything else, the interview can be taken as an
authoritative statement of Bucharest's position.
The interview provides a candid view of the
obstacles the Kremlin encountered when it tried to
use the ECPC to re-establish Soviet authority over
the European parties. Ceausescu emphasized the
independence of all participating parties by charac-
terizing the proposed gathering as an "exchange of
views" and "a means by which all forces should act
to implement the principles adopted at Helsinki."
He also questioned the need for a final ECPC docu-
ment, noting that if one is adopted, it should be
by "general consensus."
The Romanian leaner restated Bucharest's ground
rules for participating in the conference--no guiding
center for international, communismi, a free exchange
of ideas, and recognition that each party must set
its own line in accordance with the realities in
which it exists.
The embassy notes that there could hardly be a
more limp and diluted attitude toward ECPC and adds
that it has rarely seen Soviet and East German diplo-
mats "so defensive and ill at ease" in discussing
the Berlin meeting. By contrast, the Yugoslavs have
seldom been more outspoken in describing the "re-
gression" of the ECPC preparations and in acknowledging
the gap between the "independents" and "nrf-hnrRnv""
November 25, 1975
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Ceausescu Postpones Kuwait Visit
Romanian President Ceausescu has abruptly post-
poned the three-day visit to Kuwait that was sched-
uled to begin today. The stop in Kuwait was to pre-
cede a visit to Iran from November 27 to December 1.
The Iranian visit will apparently still take place.
The Kuwaiti press speculates that Bucharest may
have put off the visit because the Kuwait National As-
sembly failed--after four attempts--to ratify a bi-
lateral trade agreement with Romania. The Assembly's
debate centered on Romanian support for Israel in the
UN, the fact that Romania was the only East European
state that did not break relations with Israel in 1967,
and Romania's failure to vote for the UN resolution
equating Zionism with racism.
The Romanians have been successful in overcoming
some of their problems with the more militantly anti-
Israeli Arabs. They have, however, found it particu-
larly difficult to convince the Kuwaitis of the merits
of Bucharest's "balanced" Middle East policy. In an
apparent effort to mollify Ceausescu, a spokesman f~R000400110017-9
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mid-December A "working group" to convene in
Bast Berlin for further. work on the
draft of the final document for the
proposed pan-European Communist
party conference.
December 19 Brezhnev to mark his 69th birthday.
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