World: That Puzzling Politburo Plague

THE Soviet Union commemorated International Health Day last week, but the timing could hardly have been worse. No fewer than five of the eleven full members of the Politburo were reported to be incapacitated by various ailments.

Confined to hospitals or to their homes were Premier Aleksei Kosygin, President Nikolai Podgorny, Communist Party Ideologist Mikhail Suslov, Trade Union Leader Alexander Shelepin and Deputy Premier Dmitry Polyansky. Such widespread contagion within the U.S.S.R.'s ruling body—some spoke of the "Politburo plague"—revived last month's rumors of a Kremlin shake-up (TIME, March 23). It is, of course, medically possible (if statistically implausible) that all are genuinely ill, especially in view of the advanced age of some of the patients: Kosygin, Podgorny and Suslov are all over 65. But many analysts speculated that Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, lately seen to be fit and cheerful, was consolidating his position, and that some, if not all, of the disabled leaders were suffering from maladies that were more political than physiological.

Several experts in the West theorized that a decision to oust some of the top leaders has already been made, perhaps at a secret Politburo meeting rumored to have been held on or around March 30. After that date the five Politburo members were conspicuously absent from several state occasions and began canceling travel plans. According to this argument, the announcement of the ousters, which must be formally approved by the Central Committee, is being delayed until after next week's mammoth Lenin centennial celebrations. Stories are already circulating in Moscow that a meeting of the committee for this purpose may be imminent.

Under a Blanket. Speculation about important shifts in the Kremlin was reinforced last week by the dismissal of at least four top Soviet officials in charge of ideology, propaganda and culture. Most notable was the demotion of Vladimir Stepakov from head of the powerful Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee to the ambassadorship in Peking.*

Amidst the ideological trumpetings and fanfares preceding the Lenin anniversary, such a purge of the nation's top ideologists sounded a discordant note, to say the least. Some analysts saw a connection between the dismissals and the Politburo illnesses, especially since some of those fired are associated with Shelepin and all come under Sus-lov's authority. In a biting analogy, British Sovietologist Leopold Labedz observed that "the dogs are fighting under a blanket, but all we can see is the blanket moving. We don't know which dog has his teeth in which other dog." Other specialists point out that such clean sweeps of party and government agencies in the post-Stalin era have always taken place after, not before a change in the top leadership. Still others, however, believe that the propaganda officials were punished for failures, most notably for so overselling the Lenin celebrations that they have become a bore to many Russians.