Soviet Union: The Hard-Liner

Death of an ideologue

When Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Communist Party's chief ideologue, made his final television appearance last December, the image that flashed on Soviet screens was a veritable icon of the Kremlin's masters. In an arresting gesture that symbolized 17 years of shared power, the lanky, 6-ft.-tall Suslov, 79, bent down to bestow a kiss on Leonid Brezhnev, who was celebrating his 75th birthday. Brezhnev will sorely miss such accolades, both ceremonial and substantive. Suslov's death last week from a stroke deprived Brezhnev of his most influential ally in the Soviet Union's ruling collective leadership. Observed one Moscow diplomat: "A pillar has been knocked out from under Brezhnev."

At the funeral, Brezhnev appeared grief-stricken as he shuffled along, supported by aides, behind Suslov's coffin. Before the body was lowered into a grave next to Joseph Stalin's beside the Kremlin Wall, Brezhnev read a eulogy: "While saying goodbye to our comrade, I would like to tell him, 'Sleep peacefully, our dear friend; you have led a great and glorious life.' "

Brezhnev's advanced age and his less than robust demeanor at the nationally televised funeral underline new anxieties about who will succeed him in the key post of Communist Party chief. Had he outlived Brezhnev, Suslov was expected to use his formidable authority as senior Politburo member to ensure an orderly transfer of power. The leading contenders for Brezhnev's job now include Politburo Stalwarts Andrei Kirilenko, 75, and Konstantin Chernenko, 70. According to Yale University Kremlinologist Wolfgang Leonhard, no current Soviet leader except Brezhnev comes "anywhere near Suslov in influence, stature, administrative skill and statesmanship."

Since taking over from Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, with Suslov's indispensable assistance, Brezhnev relied on his No. 2 man to support his policies in the Politburo. Suslov could also be counted upon to supply the ideological rationale for such demonstrations of force as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the military occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. As a predictable factor in Soviet behavior, Suslov will also be missed by veteran U.S. specialists. In the arcane field of Kremlinology, Suslov, at least, could be depended upon to counsel tough actions to preserve ideological purity. Government experts predicted last week that Soviet actions will have fewer ideological underpinnings now that Suslov is gone.

During his more than 60 years in the service of the Communist Party, Suslov remained an aloof, backstage figure. Born into a poor peasant family in 1902, he became a fervent Bolshevik at 16. He rose with extraordinary rapidity in the Communist Party hierarchy, soon becoming a protégé of Stalin's. The dictator gave Suslov major roles in a series of bloody purges costing 20 million lives that began in 1931 and ended only with Stalin's death in 1953. A member of the ruling elite since 1947, Suslov kept his top-level posts under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. As the Politburo member in charge of ideology, international Communism and China, Suslov was instrumental in crushing the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and he presided over the final ideological rupture between Moscow and Peking.