The CPSU Politburo and its Commissions under
Brezhnev:
Decision Making in the Cases of Afghanistan and Poland
Sungho KIM
Copyright
(c) 1998 by
the Slavic Research Center( English
/ Japanese ) All rights reserved.
-Summary-
This paper takes up the twists and turns of the CPSU Politburo and
its commissions around the Soviet army's invasion of Afghanistan (1979)
and the proclamation of the martial law in Poland (1981), relying upon
the sources which became accessible after the collapse of the USSR. A
comparison of these two processes of decision-making will illuminate
crucial phases of the USSR foreign policy in the waning months of the
Brezhnev era.
The Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in December, 1979. It is
supposed that the Afghanistan commission attached to the CPSU Politburo
had been established in September, 1979 or possibly a little later,
when the main leader of Afghanistan, Taraki, was ousted by its second
figure, Amin. This commission consisted of Andrei Gromyko (the Foreign
Minister), Yurii Andropov (the KGB Chair), Dmitrii Ustinov (the Defense
Minister), Boris Ponomarev (the chief of the International Department
at the CPSU Central Committee) and their deputies. Among its duties,
the commission was assigned to collect information, adjust policy, and
make suggestions to the Politburo. The Politburo minutes indicate that
it decided to invade Afghanistan because of the following perceptions:
(1) the unstable political situation would nullify the gains brought by
the Afghanistan April Revolution; (2) the Amin government was corrupt
and losing its ability to govern; (3) the USSR would be strategically
damaged, if Amin approached the United States; (4) Karmal's request for
USSR military aid based on the USSR-Afghanistan Treaty concluded in
December, 1978 could be regarded as legitimate; (5) if Afghanistan, a
country bordering both the Soviet Central Asia and China, was
destabilized, the USSR would be jeopardized too; and lastly, (6) rapid
changes in Afghanistan's political situation were becoming even more
dangerous than the supposed damages of the invasion, such as inevitable
negative reactions from both the socialist allies and the "imperialist"
countries.
Two years later, in December, 1981, martial law was proclaimed to
suppress the "Solidarity" movement in Poland. A Politburo commission
addressed to this issue had been organized as early as August, 1980. It
was chaired by Mikhail Suslov, and consisted of Gromyko, Andropov,
Ustinov, Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Zimianin (a secretary of the
Central Committee of the CPSU in charge of ideology), Ivan Arkhipov
(the Deputy Chair of USSR Council of Ministers), Leonid Zamiatin (the
chief of the International Information Department at the CPSU Central
Committee), and Oleg Rakhmanin (the first deputy chief of the
Department of Relations with the Communist and Workers' Parties of
Socialist Countries at the CPSU Central Committee). Whereas the
membership of this commission was larger and "stronger" than the
Afghanistan one, their role was similar. It is noteworthy that in
April, 1981 the Poland commission made a suggestion to the Politburo to
utilize the fear harbored by "reactionaries" in Poland and by
"international imperialism" that the USSR might appeal to force to
resolve the problem.
In April, 1981 Andropov and Ustinov, who had been dispatched by
Brezhnev to Brest, a border city between the USSR and Poland, forced
Kania and Jaruzelski to sign a document to declare the introduction of
martial law. On the other hand, in October of this year the leaders of
the CPSU Politburo agreed not to send Soviet troops even if the martial
law they had requested ended in failure. In the Politburo meeting held
on December 10, a few days before the introduction of martial law in
Poland, Andropov repeated this position, criticizing Jaruzelski who was
counting on military aid from the USSR if the worst happened.
This study illustrated that the Politburo commissions played an
important role in effecting a "collective leadership" in USSR foreign
policy while Brezhnev's health was on the decline. Whether they were
organized and played a similar role in other periods of Soviet history
is another issue to be scrutinized further.