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A New Russia? A New World?

By Robert Conquest
April 1975
Article Summary and Author Biography

There is a growing feeling, in the West as well as in the Soviet Union itself, that there are prospects, growing prospects, of a "New Russia." There is a feeling, whatever the immediate state of Brezhnev's health, that the fairly near future must see a breakup of the logjam created by a top leadership all of whose members are aged around 70. But the impression, one feels, goes deeper than this. Russia is seen to be at a social and economic dead end. Forthcoming political changes must, in this view, lead to radical and beneficial change over the whole field.

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There is a growing feeling, in the West as well as in the Soviet Union itself, that there are prospects, growing prospects, of a "New Russia." There is a feeling, whatever the immediate state of Brezhnev's health, that the fairly near future must see a breakup of the logjam created by a top leadership all of whose members are aged around 70. But the impression, one feels, goes deeper than this. Russia is seen to be at a social and economic dead end. Forthcoming political changes must, in this view, lead to radical and beneficial change over the whole field.

In examining the possibilities, our own first thought in the West is naturally in what way developments in the U.S.S.R. of which there are any real prospects could affect the international scene; and in particular, of course, whether they might contribute to a firm and lasting peace. It is quite true that the internal and international attitudes of the Soviet leadership are closely interlinked-indeed, are aspects of a single worldview. And this again is bound to make us consider what actions, or policies, on the part of the West can best help to turn Moscow in a favorable direction.

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