Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (; –
February 9,
1984) was a
Soviet politician and
General Secretary of the
CPSU from
November 12,
1982 until his death just sixteen months later.
Andropov was the son of a railway official and was probably born in
Nagutskoye,
Stavropol Guberniya,
Imperial Russia. He was briefly educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College before he joined
Komsomol in
1930. He became a member of the CPSU in
1939 and was first secretary of the Komsomol in the Soviet
Karelo-Finnish Republic from
1940 to
1944. During
World War II, Andropov took part in
partisan guerrilla activities. After the War, he moved to Moscow in
1951 and joined the party secretariat.In 1954, he became the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary. Andropov was one of those responsible for the Soviet decision to invade Hungary during the
1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Andropov returned to Moscow to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in Socialist Countries (
1957-
1967). In
1961 he was elected full member of the
CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the
Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in
1962. In
1967 he was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of the
KGB on recommendation of
Mikhail Suslov and subsequently brought into the
Politburo as a candidate member. In
1973 Andropov was promoted to full member of the Politburo. He was the longest-serving KGB chairman and did not resign as head of the KGB until May
1982, when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeed Suslov as secretary responsible for ideological affairs.
Two days after
Brezhnev's death, on (
November 12,
1982), Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU being the first former head of the KGB to become General Secretary. His appointment was received in the West with apprehension, in view of his roles in the KGB and in Hungary.
During his rule, Andropov made attempts to improve the economy and reduce corruption. He was also remembered for his anti-alcohol campaign and struggle for enhancement of work discipline. Both campaigns were carried out by a typically Soviet administrative approach and harshness vaguely reminiscent of Stalin's rule.
In foreign policy he achieved little â€" the
war continued in
Afghanistan. Andropov's rule was also marked by the deterioration of relations with the United States. While he launched a series of proposals that included a reduction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe and a summit with U.S. President
Ronald Reagan, these proposals fell on the deaf ears of the Reagan, Mitterrand and
Thatcher administrations.
Cold War tensions were exacerbated by the downing by Soviet fighters of a civilian jet liner,
Korean Air Flight KAL-007, that strayed over the USSR on
September 1,
1983, and the U.S. deployment of
Pershing missiles in Europe. Soviet-U.S. arms control talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe were suspended by the Soviet Union in November 1983.
One of his most famous acts during his short time as leader of the Soviet Union was responding to a letter from an American child named
Samantha Smith and inviting her to the Soviet Union, which resulted in Smith becoming a well-known peace activist.
Andropov died of kidney failure on
February 9,
1984, after several months of failing health, and was succeeded by
Konstantin Chernenko. He is buried in Moscow, in the
Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
Andropov's legacy remains the subject of much debate within Russia and elsewhere, both amongst scholars and in the popular media. He remains the constant focus of television documentaries and popular non-fiction, particularly around important anniversaries.
Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in Hungary and the numerous banishments and intrigues for which he was responsible during his long tenure as head of the
KGB, he has become widely regarded by many commentators as a humane reformer, especially in comparison to the
stagnation and corruption during the later years of his predecessor,
Leonid Brezhnev. He was certainly generally regarded as inclined to more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; the bulk of the speculation centres around whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner which did not result in its
eventual dissolution.
The short time he spent as leader, much of it in a state of extreme frailty, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of any
hypothetical extended rule. As with the shortened rule of
Lenin, speculators are left much room to advocate favourite theories and to develop the minor
cult of personality which has formed around him.
*
Yuri Andropov: A Secret Passage into the Kremlin, Vladimir & Klepikova, Elena Solovyov, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983, 302 pages, ISBN 0026122901
*
The Andropov File: The Life and Ideas of Yuri V. Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Martin Ebon, McGraw-Hill Companies, 1983, 284 pages, ISBN 0070188610
