Yuri Andropov

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Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Russian: Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов; 15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – February 9, 1984) was a Soviet politician and General Secretary of the CPSU from November 12, 1982 until his death just sixteen months later.

Contents

1 Early life
2 Rise to power
3 Andropov in office
4 Andropov's legacy
5 Further reading

Early life

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.

Rise to power

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.

Andropov in office

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 — 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's legacy

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

Early life

Rise to power

Andropov in office

Andropov's legacy

Further reading