Yuri Andropov
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Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
. After
Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the post from November 1982 until his death in February 1984. Earlier in his career, Andropov served as the Soviet ambassador to Hungary from 1954 to 1957, during which time he was involved in the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. He was named chairman of the KGB on 10 May 1967. In this position, he oversaw a massive crackdown on dissent carried out via mass arrests and involuntary psychiatric commitment of people deemed "socially undesirable". After Brezhnev suffered a stroke in 1975 that impaired his ability to govern, Andropov effectively dominated policy-making alongside Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (russian: Андрей Андреевич Громыко; be, Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка;  – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet communist politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as ...
, Defense Minister
Andrei Grechko Andrei Antonovich Grechko (, ; – 26 April 1976) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union (from 1955). He was Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1976. Early life Grechko was the thirteenth child born to a family of Ukrainian peasant ...
and Grechko's successor, Marshal
Dmitry Ustinov Dmitriy Fyodorovich Ustinov (russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Устинов; 30 October 1908 – 20 December 1984) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Soviet politician during the Cold War. He served as a Central Committee se ...
, for the rest of Brezhnev's rule. Upon Brezhnev's death on 10 November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary and (by extension)
leader of the Soviet Union During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a ''de facto'' leader who would not necessarily be head of state but would lead while holding an office such as premier or general secretary. Under the 1977 Constitution, the chairman of ...
. During his short tenure, Andropov sought to eliminate corruption and inefficiency in the country by criminalizing truancy in the workplace and investigating longtime officials for violations of party discipline. The Cold War intensified, and he was at a loss for how to handle the growing crisis in the Soviet economy. His major long-term impact was bringing to the fore a new generation of young reformers as energetic as himself, including
Yegor Ligachyov Yegor Kuzmich Ligachyov (also transliterated as Ligachev; russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв, link=no; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party ...
,
Nikolai Ryzhkov Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov ( uk, Микола Іванович Рижков; russian: Николай Иванович Рыжков; born 28 September 1929) is a Soviet, and later Russian, politician. He served as the last Chairman of the Coun ...
, and, most importantly,
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
. Upon suffering
kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...
in February 1983, Andropov's health began to deteriorate rapidly. He died on 9 February 1984, having led the country for about 15 months.


Early life

There has been much contention over Andropov's family background. According to the official biography, Andropov was born in
Stanitsa A stanitsa ( rus, станица, p=stɐˈnʲitsə; uk, станиця, stanytsya) is a village inside a Cossack host ( uk, військо, viys’ko; russian: казачье войско, kazach’ye voysko, sometimes translated as "Cossack Arm ...
Nagutskaya (modern-day
Stavropol Krai Stavropol Krai (russian: Ставропо́льский край, r=Stavropolsky kray, p=stəvrɐˈpolʲskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a Krais of Russia, krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the North ...
, Russia) on 15 June 1914. His father, Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, was a railway worker of
Don Cossack Don Cossacks (russian: Донские казаки, Donskie kazaki) or Donians (russian: донцы, dontsy) are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host (russian: До ...
descent who died of typhus in 1919. His mother, Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein (none of the official sources mention her name), was a school teacher who died in 1931.A Dictionary of 20th Century Communism. Edited by Silvio Pons and Robert Service. Princeton University Press. 2010. Leonid Mlechin.
Yuri's childhood and other mysteries from the life of the Chairman
' article from the Sovershenno Sekretno newspaper № 5, 2008 (in Russian)
She was born in the
Ryazan Governorate Ryazan Governorate (russian: link=no, Рязанская губерния, ''Ryazanskaya guberniya'', Government of Ryazan) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, wh ...
into a family of town dwellers and was abandoned on the doorstep of a
Finnish citizen Citizenship of Finland can be obtained on the basis of birth, marriage of parents, adoption, or the place of birth. In addition, it may be acquired by application or by declaration to authorities. Finnish citizenship acquisition is based prima ...
, a Jewish watchmaker, Karl Franzevich Fleckenstein, who lived in Moscow; he and his wife, Eudokia Mikhailovna Fleckenstein, adopted and raised her. Andropov's earliest documented name was Grigory Vladimirovich Andropov-Fyodorov; he changed it to Yuri Andropov several years later.''Alexander Ostrovsky (2010)''. Who Appointed Gorbachev? – Moscow: Algorithm, p. 187 His original birth certificate disappeared, but it has been established that Andropov was born in Moscow, where his mother worked at a women's gymnasium from 1913 to 1917. On various occasions, Andropov gave different death dates for his mother: 1927, 1929, 1930 and 1931. The story of her adoption was also likely a mystification. In 1937, Andropov was vetted when he applied for
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
membership, and it turned out that "the sister of his native maternal grandmother" (whom he called his aunt), who was living with him and who supported the legend of his
Ryazan Ryazan ( rus, Рязань, p=rʲɪˈzanʲ, a=ru-Ryazan.ogg) is the largest city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 Census ...
peasant origins, was in fact his nurse, who had been working for Fleckenstein long before Andropov was born. It was also reported that Andropov's mother belonged to merchantry. Karl Fleckenstein was a rich jewel merchant, owner of a jeweler's, as was his wife, who took over Karl's business after his accidental death in 1915 (he was mistaken for a German during the infamous anti-German
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
in Moscow, although Andropov preferred to call it
anti-Jewish Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
). The whole family could have been turned into
lishentsy A ''lishenets'' ( rus, лишенец, p=lʲɪˈʂenʲɪt͡s), wikt:лишение#Russian, лишение ''deprivation'' + wikt:-ец#Russian, -ец ''wikt:-ee#Etymology 1, -ee''; "disenfranchised"; plural ''lishentsy'', russian: лишенцы) ...
and stripped of basic rights had she not abandoned the store after another pogrom in 1917, invented a
proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...
background, and left Moscow for the
Stavropol Governorate The Stavropol Governorate was a Governorate (province) of the Russian Empire. It roughly corresponded to most of present-day Stavropol Krai. It was created in 1847 out of the territories of Caucasian peoples and disbanded in Russian SFSR in 1924. ...
along with Andropov's mother. Andropov gave different versions of his father's fate: in one, he divorced his mother soon after his birth; in another he died of illness. The "father" in question, Vladimir Andropov, was in fact his stepfather, who lived and worked in Nagutskaya and died of typhus in 1919. The Fyodorov surname belonged to his second stepfather, Viktor Fyodorov, a machinist's assistant turned schoolteacher. Andropov's biological father is unknown; he probably died in 1916, a date in Andropov's 1932 résumé. During the 1937 vetting, it was reported that his father served as an officer in the
Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
. Andropov joined the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
in 1939.


Early career in the Communist Party

Andropov was educated at the
Rybinsk Rybinsk ( rus, Рыбинск, p=ˈrɨbʲɪnsk), the second largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Yaroslavl Oblast in Russia, lies at the confluence of the Volga River, Volga and Sheksna Rivers, 267 kilometers north-north-eas ...
Water Transport Technical College and graduated in 1936. As a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for the
Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...
steamship line. At 16, then a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (YCL, or Komsomol), Andropov was a worker in the town of
Mozdok Mozdok (russian: Моздо́к; os, Мæздæг, ''Mæzdæg''; Kabardian: Мэздэгу) is a town and the administrative center of Mozdoksky District of North Ossetia – Alania, Russia, located on the left shore of the Terek River, n ...
in the
North Ossetian ASSR The North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ( os, Цӕгат Ирыстоны Автономон Советон Социалистон Республикӕ, Tsagât Ireštone Âvtonomon Šovêton Šotsiâlišton Rêšpublika; russian: ...
. Andropov became full-time secretary of the YCL of the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical School and was soon promoted to organizer of the YCL Central Committee at the Volodarsky Shipyards in Rybinsk. In 1938, he was elected First Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the YCL, and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944. According to his official biography, during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland; modern researchers have found no trace of his supposed squad. From 1944 onward, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work. Between 1946 and 1951, he studied at the university of Petrozavodsk. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR. In 1951, Andropov was transferred to the
CPSU Central Committee The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,  – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee directe ...
. He was appointed an inspector and then the head of a subdepartment of the committee.


Suppression of the Hungarian Uprising

In July 1954, Andropov was appointed Ambassador to Hungary. He held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role in crushing the uprising. He convinced Soviet First Secretary
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
that military intervention was necessary. Andropov is known as "The Butcher of Budapest" for his ruthless suppression of the uprising. Hungarian leaders were arrested and Imre Nagy and others executed. After these events, Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex", according to historian Christopher Andrew: "He had watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian security service he_''Államvédelmi_Hatóság_or_AVH.html" ;"title="Államvédelmi_Hatóság.html" ;"title="he ''Államvédelmi Hatóság">he ''Államvédelmi Hatóság or AVH">Államvédelmi_Hatóság.html" ;"title="he ''Államvédelmi Hatóság">he ''Államvédelmi Hatóság or AVH' were strung up from lampposts. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. When other Communist regimes later seemed at risk – Prague Spring, in Prague in 1968, Soviet–Afghan War, in Kabul in 1979, Martial law in Poland, in Warsaw in 1981, he was convinced that, as in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
in 1956, only armed force could ensure their survival". Christopher Andrew and
Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Dir ...
, ''The
Mitrokhin Archive The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Dir ...
: The KGB in Europe and the West'', Gardners Books (2000), .


Chairmanship of the KGB and Politburo career

In 1957, Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in
Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
Countries, a position he held until 1967. In 1961, he was elected full member of the
CPSU Central Committee The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,  – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee directe ...
and was promoted to the
Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was responsible for managing and directing the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while the Politburo was charged with the p ...
in 1962. In 1967, he was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of the
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
on
Mikhail Suslov Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as uno ...
's recommendation, and promoted to candidate member of the Politburo. In 1970, out of concern that the burial place of
Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
and
Magda Goebbels Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels (née Ritschel; 11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi Party, she was a close ally, companion, and politic ...
and their children would become a shrine to
neo-Nazis Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...
, Andropov authorized an operation to destroy the remains that were buried in
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...
in 1946. The remains were thoroughly burned and crushed and the ashes thrown into the Biederitz River, a tributary of the nearby
Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...
. No proof exists that the Russians ever found
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's body, but it is presumed that Hitler and
Eva Braun Eva Anna Paula Hitler (; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his ...
were among the remains as 10 or 11 bodies were exhumed. Andropov gained additional powers in 1973 when he was promoted to full member of the Politburo.


Crushing the Prague Spring

During the
Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Sec ...
in 1968, Andropov was the main advocate of taking "extreme measures" against
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
. According to classified information released by
Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Dir ...
, the "KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
aggression or to a coup". At this time, agent
Oleg Kalugin Oleg Danilovich Kalugin (russian: Олег Данилович Калугин; born 6 September 1934) is a former KGB general (stripped of his rank and awards by a Russian Court decision in 2002). He was during a time, head of KGB political ope ...
reported from Washington that he had gained access to "absolutely reliable documents proving that neither the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
nor any other agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement". His message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory Andropov had fabricated. Andropov ordered a number of active measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS, against Czechoslovak reformers during the Normalization period.


Suppression of dissidents

Throughout his career, Andropov aimed to achieve "the destruction of dissent in all its forms" and insisted that "the struggle for human rights was a part of a wide-ranging imperialist plot to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state". To this end, he launched a campaign to eliminate all opposition in the USSR through a mixture of mass arrests,
involuntary commitment Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hos ...
s to psychiatric hospitals, and pressure on rights activists to emigrate. These measures were meticulously documented throughout his time as KGB chairman by the underground
Chronicle of Current Events ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' (russian: Хро́ника теку́щих собы́тий, ''Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy'') was one of the longest-running ''samizdat'' periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. This unofficial newsletter reported v ...
, a
samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
publication that was itself finally forced out of existence after its last published issue, dated 30 June 1982. On 3 July 1967, Andropov proposed to establish the KGB's Fifth Directorate to deal with the political opposition (ideological
counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
). At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents, including
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
and
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...
. In 1968, as KGB chairman, Andropov issued the order "On the tasks of State security agencies in combating the ideological sabotage by the adversary", calling for struggle against dissidents and their imperialist masters. After the assassination attempt against Brezhnev in January 1969, Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman, Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin. Ilyin was pronounced insane and sent to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. On 29 April 1969, Andropov submitted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union an elaborate plan to create a network of
psychiatric hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
s to defend the "Soviet Government and socialist order" from dissidents. In January 1970, Andropov submitted an account to his fellow Politburo members of the widespread threat of the mentally ill to the regime's stability and security. His proposal to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented. As head of the KGB, Andropov was in charge of the widespread deployment of psychiatric repression. According to
Yuri Felshtinsky Yuri Georgievich Felshtinsky (russian: Юрий Георгиевич Фельштинский, born 7 September 1956 in Moscow) is a Russian American historian. Felshtinsky has authored a number of books on Russian history, including ''The Bol ...
and
Boris Gulko Boris Franzevich Gulko ( rus, Борис Францевич Гулько, p=bɐˈrʲis ɡʊlʲˈko; born February 9, 1947) is a Soviet-American Grandmaster in chess. Gulko is noted to be the only person to win both the Soviet Chess Championship a ...
, Andropov and the head of the Fifth Directorate,
Filipp Bobkov Filipp Denisovich Bobkov (russian: Фили́пп Дени́сович Бобко́в; 1 December 1925 – 17 June 2019) was a Soviet and Russian KGB functionary, who worked as the chief of the KGB subunit responsible for repressing dissent (Fift ...
, originated the idea to use psychiatry for punitive purposes. The repression of dissidentsLetter by Andropov to the Central Committee (10 July 1970)
English translation
.
included plans to maim the dancer
Rudolf Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...
, who had defected in 1961. Some believe that Andropov was behind the deaths of
Fyodor Kulakov Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov (russian: Фёдор Давыдович Кулаков) (4 February 1918 – 17 July 1978) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. Kulakov served as Stavropol First Secretary from 1960 until 1964, immediately followi ...
and
Pyotr Masherov Pyotr Mironovich Masherov, ''Piotr Mironavič Mašeraŭ''russian: Пётр Миронович Машеров (né Mashero; – 4 October 1980) was a Soviet partisan, statesman, and one of the leaders of the Belarusian resistance during Wo ...
, the two youngest members of the Soviet leadership. A declassified document revealed that as KGB director, Andropov gave the order to prevent unauthorized gatherings mourning
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
. Beginning in January 1972, Andropov led the implementation of the Soviet
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...
strategy. In 1977, Andropov convinced Brezhnev that the
Ipatiev House Ipatiev House (russian: Дом Ипатьева) was a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg (later renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924, renamed back to Yekaterinburg in 1991) where the former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), h ...
, where
Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...
and his
family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
were murdered by
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolutionaries during the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, had become a site of pilgrimage for covert
monarchists Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
. With the Politburo's approval, the house, deemed to be not of "sufficient historical significance", was demolished in September 1977, less than a year before the murders' 60th anniversary. According to
Yaakov Kedmi Yaakov Kedmi ( he, ‏יעקב קדמי‏‎; born 5 March 1947 in Moscow), also known as Yasha Kazakov and Yakov Iosifovich Kazakov (russian: Яков Иосифович Казако́в) is an Israeli politician and diplomat. He was the head ...
, Andropov was particularly keen to persecute any sign of
Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
in order to distance himself from his
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
heritage. He was personally responsible for orchestrating the arrest and persecution of
Soviet Jewish The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier Expansionism, expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution ...
activist
Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky ( he, נתן שרנסקי; russian: Ната́н Щара́нский; uk, Натан Щаранський, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky on 20 January 1948); uk, Анатолій Борисович Щаранський, ...
.


Role in the invasion of Afghanistan

In March 1979, Andropov and the Politburo initially opposed their subsequent decision to intervene militarily in Afghanistan. Among their concerns were that the international community would blame the USSR for its "aggression" and that the upcoming
SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds o ...
negotiation meeting with U.S. President
Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
would be derailed. Andropov changed his mind after the assassination of
Nur Muhammad Taraki Nur Muhammad Taraki (; 14 July 1917 – 9 October 1979) was an Afghan revolutionary communist politician, journalist and writer. He was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who served as its General Secret ...
and
Hafizullah Amin Hafizullah Amin (Pashto/ prs, حفيظ الله امين; 1 August 192927 December 1979) was an Afghan communist revolutionary, politician and teacher. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghan ...
's seizure of power. He became convinced that the CIA had recruited Amin to create a Western world, pro-Western Expansionism, expansionist "Neo-Ottomanism, New Great Ottoman Empire" that would attempt to dominate Soviet Central Asia. Andropov's bottom line, "under no circumstances can we lose Afghanistan", led him and the Politburo to Operation Storm-333, invade Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. The invasion led to the extended Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and a 1980 Summer Olympics boycott, boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow by 66 countries, something of concern to Andropov since spring 1979. Some have proposed that the Soviet–Afghan War also played an important role in the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union's dissolution.


Role in the non-invasion of Poland

On 10 December 1981, in the face of Solidarity (Polish trade union), Poland's Solidarity movement, Andropov, Soviet Second Secretary
Mikhail Suslov Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as uno ...
, and Polish First Secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski persuaded Brezhnev that it would be counterproductive for the Soviet Union to invade Poland by repeating the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress the
Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Sec ...
. This effectively marked the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine. The Martial law in Poland, pacification of Poland was thus left to Jaruzelski, Czesław Kiszczak, Kiszczak and their Polish forces.


Promotion of Gorbachev

From 1980 to 1982, while still chair of the KGB, Andropov opposed plans to occupy Poland after the emergence of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity movement and promoted reform-minded party cadres, including
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
. Andropov was the longest-serving KGB chairman and did not resign as head of the
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
until May 1982, when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeed
Mikhail Suslov Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as uno ...
as secretary responsible for ideological affairs.


Leader of the Soviet Union

Two days after Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, Brezhnev's death, on 12 November 1982, Andropov was elected general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPSU, 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. At the time his personal background was a mystery in the West, with major newspapers printing detailed profiles of him that were inconsistent and in several cases fabricated. Andropov divided responsibilities in the Politburo with his chief deputy, Konstantin Chernenko. Andropov took control of organizing the work of the Politburo, supervising national defense, supervising the main issues of domestic and foreign policy and foreign trade, and making leadership assignments in the top ranks of the party and the government. Chernenko handled espionage, KGB, the Interior Ministry, party organs, ideology, organizational matters, propaganda, culture, science, and higher education. He was also given charge of the Central Committee. It was far too much for Chernenko to handle, and other Politburo members were not given major assignments.


Domestic policy


Economy

At home, Andropov attempted to improve the Economy of the Soviet Union#1970–1990, USSR's economy by increasing its workforce's efficiency. He cracked down on Soviet laborers' lack of discipline by decreeing the arrest of absentee employees and penalties for tardiness. For the first time, the facts about Brezhnev stagnation, economic stagnation and obstacles to scientific progress were made available to the public and open to criticism.Great Russian Encyclopedia (2005), Moscow: Bol'shaya Rossiyskaya Enciklopediya Publisher, vol. 1, p. 742. Furthermore, Andropov gave select industries greater autonomy from state regulations and enabled factory managers to retain control over more of their profits. Such policies resulted in a 4% rise in industrial output and increased investment in new technologies such as robotics. Despite such reforms, Andropov refused to consider any changes that sought to dispense with the Planned economy, command economy introduced under Joseph Stalin. In his memoirs, Gorbachev wrote that when Andropov was the leader, Gorbachev and Gosplan chairman
Nikolai Ryzhkov Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov ( uk, Микола Іванович Рижков; russian: Николай Иванович Рыжков; born 28 September 1929) is a Soviet, and later Russian, politician. He served as the last Chairman of the Coun ...
asked him for access to real budget figures. "You are asking too much", Andropov responded. "The budget is off limits to you."


Anti-corruption campaign

In contrast to Brezhnev's policy of avoiding conflicts and dismissals, Andropov began to fight violations of party, state and labor discipline, which led to significant personnel changes during an anti-corruption campaign against many of Brezhnev's cronies. During 15 months in office, Andropov dismissed 18 ministers and 37 first secretaries of Communist Party of the Soviet Union, obkoms, kraikoms and Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics, and criminal cases against high-level party and state officials were started. Biographers including Solovyov and Klepikova and Zhores Medvedev have discussed the complex possibilities underlying the motivations of anti-corruption campaigning in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and early 1980s: it is true that Andropov fought corruption for moral, ethical, ascetic, and ideological reasons, but it was also an effective way for party members from the police and security organizations to defeat competitors for power at the party's senior levels. Thus Andropov himself, as well as such protégés as Eduard Shevardnadze, could advance their power by the same efforts that also promised to be better for the country in terms of justice, economic performance, and even defense readiness (which depended on economic performance). Part of the complexity is that in the Brezhnev era, corruption was pervasive and implicitly tolerated (though officially denied), and many a member of the police and security organizations participated in it to various degrees, but only those organizations had access to the power to measure it and monitor its details. In such an environment, anti-corruption campaigning is a way for police and security people to appear to be cleaning up villains' malfeasance and coincidentally increasing their own power, when in fact one set of antiheroes may be defeating another set in a wikt:grey area, morally gray power struggle.


Foreign policy

Andropov faced a series of foreign policy crises: the Soviet–Afghan War#Impact, hopeless situation of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Martial law in Poland, threatened revolt in Poland, Sino-Soviet relations (1969–1991), growing animosity with China, the International aid to combatants in the Iran–Iraq War, polarization threat of war in the Middle East, and Ethiopian Civil War, civil strife in Ethiopia and Internal resistance to apartheid, South Africa. The most critical threat was the "Cold War (1979–1985), Second Cold War" U.S. President Ronald Reagan launched, and the specific attack on rolling back what he called the "Evil Empire speech, Evil Empire". Reagan used American economic power and Soviet economic weakness to escalate massive spending on the Cold War, emphasizing technology that Moscow lacked. The main response was to raise the Soviet military budget to 70% of the total budget and supply billions of dollars of military aid to Syria, Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Libya, South Yemen, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Cuba, and North Korea. That included tanks and armored troop carriers, hundreds of fighter planes, anti-aircraft systems, artillery systems, and other high-tech equipment of which the USSR was its allies' main supplier. Andropov's main goal was to avoid an open war. In foreign policy, the Soviet–Afghan War, conflict in Afghanistan continued even though Andropov, who now felt the invasion was a mistake, half-heartedly explored options for a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also marked by deterioration of relations with the United States. During a much-publicized "walk in the woods" with Soviet dignitary Yuli Kvitsinsky, American diplomat Paul Nitze suggested a compromise for reducing nuclear missiles in Europe on both sides that the Politburo ignored. Kvitsinsky later wrote that, despite his efforts, the Soviet leadership was not interested in compromise, instead calculating that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate. On 8 March 1983, Reagan called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire speech, evil empire". On 23 March, he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan claimed this research program into ballistic missile defense was "consistent with our obligations under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, ABM Treaty". Andropov dismissed this claim, saying, "It is time they [Washington] stopped ... search[ing] for the best ways of unleashing Nuclear warfare, nuclear war. ... Engaging in this is not just irresponsible. It is insane". In August 1983, Andropov made an announcement that the USSR would stop all work on Space weapon, space-based weapons. One of his most notable acts as leader of the Soviet Union was in response to a letter from a 10-year-old American child, Samantha Smith, inviting her to the Soviet Union. She came, but he was too ill to meet with her, thus revealing his grave condition to the world. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union suspended talks with the U.S. on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe in November 1983, and by the end of the year the Soviets had broken off all arms control negotiations. Massive bad publicity worldwide came when Soviet fighters shot down a civilian jet liner, Korean Air Flight KAL-007, which carried 269 passengers and crew. It had strayed over the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983 on its scheduled route from Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea. Andropov kept secret that the Soviet Union held in its possession the Flight recorder, black box from KAL 007 that proved the pilot had made a typographical error when entering data in the automatic pilot. The Soviet Air Defence Forces, Soviet air defence system was unprepared to deal with a civilian airliner, and the shooting down was a matter of following orders without question. Instead of admitting an accident, Soviet media proclaimed a brave decision to meet a Western provocation. Together with the low credibility created by the poor explanation of the Chernobyl disaster, 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the episode demonstrated an inability to deal with public relations crises; the propaganda system was useful only for people and states aligned with the Soviet Union. Both crises were escalated by technological and organizational failures, compounded by human error.


Death and funeral

In February 1983, Andropov suffered total
kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...
. In August 1983, he entered Moscow's Moscow Central Clinical Hospital, Central Clinical Hospital; he spent the rest of his life there. In late January 1984, Andropov's health deteriorated sharply and due to growing Kidney failure, toxicity in his blood, he had periods of failing consciousness. He died on 9 February 1984 at 16:50, aged 69. Few of the top Soviet leaders learned of his death on that day. According to the Soviet post-mortem medical report, Andropov suffered from several medical conditions: interstitial nephritis, nephrosclerosis, residual hypertension and diabetes, worsened by chronic kidney deficiency. A four-day period of mourning across the USSR was announced. Syria declared seven days of mourning; Cuba declared four days of mourning; India declared three days of mourning; Bulgaria, North Korea and Zimbabwe declared two days of mourning;
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
and Costa Rica declared one day of mourning. Andropov had a state funeral in Red Square, in a service attended by numerous foreign leaders, such as U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Italian President Sandro Pertini, East German First Secretary Erich Honecker, Polish First Secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Cuban President Fidel Castro, and Irish President Patrick Hillery. Eulogists were Chernenko, Ustinov, Gromyko, Georgi Markov (writer), Georgi Markov (head of the Union of Soviet Writers), and Ivan Senkin (First Secretary of the Karelian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Karelian Regional Committee of the CPSU). Andropov was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the 12 tombs between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall. Andropov was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko, who seemed to mirror Andropov's tenure. Chernenko had already been afflicted with severe health problems when he ascended to the USSR's top spot, and served even less time in office (13 months). Like Andropov, Chernenko spent much of his time hospitalized, and also died in office, in March 1985. Chernenko was succeeded by
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
, who implemented perestroika and glasnost policies to reform the Soviet Union politically and economically. On 26 December 1991, Post-Soviet states, the USSR was dissolved.


Personal life

Andropov lived at 26 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, the same building in which Suslov and Brezhnev lived. He married Nina Ivanovna, who was born not far from the farm where Andropov was born, and divorced her in 1941. During World War II, Andropov met his second wife, Tatyana Andropova, Tatyana Filippovna, on the Karelian Front when she was Komsomol secretary. She suffered a Mental disorder, nervous breakdown during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was not seen in public until Andropov's funeral. Andropov's chief guard informed her of her husband's death. She was too grief-stricken to join the procession and during the funeral her relatives helped her walk. Before the lid could be closed on Andropov's coffin, she bent to kiss him. In 1985, a 75-minute film was broadcast in which Tatyana reads love poems by her husband. She became ill and died in November 1991. Tatyana and Andropov had two children, Igor and Irina. Igor joined the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as ambassador to Greece.


Legacy

Andropov's legacy remains the subject of much debate in Russia and elsewhere among scholars and in the popular media. He remains the focus of television documentaries and popular nonfiction, particularly at important anniversaries. As KGB head, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and author David Remnick, who covered the Soviet Union for The Washington Post, ''The'' ''Washington Post'' in the 1980s, called him "profoundly corrupt, a beast".Remnick, David, ''Lenin's Tomb:The Last Days of the Soviet Empire''. New York; Random House, 1993, p. 191. Alexander Yakovlev, later an advisor to Gorbachev and the ideologist of perestroika, said: "In a way I always thought Andropov was the most dangerous of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest." But Andropov himself recalled Yakovlev back to high office in Moscow in 1983 after a ten-year exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism. Yakovlev was also a close colleague of Andropov associate KGB General Yevgeny Primakov, later Prime Minister of Russia. Andropov began to follow a trend of replacing elderly officials with considerably younger ones. According to his former subordinate Securitate general Ion Mihai Pacepa,
In the West, if Andropov is remembered at all, it is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in planning the Prague Spring, 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the leaders of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence community, when I was one of them, looked up to Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Soviet Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at improving the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers in the West.
Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Hungary and the numerous banishments and intrigues for which he was responsible as head of the KGB, many commentators regard him as a reformer, especially in comparison with the Era of Stagnation, stagnation and corruption of Brezhnev's later years. A "throwback to a tradition of Leninist asceticism", Andropov was appalled by the corruption of Brezhnev's regime, and ordered investigations and arrests of the most flagrant abusers. The investigations were so frightening that several members of Brezhnev's circle "shot, gassed or otherwise did away with themselves." He was generally regarded as inclined to more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; most of the speculation centers on whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner that did not result in its dissolution of the Soviet Union, eventual dissolution. The Western media generally favored Andropov, but the short time he spent as leader, much of it in ill health, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of an extended rule. The 2002 Tom Clancy novel ''Red Rabbit'' focuses heavily on Andropov during his tenure of KGB chief, when his health was slightly better. It mirrors his secrecy in that British and American intelligence know little about him, not even able to confirm he was married. The novel also depicts Andropov as a fan of Marlboro (cigarette), Marlboros and starka vodka, almost never available to ordinary Soviet citizens.


Attitudes toward Andropov

In a message read at the opening of a new exhibition dedicated to Andropov, Vladimir Putin called him "a man of talent with great abilities." Putin has praised Andropov's "honesty and uprightness". According to Russian historian Nikita Petrov, "He was a typical Soviet jailer who violated human rights. Andropov headed the organisation which persecuted the most remarkable people of our country." According to Petrov, it was a shame for the USSR that a persecutor of intelligentsia and of freedom of thought became leader of the country. According to Roy Medvedev, the year that Andropov spent in power was memorable for increasing repression against dissidents. During most of his KGB career, Andropov crushed dissident movements, isolated people in psychiatric hospitals, imprisoned them, and deported them. According to political scientist Georgy Arbatov, Andropov is responsible for many injustices in the 1970s and early 1980s: deportations, political arrests, persecuting dissidents, the abuse of psychiatry, and notorious cases such as the persecution of academician
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
. According to Dmitri Volkogonov and Harold Shukman, Andropov approved the numerous trials of human rights activists such as Andrei Amalrik, Vladimir Bukovsky, Viacheslav Chornovil, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Alexander Ginzburg, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Petro Grigorenko, and Natan Sharansky, Anatoly Sharansky. According to Natalya Gorbanevskaya, after Andropov came to power the dissident movement went into decline, not on its own but because it was strangled. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, repression was most severe; many people were arrested a second time and sentenced to longer terms. The camp regime was not strict but specific, and when Andropov became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary, he introduced an Article under which violations of camp regime resulted in a punishment cell and an additional term up to three years. For two or three remarks a person could be sent to another camp with non-political criminals. In those years, there were many deaths in camps from disease and lack of medical care. Various people who knew Andropov well, including Vladimir Medvedev, :ru:Чучалин, Александр Григорьевич, Aleksandr Chuchyalin, Vladimir Kryuchkov and Roy Medvedev, remembered him for his politeness, calmness, unselfishness, patience, intelligence and exceptionally sharp memory. According to Chuchyalin, while working at the Kremlin, Andropov would read about 600 pages a day and remember everything he read. Andropov read English literature and could communicate in Finnish, English and German.Рой Медведев: Андропов не дожил до своей оттепели...
kp.ru


Honors and awards

;Soviet Awards * Honorary Member of the
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
, 1973 ;Foreign Awards


Speeches and works

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Notes


References

*


Further reading

* * * Downing, Taylor. ''1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink'' (Hachette UK, 2018). * * * * Fischer, Ben B. ''A Cold War conundrum: the 1983 soviet war scare'' (Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997)
online
* * * * * * Hough, Jerry F. "Soviet politics under Andropov." ''Current History'' 82.486 (1983): 330-346
online
* Kotkin, Stephen. ''Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000'' (2nd ed. 2008
excerpt
* * Olcott, Martha Brill. "Yuri Andropov and the ‘national question’." ''Soviet Studies'' 37.1 (1985): 103-117. * Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010)
Кто поставил Горбачёва? (Who put Gorbachev?)
— М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо, 2010. — 544 с. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2. * * * * Steele, Jonathan; Abraham, Eric. ''Andropov in Power: From Komsomol to Kremlin'' (HIA Book Collection, 1984)
online review
* Ticktin, Hillel. "Andropov: Disintegration and discipline: The disintegration of the USSR under the banner of discipline. Andropov and his inheritance". ''Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory'', 16.1 (1988): 111–122. * *


Primary sources

* Johanna Granville, trans.
"Soviet Archival Documents on the Hungarian Revolution, 24 October – 4 November 1956"

''Cold War International History Project Bulletin'', no. 5
(Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, D.C.), Spring 1995, pp. 22–23, 29–34.


External links



* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070627184248/http://www3.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/21/documents/kgb.report/ The KGB's 1967 Annual Report, signed by Andropov] by CNN * {{DEFAULTSORT:Andropov, Yuri 1914 births 1984 deaths Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Hungary Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis Deaths from kidney failure Heads of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Heads of state of the Soviet Union KGB chairmen KGB officers Members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic People from Stavropol Krai People from Stavropol Governorate People of the Soviet–Afghan War People of the Cold War Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union Heroes of Socialist Labour Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" Collars of the Order of the White Lion Recipients of the Order of Georgi Dimitrov Heroes of the People's Republic of Bulgaria Russian communists Time Person of the Year Sixth convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Seventh convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Eighth convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Ninth convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Tenth convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Third convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities War scare