Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Yuri Andropov" - New World

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[[Image:Andropov.jpg|thumb|right|Yuri Andropov]]
 
 
'''Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov''' ({{lang-ru|Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов}}; (O.S. June 2) June 15, 1914 – February 9, 1984) was a Soviet politician and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the Communist Party from November 12, 1982 until his death just sixteen months later.  Andropov, effectively, was a caretaker leader.  He had neither the energy not the vision to carry out the reforms he knew to be necessary if the Soviet Union was to survive.  The [[Cold War]], though he did not know this, was lost and the USSR had to devote less money and energy to military matters, more to achieving the type of egalitarian society, with a decent standard of living, for all its peoples.  The un-winnable war in Afghanistan continued to drain the economy. Some think that his ideas found fruit in the policies that eventually saw the demise of the Soviet Union under [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]. [[Yuri Andropov]], his immediate successor, was more interested in saving the existing system than in change or reform.  
 
'''Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov''' ({{lang-ru|Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов}}; (O.S. June 2) June 15, 1914 – February 9, 1984) was a Soviet politician and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the Communist Party from November 12, 1982 until his death just sixteen months later.  Andropov, effectively, was a caretaker leader.  He had neither the energy not the vision to carry out the reforms he knew to be necessary if the Soviet Union was to survive.  The [[Cold War]], though he did not know this, was lost and the USSR had to devote less money and energy to military matters, more to achieving the type of egalitarian society, with a decent standard of living, for all its peoples.  The un-winnable war in Afghanistan continued to drain the economy. Some think that his ideas found fruit in the policies that eventually saw the demise of the Soviet Union under [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]. [[Yuri Andropov]], his immediate successor, was more interested in saving the existing system than in change or reform.  
  
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Two days after [[Leonid Brezhnev|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.
 
Two days after [[Leonid Brezhnev|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==
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===Andropov in office===
[[Image:Andropov2.jpg|thumb|left|Yuri Andropov on cover of ''Time Magazine'']]
 
 
During his rule, Andropov made attempts to improve the economy and reduce corruption. He was also remembered for his  struggle for enhancement of work discipline, carried out by a typically Soviet administrative approach and harshness vaguely reminiscent of Stalin's rule.
 
During his rule, Andropov made attempts to improve the economy and reduce corruption. He was also remembered for his  struggle for enhancement of work discipline, carried out by a typically Soviet administrative approach and harshness vaguely reminiscent of Stalin's rule.
  

Revision as of 17:05, 19 March 2007


Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Russian: Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов; (O.S. June 2) June 15, 1914 – February 9, 1984) was a Soviet politician and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the Communist Party from November 12, 1982 until his death just sixteen months later. Andropov, effectively, was a caretaker leader. He had neither the energy not the vision to carry out the reforms he knew to be necessary if the Soviet Union was to survive. The Cold War, though he did not know this, was lost and the USSR had to devote less money and energy to military matters, more to achieving the type of egalitarian society, with a decent standard of living, for all its peoples. The un-winnable war in Afghanistan continued to drain the economy. Some think that his ideas found fruit in the policies that eventually saw the demise of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Yuri Andropov, his immediate successor, was more interested in saving the existing system than in change or reform.

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. His wife was named Tatyana.

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 of the CPSU Central Committee 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 struggle for enhancement of work discipline, carried out by a typically Soviet administrative approach and harshness vaguely reminiscent of Stalin's rule.

In foreign policy, he achieved little — 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 banishment 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 generally regarded as inclined to a more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; the bulk of the speculation centers 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 favorite theories and to develop the minor cult of personality which has formed around him.

Controversy

The Russian newspaper Itogi alleged that KGB chief and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov forged his biography to climb the communist party's ladder [1] reported.

Recently declassified secret files of Andropov showed that he "adapted" his biography to the demands of the Bolshevik times – he made himself a son of an Ossetian proletarian, while he was actually from a rich bourgeoisie family, probably with Jewish roots. At the beginning Andropov, according to the files, was not very accurate while inventing his family's "proletarian" past. He was questioned at least four times in the 1930s because of the discrepancies in several forms he filled.

Each and every time he managed to fool commissions that checked his background. The final version of his biography stated that he was the son of a railway official and was probably born in Nagutskoye, Stavropol Guberniya, Imperial Russia. But as the top secret archives showed, Andropov was born into a wealthy Jewish family – Flekenstein in Moscow.

His family, which allegedly arrived in Russia from Finland, may have been dealing in jewelry and watches, and suffered from "pogroms" during WWI. One of the most interesting details is that Andropov (whose first name originally was Grigory and not Yuri), was born only a few hundred meters from Lubyanka—the Soviet secret police headquarters in Moscow, Itogi reports.

Further reading

  • Solovyov, Vladimir and Klepikova, Elena. Yuri Andropov: A Secret Passage into the Kremlin. NY: Macmillan ; London : Collier Macmillan, 1983 ISBN 0026122901 Translated by Guy Daniels, in collaboration with the authors.
  • Ebon, Martin. The Andropov File: The Life and Ideas of Yuri V. Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1983, ISBN 0070188610
  • Medvedev, Zhores A Andropov, NY: Penguin, Penguin, Reprint edition, 1984 ISBN 0140073167


Preceded by:
Leonid Brezhnev
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party
1982–1984
Succeeded by:
Konstantin Chernenko

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