Yuri Andropov - Leader of The Soviet Union

Leader of The Soviet Union

From 1980 to 1982, whilst still chairman of the KGB Andropov opposed plans to occupy Poland after the emergence of the Solidarity movement and promoted reform minded party cadres including M. Gorbachev.

Two days after Leonid Brezhnev's death, on 12 November 1982, Andropov was elected General Secretary of the 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 many cases fabricated.

During his rule, Andropov attempted to improve the economy by raising management effectiveness without changing the principles of socialist economy. In contrast to Brezhnev's policy of avoiding conflicts and dismissals, he began to fight violations of party, state and labour 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, 37 first secretaries of obkoms, kraikoms and Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics; criminal cases on highest party and state officials were started. For the first time, the facts about economic stagnation and obstacles to scientific progress were made available to the public and criticised.

In foreign policy, the war continued in Afghanistan, although Andropov—who felt the invasion might have been a mistake—did half-heartedly explore options for a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also marked by deterioration of relations with the United States. U.S. plans to deploy Pershing missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet SS-20 missiles were contentious. But when Paul Nitze, the American negotiator, suggested a compromise plan for nuclear missiles in Europe in the celebrated "walk in the woods" with Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky, the Soviets never responded. Kvitsinsky would later write that, despite his own efforts, the Soviet side was not interested in compromise, instead calculating that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate. On 8 March 1983, during Andropov's reign as General Secretary, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

In August 1983 Andropov made a sensational announcement that the country was stopping all work on space-based weapons. One of his most notable acts during his short time as leader of the Soviet Union was in response to a letter from a 10 year old American child from Maine named Samantha Smith, inviting her to the Soviet Union. Some people think he used Smith to make the Soviet Union appear less corrupt. Smith made friends with children in Moscow. This resulted in Smith becoming a well-known peace activist. Meanwhile, Soviet-U.S. arms control talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe were suspended by the Soviet Union in November 1983 and by the end of 1983, the Soviets had broken off all arms control negotiations.

Cold War tensions were exacerbated by the downing near Moneron Island by Soviet fighters of a civilian jet liner, Korean Air Flight KAL-007 with a complement of 269 passengers and crew, including a congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald. KAL 007 had strayed over the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983 on its way from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea. Andropov was advised by his Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov and by the head of the KGB Viktor Chebrikov to keep secret the fact that the Soviet Union held in its possession the sought-after "black box" from KAL 007. Andropov was encouraged to state that the Soviet Union engaged in the deception that they too were looking for KAL 007 and the black box. Andropov agreed to this and the ruse continued until Boris Yeltsin disclosed the secret in 1992.

When he could no longer work in the Kremlin or attend the Politburo meetings, from September 1983, he adopted an original way of governing: he would suggest ideas to his assistants and speech writers, who would then prepare analytical "notes" for the Politburo.

On a Saturday preceding a Tuesday plenum of the Central Committee, Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov, came to Andropov's room at the Central Clinical Hospital in Kuntsevo to help him draft a speech. Andropov was in no shape to attend the plenum and he would have one of his men in the Politburo deliver the speech in his name. The last lines in the speech said that Central Committee staff members should be exemplary in their behavior, uncorrupted, responsible for the life of the country. Then Andropov gave Volsky a folder with the final draft and said, "The material looks good. Make sure you pay attention to the agenda I've written." Since the doctor walked him to the car, he did not have time to look right away at what he had written. Later, he got a chance to read it and saw that at the bottom of the last page Andropov had added in ink, in a somewhat unsteady handwriting, a new paragraph. It went like this: "Members of the Central Committee know that due to certain reasons, I am unable to come to the plenum. I can neither attend the meetings of the Politburo nor the secretariat. Therefore, I believe Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev should be assigned to preside over the meetings of the Politburo and the secretariat (of the Central Committee)." Andropov was recommending that Gorbachev be his inheritor. Volsky made a photocopy of the document and put the copy in his safe. He delivered the original to the Party leadership and assumed that it would be read out at the plenum. But at the meeting neither Konstantin Chernenko, Viktor Grishin, Nikolai Tikhonov, Dmitriy Ustinov nor any of the other politburo members made mention of Andropov's stated wishes. Volsky thought there must have been some mistake: "I went up to Chernenko and said, 'There was an addendum in the text.' He said, 'Think nothing of any addendum.' Then I saw his aide Bogolyubov and said, 'Klavdy Mikhailovich, there was a paragraph from Andropov's speech....' He led me off to the side, and said, 'Who do you think you are, a wise guy? Do you think your life ends with this?' I said, 'In that case, I'll have to phone Andropov.' And he replied, 'Then that will be your last phone call'". Andropov was furious when he heard what had happened at the plenum, but there was little he could do.

In his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev recalled that when Andropov was the leader, he and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the chairman of Gosplan, asked Andropov for access to real budget figures. "You are asking too much," he responded. "The budget is off limits to you."