Yuri Andropov, the son
of a railway official, was born in Nagutskoye, in the Soviet
Union. He trained as a water transport engineer and worked in
the shipyards at Rybinsk. He was politically active and joined the
Communist Party (CPSU).
In 1940 Andropov was placed
in charge of the Karelian peninsula. After the German
Army occupied
the area in 1941 Andropov organized the partisan resistance movement
in the area.
After the Second
World War Andropov became the Second Party Secretary in Karelia.
Later he was sent to Moscow where he worked for the Communist
Party Central Committee.
In 1954 Andropov was posted
to Budapest and played an important role in crushing the Hungarian
Uprising in 1956.
On his return to the Soviet Union he was
appointed head of the Committee for State Security
(KGB).
Andropov, met Mikhail
Gorbachev while
he was First Secretary for Stavropol Territory. Andropov was impressed
with his work and used his considerable influence to promote Gorbachev's
career.
In 1973 Andropov became
a member of the Politburo and on the
death of Leonid
Brezhnev in 1982
became General Secretary
of the Communist Party. Andropov attempted
to introduce a series of reforms but he died in 1984 before he could
complete his programme.
(1)
Mikhail
Gorbachev, Memoirs (1995)
First and foremost, Andropov
was a brilliant and large personality, generously endowed with gifts
by nature, and a true intellectual. He resolutely denounced all the
features commonly associated with Brezhnevism, that is, protectionism,
in-fighting and intrigues, corruption, moral turpitude, bureaucracy,
disorganization and laxity. Andropov's tough, and sometimes exaggerated,
attitude to these problems instilled hope that an end would at last
be put to all the outrageous practices, that those who had alienated
themselves from the people would be held responsible. Consequently
his actions, though they were sometimes excessive, created hope and
were considered the harbingers of general and deeper changes. And
here is the crux of the matter - would Andropov have gone any further
and embarked upon the path of far-reaching transformations had his
fate turned out differently? I do not believe so. Some of those who
were not close to Yury Vladimirovich asserted that he had been nurturing
ideas of reforming the system long before becoming General Secretary.
I do not believe it. He realized the need for changes, yet Andropov
always remained a man of his time, and was one of those who were unable
to break through the barrier of old ideas and values.
The thought often occurs
to me: he knew Stalin's crimes better than anyone else. Yet he never
mentioned them. He witnessed Brezhnev's attempts to revive both Stalin's
image and his model of organizing society. Nonetheless, he did
not even attempt to counteract it. And what about his role in the
events in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, in the Afghan War, and in the
struggle against those who thought differently, the 'dissidents'?
Apparently the years spent
in KGB work had left an imprint on his attitudes and perceptions,
making him a suspicious man condemned to serve the system.
No. Just like Khrushchev,
Andropov would not have initiated drastic changes. Who knows, maybe
it was his fate that he died before he came face to face with the
problems which would have inevitably frustrated him, dispelling people's
illusions about him.
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