Earlier in his career, Andropov served as theSoviet ambassador to Hungary from 1954 to 1957. During this period, he took part in the suppression of the1956 Hungarian Uprising. Later under the leadership ofLeonid Brezhnev, he was appointed chairman of the KGB on 10 May 1967. As Brezhnev's health deteriorated from the mid-1970s onward, Andropov began to increasingly dictate Soviet policy alongside Foreign MinisterAndrei Gromyko and Defense MinisterDmitry Ustinov.[3][4][5][6]
Upon Brezhnev's death on 10 November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary and, by extension, as theleader of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, he sought to implement reforms to eliminate corruption and economic inefficiency in the country by criminalizing truancy in the workplace and investigating longtime officials for violations of party discipline. Under Andropov's leadership,the Cold War intensified while the regime struggled 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, includingYegor Ligachyov,Nikolai Ryzhkov, and, most importantly,Mikhail Gorbachev.[7]
Upon sufferingkidney failure in February 1983, Andropov's health began to deteriorate rapidly. He died aged 69 on 9 February 1984, having led the country for about 15 months.
There has been much contention over Andropov's family background.[8] According to the official biography, Andropov was born inStanitsa Nagutskaya (modern-dayStavropol Krai, Russia) on 15 June 1914.[9] His father, Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, was a railway worker ofDon Cossack 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.[10][11] She was born in theRyazan Governorate into a family of town dwellers and was abandoned on the doorstep of Jewish watchmaker andFinnish citizen Karl Franzevich Fleckenstein, who lived in Moscow. He and his wife, Eudoxia Mikhailovna Fleckenstein, adopted and raised her.[12][13]
Andropov's earliest documented name was Grigory Vladimirovich Andropov-Fyodorov which he changed to Yuri Andropov several years later.[14] His original birth certificate disappeared, but it has been established that Andropov was born in Moscow, where his mother worked at a women'sgymnasium from 1913 to 1917.[12][14]
On various occasions, Andropov gave different death dates for his mother: 1927, 1929, 1930 and 1931.[11][12] The story of her adoption was also likely a mystification. In 1937, Andropov was vetted when he applied forCommunist Party 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 hisRyazan peasant origins, was in fact his nurse, who had been working for Fleckenstein long before Andropov was born.[11][12]
It was also reported that Andropov's mother came from a line ofmerchants. Karl Fleckenstein was the rich proprietor of a jewellery business which was run by his wife after his death in 1915 when he was mistaken for a German during the infamous anti-Germanpogrom in Moscow and killed, although Andropov characterized the pogrom asanti-Jewish.[14][15] The whole family could have been turned intolishentsy and stripped of basic rights had she not abandoned the store after another pogrom in 1917, invented aproletarian background, and left Moscow for theStavropol Governorate along with Andropov's mother.[11][12]
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.[14] 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.[12][14] During the 1937 vetting, it was reported that his father served as an officer in theImperial Russian Army. Andropov joined theCommunist Party in 1939.[11][12]
Komsomol membership card issued to Yuri Andropov in 1939.
Andropov was educated at theRybinsk Water Transport Technical College and graduated in 1936.[9] As a teenager he worked as a loader, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for theVolga steamship line.[13][10] At 16, then a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (YCL, orKomsomol), Andropov was a worker in the town ofMozdok in theNorth Ossetian ASSR.[9]
Andropov becamefull-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 ofKomsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944.[13]
According to his official biography, duringWorld War II Andropov took part inpartisan guerrilla activities in Finland although modern researchers have found no trace of his supposed squad.[14] 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 theCentral Committee of theCommunist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.[13][16]
In 1951, Andropov was transferred to theCPSU Central Committee. He was appointed an inspector and then the head of a subdepartment of the committee.[13]
Communist party Membership card issued to Yuri Andropov in 1955.
In July 1954, Andropov was appointedAmbassador to Hungary. He held this position during the1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role in crushing the uprising. He convinced Soviet First SecretaryNikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary.[17] Andropov is known as "The Butcher of Budapest" for his ruthless suppression of the uprising.[18] Hungarian leaders were arrested andImre Nagy and others executed.
After these events, Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex", according to historianChristopher Andrew: "He had watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian security service [theÁllamvédelmi Hatóság (AVH)] were strung up from lampposts. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communistone-party state had begun to topple. When other Communist regimes later seemed at risk –in Prague in 1968,in Kabul in 1979,in Warsaw in 1981, he was convinced that, as inBudapest in 1956, only armed force could ensure their survival".[17]
In 1957, Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties inSocialist Countries, a position he held until 1967. In 1961, he was elected full member of theCPSU Central Committee and was promoted to theSecretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. In 1967, he was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of theKGB onMikhail Suslov's recommendation and promoted to candidate member of the Politburo. In 1970, out of concern that the burial place ofJoseph andMagda Goebbels and their children would become a shrine toneo-Nazis, Andropov authorized an operation to destroy the remains that were buried inMagdeburg in 1946. The remains were thoroughly burned and crushed, and the ashes thrown into theBiederitz River, a tributary of the nearbyElbe. No proof exists that the Russians ever foundAdolf Hitler's body, but it is presumed that Hitler andEva Braun were among the remains as 10 or 11 bodies were exhumed.[19][20] Andropov gained additional powers in 1973 when he was promoted to full member of thePolitburo.
During thePrague Spring in 1968, Andropov was the main advocate of taking "extreme measures" againstCzechoslovakia. According to classified information released byVasili Mitrokhin, the "KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim toNATO aggression or to a coup".[17] At this time, agentOleg Kalugin reported from Washington that he had gained access to "absolutely reliable documents proving that neither theCIA nor any other agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement".[17] His message was destroyed because it contradicted theconspiracy theory Andropov had fabricated.[17] Andropov ordered a number ofactive measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS, against Czechoslovak reformers during theNormalization period.
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".[17] To this end, he launched a campaign to eliminate all opposition in the USSR through a mixture of mass arrests,involuntary commitments to psychiatric hospitals, and pressure on rights activists to emigrate. These measures were meticulously documented throughout his time as KGB chairman by the undergroundChronicle of Current Events, asamizdat publication that was itself finally forced out of existence after its 30 June 1982 issue.[21]
On 3 July 1967, Andropov proposed to establish the KGB's Fifth Directorate to deal with the political opposition[22]: 29 (ideologicalcounterintelligence).[23]: 177 At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents, includingAndrei Sakharov andAleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[22] 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.[17]
After theassassination attempt against Brezhnev in January 1969, Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman,Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin.[24][25] Ilyin was pronounced insane and sent to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital.[26] On 29 April 1969, Andropov submitted to theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union an elaborate plan to create a network ofpsychiatric hospitals to defend the "Soviet Government and socialist order" from dissidents.[23]: 177 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.[27] His proposal to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented.[28]: 42 As head of the KGB, Andropov was in charge of the widespread deployment of psychiatric repression.[29]: 187–188 According toYuri Felshtinsky andBoris Gulko, Andropov and the head of the Fifth Directorate,Filipp Bobkov, originated the idea to use psychiatry for punitive purposes.[30]
The repression of dissidents[31][32] was a big part of Andropov's agenda and targeted such prominent figures asAndrei Sakharov andRoy Medvedev. Some believe that Andropov was behind the deaths ofFyodor Kulakov andPyotr Masherov, the two youngest members of the Soviet leadership.[33] A declassified document revealed that as KGB director, Andropov gave the order to prevent unauthorized gatherings mourningJohn Lennon.[34]
Beginning in January 1972, Andropov led the implementation of the Sovietdétente strategy.[35]
In 1977, Andropov convinced Brezhnev that theIpatiev House, whereTsarNicholas II and hisfamily weremurdered byBolshevik revolutionaries during theRussian Civil War, had become a site of pilgrimage for covertmonarchists.[36] 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.[37]
According toYaakov Kedmi, Andropov was particularly keen to persecute any sign ofZionism in order to distance himself from hisJewish heritage. He was personally responsible for orchestrating the arrest and persecution ofSoviet Jewish activistNatan Sharansky.[38]
In March 1979, Andropov and the Politburo initially opposed military intervention in Afghanistan.[39] Among their concerns were that the international community would blame the USSR for its "aggression" and that the upcomingSALT II negotiation meeting with U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter would be derailed.[40] Andropov changed his mind after the assassination ofNur Muhammad Taraki andHafizullah Amin's seizure of power. He became convinced that the CIA had recruited Amin to create apro-Westernexpansionist "New Great Ottoman Empire" that would attempt to dominateSoviet Central Asia.[41] Andropov's bottom line, "under no circumstances can we lose Afghanistan", led him and the Politburo toinvade Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. The invasion led to the extendedSoviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and aboycott of the1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow by 66 countries, something of concern to Andropov since spring 1979.[42] Some have proposed that the Soviet–Afghan War also played an important role in theSoviet Union's dissolution.[43]
From 1980 to 1982, while still chair of the KGB, Andropov opposed plans to occupyPoland after the emergence of theSolidarity movement and promoted reform-minded party cadres, includingMikhail Gorbachev.[10] Andropov was the longest-serving KGB chairman and did not resign as head of theKGB until May 1982, when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeedMikhail Suslov as secretary responsible for ideological affairs.
Andropov (seated second from right in the front row) presides over the USSR's 60th Anniversary shortly after succeeding Brezhnev as itsleader.
Two days afterBrezhnev's death, on 12 November 1982, Andropov was elected general secretary of theCPSU, 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.[47]
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.[48]
At home, Andropov attempted to improve theUSSR'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.[49] For the first time, the facts abouteconomic stagnation and obstacles to scientific progress were made available to the public and open to criticism.[50] Furthermore, Andropov gave select industries greater autonomy from state regulations[51] and enabled factory managers to retain control over more of their profits.[52] Such policies resulted in a 4% rise in industrial output and increased investment in new technologies such as robotics.[53]
Despite such reforms, Andropov refused to consider any changes that sought to dispense with thePlanned economy introduced underJoseph Stalin. In his memoirs, Gorbachev wrote that when Andropov was the leader, Gorbachev andGosplan chairmanNikolai Ryzhkov asked him for access to real budget figures. "You are asking too much", Andropov responded. "The budget is off limits to you."[54]
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.[10] During his 15 months in office, Andropov dismissed 18 ministers and 37 first secretaries ofobkoms, kraikoms and Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics, andcriminal cases against high-level party and state officials were started. Biographers including Solovyov and Klepikova[55] andZhores Medvedev[56] 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 asEduard 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 members 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 amorally gray power struggle.[55][56]
In foreign policy, theconflict 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 theUnited States. During a much-publicized "walk in the woods" with Soviet dignitary Yuli Kvitsinsky, American diplomatPaul Nitze suggested a compromise for reducing nuclear missiles in Europe on both sides that the Politburo ignored.[61] 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.[62] On 8 March 1983, Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire". On 23 March, he announced theStrategic Defense Initiative. Reagan claimed this research program into ballistic missile defense was "consistent with our obligations under theABM Treaty". Andropov dismissed this claim, saying, "It is time they [Washington] stopped ... search[ing] for the best ways of unleashingnuclear war. ... Engaging in this is not just irresponsible. It is insane".[63]
A photograph of Korean Air Lines HL7442, the airliner shot down by Soviet aircraft after drifting intoprohibited airspace during theKAL 007 Flight.
In August 1983, Andropov made an announcement that the USSR would stop all work onspace-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.[64]
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 fromAnchorage, Alaska, toSeoul, South Korea. Andropov kept secret that the Soviet Union held in its possession theblack box from KAL 007 that proved the pilot had made a typographical error when entering data in the automatic pilot. TheSoviet air defence system was unprepared to deal with a civilian airliner, and the shooting down was a matter of following orders without question.[65] 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 the1986 Chernobyl disaster, the episode demonstrated an inability to deal withpublic 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.[66]
In late January 1984, Andropov's health deteriorated rapidly. Due to growing toxicity in his blood, he had periods of falling into unconsciousness. He died on 9 February 1984 at 16:50, aged 69.[68] 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, residualhypertension anddiabetes, worsened by chronic kidney deficiency.[67]
Andropov was succeeded byKonstantin Chernenko, even though Andropov had wanted a younger Politburo member,Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed him. Andropov went as far as to add a paragraph to his report at a Central Committee plenum that did not meet until his death. However, he was ignored. In most respects, Chernenko seemed to mirror Andropov's tenure. Chernenko was already terminally ill when he ascended to the USSR's top spot, and served even less time in office (13 months).[89][90] Similarly to Andropov, Chernenko spent much of his time hospitalized, and also died in office, in March 1985.[89] Chernenko was succeeded by Gorbachev, who implementedperestroika andglasnost policies to reform the Soviet Union politically and economically. On 26 December 1991,the USSR was dissolved.[91]
Tatyana and Andropov had two children,Igor [ru] and Irina.[94] Igor joined the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as ambassador to Greece.[95]
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 the head of the KGB for fifteen years, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and authorDavid Remnick, who covered the Soviet Union forThe Washington Post in the 1980s, called him "profoundly corrupt, a beast".[96]Alexander Yakovlev, later an advisor to Gorbachev and the ideologist ofperestroika, said: "In a way I always thought Andropov was the most dangerous of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest."[96] 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 GeneralYevgeny Primakov, laterPrime Minister of Russia. Andropov began to follow a trend of replacing elderly officials with considerably younger ones.
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 the1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the leaders of the formerWarsaw 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.[97]
Despite Andropov's hard-line stance inHungary 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 thestagnation and corruption of Brezhnev's later years. A "throwback to a tradition of Leninist asceticism",[96] 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."[96] 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 itseventual dissolution.
The Western media generally favored Andropov,[98] 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 novelRed 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 ofMarlboros andstarka vodka, almost never available to ordinary Soviet citizens.
Various people who knew Andropov well, includingVladimir Medvedev,Aleksandr Chuchyalin,Vladimir Kryuchkov[99] andRoy Medvedev, remembered him for his politeness, calmness, unselfishness, patience, intelligence and exceptionally sharp memory.[100] According to Chuchyalin, while working at the Kremlin, Andropov would read about 600 pages a day and remember everything he read.[101] Andropov read English literature and could communicate in Finnish, English and German.[102]
HistorianMoshe Lewin characterizes Andropov during his brief tenure as Soviet leader as "a politician interested in intellectual issues, but who was also a realist" and states that "Andropov was free of the habitual arrogance of Soviet leaders, who considered their empire invulnerable". This led him to seek dialogue withsocial democrats in Western countries instead of only building relationships with fellowMarxist-Leninists. Within the party elites, he actively encouraged disagreements and debates, while also preserving the image ofideological unity towards the outside. Despite his KGB connections and his repressive tendencies, Andropov mused over ways to encourage "forms of political as well as economicpluralism".[103]Vladislav Zubok even states that "The idea of renovating the Soviet Union originated not withMikhail Gorbachev, but with his mentor Yuri Andropov", who was in favor of "controlled, conservative reforms".[104]
According to Russian historianNikita Petrov, "He was a typical Soviet jailer who violated human rights. Andropov headed the organisation which persecuted the most remarkable people of our country."[105] 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.[106]
According toNatalya Gorbanevskaya, after Andropov came to power the dissident movement went into decline, not on its own but because it was strangled.[111] 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 becameGeneral 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.[111] In those years, there were many deaths in camps from disease and lack of medical care.[111]
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".[112] Putin has praised Andropov's "honesty and uprightness".[113]
Ленинизм озаряет наш путь [Leninism illumes our way] (in Russian). Moscow: Издательство политической литературы. 1964.
Ленинизм – наука и искусство революционного творчества [Leninism is science and art of revolutionary creativity] (in Russian). Moscow: Издательство политической литературы. 1976.
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Selected speeches and articles. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1984.ASINB003UHCKTO.
Speeches, articles, interviews. A Selection. South Asia Books. 1984.ISBN978-0836411652.
Учение Карла Маркса и некоторые вопросы социалистического строительства в СССР [The teaching of Karl Marx and some issues of socialist building in the USSR] (in Russian). Moscow: Издательство политической литературы. 1983.
Ленинизм – неисчерпаемый источник революционной энергии и творчества масс. Избранные речи и статьи [Leninism is an inexhaustible source of revolutionary energy and creativity of masses. Selected speeches and articles] (in Russian). Moscow: Издательство политической литературы. 1984.
^Haslam, Jonathan (2011).Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall. Yale University Press. pp. 299–300.ISBN978-0-300-15997-4."Brezhnev's sickness created a further problem….He collapsed in mid-August 1968, the eve of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. A further seizure occurred—which proved a turning point—immediately after the negotiations at Okeanskaya, Vladivostok, 23–24 November 1974. Brezhnev was then said to be working only a three-day week….Thereafter Brezhnev's capacity to concentrate diminished with progressive arteriosclerosis leading to onset of senile dementia, doubtless hastened by beta-blockers taken to lower blood pressure for relief of the heart. Growing dependence on sleeping pills made matters worse…Although decisions still required Brezhnev's assent, the substance of power tacitly passed to a troika: Andropov, Gromyko, and Ustinov, who met in the orekhovaya room (paneled in walnut) where the entire Politburo foregathered on Thursdays."
^Figes, Orlando (2014).Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991: A History. Henry Holt & Company. p. 266.ISBN978-0-8050-9131-1.As Brezhnev's health deteriorated following a major stroke in 1975, real power passed into the hands of Yuri Andropov, Gromyko and Dmitry Ustinov, the new hawkish Defence Minister, who pushed for an even bolder policy abroad.
^Dmitriĭ Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders who Built the Soviet Regime (1998) pp. 297–298.
^McCauley, Martin.The Cold War 1949-2016. Routledge. p. 189.ISBN9781138999015.Brezhnev's health was a cause of concern, and there were many cruel Soviet jokes about his incompetence. By the mid-1970s, he was only able to work for short periods, and a troika took over: Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB; Andrei Gromyko, foreign minister; and Marshal Dmitry Ustinov, the minister of defence.
^Mauricio Borrero, "Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich 1914–1984."Encyclopedia of Modern Dictators (2006), pp. 7–10.
^abcJessup, John E. (1998).An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 25.ISBN978-0-3132-8112-9.
^abcdA Dictionary of 20th Century Communism. Edited by Silvio Pons and Robert Service. Princeton University Press. 2010.
^abcdefgDenis Babichenko (3 October 2005).Легендарная личность [Legendary Personality].Itogi (in Russian) (40):30–34. Archived fromthe original on 22 October 2007. Retrieved3 July 2008.
^Coll, Steve (2004).Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin Press.ISBN1-59420-007-6.OCLC52814066.
Fischer, Ben B.A Cold War conundrum: the 1983 soviet war scare (Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997).online
Glazov, Yuri (1985). "Yuri Andropov: A Recent Leader of Russia".The Russian Mind Since Stalin's Death. D. Reidel Publishing Company. pp. 180–221.doi:10.1007/978-94-009-5341-3_10.ISBN978-9027718280.
Goodman, Elliot (Summer 1984). "The Brezhnev-Andropov legacy: implications for the future".Survey.28 (2):34–69.
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.
Whelan, Joseph (1983).Andropov and Reagan as negotiators: contexts and styles in contrast. Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress.ASINB00DDVND9I.
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