Brown, Archie. (1997). The Gorbachev Factor. New York: Cambridge University Press. McCauley, Martin. (1997). Who’s Who in Russia since 1990. New York: Routledge. Remnick, David. (1994). Lenin’s Tomb. New York: Random House.
(1914-1984), general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1982-1984).
Yuri Andropov was born on June 15, 1914, in the southern Russian region of Stavropol. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the Young Communist League (Komsomol). During World War II he worked with the partisan movement in Karelia, and after the war he became second secretary of the regional Party organization. He was transferred to the Party apparatus in Moscow in 1951 and was the ambassador to Hungary at the time of the Soviet invasion in 1956. He played a key role in encouraging the invasion.
In 1957 Andropov returned to Moscow to become head of the Central Committee’s Bloc Relations Department. There he inherited a group of some of the most progressive thinkers of the Brezhnev era, many of the leading advocates for change who were working within the system. This contributed later to Andropov’s reputation as a progressive thinker. He continued to oversee relations with other communist countries after he was promoted to Central Committee secretary in 1962. In 1967 he was appointed the head of the Committee on State Security (KGB) and a candidate member of
61
the ruling Politburo. He was promoted to the rank of full Politburo member in 1971. As the head of the KGB, Andropov led active efforts against dissidents at home and enhanced the KGB collection efforts abroad. To be in a better position to succeed Leonid Brezhnev, Andropov gave up the chairmanship of the KGB in May 1982 and returned to the Central Committee as a senior member of the Secretariat. His chief rival in the succession struggle was Konstantin Chernenko, who was being actively promoted by Brezhnev. However, Chernenko lacked Andropov’s broad experience, and when Brezhnev died in November 1982, Andropov was elected general secretary by a plenum of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In June 1983 he was elected chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet-the head of state.
When Andropov was elevated to the head of the Party, there were great hopes that he would end the stagnation that had characterized the Brezhnev years and that he would reinvigorate the Party and its policies. From his years as head of the KGB, Andropov had an excellent perspective on the depth of the problems facing the Soviet Union. There was also an active effort to promote his image as a progressive thinker. During his very brief tenure as Party leader, Andropov was able to begin diverging from the norms of the Brezhnev era. This was a time of rapid personnel turnover. In addition to making key changes in the top Party leadership, he replaced a large number of ministers and regional party leaders with younger leaders. Most important, Andropov actively advanced the career of the youngest member of the Politburo, Agriculture Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, giving him broad authority and experience in the Party that helped pave the way for his ascent to Party leadership. All signs indicate that Andropov was hoping to make Gorbachev his successor.
Andropov’s brief tenure was not sufficient to make a similar impact on policy. While he was much more open than Brezhnev in recognizing the country’s problems, particularly in the economic sphere, Andropov was cautious by nature and did not come to office with any plan for tackling them. He did, however, begin a serious discussion of the need for economic reform, spoke positively about economic innovation in Eastern Europe, and began to take some cautious steps to improve the situation. His regime is best remembered for the discipline campaign: an effort to enforce worker discipline, punishing workers who did not report for duty on time or were drinking on the job. He also introduced other minor reforms aimed at improving productivity. Andropov began to tackle the problem of corruption at higher levels and expelled two members of the Central Committee who had been close associates of Brezhnev. He also introduced somewhat greater openness in Party affairs, publishing accounts of the weekly Politburo meetings and deliberations of the CPSU plenum. These measures, together with his personnel moves, created a positive sense of cautious change, as well as a hope that the Soviet leadership would start to address the problems facing the country, now that it was aware of them. Probably the most notable event of Andropov’s tenure was the accidental shooting down by the Soviet military of a Korean Airlines plane that strayed into Soviet airspace in the Far East in September 1983.
The contest to succeed Andropov appears to have been the main preoccupation of the party leadership following his election. Only three months into his tenure, Andropov’s health began to deteriorate sharply as a result of serious kidney problems, and he was regularly on dialysis for the rest of his life. He dropped out of sight in August 1983 and did not appear again in public. He died in February 1984. Andropov was not in office long enough for his prot?g?, Gorbachev, to gain the upper hand in the succession struggle, and he was succeeded by seventy-two- year-old Konstantin Chernenko, who was closely associated with the status quo of the Brezhnev era. See also: CHERNENKO, KONSTANTIN USTINOVICH; GENERAL SECRETARY; GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH; STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Archie. (1983). “Andropov: Discipline and Reform.” Problems of Communism 33(1):18-31. Medvedev, Zhores A. (1983). Andropov. New York: Norton.
The Peace of Andrusovo (1667) concluded a thirteen-year period of conflict between Muscovy, Poland- Lithuania, and Sweden, known as the Thirteen Year’s War (1654-1667). It marked the end of Poland-Lithuania’s attempts at eastward expansion, and divided the Ukraine into Polish (right
bank) and Russian (left bank) spheres of influence on either side of the Dnieper River. The treaty allowed Muscovy to maintain temporary hold over the two key cities of Smolensk (thirteen and a half years) and Kiev (two years); but Muscovy defied those provisions and retained these cities permanently, paying only a token indemnity to the Poles. The agreement at Andrusovo, though originally intended to be provisional, was confirmed by the so-called “Eternal Peace” of 1686. Thus, the treaty marked Muscovy’s ascendance over Poland-Lithuania in the region.
The Peace of Andrusovo is significant in that it defined relations between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania for much of the remainder of the century. Subsequent treaties extended, clarified, or confirmed the 1667 Peace of Andrusovo. Largely because of this treaty, Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania developed a mutual defensive stance against the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Empire in the south. It also affected how the two nations defined other aspects of their relationship, such as the status of Kiev, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, and of Orthodox populations in Polish-held territories.
The creation of Polish and Russian spheres of influence had a far-reaching impact on their subject populations. The Poles pursued a policy of Pol-onization of Belarus, forbidding the use of the Belarussian language, and restricting the political involvement of the Orthodox believers. The Russians limited the power of the hetmans and returned the practice of serfdom to the Left Bank region. The divided Ukrainians sought to gain advantage by playing Muscovy, Poland, and the Ottomans against one another, with the result that continuous warfare reduced their population and destroyed their lands. Still, the division remained in effect and contributed to Muscovy’s predominance. See also: MUSCOVY; POLAND; THIRTEEN YEAR’S WAR
W. M. REGER IV
(1693-1740), empress of Russia (1730-1740).
Anna Ivanovna was a daughter of Peter the Great’s half-brother and co-ruler Ivan V. When Peter’s young grandson, Peter II, died unexpectedly the Romanov male line came to an end. The Supreme Privy Council faced the problem of deciding to which of the five female pretenders the Russian crown was to be passed.
Two powerful aristocratic families, the Golit-syns and Dolgorukys, dominated the Council. They hoped to limit the powers of the autocratic monarch, a plan that required a docile and passive figure on the throne. Anna seemed to fit their needs perfectly. She was a widow in near impoverishment, wishing to escape her difficult circumstances in Cour-land (Latvia). The Council believed that given her essentially weak character and probable gratitude toward
