Word: andropov
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...efficient, incorruptible manager. After a four-year stint in Moscow as a deputy director of the propaganda and party organs for the Russian Republic, he spent the Brezhnev years as local party boss in the Siberian city of Tomsk. Brought back to Moscow by then Party Leader Yuri Andropov in 1983, Ligachev was named to Gorbachev's Politburo two years later. All along, Ligachev has insisted he does not oppose perestroika. In an extraordinary interview with the Paris daily Le Monde in December he said, "I know what you write about me. I beg you to understand that there...
...time a fatal kidney ailment cut short Andropov's tenure in early 1984, Gorbachev was already a candidate to succeed his former mentor. At Andropov's funeral, Gorbachev made a telling gesture of his closeness to the late General Secretary: he was the only Politburo member publicly to console Andropov's bereaved widow Tatyana. But the Old Guard made a final stand, choosing Chernenko instead. Gorbachev went along, and even agreed to make the nominating speech. He probably knew his turn would come soon enough. Ailing and 72, Chernenko was not going to last long. In fact, through much...
...young party chief's reputation pleased two important spa guests: Mikhail Suslov, then the chief Soviet ideologist, and KGB Chief Yuri Andropov, both austere figures disgusted by the corruption of the Brezhnev era. When Kulakov died in 1978, he left vacant the position of Communist Party Central Committee Secretary in charge of agriculture. To fill it, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, presumably acting on the advice of Suslov and Andropov, chose a man he had evidently met only recently: Gorbachev. That meeting occurred on Sept. 19, 1978, at the tiny railroad station in Mineralnye Vody, where Brezhnev's train stopped...
...reason Gorbachev's agriculture record was not held against him was simply that the Kremlin leadership found itself in desperate need of new blood. Brezhnev's health was faltering, and his 18-year regime was sinking into a twilight of stagnation and corruption. When Brezhnev died in 1982 and Andropov came into office with plans for reform, he immediately began grooming Gorbachev to become a key lieutenant in his clean-up campaign...
...public policy to the extent of helping to create a fund to encourage the development of young people in the arts? The problem is that the Soviets are accustomed to leaders' wives who are retiring to the point of invisibility. The outside world did not even know that Tatyana Andropov existed until she attended her husband's 1984 funeral. Consequently, to some people Raisa's high profile seems mildly scandalous. When she accompanied Gorbachev to the 1986 Reykjavik summit with Ronald Reagan (Nancy stayed home), a Soviet Foreign Ministry official griped, "Who chose her to represent the Soviet Union...