Word: brezhnevs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...course, Gorbachev will install men of his own choosing in positions of power. He should have little difficulty in doing so, since the Politburo has only ten members, in contrast to the 14 that had been usual under Leonid Brezhnev. But he probably will take his time in choosing his team, seeking instead to allay any suspicion that he is trying to monopolize power too quickly. "Gorbachev does not need to pack the Politburo with his own men," says one diplomat. "There do not seem to be any challengers to his rule...
...prompt the concern that it had happened again--a Soviet leader had died. The suspicion was all but confirmed when regularly scheduled broadcasts during the following six hours were replaced by nature films and classical music. Having mastered the macabre code used to signal the death of Leonid Brezhnev in November 1982 and that of his successor Yuri Andropov only 15 months later, millions of Soviet citizens were fully prepared for the announcement, which was finally broadcast simultaneously on radio and television at 2 p.m.: "Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party...
...real surprise came the next day when Soviet citizens lined up at newspaper kiosks to buy Pravda. The front page of the Communist Party daily was not dominated by a black-bordered picture of the late Soviet President, as had been the case when Brezhnev and Andropov died; readers had to turn to the second page for a glimpse of Chernenko. Instead, the front-page space was devoted to the official portrait of the new leader, a balding, round-faced man, and the announcement that Mikhail Gorbachev, 54, had been chosen by the Central Committee as General Secretary...
...indeed appear that the Soviet Union wanted to put the world on notice that the era of drift, of weak and enfeebled leadership that began in Brezhnev's declining years, had come to an abrupt end. A small circle of aging leaders, men whose careers spanned most of their nation's history, had handed over power to someone from the younger generation, an event as monumental in its way as the death of Stalin in 1953. The Kremlin no longer could be viewed as the domain of ailing and absent rulers; its boss was now a man of vigor...
...most details, the Chernenko funeral differed little from the final rites for Brezhnev and Andropov. The crack gray-uniformed honor guards, goose- stepping beside the red and black-bedecked gun carriage, each balancing his rifle on one hand, seemed as coldly perfect as a precision gear wheel put through one more rotation. Portraits of Chernenko bobbed above the crowds in a regular pattern as the cortege made its way into Red Square...