Word: brezhnevs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shortly after Yuri Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader in November 1982, there was talk in Moscow of a face-saving pullout from the costly war of attrition. But Konstantin Chernenko, who replaced Andropov after that leader's death last February, seems uninterested in the notion. "We detected a hardening once Chernenko came to power," says Abdullah Osman, head of the Mujahedin-run Union of Afghan Doctors. Sure enough, Soviet troops recently stepped up patrols along both the southeastern border with Pakistan and the western border with Iran. "If the enemies of the motherland do not surrender," warned...
...decision was a personal triumph for the Siberian-born party worker and propagandist who succeeded the late Yuri Andropov in February. Leonid Brezhnev, Chernenko's longtime mentor, had waited 13 years to assume the largely ceremonial position of President, and it had taken Andropov seven months. But Chernenko, 72, had garnered the country's three key posts-General Secretary of the Communist Party, Chairman of the Defense Council, and now President-in only two months. As the parliamentary deputies rose to their feet and began to clap in rhythm, the stocky, silver-haired Chernenko savored the moment...
Chernenko's quick election to the post seemed to indicate that Brezhnev and Andropov had established that the party leader should also be Chairman of the Defense Council and President. In his nominating speech, Gorbachev made clear that combining the two posts was of "great importance for pursuing foreign policy." But whether the new Soviet leader has the clout commensurate with his many new titles remains an open question...
...part of the process of establishing his authority, Chernenko has been the beneficiary of a campaign to bolster his image. Photographs have been distributed showing the grandfatherly leader in informal poses that recall Brezhnev. The day before Chernenko was elected President, Krasnaya Zvezda, the Defense Ministry's official newspaper, published an article that patched what had been a large hole in the new leader's career: his military record. Chernenko did not fight on the front lines in World War II, but, according to Krasnaya Zvezda, he did battle bandits and anti-Soviet rebels while guarding the border...
About the late Soviet leader: "Brezhnev was pretty much of a lady's man . . . When we went down the line and there were a lot of-several-pretty girls . . . there with flowers and so forth welcoming us-this is in Russia-and he turned to me with a little wink, and he said, 'Would you want to take one of these with...