Word: brezhnevs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since taking over Leonid Brezhnev's job last November, Soviet Communist Party Leader Yuri Andropov has talked a good deal about getting the Soviet Union's sluggish economy moving. At the beginning of the year he ordered police to round up "slackers," who were at the movies or at public baths when they should have been at work. He made a much publicized visit to a Moscow factory in which he told workers that "without discipline we cannot advance quickly." But there have been few substantive actions to match Andropov's words. Last week the government...
West German officials immediately attributed the Soviet leader's absence to a possible kidney ailment and other recurring health problems. Soviet sources, however, encouraged the view that Andropov was administering a diplomatic snub to Kohl. After the eight-year decline and eventual death of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviets clearly had a stake in demonstrating that the capacity of the nation's leadership was not again in question because of the failing health of their supreme leader. The West Germans, for their part, chose to believe that no rebuff was intended. Still, as one Bonn official remarked, "In Moscow...
...Soviet citizens, the biggest surprise was that Chernenko played such a prominent role. As a Brezhnev protégé, the silver-haired Chernenko, 71, was long considered a potential successor. But a few months after Andropov's designation as party leader, Chernenko dropped from public view, ostensibly to battle a bout of pneumonia. When he failed to appear for the traditional May Day lineup atop the Lenin Mausoleum, Moscow's active rumor mills began to speculate that he had lost another behind-the-scenes power struggle with Andropov. But once the more than 300 members...
...months ago. Contrary to expectations, Andropov did not fill the vacancies. His reluctance to do so suggests that powerful factions may be trying to curb Andropov's power to pack the Politburo with men loyal to him. Says a Western diplomat: "He's not as strong as Brezhnev was. He didn't get his way, or the jobs would have been filled...
Hungary's economic reforms are tolerated but not widely emulated in Eastern Europe. Fekete noted that Leonid Brezhnev told the last Soviet Party Congress in 1981 that Hungarian agricultural policy should be seen as a model for other Communist countries. Despite that, few have adopted the Hungarian program. When asked why, Banker Fekete replied simply, "Vanity and pride...