Word: brezhnevs
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...Arriving in small groups, nearly 300 members of the Communist Party's ruling body filed into the auditorium for a closed-door conclave. Ostensibly, the main object of the special meeting was to discuss a plan to increase agricultural production. But shortly after the start, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, 75, in his role as General Secretary of the Communist Party, made an announcement that added a new element to the most popular pastime in Moscow: speculating about who will eventually succeed the ailing leader...
Looking pale but fit, Brezhnev nominated Yuri Andropov, 67, the tall and somewhat stooped leader of the Committee for State Security (KGB), for election to the ten-man Secretariat of the Central Committee, a powerful body that runs the day-to-day affairs of the party. The Central Committee promptly elected him. Two days later, the government announced that Andropov had been relieved of his position in the KGB "because of his assignment to other duties." The promotion made Andropov one of only four contenders who hold the combination of posts thought necessary for a potential party chief: membership...
...shows that "he has a lot of support in the army, the Foreign Ministry and the party." According to Hyland, the Central Committee may have given Andropov some of the vast policymaking powers that were long held by Mikhail Suslov, the party ideologist whose authority was second only to Brezhnev's until Suslov's death last January. A Soviet historian agrees: "Andropov is definitely...
Andropov's odds are enhanced by the fact that each of the other three leading contenders for Brezhnev's mantle has a major handicap. Kirilenko, who has rarely been seen in public in recent months, is believed to be ill. Chernenko, though a Brezhnev protégé, has no power base of his own. Gorbachev, who runs Soviet agriculture, lacks broad experience. Still, he is young and aggressive enough to accumulate power within the next few years as the elderly Politburo members...
Some Sovietologists speculate that Andropov was foisted upon Brezhnev by members of the Politburo who opposed Chernenko. "I think Brezhnev has been hurt," says a Western diplomat in Moscow. "The safest course for Brezhnev was to build up Chernenko, who was his creature. But now there's a fox-Andropov-in the chicken coop." Cornell University's Myron Rush believes that in spite of Andropov's move upward, Chernenko can still make it to the top if Brezhnev survives and is well enough to exercise power for a year or two. Says Rush: "Brezhnev is wary...