Word: nikolai
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Novelist Yuz Aleshkovsky, 54, views all forbidden topics as the domain of farce. The comic artist had to support himself in the Soviet Union writing children's books. Now he has returned to adult fiction with gusto. His raunchiest work, Nikolai Nikolayevich, is a Russian Portnoy's Complaint. In Aleshkovsky's book, as in Philip Roth's novel, the hero spends most of his time masturbating. The Russian, however, finds an ingenious way to turn his obsession into a cushy government job when a Soviet laboratory purchases his prodigious production of spermatozoa for the greater glory...
...appeared near the top of the lists of dignitaries who signed official obituaries. Chernenko's collected writings and speeches were reprinted amid glowing reviews in the press. When workers nominated their candidates for next month's elections to the Supreme Soviet, the nominal parliament, Chernenko along with Premier Nikolai Tikhonov, 78, consistently placed second, after Andropov. The selection of Chernenko as chairman of the funeral committee was the final hint...
...tenure. Andropov, it was believed, owed a debt to the military because Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov had backed him in the race to succeed Brezhnev. In what many saw as a disquieting sign of the brass hats' growing power, it was the military's Chief of Staff, Nikolai Ogarkov, who stepped forward to explain the Soviet decision to shoot down Korean Air Line Flight 007 last September. Now, as the Soviets go through another transition, a critical question remains unanswered. Does the military play an increasingly influential role within the closed world of the Kremlin...
...highest levels, the sprawling Soviet military narrows into a streamlined chain of command. Directly under Minister of Defense Dmitri Ustinov, a member of the top-secret Defense Council headed by Andropov, are Viktor Kulikov, commander in chief of the Warsaw Pact forces, and Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Ogarkov. The commanders of the Soviet services take their orders from Ogarkov...
...under Brezhnev. Politburo Newcomer Vitali Vorotnikov, 58, joined a number of younger leaders who appeared to owe their growing prominence to the ailing leader. They included former Azerbaijan Party Chief Geidar Aliyev, 60, who was the first Andropov appointee to the party's inner circle, and two technocrats, Nikolai Ryzhkov, 54, and Yegor Ligachev, 64, who were assigned to key posts in the Central Committee...