Word: politburo
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Though Andropov may soon be able to add one or two younger supporters to the Politburo, it may be some time before significant changes in policy are evident because the old guard is solidly entrenched. In the last years of his stewardship, Brezhnev was unwilling to dilute his power by infusing new blood into a Politburo that was packed mostly with his longtime comrades and cronies. When Brezhnev died, only two of the voting members of the Politburo represented the younger generation of leaders: Grigori Romanov, 59, and Mikhail Gorbachev...
Under Andropov, the Politburo will be on its guard against any attempt by Washington to take advantage of uncertainty at the top in Moscow. Says former British Prime Minister James Callaghan: "This is a time for caution in the West and particularly in Washington. We must be moderate in our language and discard counterproductive rhetoric...
...security. With the exception of a few who personally ran afoul of Brezhnev, most Soviet top officials did not resign; they died in office. Now Andropov will have to start replacing as many as 6,000 top officials in every important governing institution in the country, including the Politburo, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs...
...when thousands of powerful bureaucrats were shot or dispatched to the gulag on Stalin's orders. This time, however, the scourge is not a paranoid and murderous dictator. It is old age. Most top officials in the country's ruling bodies are the same age as the majority of Politburo members: in their 60s and 70s. Roy Medvedev, the independent-minded Marxist historian living in Moscow, believes that younger men will move into top positions around the time of the 27th Communist Party Congress in 1985. "The political wheels grind very slowly in our country," he says...
Partly because he has not been exposed to the West, Andropov's personality and private life are even more shadowy than those of other Politburo members. Soviet Historian Roy Medvedev says Andropov has only one hobby?politics. "He's a politician who loves politics." A widower, Andropov has a son, Igor, 37, who has worked under Soviet Americanologist Georgi Arbatov at Moscow's Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies. According to Hough, Arbatov has had a long personal and professional relationship with Andropov and may now become the equivalent of national security adviser to the new General Secretary...