Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU on November 12, 1982, soon also centralizing the executive power. He acted with captivating simplicity, pushed aside K. U. Chernenko and took the post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, relying on the support of the Army and the KGB. Neither L. I. Brezhnev nor N. S. Khrushchev had such power.
By that time he was a dock in the system of power in the state. It was an age-old politician: he received the highest official powers at the age of 69. For comparison: I. V. Stalin was 42 years old, N. S. Khrushchev - 59, L. I. Brezhnev - 57. As you can see, all previous general secretaries of the USSR took power into their own hands, being much younger. What does it say? Perhaps the fact that this man went too long towards his goal. So when the time came, he took power just like taking an apple. After all, the fact of his dominant influence on the highest state and party structures was not disputed by anyone. Unlikeno one nominated Andropov for previous leaders, he did it himself.
Real biography of childhood and youth
It's hard to write about the life of a person who has two biographies - official and real. In the life of Yuri Vladimirovich, the number 15 is mystically repeated: in the date of birth - June 15, 1915; in the invented date of birth - 1914-15-06; For 15 years he led the KGB, creating 15 departments there, and finally, he ruled the country for 15 months. It is obvious that all the general secretaries of the USSR have their own secrets, however, according to historians, Yuri Andropov has more of them than the rest. Therefore, let's arm ourselves with research (S. Chertoprud, "Yu. Andropov: secrets of the KGB chairman") and try to understand something from the life of a man who (behind his eyes, of course) was called "chairman" and "jeweler" by his colleagues in the KGB.
Let's start with a real biography. The journalist Mark Steinberg was the first to “unearth” the Jewish origin of the Secretary General. The biological father's name was Velv Lieberman, and the mother's name was Genya Fleckenstein. The future politician was born in a four-story Moscow mansion, and today it stands at No. 26 on the street. Big Lubyanka. The grandfather, who was engaged in jewelry business, was called Karl Frantsevich Fleckenstein. Grigory Velvovich Lieberman (later Andropov Yury Vladimirovich) was born in his house. Until 1913, my mother taught music at the elite Mizbach gymnasium for women. Then, in 1917, mother and son suddenly find themselves in a new place - the Nagutskaya station in the Stavropol Territory. What is the reason for this? Jewish pogroms in the capital. In 1915, a pogrom started by the workers of the Tsindel and Schrader factories claimed the lives ofhis grandfather.
Moreover, the mother (the son is still small) upon arrival at a new place of residence completely changes her biography. Here she marries Vladimir Andropov, a railway worker. The husband dies two years later with typhus. In the same year, Evgenia Andropova marries another railway worker, Viktor Aleksandrovich Fedorov.
At the end of the seven-year plan, the future politician was called by the names of his stepfathers Grigory Vladimirovich Andropov-Fedorov. How the name Gregory turned into Yuri, and the second component of the surname disappeared, remains a mystery.
Legend
18-year-old projectionist from Mozdok Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich writes his biography, the legend of the Stavropol proletarian, for admission to the Rybinsk River College. By that time, his mother had died (or maybe not, because Yuri leaves conflicting dates in various documents: 1929, 1930, 1931). He adapts biographical data to the "proletarian environment", leaving nothing of his "bourgeois roots". In his presentation, he was born on June 15, 1914 in the Stavropol Territory, his mother was a foundling raised in the family of a watchmaker (he changed his grandfather's profession) Flekenstein, and his father was Andropov Vladimir (Again, the problem, my mother could not teach music at the same time in 1914-1916 years in Moscow, and to give birth and raise a son in Stavropol).
Studying at a technical school
After graduating from a technical school in 1936, he remains there to work as a released secretary of the Komsomol. There was no desire to sail as a sailor. Note that secondary specialized education was actually the only one for the future partyfunctionary. The episode of training at Petrozavodsk University cannot be called a serious study. The higher party school, which all the general secretaries of the USSR graduated from as party functionaries, gave only a "crust". In addition, this school ended traditionally in absentia and without exams.
The young man further built his career as a Komsomol leader. Soon, in 1937, he was transferred as a Komsomol organizer to the Rybinsk shipyard, then to the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the Komsomol.
Party and Komsomol work
What does 1937 mean in the life of our country? It developed rapidly, overtaking Great Britain and France in the production of iron, steel, electricity, 4,500 industrial enterprises were built. In five years, the volume of industrial production has grown 2.2 times.
However, against this background, a wave of political purges was carried out in all sectors of Soviet society: from peasants to party nomenklatura. Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich enthusiastically took up the "new business", the trend of the times and succeeded in it. According to the testimony of the writer Sergei Viktorovich Chertoprud, who worked with archival documents, the young man soon "managed to discover" that all members of the bureau of the regional committee (with the exception of the first secretary) were enemies. They were planted. Why do you think? However, the first secretary "got" even worse - he was shot.
How did Yury's Komsomol career develop at that time? By leaps and bounds:
- 05.1937 - candidate of the CPSU (b);
- 09.1937 - head. department of pioneer and student youth of the Rybinsk city committee of the Komsomol;
- 10.1937 –transferred to the Yaroslavl Regional Committee;
- 11.1937 - acting III Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee;
- 12.1938 - 1st secretary of the Yaroslavl regional committee; note that a person who does not have party experience was appointed (obviously, other merits were assumed);
- 02.1939 - admitted to the party.
First marriage
"Burning to the ground" at the Komsomol work, Yuri Andropov marries a graduate of the Rybinsk technical school Engalycheva Nina Ivanovna. She comes from a we althy family of employees, her father is the director of a state bank branch. The young have two children: in 1937, daughter Valery, and in 1939, son Volodya. The wife is studying in Leningrad as an investigator and refuses to go with her husband to Karelia, where he is sent to Komsomol work. The family is falling apart.
Karelian stage
A young energetic worker in 1940 was sent to the Karelian-Finnish SSR formed in the same year to the post of First Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. In the same 1940, he divorces Engalycheva and marries Tatyana Filippovna Lebedeva. This woman he loved.
Tatyana Filippovna later, while staying with her husband-ambassador in Hungary during the rebellion, received a severe mental trauma - fear of crowds and open spaces, she was constantly in the apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
According to the official version, Yuri Andropov led the partisans of Karelia, for which in 1944 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Whether this fact corresponded to the truth is unknown, because we are dealing with a talented hoaxer.
Therefore, we willtrust documents. Moreover, there is a clue: Yuri Vladimirovich had neither the medal "For the Victory in the Great Patriotic War" nor the medal "For the Liberation of Karelia", award lists for which were made by direct commanders at the front.
It's no secret that in Karelia, the first secretary of the Karelian regional party committee G. N. Kupriyanov did not get along with Andropov, the 1st secretary of the Karelian Komsomol. In his memoirs, he accuses Yuri Vladimirovich of cowardice, "selfishness." According to him, the Komsomol leader skillfully sent and recruited people into partisans, but he himself was personally afraid of hostilities (I. A. Minutko "Yuri Andropov …"). Here is such "heroism".
In addition, later managed to bring under arrest Kupriyanov himself, and a number of underground workers who honestly worked behind enemy lines, the vengeful "Komsomol member" Andropov. The biography of a man who worked for 10 years as a deputy from Leningrad Kupriyanov and accused his boss of a non-existent crime was marked by another jump in the service. With his inherent instinct, he felt the conjuncture: Malenkov and Beria were just removing managers who could compete with them in the struggle for power in the Leningrad region.
Should I mention that Yury Vladimirovich took the position of the arrested first secretary of the regional committee? Gennady Kupriyanov served 10 years, and then, when he came out, he turned to both N. S. Khrushchev and L. I. Brezhnev, testifying to the role of Andropov in his fate. He was restored to the rank of general, but Andropov was not touched.
Diplomatic work
The death of Stalin and Beria, his patrons, probably seemed to him the endlight and force majeure, Andropov did not expect such events. His biography was not impeccable; the threat of trials for his Karelian and Yaroslavl affairs hung over the functionary. However, help did come - in the person of Otto Kuusinen, chairman of the Communist Party of the Karelian-Finnish SSR. He recommended Andropov to the Foreign Ministry - for diplomatic work in Hungary.
Upon arrival, the newly-made goodwill ambassador discovered that in the fall of 1956 a powerful national liberation movement had begun in this country, which had grown into an uprising. Willingly took on a key mission in the suppression of this movement diplomat Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich. His biography was marked by new Jesuits. In particular, he managed to deceive the government of Imre Nagy, convincing him that the USSR was interested in a democratic Hungary. Thus, the treacherous negotiator diverted attention from the actual invasion of Soviet troops and the bringing to power of the government of Janos Kador. And when Imre Nagy hid in the Yugoslav embassy from the Soviet troops, Andropov "acquaintance" promised him help in leaving the country's borders, and then cold-bloodedly surrendered to be shot. He also handed over the Hungarian military stationed at the military base of the USSR, offering them to leave the territory and giving them an “honest noble word” that they would not be touched. In a similar way, smiling, he betrayed one of the organizers of the uprising, police chief Sandor Kopacha.
After the completion of the operation in Hungary, Andropov remained in this country for another year as a Soviet governor,leading the final cleansing of the rebels.
Hungary still remembers the "bloody diplomat".
Central Committee of the CPSU
After Hungary, from March 1957, at the behest of N. S. Khrushchev, a new department head, Yury Vladimirovich Andropov, began to work in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The biography again connected him with the supreme power, giving an indulgence for previous cooperation with Beria. Four years later, in 1961, he became a member of the Central Committee. An energetic party member adjoins the promising party wing of L. I. Brezhnev and takes part in the removal of General Secretary Khrushchev in 1964. In gratitude for his service, Leonid Ilyich appoints him head of the KGB.
Let's take a moment to delve into the character of the new KGB chief. Andropov liked to show his power. Let us give an example: in a memorandum to the Central Committee dated December 25, 1970, Yuri Vladimirovich expresses his concern about the increased flow of letters from abroad in connection with the New Year addressed to N. S. Khrushchev, and also proposes to limit this flow. Why is he doing this? Answer: Khrushchev, former General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, when considering personnel decisions, once nominated Andropov, motivating the decision by the latter's lack of experience in organizing economic or administrative work.
KGB
15 years during which Andropov headed the State Security Committee are worth talking about. Let's build our reasoning on the testimonies of eyewitnesses. Member of the Politburo Vadim Andreevich Medvedev recalls that at meetings Andropov, in order to pleaseLeonid Ilyich prevented those present from expressing his point of view. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, in many matters completely relied on his gray cardinal, the chief of the KGB.
Under Andropov's leadership of this department, the fight against "anti-Soviet elements" was significantly intensified. The functionary deftly argued that the bloated KGB apparatus was a trend of the times. 15 departments of this department influenced people and public opinion in all possible directions (any institutions were obliged to assist them).
Andropov's know-how was applied - treatment in a psychiatric hospital. From honest, thinking, principled opponents, medical executioners made “vegetables”. And it was put on the conveyor. Progressive art was subjected to severe pressure: Lenkom, the Taganka Theater, the magazines Novy Mir and Yunost. At times, an absurd struggle was waged against dissidents, which took on manic forms. According to V. V. Fedorov, who occupied high ranks in the KGB, Andropov personally informed the republics of plans for how many dissidents should be arrested.
Andropov built a rigid and hidden vertical of secret power for citizens and the state. The KGB, for example, carried out preventive work with 68,000 citizens in 1976. This refers to moral pressure and intimidation by imprisonment. There were 851 political prisoners in prisons, 261 of them because of anti-Soviet agitation.
Under Yuri Vladimirovich, special forces were created to combat terrorism within the country: Alpha and abroad - Vympel. Vympelovtsy trainingimpressive, for "working with people" these generalists even knew how to use the knowledge of astrology.
What did Andropov really serve?
Having read the entire previous biography of this member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it is naive to believe that Yuri Vladimirovich will suddenly stop in his career, stop pushing everyone in his path with his elbows, especially since such a powerful tool of power as the KGB was nurtured through his efforts, implicitly obeying his orders. He was completely trusted and indulged by Brezhnev. Andropov used it.
From 1979, he began to push his patron to fail. In particular, the idea of a scam with the introduction of troops into Afghanistan was planted by the chief of the KGB. At the December meeting of the Politburo, he raised a clear misinformation about the emerging Islamic caliphate with its capital in Turkey. In addition, the KGB chief saw the prospect of America deploying medium-range missiles in Afghanistan. Which, of course, the United States could not even imagine. After all, the risk of deploying nuclear weapons in an unstable country was more than high. It was this hysterical performance that led to the entry of our troops into Afghanistan, 14,000 casu alties and a 10-year stupid war. Did Andropov want to take the place of "beloved Leonid Ilyich"? Photos of his times of the 80s, if you know physiognomy, testify to this. His gaze is not that of a subordinate.
Conveyor of deaths of Politburo members
Begs the difficult question of the rather alarming trend in the deaths of Politburo members that developed in the 1980s. This question,of course, is a secret behind seven seals. However, the anomalous nature of such a phenomenon as the flow of deaths in the 80s of the members of the Politburo, of course, is alarming.
Was it Andropov's secret policy? We will not draw conclusions, but consider the facts.
26.04.1976 Andrei Andreyevich Grechko, member of the Central Committee, Minister of Defense of the Central Committee, died. Seventy years old, he was in decent shape for his age: he loved jogging, tennis, led an active lifestyle, devoted a lot of time to CSKA. Colonel-General Varennikov openly expressed his disbelief in the naturalness of the death of this strong old man who did not complain about his he alth: in his house, in an armchair, with a book in his hands. It is characteristic that A. A. Grechko, as well as M. A. Suslov, who died later, represented the old guard of the Politburo, who did not recognize Andropov’s ambitions.
17.07.1978 60-year-old Fyodor Davydovich Kulakov, a real contender for the post of General Secretary of the CPSU, suddenly dies. The powerful man died suddenly, "from acute heart failure." And a couple of hours before that he was seen in good he alth. Academician Chazov was unconvincing in his posthumous diagnosis. In addition, the deceased was cremated unusually quickly.
Needless to say, with amazing stability, "by chance" for some reason, it was politicians who died - competitors or opponents of Andropov. If the version is correct, then even during the life of Brezhnev, the 80s were actually the years of Andropov's rule, however, by the methods of the gray cardinal.
04.10.1980 the most important diescontender for Brezhnev's hat - Pyotr Mironovich Masherov. He dies in a car accident near the village of Smolevichi. Circumstances of death: the Olympic road, like a needle, perfectly visible, an experienced personal driver. Whether there was a collision with a state farm dump truck at all remains a mystery. When they arrived, the police discovered that the collective farmer Pustovit Nikolai Mitrofanovich for some reason (which is not typical for such accidents) was burned all over, but miraculously survived. Three months later, the collective farmer is imprisoned for 15 years, and… he disappears.
19.01.1982 "shot himself" the first deputy chief of the KGB Andropov - General Semyon Tsvigun, curator of the 3rd and 5th directorates, Brezhnev's man, assigned by Leonid Ilyich to supervise Andropov.
25.01.1982 Mikhail Andreevich Suslov dies illogically. Although he was a core, but the circumstances are still atypical for death. With consistently good he alth, Mikhail Andreevich went to a special hospital for an annual medical examination. And then suddenly - a massive stroke and death.
Andropov's foreign and domestic policy
Becoming at the helm of the state, Yuri Vladimirovich began to put into practice his political views, naturally, without disclosing them. As a man of insight, he was aware of the crisis situation in the economy of the USSR, threatening to become a landslide.
His main idea was to gradually isolate the Communist Party from real power. Power, according to Andropov, should be taken by the security forces, who pragmatically control the well-thought-out state investments in the economy. Besides,a certain niche in the national economy was assigned to private property.
They say that the PRC subsequently used the Andropov plan. This gave experts reason to assert that thanks to this project, the USSR could be saved.
Unfortunately, these were just Andropov's declared reforms. They were not destined to come true. In fact, the fifth general secretary personally ruled the country for only 5 months, and the last ten were tied to inpatient treatment. What did Andropov manage to do anyway? What he could. And he knew how to commit repression and create an atmosphere of fear. Immediately he began to fight corruption. A high-profile "cotton case" was opened. The old opponent of Yuri Vladimirovich, the chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nikolai Shchelokov, was removed from power (he shot himself, foreseeing a subsequent arrest). Widespread repressions against the population were sanctioned: police officers raided shops, cinemas during working hours and took violators of labor discipline on a pencil. Further, the leadership of the “record truants”, according to the letter of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was obliged to either dismiss or punish.
General Secretary Andropov showed incomprehensible cruelty a la Beria. Galina Brezhneva and Yuri Churbanov were arrested, and the director of the Eliseevsky grocery store, Y. Sokolov, was accused of all the sins of Soviet trade and "instructively" shot.
In addition, Yuri Vladimirovich caught up with fear in the field, replacing thirty-seven first secretaries of regional committees and eighteen ministers.
As a matter of fact, the years of Andropov's rule were actually limited to superficial repressive measures that did not lead torevival of the crisis-hit economy. For comparison: at the same time, Turkey managed to lay the foundations of the resort industry. Inspectors appeared at the entrance factories, the legality of loading and unloading was checked.
Economic innovations, perhaps, were limited to the fact that cheaper than other types (4 rubles 70 kopecks) vodka appeared on the shelves, nicknamed by the people "andropovka".
In foreign policy, Andropov did two fundamental things: the process of normalizing relations with China began, and negotiations on medium-range missiles with the United States were disrupted.
Accents in Andropov's terror
Was Andropov's terror uncompromising? Probably not. The all-powerful chief of the KGB even managed to pursue his policy in this area. Andropov's subordinate, the next KGB chief V. V. Fedorov, who is no stranger to the definition of undercover intrigues, speaks of Andropov's asymmetrical use of the punitive function. According to him, state writers were sent to prisons. Liberals, for example Brodsky, Bukovsky, Aksenov, Solzhenitsyn, Andropov took care of. Is expulsion abroad a punishment? Yuri Vladimirovich also favored and promoted such cultural figures as Yevtushenko, Lyubimov and Vysotsky.
And with Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago" - generally a muddy story. How could a rural teacher get access to top-secret archives?
What was the purpose of this? Obviously - creating the image of a liberal politician.
Death and funeral
One year before death, in February 1983, the fifthSecretary General kidney failure. Then he was saved by hemodialysis. He alth returned to normal. But while on vacation in Crimea, Andropov caught a cold, after which he was forced to live in the Kuntsevo hospital.
1984-09-02 Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov died. Official diagnosis: kidney failure. Andropov's funeral was marked by a short speech by his successor, Chernenko K. U. - then he answered himself: "No, it's cold."
Conclusion
The cold-blooded consistent party functionary Andropov, who has been acting all his life on the basis of expediency, had a clear dominant in politics. He aspired to a liberal state with elements of private property. The greatest power in the "country of Andropov" was granted to law enforcement agencies. At the same time, his promiscuity in the ways of achieving the goal, his wolf grip, and his tendency to destroy competitors are striking.
