growth of general public irreverence towards the
leader was perhaps best shown by the many jokes
circulating about him during those latter years.
Much had changed. No one would have dared to
joke about Stalin’s decline thirty years earlier. But
Brezhnev was perceived as a benevolent and
increasingly easy-going leader. Although living
conditions varied enormously from region to
region, while in the countryside housing contin-
ued to be neglected and primitive living condi-
tions persisted, life became better in the cities and
overall. The new freedom of movement allowed
to the peasants increased the drift to the cities so
typical of countries in the underdeveloped world.
Yuri Andropov seemed just the right choice to
take over after Brezhnev’s death in November
- His lifestyle was in complete contrast to
Brezhnev’s. He lived very modestly and had built
his reputation on his shrewd handling of the
KGB, bringing that secret organisation under
control while maintaining its secrecy. He was a
reformer, but by no means a liberal in the
Western sense. Reform for Andropov meant
control by the party leadership, reform of the
communist state to achieve a more effective com-
munist system, striking a careful balance between
extra-legal repression of dissidence to maintain
the communist order and avoiding unnecessary
excess and personal abuse of power. Exile and
detention in psychiatric hospitals were no longer
the result of personal whims but were carefully
calculated to deter dissent. The Western attitude
to justice and legality was not acceptable, despite
Helsinki, and the dissident Russian human-rights
group, which made it its task to monitor the
observance of the Helsinki Accords, was jailed or
driven into exile by Andropov.
When expedient, Andropov made concessions,
yielding to international pressure. Nearly 300,000
Jews, who for many years had wished to emigrate,
losing their jobs and even suffering imprisonment
because they expressed this wish, were allowed to
leave. But outspoken critics were silenced. Andrei
Sakharov, the famous physicist, put under house
arrest in 1980, continued to languish in Gorky.
The celebrated Nobel laureate, Alexander Solz-
henitsyn, long-time critic of repression, forcibly
deported in 1974, was prevented from returning.
Both had to wait until Andropov’s death and
Gorbachev’s succession. Executions were reserved
for serious corruption and could reach high in the
party ranks. As KGB chief, Andropov had built his
reputation on his fearless attack on high party
bosses in a series of anti-corruption drives during
the 1970s.
The Politburo had chosen Andropov without
hesitation. To them his merit was that he was
ready to get the USSR moving again economic-
ally without endangering ideological orthodoxy.
He was thus a reformer of the right kind, in the
opinion of the majority of the Politburo. The suc-
cession did not fall, as expected, to Konstantin
Chernenko, who was too closely identified with
Brezhnev’s declining years. But Andropov himself
was ill, and under his ailing leadership his princi-
pal ally Gorbachev in 1983 took charge of a
special task force in a vain effort to stimulate eco-
nomic reform. An attempt was also made to
change the composition of party leadership in
the regions and districts throughout the Soviet
Union. Andropov’s health declined too rapidly
for these initiatives to bear much fruit; he spent
his last few months confined to hospital with renal
failure and died in February 1984.
Gorbachev at this time was regarded as too
young and too impetuous to be entrusted with the
leadership and the post of general secretary of the
party. But it was evident that the course set by
Andropov was not to be abandoned. The septua-
genarian Chernenko took over, but the powerful
Politburo determined policy, with Gorbachev in
charge of the economy and one of the longest-
serving members, Andrei Gromyko, remaining in
charge of foreign affairs. Chernenko’s health like-
wise rapidly deteriorated; he was allowed to carry
on until his death (he died of the progressive lung
disease, emphysema) in March 1985. The deaths
of three elderly leaders in the space of two and a
half years, far from projecting an image of reform
and change, created in the Soviet Union and the
wider world the perception of a country that had
become rigid in its ways and was presided over
by a gerontocracy. That was about to change
dramatically.