104 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
function, it would be Gorbachëv who handled the levers of power.
Tikhonov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, spoke for the
doubters when he said: ‘Gorbachëv in the Politburo is occupied with
agrarian questions, and this can express itself negatively in the activity
of the Secretariat and engender an agrarian deviation in its work.’ This
was not a full statement of his case against Gorbachëv, whose very
energy and imaginativeness gave cause for concern. When Ustinov
spoke up in Gorbachëv’s defence, Grishin – the Moscow City Party
First Secretary – proposed to postpone the decision on Gorbachëv. To
everyone’s astonishment, Chernenko broke the deadlock by closing
the discussion. He had made his choice and the rest of the Politburo
had to get used to it.^7
On 14 February 1984 the Central Committee assembled in the
Kremlin’s Sverdlov Hall to hear what the Politburo had decided.
Everyone watched the door on the left of the platform to see who came
through it first. Whoever it was would be the endorsed choice to
become General Secretary. When Chernenko appeared leading the
rest of the Politburo, the sense of collective disappointment was almost
palpable. No one stood to clap.^8 This was the nearest thing to lèse-
majesté that anyone could remember. Short of booing Chernenko,
Central Committee members as a body could not have made it plainer
that they deplored his appointment. Now they sat quietly and got
ready to vote in his favour. Chernenko spoke in a shaky voice, holding
his head low over his prepared text as he gave a brief eulogy of Brezh-
nev. Then Tikhonov announced the ‘candidature’ of Chernenko as
General Secretary. A silence lasting several painful seconds followed
before a perfunctory applause rippled forth as Chernenko was unani-
mously elected.^9 Gorbachëv closed the plenum expressing satisfaction
that continuity of leadership had been assured.^10 Most of his listeners
had been yearning for some kind of discontinuity; many had wanted
him to become the Politburo’s choice.
Chernenko chaired meetings in a limp fashion. He let people talk
for as long as they liked at the Politburo, rarely venturing a comment
of his own. When he sensed that the discussion was complete, he
mumbled: ‘Does it mean we’re going to stop at this point?’^11 Ponomarëv
informed his Party International Department officials that a weekly
regime agreed for Chernenko gave him three full days off work and
limited him to just a few hours of activity on the others.^12 No sooner
had it elected him than the Politburo was treating him as a medical
casualty. Each of its members got on with his duties liberated from the