TheKennedyMachine
Well-known member
- Pronouns
- she/her
Long story short, Yuri Andropov rose to some prominence after Stalin's purges, engaged in partisan activities in the war, was a KGB agent in Hungary up to and during the Hungarian revolution in 1956, and became head of the KGB in 1967.
As head of KGB, he was quite liberal, in that he allowed some dissidents to defect, and didn't so harshly punish others the number of people confined was also small by Soveit standards anyway.
He became General Secretary after Brezhnev died, and began fighting a war on the corruption within the old Brezhnev government.
While he maintained a similar foreign policy as his predecessors, he began looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the Soviet economy, which had begun lagging under Brezhnev. Mainly he looked for inefficiencies and laziness, including famous campaigns to drive people caught in movie theatres and other public places during the day (when they were supposed to be working). He also promoted an anti-alcohol campaign (which has and still does cause Russia much grief), though he never went so far as to ban it, as Gorbachev did.
He seemed to be a somewhat pragmatic character -- strict, but not necessarily mean as Brezhnev. Advocated for slow reforms, but not the shock therapy that his (allegedly) chosen successor Gorbachev vied for.
Andropov's reign was unfortunately cut short, as he died in 1984 of kidney failure -- one has to wonder, though, what if Andropov had managed to live 4 years longer. Would he become the Soviet Union's Deng Xiaoping, and been able to prevent the USSR/Warsaw Pact's ultimate collapse?
As head of KGB, he was quite liberal, in that he allowed some dissidents to defect, and didn't so harshly punish others the number of people confined was also small by Soveit standards anyway.
He became General Secretary after Brezhnev died, and began fighting a war on the corruption within the old Brezhnev government.
While he maintained a similar foreign policy as his predecessors, he began looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the Soviet economy, which had begun lagging under Brezhnev. Mainly he looked for inefficiencies and laziness, including famous campaigns to drive people caught in movie theatres and other public places during the day (when they were supposed to be working). He also promoted an anti-alcohol campaign (which has and still does cause Russia much grief), though he never went so far as to ban it, as Gorbachev did.
He seemed to be a somewhat pragmatic character -- strict, but not necessarily mean as Brezhnev. Advocated for slow reforms, but not the shock therapy that his (allegedly) chosen successor Gorbachev vied for.
Andropov's reign was unfortunately cut short, as he died in 1984 of kidney failure -- one has to wonder, though, what if Andropov had managed to live 4 years longer. Would he become the Soviet Union's Deng Xiaoping, and been able to prevent the USSR/Warsaw Pact's ultimate collapse?