Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov[a][b] (15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – 9 February 1984)[2] was a Soviet politician who was the sixth leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, taking office in 1982 and serving until his death in 1984.
"Andropov" redirects here. For the city, see Rybinsk.
Yuri Andropov
Vasily Kuznetsov (acting)
Vasily Kuznetsov (acting)
Konstantin Chernenko (acting)
15 June 1914
Stanitsa Nagutskaya, Stavropol Governorate, Russian Empire
9 February 1984 (aged 69)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
CPSU (1939–1984)
- Nina Ivanovna (div. 1941)
- Tatyana Filippovna (m. 1941)
- Evgenia Andropova
- Igor Andropov
- Irina Andropova
- Vladimir Andropov
Soviet Union
1939–1984
Earlier in his career, Andropov served as the Soviet ambassador to Hungary from 1954 to 1957, during which time he was involved in the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. He was named chairman of the KGB on 10 May 1967. After Brezhnev suffered a stroke in 1975 that impaired his ability to govern, Andropov increasingly dictated Soviet policymaking alongside Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Defense Minister Andrei Grechko and Grechko's successor, Marshal Dmitry Ustinov.
Upon Brezhnev's death on 10 November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary and, by extension, as the leader of the Soviet Union. During his short tenure, Andropov sought to eliminate corruption and inefficiency in the country by criminalizing truancy in the workplace and investigating longtime officials for violations of party discipline. The Cold War intensified, and he was at a loss for how to handle the growing crisis in the Soviet economy. His major long-term impact was bringing to the fore a new generation of young reformers as energetic as himself, including Yegor Ligachyov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and, most importantly, Mikhail Gorbachev.[3] Upon suffering kidney failure in February 1983, Andropov's health began to deteriorate rapidly. He died on 9 February 1984, having led the country for about 15 months.
Early life[edit]
There has been much contention over Andropov's family background.[4] According to the official biography, Andropov was born in Stanitsa Nagutskaya (modern-day Stavropol Krai, Russia) on 15 June 1914.[5] His father, Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, was a railway worker of Don Cossack descent who died of typhus in 1919. His mother, Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein (none of the official sources mention her name), was a school teacher who died in 1931.[6][7] She was born in the Ryazan Governorate into a family of town dwellers and was abandoned on the doorstep of a Finnish citizen, a Jewish watchmaker, Karl Franzevich Fleckenstein, who lived in Moscow; he and his wife, Eudokia Mikhailovna Fleckenstein, adopted and raised her.[8][9]
Andropov's earliest documented name was Grigory Vladimirovich Andropov-Fyodorov; he changed it to Yuri Andropov several years later.[10] His original birth certificate disappeared, but it has been established that Andropov was born in Moscow, where his mother worked at a women's gymnasium from 1913 to 1917.[8][10]
On various occasions, Andropov gave different death dates for his mother: 1927, 1929, 1930 and 1931.[7][8] The story of her adoption was also likely a mystification. In 1937, Andropov was vetted when he applied for Communist Party membership, and it turned out that "the sister of his native maternal grandmother" (whom he called his aunt), who was living with him and who supported the legend of his Ryazan peasant origins, was in fact his nurse, who had been working for Fleckenstein long before Andropov was born.[7][8]
It was also reported that Andropov's mother belonged to merchantry. Karl Fleckenstein was a rich jewel merchant, owner of a jeweler's, as was his wife, who took over Karl's business after his accidental death in 1915 (he was mistaken for a German during the infamous anti-German pogrom in Moscow, although Andropov preferred to call it anti-Jewish).[10][11] The whole family could have been turned into lishentsy and stripped of basic rights had she not abandoned the store after another pogrom in 1917, invented a proletarian background, and left Moscow for the Stavropol Governorate along with Andropov's mother.[7][8]
Andropov gave different versions of his father's fate: in one, he divorced his mother soon after his birth; in another he died of illness.[10] The "father" in question, Vladimir Andropov, was in fact his stepfather, who lived and worked in Nagutskaya and died of typhus in 1919. The Fyodorov surname belonged to his second stepfather, Viktor Fyodorov, a machinist's assistant turned schoolteacher. Andropov's biological father is unknown; he probably died in 1916, a date in Andropov's 1932 résumé.[8][10] During the 1937 vetting, it was reported that his father served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army. Andropov joined the Communist Party in 1939.[7][8]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the : "Biography of Yuri Andropov" (PDF). Soviet Life (323): 1B. 1983. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
