Copyright 1998 ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Kaleidoscope
COUNTRY:
Russia
PERSON: Konstantin Chernenko
HEADLINE: Biographies
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko briefly led the Soviet Union between 1984 and
1985. He represented a return to the hard-line policies of Leonid Brezhnev and
the old guard before the changes brought on by Mikhail Gorbachev and the young
technocrats.
Chernenko was born on Sep 24, 1911
in Bolshaya Tes, Siberia. He attended the Higher School for Party Organizers
from 1943 to 1945 and the Kishinev Pedagogical Institute in 1953. Having joined
the Soviet Communist Party in 1931, he progressed through a series of positions
in charge of agitation and propaganda, rising to the director level
for the Krasnoyarsk territory. He spent the 1930s writing propaganda to support
Joseph Stalin's campaign to liquidate the kulaks (wealthy Siberian peasant
farmers). In 1941, he became head of the Krasnoyarsk Territorial Party
Committee and from 1948 to 1956 served as head of the agitation and propaganda
department of the Moldavian republic (one of the
Soviet Union's 15 republics). Here he met Brezhnev and they became strong
friends.
After Stalin's death, Brezhnev's power built and brought advancement to
Chernenko. He appointed Chernenko to chief of the Central Committee's agitation
and propaganda position in 1956, to chief of staff of the Presidium in 1960,
and to head of the General
Department of the Central Committee in 1965. Chernenko's power developed
primarily from his closeness to Brezhnev. In the 1970s, Chernenko made a bid
for power and became a full member of the Central Committee in 1971. He was
appointed to the Communist Party Secretariat in 1976 and to full membership
in the Politburo in 1978.
However, Chernenko's political ascent was blocked by anti-Brezhnev forces,
including the KGB (secret police) and the military, and he lost the struggle
for power after Brezhnev's death in 1982 to Yuri Andropov. Andropov soon
weakened with poor health and Chernenko came into
power with support from the party old guard. He was named general secretary of
the Soviet Union, chairperson of the Presidium, and leader of the Defense
Council after Andropov's death in 1984. Chernenko was perceived only as a
temporary caretaker of the government and an agent of change from the reforms
of Andropov and his younger technocrats. While
in power, he supported a greater role for the unions, educational reform, and
trimming of the bureaucracy. In foreign policy, he escalated the cold war with
the United States and negotiated a trade pact with China. He died on Mar 10,
1985 in Moscow after only a
year in power.
[Source: Current Biography Yearbook]
LOAD-DATE: February 18, 1998
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1998 LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
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