“the struggle for human rights was a part of a wide-ranging imperialist plot to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state”
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Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the Chairman of the KGB from 1967 until 1982.
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politics · Leader of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984 · politician · diplomat · also Yuri Andropov, Andropov
Born 2 June 1914 · Died 9 February 1984 · Q44071
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2026· 2 entries
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Soviet Union - Interregnum, Andropov, Chernenko
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2021· 1 entry
Moviefone: Yuri Andropov
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2016· 1 entry
Foreign Policy: Yuri Andropov Would Drop Assad Like a Hot Kartoshka
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1984· 5 entries
Died 1984-02-09.
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“The Soviet Union declares with all firmness and in no uncertain terms that it remains an adherent of the principled course of ending the arms race, first of all the nuclear arms race, of lessening and ultimately totally removing the threat of nuclear war. It will further exert every effort for the attainment of these lofty aims.”
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“The Soviet Union, and we stress this again, does not strive for military superiority, and we will do only what is absolutely necessary to prevent the military balance from being disrupted.”
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“Our nerves are strong, and we do not base our policy on emotions.”
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“The Soviet people have boundless trust in their Communist Party, they trust it because for the party there have never been and are no other interests than the vital interests of the Soviet people. To justify this trust means to go ahead along the road of Communist construction, to work for the further progress of our socialist homeland.”
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1983· 3 entries
Career landmark: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1983–1984).
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After a ten-year exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism
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“Speech in the aftermath of the Soviet shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007”
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1982· 3 entries
Career landmark: General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1982–1984).
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Career landmark: Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1982–1982).
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“Excerpts of letter written to American peace activist Samantha Smith”
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1979· 1 entry
Awarded Order of the October Revolution (1979).
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1977· 1 entry
Andropov convinced Brezhnev that the Ipatiev House, where Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries during the Russian Civil War, had become a site of pilgrimage for covert monarchists
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1975· 2 entries
Won Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1975).
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Apparently when Vladimir was ill in a hospital, Andropov knowingly did not go to visit his dying son and also did not go to Vladimir's funeral upon his death in 1975 at the age of 35.
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1974· 2 entries
Awarded Order of Lenin (1974).
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Awarded Hero of Socialist Labour (1974).
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1973· 3 entries
Awarded Honorary Officer of the State Security (1973).
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Career landmark: Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee (1973–1984).
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When he was promoted to full member of the Politburo
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1971· 1 entry
Awarded Order of Lenin (1971).
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1970· 2 entries
Won Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1970).
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Out of concern that the burial place of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their children would become a shrine to neo-Nazis, Andropov authorized an operation to destroy the remains that were buried in Magdeburg in 1946
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1968· 3 entries
In Kabul in 1979, in Warsaw in 1981, he was convinced that, as in Budapest in 1956, only armed force could ensure their survival"
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As KGB chairman, Andropov issued the order "On the tasks of State security agencies in combating the ideological sabotage by the adversary", calling for struggle against dissidents and their imperialist masters
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Andropov was the main advocate of taking "extreme measures" against Czechoslovakia
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1967· 2 entries
Career landmark: Chairman of the KGB (1967–1982).
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Was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of the KGB on Mikhail Suslov's recommendation and promoted to candidate member of the Politburo
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1965· 1 entry
Won Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1965).
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1964· 1 entry
Awarded Order of Lenin (1964).
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1962· 1 entry
Career landmark: Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1962–1967).
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1961· 2 entries
Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1961).
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Was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962
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1957· 2 entries
Awarded Order of Lenin (1957).
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Andropov returned to Moscow from Budapest in order to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in Socialist Countries, a position he held until 1967
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1954· 1 entry
Career landmark: ambassador of the Soviet Union to Hungary (1954–1957).
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1951· 2 entries
Andropov was transferred to the CPSU Central Committee
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Studied at Petrozavodsk State University (1951).
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1948· 1 entry
Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1948).
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1947· 2 entries
Studied at Higher Party School at the Central Committee of the CPSU (1947).
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Was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR
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1944· 2 entries
Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1944).
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Awarded Order of the Red Banner (1944).
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1943· 1 entry
Won Medal "To a Partisan of the Patriotic War", 1st class (1943).
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1941· 2 entries
And married his second wife Tatyana later that year
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Andropov later divorced Nina in 1941 and married his second wife Tatyana later that year.
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1938· 1 entry
Was elected First Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the YCL and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944
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1937· 1 entry
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 o
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1936· 1 entry
Studied at Rybinsk River School VI Kalashnikov (1936).
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1917· 1 entry
Invented a proletarian background, and left Moscow for the Stavropol Governorate along with Andropov's mother
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1916· 1 entry
A date in Andropov's 1932 résumé
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1915· 1 entry
When he was mistaken for a German during the infamous anti-German pogrom in Moscow and killed, although Andropov characterized the pogrom as anti-Jewish
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1914· 1 entry
Born 1914-06-02.
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