INTERREGNUM

Stalin's death created a temporary panic; Khrushchev's removal from office surprised most people; but Brezhnev's death in 1982 had been anticipated, and even eagerly awaited by many. Leonid Brezhnev had suffered a stroke in 1975, and by the time of his death he was obviously infirm and increasingly senile. Soviet citizens and foreigners saw this unimpressive, old, tired man as the symbol of the country he headed. It was a regime that had ran out of new ideas.

The power struggle that brought Iurii Andropov to the top had been decided even before Brezhnev's death. The decisive moment was Andropov's move from the KGB to the secretariat of the central committee. Even in the Soviet Union of the 1980s it would have been unseemly to go directly from the political police to the head of the empire. When Andropov took over Mikhail Suslov's job – Suslov had just died – it was clear that he was well positioned in the power struggle. He was somewhat younger than the other members of the geriatric Politburo, and clearly more energetic and intelligent. (The average age of the members of the Politburo at the time of Brezhnev's death was 71.) He had achieved his first major distinction at the time of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, when he was the Soviet ambassador to Budapest. His sly and duplicitous behavior won the admiration of his senior colleagues.