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This website has moved to www.PoliticsForum.orgChernenko, Konstantin UstinovichQuick Info Born: September 24, 1911 in Bolshaya Tes, Krasnoyarsk, Siberia.
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was the son of a poor Siberian farmer. His career in the USSR was that of a bureaucrat and was not particularly distinguished in any field. He spent his whole working career a clerk of the Party, never holding a major provincial post like others before and after him. He left no legacy, no memoirs or much writing at all. He was a poor choice as General Secretary, as he was suffering from chronic emphysema and was 72 years old at the time of his election. Chernenko, unlike Andropov, Khrushchev or Brezhnev before him did not participate in World War 2. He sat out as a party official in charge of agitprop in Siberia. This was probably a better job that his first one as a border guard at a remote outpost on the Chinese frontier. Nonetheless, he was made into a hero of the border guards with the obligatory poetry and songs about "Chernenko, Hero of the Border Guards". He joined the Komsomol and the party to become Party Secretary at his outpost in Siberia. Throughout the late 1930s and 1940s he was a party bureaucrat in charge of propaganda, literature and other Party duties in Krasnoyarsk. He probably would have spent his life there had he not met Leonid Brezhnev in Moldova. Brezhnev was First Secretary of the new SSR and took a great liking to the new Siberian. When Brezhnev went to Moscow in 1956, he brought Chernenko along as his chief of staff and found him more jobs like the ones in Siberia. In 1965 Chernenko became Director of Personnel in the CPSU General Department. From here he functioned still as a clerk but he was in a powerful position. He knew everything about everyone in the top of the CPSU. He got to monitor the wiretapping and surveillance devices in everyone's office. His main job was to sign hundreds of papers every day. For 20 years he signed papers for a living. When he became General Secretary he still signed papers, this time he thought his signature actually meant that something would happen. In 1966 Chernenko moved farther up the CPSU ladder - he became a member of the Central Committee. This was followed by his election as a Central Committee secretary, a Politburo candidate member and in 1978, full member of the Politburo. At this time Brezhnev was becoming more and more frail and had to rely increasingly on his willing and sycophantic friend Chernenko. In November 1982 Brezhnev died. Chernenko had hoped to become General Secretary but he decided to support Yuri Andropov for the position. Chernenko became de facto General Secretary soon enough due to Andropov's rapidly deteriorating health. He often chaired Politburo meetings in his place. Yuri V. Andropov died in February 1984. Chernenko was elected General Secretary, despite his doctor's warning that he was too sick for the job. In April, Chernenko became the largely ceremonial head of state as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Chernenko was desperate to counter thoughts in the West that he was just a temporary figure. To do this he decided to have a parade of world leaders come to him. Nothing came of these, although he did embarrass himself in front of Margaret Thatcher by suggesting that the USSR and Britain should encourage mutual friendship. These words are used by the USSR to describe relations between the Soviet Union and the East Bloc states. Chernenko talked to Thatcher as if she was the President of Poland or some other satellite state. In 1984 he announced the boycott of the Soviet Union and therefore the East Bloc states of the Los Angeles Olympics. In 1985 he was prepared to re-name Volgograd "Stalingrad". Chernenko's poor health deteriorated quickly and he rarely left Moscow. He could hardly summon the strength to appear before the Politburo, leaving Mikhail Gorbachev to run the country. By the end of 1984 Chernenko could hardly leave the hospital. By now the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, like Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. In one particularly cruel move, Politburo member Viktor Grishin dragged the deathly ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote in the elections. By March 1985 the government was on funeral standby. Mikhail Gorbachev was largely in charge by now and the Politburo was just waiting to officialise it after Chernenko's death. They did not have to wait long. Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. All the doctor had to say was that he was a very sick old man and it was obvious that he wouldn't live very long. Ironically, the last letter bearing Chernenko's signature (although a facsimile) was mailed to the same person as the last letter bearing Andropov's facsimile signature. After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe and look in it. When Gorbachev had the safe opened they found a small folder of personal papers, and more surprisingly, large bundles of money stuffed into the safe. They found more money in his desk. No one ever figured out what he had wanted with all the money. Chernenko left no legacy, or much else to be certain. His rule was the last gasp of an old guard that was succumbing so quickly. He will most likely go down in history unnoticed, as Trotsky put it "in the dustbin of history." Timeline
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