In 1977, Leonid Brezhnev made a move, which, as it seems, seems to strengthen the vertical of power remarkably well, and, also, the Soviet state as a whole. Since June 16 this year, the posts of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee are combined. A peculiar two-headed eagle becomes, of course, himself, already suffered a stroke, devoid of firmness of gait and former clarity of consciousness, esteemed Leonid Ilyich. A very significant political figure, Nikolai Podgorny, who previously held the post of head of the abovementioned higher legislative body of the Union, is sent to retirement. Two years earlier, the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, AN Shelepin, left; and on such, it should be noted, an interesting fact that for the sake of false democracy, he eats in the common dining room and rests in a sanatorium for ordinary people. L. Brezhnev disappears from his inner circle and the leader of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, is the same one who once had dissuaded Leonid Ilyich from the physical elimination of Nikita Khrushchev. In the small Politburo there are only the nearest, in all consonants with Samim (He is), as they say now, Friends.
Chairman of the Council of Ministers, business executive A. Kosygin does not count. To correct, now there is no one left from the collective conduct of affairs of the leader. And so, in response to the murder of Hafizullah Amins security service by the personal friend of the secretary general, Nura Taraki, Brezhnev, after some communication with Andropov and Ustinov, opens Pandoras box. The invasion of Afghanistan, the destruction of Amin and half of his family, a long, viscous war with those who could be good neighbors, are the beginning of the end of the USSR.
They say that there is something indistinct about Americans who might appear in Afghanistan In Vietnam they also appeared when what was so good for them there? And now the Coalition troops are still in the Afghan. Us, friends from this, it turns out, is neither cold nor hot.
Meanwhile, the extremely narrowed circle of responsible persons, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, now has no one to rely on. A person with weak health, he falls into captivity to his, still quite vigorous friends. There is no alternative, the people are silent, the threads of running a huge country are ultimately tied in just two or three people. Leonid Brezhnev sometimes only calls Defense Minister D. Ustinov, with a tear and reproach in his voice, asks: When will this war end?! Dima, you promised me it would not be for long.
Leonid Brezhnev has no right to dispose of even himself. Several times he declares his desire to retire, and receives from the Politburo a benevolent no answer. This system lacks the institution of a more or less regular, legitimate change of power. Looking at the speaker on television, stumbling on every word of the head of state, citizens of the USSR (according to the authors feelings) involuntarily identify with himself, the state, the state of things: soon all this will end.
The only spirit remaining in the minds of the townsfolk to this day: We already have a ruler, he knows something and knows how, do not rock the boat, otherwise everything will get worse.
The Secretary-General dies from cardiac arrest in 1982. However, eighteen years of his rule are a kind of Golden Autumn of the Empire. This is the time when you can live without fear of a black funnel under the window at night, its quite tolerable to eat, start children, drink natural fruit-wine, sing bard songs and dream of a beautiful far away
Personal life: married to Viktoria Petrovna (born Denisova) since 1927, two children. A fan of hunting for large animals, football and driving (including rare cars).
Dmitry Ustinov, photo of the 1950s
Dmitry Ustinov. Birth 1908, Samara, in childrens summers courier work the introduction of a volunteer in the Red Army, service in Special Purpose Chambers (CHON). Further Ustinov works as a fitter at the factory, he studies at various institutes, down to the Leningrad Voenmech. Since 1937 (the vacancy field has been cleared) engineer-designer, director of the plant Bolshevik. In 1941, 33-year-old Dmitry Fedorovich became a Peoples Commissar of Soviet armament. His predecessor, B. Vannikov, Stalin must be released a month after the outbreak of the war since it is too necessary for the production of ammunition. The recent prisoner becomes deputy commissar-beginner. Since 1946 Dmitry Ustinov, the USSR Minister of Armaments, has been actively participating in the missile project. In 1957, D.W. advocates N. Khrushchev, in 1964 promotes his displacement. Since 1976, Ustinov one of the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, which is included in the unofficial, so-called. A small Politburo, as well as the Minister of Defense. He died in 1984, from severe pneumonia; caused by the reluctance of Dmitry Fedorovich to leave, an official event held in the cold wind. It suggests that almost simultaneously with D. Ustinov, and with the same clinical picture of the disease, the defense ministers of the GDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia die, who were together at a festive dinner (in honor of the completion of the Warsaw Pact exercises).
Private life: wife Taisia, son, daughter. The usual ratio of attention to work and personal life: 10: 1.
Evaluation of the author: D. F. Ustinov is one of those people who with passion and passion create colorful false pictures of reality. The Soviet Army of the seventies and eighties is deeply sick, bottom-to-top pervaded by hazing, national issues, and partly elementary inadequate. Ideals are absent. The fighting spirit fluctuates around zero. All thoughts come down to where else to find food. Training of soldiers is reduced to outright profanity and fraud (deceit). Most of the equipment is kept under the open sky, and is not suitable for any quick commissioning. But, a man of Stalins tempering is inclined to believe only in smooth reports on his desk. TN. The Ustinov doctrine provides for a preemptive nuclear missile strike in response to signs of a nuclear attack, the breakthrough of tank armadas through the echeloned defense of Western European countries the establishment of control over mainland Europe. What does pre-emptive strike and signs of attack mean? It is not entirely clear what has Europe to do with it, if the war is unleashed after all, America? Its not really one. How can the Soviet Army fight in France, Belgium, near the notorious Straits in Turkey, if almost all the cities of the USSR are destroyed by atomic fire? Is it able, in addition, to control the unfriendly population? Does it make more sense to focus on protecting your country, with all the remaining means? And, probably, these (non-nuclear) forces should be much more mobile than sluggish armored groups?!
In the prevailing, insanely narrow circle of small Politburo communication, there is nobody to talk about this with Marshal Ustinov. The opinion of the common man: the usual officer on the ground, an ordinary soldier, yes, and that citizen in glasses, walking along the street, this System is not taken into account.
The arguments of Marshal N. Ogarkov, the chief of the General Staff of the USSR, who sharply protests against the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, are also not taken into account. In the end, the state, whose organism does not provide for the reactions of the self-satisfied brain to receptor signals, ceases to make meaningful actions, and disintegrates.
In the prevailing, insanely narrow circle of small Politburo communication, there is nobody to talk about this with Marshal Ustinov. The opinion of the common man: the usual officer on the ground, an ordinary soldier, yes, and that citizen in glasses, walking along the street, this System is not taken into account.
The arguments of Marshal N. Ogarkov, the chief of the General Staff of the USSR, who sharply protests against the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, are also not taken into account. In the end, the state, whose organism does not provide for the reactions of the self-satisfied brain to receptor signals, ceases to make meaningful actions, and disintegrates.
Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov. Birth 1914, Stavropol province (the province) work on the telegraph, assistant projectionist, training in the Rybinsk river technical school. Occupying the position of the Komsomol organizer (komsorg) at the shipyard First Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the Komsomol. Since 1951, he is transferred to Moscow, where he works as an inspector of the Central Committee, then transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) appointed Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the USSR in Hungary. Successful practice of Andropov during the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion is becoming an excellent springboard for the next career leap. In 1962 Yuri Vladimirovich was elected secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Five years later he became chairman of the State Security Committee of the USSR. Andropov one of the people who contributed to the decision to enter the contingent troops of the Warsaw Pact countries in Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979). KGB with Yu. A. Pervades the staff of (secret) employees all the more or less significant enterprises and organizations.
In 1982, at an extraordinary Plenum of the Central Committee, Yu. Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and, a year later Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The first actions visible by people tightening of nuts, the so-called. the struggle against truants and violators of the socialist discipline of labor unthinkable, apparently, for the beginning of the eighties, raids on idle people. Begins leapfrog personnel changes. Upward, such well-known personalities as Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, Yakovlev, Ryzhkov and Ligachev are moving along the career ladder. In total, up to 30% of the Brezhnev composition is replaced in the party organizations. Andropov talks about the need to know the country in which we live in his speeches the word self-financing is heard more often. But, sometimes, words are just words. Specific mechanisms of interaction between the authorities and, for example, certain councils of labor collectives are not formally prescribed, and in the case, as a model for all, no one is running into anyone.
Perhaps, feeling some confusion in the top leadership of the Union, weakening the health of the Secretary-General himself, the United States and Western Europe sharply increase military and political pressure on the USSR. September 1, 1983, perhaps as a result of a well-fabricated provocation, not far from Fr. Sakhalin suffers a catastrophe Boeing 747 Korean Airlines. President of the United States Ronald Reagan declares the USSR Empire of Evil. On the territory of Western Europe, the Pershing rockets of the dagger fire are placed, with the time of approach to the main objectives of 46 minutes
Since July 1983 Andropov runs the country, almost without getting out of bed. On vacation in the Crimea, he gets a cold which, combined with a long-standing kidney disease, leads to death (1984).
Personal life. His wife Nina (Engalycheva) since 1935, two children. The spouse refuses to move for the future General Secretary to Karelia, and this circumstance destroys the marriage. The second wife is Tatyana (Lebedeva). In the union are born, too, son and daughter. Close friends are absent in principle. Hobby listening to records with jazz
Evaluation of the author. The KGB under Andropov counts 400,000 official officers (including border guards officers), as well as about 5 million voluntary assistants. Full-time workers are expected to have a very high salary, food orders, queuing apartments, special polyclinics and other pleasant benefits. Do you need, however, opera and expensive informers, if their detailed opinion about the situation in the country, and at his native enterprise is always ready to make any sane worker and completely free of charge? There is an opinion (according to the usual conspiracy theory in this case) that under the guise of sex workers, that is, secret officers throughout the Soviet Union, Yu. V. Andropov is being planted by representatives of the distribution mafia from the Jewish diaspora (himself, Andropov, Flekenstein, no matter what they say about the reception of a Russian daughter in a Jewish family). The Interior Ministry has been trying for some time to fight this branched, powerful structure but in response it only receives powerful blows throughout the Union, and also, a severe discredit in the media (the film Murder on Zhdanovsky, etc.). Be that as it may, under Y. Andropov, the states GDP rises, by 1.52 percent, while the prices for vodka-Andropovka-are declining. The government of Yuri Andropov, now, after a considerable time has passed, is estimated by the people of Russia, rather, say, friends, positively.
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev. Birth 1931, with. Privolnoye of the Stavropol Territory working as an assistant to the combine operator the reward received for the shock work helps MG. go to the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. After graduating from the University (1955), having quickly tried several posts, he worked as First Secretary of the Regional (Stavropol) Committee of the Komsomol and Chairman of the Commission on Youth Affairs of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1978, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was elected secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and moved to Moscow. 1985 after a sudden retreat into the world of another General Secretary of the CPSU, KU Chernenko Mikhail Sergeevich takes the posts of the Secretary General and, as is customary, starting with VI Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (head of the only party and state).
In the same year, Gorbachev announced the introduction of a dry law. Prices for alcohol are rising, sales are limited. Throughout the country to the wine shops are built multi-meter, so humiliating people turn. Norma one or two bottles of vodka in your hands. To buy a certain amount of alcohol for the wedding, another important solemn event requires an official certificate from the registry office. On the orders of Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa Maksimovna, born literally at a family council, over a cup of tea, wonderful vineyards are cut down under the root practically, everything (I saw). Actually, on the ground, canteens and wine varieties, according to the tradition of the tight vertical of power, in the absence of independent media and civil society, the leaders of the district party committees do not distinguish between the two, simply destroying them both just in case.
However, the desire to stay at the helm by any means, the heads of the regional committees (krai committees), roughly equal in status to the current governors, does not save. About 70% of the status leaders of Brezhnevs conscription are sent out to resign, literally, only by the whim of Mikhail Sergeyevich. There, half of the Politburo members also leave. The point is that all these people are appointed from above, often, one by one, as they say, the whim of the left foot of the head of state, and not (arranged quite difficult technically, it must be acknowledged) the will of the people. And, just as fabulously simply, the next Secretary-General, or the President, is free to replace them with someone else.