In 1956 Hungarians reached their limit with being a Soviet satellite and took to the streets. As grass roots as it could be, the uprising morphed into an armed struggle for independence the puppet government seemed ill-equipped to quell. Each day of conflict appeared to enhance the movement’s prospects as armed clashes got the better of government reinforcements, many who seemed conflicted about repressing their own people. The Kremlin was not happy with developments.
But Nikita Khrushchev had an ace in the hole on the ground, an otherwise invisible diplomat leading Russia’s embassy named Yuri Andropov. Repelled by what he saw as scurrilous mobs challenging the communist ecosystem, Andropov got to work transmitting intelligence and analysis back to Moscow. His reports calibrated the opposition’s strength and weaknesses, paving the way for Soviet military intervention. With a coolness and moral indifference that would become his calling card, Andropov directed the violent destruction of Hungarian independence.
His bones made under fire, Andropov returned to Moscow a couple years later and in 1967 was tapped by Leonid Brezhnev to head up the KGB. It’s not hyperbolic to say his near two decades there would and continues to steer history. Throughout Andropov’s tenure he masterminded both the ruthless efficiency of the KGB’s domestic and Eastern Bloc apparatus, which made dissidents disappear every bit as seamlessly as his predecessors, while overseeing an arsenal of foreign agents pivotal to destabilization agendas abroad.
Ironically, while fully committed to totalitarian relativity of truth, Andropov was a well educated and secure man who insisted on frank honesty from subordinates, formulating policy and procedures in line with facts, no matter how inconvenient. A paradox to be sure. Yet and still, nothing contradicts the notion Andropov was every bit as guided in his world view as Lenin himself that capitalists were vapid and weak, there to be steamrolled by history’s inevitability.
Flash forward to the fall of 1982 and University of New Hampshire’s outstanding political science department. It was an exciting time to be a senior poly sci major at UNH. After all, the campus was beginning to see the first visits by Democratic presidential primary candidates looking to unseat Reagan. Moreover, for a US-Soviet studies geek like me, the Cold War was perhaps at its peak, with Arms Control center stage, the no nukes movement roiling Europe. But what really had my attention that semester was Soviet succession.
Brezhnev was desperately ill and for only the fourth time in the history of Soviet power a change at the top of the politburo was imminent. My mentor at UNH was a Soviet studies professor named Thomas Trout. A dashing former naval intelligence officer, Trout’s lectures were the most well attended in the department, if not the entire school. As charismatic as he was handsome, Trout meticulously organized his presentations to both explain the mechanics of Soviet decision making and provide an interesting narrative for how its policies impacted current events.
By my senior year I was a Trout protege, flattered by the extra time he often granted me to discuss unfolding events. As to Brezhnev’s replacement, Professor Trout was adamant the successful candidate would be a “generalist,” a politician instead of a government bureaucrat. As in America, pressing the flesh and networking influence, a vast outreach amongst the nomenklatura was necessary to win a game of thrones few really understood.
Of course most all I knew of the Soviet system I had learned from Professor Trout, and I wasn’t inclined to doubt his inclinations. Yet and still, I had a tough time eliminating Yuri Andropov from the mix in my handicapping. It seemed to me common sense dictated that within a totalitarian security state control of the secrets meant you knew everyone’s weaknesses and how best to exploit them. And as George Kennan observed, the cutthroat nature of Soviet politics would make American mob bosses blush. Stalin was not a politician; he was a henchman. So why not Andropov?
Sadly, I wasn’t confident enough in my own instincts to follow through on my hunch. As Brezhnev gasped closer to death, I convinced myself some mayor of Leningrad had the “generalist” profile and enough Central Committee connections to grab the ring. The final exam of my Soviet Policy class contained a bonus question to pick Brezhnev’s successor, with the promise of personal public props from Professor Trout for any winners the next semester. Nobody had Andropov and I learned an early lesson about the propriety of swimming upstream against convenient conventional propositions.
Yuri Andropov survived just 15 months as Soviet Party Secretary before his own failing health caught up with him. However, his influence on history would far outweigh his brief tenure at the helm of the Soviet State. A young intelligence officer would embrace Andropov as a hero, and utilize the sources and methods institutionalized by the KGB before the USSR’s fall to facilitate his own rise to power and lead what was left through the slog necessary to restore past greatness. Whatever degree western democratic sensibilities pervaded post-Soviet Russia, whatever optimism existed that pluralism could effectively replace authoritarian rule and usher in a new era of regional and global power, Vladimir Putin was never on board.
In June of 2004, on what would have been his 90th birthday, a bust of Yuri Andropov was unveiled in his hometown of Petrozavodsk. That same day a ceremony was led by Vladimir Putin himself to commemorate his hero. Old school state power was what Andropov brought to mind, and Putin was not bashful in praising it. For younger Russian progressives it was yet another ominous sign of democracy slipping away,
Meanwhile, about the same time in the US, Trump Casinos and Hotels was $1.8 billion dollars in debt and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After going through near half a billion dollars of his father’s wealth, Trump had virtually no prospects left in America, not a bank or lender would allow him into their lobby. As one biographer put it: he was going down like the Titanic when suddenly help arrived just for him…. Russians. The synergy of ruin. BC
He is Putin’s puppet.