Konstantin Chernenko: Difference between revisions

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Konstantin Ustinovich ChernenkoTemplate:Family name footnote Template:Efn (24 September [O.S. 11 September] 1911 – 10 March 1985)^[1]^[2] was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1984 until his death a year later.

Born to a poor family in Siberia, Konstantin Chernenko joined the Komsomol in 1929 and became a full member of the party in 1931. After holding a series of propaganda posts, in 1948 he became the head of the propaganda department in Moldavia, serving under Leonid Brezhnev. After Brezhnev took over as First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964, Chernenko was appointed to head the General Department of the Central Committee. In this capacity, he became responsible for setting the agenda for the Politburo and drafting Central Committee decrees. By 1971 Chernenko became a full member of the Central Committee and later a full member of the Politburo in 1978.

Following the death of Yuri Andropov, Chernenko was elected General Secretary in February 1984 and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in April 1984. Despite assuming offices typically held by the leader of the Soviet Union, Chernenko's authority was significantly undermined by his failing health and lack of support among the party elite who viewed him as a transitional figurehead.^[3]^[4]^[5] Therefore, he was compelled to rule the country as part of an unofficial triumvirate alongside Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko for most of his tenure. After holding office as leader of the party for less than 13 months, Chernenko died in March 1985 and was succeeded as General Secretary by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Early life and political career

Origins

File:Константин Черненко (1930).jpg

Chernenko as a Soviet frontier guard in 1930

Chernenko was born to a poor family in the Siberian village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai) on 24 September 1911.^[6]

Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929. By 1931 he became a full member of the ruling Communist Party. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet–Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom.

Chernenko steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment before being named Deputy Head of the Agitprop Department of Krasnoyarsk's Territorial Committee in 1939. In the early 1940s, he began a close relationship with Fyodor Kulakov and was named Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda.^[7] By 1945 he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow then later finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers in 1953.

Rise to the Soviet leadership

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File:Chernenko (3x4 cropped).jpg

Chernenko in 1962

The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960 after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (i.e. the titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.

In 1965, Chernenko was nominated head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the Politburo agenda as well as prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a facsimile was used instead).

File:Константин Черненко, Фидель Кастро и Леонид Брежнев (1981).jpg

Chernenko (left) posing for a photo with his longtime patron, Leonid Brezhnev, and Fidel Castro in 1981.

In 1971, Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in the Party hierarchy.

During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in ideological Party work: heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the Soviet Constitution in 1977. In 1979, he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks.

After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy. Ultimately, KGB chief Yuri Andropov eventually won the position.

Leader of the Soviet Union (1984–1985)

Template:Multiple image Yuri Andropov died on 9 February 1984 at age 69 in Moscow Central Clinical Hospital of kidney failure. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov even though the latter stated he wanted Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed him. Chernenko was also terminally ill himself.^[8]^[9]

At the time of his ascent to the country's top post, Chernenko was primarily viewed as a transitional leader who could give the Politburo's "Old Guard" time to choose an acceptable candidate from the next generation of Soviet leadership. In the interim, Chernenko's authority was severely limited by his lack of support within the party and his deteriorating health which led him to miss meetings with increasing frequency.^[10]^[11] At Andropov's funeral, he could barely read the eulogy.^[12] Therefore, he was forced to govern the country as part of a triumvirate alongside Defense Minister Dmitriy Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.^[13]^[14]Template:Sfn According to historian Vladislav M. Zubok, "Ustinov and Gromyko retained a virtual monopoly in [Soviet] military and foreign affairs" as a result of Chernenko's feeble hold on power.^[15]

Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported a greater role for the labour unions, and reform in education and propaganda. The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov. Ogarkov was subsequently replaced by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev.

File:Константин Черненко (28-05-1984) (cropped)(2).jpg

Chernenko addresses Komsomol leaders in his capacity as General Secretary in 1984.

In foreign policy, he negotiated a trade deal with China. Despite calls for renewed détente, Chernenko did little to prevent the escalation of the Cold War with the United States. For example, in 1984 the Soviet Union prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker. However, in late autumn of 1984, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985. In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock.^[16]

In 1980 the United States led an international boycott of the Summer Olympics held in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The following 1984 Summer Olympics were due to be held in Los Angeles, California. On 8 May 1984, under Chernenko's leadership, the USSR announced its intention not to participate in the Games, claiming "security concerns and chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States".^[17] The boycott was joined by 14 Eastern Bloc satellites and allies, including Cuba (but not Romania). The action was widely seen as revenge for the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games. The boycotting countries organised their own "Friendship Games" in the summer of 1984.^[18]

Before his death, Chernenko signed preliminary documents stating that on 9 May 1985, on the day of the 40th Victory Day Parade, the city of Volgograd would be renamed to Stalingrad. In his letter to Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, he wrote about "the upcoming restoration of justice in relation to the memory and heritage of I.V. Stalin", which presumably referred to Stalin's political rehabilitation.^[19]

Health problems, death and legacy

Chernenko started smoking at the age of nine,^[20] and he was always known to be a heavy smoker as an adult.^[21] Long before his election as general secretary, he had developed emphysema and right-sided heart failure. In 1983, he had been absent from his duties for three months due to bronchitis, pleurisy and pneumonia. Historian John Lewis Gaddis described him as "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984.^[22]

In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalized for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to Kislovodsk for the mineral spas, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors and was driven in a wheelchair. By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 by the First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee, Viktor Grishin, during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow.^[23] Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation,^[24] Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".^[23]

Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, Yevgeniy Chazov, Chernenko had also developed both chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver.^[17] On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later that evening at 19:20, at age 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema, an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis. A three-day period of mourning across the country was announced.^[25]^[26] India,^[27] Brazil,^[28] Iraq,^[27] Syria^[29] and Nicaragua^[30] all declared three days of mourning; Pakistan^[31] North Korea^[32] and Guinea-Bissau^[33] declared two days of mourning; East Germany,^[34] Yugoslavia^[35] and Czechoslovakia^[36] declared one day of mourning.

Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in two and a half years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have remarked, "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"^[37]

Chernenko was honored with a state funeral and is buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall.^[38] He is the last person to have been interred there.^[39]

The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on the same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected Mikhail Gorbachev and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.^[40]

After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe. When Gorbachev had Chernenko's safe opened, it was found to contain a small folder of personal papers and several large bundles of money; more money was found in his desk. It is not known where he had obtained the money or what he intended to use it for.^[41]

Honors and awards

Hero of Socialist Labour, three times (1976, 1981, 1984)
Order of Lenin, four times (1971, 1976, 1981, 1984)
Order of the Red Banner of Labour, three times (1949, 1957, 1965)
Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1969)
Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1975)
Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1978)
Lenin Prize (1982)
USSR State Prize (1982)
Order of Karl Marx (East Germany)
Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia)
Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia)

Personal life

Chernenko had a son with his first wife, Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko, named Albert. With his second wife, Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova, who married him in 1944, he had two daughters, Yelena and Vera, and a son, Vladimir. In 2015 archival documents were published, according to which Chernenko had manyTemplate:What? more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s.^[42]

Notes

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References

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Sources

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Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010). Кто поставил Горбачёва? (Who put Gorbachev?) Template:Webarchive — М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо, 2010. — 544 с. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2.
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Volkogonov, Dmitri. (1998), The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire. pp 383–431.
Zemtsov, Ilya. Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik: The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika (1989), 308p. covers 1970 to 1985.

External links

Template:Sister project Template:Sister project

Human Rights in Soviet Society by Chernenko.
Soviet Democracy: Principles and Practice by Chernenko.

Template:S-gov Template:S-sports Template:S-end Template:Leaders of CPSU Template:Supreme Soviet Chairmen Template:Leaders of the Ruling Parties of the Eastern Bloc Template:26th Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Template:25th Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Template:Brezhnev era Template:Military navigation Template:Soviet–Afghan War Template:Authority control

Party political offices
Preceded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/check	General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 13 February 1984 – 10 March 1985 Template:S-ttl/check	Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter
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Preceded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/check	Senior Secretary of Cadres for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union March 1976 – January 1983 Template:S-ttl/check	Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter
Preceded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/filter Template:S-bef/check	Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 11 April 1984 – 10 March 1985 Template:S-ttl/check	Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by Template:Delink question hyphen-minus Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter Template:S-aft/filter
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@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 {{Redirect|Chernenko|the surname|Chernenko (surname)}}
 {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
+{{expand Russian|topic=bio|date=August 2025}}
 {{Infobox officeholder
 | native_name         = {{Nobold|Константин Черненко}}
 | native_name_lang    = ru
-| image               = Konstantin Ustinovič Černěnko, 1973.jpg
+| image               = Константин Черненко (cropped).jpg
-| image_size =
+| image_size          =
-| caption             = Chernenko in 1973
+| caption             = Chernenko in 1984
 | office              = [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]
 | term_start          = 13 February 1984
@@ Line 18: / Line 19: @@
 | term_start2         = 11 April 1984
 | term_end2           = 10 March 1985
-| predecessor2        = Yuri Andropov<br>[[Vasily Kuznetsov (politician)|Vasily Kuznetsov]] (acting)
+| predecessor2        = Yuri Andropov<br />[[Vasily Kuznetsov (politician)|Vasily Kuznetsov]] (acting)
 | successor2          = [[Andrei Gromyko]]
 | office3             = [[Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]
@@ Line 26: / Line 27: @@
 | successor3          = Mikhail Gorbachev<small> (''[[de facto]]'') </small>
 | term_start4         = 25 January 1982
-| term_end4           = 24 May 1982
+| term_end4           = 24 May 1982 <br/>{{midsize|'''(Acting)'''}}
 | predecessor4        = [[Mikhail Suslov]]
 | successor4          = Yuri Andropov
 | birth_date          = {{birth date|df=yes|1911|9|24}}
-| birth_place         = [[Bolshaya Tes]], Russia
+| birth_place         = [[Bolshaya Tes]], Yenisey Governorate, Russian Empire
 | death_date          = {{death date and age|df=yes|1985|3|10|1911|9|24}}
-| death_place         = Moscow, Soviet Union
+| death_place         = Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
 | death_cause         = Combination of [[Emphysema|chronic emphysema]], an enlarged and damaged heart, [[congestive heart failure]] and [[Cirrhosis|liver cirrhosis]]
 | resting_place       = [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]]
@@ Line 39: / Line 40: @@
 | branch              = [[Soviet Armed Forces]]
 | serviceyears        = 1930–1933
-| awards              = {{collapsible list|title=See List| [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]] [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]] [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]]<br />[[File:Order of Lenin ribbon bar.png|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin ribbon bar.png|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin ribbon bar.png|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin ribbon bar.png|Order of Lenin|32px]]<br />[[File:Orderredbannerlabor rib.png|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:Orderredbannerlabor rib.png|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:Orderredbannerlabor rib.png|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:RibbonLabourDuringWar.png|Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"|32px]]<br />[[File:SU Medal In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ribbon.svg|Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"|32px]] [[File:30 years of victory rib.png|Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"|32px]] [[File:60 years saf rib.png|Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"|32px]]<br />[[File:Medal Lenin Prize.png|20px]]}}
+| awards              = {{collapsible list|title=See List| [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]] [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]] [[File:Hero of Socialist Labor medal.png|Hero of Socialist Labour|20px]]<br />[[File:Order of Lenin Ribbon Bar.svg|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin Ribbon Bar.svg|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin Ribbon Bar.svg|Order of Lenin|32px]] [[File:Order of Lenin Ribbon Bar.svg|Order of Lenin|32px]]<br />[[File:SU Order of the Red Banner of Labour ribbon.svg|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:SU Order of the Red Banner of Labour ribbon.svg|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:SU Order of the Red Banner of Labour ribbon.svg|Order of the Red Banner of Labour|32px]] [[File:SU Medal For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 ribbon.svg|Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"|32px]]<br />[[File:SU Medal In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ribbon.svg|Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"|32px]] [[File:SU Medal Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 ribbon.svg|Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"|32px]] [[File:SU Medal 60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR ribbon.svg|Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"|32px]]<br />[[File:Medal Lenin Prize.png|20px]]}}
 | spouse              = Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko<br />{{Marriage|[[Anna Chernenko|Anna Dmitrievna Lyubimova]]|1944}}
 | children            = 4, including [[Albert Chernenko|Albert]]
@@ Line 69: / Line 70: @@
 }}
-'''Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko'''{{family name footnote|Ustinovich|Chernenko|lang=Eastern Slavic}}{{efn|{{IPAc-en|tʃ|ɜr|ˈ|n|ɛ|ŋ|k|oʊ|audio=En-us-Konstantin Chernenko from Russia pronunciation (Voice of America).ogg}} {{respell|chur|NENK|oh}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chernenko "Chernenko"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101090325/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chernenko |date=1 January 2015 }}. ''[[Collins English Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|links=no|Константин Устинович Черненко|p=kənstɐnˈtʲin ʊˈsʲtʲinəvʲɪtɕ tɕɪrˈnʲenkə}}<br />{{langx|uk|Костянтин Устинович Черненко|translit=Kostiantyn Ustynovych Chernenko}}}} ({{OldStyleDate|24&nbsp;September|1911|11 September}} – 10 March 1985)<ref>{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&dq=Konstantin+Ustinovich+Chernenko+10+march&pg=PA121| title = Profile of Konstantin Chernenko| isbn = 9780313281129| last1 = Jessup| first1 = John E.| year = 1998| publisher = Greenwood Publishing| access-date = 25 January 2022| archive-date = 2 June 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225120/https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&dq=Konstantin+Ustinovich+Chernenko+10+march&pg=PA121| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Konstantin Chernenko |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Konstantin-Chernenko |website=The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica |publisher=The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=26 May 2025}}</ref> was a Soviet politician who served as the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] from 1984 until his death a year later.
+'''Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko'''{{family name footnote|Ustinovich|Chernenko|lang=Eastern Slavic}}{{efn|{{IPAc-en|tʃ|ɜr|ˈ|n|ɛ|ŋ|k|oʊ|audio=En-us-Konstantin Chernenko from Russia pronunciation (Voice of America).ogg}} {{respell|chur|NENK|oh}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chernenko "Chernenko"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101090325/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chernenko |date=1 January 2015 }}. ''[[Collins English Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|links=no|Константин Устинович Черненко|p=kənstɐnˈtʲin ʊˈsʲtʲinəvʲɪtɕ tɕɪrˈnʲenkə}}<br />{{langx|uk|Костянтин Устинович Черненко|translit=Kostiantyn Ustynovych Chernenko}}}} ({{OldStyleDate|24&nbsp;September|1911|11 September}} – 10 March 1985)<ref>{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&dq=Konstantin+Ustinovich+Chernenko+10+march&pg=PA121| title = Profile of Konstantin Chernenko| isbn = 9780313281129| last1 = Jessup| first1 = John E.| year = 1998| publisher = Greenwood Publishing| access-date = 25 January 2022| archive-date = 2 June 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225120/https://books.google.com/books?id=hP7jJAkTd9MC&dq=Konstantin+Ustinovich+Chernenko+10+march&pg=PA121| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Konstantin Chernenko |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Konstantin-Chernenko |website=The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=26 May 2025}}</ref> was a Soviet politician who served as the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] from 1984 until his death a year later.
-Born to a poor family in [[Siberia]], Chernenko joined the [[Komsomol]] in 1929 and became a full member of the party in 1931. After holding a series of [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|propaganda]] posts, in 1948 he became the head of the propaganda department in [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Moldavia]], serving under [[Leonid Brezhnev]]. After Brezhnev took over as First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964, Chernenko was appointed to head the General Department of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]. In this capacity, he became responsible for setting the agenda for the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] and drafting Central Committee decrees. By 1971 Chernenko became a full member of the Central Committee and later a full member of the Politburo in 1978.
+Born to a poor family in [[Siberia]], Konstantin Chernenko joined the [[Komsomol]] in 1929 and became a full member of the party in 1931. After holding a series of [[Propaganda in the Soviet Union|propaganda]] posts, in 1948 he became the head of the propaganda department in [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic|Moldavia]], serving under [[Leonid Brezhnev]]. After Brezhnev took over as First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964, Chernenko was appointed to head the General Department of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]. In this capacity, he became responsible for setting the agenda for the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] and drafting Central Committee decrees. By 1971 Chernenko became a full member of the Central Committee and later a full member of the Politburo in 1978.
-Following the death of Brezhnev and his successor [[Yuri Andropov]], Chernenko was elected General Secretary in February 1984 and made [[list of heads of state of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] of the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]] in April 1984. However, due to his rapidly failing health, he was often unable to fulfill his official duties. He died in March 1985 after leading the country for only 13 months, and was succeeded as General Secretary by [[Mikhail Gorbachev]].
+Following the death of [[Yuri Andropov]], Chernenko was elected General Secretary in February 1984 and [[list of heads of state of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] of the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]] in April 1984. Despite assuming offices typically held by the [[leader of the Soviet Union]], Chernenko's authority was significantly undermined by his failing health and lack of support among the party elite who viewed him as a transitional [[figurehead]].<ref>{{cite book | author = Mitchell, R. Judson | title = Getting to the Top in the USSR: Cyclical Patterns in the Leadership Succession Process | publisher=Hoover Institution Press |year= 1990 |isbn=0-8179-8921-8 |pages=121–122}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bialer|1986|p=103}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Miles|2020|p=100}}</ref> Therefore, he was compelled to rule the country as part of an unofficial [[triumvirate]] alongside Defense Minister [[Dmitry Ustinov]] and Foreign Minister [[Andrei Gromyko]] for most of his tenure. After holding office as [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Central Committee apparatus|leader of the party]] for less than 13 months, Chernenko died in March 1985 and was succeeded as General Secretary by [[Mikhail Gorbachev]].
-==Early life and political career==
+== Early life and political career ==
-[[File:Черненко Константин Устинович, партийный билет.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.93|Chernenko's Party card following his promotion to the Soviet Union's ruling [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee.]]]]
 ===Origins===
+[[File:Константин Черненко (1930).jpg|thumb|left|upright|166px|Chernenko as a Soviet frontier guard in 1930]]
 Chernenko was born to a poor family in the [[Siberian]] village of [[Bolshaya Tes]] (now in [[Novosyolovsky District]], [[Krasnoyarsk Krai]]) on 24 September 1911.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jessup|first=John E.|title=An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996|year=1998|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|page=121|url=https://www.questia.com/read/106899354/an-encyclopedic-dictionary-of-conflict-and-conflict|isbn=|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=10 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010024655/https://www.questia.com/read/106899354/an-encyclopedic-dictionary-of-conflict-and-conflict|url-status=dead}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>
@@ Line 85: / Line 86: @@
 Chernenko steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment before being named Deputy Head of the [[Agitprop]] Department of Krasnoyarsk's Territorial Committee in 1939. In the early 1940s, he began a close relationship with [[Fyodor Kulakov]] and was named Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Hough, Jerry F.|author-link=Jerry F. Hough|title=Democratization and revolution in the USSR, 1985–1991|publisher=[[Brookings Institution Press]]|year=1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BzaaFXMpvMkC|isbn=0-8157-3748-3|page=67|access-date=15 October 2016|archive-date=2 June 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225110/https://books.google.com/books?id=BzaaFXMpvMkC|url-status=live}}</ref> By 1945 he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow then later finished a [[distance education|correspondence course]] for schoolteachers in 1953.
-===Rise to the Soviet leadership===
+=== Rise to the Soviet leadership ===
-[[File:Chernenko (3x4 cropped).jpg|thumb|left|160px|Chernenko in 1962.]]
+{{Expand section|date=November 2025}}
-The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]]. There, he met and won the confidence of [[Leonid Brezhnev]], the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Central Committee]] in Moscow. In 1960 after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.
+[[File:Chernenko (3x4 cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright|175px|Chernenko in 1962]]
+The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]]. There, he met and won the confidence of [[Leonid Brezhnev]], the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Central Committee]] in Moscow. In 1960 after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (i.e. the titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.
-In 1964, Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] was deposed, and succeeded by Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] agenda and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored [[telephone tapping|telephone wiretaps]] and [[covert listening device]]s in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a [[facsimile]] was used instead).
+In 1965, Chernenko was nominated head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] agenda as well as prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored [[telephone tapping|telephone wiretaps]] and [[covert listening device]]s in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a [[facsimile]] was used instead).
-[[File:1982 Ceausescu la Moscova la 60 de ani de la formarea URSS.JPG|thumb|left|225px|Chernenko (seated second from left in the front row) attending the USSR's 60th Anniversary in 1982.]]
+[[File:Константин Черненко, Фидель Кастро и Леонид Брежнев (1981).jpg|thumb|left|265px|Chernenko (left) posing for a photo with his longtime patron, [[Leonid Brezhnev]], and [[Fidel Castro]] in 1981.]]
 In 1971, Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in the Party hierarchy.
 During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in [[ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|ideological Party work]]: heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the [[Constitution of the Soviet Union|Soviet Constitution]] in 1977. In 1979, he took part in the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II|Vienna arms limitation talks]].
-After [[Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev's death]] in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy within the Party. Ultimately, [[KGB]] chief [[Yuri Andropov]] eventually won the position.
+After [[Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev's death]] in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy. Ultimately, [[KGB]] chief [[Yuri Andropov]] eventually won the position.
-== Leader of the Soviet Union ==
+== Leader of the Soviet Union (1984–1985) ==
-[[Yuri Andropov]] died on 9 February 1984 at age 69 in [[Moscow Central Clinical Hospital]] of [[Kidney Failure|kidney failure]]. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov even though the latter stated he wanted [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] to succeed him. Chernenko was also terminally ill himself.<ref name="term ill">{{cite news |last1=de Lama |first1=George |title=CHERNENKO TERMINALLY ILL: U.S. |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-02-16-8501090757-story.html |access-date=2 November 2021 |publisher=Chicago Tribune |date=16 February 1985 |archive-date=28 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328012555/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-02-16-8501090757-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
+{{multiple image
+| align             = |direction|
+| image1            = Andrei Gromyko 1972 (cropped).jpg
+| caption1          =
+| image2            = Dmitry Ustinov colorized full cropped (b).jpg
+| caption2          =
+| footer_align      = left
+| footer            = As a result of Chernenko's weak hold on power, Foreign Minister [[Andrei Gromyko|Gromyko]] (left) and Defense Minister [[Dmitry Ustinov|Ustinov]] (right) held enormous influence over Soviet policy throughout his leadership.
+| total_width       = 350
+}}
+[[Yuri Andropov]] died on 9 February 1984 at age 69 in [[Moscow Central Clinical Hospital]] of [[Kidney Failure|kidney failure]]. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov even though the latter stated he wanted [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] to succeed him. Chernenko was also terminally ill himself.<ref name="term ill">{{cite news |last1=de Lama |first1=George |title=CHERNENKO TERMINALLY ILL: U.S. |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-02-16-8501090757-story.html |access-date=2 November 2021 |publisher=Chicago Tribune |date=16 February 1985 |archive-date=28 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328012555/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-02-16-8501090757-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/The-U-S-S-R-from-1953-to-1991|title=The USSR from 1953 to 1991|publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]|date=2025}}</ref>
-At the time of his ascent to the country's top post, Chernenko was primarily viewed as a transitional leader who could give the Politburo's "Old Guard" time to choose an acceptable candidate from the next generation of Soviet leadership. In the interim, he was forced to govern the country as part of a [[triumvirate]] alongside [[Minister of Defence (Soviet Union)|Defense Minister]] [[Dmitriy Ustinov]] and [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Foreign Minister]] [[Andrei Gromyko]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-siberian-peasant-who-won-power-konstantin-chernenko-brezhnev.html |title=Succession In Moscow: Siberian Peasant Who Won Power; Konstantin Chernenko, A Brezhnev Protege, Led Brief Regime |last=Saxon |first=Wolfgang |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 12, 1985 |access-date=January 28, 2024 |archive-date=29 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929034053/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-siberian-peasant-who-won-power-konstantin-chernenko-brezhnev.html |url-status=live }}</ref> This became a growing problem as Chernenko's illness led him to miss meetings with increasing frequency. At Andropov's funeral, he could barely read the [[eulogy]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Briton Thinks Chernenko Is Ill |author=Washington Post Foreign Service |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828104710/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/02/16/briton-thinks-chernenko-is-ill-washington-post-foreign-service/4a359dd9-8084-45a6-97c6-34f3fac7819f/ |archive-date=2017-08-28 |url-status=live |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/02/16/briton-thinks-chernenko-is-ill-washington-post-foreign-service/4a359dd9-8084-45a6-97c6-34f3fac7819f/ |access-date=January 28, 2024}}</ref> As a result of Chernenko's weak hold on power, Foreign Minister [[Andrei Gromyko|Gromyko]] and Defense Minister [[Dmitry Ustinov|Ustinov]] held enormous influence over Soviet policy throughout his leadership.
+At the time of his ascent to the country's top post, Chernenko was primarily viewed as a transitional leader who could give the Politburo's "Old Guard" time to choose an acceptable candidate from the next generation of Soviet leadership. In the interim, Chernenko's authority was severely limited by his lack of support within the party and his deteriorating health which led him to miss meetings with increasing frequency.<ref>{{harvnb|Miles|2020|p=100}} "As the leader of the Soviet Union] Chernenko delegated increasing amounts of responsibility and decision-making to his inner circle because of his health. Gorbachev, for example, chaired politburo meetings in Chernenko's (frequent) absence. In public, inspired by his initials K.U.Ch., Soviet citizens had taken to calling him ''kucher'', or 'coachman,' to evoke the image of an old man struggling to control his team of horses."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bialer|1986|p=103}} "While in office Chernenko labored under major constraints. He was supposed to lead a Politburo that only fifteen months before had rejected him in favor of Andropov. The new members of the Politburo and the score of high officials who joined the central Party apparatus after Brezhnev's death were all Andropov loyalists. They shared their patron's position on the issues. Almost all belonged to the younger generation. Many had replaced Brezhnev loyalists who were close to Chernenko. Moreover, Chernenko did not enjoy the respect of the older generation, all of whom had had more illustrious careers and more independent positions than he. They controlled major bloc of bureaucratic support from the hierarchies they supervised. Nor was Chernenko personally respected by the younger generation. For them he represented the past, and particularly the years of paralysis at the end of Brezhnev's rule...[¶] Most important, however, Chernenko's power and his independence were sharply circumscribed by the widely recognized fact that he was a transitional leader who was keeping the seat of the general secretary warm for the real successor to come. The lame-duck nature of Chernenko's leadership meant that officials were not likely to become preoccupied with an effort to please him, or to identify themselves with him."</ref> At Andropov's funeral, he could barely read the [[eulogy]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Briton Thinks Chernenko Is Ill |author=Washington Post Foreign Service |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828104710/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/02/16/briton-thinks-chernenko-is-ill-washington-post-foreign-service/4a359dd9-8084-45a6-97c6-34f3fac7819f/ |archive-date=2017-08-28 |url-status=live |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/02/16/briton-thinks-chernenko-is-ill-washington-post-foreign-service/4a359dd9-8084-45a6-97c6-34f3fac7819f/ |access-date=January 28, 2024}}</ref> Therefore, he was forced to govern the country as part of a [[triumvirate]] alongside [[Minister of Defence (Soviet Union)|Defense Minister]] [[Dmitriy Ustinov]] and [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Foreign Minister]] [[Andrei Gromyko]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-siberian-peasant-who-won-power-konstantin-chernenko-brezhnev.html |title=Succession In Moscow: Siberian Peasant Who Won Power; Konstantin Chernenko, A Brezhnev Protege, Led Brief Regime |last=Saxon |first=Wolfgang |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 12, 1985 |access-date=January 28, 2024 |archive-date=29 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929034053/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-siberian-peasant-who-won-power-konstantin-chernenko-brezhnev.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Thatcher |first=Gary |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1224/122436.html |title=Moscow's 'Safe Choice' Kremlin Reaffirms Preference for Seasoned Officials by Naming Sokolov to Top Soviet Defense Post |magazine=The Christian Science Monitor |date=1984-12-24}}</ref>{{sfn|Bialer|1986|pp=103-105}} According to historian [[Vladislav M. Zubok]], "Ustinov and Gromyko retained a virtual monopoly in [Soviet] military and foreign affairs" as a result of Chernenko's feeble hold on power.<ref>{{cite book |last=Zubok |first=Vladislav M. |date=2009 |orig-date=1st pub. 2007 |title=A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union In The Cold War From Stalin to Gorbachev |url= |location= |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |page=276 |isbn=978-0-8078-5958-2}}</ref>
 Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported a greater role for [[trade unions in the Soviet Union|the labour unions]], and reform in [[education in the Soviet Union|education]] and [[propaganda in the Soviet Union|propaganda]]. The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the [[Chief of the General Staff (Russia)|Chief of the General Staff]], [[Marshal of the Soviet Union|Marshal]] [[Nikolai Ogarkov]]. Ogarkov was subsequently replaced by Marshal [[Sergey Akhromeyev]].
+[[File:Константин Черненко (28-05-1984) (cropped)(2).jpg|thumb|300px|Chernenko addresses Komsomol leaders in his capacity as General Secretary in 1984.]]
 In [[foreign relations of the Soviet Union|foreign policy]], he negotiated a [[trade agreement|trade deal]] with [[China]]. Despite calls for renewed [[détente]], Chernenko did little to prevent the escalation of the [[Cold War]] with the United States. For example, in 1984 the Soviet Union prevented a visit to [[West Germany]] by [[East Germany|East German]] leader [[Erich Honecker]]. However, in late autumn of 1984, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985. In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] leader, [[Neil Kinnock]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-briton-optimistic-gorbachev-views.html|title=SUCCESSION IN MOSCOW: A PRIVATE LIFE, AND A MEDICAL CASE; Briton Is Optimistic on Gorbachev Views|date=1985|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=2018-06-05|language=en|archive-date=28 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928093845/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-briton-optimistic-gorbachev-views.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
@@ Line 114: / Line 127: @@
 Chernenko started [[tobacco smoking|smoking]] at the age of nine,<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Jerrold Post|last=Post |first=Jerrold M. |title=Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior |series=Psychoanalysis & Social Theory |location=Ithaca |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-8014-4169-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/leaderstheirfoll0000post/page/87 87] |url=https://archive.org/details/leaderstheirfoll0000post/page/87 }}</ref> and he was always known to be a heavy smoker as an adult.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/16/world/world-attention-turns-to-chernenko-s-health.html | work=The New York Times | first=John F. | last=Burns | title=World Attention Turns To Chernenko's Health | date=16 February 1984 | access-date=10 February 2017 | archive-date=28 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928174045/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/16/world/world-attention-turns-to-chernenko-s-health.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Long before his election as general secretary, he had developed [[emphysema]] and right-sided [[heart failure]]. In 1983, he had been absent from his duties for three months due to [[bronchitis]], [[pleurisy]] and [[pneumonia]]. Historian [[John Lewis Gaddis]] described him as "an enfeebled [[geriatric]] so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984.<ref>{{cite book|author1=John Lewis Gaddis|author-link1=John Lewis Gaddis|title=The Cold War: A New History|date=2005|publisher=Penguin Press|isbn=978-1594200625|page=228|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fvmoWZIxVw4C|access-date=15 October 2016|archive-date=2 June 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225108/https://books.google.com/books?id=fvmoWZIxVw4C|url-status=live}}</ref>
-In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalized for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to [[Kislovodsk]] for the mineral [[spa]]s, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors and was driven in a wheelchair. By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the [[Central Clinical Hospital]], a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow, where the General Secretary stood as candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the [[Russian SFSR]], when Politburo member [[Viktor Grishin]] revealed that the General Secretary was absent in accordance with doctors' advice.<ref name="Mydans">{{cite news|last=Mydans|first=Seth|title=A Halting Chernenko is on TV Again|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/01/world/a-halting-chernenko-is-on-tv-again.html|work=The New York Times|date=1 March 1985|access-date=15 September 2012|archive-date=28 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928093844/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/01/world/a-halting-chernenko-is-on-tv-again.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation,<ref>Dmitri Volkogonov. (1998), ''Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime''. (page 72). {{ISBN|0684834200}}</ref> Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".<ref name="Mydans"/>
+In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalized for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to [[Kislovodsk]] for the mineral [[spa]]s, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors and was driven in a wheelchair. By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the [[Central Clinical Hospital]], a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 by the [[First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee]], [[Viktor Grishin]], during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow.<ref name="Mydans">{{cite news|last=Mydans|first=Seth|title=A Halting Chernenko is on TV Again|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/01/world/a-halting-chernenko-is-on-tv-again.html|work=The New York Times|date=1 March 1985|access-date=15 September 2012|archive-date=28 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928093844/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/01/world/a-halting-chernenko-is-on-tv-again.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation,<ref>Dmitri Volkogonov. (1998), ''Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime''. (page 72). {{ISBN|0684834200}}</ref> Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".<ref name="Mydans"/>
-Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, [[Yevgeniy Chazov]], Chernenko had also developed both chronic [[hepatitis]] and [[cirrhosis]] of the liver.<ref name="altman">Altman, Lawrence K., [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-autopsy-discloses-several-diseases.html?&pagewanted=all "Succession in Moscow: A Private Life, and a Medical Case; Autopsy Discloses Several Diseases"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928201144/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-autopsy-discloses-several-diseases.html?&pagewanted=all |date=28 September 2023 }}, ''New York Times'', 25 March 1985.</ref> On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a [[coma]] and died later that evening at 19:20, at age 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of [[Emphysema|chronic emphysema]], an enlarged and damaged heart, [[congestive heart failure]] and [[Cirrhosis|liver cirrhosis]]. A three-day period of mourning across the country was announced.<ref>{{cite news |last=Doder |first=Dusko |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/12/gorbachev-becomes-soviet-leader-hours-after-chernenko-dies-at-73/696b5b18-96ae-4428-bbff-33aa5e3e707b/ |title=Gorbachev Becomes Soviet Leader Hours After Chernenko Dies at 73 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=1985-03-12 |accessdate=2022-05-26 |archive-date=14 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200114103031/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/12/gorbachev-becomes-soviet-leader-hours-after-chernenko-dies-at-73/696b5b18-96ae-4428-bbff-33aa5e3e707b/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-03-12-8501140234-story.html|title = Gorbachev Chosen|website = [[Chicago Tribune]]|date = 12 March 1985|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 6 April 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230406221313/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-03-12-8501140234-story.html|url-status = live}}</ref> [[India]],<ref name="latimes1985">{{cite web|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-12-mn-34169-story.html|title = East, West Leaders Mourn Chernenko's Death|website = [[Los Angeles Times]]|date = 12 March 1985|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 28 September 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230928192445/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-12-mn-34169-story.html|url-status = live}}</ref> [[Brazil]],<ref>https://www.normasbrasil.com.br/norma/decreto-91067-1985_45476.html</ref> [[Iraq]],<ref name="latimes1985"/> [[Syria]]<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|chapter=Gorbachev and the Syrians|title=Soviet Policy towards Syria since 1970|year=1991|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|pages=163–177|isbn=978-1-349-11484-9|access-date=2 April 2022|archive-date=28 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928192444/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Nicaragua]]<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/23/world/sandinista-government-viewed-as-leftist-hybrid.html | title=Sandinista Government Viewed as Leftist Hybrid | newspaper=The New York Times | date=23 March 1985 | last1=Rohter | first1=Larry | access-date=27 August 2022 | archive-date=29 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929004052/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/23/world/sandinista-government-viewed-as-leftist-hybrid.html | url-status=live }}</ref> all declared three days of mourning; [[Pakistan]]<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41393726 | jstor=41393726 | title=Pakistan Foreign Policy—A Quarterly Survey | last1=Saeed | first1=M. Yousuf | journal=Pakistan Horizon | year=1985 | volume=38 | issue=2 | pages=3–18 | access-date=28 August 2022 | archive-date=29 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929083659/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41393726 | url-status=live }}</ref> declared two days of mourning; [[East Germany]]<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-in-moscow-tributes-from-abroad-moscow-s-allies-extend-condolences.html|title=Succession in Moscow: Tributes from Abroad; Moscow's Allies Extend Condolences|newspaper=The New York Times|date=12 March 1985|last1=Kaufman|first1=Michael T.|access-date=2 April 2022|archive-date=29 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929032712/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-in-moscow-tributes-from-abroad-moscow-s-allies-extend-condolences.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Czechoslovakia]]<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://chrudimsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/polsko_tragedie_mse_hradec_20100413-36ab.html|title = Polská tragédie: Hradec vyvěsí vlajky na půl žerdi|newspaper = Chrudimský Deník|date = 14 April 2010|last1 = Šprinc|first1 = Radek|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 6 April 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230406161439/https://chrudimsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/polsko_tragedie_mse_hradec_20100413-36ab.html|url-status = live}}</ref> declared one day of mourning.
+Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, [[Yevgeniy Chazov]], Chernenko had also developed both chronic [[hepatitis]] and [[cirrhosis]] of the liver.<ref name="altman">Altman, Lawrence K., [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-autopsy-discloses-several-diseases.html?&pagewanted=all "Succession in Moscow: A Private Life, and a Medical Case; Autopsy Discloses Several Diseases"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928201144/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-moscow-private-life-medical-case-autopsy-discloses-several-diseases.html?&pagewanted=all |date=28 September 2023 }}, ''New York Times'', 25 March 1985.</ref> On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a [[coma]] and died later that evening at 19:20, at age 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of [[Emphysema|chronic emphysema]], an enlarged and damaged heart, [[congestive heart failure]] and [[Cirrhosis|liver cirrhosis]]. A three-day period of mourning across the country was announced.<ref>{{cite news |last=Doder |first=Dusko |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/12/gorbachev-becomes-soviet-leader-hours-after-chernenko-dies-at-73/696b5b18-96ae-4428-bbff-33aa5e3e707b/ |title=Gorbachev Becomes Soviet Leader Hours After Chernenko Dies at 73 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=1985-03-12 |accessdate=2022-05-26 |archive-date=14 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200114103031/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/03/12/gorbachev-becomes-soviet-leader-hours-after-chernenko-dies-at-73/696b5b18-96ae-4428-bbff-33aa5e3e707b/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-03-12-8501140234-story.html|title = Gorbachev Chosen|website = [[Chicago Tribune]]|date = 12 March 1985|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 6 April 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230406221313/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-03-12-8501140234-story.html|url-status = live}}</ref> [[India]],<ref name="latimes1985">{{cite web|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-12-mn-34169-story.html|title = East, West Leaders Mourn Chernenko's Death|website = [[Los Angeles Times]]|date = 12 March 1985|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 28 September 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230928192445/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-12-mn-34169-story.html|url-status = live}}</ref> [[Brazil]],<ref>{{cite web | title=Decreto nº 91.067 de 12/03/1985 | url=https://www.normasbrasil.com.br/norma/decreto-91067-1985_45476.html }}</ref> [[Iraq]],<ref name="latimes1985"/> [[Syria]]<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|chapter=Gorbachev and the Syrians|title=Soviet Policy towards Syria since 1970|year=1991|last1=Karsh|first1=Efraim|pages=163–177|isbn=978-1-349-11484-9|access-date=2 April 2022|archive-date=28 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928192444/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_11|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Nicaragua]]<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/23/world/sandinista-government-viewed-as-leftist-hybrid.html | title=Sandinista Government Viewed as Leftist Hybrid | newspaper=The New York Times | date=23 March 1985 | last1=Rohter | first1=Larry | access-date=27 August 2022 | archive-date=29 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929004052/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/23/world/sandinista-government-viewed-as-leftist-hybrid.html | url-status=live }}</ref> all declared three days of mourning; [[Pakistan]]<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41393726 | jstor=41393726 | title=Pakistan Foreign Policy—A Quarterly Survey | last1=Saeed | first1=M. Yousuf | journal=Pakistan Horizon | year=1985 | volume=38 | issue=2 | pages=3–18 | access-date=28 August 2022 | archive-date=29 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929083659/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41393726 | url-status=live }}</ref> [[North Korea]]<ref>[https://www.google.pl/books/edition/North_Korea_News/y_8DAQAAIAAJ?hl=pl&gbpv=1&bsq=north+korea+declared+two+days+of+mourning+for+chernenko&dq=north+korea+declared+two+days+of+mourning+for+chernenko&printsec=frontcover]</ref> and [[Guinea-Bissau]]<ref>[https://www.google.pl/books/edition/Africa_Research_Bulletin/12e4AAAAIAAJ?hl=pl&gbpv=1&bsq=guinea+bissau+mourns+for+brezhnev+death&dq=guinea+bissau+mourns+for+brezhnev+death&printsec=frontcover]</ref> declared two days of mourning; [[East Germany]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-in-moscow-tributes-from-abroad-moscow-s-allies-extend-condolences.html|title=Succession in Moscow: Tributes from Abroad; Moscow's Allies Extend Condolences|newspaper=The New York Times|date=12 March 1985|last1=Kaufman|first1=Michael T.|access-date=2 April 2022|archive-date=29 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929032712/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/world/succession-in-moscow-tributes-from-abroad-moscow-s-allies-extend-condolences.html|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]]<ref>[https://istorijskenovine.unilib.rs/view/index.html#panel:pp%7Cissue:UB_00064_19850313%7Cpage:1]</ref> and [[Czechoslovakia]]<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://chrudimsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/polsko_tragedie_mse_hradec_20100413-36ab.html|title = Polská tragédie: Hradec vyvěsí vlajky na půl žerdi|newspaper = Chrudimský Deník|date = 14 April 2010|last1 = Šprinc|first1 = Radek|access-date = 2 April 2022|archive-date = 6 April 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230406161439/https://chrudimsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/polsko_tragedie_mse_hradec_20100413-36ab.html|url-status = live}}</ref> declared one day of mourning.
-Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] is reported to have remarked, "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"<ref>[[Maureen Dowd]], [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D9133EF93BA25752C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all "Where's the Rest of Him?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225003/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/books/where-s-the-rest-of-him.html |date=2 June 2024 }} ''[[The New York Times]]'', 18 November 1990.</ref>
+Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in two and a half years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] is reported to have remarked, "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"<ref>[[Maureen Dowd]], [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D9133EF93BA25752C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all "Where's the Rest of Him?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225003/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/books/where-s-the-rest-of-him.html |date=2 June 2024 }} ''[[The New York Times]]'', 18 November 1990.</ref>
-Chernenko was honored with a [[state funeral]] and was buried in the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]], in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the [[Lenin Mausoleum]] and the [[Kremlin wall]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=USSR: Soviet Leader Chernenko Buried |url=https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/2944 |access-date=2023-09-23 |website=Reuters Archive Licensing |language=en |archive-date=24 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231024045206/https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/2944 |url-status=live }}</ref> He is the last person to have been interred there.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Trevelyan |first=Mark |date=September 3, 2022 |title=Honour or disgrace - how Russia has buried its past leaders |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/honour-or-disgrace-how-russia-has-buried-its-past-leaders-2022-09-02/ |access-date=February 7, 2025 |work=[[Reuters]]}}</ref>
+Chernenko was honored with a [[state funeral]] and is buried in the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]], in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the [[Lenin Mausoleum]] and the [[Kremlin wall]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=USSR: Soviet Leader Chernenko Buried |url=https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/2944 |access-date=2023-09-23 |website=Reuters Archive Licensing |language=en |archive-date=24 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231024045206/https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/2944 |url-status=live }}</ref> He is the last person to have been interred there.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Trevelyan |first=Mark |date=September 3, 2022 |title=Honour or disgrace - how Russia has buried its past leaders |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/honour-or-disgrace-how-russia-has-buried-its-past-leaders-2022-09-02/ |access-date=February 7, 2025 |work=[[Reuters]]}}</ref>
-The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on the same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1985-03-11 |title=1985: Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader |language=en-GB |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/11/newsid_2538000/2538327.stm |access-date=2023-09-23 |archive-date=6 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306052502/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/11/newsid_2538000/2538327.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>
+The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on the same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1985-03-11 |title=1985: Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader |language=en-GB |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/11/newsid_2538000/2538327.stm |access-date=2023-09-23 |archive-date=6 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306052502/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/11/newsid_2538000/2538327.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>
 After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe. When Gorbachev had Chernenko's safe opened, it was found to contain a small folder of personal papers and several large bundles of money; more money was found in his desk. It is not known where he had obtained the money or what he intended to use it for.<ref>[[Dmitri Volkogonov]]. (1998), ''The Rise and Fall of the [[Soviet Empire]]''. [[HarperCollins]]. p. 430. ({{ISBN|9780006388180}}</ref>
@@ Line 142: / Line 155: @@
 ==Personal life==
-Chernenko had a son with his first wife, Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko, named [[Albert Chernenko|Albert]]. With his second wife, [[Anna Chernenko|Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova]], who married him in 1944, he had two daughters, Yelena and Vera, and a son, Vladimir. In 2015 archival documents were published, according to which Chernenko had many more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s.<ref name="kommersant2684617">[http://kommersant.ru/doc/2684617 Леонид Максименков. Человек одного года] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209032849/https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2684617 |date=9 February 2023 }} // "Огонёк", 16 March 2015.</ref>
+Chernenko had a son with his first wife, Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko, named [[Albert Chernenko|Albert]]. With his second wife, [[Anna Chernenko|Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova]], who married him in 1944, he had two daughters, Yelena and Vera, and a son, Vladimir. In 2015 archival documents were published, according to which Chernenko had many{{what?|date=August 2025}} more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s.<ref name="kommersant2684617">[http://kommersant.ru/doc/2684617 Леонид Максименков. Человек одного года] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209032849/https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2684617 |date=9 February 2023 }} // "Огонёк", 16 March 2015.</ref>
 ==Notes==
@@ Line 151: / Line 164: @@
 ==Sources==
+* {{Cite book |last=Bialer |first=Seweryn |title=The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline |location= London |publisher=I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd |year= 1986 |page= |isbn= 1-85043-030-6 }}
 * {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Archie |title=The Soviet Succession: From Andropov to Chernenko |journal=World Today |volume=40 |date=April 1984 |pages=134–141 }}
 * {{cite journal |last=Daniels |first=Robert V. |title=The Chernenko Comeback |journal=New Leader |volume=67 |date=20 February 1984 |pages=3–5 }}
 * {{cite journal |last=Halstead |first=John |title=Chernenko in Office |journal=International Perspectives |date=May–June 1984 |pages=19–21 }}
 * {{cite journal |last=Meissner |first=Boris |title=Soviet Policy: From Chernenko to Gorbachev |journal=Aussenpolitik |location=Bonn |volume=36 |issue=4 |date=April 1985 |pages=357–375 }}
+* {{cite book |last=Miles |first=Simon |author-link= |date=2020 |title=Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow, and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War |url= |location= |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9781501751707}}
+*{{cite book | author = Mitchell, R. Judson | title = Getting to the Top in the USSR: Cyclical Patterns in the Leadership Succession Process | publisher=Hoover Institution Press |year= 1990 |isbn=0-8179-8921-8 |pages=}}
 * Ostrovsky, Alexander (2010). [https://ru.bookshome.net/book/3299571/e53580 Кто поставил Горбачёва? (Who put Gorbachev?)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807112401/https://ru.bookshome.net/book/3299571/e53580 |date=7 August 2022}} — М.: Алгоритм-Эксмо, 2010. — 544 с. ISBN 978-5-699-40627-2.
 * {{cite journal |last=Pribytkov |first=Victor |title=Soviet-U.S. Relations: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Konstantin U. Chernenko |journal=[[American Political Science Review]] |volume=79 |issue=4 |date=December 1985 |page=1277 |doi=10.2307/1956397 |jstor=1956397 |s2cid=161571675 }}
@@ Line 166: / Line 182: @@
 * [https://archive.org/details/HumanRightsInSovietSociety ''Human Rights in Soviet Society''] by Chernenko.
 * [https://archive.org/details/sovietdemocracychernenko ''Soviet Democracy: Principles and Practice''] by Chernenko.
 {{S-start}}
 {{s-ppo}}
@@ Line 172: / Line 188: @@
 {{s-ttl|title = [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]|years = 13 February 1984 – 10 March 1985}}
 {{s-aft|after = [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]}}
-{{s-bef|rows=2|before = [[Yuri Andropov]]}}
+{{s-bef|before = [[Yuri Andropov]]}}
 {{s-ttl|title = [[Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]|years = 10 November 1982 – 9 February 1984}}
-{{s-aft|rows=2|after = [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]}}
+{{s-aft|after = [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]}}
-{{s-ttl|title = Senior Secretary of Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|years = 10 November 1982 – 9 February 1984}}
+{{s-bef|before = [[Mikhail Suslov]]}}
-{{s-bef|rows=2|before = [[Mikhail Suslov]]}}
+{{s-ttl|title = Senior Secretary of Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|years = 25 January 1982 – 24 May 1982}}
-{{s-ttl|title = [[Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]<br>(Acting)|years = 25 January 1982 – 24 May 1982}}
+{{s-aft|after = [[Yuri Andropov]]}}
-{{s-aft|rows=2|after = [[Yuri Andropov]]}}
-{{s-ttl|title= Senior Secretary of Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union <br>(Acting)|years= 25 January 1982 ― 24 May 1982}}
 {{s-bef|before = [[Andrei Kirilenko (politician)|Andrei Kirilenko]]}}
 {{s-ttl|title = Senior Secretary of Cadres for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|years = March 1976 – January 1983}}

Konstantin Chernenko: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 04:13, 19 November 2025

Contents

Early life and political career

Origins

Rise to the Soviet leadership

Leader of the Soviet Union (1984–1985)

Health problems, death and legacy

Honors and awards

Personal life

Notes

References

Sources

External links

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Konstantin Chernenko: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 04:13, 19 November 2025

Early life and political career

Origins

Rise to the Soviet leadership

Leader of the Soviet Union (1984–1985)

Health problems, death and legacy

Honors and awards

Personal life

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Navigation menu

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