Volume 30, Number 1 · February 3, 1983
The Andropov Succession
By Seweryn Bialer
Much uncertainty surrounds the emergence of Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party, the likely heir of four formidable predecessors during the sixty-five years of Soviet history. Lenin led his party through revolution and consolidation of power. Stalin revolutionized the Soviet political system and society through unbridled use of coercion and terror. Khrushchev shook the Stalinist mold, made Soviet foreign policy more active, and ended the country's self-imposed autarchic isolation. Brezhnev attempted to institutionalize the bureaucratic process of policy making. In domestic affairs he achieved a degree of stability hitherto unknown under the Soviet political system, notwithstanding serious failures of the economy. Internationally, he supervised the transformation of the Soviet Union into a truly global power.
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