Andropov and the Intensification of Labour

Abstract

Most analyses of Soviet reform focus overwhelmingly on the spectacular changes of the Gorbachev period. The rationale for this approach derives from one of two basic assumptions. The first argues that there was little attempt to reform the Soviet system before Gorbachev became General Secretary in April 1985. Gorbachev broke with his political heritage by embarking on a wide-ranging political and economic restructuring of the Soviet system. Glasnost and perestroika were emblematic of new directions in domestic and foreign policy, and Gorbachev himself emerged as a man of revolutionary rather than evolutionary bent. Consistent with the magnification of Gorbachev, the role of his immediate predecessors, Yurii Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, is minimized. Jan Adam (1993, p. 193) dismisses them thus: ‘In 1983 [sic], L. Brezhnev died and his two successors followed more or less in his footsteps.’