V o L u m e I : a d

Soviet diplomat, head of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB)

during 1967–1982, and fifth leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-

lics during 1982–1984. Born on 15 June 1914 in Stavropol, Russia, Yuri

Vladimirovich Andropov dropped out of school when he was sixteen and

worked at odd jobs, eventually joining the Komsomol, the communist youth

organization. He became a full member of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1939 and served in the newly founded Karelo-

Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944 as the first secretary of the regional

Komsomol.

During World War II, Andropov was active in partisan guerrilla activities.

After the war, he held positions in regional CPSU bureaus before being

appointed to the CPSU Central Committee in 1951. In the immediate wake

of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s death in 1953, Andropov was appointed coun-

selor to the Soviet embassy in Budapest. Promoted to ambassador in 1954,

his tenure witnessed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Andropov had warned

Moscow of growing unrest in Hungary prior to the Revolution and then

requested Soviet troop deployments to Hungary after the revolt began. He

played a crucial role in establishing the new Hungarian Socialist Workers’

Party under the leadership of János Kádár.

Andropov returned to Moscow in 1957 as the head of

the Department for Liaison with Socialist Countries. He

also succeeded Mikhail Suslov as a member of the Central

Committee Secretariat in 1962 and became the head of the

KGB in 1967. In 1973, he assumed a permanent member-

ship in the Politburo but continued to serve as KGB leader

until 1982.

On 10 November 1982, Andropov was elected the new

general secretary of the CPSU, succeeding the late Soviet

President Leonid Brezhnev. Andropov soon thereafter

became the Soviet president and chairman of the Defense

Council. During his fifteen-month rule, he sought to im-

prove the Soviet economy by increasing productivity. He

gave priority to the fight against corruption in the Soviet

bureaucracy and attempted to improve Soviet work habits

through vigorous campaigns against alcohol and for the

improvement of work discipline.

In foreign policy, Andropov sought to maintain the sta-

tus quo. He kept Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and despite

his efforts to improve his image in the West, relations with

the United States continued to deteriorate. He strongly

opposed President Ronald Reagan’s stationing of Pershing

Missiles in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West

Germany), but Soviet relations with the West took a nose-

dive after Soviet forces shot down a civilian South Korean

jetliner (KAL Flight 007) in September 1983 when it strayed

Andropov, Yuri

127

Andropov, Yuri

(1914–1984)

Yuri Andropov was an important Communist Party official

and political figure who became the fifth leader of the

Soviet Union during 1982–1984. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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into Soviet airspace. All 269 passengers perished. The Soviets claimed clum-

sily and falsely that the jetliner was designed to spy on Soviet installations.

After months of poor health, Andropov died on 9 February 1984 in Mos-

cow. He had declared Mikhail Gorbachev to be his successor, but on 12 Feb-

ruary 1984 Andropov was instead replaced by Konstantin Chernenko.

C. Karadelli

See also

Afghanistan War; Brezhnev, Leonid; Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich; Gorbachev,

Mikhail; Hungarian Revolution; Kádár, János; KAL Flight 007; Komitet Gosu-

darstvennoi Bezopasnosti; Missiles, Pershing II; Soviet Union; Suslov, Mikhail

Andreyevich

References

Medvedev, Zhores A. Andropov. New York: Norton, 1983.

Steel, Jonathan, and Eric Abraham. Andropov in Power: From Komsomol to Kremlin.

Oxford, UK: Martin-Robertson, 1983.

The Anglo-Iranian oil crisis began on 26 April 1951 when Iran’s new nation-

alist leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, moved to nationalize his nation’s oil

reserves. The crisis ended on 19 August 1953 when Mossadegh’s govern-

ment was overthrown in a U.S.-sponsored coup d’état. Mossadegh’s nation-

alization measures came largely at the expense of the British-controlled

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which had been exploiting Iranian oil reserves

for years. The crisis highlighted the differing communist containment poli-

cies carried out by the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department

in the Middle East. It can also be viewed as an early attempt by a develop-

ing nation to break free from Western imperialism and colonial control. The

fact that the crisis involved oil also showcases just how critical cheap and

abundant oil supplies were to the West.

During 1951–1953 there was an ongoing diplomatic crisis among Iran,

Great Britain, and the United States over Mossadegh’s actions. Beginning

in November 1951, Mossadegh requested that Western nations that had pur-

chased Iranian oil in the past confirm their current orders with the newly

nationalized Iranian oil industry. The British took immediate action by pres-

suring purchasing nations not to cooperate with Mossadegh’s request.

At first, the United States took a rather neutral stance in the crisis, siding

completely with neither London nor Tehran. The Americans’ chief concern

was keeping Iranian oil out of Soviet control rather than saving the Anglo-

Iranian Oil Company. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson urged Britain to

accept Iran’s nationalization and instead aim at maintaining control over the

technical aspects of oil production. Throughout much of 1951, the United

States regarded Iran’s continued alliance with the West as a priority over

British economic interests.

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Anglo-Iranian Oil Crisis

Anglo-Iranian

Oil Crisis

(1951–1953)

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