The Andropov File by Martin Ebon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Andropov's experience in manipulating others, his shrewd appraisal of human nature and his quintessential toughness, are sharp weapons in the fights he has to wage. [...] A few spectacular cases of punishment - and in relatively high places, at that - can make routine [Soviet] corruption less brazen and less tolerated. No ruthless KGB methods need to be used; tried-and-true Andropov techniques will suffice. "

Yet another item in my series of reads and reviews about Soviet/Russian leaders of the 20th century and the second biography of Yuri Andropov that I am reviewing here after Zhores Medvedev's Andropov . Martin Ebon's The Andropov File (1983) descriptively subtitled The Life and Ideas of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR is similar in that both were written very soon after Andropov was elected the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. (For younger readers: the party was the actual center of power in Soviet Union, which at the time was the only other world's superpower and whose military might equaled that of the United States.) Consequently, neither of these biographies provides a historical perspective. Not that such perspective is sorely needed. Andropov died only 14 months after assuming the leadership and did not have many chances to influence the course of Soviet politics or world events in a meaningful way. His most important contribution to world's history is mentioned later in this review.

Ebon's work is a traditionally structured biography. The author recounts the arc of Andropov's political career, beginning with his participation in partisan movement in Karelia in 1941 - 1945, and Otto Kuusinen's role as Andropov's first mentor. The years 1953 - 1957 mark one of the most important stages in Andropov's early party service: he was the Soviet ambassador to Hungary and his role in the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 is still the subject of speculations. (It also connects with me, personally, as I still have vague memories of the drama of 1956: I lived in Poland at that time and I remember Polish people donating blood for victims on the Budapest massacre by Soviet troops.)

In the mid-1960s Andropov gains the most powerful supporter in the person of Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Communist Party main ideologue. Andropov becomes the Candidate member of the Politburo in 1967. The trajectory of his career is not traditional, though. Andropov is named the Chairman of the KGB in 1967, the organization that had long been dreaded in the Western world. Andropov remains the KGB boss for 15 years and molds the organization in his "modern way": it begins to rely on more "sophisticated" methods of psychological and social harassment rather than on physical torture and outright murder of the olden days.

The author does not spend much time on "humanizing" Andropov's portrait. True, he quotes observations, stories, and anecdotes by other people who have worked with Andropov, but does not put much credence in them as possibly being created by sensationalism or even planted by Andropov people. We only get the image of Andropov as a "well-mannered workaholic" and his personal style is presented as "ruthlessly fastidious" or "fastidiously ruthless."

In the final chapters the author conveys his pessimism as to Andropov's chances of instituting substantial changes in Soviet politics, economics, and social life. We will never learn what might have happened had Andropov lived longer and had more time as the Soviet supreme leader. The book was written before Andropov's death, so the author did not have the opportunity to note what I consider Andropov's most important contribution to Soviet (and the whole world's) history: his mentorship and support of the future Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who - partly purposefully partly accidentally - managed to dismantle Soviet Union (at least for a period of time until it is now restored under the Russian flag).

In Appendices the author provides full texts of many, many speeches given by Andropov between 1964 and 1982. This is most mind-numbingly boring reading and I have to admit I just scanned the pages. With the exception of one speech, honoring one of the early builders of future Soviet Union, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the fist chief of Cheka, the precursor of KGB. The paean to Dzerzhinsky reads almost like a series of Chuck Norris jokes. I am now convinced that Dzerzhinsky could teach God quite a few tricks. And he was Polish by birth!

Two-and-a-half stars.

View all my reviews