as a whole. Since June 16 this year, the posts of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee are combined. A peculiar two-headed eagle becomes, of course, himself, already suffered a stroke, devoid of firmness of gait and former clarity of consciousness, esteemed Leonid Ilyich. A very significant political figure, Nikolai Podgorny, who previously held the post of head of the abovementioned higher legislative body of the Union, is sent to retirement. Two years earlier, the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, AN Shelepin, “left”; and on such, it should be noted, an interesting fact that “for the sake of false democracy,” he eats in the common dining room and rests in a sanatorium “for ordinary people.” L. Brezhnev disappears from his inner circle and the leader of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, is the same one who once had dissuaded Leonid Ilyich from the physical elimination of Nikita Khrushchev. In the “small Politburo” there are only the nearest, in all consonants with “Samim” (He is), as they say now, “Friends.”
Chairman of the Council of Ministers, “business executive” A. Kosygin does not count. To correct, now there is no one left from the collective conduct of affairs of the “leader”. And so, in response to the murder of Hafizullah Amin’s security service by the personal friend of the secretary general, Nura Taraki, Brezhnev, after some communication with Andropov and Ustinov, opens Pandora’s box. The invasion of Afghanistan, the destruction of Amin and half of his family, a long, viscous war with those who could be good neighbors, are the beginning of the end of the USSR.
They say that there is something indistinct about “Americans who might appear in Afghanistan” … In Vietnam they also appeared when what was so good for them there? And now the Coalition troops are still in the “Afghan”. Us, friends from this, it turns out, is neither cold nor hot.
Meanwhile, the extremely narrowed circle of responsible persons, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, now has no one to rely on. A person with weak health, he falls into captivity to his, still quite vigorous friends. There is no alternative, the people are silent, the threads of running a huge country are ultimately tied in just two or three people. Leonid Brezhnev sometimes only calls Defense Minister D. Ustinov, with a tear and reproach in his voice, asks: “When will this war end?! … Dima, you promised me it would not be for long.”
Leonid Brezhnev has no right to dispose of even himself. Several times he declares his desire to retire, and receives from the Politburo a benevolent “no” answer. This system lacks the institution of a more or less regular, legitimate change of power. Looking at the speaker on television, stumbling on every word of the head of state, citizens of the USSR (according to the author’s feelings) involuntarily identify with himself, the state, the state of things: “soon all this will end.”
The only spirit remaining in the minds of the townsfolk to this day: “We already have a ruler, he knows something and knows how, do not rock the boat, otherwise everything will get worse.”
The Secretary-General dies from cardiac arrest in 1982. However, eighteen years of his rule are a kind of “Golden Autumn of the Empire.” This is the time when you can live without fear of a “black funnel” under the window at night, it’s quite tolerable to eat, start children, drink natural fruit-wine, sing bard songs and dream of a beautiful far away…
Personal life: married to Viktoria Petrovna (born Denisova) since 1927, two children. A fan of hunting for large animals, football and driving (including rare cars).
Dmitry Ustinov, photo of the 1950s
Dmitry Ustinov. Birth – 1908, Samara, … in children’s summers – courier work… the introduction of a volunteer in the Red Army, service in Special Purpose Chambers (CHON). Further Ustinov works as a fitter at the factory, he studies at various institutes, down to the Leningrad “Voenmech”. Since 1937 (the vacancy field has been cleared) – engineer-designer, director of the plant “Bolshevik”. In 1941, 33-year-old Dmitry Fedorovich became a People’s Commissar of Soviet armament. His predecessor, B. Vannikov, Stalin must be released a month after the outbreak of the war – since it is too necessary for the production of ammunition. The recent prisoner becomes deputy commissar-beginner. Since 1946 Dmitry Ustinov, the USSR Minister of Armaments, has been actively participating in the missile project. In 1957, D.W. advocates N. Khrushchev, in 1964 – promotes his displacement. Since 1976, Ustinov – one of the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, which is included in the unofficial, so-called. “A small Politburo”, as well as the Minister of Defense. He died in 1984, from severe pneumonia; caused by the reluctance of Dmitry Fedorovich to leave, an official event held in the cold wind. It suggests that almost simultaneously with D. Ustinov, and with the same clinical picture of the disease, the defense ministers of the GDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia die, who were together at a festive dinner (in honor of the completion of the Warsaw Pact exercises).
Private life: wife Taisia, son, daughter. The usual ratio of attention to work and personal life: 10: 1.
Evaluation of the author: D. F. Ustinov is one of those people who with passion and passion create colorful false pictures of reality. The Soviet Army of the seventies and eighties is deeply sick, bottom-to-top pervaded by hazing, national issues, and partly elementary inadequate. Ideals are absent. The fighting spirit fluctuates around zero. All thoughts come down to where else to find food. Training of soldiers is reduced to outright profanity and fraud (deceit). Most of the equipment is kept under the open sky, and is not suitable for any quick commissioning. But, “a man of Stalin’s tempering” is inclined to believe only in smooth reports on his desk. TN. The “Ustinov doctrine” provides for a preemptive nuclear missile strike in response to signs of a nuclear attack, the breakthrough of tank armadas through the echeloned defense of Western European countries… the establishment of control over mainland Europe. What does “pre-emptive strike” and “signs of attack” mean? It is not entirely clear what has Europe to do with it, if the war is unleashed after all, America? It’s not really one. How can the Soviet Army fight in France, Belgium, near the notorious Straits in Turkey, if almost all the cities of the USSR are destroyed by atomic fire? Is it able, in addition, to control the unfriendly population? Does it make more sense to focus on protecting your country, with all the remaining means? And, probably, these (non-nuclear) forces should be much more mobile than sluggish armored groups?!
In the prevailing, insanely narrow circle of “small Politburo” communication, there is nobody to talk about this with Marshal Ustinov. The opinion of the common man: the usual officer “on the ground”, an ordinary soldier, yes, and that citizen in glasses, walking along the street, this System is not taken into account.
…The arguments of Marshal N. Ogarkov, the chief of the General Staff of the USSR, who sharply protests against the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, are also not taken into account. In the end, the state, whose organism does not provide for the reactions of the self-satisfied brain to receptor signals, ceases to make meaningful actions, and disintegrates.
Yuri Andropov, Mikhail Gorbachev
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov. Birth – 1914, Stavropol province (the province) … work on the telegraph, assistant projectionist, training in the Rybinsk river technical school. Occupying the position of the Komsomol organizer (komsorg) at the shipyard… First Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the Komsomol. Since 1951, he is transferred to Moscow, where he works as an inspector of the Central Committee, then transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) … appointed Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the USSR in Hungary. Successful practice of Andropov during the suppression of the Hungarian rebellion is becoming an excellent springboard for the next career leap. In 1962 Yuri Vladimirovich was elected secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Five years later he became chairman of the State