The More Things Change: A Late 20th Century Russia Timeline

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    • Kruglyasheo

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    General Secretary Boris Yeltsin and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev​

    The passing of time brings them together once more: Boris Yeltsin would have turned 90 on February 1, and Mikhail Gorbachev will mark his 90th birthday slightly more than a month later, on March 2. This invites comparison between the two leaders and allows for a better understanding of the role and historic significance of each.

    Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin came from within Soviet political system. There was no other way to pursue a political career and rise to the top in the Soviet Union. But the similarity ends there. The two men later became political opponents and left very different legacies in Russia today.​

    – Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Moscow Center, 2021
     
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  • Index
    • Chapter 1 .1
  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

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    Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko​

    Immediately after Khrushchev's ouster, a "collective leadership" had been formed with Brezhnev as First Secretary, Alexei Kosygin (who began to lose power with the 24th Party Congress in 1971, which for the first time publicized the formula “the Politburo led by Brezhnev”) as head of government and Anastas Mikoyan (replaced in 1965 by Nikolai Podgorny) as head of state. Central Committee Secretaries Mikhail Suslov and Andrei Kirilenko were also a part of the collective leadership, with Kirilenko ranked fifth behind Brezhnev, Podgorny, Kosygin, and Suslov. In 1962, Andrei Kirilenko became a voting member of the Political Bureau and in 1966, when the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSFSR was abolished; Kirilenko became Brezhnev's chief lieutenant. Vadim Medvedev, a Soviet official, said Kirilenko's chief concern was maintaining and strengthening Brezhnev's position within the Party and men who were loyal to Brezhnev were also loyal to Kirilenko.

    While First World representatives treated Kirilenko as Second Secretary of the Communist Party because most of his duties had been associated with that office in the past, the actual state of affairs was a bit more complicated. Formally, the position of the Second Secretary did not exist, the second secretary was considered the secretary who directed the work of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and who replaced the General Secretary in his absence. By the mid-1970s, Kirilenko, who oversaw industry, capital construction, transport and communications, usually presided over the meetings of the Secretariat when Suslov was not around, which made him only “second” Second Secretary while Suslov was “first” Second Secretary.

    What is more important, Kirilenko, unlike Suslov or Podgorny, belonged to the "Dnipropetrovsk Mafia". It was the name given to an informal group of Soviet politicians who held high office while Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary, who knew him from his time when he was a provincial party official, in 1946-56. Apart from Brezhnev and Kirilenko, by 1975 this group included: Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine; Semyon Tsvigun, First Deputy Chairman of the KGB; Viktor Chebrikov, Deputy Chairman of the KGB; Georgi Tsinev, Deputy Chairman of the KGB; Nikolai Shchelokov, Minister of Interior; Veniamin Dymshits, Chairman of Gosplan; Konstantin Grushevoi, head of the political administration of the Moscow Military District; Ivan Novikov, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers responsible for the construction industry; Georgi Pavlov, Chief of Administration of the Central Committee of the CPSU; Sergei Trapeznikov, head of the Science and Education Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

    That's why when Brezhnev suffered a severe stroke in January 1975 and six months later died of a heart attack[1], Kirilenko was chosen as his successor as General Secretary. Nikolai Podgorny saw little threat to his position since it was strengthened at the expense of Premier Kosygin, so the post of Chairman of the Presidium became (de jure, but not de facto) the most important office in the USSR. In turn, Mikhail Suslov was quite pleased with his role as the gray cardinal of the party and did not show any desire to be anything other than the main ideologist.

    Therefore, the Soviet Union was once again ruled by the oligarchy known as a troika (i.e. "triumvirate"), and again this precarious balance did not last long.​

    – Who is in charge? Collegial Leadership, 1989
    [1] OTL he survived it, although Brezhnev's ability to lead the Soviet Union was significantly compromised.
     
  • Index
    • Chapter 1 .2
  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

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    Yakov Petrovich Ryabov​

    If Leonid Brezhnev had a “Dnipropetrovsk Mafia”, then Andrei Kirilenko had a “Sverdlovsk clan”. As soon as Defense Industry Secretary Dmitry Ustinov received Kirilenko’s old post of Industry, Capital Construction and Transport Secretary, the post of Defense Industry Secretary went to First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee Yakov Ryabov.

    From 1955 to 1962, Kirilenko himself was the First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Region, while Ryabov served as the First Secretary of the Ordzhonikidze District Party Committee of Sverdlovsk. When Ryabov was promoted to a new position in Moscow, he recommended that Regional Industry Secretary Boris Yeltsin replace him as the head of Sverdlovsk Party Committee. Kirilenko interviewed Yeltsin personally to determine his suitability and agreed with Ryabov's assessment.[2]

    – The Logic of Soviet Clan Politics, 1988
    [2] More or less OTL, although in reality promotions of Ryabov and, accordingly, Yeltsin took place a few months later, so Yeltsin was elected to the Central Committee only at the 26th Congress.
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    At the opening of the 25th Congress of the CPSU (1976), the Suslovites staged a demonstration: when Suslov's name was announced during the election of the Presidium of the Congress, thunderous applause burst out in the hall, obviously pre-arranged. However, the Kirilenkovites instantly got their bearings and began to applaud after each name read out to smooth over the awkwardness. It is not entirely clear whether Suslov himself knew about what was being prepared, but the fact remains, from Kirilenko's point of view, this extremely impudent trick showed that Suslov did not intend to be shy about the means and that it was necessary to act against him quickly. During the Congress, Suslov was suddenly approved as the chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, thus he dropped out of the Secretaries of the Central Committee.

    Kirilenko not only undermined Suslov's position personally, but also dispersed his group, so that Suslov simply had no one to rely on. In particular, this event greatly worsened the career prospects of First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai and member of the Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev, since Gorbachev had good relations with Suslov, who was also once the head of the Stavropol Krai.

    At the time of Leonid Brezhnev, it was generally accepted in the Politburo that the Ideology Secretary was the Second Secretary, and the Industry Secretary was the Third, while in the Regional Party Committees everything was the other way around – the Second Secretary was the Industry Secretary, and the Third Secretary was the Ideology Secretary. However, after the complete defeat of Suslov, Kirilenko brought the situation in the Politburo into line with the Regional Committees.

    – Nomenclature. The dominant class of the Soviet Union, 1991
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    The removal of Podgorny from office in 1977 became the last step on the path of the transition from the Brezhnev era to the Kirilenko era. On 24 May 1977, the Central Committee took a unanimous vote after Yakov Ryabov proposed removing Podgorny from the Politburo. The vote seemed to have taken Podgorny by surprise, and immediately after the vote, he got up from his politburo seat to instead sit with the ordinary members. The Central Committee had however only voted him off the Politburo, and Podgorny still retained the position of Chairman of the Presidium. The Soviet media told the Soviet people that he had retired due to his stance against détente and producing more consumer goods. After his removal from the Politburo Podgorny's name disappeared from Soviet media. Podgorny finally lost his Chairmanship of the Presidium on 16 June 1977 when Kirilenko himself become the Chairman of the Presidium.

    – Russia's Transformation: Snapshots of a Crumbling System, 1998 ​
     
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  • Index
    • Chapter 1 .3
  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

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    Soviet troops enter Afghanistan, 1979​

    USTINOV. We have prepared two options in respect to military action. Under the first one, we would, in the course of a single day, deploy into Afghanistan the 105th airborne division and redeploy the infantry-motorized regiment into Kabul; toward the border we would place the 68th motorized division; and the 5th motor artillery division would be located at the border. Under this scenario, we would be ready for the deployment of forces within three days. But we must adopt the political decision that we have been talking about here.

    KIRILENKO. Comrade Ustinov has correctly stated the issue; we must come out against the insurgents. And in the political document this must be clearly and pointedly stated. In addition to this, Taraki must be instructed to change his tactics. Executions, torture and so forth cannot be applied on a massive scale. Religious questions, the relationship with religious communities, with religion generally and with religious leaders take on special meaning for them. This is a major policy issue. And here Taraki must ensure, with all decisiveness, that no illicit measures whatsoever are undertaken by them.

    USTINOV. We have a second option, which has also been prepared. This one deals with the deployment of two divisions into Afghanistan.

    ANDROPOV. We must finalize the political statement, bearing in mind that we will be labeled as an aggressor, but that in spite of that, under no circumstances can we lose Afghanistan.

    KIRILENKO. We have spoken at length, Comrades, and our opinions are clear; let us come to a conclusion. I think that we should accede to the proposal of Comrade Ustinov in connection with assistance to the Afghan army in overcoming the difficulties that it has encountered. means of the forces of our military units. We must think carefully about how we will respond to the accusations that will be leveled against the U.S.S.R. by other countries, when we are charged with aggression and so forth.*

    – TRANSCRIPT OF CPSU CC POLITBURO DISCUSSIONS ON AFGHANISTAN, 1979
    *OTL transcript.
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    By the end of the 1970s, the consumption of alcoholic beverages in the USSR reached a record level in the history of the country. Alcohol consumption, which during the time of the Russian Empire or during the era of Stalin did not exceed 5 liters per person per year, reached 10.5 liters of registered alcohol by 1984, and, taking into account underground moonshine brewing, it could exceed 14 liters. It was estimated that this level of consumption was equivalent to about 90-110 bottles of vodka a year for every adult male (vodka itself was about a third of this volume. The rest of the alcohol was consumed in the form of moonshine, wine and beer).

    In May 1982, Yuri Andropov sent Kirilenko a note on the need to "strengthen the fight against drunkenness." A commission was created, headed by the chairman of the Party Control Commission Pelshe, which by the autumn of the same year had prepared proposals for an anti-alcohol campaign. However, after the death of Pelshe, and then Andropov, the idea of the Anti-alcohol campaign was removed from the agenda.

    – Alcohol consumption in Russia, 1999
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    - Alexei Kosygin died on December 18, 1980 at the age of 76. Kosygin headed the Council of Ministers of the USSR for 16 years, becoming the longest-term head of government in the history of the USSR.
    - Arvīds Pelshe died on May 29, 1983 at the age of 84. He headed the main party control body - the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the CPSU.
    - Sharof Rashidov died on October 31, 1983 at the age of 65. He served as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR.
    - Yuri Andropov died on February 9, 1984 at the age of 69. He headed the KGB since 1967.
    - Dmitry Ustinov died on December 20, 1984 at the age of 76. Since 1976, he was member of the Politburo and Industry, Capital Construction and Transport Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

    “The Five-year plan of funerals has been approved by the Party. Party will try to fulfill it in four years.”

    – Soviet joke from the 80s​
     
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  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

    Cudymcar said:
    So, deaths (including accidents) are on OTL schedule?
    You know, in 1980 Kirilenko had a stroke resulting in brain damage which caused dementia in 1982. What a great General Secretary he will make!
    Click to expand...
    Brezhnev's health also deteriorated greatly in the early 80s, many important decisions of the Politburo were made in his absence by almost the same people as in this timeline. The same can be said about Chernenko and, to a lesser extent, about Andropov. My idea is that replacing one senile with another will change little, except for a pool of potential successors.

    And actually, I think you're right about Masherov's death. I will exclude him from the list.
     
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    Bougnas

    Kruglyasheo said:
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    Soviet troops enter Afghanistan, 1979​

    USTINOV. We have prepared two options in respect to military action. Under the first one, we would, in the course of a single day, deploy into Afghanistan the 105th airborne division and redeploy the infantry-motorized regiment into Kabul; toward the border we would place the 68th motorized division; and the 5th motor artillery division would be located at the border. Under this scenario, we would be ready for the deployment of forces within three days. But we must adopt the political decision that we have been talking about here.
    ​
    Click to expand...
    I thought Ustinov wasn't the Defense Industry secretary anymore? Is the Industry, Capital Construction and Transport Secretary supposed to deal with military matters?
     

    Kruglyasheo

    Bougnas said:
    I thought Ustinov wasn't the Defense Industry secretary anymore? Is the Industry, Capital Construction and Transport Secretary supposed to deal with military matters?
    Click to expand...
    As Industry secretary he was Kirilenko’s second-in-command.
     
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    Chapter 1 .4
  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

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    Boris Yeltsin, soviet Politburo member with PM Margaret Thatcher during his visit to the UK​

    …Yakov Ryabov was dismissed from the post of Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee due to the fact that "while in Nizhny Tagil in 1979, Ryabov allowed himself to frankly tell a local party activist about Kirilenko's poor health", as well as because of serious disagreements with Dmitry Ustinov.[3] In 1980 Kirilenko suffered a heart attack. In March 1981, when at the 26th Congress of the CPSU he was instructed to read out the list of candidates for membership in the CPSU Central Committee, Kirilenko could not pronounce a single name correctly.*

    Boris Yeltsin was appointed to the Central Committee's Secretariat for Defense Industry, replacing his old patron Ryabov. He had growing concerns about the country's industrial management system, coming to regard it as overly centralized and requiring more bottom-up decision making; he raised these points at his first speech at a Central Committee Plenum, given in June 1979. He began to have concerns about other policies too. When the Soviets sent the Red Army into neighboring Afghanistan to support its Soviet-aligned government against Islamist insurgents, Yeltsin privately thought it a mistake. In March 1980, he was promoted from a candidate member to a full member of the Politburo, the highest decision-making authority in the Communist Party. At the time, he was the Politburo's youngest member. In December 1984, he succeeded Dmitry Ustinov, who died of aortic valve aneurysm, as Industry Secretary, which essentially made him Kirilenko’s second-in-command.[4]

    In April 1984, he was appointed chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Soviet legislature, a largely honorific position. In December, he visited Britain at the request of its Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; she was aware that he was a potential reformer and wanted to meet him. Yeltsin felt that the visit helped to send a signal to the United States government that he wanted to improve Soviet-U.S. relations.

    – Soviet Leadership Successions in Perspective, 1999
    [3] OTL, but it was about Brezhnev’s health.
    *OTL
    [4] Based in part on Gorbachev's promotions.
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    In February 1985, Second Secretary Boris Yeltsin began discussing Kirilenko's mental health state with his colleagues. According to the memoirs of Pyotr Masherov, Second Secretary expressed everything he thought about Kirilenko. According to Yeltsin, General Secretary has ceased to be taken seriously both at home and abroad, and the West fears that the situation may get out of control, and then there will be a threat of unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. As Masherov recalled, Yeltsin told the gathering, “Kirilenko has to be removed. Enough! No more playing the tsar!"[5]

    On 7 March, Yeltsin informed Kirilenko of his ouster and told him not to resist, plotters' coup went off smoothly. Kirilenko felt betrayed by Yeltsin, as he considered him a loyal ally until that very moment, but he had no stomach for a fight, and put up little resistance. On 10 March 1985, the Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Kirilenko's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices for reasons of "advanced age and ill health" and Yeltsin was elected General Secretary.

    – Soviet Leadership Successions in Perspective, 1999
    [5] More or less based on Yeltsin's arguments against Gorbachev during the signing of the Belovezha Accords.​
     
  • Index
    • Chapter 2 .1
  • Index

    • Kruglyasheo

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    Boris Yeltsin and Ronald Reagan after signing the INF Treaty​

    Yeltsin had inherited a renewed period of high tension in the Cold War. He believed strongly in the need to sharply improve relations with the United States as he thought that the continued focus on high military spending was detrimental to his desire for domestic reform.

    British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher played a key role in brokering the negotiations between Reagan and new Soviet General Secretary Boris Yeltsin in 1986 to 1987. In March 1986, negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union resumed, covering not only the INF issue, but also the separate Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and space issues (Nuclear and Space Talks). In late 1985, both sides were moving towards limiting INF systems in Europe and Asia. On 15 January 1986, Yeltsin announced a Soviet proposal for a two-thirds reduction in the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and the USSR by the year 2000.

    A series of meetings in August and September 1986 culminated in the Reykjavík Summit between Reagan and Yeltsin on 11 and 12 October 1986. Both agreed in principle to remove INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of 100 INF missile warheads. Yeltsin also proposed deeper and more fundamental changes in the strategic relationship. The treaty text was finally agreed in September 1987. On 5 January 1988, the treaty was officially signed by Reagan and Yeltsin at a summit in Washington and ratified in May of that year by the United States Senate.

    Mr. Yeltsin: "It is not every century that history gives us an opportunity to witness and participate in an event that is so significant in scale and consequences. The treaty signed today represents the first step toward fulfilling mankind's centuries-old dream of disarmament."

    Mr. Reagan: "We meet at the beginning of a new year and at a moment that is also a new era for our two nations and for the world."[1]

    – Lessons of the INF Treaty, 1995
    [1] Partially based on the signing of the START II.
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    Yeltsin's decision to leapfrog over an older generation of power brokers in favor of a new generation of politicians served several political ends. It prevented rivals from using a high post to remove him from office, as Yeltsin feared several older members from the Politburo – Andrei Gromyko, Nikolai Tikhonov, and Viktor Grishin – were planning before he dismissed them. It was also intended to refresh Soviet Government with a new sense of purpose. The new team also appeared to be independent of powerful interests – with the important exception of Yeltsin.[2]

    He promoted Gromyko to head of state, a largely ceremonial role with little influence, and moved his own ally, Ambassador to Canada Alexander Yakovlev, to Gromyko's former post in charge of foreign policy. Then he replaced Chairman of the Council of Ministers Tikhonov with his friend from Sverdlovsk Nikolai Ryzhkov. Finally, he replaced the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee, 70-year-old Grishin, with a comrade of his age from Stavropol, Mikhail Gorbachev. In his first year, 14 of the 23 heads of department in the secretariat were replaced. Most of these appointees were from a new generation of well-educated officials who had been frustrated during the Kirilenko era. Doing so, Yeltsin secured dominance in the Politburo within a year, faster than either Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Kirilenko had achieved.

    – The Struggle For Vstryaska, 1999
    [2] Partially based on Yeltsin’s frequent “ministerial leapfrogs” in key positions in the Russian government. ​
     
  • Index

    • Karelian

    Premier Yeltsin will mean interesting butterflies for Finland, where Koivisto has most likely been elected President in 1982, and will seek a second term in 1988.
    In OTL Yeltsin publicly acknowledged that the Soviet Union had started the Winter War, and was reportedly also open for discussing potential revisions to the the border of 1944. Koivisto, in turn, held a clear foreign line where Finland renounced all potential irredentist claims. Whether Yeltsin would make such openings in TTL, and whether Koivisto would turn down the Kekkonen-era plans of renting/reclaiming the city of Vyborg, Saimaa Channel and areas west of it are an open question.
     

    Bougnas

    Kruglyasheo said:
    There were even more pretentious words about a new era of peaceful coexistence, but the treaty itself hasn't changed much
    Click to expand...
    Alright. I seem to recall that at some point the Soviets were even pushing for banning bombers too and were tempted to do that unilateraly.
     
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