Chernenko never succeeded in becoming a " real " leader during his tenure in office because of his declining health

Chernenko was elected as a compromise candidate by the Politburo ; the Central Committee could never have accepted another candidate, considering that the majority of the Central Committee members were old Brezhnev appointees.

In this confusion, Chernenko was never able to become a strong leader.

The Godley & Creme-directed video depicted a wrestling match between then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko for the benefit of group members and an eagerly belligerent assembly of representatives from the world's nations, the event ultimately degenerating into complete global destruction.

To make matters worse for Chernenko, he did not have control over the Politburo ; both Andrei Gromyko and Dmitriy Ustinov were both very independent politically, and the Politburo still contained several leading Andropov protégés, such as Gorbachev, Vorotnikov, Solomontsev and Heydar Aliyev.

In contrast to previous general secretaries, Chernenko did not control the Cadre Department of the Central Committee, making Chernenko's position considerably weaker.

There are indications Gorbachev may have been in control prior to Chernenko's death as he was announced as the new General Secretary the day after Chernenko died on March 10, 1985.

In 1971 Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: Overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence.

Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov, despite concerns over his own ailing health, and against Andropov's wishes ( he stated he wanted Gorbachev to succeed him ).

In the spring of 1984, Chernenko was hospitalized for over a month, but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters.

On 28th February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out.

He became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years, and, upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, US President Ronald Reagan, who was seven months older than Chernenko and just over three years older than his predecessor Andropov, is reported to have remarked " how am I supposed to get any place with the Russians if they keep dying on me?

Yuri Andropov, Brezhnev's 68-year-old successor, was seriously ill with kidney disease when he took over, and after his death fifteen months later, he was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko, then 72, who lasted thirteen months before his death and replacement with Gorbachev.

According to Edwin Bacon and Mark Sandle, authors of Brezhnev Reconsidered, the economy under Brezhnev was as dynamic as the economy presided over by Nikita Khrushchev, but this dynamism had stalled by the time Yuri Andropov, and subsequently Konstantin Chernenko, became General Secretary.

The distribution of power within the Central Committee turned Chernenko into little more than a figurehead.

Chernenko died on 10 March 1985, and the Central Committee appointed Gorbachev General Secretary on 11 March.

But Andropov's ability to reshape the top leadership was constrained by his poor health and the influence of his rival ( and longtime ally of Leonid Brezhnev ) Konstantin Chernenko, who had previously supervised personnel matters in the Central Committee.

Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow.

At the Central Committee plenary session on 13 February 1984, four days after Andropov's death, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Premier, and Politburo member Nikolai Tikhonov moved that Chernenko be elected general secretary, and the Committee duly voted him in.

By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying.

The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected Gorbachev and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him ; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.

* Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of the Soviet Union, becomes a candidate member of the Central Committee.

In 1976, Brezhnev appointed Konstantin Chernenko to be his " counterweight " in the Central Committee ( CC ).

Konstantin Chernenko, another old Brezhnev protégé, became a " counterweight " to Kirilenko's power within the Central Committee ( CC ).

Chernenko then steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment then in 1939, the Deputy Head of the AgitProp Department of Krasnoyarsk Territorial Committee and finally, in 1941 he was appointed Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda.

Following the death of terminally ill Konstantin Chernenko, the Politburo elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ) in March 1985, marking the rise of a new generation of leadership.

* 1984 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko ( 24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985 ) was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Chernenko joined the Komsomol ( Communist Youth League ) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931.

The turning point in Chernenko ’ s career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party ’ s propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in ideological Party work: Heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and was a member of the commission that revised the Soviet Constitution in 1977.

After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, there was speculation the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, however he was unable to rally enough popular support for his candidacy within the Party, and the posting fell to former KGB chief Yuri Andropov.

In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock.

* February 13 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko further rehabiliated Molotov ; in 1984 Molotov was even allowed to seek a membership in the Communist Party.

Chernenko did come up with a solution, to make it law that the Party leader would also become the leader of the Government apparatus.

When Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, it signaled a dramatic change in Soviet foreign policy.

* February 13: Konstantin Chernenko is named General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

At the same meeting, Grishin was asked to chair the commission responsible for Chernenko's funeral ; Grishin turned down the offer, claiming that Gorbachev was closer to Chernenko than he was.

Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov and other general secretaries, recounts an episode that occurred after a Politburo meeting on the day following Andropov's demise: As Politburo members filed out of the conference hall, either Andrei Gromyko or ( in later accounts ) Dmitriy Ustinov is said to have put his arm round Nikolai Tikhonov's shoulders and said: " It's okay, Kostya is an agreeable guy ( pokladisty muzhik ), one can do business with him ...." The Politburo failed to pass the decision for Gorbachev, who was nominally Chernenko's second in command, to run the meetings of the Politburo itself in the absence of Chernenko ; the latter due to his declining health, began to miss those meetings with increasing frequency.

Upon Andropov's death in 1984, the aged Konstantin Chernenko took power ; after his death the following year, it became clear to the party hierarchy that younger leadership was needed.

After that, Brezhnev approved the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 ( Prague Spring ) and ended with the Soviet war in Afghanistan which continued after his death ; he installed an authoritarian regime that lasted throughout his life and the lives of his two successors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.