Four days after Andropov's death, on 9 February 1984, Chernenko was elected as the party's General Secretary.

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.

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.

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.

At 71, Konstantin Chernenko was in poor health, suffering from emphysema, and unable to play an active role in policy making when he was chosen, after lengthy discussion, to succeed Andropov.

Although Chernenko had called for renewed détente with the West, little progress was made towards closing the rift in East − West relations during his rule.

Chernenko gave Gorbachev high party positions that provided significant influence in the Politburo, and Gorbachev was able to gain the vital support of Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the struggle for succession.

Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko.

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 was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death.

Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes ( now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai ).

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.

It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a close-knit relationship with Fyodor Kulakov.

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.

In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet ( titular head of state of the Soviet Union ), Chernenko became his chief of staff.

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

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.

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 ).

Yegor Ligachev writes in his memoirs that Chernenko was elected general secretary without a hitch.

The practice of burying dignitaries on Red Square ended with the funeral of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985.

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

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

When Chernenko came on board in 1976, Kirilenko supervised the economy.

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

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.

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

Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until the late autumn of 1984.

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 Soviet Succession: From Andropov to Chernenko ," World Today, 40, April 1984, 134 – 41.

* Daniels, Robert V. " The Chernenko Comeback ," New Leader, 67, 20 February 1984, 3 – 5.

" Chernenko in Office ," International Perspectives, May – June 1984, 19 – 21.

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.

On February 9, 1984 Andropov died and was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko who in turn died on March 10, 1985.

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

Upon the deaths of Leonid Brezhnev ( 1982 ), Yuri Andropov ( 1984 ) and Konstantin Chernenko ( 1985 ), Kuznetzov became acting chairman of the Presidiumthe Soviet Union's acting head of state.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, Ligachev was promoted to become a Secretary of higher status, and was generally viewed as one of Gorbachev ’ s primary allies: he had helped organize a pro-Gorbachev faction in hope of having Gorbachev succeed Andropov in 1984, although this attempt failed ( instead, Konstantin Chernenko was chosen as a stop-gap candidate ).

Andropov died on February 9, 1984 and Chernenko was elected his replacement on February 13 but Chernenko was a compromise stopgap candidate as Gorbachev – Andropov's protege – lacked sufficient support in the Politburo.

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

Original CIA file on Chernenko, seized from the former US Embassy in Tehran.

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.

The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, who had advocated less spending on consumer goods in favor of greater expenditures on weapons research and development.

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?

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.

The only ones who saw him on a regular basis were Politburo members Dmitriy Ustinov, Andrei Gromyko, Konstantin Chernenko and Viktor Chebrikov.

According to historian Ilya Zemtsov, the author of Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik: The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika, Brezhnev began starting a conspiracy against Khrushchev when he found out that he had chosen Podgorny, and not himself, as his potential successor.

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.