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 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.

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.

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 ).

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 ).

Heidenstam was born in 1859, of a prosperous family.

Sherlock Holmes, the ancestor of all private eyes, was born during the 1890s.

Henrietta was discovering in the process of writing, as the born writer does, not merely a channel for the discharge of accumulated information but a stimulus to the development of the creative powers of observation, insight and intuition.

She was born Lilian Steichen, her parents immigrants from Luxemburg.

`` My mother read a book right after I was born and there was a Lilian in the book she loved and I became Lilian -- and eventually I became Paula ''.

By now she was sure she was going to have a baby, deciding it would be born in India or Burma that November.

He was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1909.

About the only time the Hetman seemed excited was when one of his own pet ideas was born.

On April 10, 1904, his first child was born, a son named George after the late Senator.

Modern warfare was born in this campaign -- periscopes, camouflage, booby traps, land mines, extended order, trench raids, foxholes, armored cars, night attacks, flares, sharpshooters in trees, interlaced vines and treetops, which were the forerunners of barbed wire, trip wires to thwart a cavalry charge, which presaged the mine trap, and the general use of anesthetics.

Deppy is Despina Messinesi, a long-time member of the Vogue staff who, although born in Boston, was born there of Greek parents.

Samuel Gorton was born at Gorton, England, near the present city of Manchester, about 1592.

Whether the Fathers, who died before Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, were justified and saved only by the blood which he shed, and the death which he suffered after his incarnation??

Whether the only price of our redemption were not the death of Christ on the cross, with the rest of his sufferings and obediences, in the time of his life here, after he was born of the Virgin Mary??

In the judgment of Chief of Staff Scott it was ironic that the draft policy of a Democratic President, aimed at Germany, had to be pushed through the House of Representatives by the ranking minority member of the Military Affairs Committee -- a Republican Jew born in Germany!!

Thus, the Church was born and because of its intrinsic character was soon identified as a conservative institution, determined to resist the forces of change, to identify itself with the political rulers, and to maintain a kind of splendid isolation from the masses.

And she replied, `` I was born in America, but I was conceived in Vienna ''.

I was born angry.

He kept his attacks on Republicanism for partisan campaigns, but that is part of the game he was born to play.