Chernenko, Konstantin

Chernenko, Konstantin (Ustinovich)

(born Sept. 11, 1911, Bolshaya Tes, Yeniseysk, Russian Empire—died March 10, 1985, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Soviet leader. He joined the Communist Party in 1931 and rose through the ranks to become Leonid Brezhnev's chief of staff (1964). He was a full member of the Central Committee from 1971 and of the Politburo from 1977. An old-line conservative, he was considered by some to be Brezhnev's heir apparent, but he failed in a bid to succeed Brezhnev as party leader in 1982. When Yuri Andropov died, Chernenko succeeded him in 1984. His physical frailty soon became apparent, suggesting that his election had been intended as an interim measure; he died the next year.

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Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich 

Born Sept. 11 (24), 1911, in the village of Bol’shaia Tes’, in what is now Novo-selovo Raion, Krasnoiarsk Krai. Soviet party and state figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1976). Member of the CPSU since 1931.

The son of a peasant, Chernenko graduated from the Higher School of Party Organizers of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) in 1945 and the Kishinev Pedagogical Institute in 1953. Beginning in 1929 he engaged in Komsomol, soviet, and party work. He served as secretary of the Krasnoiarsk Krai Committee of the party from 1941 to 1943 and as secretary of the Penza oblast committee from 1945 to 1948. In 1948 he became head of the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldavia.

Chernenko headed a section in the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1956 to 1960, the Secretariat of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 1960 to 1965, and the General Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1965 to 1976. In 1976 he was made a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1966 and a member in 1971. Chernenko was named a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1977 and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee in 1978. He was a deputy to the seventh through tenth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Chernenko has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.