Editing Yuri Andropov (section)

==Legacy==
Andropov's legacy remains the subject of much debate in Russia and elsewhere among scholars and in the popular media. He remains the focus of television documentaries and popular nonfiction, particularly at important anniversaries. As KGB head, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and author [[David Remnick]], who covered the Soviet Union for ''[[The Washington Post]]'' in the 1980s, called him "profoundly corrupt, a beast".<ref name="D">Remnick, David, ''Lenin's Tomb:The Last Days of the Soviet Empire''. New York; Random House, 1993, p. 191.</ref> [[Alexander Yakovlev]], later an advisor to Gorbachev and the ideologist of [[perestroika]], said: "In a way I always thought Andropov was the most dangerous of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest."<ref name="D" /> But Andropov himself recalled Yakovlev back to high office in Moscow in 1983 after a ten-year exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism. Yakovlev was also a close colleague of Andropov associate KGB General [[Yevgeny Primakov]], later [[Prime Minister of Russia]]. Andropov began to follow a trend of replacing elderly officials with considerably younger ones.
[[Image:Yuri andropov grave in the kremlin wall necropolis july 2016.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Grave of Andropov at the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]], Moscow.]]

According to his former subordinate [[Securitate]] general [[Ion Mihai Pacepa]]:

<blockquote>In the West, if Andropov is remembered at all, it is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in planning the [[Prague Spring|1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia]]. By contrast, the leaders of the former [[Warsaw Pact]] intelligence community, when I was one of them, looked up to Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Soviet Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at improving the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers in the West.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040922034710/http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pacepa200409200814.asp No Peter the Great. Vladimir Putin is in the Andropov mold], by [[Ion Mihai Pacepa]], ''[[National Review]]'', 20 September 2004.</ref></blockquote>

Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Hungary]] and the numerous banishments and intrigues for which he was responsible as head of the KGB, many commentators regard him as a reformer, especially in comparison with the [[Era of Stagnation|stagnation]] and corruption of Brezhnev's later years. A "throwback to a tradition of Leninist asceticism",<ref name = "D"/> Andropov was appalled by the corruption of Brezhnev's regime, and ordered investigations and arrests of the most flagrant abusers. The investigations were so frightening that several members of Brezhnev's circle "shot, gassed or otherwise did away with themselves."<ref name="D"/> He was generally regarded as inclined to more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; most of the speculation centers on whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner that did not result in its [[dissolution of the Soviet Union|eventual dissolution]].

The Western media generally favored Andropov,<ref>Suny, Ronald Grigor, ''The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the successor states'' Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 449.</ref> but the short time he spent as leader, much of it in ill health, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of an extended rule. The 2002 Tom Clancy novel ''[[Red Rabbit]]'' focuses heavily on Andropov during his tenure of KGB chief, when his health was slightly better. It mirrors his secrecy in that British and American intelligence know little about him, not even able to confirm he was married. The novel also depicts Andropov as a fan of [[Marlboro (cigarette)|Marlboros]] and [[starka]] vodka, almost never available to ordinary Soviet citizens.