#andropov

[mockva]

Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Chernenko, Andropov. Four secretaries general in one frame before the parade on November 7, 1981 in Moscow.

[sugar-gun]

Blue dragon, I love drawing them hanging out in the grass

[noi-exe]

BD

[gitrog]

I read the Socialism Betrayed and I kept imgaining the politicians as sexy young twinks. They said that Andropov spent half his time out of office for health reasons and I imagined a tragic 20 year old with a heart condition that won't stop him from serving.

(The Andropov in question)

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

1980s-90s: Soviet/Russian Intelligence Internal Rivalries and the Russian State

From Russian writer Oleg Grechenevsky rejected-in-Russia and now online book “Origins of Our “Democratic” Regime on KGB/Soviet/Russian power struggles.  Grechenevsky contacted me about his online book last year and I translated a portion of his very long work A Russian Perspective on PRC Party Power Struggles. There are machine translations (a technology that has improved considerably over the…

[soup-mother]

imagining one of those really sorta...aggro communist blogs but who always gets the soviet leader wrong.

"Gorbachev should have kept going west"

"Andropov should have gulag'd your family"

"Brezhnev didn't kill enough kulaks"

"Chernenko is the reason your country even exists "

etc. just something to think about.

[casualist-tendency]

[prussianmemes]

The Ukrainian authorities gave official permission for the decommunization of the sculpture "Motherland" in Kyiv. A trident will appear on the shield, which is raised over the Ukrainian capital by a giant female figure, instead of the coat of arms of the Soviet Union." - BBC Russia

i was hoping this would escape the recent wave of iconoclasm, but evidently post-soviets can't create anything of their own, they know only how to destroy.

[hozonkai1]

[anarchic-miscellany]

"Armageddon" has, rightfully, been remembered as a very, very silly film, but I will defend the characterisation in the script: Each of the oil crew gets one or two lines to define them, and thus we actually kind of like them super early on, and have a ragtag bunch of guys whom you want to see live. It helps that they are played by some of the best, most reliable actors working today: 1. You have Colonel Sharpe, douchebag uptight military man. Who better to play him than William Fichtner? In the most William Fichtner part! I like that he has that little moment of "you guys aren't bad" where he backs down and doesn't shoot them on the moon. What a line to write... 2. "Chick", the loyal, reliable, supportive right hand man, just an all round good dude they give a wife and son to, you're like "Oh man, this motherfucker is DEAD" especially because he's played by Will Patton. But oddly? No! 3. Rockhound: "because I'm a genius, that's why!" acts like he's going to die on the mission, loses a bunch of money to a stripper named Molly Mounds (amazing name) and ends up going insane on the rock. Again survives. Love him, no notes, joint best character. Thank you, Steve Buscemi, as usual. 4. Speaking of the best character, Peter God-Damned Stormare plays "Lev Andropov", the late addition Russian cosmonaut, who is grouchy and Russian and kind of lovable. Will he betray them? No! He is accepted into this group of weirdo rednecks, no questions asked, after his ship explodes, and just sort of sticks around. He gets all of the best non-Rockhound lines ("Russian components? American components? ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!") and did I mention he's Peter Stormare? Love him. 5. Bruce Willis plays a grouchy old dad/leader/roughneck guy, you know, a Bruce Willis character. You know what you're getting with him, and the casting carries it all the way, he could do this part in his sleep. 6. Ben Affleck, oft unfairly maligned, here a solid pick, and has that funny story about being told to "shut the fuck up" by Michale Bay by questioning the stupidity of the plot. 7. Michael Clarke Duncan, always great, plays token black guy "Bear", and once again you're like: "Hmm, a 90s movie? With the big lovable guy who's an absolute sweetheart? Guess he'd better write a will!" But again: nope! Then we get to our "expendable" guys, and even there, they get one or two characteristics so that we know, when they die, a bit about them: There's the fat guy who loves his mother, the cowboy guy played by Owen Wilson, and the rough and tumble roughneck guy. I mean, a few rewrites and you could have these guys having a bit more banter and silliness in space (even if we get the alread incredible, 10/10, no notes line "Why does he have a gun in space?" from a despairing Chick) but yeah - as basic, quick, rapid fire introductions and archetypical characters go? Not bad.

[knockoutqueenoftheunderworld]

Sooooo the Penvellyns are distantly related to Harry Houdini? (by marriage?)

(Eustacia Andropov is a phone character in the final scene)

[incorrectnancydrewquotes]

I already know an awful lot of people. Until one of them dies, I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.

Eustacia Andropov, The Final Scene

[noi-exe]

"If in beginning the gang knew she is Zola"

Im so normal about them

[ammg-old2]

All that said, we should be worried as much by the prospect of Putin’s defeat as by any victory. What if Putin were toppled? This is not like the last days of the Soviet Union. There is no nice, decent Yeltsin-like or Gorbachev-like figure with the power and standing to immediately take over.

“The old Soviet Union had institutions — there were party and state organs — central and provincial �� which were responsible for maintaining their bailiwicks, as well as some order of succession,” Leon Aron, a Russia scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, whose book about Putin’s Russia is being published in October, remarked to me. “When Putin came in, he bulldozed or subverted all political and social structures outside the Kremlin.”

But Russian history does offer some surprising twists, Aron added: “Longer-term, historically, successors to Russia’s reactionary rulers are often more liberal, especially early in their term: Alexander I after Paul I, Alexander II after Nicholas I, Khrushchev after Stalin, Gorbachev after Andropov. So if we can get through a transition from Putin, there is some hope.”

In the near-term, though, if Putin were to be ousted, we could well end up with someone worse. How would you feel if Prigozhin were in the Kremlin this morning, commanding Russia’s nuclear arsenal?

You could also get disorder or civil war and the crackup of Russia into warlord/oligarch fiefs. As much as I detest Putin, I detest disorder even more, because when a big state cracks apart it is very hard to put it back together. The nuclear weapons and criminality that could spill out of a disintegrated Russia would change the world.

This is not a defense of Putin. It is an expression of rage at what he did to his country, making it into a ticking time bomb spread across 11 time zones. Putin has taken the whole world hostage.

If he wins, the Russian people lose. But if he loses and his successor is disorder, the whole world loses.