ABSTRACT
Within 28 months, the Soviet Union experienced four secretaries general. The USSR underwent no radical changes from Brezhnev to Andropov and from Andropov to Chernenko. This, however, is not to say that the Soviet Party leader is always a figurehead on the ship of state or that invisible forces keep the ship on a course predetermined since time immemorial. At the very least, both Andropov and Chernenko had a go at resetting the course of Soviet domestic and foreign policies in their own way.
