ABSTRACT
The routine speeches of Academician Anatoliy Aleksandrov, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow worker Viktor Pushkarev, contained nothing important or memorable. No reverberations of the power struggle that accompanied Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov's election could be discerned in the speeches. Although the transfer of power after Leonid Brezhnev's death took place amid an impressive display of collective unity and smooth efficiency, several important conclusions, which were to characterize the entire period of Andropov's tenure, could readily be drawn. The delay in Andropov's selection indicates that Konstantin Chernenko had some support among the Politburo members and that his faction succeeded in temporarily delaying Andropov's election. Andropov was aware of the importance of the Soviet Army's support and also apparently conscious of the military's reaction to Chernenko's speech in Tbilisi. Perhaps the old priest of ideological purity succeeded in blocking not only Chernenko's but also Andropov's career.
