ABSTRACT
Biology played an overwhelmingly important role in the crucial 1982-1985 succession drama in the USSR. The election of Andropov as Leonid Brezhnev's successor indicated that a powerful group of Politburo members, perhaps even a majority, was embarrassed by the corruption and stagnation during the latter period of Brezhnev's tenure. At the April 1985 communist party of the Soviet Union central committee plenum Mikhail Gorbachev declared that Moscow's claim to world leadership would lose credibility without a Soviet economic revival. Gorbachev seems for the moment to have reconciled himself to reforming the Soviet economy, not by changing the system but by making it work better. Gorbachev, disclaiming continuity with any Soviet leader since Lenin, has effectively established himself as the direct descendant of the founder of the Soviet Communist regime. Brezhnev has apparently become a nonperson. His name was not mentioned during the congress, and his period and his image were the main targets of Gorbachev's criticism.
