12 November — Yuri Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
For 15 months Andropov led the country, trying to overcome the looming socio-economic crisis by introducing strict discipline among party apparatus employees and in workplaces. Andropov advocated tougher sanctions against corruption, nepotism, embezzlement of "socialist property," and bribery, seeing this as a path to strengthening the socialist system.
In practice, this resulted in a campaign (December 1982 — January 1983) during which the police in Moscow and other cities carried out arbitrary document checks and detained citizens found in public places during working hours (shops, barbershops, public baths, cinemas, etc.).
As head of state, Andropov intended to carry out a number of serious reforms in the country's political and economic life, but poor health prevented him from putting these plans into practice. Already in the autumn of 1983 he was taken to a hospital, where he remained continuously until his death on 9 February 1984.
He was a complex person with wide-ranging interests. According to some accounts, Yuri Vladimirovich liked both old Cossack songs and the work of the 1960s bards: Yuri Vizbor and Vladimir Vysotsky, and he himself sang quite well. Less known is another of his pursuits, a true passion.
He knew Glenn Miller's work almost professionally. Andropov had an exceptionally complete collection of records by the American jazz musician, and he knew many of Miller's pieces by heart. Andropov's modesty amazed even his colleagues. When he died, his relatives were left with virtually nothing but personal belongings. He meticulously turned all gifts over to the state. More than once he refused Brezhnev's offer to grant him the highest military ranks. When Brezhnev insisted, Andropov donated all the money paid to him as an Army General to an orphanage, keeping this secret from his colleagues in the Politburo.