Editing Konstantin Chernenko (section)

==Early life and political career==
[[File:Черненко Константин Устинович, партийный билет.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.93|Chernenko's Party card following his promotion to the Soviet Union's ruling [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee.]]]]

===Origins===
Chernenko was born to a poor family in the [[Siberian]] village of [[Bolshaya Tes]] (now in [[Novosyolovsky District]], [[Krasnoyarsk Krai]]) on 24 September 1911.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jessup|first=John E.|title=An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996|year=1998|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|page=121|url=https://www.questia.com/read/106899354/an-encyclopedic-dictionary-of-conflict-and-conflict|isbn=|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=10 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010024655/https://www.questia.com/read/106899354/an-encyclopedic-dictionary-of-conflict-and-conflict|url-status=dead}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>

Chernenko joined the [[Komsomol]] (Communist Youth League) in 1929. By 1931 he became a full member of the ruling Communist Party. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the [[Soviet Border Troops|Soviet frontier guards]] on the Soviet–Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to [[Krasnoyarsk]] as a [[propaganda in the Soviet Union|propagandist]]. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom.

Chernenko steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment before being named Deputy Head of the [[Agitprop]] Department of Krasnoyarsk's Territorial Committee in 1939. In the early 1940s, he began a close relationship with [[Fyodor Kulakov]] and was named Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Hough, Jerry F.|author-link=Jerry F. Hough|title=Democratization and revolution in the USSR, 1985–1991|publisher=[[Brookings Institution Press]]|year=1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BzaaFXMpvMkC|isbn=0-8157-3748-3|page=67|access-date=15 October 2016|archive-date=2 June 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225110/https://books.google.com/books?id=BzaaFXMpvMkC|url-status=live}}</ref> By 1945 he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow then later finished a [[distance education|correspondence course]] for schoolteachers in 1953.

===Rise to the Soviet leadership===
[[File:Chernenko (3x4 cropped).jpg|thumb|left|160px|Chernenko in 1962.]]
The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]]. There, he met and won the confidence of [[Leonid Brezhnev]], the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Central Committee]] in Moscow. In 1960 after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.

In 1964, Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] was deposed, and succeeded by Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] agenda and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored [[telephone tapping|telephone wiretaps]] and [[covert listening device]]s in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a [[facsimile]] was used instead).

[[File:1982 Ceausescu la Moscova la 60 de ani de la formarea URSS.JPG|thumb|left|225px|Chernenko (seated second from left in the front row) attending the USSR's 60th Anniversary in 1982.]]
In 1971, Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976 he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in the Party hierarchy.

During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in [[ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|ideological Party work]]: heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the [[Constitution of the Soviet Union|Soviet Constitution]] in 1977. In 1979, he took part in the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II|Vienna arms limitation talks]].

After [[Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev's death]] in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy within the Party. Ultimately, [[KGB]] chief [[Yuri Andropov]] eventually won the position.