Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1984 until his death a year later.

Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the Chairman of the KGB from 1967 until 1982.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism–Leninism. The party was outlawed under Russian President Boris Yeltsin's decree on 6 November 1991, citing the 1991 Soviet coup attempt as a reason.