Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (15 June 1914 – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as Chairman of the KGB from 1967 to 1982 and as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from November 1982 until his death. Born in Nagutskaya, Stavropol Governorate, Russian Empire, to a railway worker father, he began his career as a telegraph operator, film projectionist, and boatman on the Volga River. He attended a technical college and Petrozavodsk University but faced scrutiny in the 1930s over his family's proletarian background. Advancing through Communist Party roles, he joined the Central Committee apparatus in 1951, served as Soviet ambassador to Hungary in 1953 where he supported the suppression of the 1956 uprising, and headed the department for Eastern Bloc relations from 1957. As KGB Chairman, he oversaw domestic repression, dissident surveillance, and foreign intelligence operations, including the Prague Spring invasion. Succeeding Leonid Brezhnev, his brief tenure as General Secretary focused on anti-corruption and discipline campaigns but was curtailed by chronic kidney failure.