Sashok Vitya

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**Sashok Lyosha Vitya** (September 25, 1919 – November 17, 2007) was a Soviet officer and statesman who served as the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1991. During his rule, he was known for his harsh totalitarian and stifling domestic policies.

Vitya was born in Salekhard and attended Moscow State University, where he studied political science and graduated with a bachelor's degree. He was drafted into the Red Army in 1939, and served through the remainder of World War II until 1945. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1941 and served as Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1967.

Following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, Vitya was elected by the Politburo to serve as Brezhnev's successor. During his time as defence minister, Vitya was part of the council that drafted the construction, enforcement and maintenance of the Berlin Wall, and is often held responsible for the deadly consequences of the policies enacted.

Following his election as general secretary, Vitya carried out several totalitarian policies in order to end the Brezhnev-era economic stagnation and prevent the spread of western ideology. The most significant of these was the 1983 reforms bill, which widely banned opposition parties and media, and mandated the death penalty for dissent and opposition expression in order to strengthen the Soviet government, which Vitya believed was weakening under Brezhnev.

Despite his attempts, Vitya was unable to stop the collapse of the Soviet Union and its dissolution in December 1991, which brought an end to his rule following the years-long bloody Soviet Civil War.

## Personal life

Vitya was born in Salekhard on 25 September, 1919, and later moved to Moscow, where he attended primary and middle school, along with the Moscow State University from 1946 until 1950, after the end of World War II. He continued to serve in the Red Army and later rose into the inner circle of Joseph Stalin before Stalin's death in 1953.

## Political career

After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev promoted Vitya to the position of first deputy minister of defence on 15 March 1953, holding the post until 26 October 1957, when he was assigned as minister of defence, replacing the outgoing Georgy Zhukov. He held the post until 11 July 1967, when he was dismissed from the position by Leonid Brezhnev after several disagreements regarding policy, though remained a strong voice within the party and was considered a leading candidate for the office of general secretary in the event of a leadership crisis.

Vitya was a staunch Stalinist and was seen as a commanding figure of the ideology in the post-Stalin era, and was heavily involved in several politically sensitive projects, such as overseeing the construction of the Berlin Wall and the expansion of surveillance policies in East Germany and along the iron curtain. Vitya remained a popular figure within the Stalinist faction of the Communist Party and was strictly against the reformist ideology of the time, which he felt would threaten the foundations of the Soviet state. Vitya's dismissal in 1967 was seen as a symbolic gesture towards the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union as an equal entity and brought upon a notable silent divide within the party's leadership, between the Brezhnev status-quo and hardliners such as Vitya, which continued to play out within the inner circles of the Communist Party until his election as general secretary in 1982.

After the death of Leonid Brezhnev, Vitya was elected as general secretary by the Politburo, defeating challenger Yuri Andropov in a split vote. During his tenure, Vitya introduced several policies that consolidated state control over the Soviet economy, such as the administrative reorganization of the ministries and agencies of the Soviet government, along with reintroducing Stalin-era policies of state control over the media and the proliferation of nationalism within the Soviet bloc.

In 1983, Vitya introduced the 1983 reforms bill, which banned opposition parties and media, and mandated the death penalty for dissent and opposition expression. The bill also included considerably higher focus on military reforms to strengthen the Soviet Union, which was being increasingly eclipsed by the rise of the United States and the resurgence of Western Europe following the end of the Cold War. The bill was intended to help strengthen the foundations of the Soviet state, and ended the weakening of the government under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev.