The author of this book had to collect information about the life of Yuri Andropov with great difficulty. After all, in all of world history, Andropov is one of the most secret political figures. What secrets are hidden behind the figure of the Secretary General from Lubyanka? Why and how did the head of the KGB become the leader of the Soviet country after the death of Leonid Brezhnev? Historian Sergei Semanov decided to peer into the life path of the mysterious Secretary General and evaluate his personal qualities.

A microscopic party and Komsomol worker in a remote Russian province, Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, unexpectedly for everyone, soared to the very, very heights of the Kremlin towards the end of his life. But he purposefully and patiently strived for these cherished heights all his life. Silently, secretly, having no comrades, but only secret accomplices, as two-faced as himself, he finally soared into the Kremlin skies. Apparently, in all of world history, Andropov became and will remain the most secret head of the secret political police! He strengthened the communist system in every possible way - and slowly undermined it. He put “dissidents” in mental hospitals - and at the same time created a future political career for them. He fought against the bourgeois West - and in his soul he adored the Western way of life. Finally, he hid from everyone his first family and two children, whose fate - abandoned by their father - was extremely difficult.

Such was this secret figure, unsolved to this day.