The beginning of the political biography of Yu.V. Andropov is inextricably linked with the main part of the history of the sixteenth union republic of the USSR - the Karelo-Finnish SSR (1940–1956). Andropov’s Karelian time (1940–1951) determined his formation as a young promising political figure who went through a rigorous school of formation as a youth leader, a specialist in the field of organizing military work (underground activities in occupied areas, partisan movement, analytical intelligence) in the extreme conditions of the Great Patriotic War in the North. A special page of the Karelian time Yu.V. Andropova is hidden behind the secrets of political survival during the period of late Stalinism. The echo of the “Leningrad affair” turned out to be painful for Karelia - the result of irreconcilable confrontation between party groups in the Stalinist system of power. As the second leader in the party hierarchy of the KFSSR, Andropov found himself in the focus of the confrontation between political elites in 1949–1950. In the events of this time, one can find the answer to many questions of Andropov’s political biography of the 1950–1980s.