Communist regimes will always feature a fair amount of palace intrigue, a feature not a bug. To be fair, democratic societies aren’t free from the same, it is just done somewhat differently (in case you hadn’t noticed). Top-level shuffles aren’t always random or driven entirely by ideology. Sometimes, they are as much about practicalities, even expedience.
There was Yuri Andropov the KGB chief who succeeded Brezhnev in November 1982 instead of Konstantin Chernenko. Andropov realized the Soviet state was in serious decay though did not believe it terminal. A committed Socialist, he wished to invigorate the ancient Leninist experiment with a rekindled romance for the Soviet Ideal.
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