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Andropov also played an important role in the careers of Gorbachev's two upstart choices, Yegor Ligachev, 64, and Nikolai Ryzhkov, 55, who vaulted over five candidate Politburo members.* Ligachev studied aircraft engineering and rose through party ranks in Siberia, eventually becoming party chief in Tomsk, a military-industrial center. Andropov brought him to Moscow in 1983, where he has served under Gorbachev in the Central Committee Secretariat, supervising the selection of high-level party personnel throughout the Soviet Union.
, Gorbachev's other choice, Ryzhkov, is even more of a political dark horse. A former miner, he earned an engineering degree and eventually managed heavy- industry plants in the Urals. Transferred to Moscow in 1975 and named First Deputy Minister of Heavy and Transport Engineering, Ryzhkov served as a deputy director of Gosplan, the state planning agency, from 1979 to 1982. Then he, like Ligachev, was transferred to the Central Committee Secretariat, the powerful body that administers the Soviet Union's day-to-day affairs. Ryzhkov has since headed the Secretariat's economic department and has been involved in drafting the upcoming 1986-1990 Five-Year Plan.
Gorbachev made two other significant personnel moves. In a gesture toward the armed forces, he named Marshal Sergei Sokolov, 73, the Defense Minister, to Politburo candidate status. Sokolov could attain full membership by the time of the next Central Committee plenum at the end of the year. Some Western analysts believe that the armed forces may feel shortchanged by Sokolov's promotion compared with that of Security Chief Chebrikov. What occurred may be yet another repercussion of the still mysterious demotion in September 1984 of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the ambitious former Chief of Staff, to command of the Soviet western front.
The final appointment was that of Viktor Nikonov, 56, who is expected to take over Gorbachev's former job as Central Committee Secretary in charge of agriculture. Nikonov was a party official in various Soviet republics before moving to Moscow in 1979 as Deputy Agriculture Minister. In 1983 he became agriculture
minister of the Russian republic, the most important of the Soviet states.
Gorbachev's top-level changes were surprising only in comparison with the stasis of Chernenko's tenure, a period in which no new Politburo members were appointed. That hiatus received subtle emphasis the day before the Central Committee meeting from another Young Guard member of the Politburo, Geidar Aliyev, 61. Speaking on the 115th anniversary of Lenin's birth, Aliyev asserted that finding talent in the Soviet Communist Party was no problem. Said he: "It is only a matter . . . of not being afraid to trust them and of promoting young party members more boldly." Gorbachev made much the same point during his Central Committee address. Said he: "Certain leaders who have occupied the same post for many years sometimes have ceased to see the new and have become accustomed to shortcomings. There is something to think about here."