Grigory Vasilyevich Romanov (, scientific transliteration: Grigorij Vasil'evič Romanov; 7 February 1923 – 3 June 2008) was a Soviet politician and member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1985, he was considered Mikhail Gorbachev's main rival in the succession struggle after the death of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985, the third Soviet leader to die in just a few short years. Early life and career Romanov was born in Novgorod Oblast into a Russian peasant family. A soldier in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, Romanov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1944. Romanov graduated from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute in 1953, and became a designer in a shipyard. He fulfilled several important posts in the party committee of the enterprise he was working at and later in the Leningrad city and regional party committees. In September 1970 he was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Leningrad Region. In this position he gained a reputation of being a good organizer and well versed in economic matters, winning defense investment for Leningrad. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the XXIVth congress of the CPSU in 1971. He became a candidate member of the Central Committee's Politburo in 1973 and a full member in 1976. In 1977 he initiated a successful vote to remove Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Nikolai Podgorny from the Politburo. Secretary of the Central Committee In 1983 Romanov attracted the attention of the new General Secretary Yuri Andropov, who subsequently brought him to Moscow and helped promote him in June 1983 to the very prestigious and influential post of a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU responsible for industry and the military-industrial complex. During the few remaining months of Andropov's life Romanov was widely seen as one of Andropov's closest collaborators and was an ardent supporter of Andropov's comprehensive program for the reform, renewal and further development of socialism in the Soviet Union and beyond, a fact which stands in sharp contrast to the picture Gorbachev and his associates were later to paint of Romanov as a means of gaining advantage in the power struggles following Andropov's death in February 1984. Romanov attracted international attention on November 5, 1983, during the height of