In this position, he refrained from taking effective measures to reform the Soviet economy, a need which was strongly evidenced during the early–mid-1980s.

[2] Tikhonov joined the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) in 1940 and by the end of the decade, had secured a job as a plant director.

[7] Tikhonov was not informed of the decision to intervene in Afghanistan; the reason being his bad relationship with Dmitriy Ustinov, the Minister of Defense at the time.

[1] Tikhonov presented the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (1981–85) at the 26th Party Congress, and told the delegates that the state would allocate nine million roubles for mothers who were seeking parental leave.

[10] Despite this, Tikhonov admitted to economic "shortcomings" and acknowledged the ongoing "food problem"; other topics for discussion were the need to save energy resources, boost labour productivity and to improve the quality of Soviet produced goods.

[11] Early in his term, in January 1981, Tikhonov admitted that the government's demographic policy was one of the weakest areas of his cabinet.

[14] Some Western analysts speculated that the appointment of Andrei Gromyko to the First Deputy Premiership, again without Tikhonov's consent, was a sign that his position within the Soviet hierarchy was weakened.

His speech was not read out to the Central Committee plenum because of an anti-Gorbachev troika consisting of Chernenko, Dmitriy Ustinov and Tikhonov.

During Andropov's last days, Tikhonov presided over the Politburo sessions, headed the 1984 Soviet delegation to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance conference in East Berlin, conducted bilateral relations with the Eastern Bloc states, and hosted the Prime Minister of Finland when he visited the Soviet Union.

In short, in-between Andropov's last days and Chernenko's rise to power, Tikhonov was the dominant driving figure of the Soviet Union.

[16][additional citation(s) needed] When Chernenko died in 1985, Tikhonov tried, but failed, to find a contender to Gorbachev's candidacy to the General Secretaryship.

[17] Upon Gorbachev's ascension to power, Tikhonov was elected chairman of the newly established Commission on Improvements of the Management System.

[1] After his forced resignation from active politics in 1989, Tikhonov wrote a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev which stated that he regretted supporting his election to the General Secretaryship.

As one of his friends noted, he lived as "a hermit" and never showed himself in public[3] and that his later life was very difficult as he had no children and because his wife had died.

[24] Shortly before his death, he wrote a letter addressed to Yeltsin: "I ask you to bury me at public expense, since I have no financial savings.

When he worked in the government, he and his wife spent all their money on the purchase of buses, which they donated to pioneer camps and schools.

[6] According to Time magazine, Tikhonov was a "tried and tested yes man" who had very little experience in foreign and defence policy when he took over the Premiership from Alexei Kosygin.