During his tenure, Brezhnev's governance improved the Soviet Union's international standing while stabilizing the position of its ruling party at home. Whereas Khrushchev regularly enacted policies without consulting the Politburo, Brezhnev was careful to minimize dissent among the party elite by reaching decisions through consensus thereby restoring the semblance ofcollective leadership. Additionally, while pushing fordétente between the twoCold War superpowers, he achieved nuclear parity with theUnited States and strengthened Moscow's dominion overCentral and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the massive arms buildup and widespread military interventionism under Brezhnev's leadership substantially expanded Soviet influence abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. By the mid-1970s, numerous observers argued the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States to become the world's strongest military power.
Conversely, Brezhnev's leadership also witnessed a significant increase inrepression andcensorship throughout the Soviet Union compared to the relatively liberal years of theKhrushchev Thaw.[12][13][14] Ultimately, Brezhnev's hostility towards political and economic reform ushered in an era of socioeconomic decline referred to as theEra of Stagnation. In addition to pervasive corruption and declining economic growth, this period was also characterized by the shrinking availability of consumer goods and a growing technological gap between the Soviet Union and the United States.
After 1975, Brezhnev's health rapidly deteriorated and he increasingly withdrew from governing the country despite remaining its highest authority. He eventuallydied on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded as general secretary andhead of state byYuri Andropov. Upon coming to power in 1985,Mikhail Gorbachev denounced Brezhnev's government for its inefficiency and inflexibility beforelaunching a campaign toliberalize the Soviet Union, culminating in itsoutright collapse by the early 1990s. Notwithstanding the backlash to his regime's policies in the mid-1980s, Brezhnev's rule has received consistently high approval ratings in public polls conducted in post-Soviet Russia.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 inKamenskoye (now Kamianske,Ukraine) within theYekaterinoslav Governorate of theRussian Empire tometalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874–1934) and his wife, Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886–1975).[15] His father lived in Brezhnevo (Kursky District, Kursk Oblast, Russia) before moving to Kamenskoye. The parents of Brezhnev's mother came fromYenakiieve.[16] Brezhnev's ethnicity was given asUkrainian in some documents, including his passport,[17][18][19] and Russian in others.[20][21] A statement confirming that he regarded himself as a Russian can be found in his workMemories, where he wrote: "And so, according to nationality, I am Russian, I am a proletarian, a hereditary metallurgist."[16]
Brezhnev's niece wrote that in 1913, Brezhnev enrolled in aparish school. Two years later, he was admitted to a grammar school. In order to pass the entrance exams, students were required to demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic, pass a dictation, and recite a poem.[22] Brezhnev left Kamenskoe for Kursk due to thefamine of 1921–1923 and got employment as aporter at acooking fat factory.[23]
In 1923, Brezhnev joined theKomsomol, the Bolshevik youth organization. He was seventeen at that time, which was relatively old for the organization. This led his biographer Paul J. Murphy to surmise that he did it for careerist reasons.[24] In the same year, Brezhnev enrolled at a college and four years later got a degree inland management.[25] He started to work a year before graduation, first as a trainee in theByelorussian SSR and, after receiving the diploma, in theKursk Governorate and later in theUral Oblast.[26] During his work there, Brezhnev applied forCommunist Party membership in 1929, spending two years as a candidate before becoming a full Party member two years later.[27] Brezhnev reached a position of the head of land registry ofSverdlovsk in 1930, but relinquished it just half a year later to move toMoscow to enroll at the Institute of Agricultural Machinery. HistorianSusanne Schattenberg speculates that he did so to avoid the excesses ofcollectivization that the Soviet Union was undergoing at that time.[28]
Brezhnev did not stay in Moscow for long and left only two months later due to a housing shortage.[29] Initially, he worked as a fitter at a plant inZaporozhye. A year later, he enrolled in an evening program at the Arsenichev Institute of Metallurgy to studythermal engineering, while simultaneously working at theDnieper Metallurgical Combine, which was one of the focal points ofSoviet industrialization.[30] While still a student, Brezhnev was appointed as the director of the Workers’ Faculty in 1933.[31] He graduated from the institute in 1935,[32] but worked as an engineer for less than half a year before being drafted into theRed Army. During his one-year service, Brezhnev received military training inChita and became apolitical commissar of a tank division.[33]
During Stalin'sGreat Purge, Brezhnev was one of manyapparatchiks who exploited the resulting openings in the government and the party to advance rapidly in the regime's ranks.[21] In 1936, he was appointed director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Technical College and a year later he became deputy chairman of the Kamenskoye city soviet.[34] In May 1938, he obtained a position in Dnepropetrovsk and metNikita Khrushchev, who had just taken control of the Ukrainian Communist Party.[35] This relationship would be decisive for Brezhnev's future career. In 1939, he was appointed propaganda secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk party committee.[36][32] During this time, Brezhnev took the first steps toward building a network of supporters which came to be known as the "Dnipropetrovsk Mafia" that would greatly aid his rise to power.[37]
WhenNazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Brezhnev was tasked with overseeing mobilization plans and the evacuation of Soviet factories. In July, he requested to be drafted into the military and was assigned to theSouthern Front.[38] During the retreat of Soviet forces, he returned to Dnepropetrovsk and remained in the city up to 25 August, the day it fell. In Autumn, Brezhnev was made deputy of political administration for the Southern Front, with the rank of Brigade-Commissar (equivalent to Colonel).[39][40] During this period, Brezhnev developed his contacts with Khrushchev further, directly serving under his leadership from July to October 1941.[41]
When the Germans occupiedUkraine in 1942, Brezhnev was sent to theCaucasus as deputy head of political administration of theNorth Caucasus Front.[42] In April 1943 he became head of the Political Department of the 18th Army.[43] Later that year, the 18th Army became part of the1st Ukrainian Front, as the Red Army regained the initiative and advanced westward through Ukraine.[44] In 1944, Brezhnev was promoted to the rank of major general as Soviets successfully pushed German forces out ofTranscarpathia.[45] At the end of the war in Europe, Brezhnev was chief political commissar of the4th Ukrainian Front, which enteredPrague in May 1945, after the Germansurrender.[39]
At the end of the war, Brezhnev was the head of the political administration of theCarpathian Military District and oversaw theSovietization of newly incorporated territories.[46] He left the position in June 1946,[47] and a few months later was appointed the first secretary of theZaporizhzhia regional party committee,[48] where his deputy wasAndrei Kirilenko, one of the most important members of theDnipropetrovsk Mafia.[49][50] After working on reconstruction projects in Ukraine, he returned to Dnipropetrovsk in November 1947 as regional first party secretary.[51] In 1950 Brezhnev became a deputy of theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest legislative body.[52] In July that year he was sent to theMoldavian SSR and appointed Party First Secretary of theCommunist Party of Moldova,[1] where he was responsible for completing the introduction of collective agriculture.[53]Konstantin Chernenko, a loyal addition to the "mafia", was working in Moldova as head of theagitprop department, and one of the officials Brezhnev brought with him from Dnipropetrovsk was the future USSR Minister of the Interior,Nikolai Shchelokov.[1][54]
In 1952, Brezhnev met withStalin who subsequently promoted him to the Communist Party'sCentral Committee as a candidate member of the Presidium (formerly thePolitburo) and made him a member of theSecretariat.[55] Following Stalin's death in March 1953, Brezhnev was demoted to first deputy head of the political directorate of the Army and Navy.[56][57] He remained close to the main events, as he participated in the arrest ofLavrentiy Beria in June. In August, he was promoted tolieutenant general.[58]
Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Brezhnev's main patron
Brezhnev's patron Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as General Secretary, while Khrushchev's rivalGeorgy Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Chairman of theCouncil of Ministers.[59] In February 1954, Brezhnev was appointed second secretary of theCommunist Party of theKazakh SSR, where he worked underPanteleimon Ponomarenko who was Malenkov's protege.[60] Following Khrushchev's victory over Malenkov, Ponomarenko was removed in May 1955 and Brezhnev was promoted to First Secretary in August.[61] In Kazakhstan, Brezhnev oversaw the construction of theBaikonur Cosmodrome[62] and conducted theVirgin Lands campaign. He was recalled to Moscow in 1956, before it became clear that the campaign would turn out to be disappointing.[1]
In Moscow, Brezhnev became a candidate member of thePolitburo and was appointed secretary of Defense Industry.[63] In this position, he oversaw the development of the Soviet missile and nuclear arms programs.[62][64] In June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with Malenkov's Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called "Anti-Party Group". Following the Stalinists' defeat, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo.[1] In May 1960, he was promoted to the post of Chairman of thePresidium of the Supreme Soviet, making him the nominal head of state, although the real power resided with Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Premier.[65]
Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure until about 1962, but as he aged, he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of his fellow leaders. The Soviet Union's mounting economic problems also increased the pressure on Khrushchev's leadership.[66] Brezhnev remained outwardly loyal to Khrushchev, but became involved in a 1963 plot to remove him from power, possibly playing a leading role. Also in 1963, Brezhnev succeededFrol Kozlov, another Khrushchev protégé, as Secretary of theCentral Committee, thereby positioning himself as Khrushchev's likely successor.[67] Khrushchev made himSecond Secretary, or deputy party leader, in 1964.[68]
Brezhnev (center) partaking in a hunting outing with Khrushchev (far left) and Finnish presidentUrho Kekkonen (second from right) in 1963, one year before Khrushchev's ousting
After returning fromScandinavia andCzechoslovakia in October 1964, Khrushchev, unaware of the plot, went on holiday to thePitsunda resort on theBlack Sea.[69]Anastas Mikoyan visited Khrushchev, hinting that he should not be too complacent about his present situation.[69]Vladimir Semichastny, head of theKGB, was a crucial part of the conspiracy, as it was his duty to inform Khrushchev if anyone was plotting against his leadership.[70]Nikolay Ignatov, whom Khrushchev had sacked, discreetly requested the opinion of severalCentral Committee members. After some false starts, fellow conspiratorMikhail Suslov phoned Khrushchev on 12 October and requested that he return to Moscow to discuss the state ofSoviet agriculture.[71] Finally, Khrushchev understood what was happening, and said to Mikoyan, "If it's me who is the question, I will not make a fight of it."[71] Mikoyan wanted to remove Khrushchev from the office of First Secretary but retain him as theChairman of theCouncil of Ministers, but the rest of the Presidium, headed by Brezhnev, wanted to remove him from active politics altogether.[71]
Brezhnev and Suslov appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him ofvoluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by Brezhnev's allies, Politburo members voted on 14 October to remove Khrushchev from office.[72][73] Some members of the Central Committee wanted him to undergo punishment of some kind, but Brezhnev, who had already been assured the office of the General Secretary, saw little reason to punish Khrushchev further.[74] Brezhnev was appointed First Secretary on the same day, but at the time was believed to be a transitional leader, who would only "keep the shop" until another leader was appointed.[75]Alexei Kosygin was appointedhead of government, and Mikoyan was retained ashead of state.[76] Brezhnev and his companions supported the general party line taken after Stalin's death but felt that Khrushchev's reforms had removed much of the Soviet Union's stability.[74] When Khrushchev left the public spotlight, there was no popular commotion, as most Soviet citizens, including theintelligentsia, anticipated a period ofstabilization, steady development of Soviet society and continuing economic growth in the years ahead.[74]
Political scientistGeorge W. Breslauer has compared Khrushchev and Brezhnev as leaders. He argues they took different routes to build legitimate authority, depending on their personalities and the state of public opinion. Khrushchev worked to decentralize the government system and empower local leadership, which had been wholly subservient; Brezhnev sought to centralize authority, going so far as to weaken the roles of the other members of the Central Committee and the Politburo.[77]
Upon replacing Khrushchev as the party's First Secretary, Brezhnev became thede jure supreme authority of the Soviet Union. However, he was initially forced to govern as part of an unofficialTriumvirate (also known by its Russian nameTroika) alongside the country'sPremier,Alexei Kosygin, andNikolai Podgorny, aSecretary of the CPSU Central Committee and laterChairman of the Presidium.[78][79] Due to Khrushchev's disregard for the rest of the Politburo upon combining his leadership of the party with that of the Soviet government, a plenum of the Central Committee in October 1964 forbade any single individual from holding both the offices ofGeneral Secretary andPremier.[74]
During his consolidation of power, Brezhnev first had to contend with the ambitions ofAlexander Shelepin, the former chairman of theKGB and current head of theParty-State Control Committee. In early 1965, Shelepin began calling for the restoration of "obedience and order" within the Soviet Union as part of his own bid to seize power.[80] Towards this end, he exploited his control over both state and party organs to leverage support within the regime. Recognizing Shelepin as an imminent threat to his position, Brezhnev mobilized the Soviet collective leadership to remove him from the Party-State Control Committee before having the body dissolved altogether on 6 December 1965.[81]
Brezhnev following a speech to the 1968 Komsomol Central Committee plenary session in his capacity as General Secretary. By then, he had reestablished the post as the top authority in both name and practice.
Additionally, by the end of 1965, Brezhnev had Podgorny removed from the Secretariat, thereby significantly curtailing the latter's ability to build support within the party apparatus.[82] In the ensuing years, Podgorny's network of supporters was steadily eroded as the protégés he cultivated in his rise to power were removed from the Central Committee.[83] By 1977, Brezhnev was secure enough in his position to replace Podgorny as head of state and remove him from the Politburo altogether.[84][85]
After sidelining Shelepin and Podgorny as threats to his leadership in 1965, Brezhnev directed his attentions to his remaining political rival, Alexei Kosygin. In the 1960s, U.S. National Security AdvisorHenry Kissinger initially perceived Kosygin to be the dominant leader ofSoviet foreign policy in the Politburo. Within the same timeframe, Kosygin was also in charge of economic administration in his role as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. However, his position was weakened following his enactment of several economic reforms in 1965 that collectively came to be known within the Party as the "Kosygin reforms". Due largely to coinciding with thePrague Spring (whose sharp departure from the Soviet model led to its armed suppression in 1968), the reforms provoked a backlash among the party's old guard who proceeded to flock to Brezhnev and strengthened his position within the Soviet leadership.[86] In 1969, Brezhnev further expanded his authority following a clash with Second Secretary Mikhail Suslov and other party officials who thereafter never challenged his supremacy within the Central Committee.[87]
Brezhnev was adept at politics within the Soviet Union. Unlike Khrushchev, he did not make decisions without consulting with his colleagues and hearing their opinions.[88] By the early 1970s, Brezhnev had successfully consolidated his position asfirst among equals within the Politburo. While Kosygin continued to hold office as Premier until shortly before his death in 1980, Brezhnev's dominance over the Soviet leadership remained secure from the mid-1970s[89] up until his eventual death in 1982.[90]
Brezhnev has defined it as theSoviet-style socialism, which he believed had been successfully constructed in the Soviet Union. It emphasized the advanced technological developments with the use of nuclear power in production, computer planning, as well as a highly mechanized agriculture. Under developed socialism all social strata within the Soviet Union were closer to each other than ever before due to the highly developed productive force in the country.[92][93]
One of the main reasons behind the doctrine was an attempt to secure Soviet leadership among the Socialist bloc by presenting the USSR as a country that had reached a more advanced level of socialist development which other countries were yet to achieve.[94] Domestically, Developed Socialism was a response to the inability to reach communism by 1980, as had been promised by Khrushchev.[95] It entrenched Party rule and promoted conservativism and caution by focusing on gradual change.[96]
Brezhnev's stabilization policy included ending theliberalizing reforms of Khrushchev, and clamping down on cultural freedom.[97] This policy gradually led to an increasingly authoritarian and conservative attitude.[98][99]
By the mid-1970s, there were an estimated 10,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union, living in grievous conditions and suffering from malnutrition. Many of these prisoners wereconsidered by the Soviet state to be mentally unfit and were hospitalized inmental asylums across the Soviet Union. Under Brezhnev's rule, the KGB infiltrated most, if not all, anti-government organisations, which ensured that there was little to no opposition against him or his power base. However, Brezhnev refrained from the all-out violence seen under Stalin's rule.[100] The trial of the writersYuli Daniel andAndrei Sinyavsky in 1966, the first such public trials since Stalin's reign, marked the reversion to a repressive cultural policy.[98] UnderYuri Andropov the state security service (in the form of theKGB) regained some of the powers it had enjoyed under Stalin, although there was no return to the purges of the 1930s and 1940s, and Stalin's legacy remained largely discredited among the Sovietintelligentsia.[100]
Between 1960 and 1970, Soviet agriculture output increased by 3% annually. Industry also improved: during theEighth Five-Year Plan (1966–1970), the output of factories and mines increased by 138% compared to 1960. While the Politburo became aggressivelyanti-reformist, Kosygin was able to convince both Brezhnev and the politburo to leave the reformist communist leaderJános Kádár of theHungarian People's Republic alone because of an economic reform entitledNew Economic Mechanism (NEM), which granted limited permission for the establishment of retail markets.[110] In thePolish People's Republic, another approach was taken in 1970 under the leadership ofEdward Gierek; he believed that the government needed Western loans to facilitate the rapid growth of heavy industry. The Soviet leadership gave its approval for this, as the Soviet Union could not afford to maintain its massive subsidy for theEastern Bloc in the form of cheap oil and gas exports. The Soviet Union did not accept all kinds of reforms, an example being theWarsaw Pactinvasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 in response toAlexander Dubček's reforms.[111] Under Brezhnev, the Politburo abandoned Khrushchev'sdecentralization experiments. By 1966, two years after taking power, Brezhnev abolished theRegional Economic Councils, which were organized to manage the regional economies of the Soviet Union.[112]
TheNinth Five-Year Plan delivered a change: for the first time industrial consumer products out-produced industrial capital goods. Consumer goods such as watches, furniture and radios were produced in abundance. The plan still left the bulk of the state's investment in industrial capital-goods production. This outcome was not seen as a positive sign for the future of the Soviet state by the majority of top party functionaries within the government; by 1975 consumer goods were expanding 9% slower than industrial capital-goods. The policy continued despite Brezhnev's commitment to make a rapid shift of investment to satisfy Soviet consumers and lead to an even higher standard of living. This did not happen.[113]
During 1928–1973, the Soviet Union was growing economically at a faster pace than the United States and Western Europe.[citation needed] However, objective comparisons are difficult. The USSR was hampered by the effects of World War II, which had left most of the western USSR in ruins; however, Western aid and Soviet espionage in the period 1941–1945 (culminating in cash, material and equipment deliveries for military and industrial purposes) had allowed the Russians to leapfrog many Western economies in the development of advanced technologies, particularly in the fields of nuclear technology, radio communications, agriculture and heavy manufacturing. By the early 1970s, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity, and produced more steel, oil,pig-iron, cement and tractors than any other country.[114] Before 1973, the Soviet economy was expanding at a faster rate than that of the American economy (albeit by a very small margin). The USSR also kept a steady pace with the economies of Western Europe. Between 1964 and 1973, the Soviet economy stood at roughly half the output per head of Western Europe and a little more than one third that of the U.S.[115] In 1973, the process of catching up with the rest of the West came to an end as the Soviet Union fell further and further behind in computer technology, which proved decisive for the Western economies.[116] By 1973 theEra of Stagnation was apparent.[117]
TheEra of Stagnation, a term coined byMikhail Gorbachev, was attributed to a compilation of factors, including the ongoing"arms race"; the Soviet Union's decision to participate ininternational trade (thus abandoning the idea of economic isolation) while ignoring changes occurring in Western societies; increased authoritarianism in Soviet society; the invasion ofAfghanistan; the bureaucracy's transformation into an undynamicgerontocracy; lack of economic reform; pervasive political corruption, and other structural problems within the country.[118] Domestically, social stagnation was stimulated by the growing demands of unskilled workers, labor shortages and a decline in productivity and labor discipline. While Brezhnev, albeit "sporadically",[99] throughAlexei Kosygin, attempted to reform theeconomy in the late 1960s and 1970s, he failed to produce any positive results. One of these reforms was theeconomic reform of 1965, initiated by Kosygin, though its origins are often traced back to the Khrushchev Era. The reform was ultimately cancelled by theCentral Committee, though the Committee admitted that economic problems did exist.[119] After becoming leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev would characterize the economy under Brezhnev's rule as "the lowest stage of socialism".[120]
Based on its surveillance, the CIA reported that the Soviet economy peaked in the 1970s upon reaching 57% of American GNP. However, beginning around 1975, economic growth began to decline at least in part due to the regime's sustained prioritization of heavy industry and military spending overconsumer goods. Additionally, Soviet agriculture was unable to feed the urban population, let alone provide for a rising standard of living which the government promised as the fruits of "mature socialism" and on which industrial productivity depended. Ultimately, the GNP growth rate slowed to 1% to 2% per year. As GNP growth rates decreased in the 1970s from the level held in the 1950s and 1960s, they likewise began to lag behind that of Western Europe and the United States. Eventually, the stagnation reached a point that the United States began growing an average of 1% per year above the growth rate of the Soviet Union.[121]
The stagnation of the Soviet economy was fueled even further by the Soviet Union's ever-widening technological gap with the West. Due to the cumbersome procedures of the centralized planning system, Soviet industries were incapable of the innovation needed to meet public demand.[122] This was especially notable in the field of computers. In response to the lack of uniform standards for peripherals and digital capacity in the Soviet computer industry, Brezhnev's regime ordered an end to all independent computer development and required all future models to be based on theIBM/360.[123] However, following the adoption of the IBM/360 system, the Soviet Union was never able to build enough platforms, let alone improve on its design.[124][125] As its technology continued to fall behind the West, the Soviet Union increasingly resorted to pirating Western designs.[123]
The last significant reform undertaken by theKosygin government, and some believe in the pre-perestroika era, was a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers named "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", more commonly known as the1979 reform. The reform, in contrast to the 1965 reform, sought to increase the central government's economic involvement by enhancing the duties and responsibilities of the ministries. With Kosygin's death in 1980, and due to his successorNikolai Tikhonov's conservative approach to economics, very little of the reform was actually carried out.[126]
TheEleventh Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union delivered a disappointing result: a change in growth from 5 to 4%. During the earlierTenth Five-Year Plan, there had been target of 6.1% growth, but this was not met. Brezhnev was able to defer economic collapse by trading with Western Europe and theArab World.[121] The Soviet Union still outproduced the United States in the heavy industry sector during the Brezhnev era. Another dramatic result of Brezhnev's rule was that certainEastern Bloc countries became more economically advanced than the Soviet Union.[127]
USSR postage stamp of 1979, celebrating the 25th anniversary of theVirgin Lands Campaign
Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced traditional ways of organizing collective farms and enforced output quotas centrally. Although there was a record-high state investment in farming during the 1970s, the evaluation of agricultural output continued to focus on the grain harvest. Despite some improvement, there were still problems such as insufficient domestic production of fodder crops and a declining sugar beet harvest. Brezhnev attempted to address these issues by increasing state investment and allowing privately owned plots to be larger. However, these actions were not effective in solving fundamental problems like a shortage of skilled workers, a ruined rural culture, and inappropriate farm machinery for small collective farms. A significant reform was necessary, but it was not supported due to ideological and political considerations.[128]
Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced the conventional methods for organizing thecollective farms. Output quotas continued to be imposed centrally.[129] Khrushchev's policy of amalgamating farms was continued by Brezhnev, because he shared Khrushchev's belief that biggerkolkhozes would increase productivity. Brezhnev pushed for an increase in state investments in farming, which amounted to an all-time high in the 1970s of 27% of all state investment – this figure did not include investments in farm equipment. In 1981 alone, 33 billionU.S. dollars (by contemporary exchange rate) was invested into agriculture.[130]
Agricultural output in 1980 was 21% higher than the average production rate between 1966 and 1970.Cereal crop output increased by 18%. These improved results were not encouraging. In the Soviet Union the criterion for assessing agricultural output was the grain harvest. The import of cereal, which began under Khrushchev, had in fact become a normalphenomenon by Soviet standards. When Brezhnev had difficulties sealing commercial trade agreements with the United States, he went elsewhere, such as toArgentina. Trade was necessary because the Soviet Union's domestic production offodder crops was severely deficient. Another sector that was hitting the wall was thesugar beet harvest, which had declined by 2% in the 1970s. Brezhnev's way of resolving these issues was to increase state investment. Politburo memberGennady Voronov advocated for the division of each farm's workforce into what he called "links".[130] These "links" would be entrusted with specific functions, such as to run a farm's dairy unit. His argument was that the larger the work force, the less responsible they felt.[130] This program had been proposed toJoseph Stalin byAndrey Andreyev in the 1940s and had been opposed by Khrushchev before and after Stalin's death. Voronov was also unsuccessful; Brezhnev turned him down, and in 1973 he was removed from the Politburo.[131]
Experimentation with "links" was not disallowed on a local basis, withMikhail Gorbachev, the then First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, experimented with links in his region. In the meantime, the Soviet government's involvement in agriculture was, according to Robert Service, otherwise "unimaginative" and "incompetent".[131] Facing mounting problems with agriculture, the Politburo issued a resolution titled, "On the Further Development of Specialisation and Concentration of Agricultural Production on the Basis of Inter-Farm Co-operation and Agro-Industrial Integration".[131] The resolution orderedkolkhozes close to each other to collaborate in their efforts to increase production. In the meantime, the state's subsidies to the food-and-agriculture sector did not prevent bankrupt farms from operating and rises in the price of produce were offset by rises in the cost of oil and other resources. By 1977, oil cost 84% more than it did in the late 1960s. The cost of other resources had also climbed by the late 1970s.[131]
Brezhnev's answer to these problems was to issue two decrees, one in 1977 and one in 1981, which called for an increase in the maximum size of privately owned plots within the Soviet Union to half a hectare. These measures removed important obstacles for the expansion of agricultural output but did not solve the problem. Under Brezhnev, private plots yielded 30% of the national agricultural production when they cultivated only 4% ofthe land. This was seen by some as proof that de-collectivization was necessary to prevent Soviet agriculture from collapsing, but leading Soviet politicians shrank from supporting such drastic measures due to ideological and political interests.[131] The underlying problems were the growing shortage of skilled workers, a wrecked rural culture, the payment of workers in proportion to the quantity rather than the quality of their work, and too large farm machinery for the small collective farms and the roadless countryside. In the face of this, Brezhnev's only options were schemes such as large land reclamation and irrigation projects, or of course, radical reform.[132]
Brezhnev at International Women's Day celebrations, 1973
Over the eighteen years that Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, average income per head increased by half; three-quarters of this growth came in the 1960s and early 1970s. During the second half of Brezhnev's premiership, the average income per head grew by one-quarter.[133] In the first half of the Brezhnev period, income per head increased by 3.5% per annum; slightly less growth than what it had been the previous years. This can be explained by Brezhnev's reversal of most of Khrushchev's policies.[115] Consumption per head rose by an estimated 70% under Brezhnev, but with three-quarters of this growth happening before 1973 and only one-quarter in the second half of his rule.[134] Most of the increase in consumer production in the early Brezhnev era can be attributed to theKosygin reform.[135]
When the USSR's economic growth stalled in the 1970s, thestandard of living andhousing quality improved significantly.[136][137] Instead of paying more attention to the economy, the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev tried to improve the living standard in the Soviet Union by extendingsocial benefits. This led to an increase, though a minor one, in public support.[120] The standard of living in theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) had fallen behind that of theGeorgian Soviet Socialist Republic (GSSR) and theEstonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) under Brezhnev; this led many Russians to believe that the policies of theSoviet Government were hurting theRussian population.[138] The state usually moved workers from one job to another, which ultimately became an ineradicable feature in the Soviet industry.[139] Government industries such as factories, mines and offices were staffed by undisciplined personnel who put a great effort into not doing their jobs; this ultimately led, according to Robert Service, to a "work-shy workforce".[140] The Soviet Government had no effective counter-measure; it was extremely difficult, if not impossible to replace ineffective workers because of the country's lack of unemployment.
While some areas improved during the Brezhnev era, the majority of civilian services deteriorated and living conditions for Soviet citizens fell rapidly. Diseases were on the rise[140] because of the decaying healthcare system. The living space remained rather small byFirst World standards, with the average Soviet person living on 13.4 square metres. Thousands ofMoscow inhabitants became homeless, most of them living in shacks, doorways and parked trams. Nutrition ceased to improve in the late 1970s, while rationing of staple food products returned toSverdlovsk for instance.[141]
The state provided recreation facilities and annual holidays for hard-working citizens.Soviet trade unions rewarded hard-working members and their families with beach vacations inCrimea andGeorgia.[142]
Social rigidification became a common feature of Soviet society. During theStalin era in the 1930s and 1940s, a common labourer could expect promotion to awhite-collar job if he studied and obeyed Soviet authorities. In Brezhnev's Soviet Union, this was not the case. Holders of attractive positions clung to them as long as possible; mere incompetence was not seen as a good reason to dismiss anyone.[143] In this way, too, the Soviet society Brezhnev passed on had become static.[144]
The first crisis for Brezhnev's regime came in 1968, with the attempt by the Communist leadership inCzechoslovakia, underAlexander Dubček, to liberalize the Communist system (Prague Spring).[145] In July, Brezhnev publicly denounced the Czechoslovak leadership as "revisionist" and "anti-Soviet". Despite his hardline public statements, Brezhnev was not the one pushing hardest for the use of military force in Czechoslovakia when the issue was before the Politburo.[146] Archival evidence suggests that Brezhnev[146] initially sought a temporary compromise with the reform-friendly Czechoslovak government when their dispute came to a head. However, in the end, Brezhnev concluded that he would risk growing turmoil domestically and within the Eastern bloc if he abstained or voted against Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia.[147]
As pressure mounted on him within the Soviet leadership to "re-install a revolutionary government" within Prague, Brezhnev ordered theWarsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Dubček's removal in August. Following the Soviet intervention, he met with Czechoslovak reformerBohumil Šimon (politik KSČ) [cs], then a member of the Politburo of theCzechoslovak Communist Party, and said, "If I had not voted for Soviet armed assistance to Czechoslovakia you would not be sitting here today, but quite possibly I wouldn't either."[146] However, contrary to the stabilizing effect envisioned by Moscow, the invasion served as a catalyst for further dissent in theEastern Bloc.[citation needed]
North Vietnamese troops pose in front of a SovietS-75 missile launcher.
Under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union initially supportedNorth Vietnam out of "fraternal solidarity". However, as the war escalated, Khrushchev urged the North Vietnamese leadership to give up the quest of liberatingSouth Vietnam. He continued by rejecting an offer of assistance made by the North Vietnamese government, and instead told them to enter negotiations in theUnited Nations Security Council.[148] After Khrushchev's ousting, Brezhnev resumed aiding the communist resistance in Vietnam. In February 1965, Premier Kosygin visitedHanoi with a dozen Soviet air force generals and economic experts.[149] Over the course of the war, Brezhnev's regime would ultimately ship $450 million worth of arms annually toNorth Vietnam.[150]
Lyndon B. Johnson privately suggested to Brezhnev that he would guarantee an end toSouth Vietnamese hostility if Brezhnev would guarantee a North Vietnamese one. Brezhnev was interested in this offer initially but rejected the offer upon being told byAndrei Gromyko that the North Vietnamese were not interested in a diplomatic solution to the war. TheJohnson administration responded to this rejection by expanding the American presence in Vietnam, but later invited the USSR to negotiate a treaty concerning arms control. The USSR did not respond, initially because of the power struggle between Brezhnev and Kosygin over which figure had the right to represent Soviet interests abroad, and later because of the escalation of the "dirty war" in Vietnam.[149]
In early 1967, Johnson offered to make a deal withHo Chi Minh, and said he was prepared to end U.S. bombing raids in North Vietnam if Ho ended his infiltration of South Vietnam. The U.S. bombing raids halted for a few days and Kosygin publicly announced his support for this offer. The North Vietnamese government failed to respond, and because of this, the U.S. continued its raids in North Vietnam. After this event, Brezhnev concluded that seeking diplomatic solutions to the ongoing war in Vietnam was hopeless. Later in 1968, Johnson invited Kosygin to the United States todiscuss ongoing problems in Vietnam and the arms race. The summit was marked by a friendly atmosphere, but there were no concrete breakthroughs by either side.[151]
In the aftermath of the Sino–Soviet border conflict, the Chinese continued to aid theNorth Vietnamese regime. However, with the death of Ho Chi Minh in 1969, China's strongest link to North Vietnam was gone. In the meantime,Richard Nixon had been elected President of the United States. While having been known for his anti-communist rhetoric, Nixon said in 1971 that the U.S. "must have relations with Communist China".[152] His plan was for a slow withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, while still retaining the government of South Vietnam. The only way he thought this was possible was by improving relations with both Communist China and the USSR. He later made a visit to Moscow to negotiate a treaty onarms control and theVietnam War, but on Vietnam nothing could be agreed.[152] Ultimately, years of Soviet military aid to North Vietnam finally bore fruit when collapsing morale among U.S. forces ultimately compelled their complete withdrawal from South Vietnam by 1973,[153][154] thereby making way for the country's unification under communist rule two years later.
Sovietforeign relations with the People's Republic of China quickly deteriorated afterNikita Khrushchev's attempts to reach arapprochement with more liberal Eastern European states such asYugoslavia and with the west.[155] When Brezhnev consolidated his power base in the 1960s, China was descending into crisis because ofMao Zedong'sCultural Revolution, which led to the decimation of theChinese Communist Party and other ruling offices. Brezhnev, a pragmatic politician who promoted the idea of "stabilization", could not comprehend why Mao would start such a "self-destructive" drive to finish thesocialist revolution, according to himself.[156] However, Brezhnev had problems of his own in the form of Czechoslovakia, whose sharp deviation from the Soviet model prompted him and the rest of the Warsaw Pact to invade their Eastern Bloc ally. In the aftermath of theSoviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, involving the overthrow of thereformist government there, the Soviet leadership proclaimed theBrezhnev Doctrine: any threat to "socialist rule" in any state of theSoviet Bloc inCentral andEastern Europe was a threat to all of them, and would justify the intervention of fellow communist states to forcibly remove the threat. The references to "socialism" meant control by thecommunist parties that were loyal to theKremlin.[157][156] This new policy increased tension not only with the Eastern Bloc, but also the Asian communist states. By 1969, relations with other communist countries had deteriorated to a level where Brezhnev was not even able to gather five of the fourteen ruling communist parties to attend an international conference in Moscow. In the aftermath of the failed conference, the Soviets concluded, "there was no leading center of the international communist movement."[158] Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine in the late 1980s, as the Kremlin accepted the peaceful overthrow of Soviet rule in all itssatellite countries in Eastern Europe.[159]
Later in 1969, the deterioration in bilateral relations culminated in theSino–Soviet border conflict.[158] The Sino–Soviet split had chagrined PremierAlexei Kosygin a great deal, and for a while he refused to accept its irrevocability; he briefly visited Beijing in 1969 due to the increase oftension between the USSR and China.[160] By the early 1980s, both the Chinese and the Soviets were issuing statements calling for a normalization of relations between the two states. The conditions given to the Soviets by the Chinese were the reduction of Soviet military presence in the Sino–Soviet border, the withdrawal of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and theMongolian People's Republic; furthermore, China also wanted the Soviets to end their support for theVietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Brezhnev responded in his March 1982 speech inTashkent where he called for the normalization of relations. Full Sino–Soviet normalization of relations would prove to take years, until the last Soviet ruler,Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power.[161]
Brezhnev (seated right) andU.S. President Gerald Ford signing a jointcommuniqué on theSALT treaty in Vladivostok
During his eighteen years asLeader of the USSR, Brezhnev's signature foreign policy innovation was the promotion ofdétente. While sharing some similarities with approaches pursued during theKhrushchev Thaw, Brezhnev's policy significantly differed from Khrushchev's precedent in two ways. The first was that it was more comprehensive and wide-ranging in its aims, and included signing agreements on arms control, crisis prevention, East–West trade, European security and human rights. The second part of the policy was based on the importance of equalizing the military strength of the United States and the Soviet Union.[162] Defense spending under Brezhnev between 1965 and 1970 increased by 40%, and annual increases continued thereafter. In the year of Brezhnev's death in 1982, 12% of GNP wasspent on the military.[163] Under Brezhnev, the Soviet Union's military budget increased eightfold, resulting in the possession of the largest number of ICBMs, nuclear warheads, aircraft, tanks, conventional forces and more military assets.[citation needed] This build up led numerous observers – including Western ones – to argue that by the mid-1970s the USSR had surpassed the United States as the world's strongest military power.[164][165][166]
At the1972 Moscow Summit, Brezhnev and U.S. presidentRichard Nixon signed theSALT I Treaty.[167] The first part of the agreement set limits on each side's development of nuclear missiles.[168] The second part of the agreement, theAnti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, banned both countries from designing systems to intercept incoming missiles so neither the U.S. or the Soviet Union would be emboldened to strike the other without fear of nuclear retaliation.[169]
By the mid-1970s,Henry Kissinger's policy of détente towards the Soviet Union was faltering.[according to whom?] The détente had rested on the assumption that a "linkage" of some type could be found between the two countries, with the U.S. hoping that the signing ofSALT I and an increase in Soviet–U.S. trade would stop the aggressive growth of communism in the third world. This did not happen, as evidenced by Brezhnev's continued military support for thecommunist guerillas fighting against the U.S. during theVietnam War.[170]
Brezhnev (second from left in front row) poses for the press in 1975 during negotiations for theHelsinki Accords.
AfterGerald Ford lost the presidential election toJimmy Carter,[171] American foreign policies became more overtly aggressive in vocabulary towards the Soviet Union and thecommunist world. Attempts were also made to stop funding for repressive anti-communist governments and organizations the United States supported.[172] While at first standing for a decrease in all defense initiatives, the later years of Carter's presidency would increase spending on the U.S. military.[171] When Brezhnev authorized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Carter, following the advice of hisNational Security AdviserZbigniew Brzezinski, denounced the intervention, describing it as the "most serious danger to peace since 1945".[172] The U.S. stopped all grain exports to the Soviet Union and boycotted the1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow. The Soviet Union responded by boycotting the1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.[172]
During Brezhnev's rule, the Soviet Union reached the peak of its political and strategic power in relation to the United States. As a result of the limits agreed to by both superpowers in the first SALT Treaty, the Soviet Union obtained parity in nuclear weapons with the United States for the first time in the Cold War.[173][additional citation(s) needed] Additionally, as a result of negotiations during the Helsinki Accords, Brezhnev succeeded in securing the legitimization of Soviet hegemony over Central and Eastern Europe.[174]
After thecommunist revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, authoritarian actions forced upon the populace by the Communist regime led to theAfghan civil war, with themujahideen leading the popular backlash against the regime.[175] The Soviet Union was worried that they were losing their influence inCentral Asia, so after a KGB report claimed that Afghanistan could be taken in a matter of weeks, Brezhnev and several top party officials agreed to afull intervention.[172] Contemporary researchers tend to believe that Brezhnev had been misinformed on the situation in Afghanistan. His health had decayed, and proponents of direct military intervention took over the majority group in the Politburo by cheating and using falsified evidence.[according to whom?] They advocated a relatively moderate scenario, maintaining a cadre of 1,500 to 2,500 Soviet military advisers and technicians in the country (which had already been there in large numbers since the 1950s),[176] but they disagreed on sending regular army units in hundreds of thousands of troops. Some believe that Brezhnev's signature on the decree was obtained without telling him the full story, otherwise he would have never approved such a decision. Soviet ambassador to the U.S.Anatoly Dobrynin believed that the real mastermind behind the invasion, who misinformed Brezhnev, was Mikhail Suslov.[177] Brezhnev's personal physician Mikhail Kosarev later recalled that Brezhnev, when he was in his right mind, in fact resisted the full-scale intervention.[178]Deputy Chairman of the State DumaVladimir Zhirinovsky stated officially that despite the military solution being supported by some, hardline Defense MinisterDmitry Ustinov was the only Politburo member who insisted on sending regular army units.[179] Parts of theSoviet military establishment were opposed to any sort of active Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, believing that the Soviet Union should leaveAfghan politics alone.
In the aftermath of thePrague Spring's suppression, Brezhnev announced that the Soviet Union had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of its satellites to "safeguard socialism". This became known as theBrezhnev Doctrine,[180] although it was really a restatement of existing Soviet policy, as enacted by Khrushchev inHungary in 1956. Brezhnev reiterated the doctrine in a speech at the Fifth Congress of thePolish United Workers' Party on 13 November 1968:[145]
When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries.
— Brezhnev, Speech to the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party in November 1968
Later in 1980, apolitical crisis emerged inPoland with the emergence of theSolidarity movement. By the end of October, Solidarity had 3 million members, and by December, had 9 million. In a public opinion poll organised by the Polish government, 89% of the respondents supported Solidarity.[181] With the Polish leadership split on what to do, the majority did not want to imposemartial law, as suggested byWojciech Jaruzelski. The Soviet Union and other states of theEastern Bloc were unsure how to handle the situation, butErich Honecker ofEast Germany pressed for military action. In a formal letter to Brezhnev, Honecker proposed a joint military measure to control the escalating problems in Poland. ACIA report suggested theSoviet military were mobilizing for an invasion.[182]
In 1980–81 representatives from theEastern Bloc nations met at theKremlin to discuss the Polish situation. Brezhnev eventually concluded on10 December 1981 that it would be better to leave the domestic matters of Poland alone, reassuring the Polish delegates that the USSR would intervene only if asked to.[183] This effectively marked the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine. Notwithstanding the absence of a Soviet military intervention,Wojciech Jaruzelski ultimately gave in to Moscow's demands by imposing astate of war, the Polish version of martial law, on 13 December 1981.[184]
The last years of Brezhnev's rule were marked by a growingpersonality cult. His love of medals (he received over 100) was well known, so in December 1966, on his 60th birthday, he was awarded theHero of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev received the award, which came with theOrder of Lenin and the Gold Star, three more times in celebration of his birthdays.[185] On his 70th birthday he was awarded the rank ofMarshal of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest military honour. After being awarded the rank, he attended an 18th Army Veterans meeting, dressed in a long coat and saying "Attention, the Marshal is coming!" He also conferred upon himself the rareOrder of Victory in 1978, which was posthumously revoked in 1989 for not meeting the criteria for citation. A promotion to the rank ofGeneralissimo of the Soviet Union, planned for Brezhnev's seventy-fifth birthday, was quietly shelved due to his ongoing health problems.[186]
Brezhnev's personality cult was growing at a time when his health was in rapid decline. His physical condition was deteriorating; he had been a heavy smoker until the 1970s,[188] had become addicted tosleeping pills andtranquilizers,[189] and had begundrinking to excess. His nieceLyubov Brezhneva attributed his dependencies and overall decline to severe depression caused by, in addition to the stress of his job and the general situation of the country, an extremely unhappy family life, with near-daily conflicts with his wife and children, in particular his troubled daughterGalina, whose erratic behavior, failed marriages and involvement in corruption took a heavy toll on Brezhnev's mental and physical health. Brezhnev had considered divorcing his wife and disowning his children many times, but intervention from his extended family and the Politburo, fearing negative publicity, managed to dissuade him.
Over the years Brezhnev had becomeoverweight. From 1973 until his death, hiscentral nervous system underwent chronic deterioration and he had several minor strokes as well asinsomnia. In 1975 he suffered his first heart attack.[190] When receiving theOrder of Lenin, Brezhnev walked shakily and fumbled his words. According to one American intelligence expert, United States officials knew for several years that Brezhnev had suffered from severearteriosclerosis and believed he had suffered from other unspecified ailments as well. In 1977, American intelligence officials publicly suggested that Brezhnev had also been suffering fromgout,leukemia andemphysema from decades of heavy smoking,[191] as well as chronicbronchitis.[188] He was reported to have been fitted with apacemaker to control his heart rhythm abnormalities. On occasion, he was known to have suffered frommemory loss, speaking problems and had difficulties with coordination.[192] According toThe Washington Post, "All of this is also reported to be taking its toll on Brezhnev's mood. He is said to be depressed, despondent over his own failing health and discouraged by the death of many of his long-time colleagues. To help, he has turned to regular counseling and hypnosis by anAssyrian woman, a sort of modern-dayRasputin."[188]
According toNursultan Nazarbayev’s memoir, My Life, an incident occurred inAlma-Ata during a reception for Brezhnev at theAuezov Theater. About a thousand guests had gathered, and after they were seated,Dinmukhamed Kunaev proposed a toast to Brezhnev. However, as soon as the guests raised their glasses, Brezhnev unexpectedly stood up and headed toward the exit, prompting the entire republic's leadership to follow him. Brezhnev walked outside, approached his car, and within a minute, the motorcade was on its way. Nazarbayev noted that it was evident Brezhnev had forgotten the purpose of his visit, but those around him pretended not to notice his frail state.[193]
Upon suffering a stroke in 1975, Brezhnev's ability to lead the Soviet Union was significantly compromised. As his ability to define Soviet foreign policy weakened, he increasingly deferred to the opinions of a hardlinebrain trust comprising KGB ChairmanYuri Andropov, longtime foreign ministerAndrei Gromyko, and Defense MinisterAndrei Grechko (who was succeeded byDmitriy Ustinov in 1976).[194][195]
The Ministry of Health kept doctors by Brezhnev's side at all times, and he was brought back from near death on several occasions. The most notable instance was in 1976, when Brezhnev suffered a near-fatal stroke that left him clinically dead and could've killed him sooner before the doctors resuscitated him.[196] At this time, most senior officers of the CPSU wanted to keep Brezhnev alive. Even though an increasing number of officials were frustrated with his policies, no one in the regime wanted to risk a new period of domestic turmoil which might be caused by his death.[197] Western commentators started guessing who Brezhnev's heir apparent was. The most notable candidates were Mikhail Suslov andAndrei Kirilenko, who were both older than Brezhnev, andFyodor Kulakov andKonstantin Chernenko, who were younger; Kulakov died ofnatural causes in 1978.[198]
Photo of an ailing Brezhnev (second from left) on 1 June 1981, a year before his death
Brezhnev's health worsened in the winter of 1981–82. While the Politburo was pondering the question of who would succeed, all signs indicated that the ailing leader was dying. The choice of the successor would have been influenced by Suslov, but he died at the age of 79 in January 1982. Andropov took Suslov's seat in theCentral Committee Secretariat; by May, it became obvious that Andropov would make a bid for the office of theGeneral Secretary. With the help of fellowKGB associates, he started circulating rumors that political corruption had become worse during Brezhnev's tenure as leader, in an attempt to create an environment hostile to Brezhnev in the Politburo. Andropov's actions showed that he was not afraid of Brezhnev's wrath.[199][additional citation(s) needed]
In March 1982 Brezhnev received aconcussion and fractured his rightclavicle while touring a factory in Tashkent, after a metalbalustrade collapsed under the weight of a number of factory workers, falling on top of Brezhnev and his security detail.[200] This incident was reported in Western media as Brezhnev having suffered astroke.[201][202] After a month-long recovery, Brezhnev worked intermittently through November. On 7 November 1982, he was present standing on theLenin's Mausoleum's balcony during the annual military parade and demonstration of workers commemorating the 65th anniversary of theOctober Revolution.[203] The event marked Brezhnev's final public appearance before dying three days later after suffering aheart attack.[199] He was honored with a state funeral after a three-day period of nationwide mourning. He is buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis inRed Square,[204] in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin's Mausoleum and theMoscow Kremlin Wall. A number of countries including Cuba, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Afghanistan, India and others had declared national mourning over his death.[205][206]
National and international statesmen from around the globe attended his funeral. His wife and family were also present.[207] Brezhnev was dressed for burial in his Marshal's uniform along with his medals.[199]
Brezhnev presided over the Soviet Union for longer than any other person exceptJoseph Stalin. He is remembered for donning the mantle of a peacemaker and a common-sense statesman.[208] He is often criticised for the prolonged Era of Stagnation, in which fundamental economic problems were ignored and the Soviet political system was allowed to decline. During Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader there was a sharp increase in criticism of Brezhnev's leadership, including claims that he followed "a fierce neo-Stalinist line" while consistently failing to modernize the country and change with the times.[209] The intervention in Afghanistan, which was one of the major decisions of his career, also significantly undermined both the international standing and the internal strength of the Soviet Union.[172]
Brezhnev fared better when compared to his successors and predecessors in Russia.[210] In a 1999 poll, he ranked as the best Russian leader of the 20th century.[210] In an opinion poll by VTsIOM in 2007 the majority of Russians chose to live during the Brezhnev era rather than any other period of 20th century Soviet history.[211] In aLevada Center poll conducted in 2013, Brezhnev beatVladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin (respectively) as Russia's favorite leader in the 20th century with 56% approval.[212] In another poll in 2013, Brezhnev was voted the best Russian leader of the 20th century.[213] In a 2018Rating Sociological Group poll, 47% of Ukrainian respondents had a positive opinion of Brezhnev.[214]
Russian historianRoy Medvedev emphasizes the bureaucratic mentality and personality strengths that enabled Brezhnev to gain power. He was loyal to his friends, vain in desiring ceremonial power, and refused to control corruption inside the party. Especially in foreign affairs, Brezhnev increasingly took all major decisions into his own hands, without telling his colleagues in the Politburo.[216] He deliberately presented a different persona to different people, culminating in the systematic glorification of his own career.[217]
Brezhnev's vanity made him the target of manypolitical jokes.[186]Nikolai Podgorny warned him of this, but Brezhnev replied, "If they are poking fun at me, it means they like me."[218]
Brezhnev's main passion was driving foreign cars given to him by leaders of state from across the world. He usually drove these between hisdacha and the Kremlin with, according to historian Robert Service, flagrant disregard for public safety.[223] When visiting the United States for a summit withRichard Nixon in 1973, he expressed a wish to drive around Washington in aLincoln Continental that Nixon had just given him; upon being told that theSecret Service would not allow him to do this, he said "I will take the flag off the car, put on dark glasses, so they can't see my eyebrows and drive like any American would" to whichHenry Kissinger replied "I have driven with you and I don't think you drive like an American!"[224] He was also an avid fan of sports, and supportedCSKA Moscow inice hockey andSpartak Moscow infootball.[225] Kissinger claimed Brezhnev had on one occasion postponed a meeting on nuclear weapons because he did not want to miss a soccer match.[226]
Brezhnev was married toViktoria Denisova (1908–1995). He had a daughter,Galina,[223] and a son,Yuri.[227] His nieceLyubov Brezhneva published a memoir in 1995 which claimed that Brezhnev worked systematically to bring privileges to his family in terms of appointments, apartments, private luxury stores, private medical facilities and immunity from prosecution.[228]
^Known as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 14 October 1964 to 8 April 1966. The office was subsequently renamed back to General Secretary at the23rd Party Congress,[1] which had been its name from 1922 to 1952.[2]
^Western specialists believe that thenet material product (NMP; Soviet version ofgross national product [GNP]) contained distortions and could not accurately determine a country's economic growth; according to some, it greatly exaggerated growth. Because of this, several specialists created GNP figures to estimate Soviet growth rates and to compare Soviet growth rates with the growth rates of capitalist countries.[102] Grigorii Khanin published his growth rates in the 1980s as a "translation" of NMP to GNP. His growth rates were (as seen above) much lower than the official figures, and lower than some Western estimates. His estimates were widely publicized by conservativethink tanks as, for instance,The Heritage Foundation of Washington, D.C. After thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Khanin's estimates led several agencies to criticize the estimates made by theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA). Since then the CIA has often been accused over overestimating Soviet growth. In response to the criticism of CIA's work, a panel led by economistJames R. Millar was established to check out if this was in fact true. The panel concluded that the CIA were based on facts, and that "Methodologically, Khanin's approach was naive, and it has not been possible for others to reproduce his results."[103] Michael Boretsky, aDepartment of Commerce economist, criticized the CIA estimates to be too low. He used the same CIA methodology to estimate West German and American growth rates. The results were 32% below the official GNP growth for West Germany, and 13 below the official GNP growth for the United States. In the end, the conclusion is the same, the Soviet Union grew rapidly economically until the mid-1970s, when a systematic crisis began.[104]
Growth figures for the Soviet economy varies widely (as seen below):
^Borrero, Mauricio (2006). "Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich 1906-1982". In Coppa, Frank J. (ed.).Encyclopedia of Modern Dictators:From Napoleon to the Present. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. pp. 35–38, 37.ISBN0-8204-5010-3.
^McCauley 1997, p. 49 "In October 1964, Brezhnev became First Secretary (renamed General Secretary in 1966) of the Party with Aleksei Kosygin taking over as USSR Prime Minister, and Nikolai Podgorny becoming Soviet President. Just as after Stalin's death there was a collective leadership but Brezhnev wanted to become boss. His opportunity came in 1968 when the Prague Spring developed to such an extent that it appeared that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia might lose power. In August 1968 the Soviet Union and several of its allies intervened and began the process of 'normalisation'. Brezhnev, as Party leader, took prime position during the conflict because Czechoslovakia was a socialist country and therefore under the supervision of the Soviet Communist Party. Kosygin who had launched some useful reforms, was pushed aside as economic orthodoxy became the order of the day. He lacked the political guts to fight for primacy. By 1969, one can regard Brezhnev as top dog."
^Reynolds 2000, pp. 329–330 "...For several years after Khrushchev's demise [in 1964], power within the [Soviet] collective leadership remained both dispersed and balanced: Nikolai Podgorny, the hard-line head of state, dominated relations with Third World countries; Prime Minister Kosygin handled the economy and urged détente with the West; Brezhnev, the party secretary, looked after Eastern Europe, harping on the threat from Germany and the United States. Gradually, in the late 1960s, Brezhnev maneuvered his way into preeminence . Partly, like Stalin and Khrushchev before him, he used his control of the party apparatus to promote allies and topple enemies. But he also raised his profile by moving into the foreign-policy arena, stealing some of Kosygin's ideas while retaining his own reputation as a hard-liner on security. It was Brezhnev who put the new 'peace program' to the twenty-fourth party congress in April 1971. During the summer, Gromyko indicated that in future Nixon should write to Brezhnev, and not Kosygin, about foreign policy."
^Rigby 1989, pp. 41–42 "The record suggest that at least up to the late 1960s the power and authority of the new General Secretary were hardly adequate to ensure coherent and expeditious top-level decision-making. From about 1969 [Brezhnev's] primacy gradually became more evident and soon a 'cult' emerged embodying formulas that marked him out as clearly superordinated over the other party and state leaders. Gradually he succeeded in insinuating old cronies into high level posts and the first of them appeared in the top executive bodies. In 1977 Brezhnev was able to add to the General Secretaryship the post of President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a post whose importance had been builty up in the preceding years. In his last years in office the 'cult' intensified and several more of his old associates were added to the top executive."
^Zubok 2009, pp. 190–191 "Both Stalinists and anti-Stalinists approved of Khrushchev's removal in October 1964. People who supported the Thaw and de-Stalinization believed that Khrushchev was a spent force and any future leadership would be better than his. Soon, however, they realized how wrong they were. The new guard in the Kremlin quickly terminated de-Stalinization from above. The majority of party leaders and ideologists did not like what they saw in the educated strata of society; growing individualism, creeping Westernism, popularity of American music and mass culture, growing pacifism, and pluralistic attitudes. Where the party ideologists failed, the KGB began to step in: a special division of Soviet secret police had the task of 'guiding' Soviet cultural and intellectual elites and 'shielding' them from 'harmful influences'...[¶]The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 substantiated the fears of the Soviet anti-Stalinist intelligentsia that the post-Khrushchev leadership might take the country in a neo-Stalinist direction. The crushing of the Prague Spring and its 'socialism with a human face' dashed the hopes of many educated Soviet patriots that the existing system could be reformed...[¶] Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leadership abandoned reformist projects. It was content to live with the fossilized ideology and sought to repress cultural dissent and force its participants into exile and immigration."
^Saxonberg, Steven (2013).Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism: Regime Survival in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Cambridge University Press. p. 76.ISBN978-1-107-02388-8....Brezhnev was trapped in a conservative legacy. He had come to power in order to end Khrushchev's experiments, which had threatened 'the security of tenure of Soviet officials'. He therefore set about immediately to undo Khrushchev's political and economic reforms. He eliminated the newly created regional economic councils, and reinstated the central economic ministries. He also reversed Khrushchev's cultural thaw, by tightening censorship and increasing control over cultural expression.
^Coleman, Fred (1996).The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire: Forty Years That Shook the World, From Stalin to Yeltsin. MacMillan Publishers. pp. 26–27.ISBN0-312-16816-0.To Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, even Khrushchev's limited de-Stalinization risked going too far. Under Brezhnev, the posthumous rehabilitation of Stalin's purge victims virtually ceased. There could be no clearer signal of a change in thinking at the top. In the Brezhnev years, Russians began fearing that a return to Stalinist repression, or re-Stalinization, was a real danger. [¶]It never got that bad. There was no need to restore the mass terror. Brezhnev accomplished what he wanted simply by keeping the threat alive. His KGB secret police...remained above the law...They were the living symbol of Brezhnev's rule, the enforcement machinery he showed the nation he was keeping oiled and ready. Arrest a few leading dissidents and sentence them to life-threatening conditions in the Gulag, and the rest of the population, still haunted by the Stalinist past, would get the message: toe the line or all is lost...[¶]Taking yet another page from Stalin's lesson book, they determined to give their narrow repressions a firm legal base. During the second year of Brezhnev's eighteen-year rule, the criminal code was revised to punish 'anti-Soviet activities'. From then on, anyone who criticized the Soviet leaders or their policies or the system could be locked away in a labor camp or expelled from the country...[¶]These laws, regarded in the West as repulsive, served their purpose in Russia, effectively crushing dissent for two decades...Brezhnev proved there was no essential need to re-Stalinize. Simply halting the de-Stalinization produced the desired results—at least for a while.
^Bacon 2002, p. 32: "In the mid-1960s appraisals of Brezhnev centered on the new leadership of the Soviet Union as a whole. Just as in the early Khrushchev years, it was not immediately apparent after 1964 who wielded how much power in the Soviet hierarchy. The immediate talk was of a triumvirate of Brezhnev at the head of the Communist Party, Kosygin as prime minister (Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers), and ― after December 1965 ― Podgorny as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet."
^Daniels 1998, p. 36: "Podgorny, a longtime member of the [party] apparatus, joined the Secretariat in 1963 with Brezhnev, which made him also figure as a candidate for supreme power. At first number-three in the post-Khrushchev troika, along with the new Secretary-General Brezhnev and Prime Minister Kosygin, Podgorny rose more recently to the number-two position in Communist protocol, after Brezhnev but ahead of Kosygin. Overall, this history indicates that the post of President of the Republic, long a merely honorary one, ha[d] acquired growing importance and influence in the Communist hierarchy."
^Willerton 1992, p. 68: "Podgorny's Khar'kov network was among the largest of the Brezhnev period. Its size reflected both Podgorny's important role in Ukraine during the 1950s and early 1960s as well as his status as Brezhnev's main political rival. Podgorny developed this network not only while he was moving up in the Ukrainian party apparatus, but also during his career as Ukrainian party boss (1957 to 1963)...An investigation of the Khar'kov party organization and publication of a CPSU [Central Committee] declaration on its deficiencies in 1965 severely weakened this elite cohort. Highly placed protégés only moved downward during the Brezhnev period. [Vitaly] Titov, who had headed the Party Organs Department and had been promoted as a party Secretary in 1962, was quickly demoted in 1965 from the CPSU Secretariat and transferred to head the troubled Kazakh party organization. Podgorny's successor in Ukraine, Piotr Shelest, was ultimately ousted in favor of Brezhnev's longtime protégé, Shcherbitsky. Shelest's position in the all-union party hierarchy was never an especially important one, although his position had merited a brief membership in the Politburo. [¶]Those Podgorny associates who became CC members had moved up from Khar'kov and Kiev in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Some advanced to Moscow with Podgorny...Nearly all were 'retired' either when Shelest was ousted or when Podgorny was removed in 1977."
^Brown 2009, p. 403: "[In 1965] Podgorny took Mikoyan's place as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, combining that with his Politburo membership. He held both offices until Brezhnev felt strong enough unceremoniously to remove him in 1977. By then Brezhnev decided he had waited long enough to add the dignity of becoming formal head of state to his party leadership."
^Guerrier 2020, p. 1314: "In 1977 Brezhnev engineered Podgorny's removal from the Politburo and then from the chairmanship of the Supreme Soviet on June 16. Brezhnev assumed the chairmanship himself while remaining first secretary, thus gaining diplomatic status as head of state while also maintaining the real power that came as leader of the CPSU."
^Brown 2009, p. 403:"Kosygin was so prominent in the earlier post-Khrushchev years that as late as 1970 Henry Kissingermistakenly thought that he was ‘the dominant figure in foreignpolicy in the Politburo’ ... Kosygin continued, however, to be in charge ofdetailed economic administration in his role as Chairman of theCouncil of Ministers... However, even his modest proposals for change became linked in arguments behind the scenes with the developments in Czechoslovakia ... The factthat economic reform in Czechoslovakia had in 1968 beenaccompanied by dangerous political reform helped to discreditthe very word ‘reform’ in the Soviet Union."
^Bacon 2002, pp. 13–14: "By the end of the [1960s], T.H. Rigby argued that a stable oligarchic system had developed in the Soviet Union, centered around Brezhnev, Podgorny, and Kosygin[;] plus Central Committee secretaries Mikhail Suslov and Andrei Kirilenko. Accurate though this assessment was at the time, its publication coincided with the further strengthening of Brezhnev's position by means of an apparent clash with Suslov. [¶] At a Central Committee plenum in December 1969, Brezhnev gave a frank speech on economic matters, which had not been agreed with other Politburo members in advance. This independent line both surprised and angered colleagues, particularly Suslov, Shelepin, and first deputy prime minister Kiril Mazurov, who wrote a joint letter critical of the speech which they intended to be discussed at the next Plenum in March 1970. Brezhnev, however, exerted pressure on Suslov and his colleagues, the Plenum was postponed, the letter withdrawn, and the General Secretary emerged with greater authority and pledges of authority from his erstwhile critics."
^Willerton 1992, pp. 58, 62–63, 256: "The Brezhnev network constituted a broad coalition of politicians and interests which was in an organizational position to structure the [Soviet] policy agenda. Trusted subordinates guided those state organizations critical to the realization of the Brezhnev program. Meanwhile, members of this network linked a number of important regional party organizations, both within the RSFSR and outside it, to the regime in Moscow...In general, network members headed the [Central Committee] departments responsible for cadres, party work, and important sectors of the economy. By the mid-1970s, the Politburo members and CPSU secretaries supervising these departments were all Brezhnev protégés. From an organizational standpoint, the Brezhnev-led network of patronage factions was the dominant element in the [Soviet] national leadership..."
^Shane, Scott (1994). "What Price Socialism? An Economy Without Information".Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. pp. 75 to 98.ISBN978-1-56663-048-1.It was not the gas pedal but the steering wheel that was failing
^James W. Cortada, "Public Policies and the Development of National Computer Industries in Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, 1940—80."Journal of Contemporary History (2009) 44#3 pp: 493–512, especially page 509-10.
^Frank Cain, "Computers and the Cold War: United States restrictions on the export of computers to the Soviet Union and Communist China."Journal of Contemporary History (2005) 40#1 pp: 131–147.in JSTOR
^Andrey Kolesnikov (17 December 2010)."30 лет назад умер Алексей Косыгин" [A reformer before Yegor Gaidar? Kosygin died for 30 years ago].Forbes Russia (in Russian). Retrieved29 December 2010.
^Pakistan & Gulf Economist. Economist Publications. 1982. p. 7.Leonid Brezhnev was the builder of militarily the most powerful country of the world that USSR is today - a fact that even its adversary, the United States of America acknowledges.
^Luba Brezhnev,The World I Left Behind: Pieces of a Past (1995). Discussion of Party corruption covered in Konstantin M. Simis,USSR: The Corrupt Society (1982) (Online review).
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