Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (
Russian:
Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев (help·info), 19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was the
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen year term as General Secretary was one of the lengthiest, second only to that of
Joseph Stalin. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet Military during this time. In 1979, the Soviet Union
invaded Afghanistan to support the fragile
Marxist government located there, a move condemned by the West. His tenure as leader has often been criticized for marking the beginning of a period of
economic stagnation, overlooking serious economic problems which eventually led to the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Brezhnev was born in
Kamenskoe into a
Ukrainian workers' family. After graduating from the
Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum he became a
metallurgical engineer in the
iron and steel industry, in Ukraine. He joined
Komsomol in 1923 and, in 1929, joined the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, playing an active role in the party's affairs. In 1936, he was drafted into compulsory military service and later became a
political commissar in a tank factory. In 1939, he was promoted Party Secretary of
Dnipropetrovsk, an important military industrial complex. When
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he was drafted into immediate military service. During his service, he met
Nikita Khrushchev whom he later succeeded as General Secretary. He left the army in 1946 with the rank of
Major General and was subsequently promoted to First Secretary of the Communist Party in Dnipropetrovsk.
In 1950, he became deputy of the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the highest legislative body in the country, and in 1952 became a member of the
Central Committee. Brezhnev was appointed to the Presidium (formerly the Politburo) soon after. He became a Khrushchev protégé in government, but eventually orchestrated his overthrow and replaced him as General Secretary in 1964.
As a leader, Brezhnev was a team player, and took care to consult his colleagues before acting, but his attempt to govern without meaningful economic reforms led to a national decline by the mid-1970s. His rule was marked by what later became known as the
Brezhnev stagnation. A significant increase in military expenditures which by the time of Brezhnev's death stood at approximately 15 percent of the country's GNP, and an increasingly elderly and ineffective leadership set the stage for a dwindling GNP compared to Western nations. It was during this time that the full extent of
government corruption became known, but Brezhnev refused to launch any major corruption investigations, claiming that no one lived just on their wages. On 10 November 1982, an ill Brezhnev died, and was quickly succeeded in his post as General Secretary by
Yuri Andropov.
While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. Brezhnev engaged in increased
international trade with non-communist countries, most notably the
United States. However, his view on tackling the reformist movement was not flexible, and in 1968 the USSR along with members states of the
Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia. In the invasion's aftermath, the Soviet Union strengthened its hold on
Eastern Europe and became tougher in its diplomatic relations abroad, particularly with
Third World countries. His last major decision in power was to send Soviet military to
Afghanistan in an attempt to save the
fragile regime which fought a war against religious extremists.
Brezhnev fostered a
cult of personality, although not on the same level seen under Stalin. After his death the subsequent leader of the USSR,
Mikhail Gorbachev, denounced his legacy and drove the process of
liberalization of the Soviet Union.
[edit] Early life and career
[edit] Early years
Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoe (now
Dniprodzerzhynsk in Ukraine), to
metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife, Natalia Denisovna. At different times during his life, Brezhnev specified his ethnic origin alternately as either Ukrainian or Russian, opting for the latter as he rose within the Communist Party.
[1] Like many youths in the years after the
Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a
technical education, at first in
land management where he started as a
land surveyor and then in
metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical
Technicum in 1935
[2] and became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industries of eastern Ukraine. He joined the
Communist Party youth organization, the
Komsomol in 1923 and the Party itself in 1929.
[1]
In the years 1935 through 1936, Brezhnev was drafted for compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a
political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he became director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum (technical college). In 1936, he was transferred to the regional center of
Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk,
[2] in charge of the city's important defense industries. As one who survived Stalin's
Great Purge of 1937–39, he could gain rapid promotions since the purges opened up many positions in the senior and middle ranks of the Party and state.
[1]
[edit] Military service and early career
A photo of Brezhnev taken in 1936.
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and like most middle-ranking Party officials, Brezhnev was immediately drafted. He worked to evacuate Dnipropetrovsk's industries to the east of the Soviet Union before the city fell to the Germans on 26 August and then was assigned as a
political commissar. In October, Brezhnev was made deputy of political administration for the
Southern Front, with the rank of Brigade-Commissar.
[3] When Ukraine was occupied by the Germans in 1942, Brezhnev was sent to the
Caucasus as deputy head of political administration of the
Transcaucasian Front. In April 1943, he became head of the Political Department of the 18th Army. Later that year, the 18th Army became part of the
1st Ukrainian Front, as the Red Army regained the initiative and advanced westwards through Ukraine.
[4] The Front's senior political commissar was
Nikita Khrushchev, who became an important patron of Brezhnev's career. Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the party, and before long he became Khrushchev's protégé as he continued his rise through the ranks.
[5] At the end of the war in Europe, Brezhnev was chief political commissar of the
4th Ukrainian Front which entered
Prague after the German surrender.
[3]
Brezhnev left the Soviet Army with the rank of
Major General in August 1946. He had spent the entire war as a commissar rather than a military commander.
[6] After working on reconstruction projects in Ukraine he again became First Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk.
[6] In 1950, he became a deputy of the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest legislative body. Later that year he was appointed Party First Secretary in
Moldavia.
[6] In 1952, he became a member of the Communist Party's
Central Committee and was introduced as a candidate member into the Presidium (formerly the
Politburo).
[7]
Stalin died in March 1953, and in the reorganization that followed the Presidium was abolished and a smaller Politburo reconstituted. Although Brezhnev was not made a Politburo member, he was appointed head of the Political Directorate of the Army and the Navy with rank of
Lieutenant-General, a very senior position. This was probably due to the new power of his patron Khrushchev, who had succeeded Stalin as Party General Secretary. On 7 May 1955, he was made Party First Secretary of the
Communist Party of the
Kazakh SSR. His brief was simple; to make the new lands agriculturally productive; with this directive, he started the initially successful
Virgin Lands Campaign. Brezhnev was lucky that he was re-called in 1956; the harvest in the following years proved to be disappointing and would have hurt his political career if he'd stayed.
[6]
In February 1956, Brezhnev returned to Moscow, promoted to candidate member of the Politburo and assigned control of the defense industry, the
space program, heavy industry, and capital construction.
[8] He was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and in June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with the Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called "
Anti-Party Group". Following the defeat of the old guard, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo. Brezhnev became
Second Secretary of the Central Committee in 1959,
[6] and in May 1960 was promoted to the post of Chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet,
[9] making him nominal head of state although the real power resided with Khrushchev as Party Secretary. In 1962, Brezhnev became an honorary citizen of
Belgrade.
[10]
[edit] Removal of Khrushchev
Khrushchev as seen in 1963, one year before his ousting.
Until about 1962, Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure; but as the leader 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. Outwardly, Brezhnev remained loyal to Khrushchev,
[11] but he became involved in a 1963 plot to remove the leader from power, possibly playing a leading role.
[11] In 1963 also, Brezhnev succeeded
Frol Kozlov, another Khrushchev protege, as Secretary of the
Central Committee, positioning him as Khrushchev's likely successor.
[11] Khrushchev made him deputy party leader in 1964.[11]
After returning from
Scandinavia and
Czechoslovakia, sensing nothing afoot, Khrushchev went on holiday in
Pitsunda, near the
Black Sea in October 1964. Upon his return, his Presidium officers congratulated him for his work in office.
Anastas Mikoyan visited Khrushchev, hinting that he should not be too complacent about his present situation.
Vladimir Semichastny, head of the
KGB,
[12] was a crucial part of the conspiracy, as it was his duty to inform Khrushchev if anyone was plotting against his leadership.
Nikolay Ignatov, who had been sacked by Khrushchev, discreetly requested the opinion of several
Central Committee members. After some false starts, fellow conspirator
Mikhail Suslov phoned Khrushchev on 12 October and requested that he return to
Moscow to discuss the state of
Soviet agriculture. Eventually Khrushchev understood what was happening, and said to Mikoyan, "If it's me who is the question, I won't make a fight of it".
[13] While a minority headed by Mikoyan wanted to remove Khrushchev from the office of First Secretary but retain him as the Chairman of the
Council of Ministers, the majority headed by Brezhnev wanted to remove him from active politics.
[13]Brezhnev and
Nikolay Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of
voluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by the Brezhnev allies, Politburo members voted to remove Khrushchev from office.
[14] In addition, 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 his old mentor further.
[15] Brezhnev was appointed Party First Secretary;
Alexei Kosygin was appointed
head of government, and Mikoyan became
head of state.
[16] Brezhnev and his companions supported the general party line taken after
Joseph Stalin's death, but felt the Khrushchev reforms had removed much of the Soviet Union's stability. One of the main reasons for Khrushchev's ouster was that he continuously overruled other party members.
Pravda, a newspaper in the Soviet Union, wrote of new enduring themes such as
collective leadership, scientific planning, consultation with experts, organizational regularity and the ending of schemes. When Khrushchev left the public spot light, there was no popular commotion because most Soviet citizens, including the
intelligentsia, anticipated a period of
stabilization, steady development of Soviet society and continuing economic growth in the years to come.
[15]
[edit] Leader (1964–82)
[edit] Consolidation of power
Early policy reforms were seen as predictable. In 1964, the plenum of the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the two most powerful posts of the country (the office of the
General Secretary and the
Premier).
[15] Former Head of the KGB
Alexander Shelepin disliked the new collective leadership reform started under Brezhnev. He made a bid for the supreme leadership in 1965 by calling for restoration of "obedience and order". Shelepin failed to gather support in the Presidium and Brezhnev's position was fairly secure; however, he was not able to remove Shelepin from office until 1967.
[17]
Khrushchev was removed mainly because of his disregard of many high-ranking organizations within the CPSU and the Soviet government. Throughout the Brezhnev era, the Soviet Union was controlled by a collective leadership, at least through the late 1960s and 1970s. The consensus within the party was that the collective leadership prevailed over the supreme leadership of one individual. T.H. Rigby argued that by the end of the 1960s, a stable
oligarchic system had emerged in the Soviet Union, with most power vested around Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny. While the assessment was true at the time, it coincided with Brezhnev's strengthening of power by means of an apparent clash with Central Committee Secretariat
Mikhail Suslov.
[1] American
Henry A. Kissinger, in the 1960s, mistakenly believed Kosygin to be the dominant leader of Soviet
foreign policy in the Politburo. During this period, Brezhnev was gathering enough support to strengthen his position within Soviet politics. In the meantime, Kosygin was in charge of economic administration in his role as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. However Kosygin's position was weakened when he proposed an economic reform in 1965, which was widely referred to as the "
Kosygin reform" within the Communist Party. The reform led to a backlash, with Kosygin losing supporters because of the increasingly anti-reformist stance of many top officials because of the
Prague Spring in 1968. His opponents then flocked to Brezhnev, and they happily helped him in his task of strengthening his position within the Soviet system.
[18]
Brezhnev was adept at the politics within the Soviet power structure. He was a team player and never acted rashly or hastily; unlike Khrushchev, he did not make decisions without substantial consultation with his colleagues, and was always willing to hear their opinions.
[19] During the early 1970s, Brezhnev consolidated his domestic position. In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, making this position equivalent to that of an executive president. While Kosygin remained Premier until shortly before his death in 1980, Brezhnev was the dominant driving force of the Soviet Union from the mid-1970s
[20] to his death in 1982.
[18]
