On April 8, 1966, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev became General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and the de facto leader of the Soviet Union.

The economy of the USSR under Brezhnev developed dynamically, but some experts believe that it was at this time that problems arose in the country, which led to a large-scale crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

Political path

Leonid Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906 in the village of Kamenskoye, Yekaterinoslavskaya province, in the family of an employee of a metallurgical plant.

In his youth, he quickly went from a simple land surveyor to the deputy head of the Ural Regional Land Administration.

After serving in the Red Army in the mid-1930s, Brezhnev soon switched to party work and already in 1939 became the secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional committee of the CP (b) U.

At the beginning of World War II, Brezhnev was engaged in the evacuation of people and enterprises from the Dnepropetrovsk region, and then went into the active army and became the head of a special group at the military council of the Southern Front.

Took part in the Battle of the Caucasus.

In 1945 he was appointed head of the political department of the 4th Ukrainian Front.

After the war, Brezhnev headed the Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk regional party committees, as well as the Central Committee of the Moldavian SSR.

Later he became the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

“Brezhnev rallied around himself people who were dissatisfied with Khrushchev's voluntarism.

In 1964, he acted as one of the organizers of the anti-Khrushchev conspiracy and replaced Nikita Khrushchev as first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, "Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, told RT.

Two years later, the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union restored the post of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

On April 8, 1966, the participants of the XXIII Congress elected Leonid Brezhnev to it.

According to historians, for some time after his election as general secretary, Brezhnev tried to adhere to the principles of collective leadership of the country, but later he began to strengthen his personal power.

He removed from leadership positions all whom he did not trust, and appointed to key positions people whom he knew personally well, including colleagues in Dnepropetrovsk and Moldova.

In 1972, the Plenum of the Central Committee endowed the Secretary General with broad powers, thanks to which all power in the USSR was concentrated in the hands of Brezhnev.

“In the very first years of his reign, Brezhnev began to eliminate Khrushchev's managerial folds.

Restored the construction of large naval ships, folded by Khrushchev.

Authorized testing of tactical nuclear weapons.

In addition, with the coming to power of Brezhnev, indiscriminate criticism of Stalin and the period of his reign began to decline, "historian and writer Alexander Shirokorad told RT in a commentary.

  • Colonel Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev with his adjutant Ivan Pavlovich Kravchuk.

    Malaya Zemlya is a bridgehead, on which in February 1943, a landing of seamen of the Black Sea Fleet and soldiers of the North Caucasian Front was landed.

    District of Novorossiysk

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Accumulative era

“Brezhnev’s foreign policy was of a reasonable multi-vector nature.

Good economic relations were established with other countries, in particular with Germany and France.

There was a dialogue with the Americans, "said Evgeny Spitsyn, advisor to the rector of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, in a conversation with RT.

According to Alexander Krushelnitsky, associate professor of the Russian State Humanitarian University, an important foreign policy event of the Brezhnev era was the visit of US President Richard Nixon to the USSR in 1972.

"The leader of the Western world himself flew in to negotiate a reduction in tension," the expert said in an interview with RT.

During this visit, the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Systems, the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures in the Field of the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-1) and other documents were signed.

“The foreign policy of Brezhnev was freed from those tossing and voluntarism that took place under Khrushchev.

It has become more meaningful, more consistent and more predictable, ”emphasized Mikhail Myagkov.

The economic policy of the Soviet leadership also changed under Leonid Brezhnev.

Soon after he came to power, the decrees "On improving industrial management" and "On improving planning and strengthening economic incentives for industrial production" were issued.

The immediate initiator of the reforms was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin.

The reforms were aimed at increasing the independence of enterprises and collective farms, and introducing elements of cost accounting.

In agriculture, large-scale programs for land reclamation and construction of irrigation canals were introduced.

  • General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev during a speech at the opening of the Lenin Memorial in Ulyanovsk, built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I.

    Lenin

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  • © Ivan Denisenko

In the 1960s-1970s, the gross social product grew by about 350%, industrial production by 485%, and agricultural production by 171%.

Workdays on collective farms were replaced by monthly wages.

In the 1970s, a lot was done in the USSR to develop the military-industrial complex.

By the end of the Brezhnev era, the Soviet Union surpassed the United States in the number of nuclear weapons and their carriers.

Three heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers were built and two more were laid down.

The submarine fleet was developing.

Under Brezhnev, MiG-29 and Su-27 aircraft, T-72 and T-80 tanks, and the S-300 air defense system were also developed.

There are more tanks in the USSR than in the rest of the world - over 60 thousand.

“It was under Brezhnev that the Soviet Union achieved strategic parity with the United States both in armaments and in the political sphere.

Not a single serious foreign policy problem in the world could be solved without the USSR, ”noted Alexander Shirokorad.

  • 07/01/1971.

    Beloyarsk nuclear power plant named after I.V.

    Kurchatov.

    Construction of the third unit of the nuclear power plant.

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  • © Lev Nosov

Under Brezhnev, a number of large-scale infrastructure and energy projects were implemented in the USSR.

The first hydroelectric unit of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was put under industrial load, dozens of other hydroelectric power plants, nuclear reactors, new roads and railways, chemical, metallurgical and machine-building plants were put into operation.

“Later the Brezhnev era began to be called 'stagnation', but this is incorrect.

People are used to living well under Brezhnev.

It was a cumulative era.

What kind of "stagnation" can we talk about if half of the world has flown on our planes?

There was a lack of political dynamics.

But the Brezhnev era economically prepared the USSR for a new leap forward, and if the country had received a more competent leader than Gorbachev in the 1980s, everything could have been different, ”Shirokorad stressed.

According to Mikhail Myagkov, two stages can be distinguished in the Brezhnev era, the first of which was very successful in all respects.

  • 09/01/1970.

    Testing of a prototype of the first self-propelled lunar vehicle "Lunokhod-1"

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“Our space program was in many ways ahead of the American one: manned spacewalk, Lunokhod and much more.

Houses and industrial facilities were built, the housing problem was solved, and the Arctic was developed.

What kind of "stagnation" is this?

Towards the end of Brezhnev's rule, miscalculations appeared in the economy, the country began to get addicted to the "oil needle" - but this is already the second period, "the expert emphasized.

As Alexander Krushelnitsky noted, the problems that arose in the USSR at the end of the Brezhnev era were largely associated with the state of health of the secretary general.

“He and his group remained in power to the last.

He literally was exhausted, but held on.

At the same time, there was a total secrecy of information in the country.

People, for example, did not know about the colossal subsidies for the food supply of the population.

Blind censorship generated negativity towards the authorities.

This negative was carried in an exaggerated form by enemy propaganda.

Lack of balance in domestic policy led to a complete loss in the information war with the West, despite all the successes on the external circuit.

The chaos in the minds ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, ”said Krushelnitsky.

  • General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) speaks at the opening of the XVII Congress of Trade Unions of the USSR in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in Moscow

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  • © Vyacheslav Runov

According to the historian, the foreign policy, military and other successes of the USSR under Brezhnev aroused fears among Western leaders, setting them up for confrontation with the Soviet Union.

This, in particular, found expression in the provocative policy of the West in Afghanistan, which forced Brezhnev in 1979 to decide on the introduction of Soviet troops into the Central Asian state.

Leonid Brezhnev died on November 10, 1982 in the suburban village of Zarechye near Moscow.

“Many people still remember the years of Brezhnev’s rule with gratitude.

It was an era of stability and confidence in the future.

Nobody was afraid of losing their job, their salary.

Of course, there were some mistakes, such as shortcomings in the light industry, but for the sake of correcting them, the collapse of the Soviet Union was definitely not worth it, "summed up Mikhail Myagkov.