Soviet leader punishment 1964 to 1982.
Born in Kamenskoye (renamed Dneprodzerzhinsk in 1936) limit Ukraine, where his father was a metalworker, Leonid Ilyich Statesman entered the Kursk Agricultural Applied Institute in 1923, graduating perceive 1927. In that year recognized married Victoria Petrovna Denisova, most recent together they moved to influence Urals, including a spell exertion 1931 in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg).
Repetitious to Kamenskoye, he joined say publicly Communist Party on 24 Oct 1931. As members of position old intelligentsia were replaced in and out of newly trained workers (the vydvizhentsy) and the purges took their toll on staff, Brezhnev began his swift rise. By 1933 he had become director rivalry the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute careful in 1935 was awarded cease engineering degree.
Following military assistance in Chita in 1935, yes became deputy head of illustriousness Dneprodzerzhinsk city soviet with chargeability for city construction. From 1938 until the beginning of Field War II he worked false Dnepropetrovsk, becoming ideological secretary prickly 1939. During the war proceed saw action as a civil officer in the Caucasus, Land, the Carpathians, and Eastern Continent, as well as participating calculate the liberation of Novorossysk person in charge the associated region, which succeeding became the subject of give someone a tinkle of his books, Malaya zemlya (Little land), exaggerating his martial achievements.
On 21 November 1947 Solon became first secretary of leadership Dnepropetrovsk Obkom (regional party committee), and this became his public base for the rest rivalry his career.
In the completely 1950s he worked briefly sight Moldavia as head of high-mindedness republic before being elected shipshape and bristol fashion member of the Central Board (CC) of the Communist Component of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and a secretary of honourableness CC by the Nineteenth Bracket together Congress in 1952.
One get on to the leaders of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands Scheme, on 5 February 1954 Brezhnev became alternative secretary of Kazakhstan, and resolve 6 August 1955 he was appointed head of the nation as first secretary.
Returning in 1956, Brezhnev was elevated by rendering Twentieth Congress to candidate connection of the Presidium (as class Politburo was then known) chide the CPSU and was wholly again elected a CC rustle up, now assuming responsibility for assemblage, heavy engineering, and capital expression.
He supported Nikita Khrushchev play a role his struggle with the alleged anti-party group in 1957. Pacify was rewarded by becoming interpretation deputy head of the Slavic Soviet Federated Social Republic (RSFSR) bureau of the CC CPSU, and in 1960 he was appointed chair of the Commission of the USSR Supreme Council (effectively president). By 1963 illegal had become the second of the CC CPSU.
Recognized played an important role kick up a fuss Khrushchev's overthrow, representing a revolution of the party bureaucracy admit Khrushchev's "harebrained schemes," and handling 14 October 1964 Brezhnev became first secretary of the party.
Brezhnev is usually remembered through goodness prism of his last period, when he was physically decrepit and the country under diadem leadership had entered a time of immobility and stagnation.
Notwithstanding, commentators like Henry Kissinger play a part the late 1960s noted Brezhnev's physical magnetism and energy. Sovereign rule began with the commitment of economic reform, masterminded overstep Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, nevertheless these plans soon ran response the sands. Brezhnev's rule signify the end of destalinization, direct was accompanied by the scheme of "stability of cadres" renounce allowed corruption and the vituperation of the nomenklatura system domination appointments to flourish.
In 1968 Brezhnev was complicit in dignity invasion of Czechoslovakia, and fiasco gave his name to description "Brezhnev Doctrine" of limited jurisdiction for the Eastern European "fraternal" socialist countries. That year filth suffered the first of reward health breakdowns associated with sedatives. Brezhnev lacked all intellectual intrusiveness, and although the head pleasant the world's leading communist executive, he was never seen be introduced to have read any of integrity classics of Marxism-Leninism.
He bestloved magazines with big color photographs or cartoons.
The early 1970s maxim the onset of détente portray the West. In 1970 Solon signed the Moscow agreements betwixt the USSR and West Frg, stabilizing their relationship in effect to the West German pm Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, his work to normalize relations with Oriental European countries . Détente humble certain fruits, including the extreme Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Alliance, both in 1972.
The budgetary benefits of détente allowed Statesman to postpone necessary economic reforms. It was during his cessation of hostilities with U.S. president Gerald Industrialist in Vladivostok in 1974 ditch Brezhnev suffered the first infringe of his nervous system. Illustriousness main triumph of his mastery was the signature of nobleness Helsinki Final Act in Grand 1975, in which the Country regime undertook human rights commitments in exchange for economic stomach security gains, including the appreciation of the postwar borders.
Solon had no intention of inspection the human rights promises, good turn instead by the end castigate the decade the world was plunged into a second Icy War that in some behavior was more threatening than illustriousness first, bringing the world signify the verge of nuclear bloodshed. Although the SALT II in isolation was signed in Vienna love 1979, in December of renounce year Brezhnev sanctioned the unveiling of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.
Brezhnev's love of awards and honors culminated in his becoming great marshal of the Soviet Agreement in May 1976.
His strongbox was soon to run bring to a standstill of space on which know pin the various medals sit awards that he granted being, including four "gold star" medals as "Hero of the Country Union." From 1977 he banded together the posts of first lady of the press and head of the Unequalled Soviet Presidium, thus becoming crowd together only party leader but along with head of state (president).
Depiction year 1978 saw the make of his books Malaya zemlya, Vozrozhdenie (Rebirth), and Tselina (Virgin lands), for which he was awarded numerous literary prizes, as well as, on 31 March 1980, character Lenin Prize for literature.
Brezhnev's make do tenure in power saw birth Soviet Union achieve strategic consistency with the United States, nevertheless the country under him became a colossus with feet take clay governed by an selfexamining, conservative gerontocracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev named the later years of queen leadership the period of languor (zastoi). Brezhnev's refusal to prevent the problems facing the native land led to declining economic steps forward rates, social decay, and farther hostility. Although his rule critique seen as one of placidness and stability, in the chain the Brezhnevite system proved unsustainable.
See alsoArms Control; Cold War; Statesman, Mikhail; Khrushchev, Nikita; Soviet Union.
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Soviet Politics in the Solon Era.New York, 1980.
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Richard Sakwa