Leonid Ilyich was born on December 12, 1906 in the city of Kamenskoe (now Dneprodzerzhinsk) in Ukraine. He was one of three children of Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and Natalia Denisovna. His father worked in a steel mill, like several previous generations of the family.
Childhood and youth
Brezhnev was forced to leave school at the age of fifteen to go to work. He entered the correspondence department of the technical school, which he graduated at the age of twenty-one as a land surveyor.
Graduated from Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute and became an engineer in the metallurgical industry of Eastern Ukraine. In 1923 he joined the Komsomol, and in 1931, the CPSU.
Carier start
In 1935-36, Leonid Ilyich was called up for compulsory military service, where, after completing courses, he served as a political commissar in a tank company. In 1936 he became the director of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Technical College. In 1936 he was transferred to Dnepropetrovsk, and in 1939 he became party secretary in Dnepropetrovsk.
Brezhnev belonged to the first generation of Soviet communists who had little memory of pre-revolutionary Russia and who were too young to participate in the struggle for important posts in the leadership of the Communist Party, which unfolded after Lenin's death in 1924. By the time Brezhnev joined the party, Stalin was its undisputed leader. Those who survived the Great Stalinist Purge of 1937-39 could quickly get promoted. The purges opened up many vacancies in the highest and middle offices of the party and state.
Brezhnev at the Second World War
On June 22, 1941, the day when the Second World War began, Brezhnev was appointed to lead the evacuation of the industry in Dnepropetrovsk to the east of the USSR. In October, Leonid Ilyich was appointed deputy chief of the political administration of the Southern Front.
In 1942, when Ukraine was occupied by the Germans, Brezhnev was sent to the Caucasus as deputy head of the political department of the Transcaucasian Front. In April 1943, where Nikita Khrushchev was the head of the political department, this acquaintance later greatly helped the post-war career of Leonid Ilyich. On May 9, 1945, Brezhnev met in Prague, as the chief political officer of the 4th Ukrainian Front.
In August 1946, Brezhnev was demobilized from the Red Army. Soon he again became the first secretary in Dnepropetrovsk. In 1950 he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the highest legislative body of the Soviet Union. Later that year, he was appointed first party secretary in Moldova and moved to Chisinau. In 1952 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and was presented as a candidate for the Presidium (formerly Politburo).
Post-war career
Stalin died in March 1953, and during the subsequent reorganization, the Presidium was abolished, and Brezhnev was appointed head of the political administration of the army and the Navy with the rank of lieutenant general
… In 1955 he was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.
In February 1956, Brezhnev was recalled to Moscow and appointed as a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. In June 1957, he supported Khrushchev in his battle with the old party guard, the so-called "Anti-Party Group" led by Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov and Lazar Kaganovich. After the defeat of the old guard, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo.
In 1959, Brezhnev became the second secretary of the Central Committee, and in May 1960 he was promoted to the post of secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, becoming the nominal head of state. Although the real power remained with Khrushchev, the presidency allowed Brezhnev to travel abroad, where he showed a taste for expensive clothes and cars.
Party leader
Until 1963, Brezhnev remained loyal to Khrushchev, but then he took an active part in the conspiracy, which was aimed at overthrowing Nikita Sergeevich from the post of general secretary. On October 14, 1964, when Khrushchev was on vacation, the conspirators called an extraordinary plenum and removed him from office. Brezhnev became the first secretary of the party, Alexei Kosygin became prime minister, and Mikoyan became the head of state. (In 1965 Mikoyan resigned and was replaced by Nikolai Podgorny).
After Khrushchev was removed from power, the leaders of the Politburo (as it was renamed in 1966 at the twenty-third party congress) and the Secretariat re-established a collective leadership. As in the case of Stalin's death, several people, including Alexei Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny and Leonid Brezhnev, claimed power behind the façade of unity. Kosygin took over as prime minister, which he held until his retirement in 1980. Brezhnev, who took up the post of first secretary, may have initially been viewed by his colleagues as a temporary appointee.
The years after Khrushchev were distinguished by the stability of cadres, groups of activists in responsible and influential positions in the party and state apparatus. By introducing the slogan "trust in cadres" in 1965, Brezhnev won the support of many bureaucrats who feared the constant reorganization of the Khrushchev era and sought security in established hierarchies. The stability of the period is evidenced by the fact that almost half of the members of the Central Committee in 1981 joined it fifteen years earlier. The consequence of this stability was the aging of Soviet leaders, the average age of Politburo members rose from fifty-five in 1966 to sixty-eight in 1982. The Soviet leadership (or "gerontocracy" as it was called in the West) became more and more conservative and ossified.
Domestic policy of Brezhnev
Brezhnev was very conservative. He rolled back Khrushchev's reforms and resurrected Stalin as a hero and a role model. Brezhnev expanded the powers of the KGB. Yuri Andropov was appointed chairman of the KGB and began a campaign to suppress dissent in the Soviet Union.
Conservative politics characterized the regime's agenda in the post-Khrushchev years. After coming to power, the collective leadership not only canceled Khrushchev's policy of bifurcation of the party, but also stopped the process of de-Stalinization. The Soviet Constitution of 1977, although it differed in some respects from the Stalinist document of 1936, retained the general thrust of the latter.
Economy under Brezhnev
Although Khrushchev was engaged in economic planning, the economic system still depended on central plans, drawn up without reference to market mechanisms. The reformers, most notably the economist Yevsey Lieberman, advocated greater freedom of individual enterprises from external control and sought to turn the economic goals of enterprises into profit. Prime Minister Kosygin defended Lieberman's proposals and was able to include them in the general program of economic reforms, approved in September 1965. This reform included the scrapping of the Khrushchev regional economic councils in favor of the revival of the central industrial ministries of the Stalinist era. Opposition from party conservatives and cautious managers, however, soon stopped the Lieberman reforms, forcing the state to abandon them.
After Kosygin's brief attempt to rebuild the economic system, planners moved on to drawing up comprehensive, centralized plans first developed under Stalin. In the industry, the plans paid special attention to the heavy and defense industries. As a developed industrial country, the Soviet Union by the 1970s found it increasingly difficult to maintain high growth rates in the industrial sector. Despite the fact that the goals of the five-year plans of the 1970s were reduced from the previous five-year plans, these goals remain largely unfulfilled. The most acute industrial deficit was felt in the sphere of consumer goods, where the population steadily demanded an improvement in quality and an increase in quantity.
The development of agriculture in the Brezhnev years continued to lag behind. Despite consistently high investment in agriculture, growth under Brezhnev fell less than under Khrushchev. Droughts that occurred intermittently during the 1970s forced the Soviet Union to import large quantities of grain from Western countries, including the United States. In rural areas, Brezhnev continued the trend of transforming collective farms into state farms and raised the incomes of all agricultural workers.
Brezhnev and stagnation
The Brezhnev period is sometimes called "stagnation". Since the late 1960s, growth has stalled at levels well below that of most western industrial (and some eastern European) countries. Although some commodities became more readily available in the 60s and 70s, there was little improvement in housing and food supplies. The shortage of consumer goods contributed to the theft of state property and the growth of the black market. Vodka, however, remained readily available, and alcoholism was an important factor in both the decline in life expectancy and the rise in infant mortality that was observed in the Soviet Union in the later years of Brezhnev.
The Soviet Union managed to stay afloat thanks to the hard currency earned from the import of minerals. There is no incentive to improve efficiency and productivity. The economy suffered from high defense spending, which crippled the economy, and bureaucracy that hindered competitiveness.
The Soviet Union paid a high price for the stability of the Brezhnev years. By avoiding necessary political and economic changes, Brezhnev's leadership ensured the economic and political recession that the country experienced in the 1980s. This deterioration in power and prestige contrasted sharply with the dynamism that marked the revolutionary beginnings of the Soviet Union.
Foreign policy
The first crisis of the Brezhnev regime came in 1968, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek, embarked on a policy of economic liberalization. In July, Brezhnev publicly criticized the Czech leadership as "revisionist" and "anti-Soviet", and in August he ordered the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. The invasion led to public protests from dissidents in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's assertion that the Soviet Union and other socialist states had the right and obligation to interfere in the internal affairs of their satellites to "protect socialism" became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.
Under Brezhnev, relations with China continued to deteriorate following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s. In 1965, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited Moscow for talks that, alas, led nowhere. In 1969, Soviet and Chinese troops fought a series of clashes along their border on the Ussuri River.
The thawing of Sino-American relations in early 1971 marked a new stage in international relations. To prevent the formation of an anti-Soviet US-China alliance, Brezhnev began a new round of negotiations with the United States, in May 1972, President Richard Nixon visited Moscow, where the leaders of the two countries signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), ushering in the era of "detente." The Paris Peace Agreements in January 1973 officially ended the Vietnam War. In May, Brezhnev visited West Germany, and in June he made a state visit to the United States.
The culmination of Brezhnev's "detente" era was the 1975 signing of the Helsinki Final Treaty, which recognized the post-war borders in Eastern and Central Europe and, in effect, legitimized Soviet hegemony over the region. In exchange, the Soviet Union agreed that "The participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all without distinction of race, sex, language or religion."
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union reached the peak of its political and strategic power against the United States.
The last years of life and death of Brezhnev
After Brezhnev suffered a stroke in 1975, Politburo members Mikhail Suslov and Andrei Kirilenko took over some leadership functions for a while.
The last years of Brezhnev's rule were marked by a growing cult of personality that peaked at his 70th birthday in December 1976. On his birthday, he was awarded the next title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And in 1978, Leonid Ilyich was awarded the Order of Victory, the highest military award of the USSR, he became the only cavalier who received it after the end of the Second World War.
In June 1977, he forced Podgorny to resign and again became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, making this position equivalent to that of the executive president. In May 1976, he became Marshal of the Soviet Union, the first "political marshal" since Stalin. Since Brezhnev was never a career soldier, the move caused outrage among professional officers.
After a sharp deterioration in health in 1978. Brezhnev delegated most of his duties to Konstantin Chernenko.
By 1980, Brezhnev's health deteriorated greatly, he wanted to resign, but members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee were categorically opposed, as soon as Leonid Ilyich was able to ensure the balance of influence of the Soviet political elites.
In March 1982, Brezhnev suffered a stroke.
He died of a heart attack on November 10, 1982 and was buried in the Necropolis by the Kremlin Wall.
Personal life and hobbies
In 1928, he married Victoria Brezhneva, with whom he had two children, Galina and Yuri.
Brezhnev owned at least 40 premium cars, including Ferraris, Jaguars and Rolls-Royces.
He loved and enjoyed wild boar hunting.
