The reign of Brezhnev in Soviet history does not cause such heated debate and diametrically opposed assessments as the Stalin era or Gorbachev perestroika, but this period also had its positive and negative points.
The end of totalitarianism
The reign of Brezhnev even began unusual for the Soviet state of that era. Charisma and unquestioning leadership in the party of Lenin, and later the totalitarian system of Stalin, determined that these leaders remained at the helm of the state until their death. Moreover, there were and could not be any significant fears of a change of power (with the exception of perhaps the very first months after the death of Lenin,
when Trotsky and Zinoviev were considered the real heirs). There was a struggle in 1953, when Joseph Dzhugashvili died. However, Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power, abruptly changed the course of the party’s internal policy.
The 20th Congress of the CPSU put an end to the totalitarian method of government: an atmosphere of fear, denunciations, the constant expectation of counter-revolution, and so on. Largely because of this step, he became the first ruler to be eliminated bloodlessly and not as a result of death. Brezhnev’s reign began in 1964 with the decision of the plenum of the
CPSU Central Committee to relieve Khrushchev of the post of Secretary General.
Stagnation or golden time?
The new era, later called stagnation time, began with active economic reforms designed to revive the economy. Reforms of Alexei Kosygin launched in 1965
year, were to some extent aimed at
translating the economy into a market rut. Thus, the economic independence of large state enterprises was significantly expanded, and instruments of material incentives for involved workers were introduced. And the reform really began to live up to expectations. Already the first period of Brezhnev’s reign was marked by the most successful five-year plan in the history of the country.
However, the reformers did not go all the way. The positive changes caused by the weakening of state control were not supplemented by the necessary freedom in other areas of economic life. The reform began to expose its negative results, such as a trend towards higher prices for goods. In addition, in the early 70s, oil deposits were discovered in Siberia , which led to the final loss of interest of the Soviet leadership in reform activities. Around the 70s, a slight slowdown in the development of the domestic economy began to be revealed. Production is becoming less profitable. The armament and the space program are increasingly lagging behind the main competitor, the United States (the last loud success of the Soviet space program was the Mars-2 apparatus, the first to reach the red planet safely). In addition, there is a lag in high-tech industries.
These negative trends to a large extent became the reasons for the subsequent perestroika and for how it all ended - the collapse of the Soviet state. Requiring ever-increasing resources engineering and others
strategically important sectors could not but affect the slowdown in the development of light industry, which had a rather painful effect on the country's population. The shortage of food and basic necessities is perhaps the first thing that is generally associated among the masses with this era. At the same time, the time of Brezhnev’s reign, the so-called stagnation, was such only in comparison with the previous, incredibly high rates of development of heavy and light industry in the country. At the same time, for millions of our compatriots, he is remembered as a golden era. First of all, for those who fully felt the decline in economic indicators and living standards in the 1990s. At the same time, Brezhnev’s rule was marked by other significant moments: the war in Afghanistan, the new round of the
Cold War, and the complication of relations with China as a result of conflicts on Damansky Island.