The personal and political portrait of Brezhnev L.I. for many historians, political scientists and ordinary people looks rather ambiguous. The fact that this person was in power was marked by the greatest economic recovery of the USSR, but at the same time it was during this period that the prerequisites were laid that led to the collapse of the state. We will attempt to reproduce the personal and political portrait of Brezhnev. A summary of the biography of this statesman is given below.
Birth
Before starting to describe the historical portrait of Brezhnev, we should briefly dwell on the biographical aspects of the life of this politician, since in many respects it was they who naturally left a significant imprint on the formation of personality. Naturally, you should start from birth.
L. I. Brezhnev was born in 1906 in the village of Kamensky, which was located in the Yekaterinoslav province, on the territory of modern Ukraine. His father was Ilya Yakovlevich, and his mother was Natalya Denisovna Mazalova. Both parents were workers, ethnic Russians.
In addition to Leonid Ilyich, the family had two more children - Vera and Jacob, but they were born a little later than their famous brother.
Youth
After leaving school and short work at the oil mill, Leonid Ilyich entered the land surveying college in the city of Kursk, after which in 1927 he worked as a land surveyor and land surveyor in various regions of the country, and by 1930 he had already become deputy. Head of the Regional Land Administration.
In 1927, the marriage of L.I. Brezhnev and Victoria Denisova took place.
In 1931 he entered, and four years later graduated from the institute in Dneprodzerzhinsk in engineering, where he studied at the evening faculty, while working as a locksmith. After Brezhnev entered the university, his career went up sharply. In 1931, at the age of twenty-five, he became a member of the Communist Party.
After graduation, he served in the army in Transbaikalia, where he was promoted to the post of political instructor. After leaving service in 1936, he became the director of a technical school in Dneprodzerzhinsk.
In 1937, Brezhnev was appointed deputy head of the city executive committee of the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk. At the same time, he advanced all the way up the party ladder. So, since 1939, he became secretary of the regional party committee of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
During the Patriotic War, Brezhnev was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. At first he was engaged in mobilization activities, and then became a brigadier commissioner. Towards the end of the war, he received the post of head of the political department of the 4th Ukrainian Front with the rank of major general.
Party Promotion
After the war, Leonid Ilyich continued his career advancement in the party service. This period had a considerable influence on how the historical portrait of Brezhnev was formed.
Already in 1946 he became the head of the Zaporizhzhya regional committee, and the following year he was transferred to a similar post in the Dnipropetrovsk regional committee. In these positions, he received state awards for the post-war reconstruction of the regions, including the Order of Lenin.
In 1950, Leonid Ilyich was waiting for a significant increase. He became the party leader of one of the Soviet republics - the Moldavian SSR, and this was the position of the first echelon. In 1952, he was simultaneously elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU. But after Stalin’s death, he is relieved of all posts and appointed head of the Navy’s political department. In 1955, Brezhnev again became the first secretary of the party organization of the republic - this time in the Kazakh SSR. It was at this time that virgin lands rose there.
Since 1956, Leonid Ilyich has been working in the secretariat of the Central Committee, and since 1957 he was elected to the Presidium of this body.
From 1960 to 1964, Leonid Ilyich served as head of the Presidium of the Armed Forces. Thus, he crept to the very top of power in the USSR, taking the third most important post in the country. The political portrait of Brezhnev is taking on increasingly clear lines.
The removal of Khrushchev from power
The key event that influenced the historical portrait of Brezhnev was the removal in 1954 of the first secretary of the CPSU, that is, the actual head of state, Nikita Khrushchev, from power.
Khrushchev did not enjoy great love among the Soviet people, and in the party elite almost always from the moment he came to power there was quite a strong opposition to Nikita Sergeyevich. Representatives of the inner-party opposition did not like Khrushchev's position on reforming society, as well as his unsuccessful economic policy. Brezhnev did not initially join this group of party officials, and even in 1957 he supported Nikita Sergeevich when they unsuccessfully tried to remove him from the leadership of the state.
But by the mid-60s, the situation had changed. Opposition to Khrushchev, in view of his unconvincing policy and failures in economic activity, grew stronger. The need for a change in state leadership was also recognized by Leonid Ilyich. In this light, the political portrait of Brezhnev of that time testifies to his ability to respond to the needs of certain changes, and not to adhere to a clearly established and ossified course.
The initiators of the conspiracy to dismiss Khrushchev were: member of the Presidium of the party N. V. Podgorny, head of the KGB V. E. Semichastny, and also Secretary of the Central Committee A. N. Shelepin, who had previously held the same position. Brezhnev, although he joined the conspirators, but did not conduct any vigorous activity in this direction. Although, according to other sources, it was Leonid Ilyich who suggested that Semichastny physically eliminate Khrushchev, which he was refused.
The party leadership, accusing Nikita Sergeyevich of voluntarism, amateurism, and unsuccessful foreign and economic policies, suggested that the party’s first secretary either voluntarily agree to resign from all posts or resign with scandal. Khrushchev chose the first.
First Secretary Appointment
It was also decided to divide the posts of the First Secretary of the CPSU and the head of the Council of Ministers, previously concentrated in one hand. L. I. Brezhnev was appointed to the first post, and A. N. Kosygin to the second post.
Initially, the party leadership considered these two figures as compromise, and possibly even temporary, but, as it turned out later, an entire era in the country's development was associated with their activities. The historical portrait of Brezhnev is associated precisely with this period.
Political struggle
As already mentioned, the highest party officials considered the presence of Leonid Brezhnev at the head of state as temporary, so he had to endure a difficult struggle with opponents within the party apparatus in order to prove his right to lead the country. The ability to wage such a struggle brings some color to Brezhnev’s historical portrait.
In 1967, the contradictions between Brezhnev and the party group intensified, which included Shelepin, Semichastny, Podgorny and Yegorychev. This group of party members decided that it was time to remove the "temporary" first secretary and put Shelepin in his place. For these purposes, the ground began to be felt in the form of speeches at party meetings with petty criticism of various government decisions. But Leonid Ilyich was quite strong by this time and, unlike Khrushchev, managed to prevent the plot.
In 1967, A. N. Shelepin was expelled from the Central Committee secretariat and transferred to the post of the All-Union Trade Union Leader; Yegorychev was removed from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow branch of the CPSU and transferred to the post of deputy. Minister of Agriculture, and later sent as ambassador to Denmark. V.M. Semichastny from the post of head of the KGB was transferred to work in the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. A loyal person to Brezhnev was appointed in his place - Yu. V. Andropov. Also at this time was the appointment of a number of people close to Leonid Ilyich to leading government posts. These are Chernenko K. U., Tikhonov N. A., Tsvigun S. K., Schelokov N. A. and others. The activities of many of them were previously connected with the city of Dnepropetrovsk, which later gave rise to say that the government of the USSR affirmed the "Dnepropetrovsk clan."
The last of Brezhnev’s main opponents from the political arena was eliminated by N. V. Podgorny. This happened already in 1977, when, due to the deterioration in the health of Leonid Ilyich, there were fears that Podgorny, who served as chairman of the Presidium of the Armed Forces, could encroach on the post of general secretary. In this regard, he was dismissed on the pretext of retirement.
The reform
Speaking about the historical portrait of Brezhnev and his reform, it is necessary to clarify that although during his reign some time a reform policy was carried out, it was not Leonid Ilyich who initiated it at all. The main engine of innovation was A.N. Kosygin, who served as chairman of the Council of Ministers. This post was equivalent to the current post of head of government or prime minister in some countries. Without mentioning this statesman, it is impossible to draw up a complete historical portrait of Brezhnev. The Secretary General’s internal policy, on the contrary, was aimed at preserving the old regime, although under the pressure of economic factors Leonid Ilyich was forced to temporarily accept Kosygin’s proposals.
Although Kosygin, unlike Shelepin, did not enter into direct confrontation with Brezhnev, it was noticeable that many of his steps were taken negatively by the Secretary General.
The economic transformations of 1965, which went down in history under the name of the Kosygin reform, consisted in the elimination of territorial planning bodies, in reducing the number of planned indicators, in expanding the independence of individual enterprises. The main performance indicators of enterprises should be their profitability and profitability.
The expansion of the independence of enterprises was not to the liking of the party nomenclature, headed by L. I. Brezhnev. The historical portrait of this leader is just characterized by rather conservative views. No wonder the state policy of that time, in contrast to the Khrushchev thaw, is commonly called neo-Stalinism, and economic phenomena in the state are called stagnation. From the beginning of the 70s, the reforms carried out by Kosygin began to be curtailed, methods of tough state management of the economy began to be practiced, as before.
The rejection of reforms predetermined the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the future.
The economic development of the USSR
At the same time, it should be noted that it was during the Brezhnev period that the standard of living of citizens in the USSR reached unprecedented heights. Therefore, many people who lived in those days with nostalgia recall stagnation as a "golden age."
But a high standard of living was achieved only by “eating up” those reserves that were accumulated in the USSR in previous periods due to the hard work of representatives of the common people. In addition, it was under Brezhnev that a significant part of budget revenues began to be provided by oil exports, significant reserves of which began to be developed in Siberia. So far, until the end of the 70s, the price of this resource was high, this made it possible to ensure high economic indicators. But at the same time, this fact tied the country's economy to oil prices, which since the beginning of the 80s with the collapse of the price of black gold has been one of the factors that contributed to the collapse of the country's economy.
Also negative phenomena of the Brezhnev era were overproduction in some areas of the national economy and a shortage of goods in others.
Foreign policy
Even at the beginning of his reign, Brezhnev faced the problem of the Czechoslovak uprising, which was directed against the actual control of the USSR over this country. He made a strong-willed decision to send Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia to crush the uprising. Thus, he managed to maintain the influence of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, the beginning of the 70s was marked by the normalization of relations with the United States. The American president even visited Moscow.
The situation changed after 1979, when the USSR sent troops to Afghanistan. This led to the fact that relations between the USSR and Western countries were heated up with renewed vigor, and a number of sanctions were introduced against the Soviet Union.
Last years
In the last years of his life, L. I. Brezhnev began to experience significant health problems. He survived several heart attacks and strokes, which affected his mental abilities. In addition, he had a drug dependence on sleeping pills, without which he could not fall asleep.
Since the late 70s, Brezhnev could no longer lead the state, and the government in fact passed into the hands of his inner circle, although Leonid Ilyich remained secretary general until his death.
Death
L.I. Brezhnev died in November 1982, at one of his summer cottages. As the doctors determined, death occurred due to cardiac arrest. The Secretary General did not name the desired successor, so a new struggle for power awaited the country.
Leonid Ilyich was buried in Red Square.
general characteristics
Let us try to outline in general terms the political portrait of Brezhnev. Briefly we talked about the main milestones of his biography, which will help to put together a complete picture.
Leonid Ilyich was a man of conservative views, an old school. In many ways, he sympathized with Stalin's policies, although he did not dare to officially rehabilitate it. At the same time, it was sometimes noted that he was capable of reconsidering his former views and was flexible in changing situations. But with the age of this ability for flexibility, Brezhnev became less and less, and towards the end of his reign, the desire to preserve the old orders, regardless of external changes, became more pronounced.
It should also be noted that in order to achieve the highest goal, Brezhnev was ready to go for acts that sharply diverged from generally accepted moral standards.
But it must be understood that the historical portrait of Brezhnev according to the algorithm drawn up in advance cannot be recreated, since it was a rather bright and ambiguous figure in the history of the country.