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Soviet Union [USSR] THE BREZHNEV ERA
Collective Leadership and the Rise of Brezhnev
After removing Khrushchev from power, the leaders of the
Politburo (as the Presidium was renamed in 1966 by the Twenty-Third
Party Congress) and Secretariat again established a collective
leadership. As was the case following Stalin's death, several
individuals, including Aleksei N. Kosygin, Nikolai V. Podgornyi,
and Leonid I. Brezhnev, contended for power behind a facade of
unity. Kosygin accepted the position of prime minister, which he
held until his retirement in 1980. Brezhnev, who took the post of
first secretary, may have originally been viewed as an interim
appointment by his fellows.
Born to a Russian worker's family in 1906, Brezhnev became a
protege of Khrushchev early in his career and through his influence
rose to membership in the Presidium. As his own power grew,
Brezhnev built up a coterie of followers whom he, as first
secretary (the title reverted to general secretary after April
1966), gradually maneuvered into powerful positions. At the same
time, Brezhnev slowly demoted or isolated possible contenders for
his office. He succeeded in elevating Podgornyi to the ceremonial
position of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the
highest legislative organization in the government, in December
1965, thus eliminating him as a rival. But Brezhnev's rise was very
gradual; only in 1971, when Brezhnev succeeded in appointing four
close associates to the Politburo, did it become clear that his was
the most influential voice in the collective leadership. After
several more personnel changes, Brezhnev assumed the chairmanship
of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1977, confirming his
primacy in both party and state.
The years after Khrushchev were notable for the stability of
cadres (see Glossary) in the party and state apparatus. By
introducing the slogan "Trust in Cadres" in 1965, Brezhnev won the
support of many bureaucrats wary of the constant reorganizations of
the Khrushchev era and eager for security in established
hierarchies. As an example of the new stability, nearly half of the
Central Committee members in 1981 were holdovers from fifteen years
earlier. The corollary to 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 the
"gerontocracy," as it was referred to in the West) became
increasingly conservative and ossified.
Conservative policies characterized the regime's agenda in the
years after Khrushchev. Upon assuming power, the collective
leadership not only reversed such policies of Khrushchev's as the
bifurcation of the party but also halted de-Stalinization, and
positive references to the dead dictator began to appear. The
Soviet Constitution of 1977, although differing in certain respects
from the 1936 Stalin document, retains the general thrust of the
latter
(see Soviet Union USSR - The 1977 Constitution
, ch. 8). In contrast to the
relative cultural freedom tolerated during the early Khrushchev
years, Brezhnev and his colleagues continued the more restrictive
line of the later Khrushchev era. The leadership was unwilling or
unable to employ Stalinist means to control Soviet society;
instead, it opted to exert repressive tactics against political
dissidents even after the Soviet Union acceded to the
Helsinki Accords (see Glossary) in 1975. Dissidents persecuted
during this
time included writers and activists in outlawed religious,
nationalist, and human rights movements. In the latter part of the
Brezhnev era, the regime tolerated popular expressions of
anti-Semitism. Under conditions of "developed socialism" (the
historical stage that the Soviet Union attained in 1977 according
to the CPSU), the study of Marxism-Leninism served as a means to
bolster the authority of the regime rather than as a tool for
revolutionary action.
Data as of May 1989
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