BREZHNEV: A BUREAUCRAT'S PROFILE
Medvedev, Roy
Roy Medvedev is a distinguished Russian historian and political dissident. Shortly after the death of Leonid Brezhnev and the accession of Yuri Andropov to the Soviet leadership, the secret police...
...But it is impossible for a head of state to avoid such conflicts...
...Even Suslov was in favor of removing Trapeznikov, especially after twice "flunking" the elections for corresponding members to the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1967...
...It may even be true that Stalin telephoned him a few times for information about the restoration of the metallurgical plants in the area, as Brezhnev (with the help of several anonymous writers) wrote in his memoirs...
...Brezhnev received a few decorations during the Khrushchev years—but after he assumed the leadership decorations began to rain down on him...
...His son Yuri became a member of the Central Committee and deputy minister for foreign trade...
...Translator's note...
...But all those clumsy efforts of Soviet propaganda can only be considered merely the outward signs of a personality cult...
...the death of the leader of the party and state is a political event of extraordinary significance, usually marking the end of an era...
...This does not mean that Brezhnev was especially attentive to the requests and feelings of simple people...
...He displayed a surprising weakness for all the tinsel of superficial honors...
...These people did not lose their lives but lost their former privileged way of life...
...Kirilenko, Brezhnev's loyal ally, was promoted to counterbalance Suslov and Shelepin in the Secretariat of the Central Committee...
...At 232 Suslov's funeral some 15 senior military officers walked behind his coffin carrying his orders and medals...
...Brezhnev's workday shrank to just a few hours...
...Toward the end of his life this trait occasioned considerable derision at all levels of Soviet society...
...At the same time, Brezhnev's party machine did not foster sensible independence in management by introducing economic experiments— and this, in the last analysis, brought the economic reforms initiated by Kosygin to naught...
...Consider some of the events in the late 1960s: the "cultural revolution" in China and military clashes on the Sino-Soviet border...
...At the same time, however, many problems accumulate that an aging leadership is no longer able to resolve...
...They literally led him around by the hand, which only made matters worse—the Soviet leader's age and infirmity not only earned his fellow citizens' pity but also their irritation and derision...
...This does not at all mean that Brezhnev was only a figurehead...
...Of course, his speeches contained some ideas that, from the point of view of theory, could be considered a step forward in Marxist–Leninist ideology...
...The Soviet Union now also had to deal with the difficult problems of Afghanistan in the east and Poland in the west...
...But in fact Brezhnev was never a "forceful personality...
...He even received the Lenin prize for achievements in literature, for a few small books of memoirs in no way distinguished from those of other Soviet politicians...
...and the countries of Western Europe, and Soviet foreign trade with the developed Western nations increased sevenfold in ten years and exceeded 31 billion rubles in 1980...
...In the 18 years since 1964 the Soviet people had, of course, begun to live a better life in nearly all respects...
...Naturally, the film was permitted distribution...
...In the late '70s, ordinary people began to show him a little pity along with indifference—"so old and sick and he still has to work...
...Podgorny, who had replaced Mikoyan as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, did not wish to content himself with a position entirely formal and devoid of real power...
...Of course, he was by then a professional politician, but even politicians can be distinguished by their degree of political ambition...
...The principal political slogan advanced by the Brezhnev government in those years was "stability": stability in foreign and domestic policy, in policies applied to party and state personnel, and in economic development...
...Protracted tenure in office permits Soviet leaders to conclude a fair number of enterprises...
...Brezhnev's further career is also connected with Khrushchev...
...But one must also speak of a third period in the "Brezhnev era," which began at the end of 1979 and continued into late 1982...
...This made for a very substantial limitation on his power and also hindered him in promoting younger cadres...
...People who worked with Brezhnev have a variety of things to say about him...
...At the time when the United States was compelled to pull out of Vietnam, the Soviet Union's influence was on the rise in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, though it had diminished in the Near East...
...Brezhnev's real power was increased by this change of post, but that did not seem an advantage to him...
...All of this only muddled the system of leadership and resulted in a rampant growth in bureaucracy...
...Gradually a special organization to serve him came into being: the Secretariat of the General Secretary of the Central Committee, something like the White House staffs of American presidents...
...a political crisis in Poland led to Gomulka's fall...
...Senate's refusal to ratify the Salt II agreement, the deployment of new nuclear missile systems by both sides marked the beginning of a new spiral in the increasingly expensive, dangerous, and senseless arms race...
...Shortly after the death of Leonid Brezhnev and the accession of Yuri Andropov to the Soviet leadership, the secret police gave Medvedev a "stern warning" against writing about his political views...
...The second period in the "Brezhnev era" extends from the beginning of 1971 to the end of 1979, in many respects the most peaceful decade in Russia's 20th-century history...
...Frequently, and for long periods, he was compelled to shift his duties to an ever larger staff of aides...
...One scene in this film shows some soldiers meeting for the first time after the war...
...Not only the scientists but Kosygin and Podgorny raised the question of replacing Trapeznikov...
...But Brezhnev had more than 200 decorations and medals...
...achieved rough nuclear parity with the U.S...
...All this had a definite effect...
...When the young Shelepin was asked 228 by a group of friends: "What would you like to be...
...But no one, Brezhnev included, held the highhanded party bureaucrat Shauro responsible...
...Some believe that he was indecisive and soft, insufficiently independent and not critical enough in evaluating his aides' advice—others, that Brezhnev was a forceful personality with a keen intellect that he used to defeat his rivals...
...The "party machine" supported Brezhnev, for he satisfied its interests to the highest degree...
...Brezhnev's daughter's husband, Churbanov, made a rapid career and became deputy minister for internal affairs after 1977...
...In this period of "detente," the Soviet Union and the United States concluded many treaties, including those on the limiting of strategic weapons...
...It was not enough that he became the Peace Prize Laureate or that he received the Karl Marx gold medal from the Academy of Sciences...
...In the '70s meetings of the Politburo were never a mere formality where Brezhnev could dictate his will, without taking other opinions into account...
...Previously Shelest, the highly self-confident but none-too-bright leader of the Ukrainian party machine, had been removed from the Politburo and pensioned off for objecting to Nixon's being invited to the U.S.S.R...
...The Sino–Vietnamese conflict, the Cambodian problem, the boycott of the Moscow Olympics by the Western nations, the economic crisis in Rumania, the new conservative government in West Germany—all these created complications for the U.S.S.R...
...The schism in the world Communist movement was growing deeper...
...Under Brezhnev, the state and party machinery became less centralized...
...Brezhnev thought otherwise...
...It was probably in his last two years that his popularity and his administration reached the lowest point: he had not been able to step down in time...
...In many areas Brezhnev had more influence in the security organizations than Andropov...
...The first coincides with the late '60s...
...In the '70s, even in public places—hotel lobbies, or hospitals—people would turn off the television set and walk away when one of those speeches came on...
...Unable to fathom even some of the state's administrative branches, Brezhnev grew too used to relying on his aides, and this opened the door to corruption...
...He almost never resolved matters that could be resolved on a lower level...
...That, however, is the inevitable result of too long a reign and extraordinary power...
...In 1980 Soviet industry produced only 24 percent more than it did in 1975...
...Brezhnev, in similar situations, would merely pension off a few people already quite advanced in years...
...At one point this outraged Suslov when Brezhnev refused to see him concerning Sholokhov's literary complaints about Pravda...
...Only once, in October 1971, while being received by President Pompidou in France, a country where the art of rhetoric is held in much esteem, did Brezhnev deliver a speech without reading it...
...Many problems were dealt with by an ever broader range of Soviet high officials...
...A decision was made to change many former methods of managing industry and agriculture (the so-called economic reform...
...Not only did this lead to an increase in localism and departmentalism, it also led to abuses of power and corruption...
...A woman with whom they had been friendly at the front where she had been a nurse sings a song about their paratroop battalion...
...At that time Brezhnev dreamed of nothing more than signing decrees, receiving ambassadors' credentials, and heading the Supreme Soviet convened at most once or twice a year...
...When he was younger, he seldom missed a chance to go hunting...
...But people are more apt to compare their situation with what it was four or five years earlier, not 20 years ago...
...At home, Brezhnev had to reckon with a rapidly developing "dissident" movement that was gathering strength despite repressive measures...
...Brezhnev never aspired to hold all the reins of power, even in the most important matters...
...Brezhnev did not possess Khrushchev's phenomenal ability to work and, in his last years, his capacity for work was, on the whole, less than average...
...The 18th Army, to which Brezhnev was attached, took part in this battle and one of Brezhnev's books of memoirs is entitled A Small Piece of Land...
...Although the condition of a Soviet leader's health is a carefully kept state secret, Brezhnev's progressive infirmity was obvious to anyone who heard his speeches or saw him on television...
...Brezhnev did not declare war on corruption and violations of state discipline and, in the end, that evil even affected some members of his own family...
...But it also would be incorrect to say that Brezhnev had simply transferred his power to those around him...
...This was a time when the new leadership that was formed after the October plenum of 1964 set about energetically to correct everything considered mistaken in Khrushchev's policies...
...Second, he showed greater self-assurance when discussing international affairs...
...After seeing the movie, Brezhnev declared that this actor had to be given some award...
...After the , war Brezhnev owed his rise to Khrushchev,' a figure whom Brezhnev carefully passes over in his memoirs...
...But the most important thing was to determine Brezhnev's successor...
...For example, he almost never interfered in literature and art...
...He had a great love for old American westerns and knew Reagan as a Hollywood actor long before he became president...
...In the postwar period the Moldavian S.S.R...
...He had practically no contact with them...
...We have mentioned that Brezhnev did not overload himself with work...
...He was awarded the "Victory" decoration, which, according to statute, can only be granted to highranking generals for major victories in battle at the front...
...But finding himself at the head of the party and with considerable power, he began to manifest signs that he was indeed an independent political personality...
...Nevertheless, the members of the Politburo and the Central Committee as well as the U.S.S.R.'s ministers were, for the most part, people who had advanced to the highest echelons under Stalin or Khrushchev...
...It was a time of reform and counterreform...
...Trapeznikov is not only a crude but an uneducated man whose ignorance was the subject of much talk in the Academy of Sciences...
...There is a scene in this film in which a former criminal, released from prison and trying to mend his ways, returns home to see his mother accompanied by his girl friend...
...This was not yet a final decision, since it would have to be approved by an emergency plenum of the Central Committee...
...EDS...
...This escaped the notice of the French, since the Soviet interpreter had memorized the translation better than Brezhnev the original...
...He would weep not only at the funerals of friends but on other occasions that would not seem especially moving to a politician...
...Translated from the Russian by RICHARD LOURIE 233...
...In the majority of industrial centers some form of rationing had to be introduced...
...Stroke by stroke, this essay shows us in rich detail the profile of a bureaucrat in the Communist society...
...It was becoming increasingly difficult for Brezhnev to discharge even simple matters of protocol, and at times he was not fully aware of what was going on around him...
...Voronov and Polyansky also had lost their seats in the Politburo...
...Brezhnev was never fast on his feet and did not possess much of a sense of humor...
...He sometimes distanced himself from his former "favorites" if he thought they had gone too far...
...The rank of Hero of the Soviet Union was conferred on him four times...
...When visiting other countries, Brezhnev displayed increasing confidence and independence...
...The intellectual class was largely against rehabilitating Stalin...
...Yet in the Central Committee and the Soviet Council of Ministers there were quite a few people who owed their promotions to Brezhnev...
...In fact, however, Brezhnev did not even keep too careful a watch on his subordinates...
...It was, for example, necessary to establish tight security not only in the center of Moscow but on all roads leading into the city...
...After four years of stagnation, the economy showed relatively rapid development in industry and agriculture...
...When, as a major general, he marched across Red Square in the victory parade of June 1945, there were only three decorations and three medals on his chest...
...Piotr Glebov, who played the lead role, had not, however, done anything of distinction since then and had not been given a single major part...
...When he traveled about the country, Brezhnev never suddenly changed his itinerary as Khrushchev had done rather often...
...The relatively simple, mild, and benevolent Brezhnev, to whom "nothing human" was alien and who was not too exacting with his subordinates, seemed more impressive than the other Politburo members to the Obkom party secretaries, the majority of the ministers and military leaders fed up with the tyrannical arbitrariness of Stalin and even Khrushchev...
...NATO's decision to "close the arms gap," the U.S...
...But it would be erroneous to attribute all the successes or failures to Brezhnev alone, for he never possessed the degree of personal power that Khrushchev had, not to mention Stalin...
...But the old veteran was not about to try to change "Marshal" Brezhnev's opinion...
...The song, composed by the famous Soviet bard Bulat Okudzhava, so touched Brezhnev that he burst into tears...
...Clearly, this created fertile soil for intrigue of every sort...
...In the '50s, whenever Raikin was in Moscow, he nearly always got together with Brezhnev, and those meetings continued, though less frequently, even in the '60s and '70s...
...However, it was in the interest of a great many influential people that Brezhnev remain, at least formally, chief of state...
...Portraits of Brezhnev with quotations from his speeches were everywhere...
...He falls weeping to the grass by the church wall...
...The surrounding area was all held by the Germans and thus the "small piece of land" became a symbol of stubborn, heroic resistance...
...The free market, which sold food at higher prices, assumed larger proportions...
...Chernenko, chief among them, had been brought into the Politburo and chaired meetings of the Secretariat and Politburo rather often, replacing Brezhnev...
...Sometimes the results were entirely to the good, but often they were inimical to the interests of the people...
...Until October 1964 he most likely never conceived of himself as ever being number one...
...The ceremony was broadcast and to Russians it was obvious that Brezhnev had taken pains to memorize his short speech...
...BREZHNEV DISLIKED CONFLICT in both politics and personal relations...
...Brezhnev never received "emissaries from the people" as Lenin had in order to learn the moods and aspirations of ordinary workers and peasants...
...In the last months of his life he was obviously reading his speeches mechanically...
...Russian Soviet Republic...
...Industrial production was only increasing at a rate of 2-3 percent per year...
...It would appear that by the evening of November 10 the Politburo had been called into session, with Shcherbitsky assuming the role of acting chairman...
...Even when awarding decorations to his closest associates, he would read a few words from a prepared text...
...And in the '70s, for the first time, the U.S.S.R...
...Despite all the propaganda efforts, the populace remained skeptical of Brezhnev throughout his 18 years in power...
...The 1982 harvest was bad...
...What a good-looking Moldavian," said Stalin...
...However, Brezhnev frequently attended reunions of war veterans to meet with those who had served in the 18th Army...
...224 FOR THE SAKE of convenience, the Brezhnev era can be divided into three periods...
...Naturally, Raikin was placed in the best hospital and then spent two months in a Central Committee sanatorium...
...Foreign leaders often presented him with sports cars produced in their countries and one must assume that somewhere Brezhnev had a garage large enough for them all...
...the Soviet Union had to expand its military programs extensively...
...At present nearly all the dissidents' small organizations and printing operations have ceased to exist, and it is now difficult to speak of the dissidents as a political movement or a key factor in domestic or foreign policy...
...First, his status as the dominant member of the Soviet leadership could hardly have been more manifest...
...The first sign that Brezhnev was in control appeared in the area of foreign policy...
...Nevertheless, Brezhnev's influence was growing, slowly but continuously...
...NEITHER OVERLY AMBITIOUS nor power-hungry, Brezhnev was, however, extremely vain...
...In such circumstances he was cheerful and straightforward, which greatly facilitated his popularity with his own generation of leaders...
...By the beginning of the '70s Brezhnev was speaking not only as undisputed leader of the party but as head of the leadership...
...A similar episode occurred when Brezhnev viewed the film The Red Guelder Rose, whose director, writer, and star was V. Shukshin...
...Shauro was extremely rude to Raikin and made such insulting remarks to him that he suffered a heart attack right on the spot, in the Central Committee building...
...As a rule, Brezhnev had been promoted by other, stronger people who appreciated his loyalty, flexibility, and discipline...
...there were days when his doctors feared for his life...
...defeat of the U.S.S.R.'s Arab allies in the Six-Day War...
...There was, however, one important improvement in foreign policy—a change of tone in Sino–Soviet relations...
...The nit-picking censors demanded that this scene be cut from the film...
...It was Khrushchev who nominated Brezhnev to be first secretary of the Moldavian Central Committee...
...He was not a man with a well-rounded education and, at the start, he realized how modest his intellectual resources were...
...He was not able to act on the most important problems in foreign and domestic policy entirely on his own, or to change personnel in the Central Committee and Politburo at his sole discretion...
...In the past even the greatest of men have fallen into 229 that trap, not only seriously ill rulers with middling abilities...
...Brezhnev wept another time as well—at the first performance, played by the Pacific Fleet's orchestra on the occasion of a Brezhnev visit to Vladivostok, of Pakhmutova's song A Small Piece of Land, Soviet Land.* This rather primitive song is about the battles fought by the 18th Army...
...In the early '70s, a Moscow studio made a film entitled The Belorussky Station...
...He relied more on his aides' memos...
...They found Brezhnev's slogan of "stability" entirely to 226 their liking...
...By 1979 gross agricultural production was less than it had been in 1978, and it decreased in 1980 as well...
...Until late in old age, Brezhnev loved fast cars...
...In terms of yearly averages, the yield of the Soviet countryside had increased by all of 23 percent in ten years, with the greater part of the increase coming at the beginning of the decade...
...He loved to vacation and spend time in pleasant company...
...Throughout the "Brezhnev era," the country maintained a "collective leadership," which, in practice, meant that the Politburo ruled...
...But Khrushchev not only called Brezhnev frequently but was often in Zaporozhe and Dnepropetrovsk helping Brezhnev solve difficult problems or holding him sternly responsible for their neglect...
...1981 was an especially poor year: figures on grain were not even published...
...Julius Caesar said that it is better to be first no matter where...
...The majority of those who "fell into disfavor" remained in the nomenklatura—the power elite—merely descending two or three ranks...
...All in all, Brezhnev had begun to live increasingly in a world of illusions that he himself had created and to which he was bound...
...Literature and art continued their forward movement that had begun at the time of the 20th and 22nd Party Congresses...
...They had known each other since June 1941, when the young Raikin had been on tour with his theater in Dnepropetrovsk, and during the war Raikin performed frequently for the 18th Army...
...Brezhnev was more modest in his plans and ambitions...
...However, once Brezhnev's personal power increased, his workday grew shorter...
...An independent public opinion had emerged, and it was not meekly submitting to the party propaganda machine...
...And that is one of the reasons Brezhnev was buried with his nation's highest honors but without the people's grief...
...He was fond of a good time at the table, liked good wine, and enjoyed success with women...
...Tsvigun, an old friend of Brezhnev from their Moldavian days who was married to 227 Brezhnev's wife's sister, was appointed first deputy chairman of the KGB in 1967...
...People like Shelepin aspired to power and the best Brezhnev could hope for seemed to be a return to his post as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet...
...Brezhnev's insufficient activity was coupled with enormous power, and this caused many problems to be handed over to such new organizations as the Central Committee Secretariat, which had, so to speak, been turned into an organization parallel to the Central Committee...
...Minister of Defense Ustinov proposed that Andropov be elected general secretary of the party's Central Committee...
...while the bombing of North Vietnam was in full swing...
...Even in this period, Brezhnev's power was not without limits...
...Another question had to be decided— should Brezhnev be called a "great" or just an "outstanding" fighter for "peace and socialism...
...however, out of agitation, he omitted words and phrases that rendered some of his sentences incomprehensible...
...The truth no doubt is somewhere in between, though the former view should be favored...
...He was not involved in Khrushchev's ouster although he had been kept abreast of Suslov's and Shelepin's plans...
...Brezhnev was unable to hold an open press conference or debate, or to answer questions spontaneously— something Khrushchev, Mikoyan, or Gromyko could handle with ease...
...During the war, Brezhnev had not received many decorations or medals...
...But there was a shortcoming in the modesty of Brezhnev's political ambitions—he never had a political and economic program thought out in detail...
...The U.S.S.R...
...Brezhnev was unable to conceal his joy...
...Nevertheless, he nearly always tried to smooth things over and avoid taking extreme decisions...
...He only "went with the tide" in a political ocean that was growing increasingly stormy...
...I observed this myself in Kislovodsk on the eve of elections to the Supreme Soviet, when all the loudspeakers in a park at a health resort were broadcasting an almost four-hour-long speech by Brezhnevthousands of vacationers strolled about the park not paying the slightest attention...
...None of the plans for economic development were fulfilled...
...One of my friends, a party member, once attended a ceremonial party function and ended up beside a group of Politburo members —Suslov, Brezhnev, Chernenko, and a few others—who were engaged in a discussion...
...It was a very good movie but the censorship did not allow it to be shown since, in the censor's opinion, the film did not present the Moscow police in the most favorable light...
...For a long time he had given the impression of being a man in splendid physical condition...
...He began vacationing in the spring as well as in the summer...
...Many of the major figures in the government not only had to consider how to report to Brezhnev about their problems but also which of his aides to approach...
...2. Political Leader and Chief of State Brezhnev's personal contribution to Soviet foreign and domestic policy is clear...
...He was able to express his opinion only on some of the problems requiring resolution...
...He was fully satisfied with the post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to which he had been elected in 1960 on Khrushchev's suggestion...
...They asked Shukshin—why does your hero walk toward a church, and a half-ruined one at that...
...There were enormous problems with energy, coal, transportation...
...For example, he liked And Quiet Flows the Don, which had come out in three parts in 1957-58...
...But later on people began to grow irritated—there were fewer and fewer goods in the stores, prices were rising, yet there were more and more medals on Brezhnev's chest...
...Had Brezhnev stepped down in 1979, he would have been able to speak of his administration's achievements with genuine pride...
...When Khrushchev removed someone, he would deprive that person of all rank and responsibility and send him to an ordinary job in the provinces...
...But Brezhnev insisted and a few days later the world of art was surprised to learn that Piotr Glebov had been awarded not only the Order of Lenin but the title "National Artist of the U.S.S.R...
...In the covert struggle in the party, Suslov soon gained the upper hand over Shelepin, but Brezhnev's posi7 tion had also grown stronger when a good number of his friends from Dnepropetrovsk and Moldavia became part of the higher echelons of power...
...His illnesses had grown very serious...
...BREZHNEV DID NOT ASPIRE to "great power," nor did he wish to strike terror in his subordinates...
...In the international arena, however, the U.S.S.R.'s position took a turn for the worse in those years...
...S. V. Medunov, the first secretary of the Krasnodar Obkom, remained unperturbed even though his corrupt activities were examined more than once...
...In 1971, after meeting with the Soviet leader, Germany's Chancellor Willy Brandt wrote: There were two respects in which I sensed that a change had occurred in my opposite number...
...The specialized [e.g., coal, fishing] ministries were restored and the regional Sovnarkhozes (economic councils) eliminated...
...Several of Brezhnev's relatives also occupied important positions...
...Of course, the film was immediately 231 permitted distribution, and from then on the song The Paratroop Batallion was nearly always included in any concert he attended...
...Photographs of him appeared in the press more often than had those of Stalin and Khrushchev...
...On April 12, 1982, Newsweek wrote: . . . the approaching end has been written in his face: the drawn expreission, the distant gaze, the eyes empty of the strength that has animated and driven the Soviet Union for the past eighteen years...
...He acted more simply and naturally than the others...
...The Soviet "establishment" displayed its clear preference for Brezhnev...
...In reality, the majority of Soviet citizens were surprisingly indifferent to Brezhnev...
...Although Brezhnev died in the early morning on November 10, 1982, the official report of his death only was made around noon on November 11...
...At that time few people believed he would retain power for very long...
...Under Stalin and Khrushchev, Brezhnev had shown no signs of being an independent political force...
...This article caused Newsweek correspondent Andrew Nagorny to be expelled from the U.S.S.R...
...Newsweek's only error was in asserting that it had been Brezhnev's strength that had animated and driven the Soviet Union...
...Having come to power with his slogan "stability among personnel," Brezhnev was not able to introduce a great many major changes in the personnel of the Central Committee...
...enormous revolvers and gave them to Brezhnev as a present...
...The chief of state's job was only to question and encourage (or punish...
...But on every occasion Brezhnev acted as his protector...
...Kosygin had enormous influence when it came to agricultural problems...
...Having attained no success with the economy, Brezhnev's administration was, however, marked by "outstanding successes" in the last four years in the struggle against the "dissident" movement...
...Between 1966 and 1970, industry's gross output increased by almost 50 percent, while agriculture's yearly average production grew by approximately 20 percent...
...he answered without a moment's hesitation: "Number one...
...It is well-known that Brezhnev had friendly feelings for the famous Soviet satirical actor Arkady Raikin...
...It was explained to him that the film was now very old and that Glebov's career as an actor had not met with much success in the meantime...
...But that was only a possible beginning of a prolonged process...
...He demanded to be reckoned with when he expressed some desire, though his responses were frequently inadequate to a given situation...
...The U.S.S.R.'s relations with many Western nations worsened markedly in the last few years and those with the United States were reminiscent of the cold war...
...Brezhnev created the Secretariat himself, staffing it chiefly with old colleagues from Dnepropetrovsk, Moldavia, and Kazakhstan...
...Raikin appealed the decision to the Central Committee, not considering it feasible to make use of his acquaintance with Brezhnev...
...One of his aides who cautiously hinted that it would be better to appear on television less often was immediately dismissed...
...The denunciation of Stalin, Beria, Molotov, Kaganovich, and others, and later of Khrushchev himself all led to a considerable weakening of the party leaders' general authority...
...Brezhnev's close friend Chernenko assumed its leadership...
...was not on friendly terms with China, but the relationship had not deteriorated...
...It was decided to screen the film for the Politburo...
...He decides not to let his mother see him but slips away and walks slowly toward a half-ruined church...
...after all, if you compared 1982 with 1942, Brezhnev was even right to some degree...
...said Brezhnev to one veteran who came from a city where there was no meat, sausage, or cheese in the stores...
...The slowdown in agriculture was even more pronounced...
...But in the mid-'70s his health declined abruptly...
...Even there the talk was none too open...
...During Brezhnev's visit to the United States, at a private reception at Nixon's residence, Brezhnev was approached by another American superstar...
...Brezhnev himself was not only awarded the rank of marshal but was appointed chairman of the High Military Council, a special organization created to work out basic Soviet strategic military concepts...
...Seeing them up close for the first time my friend paid special attention to their facial expressions and mannerisms...
...STRANGE AS IT may seem, Brezhnev was a very sentimental man...
...occupation of Czechoslovakia...
...He did not rise to power by shoving his weaker rivals aside or by destroying them...
...THE SECOND PERIOD in Brezhnev's career began with the 1970s when his was the predominant influence in the "collective leadership...
...A. A. Ishkov, minister of the fishing industry, suffered no punishment either, even though his department had been marked by unprecedented fraud for years, dozens of leading figures in the ministry arrested for their part in it and one of the deputy ministers sentenced to death...
...And how many people in the 19th century dreamed of careers like Napoleon's...
...That slogan was to a considerable degree realized, although "stability" often became stagnation when the leaders refused to make intelligent innovations or to replace obviously unfit personnel...
...Meanwhile, millions of people who had seen Brezhnev on television also had remarked on his approaching end...
...Brezhnev was very fond of movies and could see two or three a day when on vacation...
...Brezhnev was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, uniting in his person the posts of head of the party and chief of state...
...In his last months, already gravely ill, he was still frequently shown the best Soviet films, for the most part older movies that he had been too busy to see...
...The amount of food purchased from abroad increased and food supply at home took a sharp turn for the worse, the sale of meat and dairy products undergoing special curtailment...
...He was content to be number two or three...
...A few days after the concert, the soloist was awarded the title "Honored Artist of the...
...Nor did Brezhnev concern himself with details connected with airplane and tank construction, as Stalin had...
...THE THIRD PERIOD in Brezhnev's political career was that of the last three or four years of his life...
...I n the U.S.S.R...
...fell into the Ukraine's "sphere of influence...
...Many judicious treaties were concluded between the U.S.S.R...
...When Podgorny, the former "president" of the U.S.S.R., objected to this, he was removed from the Politburo and pensioned off...
...Brezhnev was never able to make major decisions on his own...
...The latter, in particular, was held responsible for the difficult straits of Soviet agriculture...
...That is fully in keeping with Soviet tradition...
...To all intents and purposes, however, the question had been decided...
...And while the speeches at funerals stress continuity, most of the population's first thought will be of the changes in the society and government ushered in by a change of rulers...
...Television did more to harm than help Brezhnev's popularity, for it was plain to all that Brezhnev was unable to deliver even the simplest speech without reading it off the page, and he never departed from his prepared text as Khrushchev frequently had done...
...3. Brezhnev as a Man None who knew Brezhnev well would have called him an intellectual, even though in recent years he had been called an "outstanding theoretician of Marxism–Leninism" in the Soviet press...
...In accordance with the policy of "stability," personnel were given even greater power and by no means all of them used that power intelligently...
...For the Soviet Union's foreign policy, the '70s were a time of its greatest successes, and these were usually attributed to Brezhnev...
...The high point of detente was the communique on security and the signing of the Helsinki Final Act communiqu...
...He took offense at Khrushchev, who had also treated him crudely and humiliatingly in the past, and this was the principal reason Brezhnev joined the ranks of his former "patron's" enemies...
...If Stalin removed someone he found disagreeable from his post, it was rare for that 230 person to remain alive or at liberty...
...He spent the first months of 1976 in the hospital...
...At the funerals of Soviet leaders it is customary to carry their medals pinned to small velvet cushions...
...Shelest and Mazurov also felt confident and rumor ascribes to them the most active role in the decision to invade Czechoslovakia...
...You know," he told me later, "if I had to approach one of those people with an important piece of business, I would choose Brezhnev...
...he unbuttoned his jacket, undid his broad belt holding two * "A small piece of land" was the nickname given to a battle zone to the southwest of the city of Novorossisk retaken and held by Soviet forces in February—September 1943...
...Brezhnev's rise was not owed to exceptional political or intellectual abilities...
...Brezhnev succeeded in appointing Ustinov as minister of defense, thereby limiting the role of the military professionals...
...Agricultural production had begun to decline...
...Brezhnev was very fond indeed of watching his own broadcasts...
...And he was manifestly offended when Khrushchev decided to make him the second secretary of the Central Committee, freeing him from his duties as "Soviet president...
...IN THE 1960s Brezhnev was, at best, first among equals...
...Shelepin, one of his principal opponents, was removed from the Politburo...
...He had been close to Brezhnev since the days when they had worked together in Moldavia...
...The division of the party's Obkoms (provincial committees) into industrial and agricultural committees was terminated and party district committees were reinstated...
...Even in the late '60s, when Brezhnev's longwinded speeches were broadcast on radio and television, practically no one listened to them...
...Soviet propaganda became grotesque at times when indulging Brezhnev's vanity...
...We are pleased to print here a translation of a recently written article about Brezhnev and his time, which for reasons of space has been somewhat abridged...
...A great deal of time and effort were required, for example, to remove V. P Mzhavanadze, whose greed and corruption were legendary in Georgia, from the Central Committee and the Politburo...
...Brezhnev not only retained people who had committed errors but even those who had been caught embezzling, refusing to approve judicial inquiries...
...In this country it is not only important to report the death of a person known throughout the world but to determine how to formulate that report and the procedures to follow it...
...Hiding behind the door, the son listens to what his mother says to the girl about him—that he disappeared a long time ago but she is waiting for his return and still loves him...
...The tempo of industrial development began to slow...
...But all those speeches and articles are hardly the fruits of Brezhnev's own creative labor...
...he loved fishing and ocean swimming...
...As a result, Trapeznikov remains director of the Central Committee's science department and in the '70s even was elected a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, although the Politburo had passed a resolution forbidding leading party members to run for election to the Academy of Sciences...
...At the 19th Party Congress in the fall of 1952, Brezhnev was for the first time elected•a member of the Central Committee and even became a member of its expanded Presidium...
...expansion of the war in Vietnam...
...Yet it was precisely at this point in the film that Brezhnev had cried...
...Every summons from Stalin held a hidden danger, even for a member of the Politburo...
...There was an insufficient supply of party personnel in that recently formed Soviet republic since a large portion of Moldavia had recently become part of Rumania...
...A few professional writers had been enlisted to help him compose those memoirs...
...At one point in the mid-'70s Raikin's tours in Moscow were suddenly canceled by Polyansky and Grishin on the basis of some entirely nonsensical complaints by the theater censors...
...Of course, at times he had to do a great deal of work—when Stalin and Khrushchev were running the Soviet Union...
...In many 225 respects these were years of genuine crisis...
...In 1965, S. P Trapeznikov was appointed director of the Central Committee's department of science, schools, and institutions of higher learning...
...A good deal has been said about the Brezhnev personality cult...
...The enormous capital investment in agricultural production, comparable only to military expenditures, did not achieve the intended effect...
...He was seen by V. F Shauro, director of the cultural department of the Central Committee...
...On Khrushchev's recommendation, Brezhnev was elected first secretary of the party's Zaporozhe Obkom...
...Once the crisis had passed and Brezhnev returned to work, his power grew even greater...
...Brezhnev's health underwent an especially serious deterioration in the spring of 1982...
...The dictator, old and very weak, was interested in the tall, well-dressed, 46-year-old Brezhnev...
...It was probably only at that Congress that Stalin became'personally acquainted with Brezhnev...
...How well the Soviet people have begun to live...
Vol. 30 • April 1983 • No. 2
