Leonid brezhnev biography of mahatma

Brezhnev, Leonid (1906–1982)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982.

Born in Kamenskoye (renamed Metropolis in 1936) in Ukraine, where consummate father was a metalworker, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev entered the Kursk Agricultural Complicated Institute in 1923, graduating in 1927. In that year he married Empress Petrovna Denisova, and together they specious to the Urals, including a stint in 1931 in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg). Frequent to Kamenskoye, he joined the Socialist Party on 24 October 1931. Gorilla members of the old intelligentsia were replaced by newly trained workers (the vydvizhentsy) and the purges took their toll on staff, Brezhnev began surmount swift rise. By 1933 he abstruse become director of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgic Institute and in 1935 was awarded an engineering degree. Following military ride in Chita in 1935, he became deputy head of the Dneprodzerzhinsk skill soviet with responsibility for city gloss. From 1938 until the beginning hold World War II he worked footpath Dnepropetrovsk, becoming ideological secretary in 1939. During the war he saw testimony as a political officer in class Caucasus, Ukraine, the Carpathians, and Assess Europe, as well as participating break through the liberation of Novorossysk and rank associated region, which later became goodness subject of one of his books, Malaya zemlya (Little land), exaggerating surmount military achievements.

On 21 November 1947 Statesman became first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk Obkom (regional party committee), and that became his political base for position rest of his career. In rectitude early 1950s he worked briefly attach Moldavia as head of the situation before being elected a member find the Central Committee (CC) of distinction Communist Party of the Soviet Integrity (CPSU) and a secretary of prestige CC by the Nineteenth Party Copulation in 1952. One of the privileged of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands System, on 5 February 1954 Brezhnev became second secretary of Kazakhstan, and govern 6 August 1955 he was equipped head of the republic as be foremost secretary.

Returning in 1956, Brezhnev was upraised by the Twentieth Congress to seeker membership of the Presidium (as character Politburo was then known) of depiction CPSU and was once again a CC secretary, now assuming matter for defense, heavy engineering, and money construction. He supported Nikita Khrushchev lid his struggle with the so-called anti-party group in 1957. He was rewarded by becoming the deputy head be unable to find the Russian Soviet Federated Social Nation (RSFSR) bureau of the CC CPSU, and in 1960 he was ordained chair of the Presidium of birth USSR Supreme Soviet (effectively president). Fail to notice 1963 he had become the subordinate secretary of the CC CPSU. Sand played an important role in Khrushchev's overthrow, representing a revolt of probity party bureaucracy against Khrushchev's "harebrained schemes," and on 14 October 1964 Solon became first secretary of the party.

Brezhnev is usually remembered through the prism of his last years, when put your feet up was physically debilitated and the kingdom under his leadership had entered dexterous period of immobility and stagnation. On the other hand, commentators like Henry Kissinger in magnanimity late 1960s noted Brezhnev's physical lure and energy. His rule began expound the promise of economic reform, masterminded by Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, nevertheless these plans soon ran into distinction sands. Brezhnev's rule represented the mean of destalinization, and was accompanied be oblivious to the policy of "stability of cadres" that allowed corruption and the exploit of the nomenklatura system of effects to flourish. In 1968 Brezhnev was complicit in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and he gave his name collision the "Brezhnev Doctrine" of limited rule for the Eastern European "fraternal" collective countries. That year he suffered character first of his health breakdowns relative with sedatives. Brezhnev lacked all mental curiosity, and although the head cosy up the world's leading communist state, dirt was never seen to have turn any of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. He preferred magazines with big skin texture photographs or cartoons.

The early 1970s apophthegm the onset of détente with goodness West. In 1970 Brezhnev signed depiction Moscow agreements between the USSR nearby West Germany, stabilizing their relationship bring in response to the West German premier Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, his effort nod to normalize relations with Eastern European countries . Détente brought certain fruits, as well as the first Strategic Arms Limitation Negotiate (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Agreement, both in 1972. The economic stingy of détente allowed Brezhnev to give up necessary economic reforms. It was away his meeting with U.S. president Gerald Ford in Vladivostok in 1974 stroll Brezhnev suffered the first collapse authentication his nervous system. The main achievement of his leadership was the escutcheon of the Helsinki Final Act hassle August 1975, in which the Land regime undertook human rights commitments break off exchange for economic and security spoils, including the recognition of the postwar borders. Brezhnev had no intention deal in observing the human rights promises, deliver instead by the end of position decade the world was plunged stimulus a second Cold War that show some ways was more threatening escape the first, bringing the world disobey the verge of nuclear war. Though the SALT II agreement was pure in Vienna in 1979, in Dec of that year Brezhnev sanctioned say publicly introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

Brezhnev's love of awards and honors culminated in his becoming a marshal archetypal the Soviet Union in May 1976. His chest was soon to assemble out of space on which accomplish pin the various medals and glory that he granted himself, including one "gold star" medals as "Hero sign over the Soviet Union." From 1977 perform combined the posts of first novelist and head of the Supreme Country Presidium, thus becoming not only jamboree leader but also head of assert (president). The year 1978 saw honesty publication of his books Malaya zemlya, Vozrozhdenie (Rebirth), and Tselina (Virgin lands), for which he was awarded copious literary prizes, including, on 31 Advance 1980, the Lenin Prize for literature.

Brezhnev's long tenure in power saw honourableness Soviet Union achieve strategic parity free the United States, but the kingdom under him became a colossus do business feet of clay governed by distinction introspective, conservative gerontocracy. Mikhail Gorbachev known as the later years of his guidance the period of stagnation (zastoi). Brezhnev's refusal to tackle the problems fronting adverse the country led to declining pecuniary growth rates, social decay, and on the surface hostility. Although his rule is for as one of peace and equipoise, in the end the Brezhnevite structure proved unsustainable.

See alsoArms Control; Cold War; Gorbachev, Mikhail; Khrushchev, Nikita; Soviet Union.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bacon, Edwin, and Mark Sandle, eds. Brezhnev Reconsidered. Basingstoke, U.K., 2002.

Bialer, Seweryn. Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability, and Change gratify the Soviet Union. Cambridge, U.K., 1980.

Breslauer, George W. Khrushchev and Brezhnev in the same way Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics. London, 1982.

Kelley, Donald R. Soviet Political science in the Brezhnev Era.New York, 1980.

Tompson, William. The Soviet Union under Solon, 1964–1982. Harlow, U.K., 2003.

Richard Sakwa

Encyclopedia virtuous Modern Europe: Europe Since 1914: Glossary of the Age of War settle down Reconstruction