Some perspectives on Brezhnev period

Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics in Perspective, Routledge, 1998

The Brezhnev era is now fated to pass into history as the era of stagnation, and yet it was a time of
great successes for the country. The Soviet Union achieved strategic parity with the United States; it
rose from being a regional to a global superpower; and the dtente process culminated in the
Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Helsinki in August 1975 which ratified Soviet
wartime territorial gains and its status in Eastern Europe. Agricultural output, the standard of living,
and housing all improved significantly. Under Brezhnev it appeared that the USSR had finally achieved
a rational approach to policy-making and had made peace with society. Brezhnevs rule marked a
period of tranquillity after decades of turbulence. But while the stability was based on solid
achievements, the fundamental structural reforms needed to deal with the accumulating problems of
the Soviet economy and society were deferred.
Thomas Crump, Brezhnev and the Decline of Soviet Union, Routledge 2014
Even accepting that in 1964 Khrushchev left to his successors a ship already on the wrong course,
domestically and internationally, economically and politically, the hard truth is that Brezhnev did little or
nothing to change direction. Worse still, he must answer for any number of events which made it next to
impossible for the Soviet Union to reinvent itself as a viable state. (...) What they have in common is that
while adding little or nothing to the well-being of the populations that comprised the Soviet Union they
became a charge on its economy, which in the long run was unaffordable. Consider first the vast and
ambitious armaments programmes of the military industrial complex, although these undoubtedly
provided well-remunerated employment for scientists and engineers, and to a lesser degree the
technologists and skilled labour that supported them, this could only come at the cost of the millions
who were not involved at least not at this level. (...) One is left asking not only what sort of man
Brezhnev was, but also how much it really mattered? Was he anything more than a sleazy mediocrity
(Gellner 1994: 42) brought to the top by a gift for intrigue (Haslam 2011: 215)...

Peter Kenez, A History of Soviet Union from the Beginning to an End, Cambrid ge University Press,
2006
The eighteen-year-long Brezhnev era was full of paradoxes. It was a time when the Soviet Union
achieved its greatest international success: it became a world power, second to none. But it was
also a time of wasted opportunities, a time when the countrys economic decline, now seemingly
inevitable, commenced. It was a period of much-desired stability and tranquillity, certainly the
quietest in the countrys troubled twentieth-century history. In light of subsequent developments
Brezhnevs era came to be described as a time of stagnation, yet most people of Russia today look
back on it with nostalgia.

From Martin MacCauley, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, Routledge 2013
-Have you heard that Brezhnev is going to have surgery? Hes having his chest widened to accommodate
more medals.
-What are the main obstacles obstructing Soviet agriculture? There are four: spring, summer, autumn
and winter.
-What is a Soviet string quartet? The Moscow Symphony Orchestra on its return from a foreign tour.
- Brezhnev begins his official speech opening the 1980s Olympic Games: O!, O!, O! His aide whispers to
him: The speech begins below, comrade Gensek. That is the Olympic symbol.
- After the American astronauts land on the moon, Brezhnev summons the leaders of the Soviet space
programme. The Party and government instruct you to land cosmonauts on the sun as soon as possible.
But the temperature of the sun is so high; well not be able to get near it. Do you think Im a fool? Well
send them during the night.
-President Chernenko phones up the Guinness Book of Records. I want to claim a record. I have finished
my jigsaw puzzle of the Kremlin in only three months. Guinness: So what! That is not a record.
Chernenko: But, but it says on the box: 46 years.
-A burglar breaks into President Chernenkos apartment in Moscow and steals all his books. The President
is very disappointed. He had not finished colouring them in.