Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. What kind of person was Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev(December 6 (19), 1906, according to other sources, December 19, 1906 (January 1, 1907) - November 10, 1982) - Soviet state, political, military and party leader who held the highest leadership positions in the Soviet state hierarchy for 18 years: from 1964 until his death in 1982.

Born in Kamensky, Yekaterinoslav province (now Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine) in a family

Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev(1874-1930) and Natalia Denisovna Mazalova(1886-1975). His father and mother were born and before moving to Kamenskoye lived in the village. Brezhnevo (now the Kursk district of the Kursk region).

Brother - Brezhnev Yakov Ilyich (1912-1993).

Sister - Brezhneva Vera Ilyinichna (1910-1997).

In various official documents, including the passport, L. I. Brezhnev's nationality was indicated as Ukrainian or Russian (see section "The documents" of this article).

In 1915 he was admitted to the classical gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1921. Since 1921 he worked at the Kursk oil mill. In 1923 he joined the Komsomol.

He graduated from the Kursk land surveying and reclamation technical school (1923-1927) and the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute (1935).

In Dneprodzerzhinsk, Leonid Brezhnev lived in a modest two-story, four-apartment building at No. 40 on Pelin Avenue. Now it is called "Lenin's house". According to his former neighbors, he was very fond of chasing pigeons from the dovecote that stood in the yard (now there is a garage in its place). The last time he visited his ancestral home was in 1979, taking a picture with its residents as a keepsake.

Wife - Victoria Petrovna Denisova (Brezhnev) (1907-1995), a native of Belgorod.

• On February 9, 1961, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, on an Il-18 aircraft, left Moscow for the Republic of Guinea on an official visit. About 130 km north of Algiers at an altitude of 8250 m, a fighter with French markings suddenly appeared and made three approaches dangerously close to the aircraft. During the visits, the fighter twice opened fire on the Soviet aircraft, followed by crossing the course of the aircraft. Pilot Bugaev managed to get his plane out of the firing zone.

I, too, more than once had to see B.P. Bugaev at the helm of modern winged machines, and once I experienced his resourcefulness, rare self-control and pilot experience. It was many years ago. We flew on an official visit to Guinea and Ghana. I was then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The flight went according to plan, the sky was clear, and suddenly our airship was attacked by military fighter planes of the colonialists, who clearly did not like the visit of the Soviet delegation to the young countries of Africa. I could clearly see how the fighters approached the target, how they fell from above, prepared for an attack, started shelling ... You feel strange in such a situation: it looks like a war, but everything is different. Because nothing depends on you and the only thing you can do is sit quietly in your chair, look out the window and not interfere with the pilots to do their duty. Everything was decided by seconds. And it was in these seconds that an experienced crew, led by pilot Boris Bugaev, managed to withdraw a civilian aircraft from the firing zone. I cite this episode here as a kind of illustration of the fact that in peacetime we are not protected from all kinds of provocations.

L. I. Brezhnev. Space October. Chapters from the book "Remembrance"

• The first pre-New Year's television address to the Soviet people on behalf of the leadership in the USSR was first made by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev on December 31, 1970. The following year, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Nikolai Podgorny spoke with congratulations, and a year later, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin. The annual New Year's address of the country's leadership to its citizens has become a tradition.
• In 1976, a bust of Brezhnev was erected in Dneprodzerzhinsk on the railway station Oktyabrskaya Square. From this square, a green alley descended down to the Dnieper to the square near the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant. On the square near the DMKD, there was a monument to Lenin for a long time, and soon this alley was called “From Ilyich to Ilyich” among the people.
• In 1977, the film "Soldiers of Freedom" was released, in the last episode of which E. Matveev played the role of young Colonel Brezhnev.
• Brezhnev is the only person in the entire history of the existence of the USSR who possessed five gold stars of the Hero: one star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Marshal Zhukov had only four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union, while Brezhnev's predecessor N. S. Khrushchev had three stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and one star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The rest of the Heroes in the USSR were not awarded this title and the Gold Star more than three times.
• Also, Brezhnev is the only person awarded the Order of Victory, whose award was later canceled as contrary to the statute of the order, which states that only those who commanded the front during the war and made a strategic turning point in any operation, or commanders-in-chief of the allied armies, who made a significant contribution to the victory over fascism. Brezhnev, who spent the entire war in managerial positions in the political apparatus of the Red Army, had absolutely no rights to this order, especially in 1978, when the award took place.
• After the death of Leonid Ilyich, from 1982 to 1988, when the city of Naberezhnye Chelny was named after Brezhnev, and neighboring Izhevsk was renamed in memory of the former Minister of Defense Dmitry Ustinov, there was a bus route Brezhnev - Ustinov.

• Brezhnev liked to play dominoes.
• Brezhnev was a fan of the CSKA hockey club.
• Brezhnev was a fan of the Spartak football club, and was also constantly present at the hockey matches of the Spartak team, held at the Ice Arena in Luzhniki.
• Many anecdotes and jokes were composed about Brezhnev, in different variations.

Some believe that Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was not quite modest, to whom the sycophants surrounding him handed golden heroic stars one after another. But how did he feel about it? With humor. When they pinned another star to him, he usually said: "Here. I took it on my chest!" And he loved, moreover, to assert that the sight of his ceremonial uniform was prophetically predicted by Lermontov: "And the star speaks to the star ..."

It is customary to blame this person for the stagnation, as a result of which one of the best and most progressive economies of the twentieth century collapsed and completely fell apart. The efficient, well-oiled work of the centralized economy choked, dragging with it to the bottom of destruction and collapse, all previous developments and achievements. The reign of Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich was marked by many events and accomplishments, most of which turned out to be fake, like the orders on the broad chest of the next leader. But was it so useless or even harmful? Let's see objectively who exactly was the lover of triple kissing, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and in fact, the king and god of the period of stagnation.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev: a short biography of a man with big eyebrows

After Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was removed, with his strange and sometimes completely unjustified projects and ideas, such as the widespread cultivation of corn, from the Baltic states to Taimyr and Chukotka, something had to be done with the country. The first steps of Brezhnev's rule were really economically justified, they were useful and made a lot of sense. Khrushchev's projects were overthrown and closed, and Kosygin's economic reforms gave more independence to enterprises. It was decided to reduce the planned indicators, and at the same time introduced the possibility of market turnover of products that were developed in excess of the plan, which was a real breakthrough.

Unlike the militant atheist Khrushchev, Brezhnev was calm and reasonable about ancient temples, and about religion in general. He looked at buildings as architectural monuments, and the new Criminal Codes, amendments to the Constitution were aimed not only at strengthening the propaganda and influence of scientific communism among the masses, but also at protecting the religion of man, albeit at an embryonic level. Therefore, the mass destruction of Orthodox and other churches was suspended during his tenure as head of a vast and powerful country.

Previously, quite recently, every child knew how much Brezhnev ruled the country and what happened during this long and difficult period, which, however, was also filled with strong upheavals, which was not customary to talk about. At the very beginning, Brezhnev showed the highest economic growth rates, although he was far from Stalin's successes. During the reign of Brezhnev, a huge number of hydroelectric power stations were built, as well as, directly connected with them, factories for the production of aluminum "winged metal". However, it was not immediately possible to correct the harm caused to agriculture by the predecessor and his crazy idea to plant everything with corn, and it is not clear whether it was completely corrected at all.

In the seventies, the first Soviet "Kopeyka" rolled off the assembly line, and four years later the construction of the BAM was opened, where thousands and even hundreds of thousands of specialists in a wide variety of fields found themselves. In the first third of the reign, the country really stepped “ahead of the rest of the planet”, cosmonauts carried out new research, robots worked in orbit and at home, instead of people, the Soviet Union easily inflicted one defeat after another on its enemies, and the nuclear missile shield built in the shortest possible time , did not allow them to raise their "snake" heads even a centimeter.

Dissatisfied with the regime, special KGB detachments were waiting, but the bulk of the population lived at that time really freely and happily. The Union was one of ten countries in terms of gross domestic product per capita, education was affordable and free, and besides, the best in the world, however, like medicine, science was promoted, and young people were involved in social work, encouraged and promoted. There has been a clear leap forward in sports and culture. So how could it happen that for how many years Brezhnev ruled, and after his death everything fell apart almost immediately, crumbled and turned into dust, a shaky memory of a great era.

Origin and childhood of Brezhnev

Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev was born, studied and grew up in the village of Kamenskoye, Yekaterinoslav province, which today is called Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk region. After completing his studies, he began working as a technical worker at a metallurgical plant. There he met Natalya Denisovna Mazalova, whom he immediately fell in love with and decided to marry. She, too, was of proletarian origin, was a peasant daughter. On December 6 (19), 1906, the Brezhnevs' first-born was born, whom it was decided to name Lenechka. Subsequently, they also had a sister, Leonida Verochka, as well as a brother, Yakov.

Lenka differed little from the yard boys of Kamensky, he also stole neighbor's apples, chased pigeons and climbed roofs, for which he repeatedly received nuts from his strict father. At the age of nine, he was enrolled in a local gymnasium, graduating from it only in the twenty-first year, that is, after the revolution. In the same year, he got a job in Kursk, where a new oil mill was opened and decided to join the Komsomol organization. A young and purposeful guy was noticed and in the same twenty-third year he was sent to study at the Kursk land surveying and reclamation technical school, on the job.

Brezhnev's reign: from rise to death

Having received his diploma, young Brezhnev first worked as a land surveyor by profession, and then was assigned to the Urals, where he suddenly rushed along the party line. At first he was an ordinary land surveyor, then he became the head of a department, deputy chairman of the district executive committee, and then the right hand of the head of the Ural Regional Land Administration. At this time, Leonid decides to study further, moves to Moscow, where he simultaneously works at the factory as a mechanic. In the thirty-fifth year of the twentieth century, after receiving a diploma as an engineer of thermal power plants, he goes to pay his debt to his native country in the form of military service, having already been a member of the CPSU (b) before that.

Worth knowing

The cadet, and after that the political instructor of the tank company Leonid Brezhnev, carried out military service far from the most pleasant place, fifteen to twenty kilometers from Chita, in the village of Peschanka. Immediately he received the first officer rank, with which he retired from the army - lieutenant.

Prerequisites for high office: exploits and accomplishments

After returning from service in the cold and damp Peschanka, Brezhnev returned home and became the director of the metallurgical technical school in his native Kamensky, which by that time had already been renamed Dneprodzerzhinsk, and on May 37 at a meeting he was unanimously elected chairman of the city executive committee. It was a real breakthrough, which was worth fixing. But suddenly the Great Patriotic War broke out and I had to leave thoughts about a career for four long years, Lenya was engaged in mobilization, curtailment and evacuation of industry, and then he himself joins the army.

At the very beginning of the forty-second year, at a turning point for the country, Leonid Ilyich received his first Order of the Red Banner, and in October of the same year he received the rank of colonel. At the front, the colonel did not hide behind the backs of the soldiers, he swam over to Malaya Zemlya more than forty times, not being afraid of either mines or shelling, and even once he was blown up by a mine along with a seiner, after which he was caught by ordinary soldiers and saved. In the forty-fourth, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general. At the Victory parade in the capital, Brezhnev was already the commissar of the combined regiment of the 4th Ukrainian Front, he cheerfully and proudly raised his head, minted a step at the head of the column, hand in hand with the front commander, General of the Army Eremenko.

It is interesting that they tell the story that Stalin first saw Brezhnev when, in 1946, he worked in Zaporozhye as the secretary of the regional committee. It was then that Iosif Vissarionovich said that this handsome young man would go far. For success in the revival of the metallurgical plant, he received the first Order of Lenin in the forty-seventh. In the same year he was appointed first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee, where he stayed until the fiftieth. This summer, in the incredible heat, he had to go to sultry Chisinau - he was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU: years of life and reign

Brezhnev stayed at the position of the Moldovan leader for exactly two years, after which Stalin himself summoned him, deciding to personally “test the beautiful Moldovan”, who was not at all such. He passed the test and at the same time was first enrolled in the Central Committee. Contrary to expectations, there was no further rapid rise, since Stalin died unexpectedly in 1953 and Brezhnev found himself on the sidelines of life, without work, without connections and without prospects, but it was temporary. Already by the next year, not without the patronage of the "great maize grower", he was transferred to even hotter Kazakhstan, where he became first the second secretary, and then the first.

From the fifty-sixth year of the twentieth century, he became the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the defense industry, took part in the space program, and in the winter of the fifty-eighth he was already deputy chairman and member of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU throughout the RSFSR, where he so earnestly and long aspired. Also to his merits can be considered the training of the future cosmonaut Gagarin, it was he who oversaw this project. It is from this that the years of the reign of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev begin their countdown.

Brezhnev's stubborn path to the top ended in a conspiracy against Khrushchev, in which he himself was directly involved. In 1964, having retired his predecessor, Leonid Ilyich took the post of secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and even offers the director of the KGB to eliminate Nikita Sergeevich in the full sense, that is, to kill him. Fortunately, he did not agree and everything worked out. On October 14 of the same year, he was unanimously elected First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Bureau of the CPSU Central Committee for the RSFSR.

After that, it was formally decided to return to the "Leninist" principles of collective management, and the party actually subjugated the government. However, the well-being of the people steadily increased, the country developed, everything around worked. Unexpectedly, in the sixty-fourth, an attempt was made on Leonid Ilyich. A young lieutenant fired at a car in which there was no trace of Brezhnev, astronauts were traveling in it, “he,” as they say, generally went the other way. Already by the sixty-sixth, the post of first secretary of the Central Committee was abolished, and instead the post of general was introduced, Lenechka adored all sorts of beautiful titles and awards.

It seemed that everything was going perfectly, but already in the sixty-eighth year of the twentieth century, Brezhnev began to have stable and really significant health problems, which greatly frightened Kosygin and the others. In 1972, Leonid Ilyich suffered the first stroke, the consequences of which turned out to be quite serious, but in May, the American president came to Moscow for the first time and had to accept him, it was Nixon. Then Ford and Carter also came to the USSR, and later George Bush also got to Brezhnev's funeral. At the very beginning of the seventy-sixth, he was overtaken by clinical death, from which the illustrious professors of medicine barely managed to pull the secretary general.

Period of stagnation: the worst years of the reign of Leonid Ilyich

Despite the fact that the state of health of the Secretary General inspired great fears among the doctors, he still continued to actively govern the country. True, many believed that due to dependence on sleeping pills and sedatives, he was already a puppet in the wrong hands. Nevertheless, he managed to go twice to the States, four times to France, three times to Federal Germany, but he could no longer manage anything. According to relatives, by that time he wanted to retire, to retire, but no one let him go.

In the seventy-eighth, he was awarded the Order of Victory, already like a toy for a small child, he began to write memoirs and books of memoirs, and just a year later it was decided to send troops to Afghanistan. Going to cope within weeks or, in extreme cases, months, no one imagined that it would drag on for a long ten years. In 1980, the Olympics were held in Moscow, at which the Soviet Union team won a clear medal superiority. In March 1982, during a speech at an aircraft factory in Tashkent, the bridge suddenly collapsed on the sick and old Brezhnev. The broken collarbone never healed again after that.

Personal life and death are dear to Leonid Ilyich: remembered for a long time

The years of Brezhnev's life and rule cannot be called simple or calm. He pulled the country forward, leaving behind all competitors, but the disease turned him into a wax doll, which was actually carried from place to place to where it was required to wave a pen from the podium.

Wife and kids

To my great surprise, Leonid Ilyich's family life turned out as well as possible, at least he was married only once and never even thought about divorce. With Victoria Petrovna, nee Denisova, they met at a dance in the twenty-fifth, and got married on December 11, 1927. In this marriage, two children were born, whose fate was not easy.

• Galina (April 18, 1929), one of the most scandalous people in the Soviet Union in general and among the children of the Politburo in particular. She was eccentric, wayward, managed to get married several times, and among her spouses was a trainer, a circus performer, a tightrope walker and even a deputy minister.
• Yuri (March 31, 1933), who later became a party and statesman.

The fate of Galochka was not the best, the famous parent raised a spoiled daughter who knew no limits in anything. But the son worked hard for the good of the motherland, achieved everything on his own, and then fell ill with cancer and died at the age of eighty in 2013.

The death of a lover of the triple kiss and the memory of him

Being at the state dacha "Zarechye-6", on the night of November 10, 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev died in his sleep. He was discovered only in the morning, closer to nine, but his son-in-law Yuri Churbanov claimed that a blood clot broke off in the middle of the night, blocked the artery and cut off oxygen to the brain, which is why Brezhnev died quietly without waking up. They did not call an ambulance, since the blue face testified to the complete uselessness of resuscitation, then they called Andropov. He immediately arrived and, among other things, took away a briefcase with a combination lock, in which, according to Brezhnev himself, compromising evidence was kept on members of the Politburo. The general public was informed about the death of the Secretary General only a day later, when it was no longer possible to hush up.

Brezhnev's funeral took place only on the fifteenth, he was buried near the Kremlin wall on Red Square. They say that more pompous, pretentious and luxurious funerals still need to be looked for. Representatives of thirty-five countries came to say goodbye to the kissing lover. Among those wishing to salute Leonid Ilyich in some strange way was the President of Pakistan himself, in fact an opponent of the USSR, supporting the Mujahideen. Then he managed to have a conversation with Gromyko and Andropov, which served as the first sign of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Despite the condemnation by modern historians and the people of Brezhnev's activities and the stagnation he arranged, monuments were erected to him and now there are monuments, for example, there is a bust near the Kremlin wall, as well as in the city of Vladimir. Memorial plaques are attached to many buildings, stamps and commemorative coins were issued in honor of him, and his image is repeatedly beaten in literature, music and cinema.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev - born in Kamenskoye (Ekaterinoslav province) on December 19, 1906 (according to a new style), died in Moscow on November 10, 1982 - Soviet politician, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, leader of the USSR from 1964 to 1982. Brezhnev was also twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (honorary position of head of state): from 1960 to 1964 and from 1977 to 1982.

Having united in his hands the posts of the head of the party and the head of state, by the end of the 1970s Brezhnev concentrated the broadest power in his hands, but then old age and illness gradually weakened his political role in favor of the entire layer of the Soviet nomenklatura.

Brezhnev's youth

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born in Ukraine, in Kamensky (later Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk region), in 1906 and was the son of a worker-technician of a metallurgical plant. During his life, his nationality was indicated in different ways: either “Russian”, or “Ukrainian”. Like many other young proletarian nominees, he received a technical education: first (1927) he graduated from a technical school in Kursk with a degree in land management, and then (1935) - the evening department of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute. Simultaneously with his studies at the institute, Brezhnev worked as a mechanic at a metallurgical plant. In 1923, Brezhnev joined the Komsomol, and in 1931 - the Communist Party.

In 1935-1936 Brezhnev served in the military. He served in tank troops near Chita: at first he was a cadet of an army school, and then a political commissar. Then (1936-1937) Brezhnev worked as the director of a metallurgical technical school in Dneprodzerzhinsk, an engineer at a factory, and in May 1937 he became deputy chairman of the Dneprodzerzhinsk city executive committee. Soon he moved to the regional center - Dnepropetrovsk. In 1938 he became the head of the department of the regional committee there, and in 1939 - the secretary of the regional committee, responsible for the work of the city's military enterprises.

Photo of young Brezhnev, cadet of the Trans-Baikal Tank School

Leonid Brezhnev belonged to the Soviet generation, which no longer remembered the period preceding the revolution of 1917. He was too young to take part in the party struggle for the succession of Lenin's power after 1924. By the time Leonid Ilyich joined the party, Stalin was already her undisputed master. Brezhnev, like many other young communists, found a well-trodden path for himself in the Stalinist system. Members of the CPSU(b), survivors of Great Purge 1937-1938, began to quickly move up the official ladder, as the dead vacated many party and state posts of the upper and middle levels for them. Brezhnev also made a rapid career typical of those years.

Brezhnev at war

After Stalin's death in March 1953, when the name of his successor had not yet been fully determined, the size of the Presidium of the Central Committee was reduced, and Brezhnev was no longer included in it. As compensation, he was appointed head of the political department of the army and navy with the rank of lieutenant general. This position was very important. Brezhnev, apparently, owed this promotion to his same mentor, Khrushchev. He at that time replaced Stalin as head of the party, and, like his predecessor, concentrated the main center of power in this position. In 1954, Brezhnev was made the second, and in 1955 - the first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan - a truly strategic position. Here Leonid Ilyich took an active part in one of the largest campaigns of those years - the development of virgin lands, as well as in the preparation for the construction of the Baikonur cosmodrome.

In February 1956, Brezhnev was recalled to Moscow and took up the post of secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for the defense industry. He controlled, on behalf of the party, military enterprises, the Soviet space program, heavy industry, and the construction of large infrastructure projects. Now proving to be a very influential figure, in June 1957 he supported Khrushchev in struggle for leadership of the party against the Stalinist old guard led by Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov and Lazar Kaganovich. The defeat of this old guard opened the doors of the Politburo to Brezhnev.

At the time of Brezhnev's rise to power, Soviet foreign policy power seemed less impressive than at the end of the Stalin era, both in dominating the communist bloc and in rivalry with the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis marked the limits of nuclear escalation, and the initial success in the space race (the world's first satellite and first human flight) faded due to the fact that the USSR could not send their astronaut to the moon. In the US, the presidency Kennedy, despite the signing of the Moscow Treaty in August 1963, was marked by a vigorous intensification of the nuclear and conventional arms race, which gave America an impressive military superiority over the USSR. Brezhnev managed to reverse this trend. In less than ten years, the USSR achieved nuclear parity with the West and created a powerful fleet.

In relation to the Eastern European satellites, the Soviet leaders adopted a strategy that soon became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. That Soviet foreign policy was ready to apply it without hesitation was demonstrated events in Czechoslovakia. In 1968, an attempt by the Czech communist leader Alexander Dubček to broadly liberalize the political and economic system (under the slogan "socialism with a human face") provoked rejection in Moscow, which feared a repetition Hungarian events 1956. In July 1968 the USSR declared the Prague Spring "revisionist" and "anti-Soviet". On August 21, 1968, after unsuccessful pressure on Dubcek, Brezhnev ordered Warsaw Pact forces to invade Czechoslovakia and replace its government with people loyal to the Soviet Union. This brutal intervention determined for two decades the limits of the autonomy that Moscow's foreign policy was willing to grant to its satellites. However, Brezhnev did not punish Ceausescu's Romania, which did not take part in the intervention, and Enver Hoxha's Albania, which, in protest, withdrew from Warsaw Pact and CMEA. The reconciliation achieved by Khrushchev with the obstinate Tito in 1955, under Brezhnev was not challenged. Despite all the alarming forecasts of Western alarmists about the upcoming Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia, Brezhnev not only did not undertake it, but even went to Tito's funeral in May 1980.

But relations with the People's Republic of China continued to deteriorate under Brezhnev, until bloody border skirmishes in 1969. The restoration of Sino-American relations in early 1971 marked a new stage in foreign policy history. In 1972 President Richard Nixon traveled to China to meet Mao Zedong. This rapprochement showed a deep crack in the communist bloc, which had previously flaunted its unity. It convinced Brezhnev of the need for a policy of détente with the West. This policy was intended to prevent the formation of a dangerous anti-Soviet alliance.

The policy of détente began with Nixon's visit to Moscow in May 1972 and the signing of an agreement on that occasion. OSV-1 on the limitation of nuclear weapons. In Vietnam, despite the mining on May 8, 1972 of the port of Haiphong (the reason for a certain "coldness" of Nixon's reception in Moscow), the Soviet Union contributed to the signing of the Paris Agreements on January 27, 1973. They allowed the Americans, who had already been mired in Southeast Asia for ten years, for a while - until April 1973 - save face. The zenith of détente was the signing Helsinki Final Act in 1975 between the Soviet Union, European and North American states. Soviet foreign policy saw a fundamental success in the recognition by the West of the borders established at the end of the Second World War. In return, the Soviet Union adopted a clause stating that the states parties to the Helsinki Agreement would respect human rights and fundamental freedoms - including freedom of religion and conscience. These principles were not put into practice in the USSR, but internal opponents of communist regimes could now appeal to them in their opposition to power. So did the Soviet dissidents - for example, Andrey Sakharov who founded the Moscow Helsinki Group. The problem of the emigration of Soviet Jews also became a source of strong disagreement. It could not be resolved at the meeting between Brezhnev and the President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok in November 1974. A little later, the USSR, demanding respect for its sovereignty, even preferred to break the economic agreement in the United States, whose condition was the requirement to give Jews the right to free emigration to Israel.

The economic thaw between East and West developed even faster than the foreign policy one. It was especially noticeable in the growth of trade and technical cooperation between Western Europe and the Soviet satellites, but the Soviet Union itself also took part in it. Among the most iconic examples are the license for the production since 1966 by the Togliatti plant of Italian cars Fiat 124 (the model that laid the foundation for the Soviet brand Lada), or the production in the USSR since 1974 of Pepsi-Cola soft drinks.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union reached the peak of its foreign policy and strategic power against the American rival, shaken by the final defeat in Vietnam and Watergate scandal. OSV-1 and prisoner in 1979 OSV-2 declared nuclear parity between the two superpowers. Under the leadership of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the Soviet Union became a global naval power for the first time. With the hands of Cuba, he carried out military intervention in Africa. However, it led to a paradox in Soviet foreign policy: in Angola, Soviet, Cuban and East German soldiers defended the regime of their Marxist allies Neto and José Eduardo dos Santos by protecting oil wells exploited by Western companies like Exxon.

Economic stagnation and corruption under Brezhnev

However, Brezhnev's foreign policy depended on the state of the Soviet economy, which since 1975 entered into stagnation (stagnation) and even showed signs of decline. The backwardness of agriculture was one example of this. Despite a powerful heavy industry, the Soviet Union collected extremely mediocre harvests and even began to import grain.

Speech by L. I. Brezhnev on Japanese television, 1977

Huge spending on the armed forces and on the Soviet space program forced to neglect the main necessities of life - housing construction and the production of consumer goods. The growing turnover of the "shadow economy" (black market) was a kind of response to this. They led to widespread corruption. Brezhnev's personal predilection for luxury cars was one of the clearest examples here.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Leonid Ilyich's son-in-law, General Yuri Churbanov, was involved, along with the then leader of Soviet Uzbekistan, Sharaf Rashidov, in a well-known corruption scam - the "cotton business". Its members embezzled large sums by falsifying statistics. The Cotton Business was one of the biggest scams of the Soviet era. The housing crisis in the cities, which was expressed in 1964 by the general predominance of communal apartments, where several families lived at once, in part - but only in part! - has been overcome. In 1982, 80% of Soviet urban families had separate housing.

The last years of Brezhnev's life

The last years of Brezhnev's rule were marked by a pervasive cult of his personality, which reached its peak during the celebration of the General Secretary's seventieth birthday in December 1976. However, this importunate eulogy could not inspire either respect or fear in the people, who responded to it with ridicule and innumerable anecdotes. Brezhnev was primarily interested in international issues, leaving internal affairs to his subordinates. Among them, responsible for agriculture, Mikhail Gorbachev, more and more convinced of the need for fundamental economic reform, but the shaky health of Leonid Ilyich undermined hopes for it.

Leonid Brezhnev congratulates Soviet children on the new year 1979, which was declared by the UN as the International Year of the Child

One of Brezhnev's last major acts, which left a fatal legacy to his successors, was his decision in December 1979 to invade Afghanistan, where the unpopular communist regime had a hard time holding on to power. This event suddenly stopped the discharge. The United States imposed a trade embargo on the USSR and began to supply weapons to the Afghan rebels. In France, after the left came to power, the new president Francois Mitterrand broke off dialogue with Moscow due to serious disagreements over Afghanistan and the Euromissile crisis, although he maintained economic cooperation with the USSR. In February 1982, he signed a contract to jointly build a pipeline from Siberia to Europe and resisted the United States when, from June 1982, the administration Reagan tried to impose an embargo on the supply of technology. In Asia, the beginning of the end of the long-standing Sino-Soviet conflict was marked after Brezhnev's statement in May 1982. Beijing was dissatisfied with the new US policy, which was very favorable for Taiwan. He was also annoyed by the activities that threatened world socialism. trade union Solidarity in Poland. The Chinese responded positively to Brezhnev's political and economic proposals and then sent a delegation to Moscow to attend his funeral. In the last Brezhnev years, the USSR did not at all lose its prestige as a faithful Marxist ally of the third world countries. This was demonstrated by the warm welcome Moscow gave to the leaders of the two leftist regimes that emerged in 1979: in the spring of 1982, Daniel Ortega, head of the Sandinista junta of Nicaragua, and in July, Maurice Bishop of Grenada.

In March 1982, Brezhnev suffered a heart attack and died in November of that year. His reign was the second longest in the history of the USSR.

Brezhnev's awards

In terms of the number of awards, "dear Leonid Ilyich" occupied one of the first places among the figures of world history. When he put on a military uniform, he wore about forty Soviet orders and medals. If we take into account also foreign ones, then this figure exceeded 120.

Brezhnev in uniform with the Order of Victory and other awards

In 1978, Brezhnev awarded himself the Order of Victory. This rare Soviet award, established in 1943, was awarded to commanders who led the largest military operations of the Second World War. But Leonid Ilyich during it was only a political instructor with the rank of colonel, and did not win either big or small battles. Under pressure from war veterans, Gorbachev in 1985 deprived the already deceased Brezhnev of this order.

Brezhnev's vanity was a very serious problem during his reign. For example, when the secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, Nikolai Yegorychev, refused to sing his praises, he was dismissed from his post, almost expelled from politics and received only a low post of ambassador. Brezhnev's main passion was driving foreign cars presented to him by leaders from around the world. He usually drove them between his dacha and the Kremlin, often flagrantly disregarding the safety of other drivers and pedestrians.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev- Soviet statesman and party leader who held the highest leadership positions in the Soviet state hierarchy for 18 years: from 1964 until his death in 1982.

First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964-1966, from 1966 to 1982 - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1960-1964 and 1977-1982. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1976).
Leonid Brezhnev- Hero of Socialist Labor (1961) and four times Hero of the Soviet Union (1966, 1976, 1978, 1981). Laureate of the International Lenin Prize "For strengthening peace between peoples" (1973) and the Lenin Prize for Literature (1979).

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev
2nd General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the period April 8, 1966 - November 10, 1982
2nd First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the period October 14, 1964 - April 8, 1966
7th Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
in the period June 16, 1977 - November 10, 1982
4th Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the period May 7, 1960 - July 15, 1964
6th First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan August 6, 1955 - March 6, 1956
4th First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b) - Communist Party of Moldova
June 26, 1950 - November 25, 1952
9th First Secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee of the CP (b) - CP of Ukraine November 21, 1947 - June 1950
2nd First Secretary of the Zaporozhye Regional Committee of the CP(b) - CP of Ukraine
August 30, 1946 - November 22, 1947
Birth: December 6 (19), 1906
Kamenskoye, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire
Death: November 10, 1982
District, Moscow region, RSFSR, USSR
Buried: Necropolis near the Kremlin wall
Party: 1) VKP(b) (1931-1952) 2) CPSU (since 1952)
Education: Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute
Military service Years of service: 1935-1954
Affiliation: USSR
Title: Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commanded: Head of the Political Department of the 18th Army
Head of the political department of the 4th Ukrainian Front

Was born Leonid Brezhnev in Kamensky, Yekaterinoslav province (now Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine) in the family of Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874-1930) and Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886-1975). His father and mother were born and before moving to Kamenskoye lived in the village. Brezhnevo (now the Kursk district of the Kursk region). Brother - Brezhnev Yakov Ilyich (1912-1993). Sister - Brezhneva Vera Ilyinichna (1910-1997).

On various official documents including passport, nationality L. I. Brezhnev indicated as Ukrainian or Russian (see the "Documents" section of this article).
In 1915 Leonid Brezhnev was admitted to the classical gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1921. Since 1921 he worked at the Kursk oil mill. In 1923 he joined the Komsomol. He graduated from the Kursk land surveying and reclamation technical school (1923-1927) and the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute (1935).
In Dneprodzerzhinsk Leonid Brezhnev lived in a modest two-story, four-apartment house number 40 on Pelin Avenue. Now it is called "Lenin's house". According to his former neighbors, he was very fond of chasing pigeons from the dovecote that stood in the yard (now there is a garage in its place). The last time he visited his ancestral home was in 1979, taking a picture with its residents as a keepsake.

After graduating from a technical school in 1927 Leonid Brezhnev He received the qualification of a land surveyor of the 3rd category and worked as a land surveyor: for several months in one of the counties of the Kursk province, then in the Kokhanovsky district of the Orsha district of the BSSR (now the Tolochin district). In 1927 he married. In March of the same year, he was transferred to the Urals, where he worked as a land surveyor, head of the district land department, deputy chairman of the Bisertsky district executive committee of the Ural region (1929-1930), deputy head of the Ural regional land administration. In September 1930, he left and entered the Moscow Institute of Mechanical Engineering named after M.I. Kalinin, and in the spring of 1931 he was transferred as a student to the evening faculty of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute, and simultaneously with his studies he worked as a stoker-mechanic at the plant. Member of the CPSU (b) since October 24, 1931.

In 1935-1936 Leonid Brezhnev served in the army: cadet and political instructor of a tank company in Transbaikalia (the village of Peschanka is located 15 km southeast of the city of Chita). Leonid Brezhnev graduated from motorization and mechanization courses of the Red Army, for which he was awarded the first officer rank - lieutenant. (After his death, in 1982, the Peschansky tank training regiment was named after L. I. Brezhnev).

In 1936-1937 Leonid Brezhnev- director of the metallurgical technical school in Dneprodzerzhinsk. Since 1937, an engineer at the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Since May 1937, deputy chairman of the Dneprodzerzhinsk city executive committee. Since 1937 at work in party bodies.
Since 1938 Leonid Brezhnev head of the department of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, since 1939 secretary of the regional committee.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Leonid Brezhnev takes part in the mobilization of the population in the Red Army, is engaged in the evacuation of industry, then in political positions in the army: deputy head of the political department of the Southern Front. As a brigadier commissar, when the institution of military commissars was abolished in October 1942, instead of the expected general rank, he was certified as a colonel.

Rough work shuns. Military knowledge is very weak. He solves many issues as a business executive, and not as a political worker. People are not treated equally. Inclined to have favorites. - From the characteristics in a personal file (1942)

From 1943 - head of the political department of the 18th army. Major General (1943)

The head of the political department of the 18th Army, Colonel Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, sailed forty times to Malaya Zemlya, and this was dangerous, since some ships on the road were blown up by mines and died from direct shells and air bombs. Once the seiner, on which Brezhnev was sailing, ran into a mine, the colonel was thrown into the sea ... the sailors picked him up ... - S. A. Borzenko in the article “225 days of courage and courage” (“Pravda”, 1943)

“In repelling the German offensive, the head of the political department of the 18th Army, Colonel Comrade, took an active part. Brezhnev. The calculation of one machine gun (private Kadyrov, Abdurzakov, from the replenishment) was confused and did not open fire in a timely manner. Before a platoon of Germans, taking advantage of this, they crept up to our positions to throw a grenade. Tov. Brezhnev physically influenced the machine gunners and forced them to join the battle. Having suffered significant losses, the Germans retreated, leaving several wounded on the battlefield. By order of Comrade Brezhnev's crew conducted aimed fire at them until they destroyed it.

Since June 1945, the head of the political directorate of the 4th Ukrainian Front, then the Political Directorate of the Carpathian Military District, participated in the suppression of Bandera.
Member of the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945 as a commissar of the combined regiment of the 4th Ukrainian Front.

From August 30, 1946 to November 1947 Leonid Brezhnev- the first secretary of the Zaporozhye (appointed on the recommendation of N. S. Khrushchev), and then the Dnepropetrovsk (until 1950) regional party committees.
Presentation booklet with postage stamps of Iran, dedicated to the visit of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR L. I. Brezhnev to Iran, November 1963. Limited gift edition for members of the Soviet delegation. The world's first image of Brezhnev on postage stamps.

Since the summer of 1950 - Leonid Brezhnev first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova, until October 1952, when at the XIX Party Congress he was first elected a member of the Central Committee, and at the post-Congress Plenum of the Central Committee he was elected secretary of the Central Committee and a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the party, also a member of the standing committees under the Presidium of the Central Committee for foreign affairs and defense issues (in the latter from 11/19/1952). With the death of Stalin in March 1953, Brezhnev was relieved of both posts and appointed head of the political department of the Naval Ministry. According to Mlechin, with the unification of the Military and Naval Ministries that followed in the same month to form the Ministry of Defense, their political agencies were merged, and Brezhnev was left without work. In May, Brezhnev sent a letter to Malenkov with a request to send him to work in the party organization of Ukraine. By order of the Minister of Defense No. 01608 on May 21, Brezhnev was returned to the cadres of the Soviet army.

According to P. A. Sudoplatov and General K. S. Moskalenko, L. I. Brezhnev was among the 10 armed generals summoned to the Kremlin on June 26, 1953 to arrest L. P. Beria.
From May 21, 1953 to February 27, 1954, Deputy Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. Lieutenant General (08/04/1953).

In 1954, at the suggestion of N. S. Khrushchev, he was transferred to Kazakhstan, where he first worked as the second, and since 1955 as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the republic. Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the defense industry in 1956-1960, in 1956-1957 a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and since 1957 a member of the Presidium (since 1966 - Politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In 1960 Leonid Brezhnev appointed Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

In 1964 Leonid Brezhnev participates in organizing the removal of N. S. Khrushchev, after which he heads the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Leonid Brezhnev offered V. E. Semichastny, chairman of the KGB of the USSR during the preparation of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964, to physically get rid of N. S. Khrushchev. Member of the Politburo, Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1964-1973), First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (1963-1972) Petr Efimovich Shelest recalls:

I told Podgorny that I had met in Zheleznovodsk with V.E. Semichastny told me that Brezhnev offered him to physically get rid of N. S. Khrushchev by arranging an airplane accident, a car accident, poisoning or arrest.

Podgorny confirmed all this and said that Semichastny and him had rejected all these “options” for eliminating Khrushchev ...
All this will be known someday! And what will “our leader” look like in this light?

Participation in the space program of Leonid Brezhnev

In books Brezhnev, written under his leadership by a group of journalists, he, as secretary of the Central Committee, is given the leadership and coordination of the USSR space program from its very inception: for example, it is alleged that he allegedly in 1957 personally instructed S. P. Korolev how to work on the launch second satellite.

Leonid Brezhnev claims that he personally chose the site for the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, resolving a dispute between supporters of the construction of the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and in the inhabited areas of the North Caucasus, and personally supervised the construction of launch complexes. He wrote:

Experts understood well: it would be faster, easier, cheaper to settle in the Black Lands. Here, there is a railway, a highway, water, and electricity, the whole area is inhabited, and the climate is not as harsh as in Kazakhstan. So the Caucasian version had many supporters. At that time I had to study a lot of documents, projects, certificates, discuss all this with scientists, business executives, engineers, specialists who in the future were to launch rocket technology into space. Gradually, a well-grounded decision took shape in my own mind. The Central Committee of the party came out for the first option - the Kazakh one. ... Life has confirmed the expediency and correctness of such a decision: the lands of the North Caucasus are preserved for agriculture, and Baikonur has transformed another region of the country. The missile range needed to be put into operation quickly, the deadlines were tight, and the scale of the work was huge. - L. I. Brezhnev. Memory

October 14 p. The Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held. The Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU granted the request of N. Khrushchev to release him from the duties of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR due to advanced age and deteriorating health. The plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU elected the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU V. Brezhneva L. I.- Information message about the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on October 14, 1964

Activities of Leonid Brezhnev in 1964-1977

Formally, in 1964, a return to the "Leninist principles of collective leadership" was proclaimed. Along with Brezhnev, A. N. Shelepin, N. V. Podgorny and A. N. Kosygin played an important role in the leadership.

The fact is that initially the figure of Brezhnev as Secretary General was not considered as permanent. And he knew it very well.
- A. P. Biryukova

However Leonid Brezhnev in the course of the apparatus struggle, he managed to timely eliminate Shelepin and Podgorny and place people personally devoted to him in key positions (Yu. V. Andropova, N. A. Tikhonova, N. A. Shchelokova, K. U. Chernenko, S. K. Tsvigun) . Kosygin was not eliminated, but the economic policy pursued by him was systematically torpedoed by Brezhnev.

We, people close to the top leadership of the country at that time, knew that there were certain frictions between them. And Brezhnev more than once, in conversations with us, the secretaries of the regional committees, spoke disapprovingly about the activities of the government. That, they say, it does not work well enough, and many issues have to be resolved in the Central Committee, that is, he emphasized the shortcomings in the work of the Council of Ministers. And it was completely clear to everyone that these arrows were directed at Kosygin. - V. I. Vorotnikov

By the beginning of the 1970s. the party apparatus believed in Brezhnev, considering him as his protege and defender of the system. According to Roy Medvedev and L. A. Molchanov, the party nomenklatura rejected any reforms, sought to maintain a regime that provided it with power, stability and wide privileges, and it was during the Brezhnev period that the party apparatus completely subjugated the state apparatus. Also, in their opinion, ministries and executive committees have become mere executors of decisions of party bodies, and non-party leaders have practically disappeared.

On January 22, 1969, during a solemn meeting of the crews of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft, an unsuccessful attempt was made on L. I. Brezhnev. Junior lieutenant of the Soviet Army Viktor Ilyin, dressed in someone else's police uniform, entered the Borovitsky Gate under the guise of a security guard and opened fire with two pistols at the car in which, as he assumed, the general secretary was supposed to go. In fact, cosmonauts Leonov, Nikolaev, Tereshkova and Beregovoy were in this car. The driver, Ilya Zharkov, was killed by shots and several people were injured before the escort motorcyclist knocked the shooter down. Brezhnev himself was driving in another car (and according to some sources, even by a different route) and was not injured.

There is a statement that in November 1972 Leonid Brezhnev suffered a stroke with severe consequences. However, Academician Chazov, who treated Brezhnev, refutes this:

In his life, he [Brezhnev] only once, being the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova, suffered a myocardial infarction. In 1957, there were slight changes in the heart, but they were only focal in nature. Since then, he has not had a heart attack or stroke.

Before Prince Philip visited the USSR in 1973, the Foreign Office provided him with brief profiles of the persons he was to meet. Leonid Brezhnev was described there as “a strong-willed man, exuding confidence and competence, without possessing a brilliant intellect. Despite the blooming appearance, he suffered several heart attacks. Likes hunting, football and driving; doesn't speak English."

March 22, 1974 (bypassing the rank of colonel general) was awarded the military rank of army general.

In 1968 Leonid Brezhnev and his associates decided to invade Czechoslovakia. In the 1970s, a partial reconciliation of the two systems (“détente”) took place in the international arena. It was at this time (1973) that Brezhnev received the Lenin Prize for strengthening peace between peoples. After 2 years, Brezhnev signed the Helsinki Accords (August 1, 1975), which confirmed the inviolability of borders in Europe .. Before that, the FRG did not recognize the Potsdam Accords, which changed the borders of Poland and Germany, and did not recognize the existence of the GDR. The FRG actually did not even recognize the annexation of Kaliningrad and Klaipeda by the USSR. At the same time, the capitalist countries moved from the ideology of "containment of communism", proposed by Harry Truman, to the idea of ​​"convergence of the two systems" and "peaceful coexistence".

Activities of Leonid Brezhnev in 1977-1982

In 1978 Leonid Brezhnev he was awarded the Order of Victory, which was awarded only in wartime for outstanding services in front command during victories that provided a radical change in a strategic situation (the award was canceled by decree of M. S. Gorbachev in 1989).

A group of well-known Soviet journalists was commissioned to write Brezhnev's memoirs ("Malaya Zemlya", "Renaissance", "Vselina"), designed to strengthen his political authority. Thanks to millions of copies, Brezhnev's fee amounted to 179,241 rubles. By including the General Secretary's memoirs in school and university programs and making them mandatory for a "positive" discussion in all labor collectives, party ideologists achieved the exact opposite result - L. I. Brezhnev became the hero of numerous jokes during his lifetime.

Early 1976 Leonid Brezhnev suffered clinical death. After that, he was never able to physically recover, and his serious condition and inability to govern the country became more and more obvious every year. Brezhnev suffered from asthenia (nervous mental weakness) and atherosclerosis of the cerebral vessels. He could work only an hour or two a day, after which he slept, watched TV, etc. He became addicted to sleeping pills - Nembutal.

A syringe is enough - and the Secretary General becomes a puppet in someone's hands. I suspect that it was the medical intervention that made Brezhnev a parody of Brezhnev ... - F. T. Morgun

On December 12, 1979, Brezhnev and his closest associates decided to carry out a coup d'état in Afghanistan and to send Soviet troops into this country, which was the beginning of the USSR's many years of participation in the intra-Afghan conflict.

... my uncle called Dmitry Ustinov every day and, using the generally accepted folklore dialect, asked: "When will this ... war end?" Angry and blushing, the general secretary shouted into the phone: “Dima, you promised me that this would not be for long. Our children are dying there! ”- Lyubov Brezhneva, niece of L. I. Brezhnev

In 1981, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Leonid Ilyich's stay in the party, only for him alone was issued a badge cast in gold "50 years of being in the CPSU" (for other veterans of the CPSU, this badge was made of silver with gilding).

On March 23, 1982, during Brezhnev's visit to Tashkent, a walkway full of people collapsed on him at an aircraft manufacturing plant. Brezhnev had a broken collarbone (which never healed). After this incident, Brezhnev's health was finally undermined. On November 7, 1982, Brezhnev made his last public appearance. Standing on the podium of Lenin's Mausoleum, he took the military Parade on Red Square for several hours; however, his difficult physical condition was conspicuous even in the official shooting.

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev died on November 10, 1982 at the Zarechye-6 state dacha. The body was discovered by security at 9 am. Yu. V. Andropov was the first politician to arrive at the place of death. The media reported Brezhnev's death only a day later, on November 11 at 10 am. He was buried on Red Square in Moscow near the Kremlin wall. The United States was represented at the funeral by Vice President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Shultz.

Personnel policy of Leonid Brezhnev

According to the well-known researcher of the Soviet nomenklatura M.S. Voslensky, after receiving the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Brezhnev began to actively promote members of the nomenklatura from among his fellow countrymen in the Dnepropetrovsk region and colleagues from Moldova to senior leadership positions. Including:

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N.A. Tikhonov - a graduate of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute, was the chief engineer at a plant in Dnepropetrovsk, chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk Economic Council;
the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU A.P. Kirilenko was the first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee;
the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine V. Shcherbitsky - was the first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee;
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR I.V. Novikov - graduate of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute
Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.A. Shchelokov - graduate of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute
First Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the USSR G.K. Tsinev - graduate of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute
Assistant to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU A.I. Blatov - graduate of the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute
The head of the secretariat of the General Secretary G.E. Tsukanov, a graduate of the Metallurgical Institute in Dneprodzerzhinsk, worked for a number of years as an engineer in Dnepropetrovsk.
Member of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU K. U. Chernenko was under the leadership of L. I. Brezhnev the head of the propaganda and agitation department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova.
Head of the Department of Science of the Central Committee of the CPSU S.P. Trapeznikov - was the Director of the Higher Party School under the Moldavian Central Committee
First Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Army General S.K. Tsvigun was Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the Moldavian SSR

Voslensky expresses the opinion that the selection of leading cadres on the basis of personal acquaintance and community was aimed at strengthening Brezhnev's personal influence in the ranks of the nomenklatura.

Family of Leonid Brezhnev

L. I. Brezhnev was married to Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva (nee Denisova, 1907-1995, a native of Belgorod) from December 11, 1927 until his death. They had two children - Galina (1929-1998) and Yuri (born 1933).

Galina Brezhneva was at one time married to Yuri Churbanov.

Printed works of Leonid Brezhnev

"Lenin's course": Speeches and articles. (In 9 volumes, 5523 pages) - Publisher: M.: Politizdat, 1970-1982.
Memories ("Small Land", "Renaissance", "Vselina"). - well. "New World", 1978, No. 2, 5, 11.
Memories (Chapter 1 "Life by the factory whistle". Chapter 2 "The feeling of the Motherland". Chapter 3 "Small land". Chapter 4 "Renaissance". Chapter 5 "Moldovan spring". Chapter 6 "Virgin lands". Chapter 7 "Cosmic October" Chapter 8 "The word about the communists"). M., IPL, 1983.

Opinions and assessments of Leonid Brezhnev

During my work as the chief designer, four Supreme Commanders were replaced, and only one of them, called by anyone as a senile, L. I. Brezhnev, considered it necessary for himself to have a personal conversation with the chief designer on the use by him, as the Supreme Commander, of the warning information about missile attack. Some time after the commissioning [in October 1976] of the first stage of the early warning system, he called me and tortured me for about an hour and a half, what is the reliability of generalized and the accuracy of quantitative assessments of the missile situation, what is the meaning of different warning signals, why do some of them require only increased attention, and some - decisive action with possibly irreversible consequences. Only this conversation for me is complete proof of the vileness of those who called names and ridiculed Brezhnev. And in the last years of his life, I witnessed a keen interest in the matter and the complete clarity of mind of this man. In 1980, under his chairmanship, a special meeting of the USSR Defense Council was held, dedicated to the issues of early warning systems. […] L. I. Brezhnev showed genuine interest, asked many questions, delving into the essence of the problems, in the course of the meeting he made amendments to the prepared draft decision. His active behavior contrasted strongly with the behavior of other members of the Defense Council. - From the memoirs of V.G. Repin, chief designer of the SPRN and SKKP in 1970-1987.

The memory of the personality of Leonid Brezhnev

Dmitry Vrubel. "God! Help me survive this mortal love" on the Berlin Wall (1989)

In the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk, where he was born and spent his young years L. I. Brezhnev, on Liberators Square (formerly Oktyabrskaya) there is a bust of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, installed in 1976, as it was supposed to be in the USSR, in the homeland of the twice hero of the Soviet Union. On the building of the Dneprodzerzhinsk State Technical University on Pelin Avenue, where L. I. Brezhnev studied from 1931 to 1935, a memorial plaque with the corresponding text and a bas-relief of the Secretary General was installed.

On the house number 40 on Pelin Avenue, in which Leonid Brezhnev lived from 1929 to 1936, a memorial plaque was installed in 2010.
After the death of the Secretary General, the Zavodskoy district of Dneprodzerzhinsk was renamed Brezhnevsky, but in the 90s the name Zavodskoy was returned to it again. By the centenary of the birth of L. I. Brezhnev, the city council considered the issue of naming the city park of culture and recreation after him, but this decision was never made.

In the city of Dnepropetrovsk in 2006, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Brezhnev, a memorial plaque was installed on the wall of the house on Rogaleva Street, 1, where he lived in the late 1940s - early 1950s. Since 1982, the name of Brezhnev in Dnepropetrovsk was borne by one of the squares in the city center, the metallurgical institute, as well as the production association "Southern Machine-Building Plant" (all names were canceled in the late 1980s). On January 25, 2012, the City Council session named a street after Brezhnev.

In 1982, the city of Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatar ASSR), where KamAZ was built, was renamed Brezhnev. In 1988, the city returned to its former name. In 2007, the Brezhnev FM radio station began broadcasting in the city; in Naberezhnye Chelny and nearby regions of Tatarstan, it can be heard on 90.9 MHz.

In 1982-1988, the Cheryomushkinsky district of Moscow was called Brezhnevsky.

In order to perpetuate the memory of Leonid Ilyich, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on November 18, 1982 assigned his name to one of the military-political schools. The Sverdlovsk Higher Military-Political Tank Artillery School bore the name of Brezhnev for only 6 years. In April 1988, this decree was canceled and the former name was returned to the school.
Monument to L. I. Brezhnev in Novorossiysk

On September 16, 2004, a monument was unveiled in Novorossiysk L. I. Brezhnev at the intersection of the streets of the Soviets and the Novorossiysk Republic. The author of the monument is the Krasnodar sculptor Nikolai Bugaev. The Novorossiysk authorities note that Leonid Ilyich once did a lot for the city, the port, and the shipping company. The sculptor depicted a young, energetic general secretary walking through the city in a suit, without awards, with a cloak thrown over his back. The working title of the sculpture is "Man walking through the city".

Earlier, in 2002, in Novorossiysk, the issue of assigning one of the streets of the city after Brezhnev was discussed.

Currently, the name of Brezhnev is 2 villages in the Kaluga and Kursk regions, as well as 8 streets in small towns in Russia. In particular:

the village of Izhulskoye, Balakhtinsky District, Krasnoyarsk Territory;
Novoe Ivantsevo village, Shatkovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region;
Solonka village, Nekhaevsky district, Volgograd region.
Documentary film "Leonid Brezhnev" from the series "Soviet Biographies", NTV (2011).

February 9, 1961 Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev on an IL-18 aircraft, he left Moscow for the Republic of Guinea on an official visit. About 130 km north of Algiers at an altitude of 8250 m, a fighter with French markings suddenly appeared and made three approaches dangerously close to the aircraft. During the visits, the fighter twice opened fire on the Soviet aircraft, followed by crossing the course of the aircraft. Pilot Bugaev managed to get his plane out of the firing zone.

I, too, more than once had to see B.P. Bugaev at the helm of modern winged machines, and once I experienced his resourcefulness, rare self-control and pilot experience. It was many years ago. We flew on an official visit to Guinea and Ghana. I was then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The flight went according to plan, the sky was clear, and suddenly our airship was attacked by military fighter planes of the colonialists, who clearly did not like the visit of the Soviet delegation to the young countries of Africa.
I could clearly see how the fighters approached the target, how they fell from above, prepared for an attack, started shelling ... You feel strange in such a situation: it looks like a war, but everything is different. Because nothing depends on you and the only thing you can do is sit quietly in your chair, look out the window and not interfere with the pilots to do their duty. Everything was decided by seconds. And it was in these seconds that an experienced crew, led by pilot Boris Bugaev, managed to withdraw a civilian aircraft from the firing zone. I cite this episode here as a kind of illustration of the fact that in peacetime we are not protected from all kinds of provocations.- L. I. Brezhnev. Space October. Chapters from the book "Memories"

The first pre-New Year's television address to the Soviet people on behalf of the leadership in the USSR was first made by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev on December 31, 1970. The following year, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Nikolai Podgorny spoke with congratulations, and a year later, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin. The annual New Year's address of the country's leadership to its citizens has become a tradition.
In 1976, a bust of Brezhnev was erected in Dneprodzerzhinsk on the railway station Oktyabrskaya Square. From this square, a green alley descended down to the Dnieper to the square near the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant. On the square near the DMKD, there was a monument to Lenin for a long time, and soon this alley was called “From Ilyich to Ilyich” among the people.
In 1977, the film "Soldiers of Freedom" was released, in the last episode of which E. Matveev played the role of young Colonel Brezhnev.
L. I. Brezhnev- the only person in the entire history of the existence of the USSR who possessed five gold stars of the Hero: one star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Marshal Zhukov had only four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union, while Brezhnev's predecessor N. S. Khrushchev had three stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and one star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The rest of the Heroes in the USSR were not awarded this title and the Gold Star more than three times.
Also, Brezhnev is the only person awarded the Order of Victory, whose award was subsequently canceled, "as contrary to the statute of the Order", according to which persons of the highest command of the Red Army can be awarded the Order for the successful conduct of such military operations on the scale of several or one front, as a result of which the situation is changing radically in favor of the Red Army. Brezhnev, who spent the entire war in managerial positions in the political apparatus of the Red Army, had absolutely no rights to this order, especially in 1978, when the award took place.
Brezhnev loved to play dominoes.
Brezhnev was a fan of the CSKA hockey club.
Brezhnev was a fan of the Spartak football club, and was also constantly present at the hockey matches of the Spartak team, held at the Ice Arena in Luzhniki.
Many anecdotes and jokes were composed about Brezhnev, in different variations (see "The Eyebrow Bearer in the Dark")
Brezhnev was a heavy smoker and could not put an end to this bad habit. When, finally, in 1976, in view of the increasingly deteriorating state of health, on the urgent advice of doctors, Leonid Ilyich gave up smoking, he turned into a “passive smoker”: he was constantly next to smoking guards, translators, members of the Politburo (N.V. Podgorny and K. U. Chernenko) and forced himself to “smoke”, that is, blow cigarette smoke in his face.

Film incarnations of Leonid Brezhnev

Richard Karlan ("Rockets of October" "The Missiles of October" (USA, 1974)
Paul Hardwick ("Invasion" "Invasion" (USA, 1980)
Nehemiah of Persov (Sadat, USA, 1983)
Frank Middlemass ("Squaring the Circle" (England, 1984)
Yuri Shumilov ("Black rose - the emblem of sadness, red rose - the emblem of love", 1989)
Evgeny Matveev ("Soldiers of Freedom", 1977, "Clan", 1990)
Mikhail Khrabrov ("Forward for the Hetman's Treasures", 1993)
Alexander Belyavsky (Grey Wolves, 1993)
Leonid Nevedomsky ("Politburo Cooperative", 1992)
Boris Makarov (Scams, Music, Love, Ship of Twins, 1997, KGB in Tuxedo, 2005)
Boris Sichkin (The Last Days, 1989, Nixon, 1995, USA)
Len Donchev ("Dick", 1999, USA)
Garry Marshall ("It's a Shame About Ray", USA, 2000)
Bogdan Stupka ("Hare over the Abyss", 2005; "Prague Spring" / "Der Prager Frühling", Germany, 2008)
Vladimir Dolinsky (Red Square, 2005)
Artur Vakha ("Brezhnev", 2005 - young; "Furtseva. The Legend of Catherine", 2011)
Sergei Shakurov (Brezhnev, 2005 - elderly)
Michele Gammino ("Pope John Paul II" "Pope John Paul II", (USA, 2005)
Sergey Bezdushny (young) and Valery Kosenkov (Galina, 2008)
Valery Kosenkov (The fog is clearing, 2008)
Oleg Chernigov ("Wolf Messing: who saw through time", 2009)
Anatoly Vasilyev (“And Shepilov, who joined them”, “Informed Source in Moscow”, 2009).
Valentin Smirnitsky ("The Last Meeting", 2010)
Vyacheslav Shalevich ("Hunting for a golden eagle", 2011)
Sergey Bezdushny (Zhukov, 2012)
Nikolai Tokarev (Once Upon a Time in Rostov, 2012)
Valery Magdyash (Eye of God, 2012)

Party leaders
Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Nikita Khrushchev
Leonid Brezhnev
Yuri Andropov
Konstantin Chernenko
Mikhail Gorbachev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev- Soviet party and statesman. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1964 (since 1966 General Secretary) and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1960-1964. and since 1977 Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Brief biography of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906 in the village of Kamenskoe, Yekaterinoslav province (in our time, the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk).

L. Brezhnev's father, Ilya Yakovlevich, was a metallurgical worker.

Brezhnev's mother, Natalya Denisovna, had the surname Mazelova before her marriage.

In 1915 Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev entered the zero grade of a classical gymnasium.

In 1921, Leonid Brezhnev graduated from a labor school, went to his first job at the Kursk oil mill.

1923 was marked by joining the Komsomol.

In 1927 Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Graduated from the Kursk land management and reclamation college.

After studying, Leonid Ilyich worked for some time in Kursk and in Belarus.

In 1927 - 1930. Brezhnev holds the post of land surveyor in the Urals. Later he became the head of the district land department, was deputy chairman of the District Executive Committee, deputy head of the Ural Regional Land Administration. He took an active part in the collectivization in the Urals.

In 1928 Leonid Brezhnev married.

In 1931, Brezhnev joined the VKP(b) (All-Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks).

In 1935, he received a diploma from the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute, being a party organizer.

In 1937 he entered the metallurgical plant. F.E. Dzerzhinsky as an engineer and immediately received the post of deputy chairman of the Dneprodzerzhinsky city executive committee.

In 1938, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was appointed head of the department of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and a year later he received a secretary position in the same organization.

During the Great Patriotic War, Brezhnev occupied a number of leadership positions: deputy. Head of the Political Directorate of the 4th Ukrainian Front, Head of the Political Department of the 18th Army, Head of the Political Directorate of the Carpathian Military District. He finished the war with the rank of major general, although he had "very weak military knowledge."

In 1946 L.I. Brezhnev was appointed 1st Secretary of the Zaporozhye Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, a year later he was transferred to the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Committee in the same position.

In 1950 he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in July of the same year - the 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Moldova.

In October 1952, Brezhnev received from Stalin the post of secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and became a member of the Central Committee and a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee.

In the 1970s the defense capability of the USSR reached a very high level, the Soviet armed forces alone could withstand the combined armies of the entire NATO bloc. The authority of the USSR was at that time unusually high in the countries of the "third world". But getting involved in the 1980s. in the arms race, especially in the fight against the Star Wars program, the USSR began to spend extremely large funds for military purposes to the detriment of the civilian sectors of the economy. The country began to experience a shortage of consumer goods and food.

Since the late 1970s large-scale corruption began at all levels of government. A serious foreign policy mistake by Leonid Brezhnev (according to historians) was the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1980, during which the USSR became involved in the internal political struggle of various clans of Afghan society.

Around the same time, L. Brezhnev's health deteriorated sharply, he several times raised the question of his resignation, but his associates, guided by personal interests and the desire to remain in power, persuaded him not to retire.

Death of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

By the end of the 1970s. Brezhnev's personality cult was observed in the country. Leonid Ilyich remained in power until his death. The Brezhnev era during the reign of M. Gorbachev was called "the years of stagnation."

At the end of his life, Leonid Brezhnev had the title of Hero and was a knight of the highest orders of all socialist countries, as well as orders of Latin America and Africa.

On November 7, 1982, he took part in the parade, several hours of standing in the cold turned out to be fatal for the head of state.

He was buried on Red Square in Moscow near the Kremlin wall.

Brezhnev was married to Victoria Petrovna Goldberg (1907-1995) from 11 December 1927 until his death. They had 2 children - Galina (1929-1998) and Yuri (*1933).

Laureate of the international Lenin Prize "For strengthening peace between peoples" (1973) and the Lenin Prize for Literature (1979).

In the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk there is a bust of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, installed in 1976. On the building of the Dneprodzerzhinsk State Technical University, where Leonid Brezhnev studied, there is a memorial plaque with a bas-relief of the Secretary General. On September 16, 2004, a monument to him was unveiled in Novorossiysk.

The image of Brezhnev is reflected in the cinema: "Soldiers of Freedom", 1977; “Good weather on Deribasovskaya…”, 1992; "Forward for the hetman's treasures", 1993; "Gray Wolves", 1993; "Last Days", "Nixon", USA; series "Brezhnev", 2005; "Galina", 2008.

L. Brezhnev liked to play dominoes.

Leonid Ilyich is the only person in the entire history of the entire existence of the USSR who possessed 5 gold stars of the Hero: one star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union, as well as a holder of the Order of Victory.

Based on materials from the Internet resource http://kremlion.ru and the journal "Science and Life".