Communist government under Brezhnev

• Communist government under Leonid Brezhnev


  • Some aspects of de-Stalinisation that had upset the Party were quickly reversed
  • Limits on tenure of office were scrapped
  • The division of the Party into agricultural and industrial sections was dropped
  • The regional councils were abolished and power was returned to Communist Party officials at the centre
  • The guiding principles were collective leadership and the policy of trust in cadres whereby Party officials were left in post and allowed to get on with their jobs without interference and scrutiny
  • Decisions were made collectively, Brezhnev was seen as 'first among equals' and constantly consulted his colleagues, using an inner core of the politburo to make decisions
  • Government was much more stable with less conflict and division, Brezhnev used his position as General Secretary to ensure colleagues got the 'right information' to smooth over divisions
  • The Twenty-Third Party Congress of 1966 involved so little discussion that it was referred to as the 'Congress of Silence' - Brezhnev did not favour big changes
  • Brezhnev retained some of his rivals in power eg Kosygin remained as prime minister even though the two men hated each other!
  • Party membership grew from 6.9 million in 1953 to 17 million by 1980 indicating mass participation in politics
  • The Soviet Constitution of 1977 enshrined the right of citizens to criticise incompetent Party officials, but the Party remained powerful and essentially unaccountable to the people with few checks and balances on their power
  • The nomenklatura system ensured only Party officials who towed the official line would gain promotion, ensuring an absence of innovation and new ideas in government
  • Article 6 of the Constitution asserted the primacy of the Communist Party over the State
  • Brezhnev had much less personal power than the other leaders, he was more interested in the trappings of power such as medals and preferred to leave the details of government to others
  • Brezhnev was a popular leader who brought about stability, but this also led to growing stagnation
• Growing political stagnation under Brezhnev


  • The Party leadership developed into an oligarchy (rule by a small elite who govern in their own interests)
  • Brezhnev prompted his old colleagues from his time as Party boss in the Ukraine; they were known as the Dnepropetrovsk mafia
  • All the main players in the Politburo such as the PM Kosygin also had their own networks in the Party through the miniseries they controlled
  • The system of promoting people encouraged the development of oligarchies, promotions were usually made from within the ranks of the local party
  • Corruption increased, eg 'the cotton affair' where officials fiddled the figures in order to claim millions of rubles for non-existent cotton, Brezhnev's own daughter was involved in an affair with 'Boris the Gypsy' who had links with diamond smuggling
  • The Soviet leadership became a gerontocracy (government by geriatrics), by 1976 76% of the Party Central Committee were retained in office (many of those not retained had died!)
  • By 1984 7/11 members of the Politburo were over 70 - meetings were shortened to 40 minutes to reflect this!