The Soviet Union Under Brezhnev, 1964-82

199 Pages·2003·3.559 MB·English

by  William Tompson

The Soviet Union under Brezhnev
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■‘F 41 \ \П “ТІ nil s- IN HISTORY
The Soviet Union under Brezhnev
WILLIAM TOMPSON
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LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2003 by Pearson Education Limited
Published 2014 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-32719-1 (pbk)
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Typeset by 7 in 10/12 Sabon Roman
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements IX
Chronology XI
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1. THE SOVIET UNION AT THE END OF THE
KHRUSHCHEV ERA 3
The Fall of Nikita Khrushchev 3
The New Leaders 5
Soviet Society a Decade After Stalin's Death 8
The Soviet Union and the World in 1964 9
PART TWO: ANALYSIS 13
2. LEADERSHIP POLITICS 15
High Politics and Brezhnev's Consolidation of Power 15
Brezhnev as Politician: Mannequin or 1;lachiavellian? 17
'Two Brezhnevs'? 20
The Soviet Elite in the Brezhnev Era 22
3. POLICY-MAKING IN THE BREZHNEV ERA 26
Brezhnev as Policy-maker: From Consensus to Stagnation? 26
The Role of the Politburo and Secretariat 28
Taking Advice: Information, Institutions and Expertise 30
Policy-making in Practice: The Case of Arms Control 33
4. FOREIGN POLICY FROM CUBA TO HELSINKI 35
The Defence Build-up of the 1960s 35
Managing. the Bloc 36
War in Vietnam and US-Soviet Relations 39
The Road to Superpower Detente 40
China 42
The Soviet Union and the Developing World 43
The Era of High Detente 47
5. FROM HELSINKI TO THE SECOND COLD WAR 50
Arms Control and Trade 50
Detente Under Strain 52
China 55
VI Contents
Afghanistan 56
Poland 58
Conflicting Expectations and the Failure of Detente 59
After Detente 61
6. ECONOMIC POLICY UNDER BREZHNEV AND KOSYGIN 64
Soviet Industry Under the Kosygin Reforms and After 64
The Limits of Reform 67
Soviet Agriculture in the Brezhnev Era 69
Blind Spots in Economic Policy and the 'Obsession with Growth' 72
7. ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE 75
Growth Performance Under Brezhnev and Kosygin 75
The Failure of the Centrally Planned Economy 78
Detente, Foreign Trade and the 'Scientific and Technical Revolution' 82
Living Standards and Household Welfare 83
8. SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE 86
Urbanisation and Education 86
The 'Social Contract' Under Strain 88
Emerging Demographic Problems 91
Nationalities Policy Under Brezhnev 93
9. CULTURE AND IDEAS 98
Culture High and Low 99
The Crackdown on Dissent 103
The Changing Nature of Dissidence 105
Growing Room for 'Permitted Heterodoxy' 107
PART THREE: ASSESSMENT 109
10. BREZHNEV'S LEGACY TO GORBACHEV 111
Brezhnev's Twilight 111
The Andropov Interregnum 113
The Chernenko Interlude 115
State and Society at the End of the Brezhnev Era 117
PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS 119
Glossary 147
Who's Who 150
Guide to Further Reading 153
Bibliography 158
Index 170
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НіШІииї
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to the staffs of the Institute of Scientific Information in the
Social Sciences in Moscow, the library of the School of Slavonic & East
European Studies in London, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, where the
bulk of the research for this book was done. The assistance of the superb
Carole Menzies, who has ruled over the Bodleian's Slavonics Reading Room
for many years, was - as I have always found it - especially valuable. I am
grateful, too, to Casey Mein and Magda Robson of Pearson Education, who
handled the manuscript with professionalism and with all the speed and
efficiency that I had lacked in writing it, as well as to the series editor,
Professor Gordon Martel, whose patience I sorely taxed in taking so long to
produce the final text. Finally, my wife Julia Tompson, a veteran of the pub
lishing world herself, proof-read both the manuscript and the page proofs
with a better eye for detail-both stylistic and substantive - than I could ever
have managed. Her labours have undoubtedly reduced the number of
mistakes and inconsistencies in the text. Sole responsibility for those errors
of fact and judgement that remain is, of course, entirely my own.
The publishers are grateful to the copyright owners whose material appears
in this book.
Table 7.1 from Economic Growth and Slowdown in Brezhnev Reconsidered
edited by E. Bacon and M. SandIe, published by Palgrave and reproduced
with permission of Palgrave Macmillan (Harrison, M. 2002).
In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright
material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to
do so.