The Brezhnev EraStagnation in the USSR

Khrushchev removed• Failure of economic reforms – especially the agricultural reforms

Production of consumer products couldn´t match the demand.

• Khrushchev attempts to reform and reorganise the party and the administration met resistance from conservatives. He was accused of power concentration and for not adopting collective leadership. References to his age were made; he wouldn’t be able to correct his mistakes.

• At a Central Committee meeting in Oct 1964 Khrushchev was blamed for failing to consult the CC, setting his comrades against each other and for “wild” initiatives and “hare-brained schemes”.

The new leadership

Leonid Brezhnev Alexei Kosygin

Chill out with Leonid!

Economic and social problems• Key problems in the planned economy of USSR:

• Waste, Lack of skills and incentives• Problems in coordination • Constant lack of demanded consumer goods• Quality could rarely match the standard of Western products• Still not sufficient housing facilities, the typical example was

the much hated Kommunalka.

The Kosygin Reforms• Aimed at improving productivity and reducing waste . The reforms included raised

procurement prices and a focus on improved mechanisation of the agricultural production, better fertilizer and storage. More power to factory managers (decentralization) – allowed the right to make decisions in areas such as hiring, wages, and the mix of goods the factory produced. A manager would be judged by the profitability (profit indicator) of his factory.

• New techniques should be introduced and science production associations were created.

• New targets were also set for consumer goods and quality

• The reforms met a deep running problem in an over-dimensioned bureaucracy.

• Notable was also an emphasized car building programme in the late 1960s and continued house building. Russian suburbs still consist of huge housing complexes from the Brezhnev period.

Suburbs of S:t PetersburgTypical house from the Brezhnev era

Soviet car nr 1: VAZ-LADAFor the party elite: Volga

1970:s - Stagnation• A number of crop failures, primarily because of weather

conditions led to food shortages and the USSR was from the mid 1970:s dependent on agricultural import fom the West.

• A fifth of the grain crop, a quarter of the sugar beets and one third of the potatoes were spoiled before they reached the consumer.

• Military spendings increased, new hightechnological missiles constantly pressured the economy.

• COMECON price-setting as well as economic support to sattelite states, prevented an increase in national income.

Opposition• Even if opposition remained limited (most Soviet citizens didn´t

bother) the door opened by Khrushchev was had to close.• Samizdats and Tamizdats cirkulated, mainly in larger cities.• The regime used the law against opponents – trials arranged,

authors accused of making a mockery of the Soviet union. • Among the cultural intelligentsia criticism of the invasion of CZ

was common.• The Solzhenitsyn affair – exiled 1974• 1975 – Helsinki Accords – USSR signed a declaration of

respecting the human rights. • Sakharov and the “Human Rights Committee” S. led the

scientific work on the H-bomb, but became peace activist in the late 1960s. Internal exile in Gorky. Most famous dissident

Andrei Sakharov

Foreign policy

• As a part of the Kosygin reforms the USSR cut back on subsidies to the Satellites – forced the East Europeans to reform or brought them economic problems.

• Brezhnev Doctrine 1968• Détente and SALT II 1972• Relations with the West deteriorated after 1977.• 1979: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan