Brezhnev's rule is stagnation or a golden age?

Brezhnev's rule in Soviet history does not cause such heated arguments and diametrically opposite assessments, like the Stalinist era or Gorbachev's perestroika, but this period also had its positive and negative points.

The End of Totalitarianism

The rule of Brezhnev even began unusually for the Soviet state of that era. Charisma and unquestionable leadership in the party of Lenin, and later the totalitarian system of Stalin, predetermined the fact that these leaders remained at the helm of the state until their death. Moreover, there was and could not have been any significant fears of a change of power (with the possible exception of the very first months after Lenin's death, When the real heirs considered Trotsky and Zinoviev). A fight arose in 1953, when Joseph Dzhugashvili died. However, Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power, abruptly changed the course of the party's domestic policy. The 20th Congress of the CPSU put an end to the totalitarian mode of government: an atmosphere of fear, denunciations, constant expectation of counter-revolution, and so on. In many respects precisely because of this step he became the first ruler, eliminated bloodlessly and not as a result of death. The Brezhnev government began in 1964 with the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU plenum to release Khrushchev from the post of general secretary.

Stagnation or golden time?

A new era, later called a time of stagnation, began with active economic reforms designed to revive the economy. The reforms of Alexei Kosygin, begun in 1965 Year, were to a certain extent aimed at transferring the economy to a market-based track. Thus, the economic independence of large state enterprises was substantially expanded, instruments of material incentives for the employed workers were introduced. And the reform really began to justify hopes. Already the first period of Brezhnev's rule was marked by the most successful five-year plan in the history of the country.

However, the reformers did not go to the end. The positive shifts caused by the weakening of state control were not complemented by the necessary freedom in other areas of economic life. Reform began to uncover and its negative results, such as a trend towards higher prices for goods. In addition, oil deposits were discovered in Siberia in the early 1970s , which led to a final loss of interest in the reform of the Soviet leadership. Around the 1970s, a slowdown in the development of the domestic economy began to appear. Production becomes less profitable. Armament and the space program are lagging behind the main competitor, the United States (the last great success of the Soviet space program was the Mars-2, the first to safely reach the red planet). In addition, there is a gap in knowledge-intensive industries.

These negative trends to a large extent became the causes of the subsequent restructuring and of what all ended - the collapse of the Soviet state. Requiring more and more resources engineering and others Strategically important industries could not but affect the slowdown in the development of light industry, which affected the population of the country rather painfully. The scarcity of food and essential goods - the first, perhaps, that in general is associated with the broad masses with this era. At the same time, Brezhnev's rule, the so-called stagnation, was so only in comparison with the previous, incredibly high rates of development of heavy and light industry in the country. At the same time, for millions of our compatriots, it is remembered as a golden age. First of all, for those who fully felt the decline in economic indicators and living standards in the 1990s. At the same time, Brezhnev's rule was marked by other significant factors: the war in Afghanistan, the new round of the Cold War, and the complication of relations with China as a result of the conflicts on Damansky Island.