The man whose statecraft was not rocking the boat
On 7 October 1979, at the GDR's 30th-anniversary celebrations in East Berlin, photographer Régis Bossu captured Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a socialist fraternal kiss. The photograph became the basis of Dmitri Vrubel's 1990 Berlin Wall mural, 'My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love'.
He took part in Khrushchev's removal and replaced him as First Secretary, consolidating power by the late 1960s. He was General Secretary from 1964 until his death in 1982, and twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1960–1964 and 1977–1982. After the Khrushchev Thaw his rule brought increased repression and censorship: by the mid-1970s an estimated 10,000 political and religious prisoners were held. Hostile to reform, he presided over the 'Era of Stagnation' of corruption and shortages; after 1975 his health collapsed and he withdrew from governing while remaining the highest authority. Abroad he ordered the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and approved the 1979 intervention in Afghanistan, while pursuing détente and reaching nuclear parity with the United States. He was made a Hero of the Soviet Union four times; his 1978 Order of Victory was annulled in 1989.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1950–52First Secretary of Moldavia
- 1954–56Runs the Virgin Lands campaign in Kazakhstan
- 1964.10Leads Khrushchev’s removal; becomes First Secretary
- 1968The invasion of Czechoslovakia; the Brezhnev Doctrine
- 1972–79Détente: SALT I and II, the Helsinki Accords
- 1977The new constitution; head of state as well
- 1979Approves the Afghanistan intervention
The Soviet Politburo
- Candidate 1952.10–1953.03
- Candidate 1956.02–1957.06
- Full member 1957.06–1982.11
1982.11 died in office
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarServed as a political officer in the 18th Army, ending the war as a major general
- 1957The Anti-Party GroupKhrushchev protégéA Khrushchev supporter who rose after the affair.
- 1957–1965The Soviet Space ProgramParty supervisorAs a Central Committee secretary in the late 1950s he supervised the defense and space industries and supported the early launches.
- 1965–1970The Kosygin ReformCurbed the reformWary of the political risk, he narrowed the scope of the reform.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionSoviet leader in the 1969 border clashesPressure after Zhenbao Island hastened China’s turn to America.
- 1968The Prague SpringOrdered the interventionHe defined the reforms as a break from the bloc and justified the invasion with the Brezhnev Doctrine.
- 1969–1979Détente and the SALT NegotiationsSoviet co-signatory to SALT and détenteIt was his side that first proposed renouncing nuclear use; at the 1973 Washington return visit he signed the Prevention of Nuclear War agreement and SALT II basic principles with Nixon.
- 1975The Helsinki Accordsdriving force in the Soviet leadershipDrove the conference project throughout the 1970s to win written recognition of inviolable postwar frontiers, pushing through the 1972 Dipoli preparatory talks and the 1973 Helsinki foreign ministers' meeting.
- 1978–1979The Sino-Vietnamese WarSoviet leaderAllied with Vietnam but limited Soviet help to supplies and airlift without direct intervention.
- 1979–1989The Soviet-Afghan WarOrdered the interventionAt the head of an ailing leadership, he approved the intervention in Afghanistan.
- 1983The War Scare of 1983General Secretary who launched Operation RYANAt the May 1981 KGB meeting he declared the US was preparing a nuclear surprise attack and ordered the largest peacetime intelligence operation in Soviet history.
The 1969 shooting at the Borovitsky Gate
On 22 January 1969 a motorcade carrying Brezhnev was entering the Kremlin to welcome the Soyuz 4 and 5 cosmonauts. The shots were aimed at the second limousine, which the gunman believed carried Brezhnev. Brezhnev was unhurt, but the driver Ilya Zharkov was killed and a guard and cosmonauts were wounded. It was the first direct attempt on a Soviet leader since Fanny Kaplan's attempt on Lenin in August 1918.
The shooter was Viktor Ilyin, born in 1947 in Leningrad. He resented conscription and was distressed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. He stole two Makarov pistols, deserted, put on a stolen Militsiya uniform, and fired at the second limousine, carrying Leonov, Tereshkova, Beregovoy and Nikolayev. To his KGB interrogator Yuri Andropov he said he acted to have Brezhnev replaced by Mikhail Suslov, whom he called 'the most outstanding person in the party at the moment'; whether this was genuine or an attempt to provoke Politburo infighting is unknown.
Ilyin was charged with attempted murder, terrorism and desertion but pronounced insane and held in a psychiatric hospital: the Kazan Psychiatric Hospital, then one near Leningrad. He was released in 1990, and knowledge of the attack became public only after the USSR dissolved in 1991. The incident was suppressed: an official statement two days later did not say whether the shooter was a man or a woman.
The attempt belongs to the crackdown that followed the Prague Spring. On 25 August 1968 eight demonstrators protested the invasion at Red Square, holding a Czechoslovak flag and slogans such as 'For your freedom and ours', and were beaten and arrested by KGB men. At the October 1968 trial seven received terms of penal colony, exile or psychiatric imprisonment, with Fainberg and later Gorbanevskaya sent to psychiatric prisons.
Christmas Eve 1979 — the Afghanistan decision
On 12 December 1979, a handful of Politburo members met in Brezhnev's Kremlin office. One item on the agenda: should the USSR send troops into Afghanistan?
KGB chairman Andropov and Foreign Minister Gromyko pressed Brezhnev: the Amin regime was unstable, the CIA was meddling. A Soviet intervention could be swift and limited. Brezhnev reluctantly agreed. On 24 December, Soviet transport planes began landing in Kabul. On 27 December, special forces stormed the presidential palace and killed Amin.
Brezhnev probably thought this was a short 'internationalist duty.' Instead, it became the Soviet Vietnam: a decade of war, 1.5 million Afghans dead, 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed, and the USSR's moral and fiscal ruin. Seven years after Brezhnev's death, Soviet forces withdrew. His last major decision hastened the empire's end.