The man whose statecraft was not rocking the boat
7 October 1979. Brezhnev and Honecker's 'socialist fraternal kiss,' captured by Régis Bossu, became the most famous image on the Berlin Wall.
The face of the “stability” that removed Khrushchev. He sent armies to Prague and Afghanistan and rocked nothing at home: officials served for life, and the problems rolled over. His late-life medal collecting and frailty fed a thousand jokes, but the bill for those eighteen years was passed to his successors. His funeral is remembered as the funeral of the stagnation itself.
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
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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.