Leonid Brezhnev(1906-1982)
Leonid Brezhnev was a communist leader of the Soviet Union who restored a conservative, centralized state, initially raising living standards and bringing the country to its height but ultimately causing economic stagnation and
disproportionate military growth. This process exhausted the Soviet economy and
eventually led to collapse of the Soviet Union.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906, in Kamenskoe
Russian Empire (now Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine). He went to
Dnepropetrovsk Industrial College. There he joined the Communist Party
youth union (Komsomol) in 1923, and became a full member of the
Communist Party in 1931. He had no adult memories of life under
Tsar Nicholas II and was too young to
have participated in the leadership feud after the death of
Lenin. During the purges of the "Great Terror"
under Joseph Stalin Brezhnev proved
himself a loyal Stalinist, suitable for the ranks of the Communist
hierarchy. In 1935 he was drafted in a tank school. There he started a
career as Political Commissar; and in 1936 was transferred to Regional
Government, rising to the Party Secretary of Dnepropetrovsk in 1939. On
June 22, 1941, the day the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Brezhnev was
assigned to evacuate military industries before the Nazis reached his
city. During WWII Brezhnev was assigned as Political Commissar to
Transcaucasian Front; then to 1st Ukrainian Front. There chief
Political Commissar was
Nikita Khrushchev, who patronized
Brezhnev's career since 1931. He was promoted to chief Political
Commissar of the 4th Ukrainian Front, rising to a Maj. General. He was
in Prague on May 9, 1945 when the War ended. Brezhnev took part in the
Victory Parade on June 22, 1945, on the Red Square in Moscow, and
saluted to Joseph Stalin, who stood atop
the mausoleum of Lenin.
Brezhnev was promoted by
Nikita Khrushchev to 1st Communist
Party Secretary of Moldavia in 1950. In 1952 he was promoted to the
candidate member of the Politburo, and had a meeting with
Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin. "What a
handsome Moldavian", said Stalin of Brezhnev. The death of Stalin on
March 5, 1953, was followed by Khrushchev's takeover as the Head of the
Communist Party in September, 1953. Main opponents were eliminated in a
series of political executions, including that of
Lavrenti Beria in December, 1953. Others
were exiled, or degraded, like Marshal
Georgi Zhukov. The cast of Soviet
Leadership was changed. In 1953 Brezhnev was made the Chief of
Political Directorate of the Army and the Navy (GPU). In 1955 he was
made the 1st Communist Party Secretary of Kazakhstan. In 1956
Nikita Khrushchev denounced the
dictatorship of Joseph Stalin in his
Secret Speech to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Commuinst Party. In
1957 Brezhnev backed Khrushchev in a power-fight against
Vyacheslav Molotov,
Georgi Malenkov, and
Lazar Kaganovich. In 1959 Brezhnev was
promoted to Second Secretary of the Central Committee. In May 1960, he
became the President of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of the
Soviet Union.
Brezhnev, like many Soviet leaders, enjoyed many privileges, such as
free villas and beach houses, valuable gifts, hunting and drinking
parties. He was also using his secretaries and nurses for sex. But
Brezhnev's adultery and alcoholism backfired in his own family - his
daughter, Galina Brezhneva, modeled her personal life after her father
and turned her life into an endless series of drinking parties and
compromising love affairs. In 1961, while being married to a circus
acrobat, Galina Brezhneva, then 32, met the 18-year-old actor
Igor Kio, so she urgently divorced her husband
and, using her name, eloped with the boy to a southern resort of Sochi.
Her honeymoon lasted only 9 days. Enraged Soviet leader sent KGB to
destroy her new family. Igor Kio was
interrogated and pushed away from the Brezhnev's daughter, but she
became revengeful and continued the affair with Kio for another three
years, and later added more problems to her father's life.
In the late 50s and early 60s, the Soviet Union was undergoing
liberalization, called "The Thaw" initiated by
Nikita Khrushchev, who also initiated
reforms in the Soviet government. While some people supported
Khrushchev's reforms, many ranking communists were unhappy with the
changes. Khrushchev's Thaw culminated in 1961 with the removal of
Joseph Stalin's body from the Lenin's
mausoleum on the Red Square, which further angered the hardliners. But
at the same time, Khrushchev approved the construction of the Berlin
Wall and caused many scandals while visiting foreign nations, which
complicated international relations, culminating in Cuban Missile
Crisis. Internal situation in the Soviet Union was rapidly
deteriorating, because Khrushchev's agricultural reform failed, causing
disastrous situation with food supplies, massive food lines triggered
public unrest and Khrushchev thoughtlessly ordered the hungry people to
be killed by the Red Army forces. Brezhnev used Khrushchev's mistakes
to gain support for himself: he plotted a coup against Khrushchev and
gathered several top-ranking communists to conspire against
Nikita Khrushchev in order to stop his
efforts to reform the Soviet Union.
On October 14, 1964, Brezhnev with co-conspirators
Aleksey Kosygin and
Nikolay Podgorny dismissed
Nikita Khrushchev from office and
denounced him. Khrushchev was forced into retirement under a house
arrest on a small farm outside of Moscow. Brezhnev reversed
liberalization, ended the "Khrushchev Thaw", and enforced censorship
and total control over information, cultural life and education. In his
May 1965 speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of Victory in WWII,
Brezhnev mentioned Stalin positively. The onset of the "Cold war"
caused 'freezing' of the Soviet economy. Entrepreneurial people went
underground creating a parallel black market. The official economy relied
on cheap labor and subsidies from oil and gas exports. The Soviet
Military-Industrial Complex was somewhat efficient due to higher wages
and ruthless control by the KGB and Soviet Army. Decay was still
creeping into those bastions of communism. The arms race became
unaffordable by the mid 1960's. 30% of the Soviet economy was directly
or indirectly working for the arms race. Stockpiling of costly weapons
undermined living standards that led to a fall in the birth rate, a
shortage of labor, and an economic degradation. The country was
pushed into a dead end.
Brezhnev played the script of Stalin which led the Soviet Union on a
collision course with the world, and eventually to self-destruction.
Control by fear and intimidation was back again. People were living
hopeless lives having no choice. Workers of collective farms lived
without identification documents up until 1970's. Undocumented citizens
at collective farms were disposable. Migrants were used as industrial
slaves, for symbolic pay. Wages were set by the state and did not
depend on productivity or quality. The economy was governed by the
state 5-year plan. This mostly ignored the world and domestic market
signals; and lacked the incentives for innovation and efficiency.
Teachers were forced to indoctrinate children of all ages from
kindergartens through schools and universities. Total control and
manipulation was demonstrated twice a year at annual May Day parades
and Great Revolution parades on November 7. Military parades were
accompanied by marching masses of industrial workers and managers,
doctors and scientists, as well as teachers and students from all
schools and universities. Exemplary obedient people were rewarded with
better food and perks. Taming millions to obedience by fear and hunger
led to a massive degradation of human rights, poor spirituality, lack
of initiative and creativity, and decay of public health and vitality.
The country of almost three hundred million people became stuck in
stagnation, inefficiency, and apathy. Brighter students were taken into
the military-industrial system, brainwashed and locked there for life
with little choices. Opponents were locked in labor camps,
mostly in Siberia. There, millions were working various hard labor jobs
in grand-scale economic projects; like the Baikal-Amur railroad (BAM). Other dissidents were labeled as mentally ill and forcibly confined to mental hospitals.
Since the Communist Revolution of 1917, people had been continually
stripped of their land and property. Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev the
destruction of independent farming was finalized. By the 1960's poverty
and anxiety pushed masses to migrate to cities. Mass-construction of
cheap panel buildings was lagging behind. Millions of families shared
poor housing, hostels, and dorms in cities. Villages were deserted.
Collective farms decayed. Agricultural output fell below the levels of
the Tsar's age. Seven thousand churches were destroyed across the
Soviet Union. Spiritual life was dominated by ugly propaganda. People
were blinded by fear and pushed to wrong values. Meaningful human
virtues were replaced with fake ideals of ruthless communism.
Propaganda idolized members of the Soviet Politburo, their portraits
were decorating every school and factory along with countless portraits
and statues of Vladimir Lenin.
Political manipulations and brainwashing of millions led to devaluation
of life itself. Immoral behavior became a massive problem. In 1966
Brezhnev was asked not to rehabilitate
Joseph Stalin, in a letter signed by 25
distinguished intellectuals, including
Andrei Sakharov, Igor Tamm, Pyotr
Kapitsa, Korney Ivanovich Chukovskiy,
Valentin Kataev,
Viktor Nekrasov, Petr Korin,
Maya Plisetskaya,
Oleg Efremov,
Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy,
Georgi Tovstonogov,
Mikhail Romm,
Marlen Khutsiev, Boris Slutsky,
Konstantin Paustovsky, Vladimir
Tendryakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, and
other Soviet luminaries. But Brezhnev's government retaliated with
massive censorship.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was
interrogated and intimidated. His writings were also banned. Trials of
intellectuals like Andrey Sinyavskiy,
Yuri Daniel, Joseph Brodsky, and others
was only the tip of the iceberg. The head of KGB,
Vladimir Semichastny, wrote a note
on "Anti-Soviet activity of creative intellectuals". It listed the
films
'33' by director 'Georgi
Danelia' and 'Na odnoi planet' by director Ilya Olshvanger.
The KGB was angry at actors: "Today they play Lenin, tomorrow a
merchant, after tomorrow a drunkard." Neo-Stalinist course was enforced
by the leaders who were raised under Stalin and did not learn anything
better than to abuse the enslaved people. Blinded leaders only tried to
slow the movement to a dead end. Restrictions on travel and studies
abroad blocked the learning of the achievements of other nations of the
world. Information technology and computers made by Soviet Military
Industries were incompatible and obsolete. Total control by the KGB led
to stagnation and inefficiency. The brightest people defected and fled
the Soviet gloom, causing the "Brain drain" in science and culture. In
the 1970s the flow of Jewish emigration was initiated by reuniting
families. The KGB caused financial and political obstacles to every
emigrating person; but people were leaving at any cost. Aggressive
foreign policy manifested in support for revolutionary regimes and
spreading the Soviet political and military presence in Third World
countries. National resources were wasted on controversial military
operations at the expense of growing domestic problems including
poverty and frustration of the people.
Brezhnev's regime crushed the Prague Spring of 1968, fought the Chinese
Army over a border dispute in 1969, sent Soviet Tanks and Air Force to
Egypt and Syria against Israel in the
1970's, as well as in North
Vietnam against the French and Americans. The invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979 undermined international credibility of the Soviet Union.
Andrei Sakharov
wrote an open letter to Brezhnev calling for a stop to the war. 50
nations boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Crackdown on
intellectual freedom and human rights included the use of psychiatric
terror, arrests, and the exile of dissidents. The head of the KGB,
Yuri Andropov, declared
Andrei Sakharov the "enemy No.1."
Sakharov was forcefully exiled from Moscow to the militarized
'closed' city of Gorky. He was placed under tight
surveillance and restricted from any contacts. His wife
Yelena Bonner
was also under tight surveillance.
During the 1970s Brezhnev's health declined dramatically as he became
increasingly dependent on alcohol and drugs; but on his 70th birthday
he made himself a Generalissimus Marshal of the Soviet Union, similar
to that of Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev accepted over 200 decorations and
awards, including awards from all pro-Soviet governments, except China.
Brezhnev accepted countless expensive gifts and amassed a collection of
vintage cars and other bribes. His personal vanity and behavior was
replicated at all levels of the Communist Party and led to massive
corruption. The old Brezhnev lost his acting abilities and couldn't
even read the script. People were joking. The ugly reality was
reflected in its leader. The youngest Politburo Member
Mikhail Gorbachev was contemplating
reforms. Brezhnev suffered a stroke in May 1982. He died of a heart
attack on November 10, 1982; and was buried by the Kremlin Wall. He was
succeeded by Yuri Andropov, who died just
16 months later. He was replaced by
Konstantin Chernenko, who died in
just 13 months. Then came
Mikhail Gorbachev, but the country was
already locked in a dying mode.
Brezhnev's daughter, Galina, was married four times and was regarded as
a wild-child by the Soviet authorities. Her wild drinking parties often
ended in escapades with younger men. In 1982, she was seen wearing
jewels previously reported as stolen, she was also connected to jewel
smugglers, so she was tried for stealing jewels from a celebrity, but
was acquitted, while her powerful father was still the leader of the
Soviet Union. Her third husband was convicted of bribery and corruption
and sentenced to twelve years correction term in a hard-labor camp. In
the 1990s, a British TV filmed a visit to the home of Galina Brezhneva,
where she was interviewed while being drunk and demonstrating
disgraceful behavior. At that time she was living with a mechanic who
was 29 years younger. She remained impossible to deal with, so after
numerous complaints from her neighbors and upon request of her own
daughter, Galina Brezhneva was placed in a Moscow psychiatric hospital
where she died in 1998. She was laid to rest in the prestigious
Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, Russia. Brezhnev's grandson, Andrei
Brezhnev, joined the Communist Party of Russia in 2005. Brezhnev's
granddaughter, Victoria, was robbed several times and is now divorced
and unemployed.
disproportionate military growth. This process exhausted the Soviet economy and
eventually led to collapse of the Soviet Union.
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906, in Kamenskoe
Russian Empire (now Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine). He went to
Dnepropetrovsk Industrial College. There he joined the Communist Party
youth union (Komsomol) in 1923, and became a full member of the
Communist Party in 1931. He had no adult memories of life under
Tsar Nicholas II and was too young to
have participated in the leadership feud after the death of
Lenin. During the purges of the "Great Terror"
under Joseph Stalin Brezhnev proved
himself a loyal Stalinist, suitable for the ranks of the Communist
hierarchy. In 1935 he was drafted in a tank school. There he started a
career as Political Commissar; and in 1936 was transferred to Regional
Government, rising to the Party Secretary of Dnepropetrovsk in 1939. On
June 22, 1941, the day the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Brezhnev was
assigned to evacuate military industries before the Nazis reached his
city. During WWII Brezhnev was assigned as Political Commissar to
Transcaucasian Front; then to 1st Ukrainian Front. There chief
Political Commissar was
Nikita Khrushchev, who patronized
Brezhnev's career since 1931. He was promoted to chief Political
Commissar of the 4th Ukrainian Front, rising to a Maj. General. He was
in Prague on May 9, 1945 when the War ended. Brezhnev took part in the
Victory Parade on June 22, 1945, on the Red Square in Moscow, and
saluted to Joseph Stalin, who stood atop
the mausoleum of Lenin.
Brezhnev was promoted by
Nikita Khrushchev to 1st Communist
Party Secretary of Moldavia in 1950. In 1952 he was promoted to the
candidate member of the Politburo, and had a meeting with
Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin. "What a
handsome Moldavian", said Stalin of Brezhnev. The death of Stalin on
March 5, 1953, was followed by Khrushchev's takeover as the Head of the
Communist Party in September, 1953. Main opponents were eliminated in a
series of political executions, including that of
Lavrenti Beria in December, 1953. Others
were exiled, or degraded, like Marshal
Georgi Zhukov. The cast of Soviet
Leadership was changed. In 1953 Brezhnev was made the Chief of
Political Directorate of the Army and the Navy (GPU). In 1955 he was
made the 1st Communist Party Secretary of Kazakhstan. In 1956
Nikita Khrushchev denounced the
dictatorship of Joseph Stalin in his
Secret Speech to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Commuinst Party. In
1957 Brezhnev backed Khrushchev in a power-fight against
Vyacheslav Molotov,
Georgi Malenkov, and
Lazar Kaganovich. In 1959 Brezhnev was
promoted to Second Secretary of the Central Committee. In May 1960, he
became the President of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of the
Soviet Union.
Brezhnev, like many Soviet leaders, enjoyed many privileges, such as
free villas and beach houses, valuable gifts, hunting and drinking
parties. He was also using his secretaries and nurses for sex. But
Brezhnev's adultery and alcoholism backfired in his own family - his
daughter, Galina Brezhneva, modeled her personal life after her father
and turned her life into an endless series of drinking parties and
compromising love affairs. In 1961, while being married to a circus
acrobat, Galina Brezhneva, then 32, met the 18-year-old actor
Igor Kio, so she urgently divorced her husband
and, using her name, eloped with the boy to a southern resort of Sochi.
Her honeymoon lasted only 9 days. Enraged Soviet leader sent KGB to
destroy her new family. Igor Kio was
interrogated and pushed away from the Brezhnev's daughter, but she
became revengeful and continued the affair with Kio for another three
years, and later added more problems to her father's life.
In the late 50s and early 60s, the Soviet Union was undergoing
liberalization, called "The Thaw" initiated by
Nikita Khrushchev, who also initiated
reforms in the Soviet government. While some people supported
Khrushchev's reforms, many ranking communists were unhappy with the
changes. Khrushchev's Thaw culminated in 1961 with the removal of
Joseph Stalin's body from the Lenin's
mausoleum on the Red Square, which further angered the hardliners. But
at the same time, Khrushchev approved the construction of the Berlin
Wall and caused many scandals while visiting foreign nations, which
complicated international relations, culminating in Cuban Missile
Crisis. Internal situation in the Soviet Union was rapidly
deteriorating, because Khrushchev's agricultural reform failed, causing
disastrous situation with food supplies, massive food lines triggered
public unrest and Khrushchev thoughtlessly ordered the hungry people to
be killed by the Red Army forces. Brezhnev used Khrushchev's mistakes
to gain support for himself: he plotted a coup against Khrushchev and
gathered several top-ranking communists to conspire against
Nikita Khrushchev in order to stop his
efforts to reform the Soviet Union.
On October 14, 1964, Brezhnev with co-conspirators
Aleksey Kosygin and
Nikolay Podgorny dismissed
Nikita Khrushchev from office and
denounced him. Khrushchev was forced into retirement under a house
arrest on a small farm outside of Moscow. Brezhnev reversed
liberalization, ended the "Khrushchev Thaw", and enforced censorship
and total control over information, cultural life and education. In his
May 1965 speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of Victory in WWII,
Brezhnev mentioned Stalin positively. The onset of the "Cold war"
caused 'freezing' of the Soviet economy. Entrepreneurial people went
underground creating a parallel black market. The official economy relied
on cheap labor and subsidies from oil and gas exports. The Soviet
Military-Industrial Complex was somewhat efficient due to higher wages
and ruthless control by the KGB and Soviet Army. Decay was still
creeping into those bastions of communism. The arms race became
unaffordable by the mid 1960's. 30% of the Soviet economy was directly
or indirectly working for the arms race. Stockpiling of costly weapons
undermined living standards that led to a fall in the birth rate, a
shortage of labor, and an economic degradation. The country was
pushed into a dead end.
Brezhnev played the script of Stalin which led the Soviet Union on a
collision course with the world, and eventually to self-destruction.
Control by fear and intimidation was back again. People were living
hopeless lives having no choice. Workers of collective farms lived
without identification documents up until 1970's. Undocumented citizens
at collective farms were disposable. Migrants were used as industrial
slaves, for symbolic pay. Wages were set by the state and did not
depend on productivity or quality. The economy was governed by the
state 5-year plan. This mostly ignored the world and domestic market
signals; and lacked the incentives for innovation and efficiency.
Teachers were forced to indoctrinate children of all ages from
kindergartens through schools and universities. Total control and
manipulation was demonstrated twice a year at annual May Day parades
and Great Revolution parades on November 7. Military parades were
accompanied by marching masses of industrial workers and managers,
doctors and scientists, as well as teachers and students from all
schools and universities. Exemplary obedient people were rewarded with
better food and perks. Taming millions to obedience by fear and hunger
led to a massive degradation of human rights, poor spirituality, lack
of initiative and creativity, and decay of public health and vitality.
The country of almost three hundred million people became stuck in
stagnation, inefficiency, and apathy. Brighter students were taken into
the military-industrial system, brainwashed and locked there for life
with little choices. Opponents were locked in labor camps,
mostly in Siberia. There, millions were working various hard labor jobs
in grand-scale economic projects; like the Baikal-Amur railroad (BAM). Other dissidents were labeled as mentally ill and forcibly confined to mental hospitals.
Since the Communist Revolution of 1917, people had been continually
stripped of their land and property. Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev the
destruction of independent farming was finalized. By the 1960's poverty
and anxiety pushed masses to migrate to cities. Mass-construction of
cheap panel buildings was lagging behind. Millions of families shared
poor housing, hostels, and dorms in cities. Villages were deserted.
Collective farms decayed. Agricultural output fell below the levels of
the Tsar's age. Seven thousand churches were destroyed across the
Soviet Union. Spiritual life was dominated by ugly propaganda. People
were blinded by fear and pushed to wrong values. Meaningful human
virtues were replaced with fake ideals of ruthless communism.
Propaganda idolized members of the Soviet Politburo, their portraits
were decorating every school and factory along with countless portraits
and statues of Vladimir Lenin.
Political manipulations and brainwashing of millions led to devaluation
of life itself. Immoral behavior became a massive problem. In 1966
Brezhnev was asked not to rehabilitate
Joseph Stalin, in a letter signed by 25
distinguished intellectuals, including
Andrei Sakharov, Igor Tamm, Pyotr
Kapitsa, Korney Ivanovich Chukovskiy,
Valentin Kataev,
Viktor Nekrasov, Petr Korin,
Maya Plisetskaya,
Oleg Efremov,
Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy,
Georgi Tovstonogov,
Mikhail Romm,
Marlen Khutsiev, Boris Slutsky,
Konstantin Paustovsky, Vladimir
Tendryakov, Dmitri Shostakovich, and
other Soviet luminaries. But Brezhnev's government retaliated with
massive censorship.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was
interrogated and intimidated. His writings were also banned. Trials of
intellectuals like Andrey Sinyavskiy,
Yuri Daniel, Joseph Brodsky, and others
was only the tip of the iceberg. The head of KGB,
Vladimir Semichastny, wrote a note
on "Anti-Soviet activity of creative intellectuals". It listed the
films
'33' by director 'Georgi
Danelia' and 'Na odnoi planet' by director Ilya Olshvanger.
The KGB was angry at actors: "Today they play Lenin, tomorrow a
merchant, after tomorrow a drunkard." Neo-Stalinist course was enforced
by the leaders who were raised under Stalin and did not learn anything
better than to abuse the enslaved people. Blinded leaders only tried to
slow the movement to a dead end. Restrictions on travel and studies
abroad blocked the learning of the achievements of other nations of the
world. Information technology and computers made by Soviet Military
Industries were incompatible and obsolete. Total control by the KGB led
to stagnation and inefficiency. The brightest people defected and fled
the Soviet gloom, causing the "Brain drain" in science and culture. In
the 1970s the flow of Jewish emigration was initiated by reuniting
families. The KGB caused financial and political obstacles to every
emigrating person; but people were leaving at any cost. Aggressive
foreign policy manifested in support for revolutionary regimes and
spreading the Soviet political and military presence in Third World
countries. National resources were wasted on controversial military
operations at the expense of growing domestic problems including
poverty and frustration of the people.
Brezhnev's regime crushed the Prague Spring of 1968, fought the Chinese
Army over a border dispute in 1969, sent Soviet Tanks and Air Force to
Egypt and Syria against Israel in the
1970's, as well as in North
Vietnam against the French and Americans. The invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979 undermined international credibility of the Soviet Union.
Andrei Sakharov
wrote an open letter to Brezhnev calling for a stop to the war. 50
nations boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Crackdown on
intellectual freedom and human rights included the use of psychiatric
terror, arrests, and the exile of dissidents. The head of the KGB,
Yuri Andropov, declared
Andrei Sakharov the "enemy No.1."
Sakharov was forcefully exiled from Moscow to the militarized
'closed' city of Gorky. He was placed under tight
surveillance and restricted from any contacts. His wife
Yelena Bonner
was also under tight surveillance.
During the 1970s Brezhnev's health declined dramatically as he became
increasingly dependent on alcohol and drugs; but on his 70th birthday
he made himself a Generalissimus Marshal of the Soviet Union, similar
to that of Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev accepted over 200 decorations and
awards, including awards from all pro-Soviet governments, except China.
Brezhnev accepted countless expensive gifts and amassed a collection of
vintage cars and other bribes. His personal vanity and behavior was
replicated at all levels of the Communist Party and led to massive
corruption. The old Brezhnev lost his acting abilities and couldn't
even read the script. People were joking. The ugly reality was
reflected in its leader. The youngest Politburo Member
Mikhail Gorbachev was contemplating
reforms. Brezhnev suffered a stroke in May 1982. He died of a heart
attack on November 10, 1982; and was buried by the Kremlin Wall. He was
succeeded by Yuri Andropov, who died just
16 months later. He was replaced by
Konstantin Chernenko, who died in
just 13 months. Then came
Mikhail Gorbachev, but the country was
already locked in a dying mode.
Brezhnev's daughter, Galina, was married four times and was regarded as
a wild-child by the Soviet authorities. Her wild drinking parties often
ended in escapades with younger men. In 1982, she was seen wearing
jewels previously reported as stolen, she was also connected to jewel
smugglers, so she was tried for stealing jewels from a celebrity, but
was acquitted, while her powerful father was still the leader of the
Soviet Union. Her third husband was convicted of bribery and corruption
and sentenced to twelve years correction term in a hard-labor camp. In
the 1990s, a British TV filmed a visit to the home of Galina Brezhneva,
where she was interviewed while being drunk and demonstrating
disgraceful behavior. At that time she was living with a mechanic who
was 29 years younger. She remained impossible to deal with, so after
numerous complaints from her neighbors and upon request of her own
daughter, Galina Brezhneva was placed in a Moscow psychiatric hospital
where she died in 1998. She was laid to rest in the prestigious
Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, Russia. Brezhnev's grandson, Andrei
Brezhnev, joined the Communist Party of Russia in 2005. Brezhnev's
granddaughter, Victoria, was robbed several times and is now divorced
and unemployed.