Leonid Brezhnev

The Soviet Union, or USSR, had its roots in the early 1900s and has had multiple leaders. Each leader of the USSR had their own policies and legacies, which set themselves apart from one another. One of these leaders was Leonid Brezhnev, who was the successor of Nikita Khrushchev. Brezhnev rule was defined by his domestic policies, stagnation, and relations with the US. Although he brought much power and prestige to the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev’s legacy is mostly remembered by his rule under the era of stagnation and the decline of the Soviet Union economy. On December 19th, 1906, Leonid Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye, an industrial town in Ukraine(Brando, 2). He was the son of Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and Natalya Denisovna(Brando, 2). Leonid’s father served as a metalworker, as well as other generations in their family. At the age of fifteen, Brezhnev…

The Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev was very different place than the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. While these leader faced similar problems, their methods of repairing the Soviet Union differed greatly. While Gorbachev was open to change Brezhnev was very conservative and unwilling to reform. Brezhnev remained in power for eighteen year, but its was Gorbachev that completely changed the landscape of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union under both Gorbachev and Brezhnev faced…

The events that took place subsequent to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 transformed the Soviet Communism and way of life in many different ways. Essentially, the transformation of Soviet life after the Thaw can be said to have undergone three phases: introduction of reforms during Khrushchev’s era, the Brezhnev stagnation, and Gorbachev reforms that ultimately led to the Soviet Union dissolving in 1991. When Nikita Khrushchev rose to power, he made significant reforms including policies of peace…

Of course, it is impossible to guess whether the Beatles would have had the impact they made on another historical generation at a different point of time, but there were certainly some factors that made the mid-sixties Soviet population a “fertile ground” for the arrival of the Beatles (Woodhead, 23). The early years of the Cold War were marked by a nationwide zeal and solidarity in being Russian, as Nikita Khrushchev spearheaded Russia’s efforts in the international space race, while also…

power and confidence which landed him the majority vote. Regan became the fourteenth president of the United States and increased military spending, which sent the federal budget into debt. After a year of a harsh recession, economic recovery provided the popular support for Regan’s re-election in 1984. Regan refused to use diplomatic language of détente, a way of easing strained relationships, which alarmed Europe. In 1986 Regan met with Gorbachev in Iceland, where they made progress on arms…

Q1. New Economic Policy: Leonid Brezhnev During the 1920’s, Vladimir Lenin was in charge of what he had recently renamed, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This was a time of distress for the people of the USSR. Famine had struck and the majority of the population was starving in many cases it even led to death. Lenin’s response in aiding the economic situation was to implement his “New Economic Policy”. Although Lenin’s ideologies truly lied in communism, he was willing to leave…

the Soviet Union had been in a period of stagnation for almost two decades, and before that it had gone through poorly planned reforms in the Khrushchev era. Once Brezhnev had his time in leadership, the country needed to make some drastic changes. By 1985, the USSR had fallen in culture and overall quality of life, the economy was in intense disrepair, and the Communist Party leadership had become ineffective. Gorbachev’s reforms, including perestroika and glasnost, were the major reform that…

Assignment #3 - Who 's Responsible for the Cold War? To begin, after reviewing the assigned material and deliberating, I have come to the conclusion that both are equally as responsible for the Cold war. While the U.S. tends to paint pictures of the USSR as cold, calculating, and an evil void of all emotion, it is truly the rivalry of both countries that brought upon the cold war. In a way, both the United States and the Soviet Union were like feuding siblings trying to prove superiority over…

The Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics by Shane Hamilton and Sarah Phillips highlights the debates of Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev. Nikita Khrushchev and USSR are the clear victors of the kitchen debate. Khrushchev’s concern about the Soviet population as a whole is a key reason as to why he is the winner of the debate. Instead of being concerned about individualism, his focus was on the people and how he could better the country. To begin, unlike Nixon, Khrushchev sought out…

The new Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, did not reinstate the terror of the Stalin years; however, he sought to strengthen the role of the party bureaucracy and the KGB and encouraged the further clampdown on reform in the satellite states. In 1968, disaffection with this step backward led to the emergence of a reform movement in Czechoslovakia. The main goal of this “Prague Spring” was to bring about a more humanistic socialism within certain limits, such as keeping the nation within the Soviet…