Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich reign briefly. Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich (short biography). The last years of Brezhnev's life

During the funeral of Soviet leaders, it is customary to carry their awards pinned to small velvet pillows. When Suslov was buried, fifteen senior officers carried his orders and medals behind the coffin. But Brezhnev had more than two hundred orders and medals! I had to attach several orders and medals to each velvet cushion and limit the honorary escort to forty-four senior officers.

Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich was born on December 6 (19), 1906, in the village of Kamenskoye (now the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk), Ukraine. He began his working life at the age of fifteen. After graduating from the Kursk land management and reclamation technical school in 1927, he worked as a land surveyor in the Kokhanovsky district of the Orsha district of the Belarusian USSR. He joined the Komsomol in 1923, became a member of the CPSU in 1931. In 1935 he graduated from the metallurgical institute in Dneprodzerzhinsk, where he worked as an engineer at a metallurgical plant.

Brezhnev was nominated for his first responsible post in the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee in 1938, when he was about 32 years old. At that time, Brezhnev's career was not the fastest. Brezhnev was not a careerist who fights his way up, pushing other contenders with his elbows and betraying his friends. Even then he was distinguished by calmness, loyalty to colleagues and superiors, and did not make his way forward as much as others pushed him forward. At the very first stage, Brezhnev was pushed forward by his friend at the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute Grusheva, who was the first secretary of the Dneprodzerzhinsky city party committee. After the war, Grusheva remained in political work in the army. He died in 1982 with the rank of colonel general. Brezhnev, who was present at this funeral, suddenly fell in front of his friend's coffin, bursting into sobs. This episode has remained incomprehensible to many.

During the war years, Brezhnev did not have strong patronage, and he made little progress. At the beginning of the war he was promoted to the rank of colonel, at the end of the war he was a major general, having advanced only one rank. They did not indulge him in terms of awards. By the end of the war, he had two orders of the Red Banner, one of the Red Star, the Order of God on Khmelnitsky and two medals. At that time, this was not enough for a general. During the Victory Parade on Red Square, where Major General Brezhnev walked along with the commander at the head of the consolidated column of his front, there were much fewer awards on his chest than other generals.

After the war, Brezhnev owed his promotion to Khrushchev, about which he is carefully silent in his memoirs.

After working in Zaporozhye, Brezhnev, also on the recommendation of Khrushchev, was nominated for the post of first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee, and in 1950 for the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (6) of Moldova. At the XIX Party Congress in the fall of 1952, Brezhnev, as the leader of the Moldavian communists, was elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU. For a short time, he even became a member of the Presidium (as a candidate) and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, which were significantly expanded at Stalin's suggestion. During the congress, Stalin saw Brezhnev for the first time. The old and sickly dictator drew attention to the large and well-dressed 46-year-old Brezhnev. Stalin was told that this was the party leader of the Moldavian SSR. Stalin said. November 7, 1952 Brezhnev for the first time went up to the podium of the Mausoleum. right up

Until March 1953, Brezhnev, like other members of the Presidium, was in Moscow and waited for them to be gathered for a meeting and to distribute duties. In Moldova, he was already released from work. But Stalin never collected them.

After Stalin's death, the composition of the Presidium and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU was immediately reduced. Brezhnev was also removed from the composition, but he did not return to Moldova, but was appointed head of the Political Directorate of the USSR Navy. He received the rank of lieutenant general and had to put on his military uniform again. In the Central Committee, Brezhnev consistently supported Khrushchev.

In early 1954, Khrushchev sent him to Kazakhstan to lead the development of virgin lands. He returned to Moscow only in 1956, and after the XX Congress of the CPSU, he again became one of the secretaries of the Central Committee and a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Brezhnev was supposed to control the development of heavy industry, later defense and aerospace, but Khrushchev personally decided all the main issues, and Brezhnev acted as a calm and devoted assistant. After the June Plenum of the Central Committee in 1957, Brezhnev became a member of the Presidium. Khrushchev appreciated his loyalty, but did not consider him a strong enough worker.

After the retirement of K. E. Voroshilov, Brezhnev became his successor as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In some Western biographies, this appointment is estimated almost as Brezhnev's defeat in the struggle for power. But in reality, Brezhnev was not an active participant in this struggle and was very pleased with the new appointment. He did not seek then the post of head of the party or government. He was quite satisfied with the role of man in leadership. Back in 1956-1957. he managed to transfer to Moscow some of the people with whom he worked in Moldova and Ukraine. One of the first were Trapeznikov and Chernenko, who began to work in Brezhnev's personal secretariat. In the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, it was Chernenko who became head of Brezhnev's office. In 1963, when F. Kozlov not only lost Khrushchev's favor, but also suffered a stroke, Khrushchev hesitated for a long time in choosing his new favorite. Ultimately, his choice fell on Brezhnev, who was elected secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Khrushchev was in very good health and expected to remain in power for a long time to come. Meanwhile, Brezhnev himself was dissatisfied with this decision of Khrushchev, although moving to the Secretariat increased his real power and influence. He did not want to plunge into the extremely difficult and troublesome work of the secretary of the Central Committee. Brezhnev was not the organizer of Khrushchev's removal, although he knew about the impending action. Among its main organizers there was no agreement on many issues. In order not to deepen the differences that could derail the whole affair, they agreed to the election of Brezhnev, assuming that this would be a temporary solution. Leonid Ilyich gave his consent.

Once at the head of the party and state, Brezhnev, as can be judged from his

behavior, constantly experienced an inferiority complex. In the depths of his soul, he nevertheless understood in the first years of his power that he lacked many qualities and knowledge to lead a state like the Soviet Union. His assistants assured him otherwise, they began to flatter him, and the more gratefully Brezhnev accepted this flattery, the more frequent and exorbitant it became. Gradually, he began to need her, like a constant dose of drugs.

Various kinds of myths began to be created, especially around Brezhnev's military biography. As a political worker, Brezhnev did not take part in the largest and decisive battles of the Patriotic War. One of the most important episodes in the combat biography of the 18th Army was the capture and holding for 225 days of a bridgehead south of Novorossiysk in 1943, which was called Malaya Zemlya.

Not respect, but only ridicule, was also caused by Brezhnev's amazing penchant for tinsel of external honors and awards. After the war, under Stalin, Brezhnev was awarded the Order of Lenin. For 10 years of Khrushchev's leadership, Brezhnev was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. However, after Brezhnev himself came to the leadership of the country and the party, awards began to rain down on him as if from a cornucopia. By the end of his life, he had far more orders and medals than Stalin and Khrushchev put together. At the same time, he really wanted to receive military orders. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union four times, which, according to his status, can only be awarded three times (only G.K. Zhukov was an exception). For dozens of years he received the title of Hero and the highest orders of all socialist countries. He was awarded orders from Latin America and Africa. Brezhnev was awarded the highest Soviet military order "Victory", which was awarded only to the largest commanders, and at the same time for outstanding victories on the scale of fronts or groups of fronts. Naturally, with so many top military awards, Brezhnev could not be satisfied with the rank of lieutenant general. In 1976, Brezhnev was awarded the title of Marshal of the USSR. At the next meeting with veterans of the 18th Army, Brezhnev came in a raincoat and, entering the room, commanded: "Attention! The marshal is coming!" Throwing off his cloak, he appeared before the veterans in a new marshal's uniform. Pointing to the marshal's stars on shoulder straps, Brezhnev proudly said: "I have served!".

During the funeral of Soviet leaders, it is customary to carry their awards pinned to small velvet cushions. When Suslov was buried, fifteen senior officers carried his orders and medals behind the coffin. But Brezhnev had more than two hundred orders and medals! I had to attach several orders and medals to each velvet cushion and limit the honorary escort to forty-four senior officers.

Brezhnev was lost at all sorts of solemn ceremonies, sometimes hiding this confusion with unnatural inactivity. But in pain

in a narrow circle, during frequent meetings or on days of rest, Brezhnev could be a completely different person, more independent, resourceful, sometimes showing a sense of humor. This is remembered by almost all the politicians who dealt with him, of course, even before the onset of his serious illness. Apparently realizing this, Brezhnev soon preferred to conduct important negotiations at his dacha in Oreanda in the Crimea or at the hunting ground of Zavidovo near Moscow.

Former German Chancellor W. Brandt, whom Brezhnev met more than once, wrote in his memoirs:

"Unlike Kosygin, my direct negotiating partner in 1970, who was mostly cold and calm, Brezhnev could be impulsive, even angry. Changes in mood, Russian soul, quick tears possible. He had a sense of humor. He not only swam in Oreanda for many hours, but talked and laughed a lot. He talked about the history of his country, but only about the last decades ... It was obvious that Brezhnev tried to watch his appearance. His figure did not correspond to those ideas, which could appear from his official photographs.He was by no means an imposing personality, and, despite the heaviness of his body, he gave the impression of an elegant, lively, energetic in movements, cheerful person.His facial expressions and gestures did they give away a southerner, especially if he felt relaxed during the conversation.He came from the Ukrainian industrial region, where various national influences mixed. The formation of Brezhnev as a person was affected by the Second World War. He spoke with great and somewhat naive emotion about how Hitler managed to swindle Stalin..."

G. Kissinger also called Brezhnev "a real Russian, full of feelings, with rude humor." When Kissinger, already as US Secretary of State, came to Moscow in 1973 to arrange Brezhnev's visit to the United States, almost all of these five-day negotiations took place in the Zavidovo hunting ground during walks, hunts, lunches and dinners. Brezhnev even demonstrated to the guest his art of driving a car. Kissinger writes in his memoirs: “One day he led me to a black Cadillac that Nixon had given him a year ago on Dobrynin’s advice. some policeman appeared at the nearest crossroads and put an end to this risky game, but it was too incredible, because if there were any traffic policeman here, outside the city, he would hardly dare to stop the car of the General Secretary of the Party. the ride ended at the pier. Brezhnev put me on a hydrofoil boat, which, fortunately, he did not personally pilot. But I had the impression that this boat should

beat the speed record set by the General Secretary during our car trip."

Brezhnev behaved very directly at many receptions, for example, on the occasion of the flight into space of a joint Soviet-American crew under the Soyuz-Apollo project. However, the Soviet people did not see and did not know such a cheerful and direct Brezhnev. In addition, the image of the younger Brezhnev, who was not very often shown on television at that time, was replaced in the minds of the people by the image of a seriously ill, inactive and tongue-tied person who appeared almost daily on our TV screens in the last 5-6 years of his life.

Brezhnev was generally a benevolent person, he did not like complications and conflicts either in politics or in personal relationships with his colleagues. When such a conflict did arise, Brezhnev tried to avoid extreme solutions. With conflicts within the leadership, very few of the people retired. Most of the "disgraced" leaders remained in the "nomenklatura", but only 2-3 steps lower. A member of the Politburo could become a deputy minister, and a former minister, secretary of the regional party committee, member of the Central Committee of the CPSU was sent as an ambassador to a small country: Denmark, Belgium, Australia, Norway.

This benevolence often turned into connivance, which dishonest people also used. Brezhnev often left in his posts not only guilty, but also stealing workers. It is known that without the sanction of the Politburo, the judiciary cannot conduct an investigation into the case of any member of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

It often happened that Brezhnev cried at official receptions. This sentimentality, so little characteristic of politicians, sometimes benefited ... art. So, for example, back in the early 70s, the film "Belarusian Station" was created. It was a good picture, but it was not allowed on the screen, believing that the film did not present the Moscow police in the best light. The film's defenders managed to see it with the participation of members of the Politburo. There is an episode in the film where it is shown how, by chance and after many years, fellow soldiers who met, sing a song about the airborne battalion, in which they all once served. This song, composed by B. Okudzhava, touched Brezhnev, and he began to cry. Of course, the film was immediately allowed to be released, and since then the song about the airborne battalion has almost always been included in the repertoire of concerts Brezhnev attended.

Even at the age of 50 and even 60, Brezhnev lived without caring too much about his health. He did not give up all the pleasures that life can give and which are not always conducive to longevity.

The first serious health problems appeared with Brezhnev, apparently in 1969-1970. Doctors began to be constantly on duty next to him, and medical rooms were equipped in the places where he lived. In early 1976, it happened to Brezhnev

about what is called clinical death. However, he was brought back to life, although for two months he could not work, because his thinking and speech were impaired. Since then, a group of resuscitators armed with the necessary equipment has constantly been near Brezhnev. Although the state of health of our leaders is among the closely guarded state secrets, Brezhnev's progressive infirmity was obvious to all who could see him on their television screens. American journalist Simon Head wrote: "Each time this obese figure ventures outside the Kremlin walls, the outside world is attentively looking for symptoms of deteriorating health. With the death of M. Suslov, another pillar of the Soviet regime, this eerie scrutiny can only intensify. During the November (1981) meetings with Helmut Schmidt, when Brezhnev almost fell while walking, he at times looked as if he could not last even a day.

In fact, he was slowly dying before the eyes of the whole world. In the past six years, he had several heart attacks and strokes, and resuscitators several times brought him out of a state of clinical death. The last time this happened was in April 1982 after an accident in Tashkent.

Of course, Brezhnev's painful state began to be reflected in his ability to govern the country. He was forced to interrupt his duties frequently or to delegate them to the ever-growing staff of his personal assistants. Brezhnev's working day was reduced by several hours. He began to go on vacation not only in the summer, but also in the spring. Gradually, it became more and more difficult for him to fulfill even simple protocol duties, and he ceased to understand what was happening in the district. However, a lot of influential, deeply decomposed, corruption-ridden people from his entourage were interested in Brezhnev appearing in public from time to time, at least as a formal head of state. They literally led him under the arms and reached the worst: old age, infirmity and illness of the Soviet leader became subjects not so much of sympathy and pity of his fellow citizens as irritation and ridicule, which were expressed more and more openly.

Even in the afternoon of November 10, 1982, during the parade and demonstration, Brezhnev stood for several hours in a row, despite the bad weather, on the podium of the Mausoleum, and foreign newspapers wrote that he looked even better than usual. The end came, however, after just three days. In the morning, during breakfast, Brezhnev went to his office to take something and did not return for a long time. The worried wife followed him out of the dining room and saw him lying on the carpet near the desk. The efforts of the doctors this time did not bring success, and four hours after Brezhnev's heart stopped, they announced his death. The next day, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government officially informed the world about the death of L.I. Brezhnev

Origin

Before 1950

1950-1964

Head of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU

1964-1977

1977-1982

Interesting Facts

Movie incarnations

(December 19, 1906 (January 1, 1907) - November 10, 1982) - Soviet state and party leader.

First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964-1966, from 1966 to 1982 General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1960-1964 and 1977-1982.

Marshal of the Soviet Union (1976).

Hero of Socialist Labor (1961) and four times Hero of the Soviet Union (1966, 1976, 1978, 1981).

Laureate of the International Lenin Prize "For strengthening peace between peoples" (1973) and the Lenin Prize for Literature (1979).

Biography

Origin

Born in Kamensky, Yekaterinoslav province (now Dneprodzerzhinsk) in the family of Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874-1930) and Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886-1975). His father and mother were born and before moving to Kamenskoye lived in the village. Brezhnevo (now the Kursk district of the Kursk region). Metrics of Leonid Ilyich, stored in the Dnepropetrovsk regional archive, were confiscated. In Dneprodzerzhinsk, Leonid Brezhnev lived in a modest two-story, four-apartment building at No. 40 on Pelin Avenue. Now it is called "Lenin's house". And, according to his former neighbors, he was very fond of chasing pigeons from the dovecote that stood in the yard (now there is a garage in its place). The last time he visited his ancestral home was in 1979, taking a picture with its residents as a keepsake.

He graduated from the Kursk land surveying and reclamation technical school (1923-1927) and the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute (1935).

Before 1950

In 1915 he was admitted to a classical gymnasium, later a labor school, from which he graduated in 1921. Since 1921 he worked at the Kursk oil mill. In 1923 he joined the Komsomol. After graduating from a technical school in 1927, he received the qualification of a land surveyor of the 3rd category and worked as a land surveyor: for several months in one of the counties of the Kursk province, then in the Kokhanovsky district of the Orsha district of the BSSR (now the Tolochin district of the Vitebsk region). In 1928 he married. In March of the same year, he was transferred to the Urals, where he worked as a land surveyor, head of the district land department, deputy chairman of the Bisersky district executive committee of the Sverdlovsk region (1929-1930), deputy head of the Ural district land administration. In September 1930 he left and entered the Moscow Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Kalinin, and in the spring of 1931 he was transferred as a student to the evening faculty of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute, and simultaneously with his studies he worked as a stoker-mechanic at the plant. Member of the CPSU (b) since October 24, 1931. In 1935-1936 he served in the army: cadet and political instructor of a tank company in Transbaikalia (Peschanka village is located 15 km southeast of Chita). He graduated from the motorization and mechanization courses of the Red Army, for which he was awarded the first officer rank - lieutenant. (After his death, since 1982, the Peschansky tank training regiment has been named after L. I. Brezhnev). In 1936-1937 he was the director of the metallurgical technical school in Dneprodzerzhinsk. Since 1937, an engineer at the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. Since May 1937, deputy chairman of the Dneprodzerzhinsk city executive committee. Since 1937 at work in party bodies.

Since 1938, the head of the department of the Dnepropetrovsk regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, since 1939, the secretary of the regional committee. According to some reports, engineer Brezhnev was appointed to the regional committee due to a shortage of personnel that followed the repression of the party leadership of the region.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he takes part in the mobilization of the population into the Red Army, is engaged in the evacuation of industry, then in political positions in the army: deputy head of the political department of the Southern Front. As a brigadier commissar, when the institution of military commissars was abolished in October 1942, instead of the expected general rank, he was certified as a colonel.

From 1943 - head of the political department of the 18th army. Major General (1943).

Since June 1945, the head of the political department of the 4th Ukrainian Front, then the Political Directorate of the Carpathian Military District, participated in the suppression of the "Bandera".

From August 30, 1946 to November 1947, the first secretary of the Zaporozhye (appointed on the recommendation of N. S. Khrushchev), and then the Dnepropetrovsk (until 1950) regional party committees.

1950-1964

In 1950-52 he was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova. At the 19th Party Congress (1952), on the recommendation of I.V. Stalin, he was elected Secretary of the Central Committee and a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party (in both positions until 1953).

In 1953-1954, he was deputy head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. According to Pavel Sudoplatov and General Moskalenko, among about 10 armed generals summoned to the Kremlin on June 26, 1953 and unaware of the impending arrest of L.P. Beria, was L.I. Brezhnev.

In 1954, at the suggestion of N. S. Khrushchev, he was transferred to Kazakhstan, where he first worked as the second, and since 1955 as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the republic. Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1956-60, in 1956-57 a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and since 1957 a member of the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In 1960 he was appointed chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

In 1964, he participated in organizing the removal of N. S. Khrushchev, after which he headed the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Participation in the space program

In Brezhnev's "Memoirs", written under his leadership by a group of journalists, Brezhnev, as secretary of the Central Committee, is credited with directing and coordinating the USSR space program from its very inception: for example, it is alleged that he allegedly in 1957 personally instructed Korolev how to work on launch of the second satellite.

L. I. Brezhnev claims that he personally chose the site for the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, resolving the dispute between supporters of the construction of the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and in the inhabited areas of the North Caucasus, and personally supervised the construction of launch complexes. He wrote:

Head of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU

1964-1977

Formally, in 1964, a return to the "Leninist principles of collective leadership" was proclaimed. Along with Brezhnev, A. N. Shelepin, N. V. Podgorny and A. N. Kosygin played an important role in the leadership.

However, Brezhnev, in the course of the apparatus struggle, managed to promptly eliminate Shelepin and Podgorny and place people personally devoted to him in key positions (Yu. V. Andropova, N. A. Tikhonova, N. A. Shchelokova, K. U. Chernenko, S. K. Tsvigun). Kosygin was not eliminated, but his economic policy was systematically torpedoed by Brezhnev.

By the beginning of the 1970s. the party apparatus believed in Brezhnev, considering him as his protege and defender of the system. The party nomenklatura rejected any reforms and strove to maintain a regime that would provide it with power, stability and broad privileges. It was during the Brezhnev period that the party apparatus completely subjugated the state apparatus. The ministries and executive committees became mere executors of the decisions of party organs. Non-party leaders have practically disappeared.

On January 22, 1969, during a solemn meeting of the crews of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft, an unsuccessful attempt was made on L. I. Brezhnev. Junior lieutenant of the Soviet army Viktor Ilyin, dressed in someone else's police uniform, entered the Borovitsky Gate under the guise of a security guard and opened fire with two pistols at the car in which, as he assumed, the general secretary was supposed to go. In fact, cosmonauts Leonov, Nikolaev, Tereshkova and Beregovoy were in this car. The driver, Ilya Zharkov, was killed by shots and several people were injured before the escort motorcyclist knocked the shooter down. Brezhnev himself was driving in another car (and according to some sources, even by a different route) and was not injured.

In November 1972, Brezhnev suffered a stroke with serious consequences.

In the 1970s, a partial reconciliation of the two systems took place in the international arena. So Brezhnev signed the Helsinki Accords (August 1, 1975) and the "spirit of détente" developed. On the political side, this was necessary to contain German revanchism and consolidate the political and territorial results of the Second World War. Germany, before that, did not recognize the Potsdam agreements that changed the borders of Poland and Germany, and did not recognize the existence of the GDR. The FRG actually did not even recognize the annexation of Kaliningrad and Klaipeda by the USSR. At the same time, the capitalist countries moved from the ideology of "containment of communism", proposed by Harry Truman, to the idea of ​​"convergence of the two systems" and "peaceful coexistence".

1977-1982

In 1978 he was awarded the Order of Victory, which was awarded only in wartime for outstanding services in front command during victories that provided a radical change in a strategic situation (the award was canceled by M. S. Gorbachev's decree in 1989).

A group of well-known Soviet journalists was commissioned to write Brezhnev's memoirs ("Malaya Zemlya", "Renaissance", "Vselina"), designed to strengthen his political authority. Thanks to millions of copies, Brezhnev's fee amounted to 179,241 rubles. By including the General Secretary's memoirs in school and university programs and making them mandatory for a "positive" discussion in all labor collectives, party ideologists achieved the exact opposite result - L. I. Brezhnev became the hero of numerous jokes during his lifetime.

In early 1976, he suffered clinical death. After that, he was never able to physically recover, and his serious condition and inability to govern the country became more and more obvious every year. Brezhnev suffered from asthenia (nervous mental weakness) and atherosclerosis of the cerebral vessels. He could work only an hour or two a day, after which he slept, watched TV, etc. He became addicted to sleeping pills - Nembutal.

In 1981, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Leonid Ilyich's stay in the party, only for him alone was issued a badge cast in gold "50 years of being in the CPSU" (for other veterans of the CPSU, this badge was made of silver with gilding).

On March 23, 1982, during Brezhnev's visit to Tashkent, a walkway full of people collapsed on him at an aircraft manufacturing plant. Brezhnev had a broken collarbone (which never healed). After this incident, Brezhnev's health was finally undermined. On November 7, 1982, Brezhnev made his last public appearance. Standing on the podium of Lenin's Mausoleum, he took the military Parade on Red Square for several hours; however, his difficult physical condition was conspicuous even in the official shooting.

He died on November 10, 1982 at the state dacha "Zarechye-6". The body was found still warm by guards at 9 am. Yu. V. Andropov was the first politician to come to the place of death.

He was buried on Red Square in Moscow near the Kremlin wall.

A family

Brother Yakov, sister Vera.

Brezhnev was married to Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva (1907-1995) from 11 December 1927 until his death. They had two children - Galina (1929-1998) and Yuri (*1933).

Galina Brezhneva was at one time married to Yuri Churbanov.

Memory

In the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk, where Leonid Brezhnev was born and spent his young years, on Liberators Square (formerly Oktyabrskaya) there is a bust of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, installed in 1976, as it was supposed to be in the USSR, in the homeland of the twice hero of the Soviet Union. On the building of the Dneprodzerzhinsk State Technical University on Pelin Ave., where L. I. Brezhnev studied from 1931 to 1935, there is a memorial plaque with the corresponding text and a bas-relief of the Secretary General. But on the house number 40 on Pelin Avenue, in which L. I. Brezhnev lived, there is no sign. There is no street in Dneprodzerzhinsk that bears the name of L. I. Brezhnev. Back in the late 90s, the Brezhnevsky district of Dneprodzerzhinsk was renamed Zavodskoy. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of L. I. Brezhnev, the city council considered the issue of naming the city park of culture and recreation after him, but this decision was never made.

In 1982, the city of Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatar ASSR), where KamAZ was built, was renamed Brezhnev. During the years of Perestroika (1988) the former name was returned to the city. In 2008, the BrezhnevFM radio station began broadcasting in the city on a wave of 90.9 Mhz.

In order to perpetuate the memory of Leonid Ilyich, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on November 18, 1982 assigned one of the military-political schools (SVVPTAU) his name. The Sverdlovsk Higher Military-Political Tank Artillery School bore the name of Brezhnev for only 6 years. In April 1988, this decree was canceled and the school returned to its former name.

On September 16, 2004, a monument to L. I. Brezhnev was opened in Novorossiysk at the intersection of the streets of the Soviets and the Novorossiysk Republic. The author of the monument is the Krasnodar sculptor Nikolai Bugaev. The Novorossiysk authorities note that Brezhnev at one time did a lot for the city, the port, and the shipping company. The sculptor depicted a young, energetic general secretary walking through the city in a suit, without awards, with a cloak thrown over his back. The working title of the sculpture is "Man walking through the city".

Earlier, in 2002, in the same Novorossiysk, the issue of assigning one of the streets of the city after Brezhnev was discussed.

Currently, in a number of small settlements in Russia there are streets bearing the name of Brezhnev. In particular:

• The village of Izhulskoye, Balakhtinsky District, Krasnoyarsk Territory;
• Novoye Ivantsevo village, Shatkovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region;
• The village of Solonka, Nekhaevsky district, Volgograd region.

• On February 9, 1961, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, left Moscow for the Republic of Guinea on an official visit on an IL-18 plane. About 130 km north of Algiers at an altitude of 8250 m, a fighter with French markings suddenly appeared and made three approaches dangerously close to the aircraft. During the visits, the fighter twice opened fire on the Soviet aircraft, followed by crossing the course of the aircraft. Pilot Bugaev managed to get his plane out of the firing zone.

• The first pre-New Year's television address on behalf of the leadership in the USSR to the Soviet people was first made by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev on December 31, 1970. The following year, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Nikolai Podgorny spoke with congratulations, and a year later, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin. The annual New Year's address of the country's leadership to its citizens has become a tradition.
• There is a rumor that L. I. Brezhnev’s peculiar diction is due to the fact that during the war he was wounded in the jaw, which especially affected with age. According to other sources, Brezhnev did not receive a single wound throughout the war.
• In 1976, a bust of Brezhnev was erected in Dneprodzerzhinsk on the railway station Oktyabrskaya Square. From this square, a green alley descended down to the Dnieper to the square near the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant. On the square near the DMKD, there was a monument to Lenin for a long time, and soon this alley was called “From Ilyich to Ilyich” among the people.
• In 1977, the film "Soldiers of Freedom" was released, in the last episode of which E. Matveev played the role of young Colonel Brezhnev. This fact led to the fact that the people began to talk about the revival of the cult of personality, this time - Brezhnev.
• Many anecdotes and comic rhymes were composed about Brezhnev, for example, a riddle:

• Brezhnev is the only person in the entire history of the existence of the USSR who possessed five gold stars of the Hero: one star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union. Marshal Zhukov had only four stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union, while Brezhnev's predecessor N. S. Khrushchev had three stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and one star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The rest of the Heroes in the USSR were not awarded this title and the Gold Star more than three times.
• Also, Brezhnev is the only person awarded the Order of Victory, whose award was canceled (according to the statute of the order, which states that only those who commanded the front during the war and made a strategic turning point in any operation, or the commanders-in-chief of the allied armies that made a significant contribution to the victory over fascism. Brezhnev, who spent the entire war in managerial positions in the political apparatus of the Red Army, had absolutely no rights to this order, especially in 1978, when the award took place).
• After the death of Leonid Ilyich from 1982 to 1988, the city of Naberezhnye Chelny in the Republic of Tatarstan bore the name Brezhnev. It is characteristic that when the city of Izhevsk was renamed in memory of the former Minister of Defense Dmitry Ustinov, there was a bus route Brezhnev - Ustinov.
• Brezhnev liked to play dominoes.
• Brezhnev was a fan of CSKA, was constantly present at the hockey matches of the Spartak Moscow team, held at the Ice Arena in Luzhniki.
• About Brezhnev filmed in 2005 the eponymous art television series.
• “The General Secretary, as a rule, left the car in a tracksuit and light boots. The leadership of the Kursk region met him on the platform. For some reason, he often addressed me. He was interested in the village of Brezhnevka, where his parents came from: “How is the oak forest?” Someone recklessly said that they had been cut down, and Leonid Ilyich was upset. I recalled how, as a teenager, I waited with friends for girls who carried nuts in their skirts. “And we squeezed their boobs.” "Leonid Ilyich! Leonid Ilyich!“ Chernenko exhorted him.

Movie incarnations

• Evgeny Matveev ("Soldiers of Freedom", 1977, "Clan", 1990)
• Yuri Shumilov ("Black rose - the emblem of sadness, red rose - the emblem of love", 1989)
• Mikhail Khrabrov ("Forward for the Hetman's Treasures", 1993)
• Alexander Belyavsky (Grey Wolves, 1993)
• Boris Sichkin (The Last Days, Nixon, USA)
• Leonid Nevedomsky ("Politburo Cooperative", 1992)
• Bogdan Stupka ("Hare over the Abyss", 2005)
• Vladimir Dolinsky (Red Square, 2005)
• Artur Vakha (young) and Sergei Shakurov (elderly) (Brezhnev, 2005)
• Sergei Bezdushny (young) and Valery Kosenkov (Galina, 2008)
• ??? ("Wolf Messing: who saw through time", 2009)

Now many people remember the biography of the reign of Leonid Ilyich as the happiest time of their lives. And somehow they forget that everything was in short supply, everything was terribly neglected ... There was just happiness, in which almost everything was still possible ....

Indeed, much could be done. It was possible to send a child to the camp for at least all three shifts, which lasted all three months of the summer, and at the same time the trips were paid partly by the trade union and quite a bit by the parents themselves. Everything at school was free. Medicine, no, but it was free. It was possible to go to the south and when buying a ticket you did not need a passport. What else? They were just happy.

Yes, the chairman of the government and the secretary general - Brezhnev, in one person was not entirely healthy, and almost no one paid attention to his long spitting and not always intelligible speeches at the plenums. But Leonid Ilyich not only did not harm his state, he even gave it a happy existence.

On December 19, 1906, in Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine (formerly this birthplace of Leonid Brezhnev was called Kamenskoye), Lenya Brezhnev was born in a family of hereditary workers. No one then could even imagine who this little boy would be, that he would someday become the head of the world's largest power.

After graduating from a classical gymnasium in his hometown in 1921, Brezhnev worked at an oil mill. Two years later, Leonid Ilyich joins the Komsomol, and in the same year begins to study at the land surveying and reclamation technical school in the city of Kursk, where four years later he receives the specialty of a land surveyor.

Secretary General's career

The next important stage in Brezhnev's biography was his membership in the CPSU (b), which took place in October 1931.

The subsequent years of the biography of Leonid Ilyich 1935 to 1936 are military service. Further, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Brezhnev occupied many leading positions in the region, and since 1939 he was already the secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional party committee.

During the outbreak of the war in Brezhnev's biography, there are noticeable changes in his leadership activities, Leonid Ilyich is engaged in mobilization into the Red Army, evacuation of industrial facilities and further service in the field of political worker, up to the deputy head of the political department of the Southern Front.

As a result, in the middle of 1944, Colonel Brezhnev was promoted to the rank of major general. Leonid Ilyich ended the war as head of the political department of the Carpathian military district.

After the war, in the biography of Leonid Brezhnev, unprecedented growth through the ranks is again noticed. In the period from 1947 to 1950, he worked as the first secretary of the Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk regional committees, and since the summer of 1950 he was already the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova, and this is already a different level!

Two years later - Brezhnev already becomes a member of the Central Committee, and from May 1953 to February 1954 Leonid Ilyich - Deputy Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. Then work in Kazakhstan, later Leonid Ilyich manages the defense industry.

And from 1966 to 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Brezhnev did not rush to power, he just happened to be there, at the right time under the right circumstances. Even during the war, he began to noticeably and perfectly behave in combat missions. Yes, and he did a good job with political work. This is how Leonid Ilyich gradually rose to the highest echelon of power. He finally ended up in it with the support of Khrushchev, and later he himself took part in his removal from office.

But again, he didn’t aim for the general secretaries, he just didn’t really want to. And again, the officials made a decision for him and simply confronted him with a fact - you are now the Secretary General. Brezhnev suited everyone, because he did not belong to any coalition in the government. But at the same time, having risen to power, he nevertheless managed to remove the most popular Marshal of the Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov, from business.

It was under him that Zhukov was removed from his ministerial position and sent away from Moscow. He was not afraid of Zhukov, no. He simply understood that he, too, could, like Khrushchev, be removed from his posts and forgotten. But Leonid Ilyich was so convenient for everyone that he was kept in power as long as he was able to perceive at least something.

Under Brezhnev, although there was censorship, cinema still flourished. There were bright personalities in science, in cinema, in theaters of drama and ballet. True, there were also episodes when the same creative personalities, under any pretext, fled to the West, away from the USSR.

Death

Personal life

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906 (January 1, 1907) in the village of Kamenskoye, Yekaterinoslav Province, into a family of hereditary workers.

In 1915 he became a student of the Kamensk classical gymnasium. The training there lasted 6 years. In 1921, Brezhnev got a job at the Kursk oil mill. In 1923 he was accepted into the ranks of the Komsomol members.

A little later, he became a student at the Kursk land surveying and reclamation technical school. In the spring of 1928 he was transferred to the Urals, where he received the position of a land surveyor. Until 1930, he replaced the head of the Ural regional land administration.

WWII years

With the beginning of the Second World War, Leonid Ilyich actively mobilized the population into the Red Army. He also evacuated industry, held non-military positions in the army. Until 1943 he was the head of the political department of the Eighteenth Army. Before 1945 replaced the head of the South Front political department.

In 1942, he took part in the offensive of the Red Army in the South Kharkov region. R. Ya. Malinovsky commanded the operation. For his courage, Brezhnev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

In 1942 he received the rank of colonel. A few months later, he participated in the liberation battles for Novorossiysk and was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, first degree.

The beginning of a political career

A personal meeting with I. V. Stalin, which took place in 1952, was a highlight in Brezhnev's biography. At the 19th Congress of the CPSU, Leonid Ilyich was elected a member of the Central Committee for the first time in his life.

In November 1952 he was elected a member of the standing committees of the Presidium of the Central Committee. In 1953, after Stalin's death, he was relieved of both posts.

In the period 1953-1954 he served as deputy head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy.

In 1954 he accepted the offer of N. S. Khrushchev and was transferred to the Kazakh SSR. There Brezhnev led the development of virgin lands.

In 1960-1964 served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In 1961, he took part in the preparation of the first manned flight into space. For this he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Domestic and foreign policy

Getting acquainted with a brief biography of Brezhnev, you should know that in 1966 he took the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. A year later, Leonid Ilyich announced the concept of "Developed socialism".

In 1977, the USSR adopted a new Constitution. The role of the CPSU was recognized as the core of the political system. The idea of ​​“developed socialism” was also enshrined. After that, Leonid Ilyich assumed a new position - Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.

In May, the President of the United States, R. Nixon, came to Moscow on an official visit. During the bilateral meeting, an agreement was signed on limiting missile defense systems.

In November 1974, American leader D. Ford arrived in the USSR. The leaders of the two countries signed a statement confirming their intention to conclude an updated agreement on SALT.

In June 1979, Brezhnev and D. Carter signed an agreement on the limitation of strategic offensive weapons. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, all contact between the United States and the Soviet Union was cut off.

Family life

Brezhnev was married to V.P. Denisova. He and his wife had two children. In 1929, Galina's daughter was born. In 1933, the son Yuri was born.

G. Brezhneva had an only daughter, V. Milaeva. She also has a daughter, G. Filippova. The fate of Brezhnev's great-granddaughter was very tragic. By the will of her relatives, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

Death

L. I. Brezhnev passed away at night, from November 9 to 10, 1982. In accordance with the conclusion of the honey. examination, the cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest.

Brezhnev was buried on November 15, near the Kremlin wall in Moscow. Representatives of 35 states attended the farewell ceremony for the Soviet leader.

Other biography options

• Brezhnev loved hunting. After the hunt, he personally divided the prey.
• Leonid Ilyich was very fond of lingering kisses on the lips, making no exception even for members of his own sex.
• Once, during a performance, they brought him vodka in a glass. The Secretary General thanked into the microphone, and then said: “And bring more often!”

Biography score

New feature! The average rating this biography received. Show rating

Critics of the cult of personality and the Caribbean crisis, which almost plunged the world into the third world war, came Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich, whose years of rule were remembered for a naturally reverse process.

Stagnation, increased importance of Stalin in the eyes of the public, softening in relations with the West, but at the same time attempts to influence world politics - this era was remembered for such characteristics. The years of Brezhnev's rule in the USSR were among the key years that contributed to the subsequent economic and political crisis of the nineties. What was this politician like?

First steps to power

Leonid Ilyich was born into an ordinary family of workers in 1906. He studied first at the land management technical school, and then studied to be a metallurgist. As the director of the Technical School of Metallurgy, which is located in Dneprodzerzhinsk, he became a member of the CPSU party in 1931. When the Great Patriotic War broke out, Brezhnev worked as deputy head of the political department on the Southern Front. By the end of the war, Leonid Ilyich became a major general. Already in 1950, he worked as the first secretary in Moldova, and in subsequent years he replaced the head in the Political Directorate of the Army of the Soviet Union. Then he becomes chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council. It is known that an absolutely trusting relationship developed between Khrushchev and Brezhnev, which allowed the second to advance to the levers of governing the country after the illness of Nikita Sergeevich.

Brezhnev's reforms

The years of Leonid Brezhnev's rule (1964-1982) can be characterized as a time of conservative measures. Agricultural recovery was not the main task for the ruler. Although Kosygin's reform was carried out during this period, its results were a failure. Spending on housing and health care has only declined, while spending on the military complex has grown by leaps and bounds. Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich, whose years of rule were remembered for the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus and bureaucratic arbitrariness, was more focused on foreign policy, apparently not finding ways to resolve internal stagnation in society.

Foreign policy

It was precisely over the political influence of the Soviet Union in the world that Brezhnev worked most of all, whose years of rule were full of foreign policy events. On the one hand, Leonid Ilyich is taking important steps towards de-escalating the conflict between the USSR and the USA. Countries finally find a dialogue and agree on cooperation. In 1972, the President of America visits Moscow for the first time, where an agreement on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is signed, and in 1980 the capital hosts guests from all countries for the Olympic Games.

However, Brezhnev, whose years of rule are known for his active participation in various military conflicts, was not an absolute peacemaker. For Leonid Ilyich, it was important to designate the place of the USSR among world powers capable of influencing the resolution of foreign policy issues. Thus, the Soviet Union sends troops to Afghanistan, participates in conflicts in Vietnam and the Middle East. In addition, the attitude of the socialist countries that were friendly to the USSR until that time was changing, in the internal affairs of which Brezhnev also interfered. The years of the reign of Leonid Ilyich were remembered for the suppression of Czechoslovak uprisings, the deterioration of relations with Poland and the conflict with China on Damansky Island.

Awards

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was especially distinguished by his love for awards and titles. Sometimes it reached such an absurdity that as a result of this a lot of anecdotes and fictions appeared. However, it is difficult to argue with the facts.

Leonid Ilyich received his first award back in Stalin's time. After the war, he was awarded the Order of Lenin. One can only imagine how proud Brezhnev was of this title. The years of Khrushchev's rule brought him several more awards: the second Order of Lenin and the Order of the Great Patriotic War of the first degree. All this was not enough for the conceited Leonid Ilyich.

Already during his reign, Brezhnev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union four times out of a possible three. He also received the title of Marshal of the USSR and the Order of Victory, which was awarded only to great commanders who participated in active hostilities, where Brezhnev never got.

Board results

The main defining word of the era of Brezhnev's rule was "stagnation". During the leadership of Leonid Ilyich, the economy finally showed its weakness and lack of growth. Attempts to carry out reforms have not led to the expected results.

As a conservative, Brezhnev was not satisfied with the policy of softening ideological pressure, therefore, in his time, control over culture only increased. One of the clearest examples of this is the expulsion of A. I. Solzhenitsyn from the USSR in 1974.

Although relative improvements were planned in foreign policy, the aggressive position of the USSR and the attempt to influence the internal conflicts of other countries worsened the attitude of the world community towards the Soviet Union.

In general, Brezhnev left behind a number of difficult economic and political issues that his successors had to solve.