The Soviet Union under Brezhnev [Hardcover]

The Soviet Union Under Brezhnev provides an accessible post-Soviet perspective on the history of the USSR from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. It challenges both the evil empire image of the USSR that was widespread in the early 1980s and the stagnation label attached to the period by Soviet reformers under Gorbachev.

The book makes use of a range of memoirs, interviews, archival documents and other sources not available before 1990 to place Brezhnev and his epoch in a broader historical context. The author:

    examines high politics, foreign policy and policy making
    explores broader social, cultural and demographic trends
    presents a picture of Soviet society in the crucial decades prior to the upheavals and crises of the late 1980s

While stopping well short of a full-scale rehabilitation of Brezhnev, Tompson rejects the prevailing image of the Soviet leader as a colourless non-entity, drawing attention to Brezhnevs real political skills, as well as his faults, and to the systemic roots of many of the problems he faced.

Acknowledgements IX
Chronology XI
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1. THE SOVIET UNION AT THE END OF THE
KHRUSHCHEV ERA 3
The Fall of Nikita Khrushchev 3
The New Leaders 5
Soviet Society a Decade After Stalin's Death 8
The Soviet Union and the World in 1964 9
PART TWO: ANALYSIS 13
2. LEADERSHIP POLITICS 15
High Politics and Brezhnev's Consolidation of Power 15
Brezhnev as Politician: Mannequin or 1;lachiavellian? 17
'Two Brezhnevs'? 20
The Soviet Elite in the Brezhnev Era 22
3. POLICY-MAKING IN THE BREZHNEV ERA 26
Brezhnev as Policy-maker: From Consensus to Stagnation? 26
The Role of the Politburo and Secretariat 28
Taking Advice: Information, Institutions and Expertise 30
PolS.