Brezhnev and the Decline of the Soviet Union

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, a longer period than any other Soviet leader apart from Stalin. During Brezhnev’s time Soviet power seemed at its height and increasing: space missions, rising living standards at home, a strong foreign policy reach into all parts of the world including Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the equal of the United States as a nuclear power. Yet, as this book, which provides a comprehensive overview and reassessment of Brezhnev’s life, early political career and career as leader, shows, the seeds of Soviet decline were sown in Brezhnev’s time: huge over-commitment of resources to the Soviet industrial-military complex and to massively expensive foreign policy overstretch, a consequent failure to deliver on citizens’ rising expectations in other areas of the economy, and an overconfident ignoring of dissidents and their demands. The book will be of great interest to Russian specialists, and also to scholars of international relations and world history.

Thomas Crump was a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and is the author of twelve books.