Were Brezhnev's Years the 'Era of Stagnation'?

Russia – The Rule of Leonid Brezhnev, 1964-1982

In this course, Professor Peter Rutland (Wesleyan University) discusses Leonid Brezhnev’s years as leader of the Soviet Union, from his coup against former leader Nikita Khrushchev until his death in 1982. In the first lecture we introduce the key figures of the Brezhnev era and question Mikhail Gorbachev’s characterisation of the Brezhnev years as an ‘Era of Stagnation’. In the second lecture we examine the changes in the leadership structure through Brezhnev’s leadership, from the more singular rules of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, to the Collective Leadership practised under Brezhnev. In the third lecture we inquire into the political ideology behind Brezhnev’s leadership. Fourth, we highlight the corruption of the Brezhnev years, looking at the Nomenklatura system and cronyism that marked his time as leader of the USSR. In the fifth lecture, we identify the key features of Brezhenv’s domestic policy, including growth in consumer goods, lack of agricultural reform and focus on nuclear energy. Finally, in the sixth lecture, we conclude with an overview of Brezhnev’s foreign policy, from the height of Cold War tension to a period of Détente with the west, and the invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979.

Were Brezhnev's Years the 'Era of Stagnation'?

In this lecture we think about an overview of the Brezhnev era and question to what extent it was the ‘Era of Stagnation’, focussing on: (i) Brezhnev’s years were contemporarily understood as stable and successful, but later criticised by Mikhail Gorbachev as an era of stagnation; (ii) in recent years, Russians have shown nostalgia for this period, contrasting it with the chaos of the Boris Yeltsin’s years in 1990s and Gorbachev's reforms; (iii) the importance of understanding Brezhnev's era for making sense of current Russian society and the mindset of leaders like Vladimir Putin.