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Nikita Khrushchev
Led the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1964, he was leader during part of the Cold War, de-Stalinized the country, and employed liberal reforms. -
Important events which were the background to the Brezhnev Era.
Called the Brezhnevian Stagnation, his attempts to create heavy industry(Uskoreniye) failed and caused life to slow down because of failure to make central planning. -
Leonid Brezhnev
After removing Khrushchev, Leonid took power in 1964 until 1982. He dramatically increased the influence of the USSR in his period as leader by expanding the army -
Domestic problems: Economic stagnation / Dissent / Political stagnation.
During his time, Brezhnev caused little economic growth. Because of this, he received mass amounts of political dissent. As a result, his political career began to fall and stagnate. -
The Brezhnev Doctrine
The Doctrine states that the Warsaw Pact would be used to keep communism in a country's government. -
Détente
The détente happened between he USA and the USSR, where both countries agreed to limit the amount of anti-ballistic missiles that they would produce in the future. -
Revolution and Dissent
The USSR supported Marxist governments in Angola(with the MPLA) and Mozambique to foment a revolutionary atmosphere. As this happened, the Solidarity movement rose in Poland to create labor and ploitical unions. -
Afghanistan
The USSR helped create the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan(PDPA) which was a Marxist sympathetic party that was run by Nur Muhammad Taraki. As time went on, the Mujahideen rose to oppose the socialist party, and later went against the Soviets -
Entr'acte: Andropov and Chernenko
After Brezhnev, people expected Chernenko(his successor) to take over, but Andropov took over instead. He tried to boost the economy by shutting down the Space Program, and put different policies in. Later, Chernenko took over and continued Brezhnevs policies. -
Gorbachev
When he took power in 1985, he implemented economic reforms to try to modernize the state and revitalize the Socialist Party. Unfortunately, these reforms would lead to the fall of the Socialist regime. -
Perestroika
Started in 1986, this policy decentralized planning and ended price controls by the state, which made many people nervous during this time. -
Foreign Policies
Starting with Gorbachev, he made it clear that the satellite states that the USSR had under their control should be free to do their own thing, which went directly against the Brezhnev Doctrine. As well, the USSR withdrew their troops from Afghanistan since it was costing them too much. -
Chernobyl Disaster
The disaster happened when a test on one of the reactors cooling systems triggered the emergency shutdown, which failed and caused the reactor to burst and release mass amounts of radiation. It burned until the 6th of May. -
Demokratiztsiya
Demokratiztsiya was the infusion of democratic elements into the Socialist party. -
Glasnost
Glasnost, which means openness, was the re-examination of Soviet history and the open debate of former government policies. Gorbachev implemented this since most Stalinists were now dead.