Editing Leonid Brezhnev

{{Important}}
{{Villain_Infobox
|image = [[File:File-Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R22014, Magda Goebbels-1478460708.jpg|thumb|327x327px]]
|fullname = Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev
|alias = N/A
|occupation = General Secretary of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (1964 - 1982)
|origin = Kamenskoye, Ukraine, Russian Empire
|type of villain = Tyrant
|crimes = Political corruption<br>
Oppression<br>
Abuse of power<br>
Quashing an uprising in Czechoslovakia<br>
Invading Afghanistan
|goals = Remain leader of the Soviet Union (succeeded)<br>
Ease tensions with the US (initially succeeded, ultimately failed)<br>
Continue expanding Soviet influence (partially succeeded)
|hobby = }}
{{Quote|The substance of socialist democracy lies in efficient socialist organisation of all society for the sake of every individual, and in the socialist discipline of every individual for the sake of all society.|Leonid Brezhnev}}
'''Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev''' (/ˈbrɛʒnɛf/; Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев; <small>IPA:</small>[lʲɪɐˈnʲid ɪˈlʲjitɕ ˈbrʲɛʐnʲɪf]; Ukrainian: Леоні́д Іллі́ч Бре́жнєв, 19 December 1906 <small>(O.S. 6 December)</small> – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country for most of the [[Cold War]], from 1964 until his death in 1982.

His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of [[Joseph Stalin]] in duration. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union.

==Biography==
Having been a land surveyor in the 1920s, Brezhnev became a full member of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU) in 1931 and studied at the metallurgical institute in Kamenskoye (now Dniprodzerzhynsk). After graduating (1935), he worked as an engineer and director of a technical school and also held a variety of local party posts; his career flourished under [[Joseph Stalin]]’s regime, and by 1939 he had become secretary of the regional party committee of Dnepropetrovsk (Dnipropetrovsk).

During [[World War II]] Brezhnev served as a political commissar in the Red Army, advancing in rank until he became a major general (1943) and head of the political commissars on the Ukrainian front. After the war he again held posts as chief of several regional party committees in Ukraine. In 1950 he was sent to Moldavia as first secretary of the Moldavian Communist Party with the task of sovietizing the Romanian population of that recently conquered territory. In 1952 he advanced to become a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU and a candidate member of the Politburo.

When Stalin died (March 1953), Brezhnev lost his posts on the Central Committee and in the Politburo and had to accept the position of deputy head of the political department of the Ministry of Defense with the rank of lieutenant general. But in 1954 [[Nikita Khrushchev]], who had gained full power in Moscow, made Brezhnev second secretary of the Kazakhstan Communist Party (1954), in which capacity he vigorously implemented Khrushchev’s ambitious Virgin and Idle Lands Campaign in Kazakhstan.

Brezhnev was soon promoted to first secretary of the Kazakhstan Communist Party (1955), and in 1956 he was reelected to his posts on the CPSU Central Committee and in the Politburo. A year later, after he had loyally worked against the “antiparty group” that attempted to remove Khrushchev, Brezhnev was made a full member of the Politburo, and in 1960 he became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet—i.e., the titular head of the Soviet state. 

In July 1964 he resigned that post to become Khrushchev’s assistant as second secretary of the Central Committee, by which time he was considered Khrushchev’s heir apparent as party leader. Three months later, however, Brezhnev helped lead the coalition that forced Khrushchev from power, and, in the division of spoils that followed, Brezhnev became first secretary (after 1966, general secretary) of the CPSU (October 15, 1964). Following a brief period of “collective leadership” with Premier Aleksey Kosygin, Brezhnev emerged clearly as the dominant figure.

As head of the party, Brezhnev left many affairs of state—e.g., diplomatic relations with noncommunist states and internal economic development—to his colleagues Kosygin and Nikolay V. Podgorny, chairman of the Presidium. Brezhnev concentrated on foreign and military affairs. When Czechoslovakia under Alexander Dubček tried to liberalize its communist system in 1967–68, 

Brezhnev developed the concept, known in the West as the Brezhnev Doctrine, which asserted the right of Soviet intervention in cases where “the essential common interests of other socialist countries are threatened by one of their number.” This doctrine was used to justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies in 1968.

During the 1970s Brezhnev attempted to normalize relations between West Germany and the Warsaw Pact and to ease tensions with the United States through the policy known as détente. At the same time, he saw to it that the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex was greatly expanded and modernized. Under his leadership, the Soviets achieved parity with the United States in strategic nuclear weapons, and their space program overtook the American one. A huge navy was fitted out and the army remained the largest in the world. The Soviet Union supported “wars of national liberation” in developing countries through the provision of military aid to left-wing movements and governments.

But Brezhnev’s unceasing buildup of his defense and aerospace industries left other sectors of the economy increasingly deprived of funds. Soviet agriculture, consumer-goods industries, and health-care services declined throughout the 1970s and early ’80s as a consequence, resulting in shortages and declining standards of living.
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