The Brezhnev era

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521811446.013

11 - The Brezhnev era

from Part I - Russia and the Soviet Union: The Story through Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Stephen Hanson

Edited by

Ronald Grigor Suny

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Ronald Grigor Suny: Affiliation:
University of Chicago and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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Summary

The nature of Soviet politics and society during Leonid Brezhnev’s tenureas General Secretary of the CPSU from 1964 to 1982 has until recently remained acomparatively unexplored scholarly topic. Among historians, the turn towardssocial history ‘from below’ that has so greatly enriched ourunderstanding of the Soviet regime under Lenin and Stalin has yet to inspire aparallel re-examination of everyday life in the Brezhnev era. Meanwhile, politicalscientists, with few exceptions, have given up study of the pre-Gorbachev SovietUnion to focus on more contemporary themes. Compounding these gaps within historyand political science are continuing problems of documentation. Although therecords of Central Committee plenums and many materials from the CPSU GeneralDepartment archive from the period are now available, and important archivalmaterials are also accessible in many of the former Soviet republics, other keyhistorical archives from the period – in particular, the so-calledPresidential Archive containing documentation of meetings of the CPSU Politburoand Secretariat, as well as the KGB, military and foreign intelligence archives– remain largely closed to independent scholars. Post- 1991 memoirs bySoviet high officials and their relatives – although many do cover theBrezhnev era – have tended to emphasise developments during the Gorbachevperiod. And despite the presence of millions of eyewitnesses still living in theformer Soviet Union today, transcriptions of oral histories of the period arepractically non-existent. Finally, scholars also lack a consensual analyticalframework for making sense of Brezhnevism as a regime type.

Keywords

Nikita Khrushchev Soviet politics Brezhnevism Brezhnev era Bolshevik revolution Stalinist system

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 292 - 315

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521811446.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2006

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