The Brezhnev era: a time of great achievements and lost victories
December 19 marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, one of the most interesting Soviet general secretaries. Information about where and when Daragoy Leonid Ilyich was born, baptized, studied and worked is not difficult to find on the Internet. It is much more interesting to trace the most important milestones in the life of the country that happened during the Brezhnev era, or, in the “era of stagnation,” as the sharply restructured Gorbachev-Yeltsin “foremen” like to call that time.
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In order to become a truly outstanding Soviet politician, Leonid Ilyich needed only to leave on time. If Brezhnev had decided on a successor around 1975 and left the affairs to him, the fate of the country could have been much happier. Unfortunately, this did not happen. In the last five years of his life, Brezhnev, who did a lot of good for the country, turned into a caricature of himself. The country was in for a not-so-fun show with awards with high state insignia on the occasion of each passing year, price increases “at the request of the workers,” the most tedious congresses with “applause turning into ovation,” and at the very end - the funeral of “Grandfather Lenya,” which turned into Five-Year Plan of Magnificent Funerals.
L.I. Brezhnev took the chair of the General Secretary of the Central Committee as a result of a palace coup in the fall of 1964, when a number of Soviet military and political figures, tired of “voluntarism,” removed the then leader of the country N.S. from his post. Khrushchev, who went on vacation to a Black Sea resort.
From dear Nikita Sergeich, the new Secretary General inherited a gigantic heap of problems in the national economy and economy. One of the most significant holes was the economic councils established by Nikita. The initial idea of the economic councils was not bad in itself - to transfer part of the powers to the regions and republics to solve operational economic problems on the spot, in order to relieve the ministries from sucking up every production sneeze. However, they threw out the baby with the bathwater.
The creation of economic councils was accompanied by the liquidation of a number of important union ministries. Thus, while gaining in tactics, the strategic coverage of the country's gigantic growing economy was lost.
To solve priority economic and business problems, Brezhnev’s team, led by the highly respected Prime Minister A.N. Kosygin, spent almost 7 years, known as the “Kosygin reforms”. During this time, it was possible to improve matters in agriculture and restore the system of sectoral management.
Unfortunately, one of the most important components of the reforms was never put into practice. We are talking about the unprecedented project OGAS (National Automated Accounting System) by Kyiv academician Glushkov, a luminary of world cybernetics. Glushkov’s idea was to transfer the system of planning, accounting and control in the national economy to automation and computerization. OGAS promised to bring invaluable benefits to the country in the near future, freeing up an army of commodity experts and accountants for creative and creative work, as well as saving thousands and thousands of hectares of forest used for paper. As one of the consequences, OGAS was able, if not to put an end to it, then to greatly improve control over the system of retail sales of consumer goods. It was not for nothing that the trade “mafia”, more than others, slowed down and put a spoke in the wheels of the idea of computerization, and agriculture turned out to be completely unprepared for the coming of the cybernetic messiah.
The economic “minimum program” of Kharkov professor Lieberman was put into practice. In fact, in 1970, the reforms were curtailed, although inertia stretched them out for almost two more years. Among the objective difficulties of the reform, the financial side of the issue should be noted, which exceeded the capabilities of the country at that time.
Thus, in the Brezhnev USSR, a number of unresolved factors continued to operate (an overwhelming number of planned indicators and bureaucratization of control and accounting processes, the transition to economic incentives did not take place, a price formation mechanism was not created), which gave rise to shortages, mismanagement and disinterest of workers in the results of their labor. All this ultimately seriously came back to haunt us in the 80s with a powerful systemic crisis, from which the USSR never emerged.
Serious miscalculations of the Brezhnev leadership include the transition to mass copying of American IBM-360 computer systems under the brand of domestic EU computers. One of the reasons was the rich library of software created for the American car. Until the end of the 60s, the Soviet and American schools of cybernetics were practically neck and neck. The USSR created such masterpieces of computer technology as BESM-6, which worked for almost two decades in the field of space and nuclear research.
When in the 90s the London Polytechnic Museum managed to obtain a living BESM-6 as a working exhibit, British specialists for a long time could not take a breath of amazement that such a miracle was created in the USSR back in the 60s.
They say that upon learning of the USSR’s decision to copy the IBM-360, the famous Edsger Dijkstra, whose books have long been the bibles of more than one generation of programmers, said: “at least the West won this battle.”
The fact is that since the beginning of the 70s, in the field of computer technology, the USSR remained a catching up party.
Another important defeat was the loss of the USSR in the lunar race, which fell exactly during the first five-year period of Brezhnev’s rule. This race is described extensively in the book by Academician B.E. Chertok “Moon Race” from the most interesting tetralogy “Rockets and People”, but in short, the situation was as follows.
After the death of S.P. Korolev, who held the reins of Soviet cosmonautics with a firm hand, there was no General Designer equal to him in authority in the country, to whom they would rightfully pass. It’s amazing that even such stars as academicians Glushko, Chelomey, Yangel could not replace the departed Korolev on the captain’s bridge with Soviet cosmonautics. As a result, the allocated funds were spread across three lunar projects (while the Americans, taking into account our experience of our first steps in space, concentrated all the levers in the hands of von Braun), plus two more projects to fly around the Moon. Ultimately, the Americans succeeded in something that ours failed to do at that time: create a powerful first-stage engine to launch 100 tons of cargo into low orbit. For the Americans, it became the F-1 - the most powerful single-chamber first-stage engine. Korolyov's five-stage N-1 rocket was supposed to launch with the help of 30 (thirty) relatively low-power NK-15 engines (versus 5 x F-1 for the Saturn-V). Getting 30 engines to work synchronously was a monstrously difficult task.
They failed to cope with the task: all N-1 launches were accompanied by monstrous explosions that put an end to the domestic lunar program.
The defeat in the lunar race was taken very seriously in the Union, even despite the subsequent series of successes. Soviet automatic stations were the first to reach Mars and Venus, two Soviet “lunar rovers” traveled on the Moon, and in 1970 our Luna-16 spacecraft (there were other spacecraft after it) for the first time in history brought to Earth a piece of another celestial body (101 grams) ) in automatic mode. It was a huge triumph of Soviet science and technology, but we all really wanted to see the imprint of a Soviet cosmonaut's boot in the lunar dust.
Another missed victory for the USSR during the Brezhnev era concerned the influence of the USSR on the world economy. As you know, the socialist countries were united by the CMEA - the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. All payments within the CMEA were made in foreign currency rubles. In 1972, the CMEA was a very influential and, without exaggeration, authoritative organization, controlling almost 36% of the world economy. They wanted to actively cooperate with CMEA all over the world. In just 7 or 8 years, this richest polymer of the Soviet era was ineptly wasted... wasted.
It is still unclear why those in charge of foreign trade in the USSR did not set a strict condition for Western “partners” to trade with us for the same foreign currency rubles. Instead of increasing the weight of their own payment unit, the USSR and CMEA traded with the bourgeoisie for dollars, marks, francs and yen, making their papers desirable and first-class. In the end, CMEA turned into an economic fiction, where, figuratively speaking, Soviet timber, gold and hydrocarbons were exchanged at an unheard of generous exchange rate for Bulgarian ketchup and Polish jewelry, which, after the collapse of the socialist camp, we also owed to everyone.
However, the Brezhnev USSR was the peak of the prosperity and power of our country. The 1970s were perhaps the most calm and blessed years that befell our long-suffering country. Grandmothers who survived the hard times of war, who broke their humps during pre-war industrialization and post-war devastation, looking at the face of the browed General Secretary in the nine-hour program “Time”, quietly crossed themselves and wished good health to dear Leonid Ilyich from God.
This is true. The Brezhnev era was good. Only complete scum could call them “stagnation.” The country received a long-awaited respite from all sorts of “catch up and overtake” and simply lived.
I remember Soviet policemen who walked the streets with an empty pistol holster, which caused good-natured teasing from the population, who asked whether the comrade sergeant in his holster had a package with a sandwich or a cucumber.
There was the BAM, Komsomol construction projects, the Sayano-Shushenskaya and Bratsk hydroelectric power stations, space was ours, the Armed Forces were commanded by the not-yet-old famous commanders of the Great Patriotic War. Brezhnev is amazing Soviet hockey, sports and the 80 Olympics. Soviet science, which has become one of the world's locomotives. These are great cultural achievements and, especially, cinema.
Yes, are you aware that cinema under Brezhnev had a profit margin of 900%? A powerful film distribution network was created in the country. From the capital's cinemas with stereo films to the cinema "flights" that regularly showed films in the run-down collective farm "One Hundred Years Without a Harvest". Americans did not believe that in the USSR citizens visited cinemas 3 (three) billion times a year. Anyone who lived in that era will say that going to the cinema ten times a year is the same as not going to the cinema at all. But then there were more than 300 million of us!
Hey, gentlemen, current cinema hustlers, is it difficult for you to beat the profitability bar of Brezhnev’s film distribution? Okay, it's home theater time. Make your “creativity” at least not unprofitable and desirable for your compatriots.
What can I say, we still live on Brezhnev’s legacy of films and cartoons. This is not to mention the fact that during the times of “stormy and prolonged applause” the USSR staunchly maintained world leadership in such positions as investment in human capital, protection of motherhood and childhood, universal literacy, accessibility to medical care and higher education, as well as such an important component , as the commissioning of fixed assets. Simply put, infrastructure facilities on which the life and well-being of all citizens of the country directly depend.
When the slogan “Everything in the name of man, everything for the benefit of man” rose above any building, there was not an ounce of exaggeration in this. This is not to mention the fact that citizens of the USSR were protected by the Labor Code as nowhere else on the planet. Such a Labor Code never existed before the USSR, and will not exist in the next millennium.
Also, a record number of jokes were invented about Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. They say that the Secretary General listened to them with pleasure and even collected especially successful ones. But jokes are a sure indicator of a leader’s popularity among the people, as well as a sure sign that the authors have the leisure and material well-being to write jokes. Do you remember a lot of funny jokes about Yeltsin or Kuchma? That's it!
The bottom line is. The worst thing that the USSR inherited from the Brezhnev era was resting on its laurels, when it seemed that nothing bad could ever happen to us, as well as the final degeneration of the party-economic nomenklatura into a new class of masters who betrayed the country and all its ideals, having seized and destroyed the work of several generations of Soviet people.
I remember very well how in the second half of the 70s, the people, who were already slowly beginning to become disillusioned with the leaders, expected that we would soon defeat the Americans and be the first to fly to Mars. Do you understand? Let’s not get ahead of them in terms of chewing gum, sausage or bananas per capita, but let’s rush to Mars, winning leadership in space in one fell swoop. We often talked and dreamed about this. On the way to Mars, it was possible to move mountains and restore people’s faith in a bright future and justice. But instead, the people were rushed to the race for jeans and Romanian headsets, and the people became simply the population. When society is deprived of a super task, the most honorable places in it are occupied by day laborers and hack workers, who then often have to be driven out with a hot iron.
And many thanks to Leonid Ilyich for a happy childhood!
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