Domestic and foreign problems of the Brezhnev era, economic and political stagnation, Afghanistan

2.4.1 Leonid Brezhnev and the Domestic Problems

The Economy

• Leonid Brezhnev came into power in the USSR in 1964
• He combined the positions of General Secretary and chairman of the Presidium
• He came into power at a time where the USSR had managed to industrialise, increase its arms and develop new technology however it had failed in the production of consumer goods and agriculture
• Standards of living which had previously been increasing were starting to decrease again
• A lot of money was being spent on the military and the space programme 
• Brezhnev wanted to increase consumer goods and agriculture by putting in place reforms that would use the market force to increase these however he was prevented from doing so as some feared that these would lead to a tendency towards capitalism
• However he allowed farmers to work on state owned plots 
• Previously Collectivization had been the policy
• Collectivization was an agricultural policy in which individual landholders had to give up their land ownership and combine this land with those of other landholders to create large farms
• By allowing farmers to work on state owned plots this gave them the motivation to produce more as they could keep or sell the surplus
• However when living standards did not change production decreased
• Brezhnev tried to increase production in the ninth and tenth five year plans but this was not with much success
• Consumer goods were only largely available on the black market
• In 1975 the USSR suffered from another poor harvest and so Brezhnev had to increase agricultural imports to keep the citizens fed
• In the 1970s the rest of the world was suffering from a petroleum shortage but due to the focus on consumer goods and agriculture the USSR did not manage to increase its production of petroleum and so failed to benefit from the high demand
• The people started to criticise the government

Citizens vs Government

• Censorship and repression where still in place in the USSR
• However citizens started to voice their opinions and put forward their own ideas as they where worried that a Stalin style regime which had been savagely violent would return 
• Intellects where starting to publicly criticise the government
• Solzhenitsyn published The Gulag Archipelago which was an autobiographical account of how the citizens had been treated in the expanding networks of camps
• However he was exiled for his work in 1974 
• Samizdat and Tamizdat were used to voice opinion and spread ideas
• Samizdat where self published pamphlets or articles that where illegally copied and distributed 
• Tamizdat was similar to Samizdat but the pamphlets and articles where first published abroad and smuggled back into the USSR
• Some of these became journals and gained many followers
• There was also pressure from abroad to allow the Soviet Jews to leave the USSR and move to Israel if the Soviet Jews wanted to do so
• In addition the Baltic States which had been taken by force into USSR protested the invasion of ethnic Russians into their areas, these states wanted independence (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania)

Politics

• Brezhnev did not have much interest in reforming the government or the Partystructure 
• It became more and more apparent that there was a need for a reform as the leaders where ageing and starting to die
• In 1974 Brezhnev spoke about "stability of cadres" and assured the older stagnant party members that they would not lose their positions
• Workers also realised that they would not lose their jobs due to poor productivity
• Even though this bought about a sense of security it had devastating effects on the economy

2.4.2 Foreign Reforms and Problems

Brezhnev Doctrine 

• The Soviet Union wanted to come to an agreement on arms limitation with the USA as it wanted to limit the possibility of war
• However Brezhnev's main interest was to maintain a communist regime
• When the Czechoslovak government introduced reforms that went against the communist regime Soviet troops invaded the country and reversed the reforms
• In November 1968 the Brezhnev Doctrine
• In his speech Brezhnev made clear that all communist regimes were to remain communist and he would not let them be overthrown internally nor externally 
• The Western powers criticised this however they did not offer any support for these states

Agreement with the USA

• Due to the economic situation in the USSR Brezhnev wanted to come to an agreement with the USA on arm limitations
• This also showed the USA that the USSR wanted to avoid nuclear war
• In 1969 the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began between the Brezhnev and the USA president Nixon 
• In May 1972 the USA and the USSR came to an agreement on arm limitations
• The Helsinki Final Act in 1975 finalised the post-war frontiers in Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviets agreed to comply with international conventions on human rights

Involvement in Africa and the Solidarity Movement 

• The Portuguese withdrew from their African colonies after the Portuguese revolution in 1974
• This resulted in civil war in Mozambique and Angola
• Marxists groups recruited the assistance of first the Cubans and then the Soviets 
• The Soviets supported the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
• They also supported the Frelimo in Mozambique since the 1960s
• The Soviets also helped put an end to regime of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia and put in place a communist revolutionary government
• The Somali government was against this it was driven out by the Ethiopians who had received arms from the Soviets
• The Solidarity movement started in the late 1970s in Poland
• The USSR wanted to invoke the Brezhnev Doctrine however due to its involvement in Afghanistan it was reluctant to do so

The USSR's Involvement in Afghanistan 

• Since the late 19th century the USSR had intervened in Afghanistan 
• The USSR wanted to compete with Britain for power in Afghanistan 
• The Soviets had sent military support to the country to aid the removal of the British control 
• The USSR military had trained Afghan officers which made them supportive of the Marxist cause in their own country
• The Afghan army took power in 1978 and killed the president and prime minister
• Nur Muhammad Taraki became the president of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and put in power the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) 
• The new government wanted to put in place economic and social reforms to try and secularise and modernise Afghanistan
• The USSR signed an agreement with Afghanistan in December 1978 which stated that the USSR agreed to give military support to the Afghan government in Kabul if the government asked for it
• The Afghan government became more and more reliant on Soviet support which weakened the moral authority of the government
• Attacks against the government increased especially by religious groups
• The reforms where imposed through violence and so the civilians were very hostile towards the government, conflict started to erupt
• Village and religious leaders were imprisoned or killed for protesting against the policies of the government 
• Those who were able went into exile abroad, the lower class civilians escaped to Pakistan in refugee camps
• It is estimated that 27000 political prisoners were killed by the PDPA
• The Mujahideen (rebel forces) started to object to the PDPA and the role of religious bodies in Afghanistan was starting to become more important
• Those opposition to the PDPA started to attack Soviet leaders as well
• 100 Soviet advisors were killed in March 1979 by members of the Afghan army that had mutinied in the city of Herat
• The PDPA reacted by attacking and executing 24000 people in the city
• In 1979 Taraki was overthrown by Hafizullah Amin which made the situation even more chaotic 
• The USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 and cited the Brezhnev Doctrine as a reason
• The official reason was that the PDPA asked for support from the USSR to stop the Mujahideen from taking power
• The main problem was that the USSR did not have a clear aim 
• Within the Soviet government there where disputes on why to proceed and how to proceed
• The KGB seemed to want a limited operation which would stabilise the situation and prevent it from spreading into surrounding countries
• The defence ministry wanted to overthrow the PDPA to prevent Pakistan or Iran from invading Afghanistan 
• There was worry that Amin and Taraki had been involved in pro-US activities and that this would lead to the end of socialism in Afghanistan 
• There was 70000 Soviet Troops in Afghanistan by the 27th of December with still no clear objectives on how to proceed 
• The Soviet position was weak as even though they controlled the cities, the rebels which were being supported by the US controlled the countryside
• The Soviet army executed Amin and all those who saw the assassination
• Amin was replaced by Babrak Karmal who was another leader of the PDPA 
• This was the start of a ten year intervention in Afghanistan which cost the USSR many lives and billions of dollars
• The Soviet citizens where against this intervention and it also resulted in international condemnation
• The US limited grain sales to the USSR and also boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics which were due to be held in Moscow
• The rebels received the support from the US and President Carter allowed the CIA to conduct operations in Afghanistan 
• By 1982 the USSR realised that it could not win the war in Afghanistan but it refused to admit defeat 
• Instead it continued a war that was costly and very unpopular as it had invoked the Brezhnev Doctrine and could not withdraw

2.4.3 Chernenko and Andropov

• As Brezhnev got older and weaker he relied more and more on his protégé Konstantin Chernenko to lead the country
• It was thought that Chernenko would succeed Brezhnev however when Brezhnev died in November 1982 he was succeeded by Yuri Andropov 
• Andropov was a former KGB leader and a Central Committee member
• He managed to outmanoeuver Chernenko and became the leader of the USSR
• Andropov wanted to change the USSR's economic stagnation
• He tried to nullify the "stability of cadres" to improve productivity
• He tried to answer the problem of economic stagnation by putting in places policies which stated that those illegally absent from work would be arrested 
• He also closed down most of the Soviet space program in 1983 to try and cut down expenses 
• He wanted to get rid of Brezhnev's and Chernenko's followers and replace them with political elites who were loyal to him and were willing to encourage change within the economy
• He wanted to replace the older Party members with younger ones with the help of Mikhail Gorbachev  
• Foreign problems which had started during the Brezhnev era continued
• The situation in Afghanistan worsened 
• The relation between the US and the USSR was already bad but it was made worse when in September 1983 the Soviets shot down a Korean Airlines flight that had strayed into Soviet airspace 
• In 1983 Andropov's health deteriorated and he stopped appearing in public
• He wanted Gorbachev to succeed him however when Andropov died in 1984 he was succeeded by Chernenko 
• There were not many changes under Chernenko's leadership, foreign and domestic policies stayed the same
• Chernenko's health deteriorated quite fast and he needed to rely more and more on his deputy Gorbachev
• When Chernenko died in March 1985 it marked the end of the Brezhnev era