Third Age Learning Guelph Lecture 7 From Late Khrushchev to Brezhnev, to late Brezhnev to crisis(?)
The Lecture in Two Films 1959 1980 From love of country/cause to me and my love
Foreign Policy: Heading for Cuba 1957: Tests ICBM and launches Sputnik I (impact on Waterloo) May, 1960: Gary Powers shot down over USSR 1961: Berlin Wall constructed
X.1962: Cuban Missile Crisis (Sino-Soviet split, 1960-1963) 1962 1954: Guatemala as a cautionary tale 1959: Fidel Castro, and Che.. and the drift toward Moscow 1961: Bay of Pigs, April; and Operation Mongoose (November) 1961: IRBMs to Italy and Turkey 1962: October, and what US reconnaissance sees; quarantine; edge of nuclear war; and the Soviets back down (Nov. December 1962) with a promise
My heart is always full of Lenin. Comrades, I could survive the most difficult moments only because I carried Lenin in my heart, and always consulted him on what to do. Yesterday I consulted him. He was standing there before me as if he were alive, and he said: "It is unpleasant to be next to Stalin, who did so much harm to the party." Dora Abramovna Lazurkina, October 1961
Khrushchev did: legalize abortion* ease up on divorce reduce work week create more egalitarian school system, and welfare benefits. Ends the era of the camps. Failed to create promised revolution in consumer goods; Virgin lands a bust; industrial productivity also sagged; and indications of rioting (Novocherkassk, 1962)
Endpoint: Khrushchev s Ouster, October 1964 A janitor s recollections 14 October 1964, and Khrushchev s vacation cut short; summoned to Moscow, berated, and removed (publicly, for reasons of health)
Death comes, 11 September 1971 (Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow) In retirement First Grave - 1973 The New One, 1974
Lecture 15: The Brezhnev Years The historiographical controversy: Q: What to make of 1964-1982? Possible Answers: Was it A? The USSR at it s best: a world of Order and Stability? Was it B? Stagnation? Or C? (first A, then B?) On the challenge of reading sources and the times is this a movie about the late Soviet pessimistic man? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihdfd2rkrsi
1936 Brief Biography: Leonid Ilych Brezhnev Born December 1906 (Kamenskoe; now (Ukrainian: Дніпродзержинськ, Russian: Днепродзержинск Dneproderzhinsk) Metal-working family -receives technical education; joins Komsomol in 1923, and the CPSU in 1929 or 1931; Closely tied to Khrushchev after 1931
Rapid rise in the 1930s 1935: Serves as political commissar in a tank factory By 1939: Party Secretary for Dnepropetrovsk 1941: Drafted as a commissar; first task, to relocate Dnepropetrovsk s industry eastward; then as Political Commissar for Red Army After 1945: Returns as First Secretary of Dnepropetrovsk
1952: Member of Central Committee, and a Candidate Member of the Presidium (Politburo) V.1955: First Secretary of Kazakhstan SSSR (why was this an important post?) 1956: Back to Moscow, now head of Defence Industry (including space program, and a loyal ally of Khrushchev 1957: Backs Khrushchev in attempted coup
X.1964 Appointed First Secretary by Politburo. What was the difference? Khrushchev: colorful, erratic, down-to-earth, risktaking Brezhnev: conservative, steady, less colorful, predictable, fond of luxuries
Khrushchev: opposed Cult of Personality; Claimed communism was within reach; Brezhnev: spoke of mature socialism, and the nostalgic past, and reveled in Cult of Personality (a cult of the personality, that is, without a personality) Both: Started as part of collective leadership, to emerge as dominant
Foreign Policy (I): Key context: the American Distraction in the 1960s
Foreign Policy (II): Prague Spring under Alexander Dubcek, and the call for multi-party elections and a soft-capitalist economy, and the Brezhnev Doctrine, August 1968 as the Warsaw pact nations invade to protect Czech workers and Dubcek s next job was?
Foreign Policy (III): Toward a measure of equality http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/us_and_ussr_nuclear_stockpiles.png
Foreign Policy (IV) The Era of Detente V.1972: Nixon to Moscow 1973-1975: Additional cultural, economic and social agreements signed 1973: Brezhnev to the United States The era of SALT (two of them; though only one ratified); the establishment of cultural exchanges, and Russian scholars now work directly in Moscow and Leningrad The fading of détente (late 1970s) As part of this shift, the USSR signed the Treaty of Moscow with the FDR in 1970, which recognized the latter s existence
The Historiography that resulted from sudden archival access Before During Detente The context (ii)
Brezhnev and the Nomenklatura The Downside of Stability? The Beryozka at the Pribaltiskaya Hotel; and the Hotel buffet, or Yalta
Myth and reality? The Growth of the Black Market, and Defitsitnyi produkty
Soviet apartment buildings, Brezhnev-style, and gains made, but Communal apartments persist.
Commitment to Basic Education, Basic Health, Basic Transportation, the common good, and formal equality. So.. who won t like all of this?
Seven Emerging Crises in late Brezhnev. (I): Poland, and Solidarity after 1980 Lech Walesa, Gdansk ship yards, General Jaruzelski, and John Paul II (after 1978).
II Afghanistan: The Soviet Vietnam Invasion VIII.1978: Kabul as easily subdued The west s response: end of détente, arm Taliban, and cut off ties with the USSR
III: The Emergence of Central Asia and Islam Cotton, infant mortality, birth rates, and rising concerns of Russian minority status in USSR
IV: Mounting Environmental Devastation The Dream The Reality
Ask about my Lada joke V : the West, consumer goods; and VI: vodka, labour productivity, and decline in life expectancy
VII: An Aging Leadership Why no new leadership in the 1970s?
Brezhnev departs: 10 November 1982 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iospictud44