The Hated and the Dead

EP38: Leonid Brezhnev

July 10, 2022 Tom Leeman Season 4
The Hated and the Dead
EP38: Leonid Brezhnev
Show Notes Transcript

Leonid Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. Cautious and ideologically vacuous, Brezhnev remains a mystery, despite a lengthy rule. Under him, the Soviet Union descended into corruption and economic stagnation, and paved the way for the era of reform under Mikhail Gorbachev. Arguably, the Brezhnev era represented the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. However, others have interpreted the Brezhnev "stagnation" as a moment of stability in a country that was rarely stable, leading to interesting questions as to how different these two phenomena really are. 

My guest for this conversation is Susanne Schattenberg, professor of contemporary history and director of the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen in Germany. Her book, Brezhnev: Making of a Statesman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. We discuss Brezhnev’s ascent towards the pinnacle of Soviet power, his questionable commitment to the Bolshevik cause, and whether his cautious approach to leadership has been emulated by Russian leaders hence, principally Vladimir Putin. 

Unknown:

Hello and welcome to the hated in the dead with Tom Leeman. The subject of today's episode is probably the least well known person to have fled the Soviet Union, if you don't include Chernenko and Andrew Poff the two place holding geriatrics who managed just one year a piece in charge in the 1980s. By contrast, laying in Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years between 1964 and his death in 1982. And despite this, he remains a come again, to many and a mystery to most. He represents the missing link between the Soviet heyday of the early 1960s and its end game under Mikhail Gorbachev. Brezhnev didn't just preside over the Soviet descent into mediocracy and ultimately the history books though, in more ways than one, he initiated it. economic stagnation, corruption, crackdowns on dissidents such as author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and a costly mindless war in Afghanistan, each of which occurred under his watch, could all appear on the Soviet epitaph. At least, that was how Mikhail Gorbachev saw it. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, though, some historians have come to see the Brezhnev era more positively. Nuclear control, detente with the West, and steadily rising living standards at home could all be put on Brezhnev's epitaph. As my guest and I discussed today, one person stagnation is another stability. They are essentially the same phenomena merely viewed from different perspectives. My guest is Suzanne Schatzberg, Professor of contemporary history and director of the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Brennan in Germany. Her book, Brezhnev making of a statesman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. We discuss Brezhnev's ascent towards the pinnacle of Soviet power, his questionable commitment to the Bolshevik cause, and whether his cautious approach to leadership has been emulated by other Russian leaders, hence, principally Vladimir Putin. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce Leonid Brezhnev. Hi, Suzanne, how are you? Hi, fine, thanks. How are you? Good. Thank you. We're talking about Leonid Brezhnev today, Suzanne. He was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until 1982. He was the first Soviet leader who didn't sort of actively play a part in the October Revolution. In 1917, he was only 11. When that happened. He wasn't the first Soviet leader to be born in or near Ukraine, somebody that could claim to be a Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev, his predecessor, was born very close to what is modern day Ukraine. Can you talk a bit about what Brezhnev's early life was like in Ukraine? Yes, it was, until the revolution, a quite nice life, it seems like so there was nothing special and this is really curious because there was nothing revolutionary in his life. Even his parents, were not supporting the Bolsheviks. They were quite normal people. That means workers. Both his parents had come from Russia to Ukraine and search for labour. And they met at the factory where his father worked. He was a skilled worker or a member of the so called Working aristocracy. So somebody who made his way up due to education, and that is what they wanted for their son also to move upwards through education. And this is quite fascinating and rare that he visited a high school which was normally not affordable for ordinary workers. And it seems like he had a pretty nice life in with swimming and the upper and playing soccer or football. And his mother wanted to him to become an engineer, that he could afford a little house and a car and his father either obviously dreamed dreamt of becoming a diplomat. It's quite an interesting thing about a lot of the people that ended up playing such an important role in the sort of Soviet Politburo bureaucracies that they didn't necessarily fit the sort of classic revolutionaries profile. Maybe Brezhnev obviously decided that that is what he wanted to do. What do you think it was? Was there a sort of turning point in his early life? Was there something important that led him on the road to being a sort of fundamentally a figure of, of the Bolshevik left? This point came very late. And it seems rather that it was not his decision, but the, the circumstances in 1919 37 only. And I think the major turning point, of course, while the Revolution and the Civil War, which affected quite severely his life, and ruined everything they had before, so he had to live through hunger, very heart diseases by from which he nearly died. And he went to school, barefoot, so they even could afford shoes. And this is very amazing that to him, revolution, man destruction, ruin, and of the good life he had before and there was nothing positive about it. He had a younger brother. They fled from their hometown, come Yen's Korea and went to the place his father came from to to Kursk. And he had to take up a very similar, very simple job just just working. So even not very proletarian. He worked as a packer unloading trucks for four years just to earn his living. And we're just really curious and striking it that he loved to act. So he joined together with his siblings are mature action group in the early 20s. And later, when he started at a technical college to become a land surveyor, he earned his money in the local theatre as an extra. So this was really what he loved to do. Acting and having a good life. And still in the 1920s, nothing revolutionary no political aims or nowhere. That's odd. Yes, yes. And it is really, due to his professional development or jobs he had that he joined, first calm, some malt, so the youth organisation to be able to enrol at a technical college, and then join the party, when he already became a land surveyor and had the first responsibilities and the local administration. So it is really laid that he finally was accepted for as full member of the party in 1931. Only. I mean, this period in Soviet history was terrifying. To have I think lived through it was the period of the of the purges under Joseph Stalin. You mentioned 1937 A minute ago, obviously, the purchase mostly happening around that time. For somebody like Brezhnev, a young man, how did people like him sort of attempt to begin moving up the party hierarchy or party hierarchy? That is they were trying to move up, somebody at the top was basically pouring down at them almost constantly. We know that he had to function during the decolonization and it was his task to measure the land which was taken by the prisons and give it to the courthouses. And obviously he was so frightened by the violence he met with which was executed by by the peasants who really tried to defend themselves that he took flight from, from the countryside and went to Moscow in order to begin his studies there and role at the university, and only to to, to run again after just two months, because Moscow was totally crowded in 1930 by peasants who had fled like him from the collectivization. And this is really amazing, because it's one year, which is officially biographies is just cut out. And they tell that he left the countryside and 31. But but we know from the sources now that you already left in 30. And he then enrolled in his hometown again, and come in Scalia, at the, at the high at the university or technical university for becoming an engineer. And here again, he had to join the decolonization campaigns. And we have unfortunately, no sources telling what he went through in this time. And we know that he functioned through that he did what he was ordered to do. But later, he reported that, in the beginning, they believed that it was right to force the Passons into the call hoses. But then he understood that they were just taking the last piece of bread from this poor, starving parents and their children. So it seemed like he later obviously, from any Russian of presidents age, the Second World War was a, an immensely important period, it's still celebrated in Russia today with a ferocity that I'd say isn't matched by other members of the Allied cause, like Britain and France, because of the nature and level of bloodshed that the Soviets under under took, what was Brezhnev's experience of the Second World War, or the or the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians call it? Here, I think two things are interesting. The one is that he was a rather regular Political Commissar, so without any responsibility, in the sense of being a commander or something like that. What's his official biography if your biography is made of him later, but he was not at all in charge of anything, despite us talking to the tube and keeping up the courage and preparing them for for the fight? So all the stories of his deeds are really just invented? Or at least just? Yes, exactly, exactly over exaggerated. But what is really important it is that he suffered during the war. And he really felt terrified by the violence and the threat the war put to his own life. So in the beginning, he was still in the upper Pietrowski. And he had to evacuate or help helped to evacuate first, the industry and then the people and finally, the army, and so he stayed there, and also in Navarra CSK. until the very last moment when the German already came into the city, and he later told his comrades how frightening this has been, and how much he went through hell. And what we know from what he told all his colleagues and aides and persons he met later, this was a very strong motivation for him to to avoid a third world war. So when he became General Secretary, this was up really obviously, there motivate motivation to get it to negotiations with the West and try to come to a better peace. So so. So it was It was quite a traumatic event for him that yes, yeah, it was absolutely traumatic. And although it is sad, for who Schaaf who was maybe even more involved into fighting and at the front, who, after the war, never wanted to see movies on the war again, Brezhnev love these kind of movies, but he always was touched to tears. So he was really sensible about this, the topic of the war. If we if we think about Khrushchev as a kind of leader of the Soviet Union, moving forward a bit started Joseph Stalin died in 1953. He'd obviously been this, you know, all encompassing leader who sort of consumed every element of public and private life within the Soviet Union. Khrushchev eventually succeeded him in the sort of early mid 1950s, can you put into a bit of context of what Khrushchev tried to do during the 1950s? Before we go on to talk about Brezhnev's leadership? Yes, so who showed off. And the taro it was not only him, of course, but the whole Politburo, which was then called already Praesidium of the party. They decided to add the terror to dissolve the Gulag to end torture, and to reinstall something like what they called socialist, the rule of socialist law. So they had huge amnesties of prisoners of the Gulag. And of course, most famous, the 1956, so called Secret speech by who Schaaf way accused Stalin of all the crimes he had committed, although we have to say that he somehow divided Stalin into a good one before 34 and a bad one after 35. So, what he called as crime while the great terror against the party and the army, and not yet against the vast majority of the population and all the ethnicities and of course, the failure during the war, and and Stalin's cult of personality. So, but the beginning of the 1930s, though the the collective decolonization and cultivation of the countryside, they were still a taboo and not object of accusation. So who shaft opened the society and like the poet, Andre beat of said he brought back laughter to the Soviet people. How do you think Brezhnev felt about that? Instinctively? Yeah, that's a good question. But because we really we have no sunglasses on this. My impression is from what he did that he supported it very much. And he he really yearned for a better living. So maybe he even did not so much long for reform on an intellectual or political level. Then on a socio economic level, he's he had seen the people suffering not only during the war, but also after the war when he was a party leader in Ukraine, in Moldavia and in Kazakhstan, so he was really tired of having the people to say just try harder but we have no nothing for you no money, no material, no machines, no food. Just try as hard as you can. And now with push off the provinces the Republic's had the right to ask for resources, and that is what Brezhnev used and and what he obviously liked very much about who shot off and so I think in his mind was very much this better living The idea of a better living for for everybody. Khrushchev came under increasing pressure from about 1962 onwards by this point, Brezhnev was 56, he was a fairly senior figure within the Bolshevik Party by that stage. Where do you think that pressure was coming from against Khrushchev? So, of course, Shroff. To understand who should have, you have to see him how he's speaking, if you don't understand Russian, but he is so do say that extroverted, he's so vivid, so hot tempered, here really had always problems and keeping to the text of his speeches, he laughed to improvise. And that was really a nightmare to his advisors, because he got into rage. And he started shouting at everybody. And that is how he made himself a lot of foods. And he did not care any more about those who would support him, which is quite amazing at first glance, because in 9057, he barely survived a coup against him. And he's survived only because all the regional party leaders from the regions and republics had supported him. And suddenly he began to, to get rid of them to replace them, without asking them and just to damage their, their career. And not only he damaged their career, he also called them bad names, he really laughed to make fun of them. And so in the early 1960s, there was nearly nobody left who still supported her shop or liked him or really dared to tell him openly what the situation was about. And this is also true for for Brezhnev, who was at the beginning, really, something like a client or Yeah, I don't say if you say say pupil or the father of push off and to made his career thanks to who's off who act to test SS patron. And he also was given by who shut off the office brashley of like most president of the Soviet Union, that is the the president of the, of the Supreme Soviet. And nevertheless, also Brezhnev started fearing who Shroff and his outbreaks and all his reforms, which with which he not only divided all the ministries, for having local economic Soviets, but also he called for reform of the Praesidium. And in summary, 64 is said after the return from his holiday, he would also dissolve the Praesidium, which was to him a bunch of old man. And so the people in the outer circle, they had to fear for their own career and decided to add this. Indeed, and, yes, Khrushchev was was sort of ousted from power in, I think, October of 64. How was it that of the sort of runners and riders that were in place to potentially succeed? Nikita Khrushchev? Why was it ultimately, Brezhnev a figure who you've painted so far as not really being particularly committal in terms of the policies that he chose? Probably not very ideological, wide version of Yeah, that's a good question, because there are some people off his or his rivals later said he became General Secretary by incident and stated by accident in this office. And so I think this was probably his best ability to, to appear as a nice guy who was not threatening anybody, and who gave the impression that you could handle him. So he was underestimated as a power player. And he is really sad to be a virtuoso of power games. Because, yeah, he was just just a nice man and his friends and foes, both later said that he was good and listening in being patient and caring about everybody, he was polite. He even could admit that he did not know everything that he did not read, leaning, and had no idea of ideology. And I think not only me, so most of his followers sad that after Starlin, and who brought death and terror and after who show off who brought reforms, but also kind of fury and uncertainty, the people and mostly the part he was longing for somebody who was had a had a good tamper, and was not extroverted, somebody who would, who would bring peace and normal times to other people and to the Soviet Union, that was supposed to be used for his flaws were unreal reality, his his forces and what he could rely on? Well, this is what I want to spend the rest of the interview talking about, really, is this, this notion of stability. I think that's that he was seen as a sort of stable bureaucrat in the 1960s, when he took over. Just to be a bit more specific around this time, he obviously the Soviet Union was one of the two world superpowers at the time. So there's both a domestic element to this country and a very important international one, starting with the international side of things, what did Brezhnev want to do in terms of making the Soviet Union more stable, sort of internationally as an actor on the world stage such as it was? Yeah. So his aim was to, to come close to the United States. So as one of the two superpowers the to get into contact, direct contact with the US president was his first aim. Also in terms of being accepted as an equal, and so that the US president, of course, was termed that the central figure to negotiate, negotiate about arm limitation about detente, economic cooperation, etc. And he had obviously quite clear plan, how to address the US president or how to make his way to him through the West German chancellor and the French president. He obviously is thought that both would help him to get closer to the US President. So what is special about bradney of is that in contrast to his predecessor who Schaaf who like to display himself as a peasant, or as a proletarian, and tried to boycott or the rules of how to dress and how to behave on an international level, Brezhnev adored to two stage the Western politician, he loved to dress well, and he was good looking at the time. And he also laughed to to behave like a Western statesman. So the first time when he met Richard Nixon, who had been to Moscow in 1957, as vice president, the first time but the first thing bradney have made sure to, to, to say to Nixon was you remember the talk and the kitchen and how who chef was shouting at you please? Let's forget about this. I'm totally different and And that is what he expressed during all the time or during the good years until 1975. He tried to make clear that he was not an ideologue, that party ideology had no place in foreign policy, that he was a pragmatic politician who tried to come close to the Western statesman on a very personal level and to say, in four eyes talks, look, I am like you and we both want peace. So what is there, which could disturb us or hinder us from doing so? I think, at least in in the sort of first half of his rule, you mentioned arms control. And obviously, this was off the back of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which just happened under Khrushchev. Yeah, I think in terms of arms control, you'd have to say he was reasonably successful at dealing with the Americans on that front, right? Yes, yes. So, of course, it was not only that he tried to get a personal relationship with these, man. But he had a clear agenda. And that was, on the one hand, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, was the first treaty on it, which he signed with Richard Nixon in 72, in Moscow, but also, he and the Soviet Union. They were the initiative initiatives of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is today the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. So this also was negotiated from 1972 to 75. And then signed in Helsinki. And these were two major contracts, which really had the at least potential to to make the world different and more peaceful. And so he was really successful. At least with his two treaties. Yeah. I think domestically, though, there's always a notion of what is described as stagnation was Brezhnev. It's become a it's actually got bears his name the period and is this the Brezhnev stagnation? Can you go into what that entailed? In rough terms? Yes. I mean, first, it's important to know that it was Gorbachev who said, who gave the period this name? Already post factum, so only after it. And but he was not wrong about that, because in the end, it was really stagnation, nothing moved politically, and economy economically. But then in the beginning, it was really this positive notion of stability. Brezhnev convinced, introduced in society and economy, he cared about that the apartment building programmes continued, that wages were rising, that pensions were rising, that people could afford a car, he had this huge deal with the automobile company feared to build this car factory in Tolyatti on the wall guy, so he really cared about the good life of simple persons. On the other hand, who has had a huge rivalry with the prime minister or the the chairman of the Soviet of ministers, because seeding and because Seguin, who gave is the one who gave the great economic reforms of the year 65 his name so they tried to reform economy and to have more autonomy for the directors of the factory. To to to trigger the interesting interested in this, how they call it or the workers in earning more, more money, sort of incentive programme. Right. Kind of I've heard because he'd been described as a sort of Gorbachev before Gorbachev. Yes, yes, are a kind of new economic reforms which were already in the 1920s. Under leaning, and but the reforms, they did bring some result. But of course, they did not change the the major, there's the system where resources were still allocated from the centre and where prices were still dictated and the factories still had to obey to the plants. And there was not much for place for reform or to just foot for invention and and get better product. So this is also in a major phase failure that instead of reforming economy, Brezhnev and Kasabian took their gold and bought all kinds of goods in the West. So not only wheat and meat, but also sweaters and closes shoes, whatever the people wanted. And even more when they had revolutionary anniversaries. So for seven November, the day of October Revolution, or first may Labour Day, they they went shopping, so to say in the west, to prove to the people how well they were living, although these were all western goods are from the Central European countries. Sounds quite a lot like what the West does with China now. Just going abroad, and you know, importing all sorts of cheap western goods, we know it's from China. Well, sure, yeah. I want to sort of go into why Brezhnev was doing this, you've mentioned sort of, you know, that he that he cared deeply about raising social standards, raising the standard of living, but none of this is what you could sort of describe as, as communist or as ideological really? Was he essentially just a sort of, basically a bureaucrat? Do you think do you think he ever really believed in the sort of founding principles of the Bolshevik Party was he just basically, he saw a ladder and wanted to climb it? That is a really difficult question, because we have nothing written from him on the question whether he believed in socialism, communism, or whatever, but we know he did not really read the ideology, he did not really care. I think it was not that he was interested in the career. He later said that the best job he ever had was that of an herbalist manager, so the leader of a major region where he could chat with people care about the people. So he was really a manager, somebody who was good in doing and fixing things, he was not a really a real politician in that way. He had no visions or greater aims, he just wanted a good life for for everybody. And but on the other hand, of course, he was aware that he was a superpower, and that he had to defend the Soviet Union as the better system. And I I think he still believed that the Soviet Union was a better societal and economic and does also political system. But maybe or certainly not so much, because he compared the two system, but rather because this he was not able to question this. So this was reality to him. We have the better system, dot and that's it. And so it's, it's not so much he was a communist, but he was a Soviet leader, not a communist leader. He was in power for a very long time. He's in power for 18 years, but quite a lot of that. Well, for all of that he was he was quite old. And especially towards the end, I mean, he became quite ill, from sort of the mid to late 70s onwards he died in 1982. Do you think that as he became ill, and more ill it's fair to say that he sort of lost control of, of policymaking that he lost control of these plates that he'd been trying to spin? Quite, you know, tenaciously? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I mean, if he became ill that means he became pill addicted, this is also very important because in the West, all secret services try to find out what was wrong with him and that the French Secret Service even tried to, to how to say, to get a hold on what was in his toilet when he stayed in Paris and and to analyse the contents. And they, yes, they realised that he was ill, but they could not say what it was probably they were just not looking for, for all the sleeping pills and tranquillisers he was misusing. And what is also really interesting in political terms that he is, from 75, when he became really addicted, and not really able to fulfil his task of leading this huge country, the system kept on working and the Politburo members convinced him to stay in office, although twice he allegedly said he would resign. So the system he had built up worked even with without him. And it functioned. Although, of course, the results were quite catastrophic. But the Politburo members who were always the same generation and as old and as ill as he was, of course, they were rather willing to live on with his situation and pretend he was still cable and pretend he was attending the Congress why he was not then to choose the successor, because they all were frightened. What was what kind of power struggle would begin? I think probably the sort of best example of him losing control here, well, or perhaps losing control? That's sort of what I want to ask you is this disastrous invasion of Afghanistan in 1979? Do you think that Brezhnev was really in control of what he was doing here? Do you think? How much blame do Can you lay at the door reasonably of Brezhnev in terms of Do you think he actually made a bad decision? Or do you think that he just he had, he didn't really make this decision that he was completely out of the picture by this stage? Yeah. So the Politburo put up a commission for Afghanistan, and he was not on this board. So formerly, you could say he was not on the board. He was not involved. So it's not his fault. But on the other hand, you can of course, say he was still the general secretary. And he should have been able to be on the board or even to argue with the board. And when they told him that they had taken the decision, he had had to struggle with them. So this is a little bit complicated, because on the one hand, we know he was not on this size of board, there was only the Minister of Defence was turned off and drop off as KGB chef and Gromicko as foreign minister. But on the other hand, from published sources, we now we know that he was attending the Politburo session when all this was discussed. And so before we thought he was absent, and somehow at his departure or in a rehab or wherever, but he was in the Kremlin when they were discussing this. So still, he has of course, to be blamed. And but whether it's really a disaster or strike thing is that everything what happened after the invasion, there was the international isolation, the total damage of the prestige of the Soviet Union, also in a so called Third World, the end of all attempts for detente, the signing of soar two, so the endorsement by the US Congress that was then just ruined, and the boycott of the Olympic Games in summer 1980. So everything of this had been foreseen by the Politburo, they had discussed it before. So they knew what would come. And nevertheless, they went, they were informed that allegedly, the Afghanistan leadership was contacting the CIA and switching sides, begging for support from the US. And not anymore from the Soviet they felt they had to invade. And they were totally mistaking, by mistaken by the judgement of the situation because up yesterday, they thought would be like and prac go in, change the leader go out, and it was a disaster. I mean, this episode completely undid all of the sort of stabilising of the international situation, making the Soviet Union a more sort of rational, dependable partner in the world. This, this completely torpedoed all of that. If you look at the Soviet, the Soviet Union by 1980, let's say the sort of late late Brezhnev era, you've got serious economic stagnation, by any measurement, the Russian measurement, or the Western measurement, you've got a sort of political ossification where there's nobody sort of under the age of 70, anywhere near power. And you've now got this intractable war, which has, you know, completely pilloried the Soviet reputation a bit like the war in Ukraine is doing now. Do you think that the Brezhnev era was a decisive turning point in the Soviet Union? That's to say, by 1980 8182, when the situation was really awful compared to what it had been when Brezhnev took over? Do you think another leader or another type of leadership? Could have led the country more through more successfully through this period? Or do you think that the problems that the Soviet Union experienced were essentially structural and endemic, these weren't things that you can really attribute to President if that they were going to go through them anyway? Yeah, that was an interesting question. How to answer, I think that it might have, that there might have been a chance to to lead this country into a different era. We see in China, right. So they they stayed formally, at least with socialism, but reformed the economy, totally. So, this is, of course, an example that principally it is possible to save power for the one and only party, but give freedom of action to the economy. And probably there was such a chance for for the Soviet Union. But, but nobody who would who dared to do so. And I think even with Cassia, Egan, maybe the economy would have performed better, but the structural problems would have remained, so the allocation of resources, the price definition, no incentives for workers for, for the leaders, etc. So but in within the framework of the Soviet Union and the structure, I think Brezhnev was at least a better leader than those from the KGB, which pretended to follow her show of like, she Lipin or semi Chasni or even the chief ideologue Suslov because they were missing this Yes, human idea of a battle live and live that be People just live and peace. Well, this is the thing, I think because the two, there are two sort of buzzwords that we've used a lot today, stability and stagnation. One is seen as positive, the others is seen as negative. But they are basically the same thing. They're just, yeah, viewed from a different perspective. And that's what I think is really interesting it because our, you know, you could say that brethren have led the Soviet Union, you know, through its middle age, the Soviet Union lasted about as long as a human lifespan. And he oversaw the sort of later period, the transition into into old age when everything starts to go wrong. And that that was inevitable. But you could also see that he stabilised the system. And perhaps without somebody like Brezhnev, the Soviet Union might not have lasted as long as it did, and that it would have just gone into this tailspin. Do you think that's possible? That it would have collapsed earlier? I don't think so. Maybe maybe with a radical reformer, somebody like Doug tech. But I think the real alternative to Brezhnev at that point would have been somebody more like Stalin, who would use a gun would have used a gun to terror and reestablish the camps, etc. So I think, of course, we did not talk about the dissidents, and then that there were camps and prisons for political prisoners under Brezhnev. But that was nothing compared to the Stalin time. And I think what is really important here is that he shaped the idea of a good living under socialism. So this was really the golden age. I mean, we have to be careful with his terms. But that is how the Soviet Union is now remembered, I mean, of course, much too positive. But there is a core set of reality in it that really, the better years, and when the it's people live more or less well, and the Soviet Union was a, an acknowledged superpower that were really the Brezhnev years. And also very interestingly, although Brezhnev fluent in 19, was the invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980s, he ruined everything he had began with us detente, nevertheless, the treaties stayed intact and worked. So I mean, the OECD is still working today. And the Helsinki treaty was really crucial for the dissident movement to develop in the whole of East and Central Europe. So of course, it was not his intention. It was, to a huge extent, his success that the dissidents became so, so powerful, and eventually were successful in in ruining the system and leading it to to freedom, democracy. Something which remarkably happened only 10 years after Brezhnev died, and seems amazing that there's only a decade between Brezhnev's death and the end of the Soviet Union, the transition to well, maybe not democracy, but but to sort of post post communism anyway, I think, over the summer, probably not so much recently because of what's been going on in Ukraine, because that's sort of upset the applecart so much with with Vladimir Putin's time in charge of Russia, but I have before read the term or the adjective version of ICT ascribed to some post Soviet leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko and other people within the Central Asian countries, this this idea of continuity. Do you think brushed of during Brezhnev's type of leadership has sort of become a policy type and a source of inspiration for people since I mean, if you think about, you know, the medals, and the sort of fundamentally cautious approach to leadership that people like Putin were, were quite famous for deploying. Do you think this is a Do you think this is a type of that is hard to say, maybe yes, I think it's something like a model. And for those dictators or semi dictators, a rather positive model they would like to, to follow. I, as a Brit of biographer, of course, have to defend Brezhnev and say that they are totally different. They are different. I mean, in the sense that Brezhnev wanted to, to have a permanent peace with a USA. And so his aim was really to get closer to the west and to the USA, and he was admiring things in a certain and special way, the West, and I think he, yes, he would be terrified if he saw now what put in is how he is behaving, and trying to isolate its country from from the west and blame everything on on the USA, I think in in a different way. Of course, it's correct that Putin is behaving like Brezhnev, or at least tried to let us on the one hand guarantee good or bad on a lower level good, living standard to the people, but deny them political rights and arrest those who who do not obey and and try to speak up. So here we have, of course, a certain similarity between the two. And just as a final question, in that idea of locking in a certain degree of kind of steady economic growth, replicable economic growth, without the political freedoms to go with it? Do you think the president of time well, presidents time does show that it's unsustainable? Do you think it's unsustainable, always having economic freedom, but not political freedom? Do you think that it's, it's inherently unstable in some way in that in that it will always eventually fail? I think there's really difficult to say but regarding Russia, I don't think it's really economic freedom, right. Because we have no economic development at all, if we look at it closer. So like, in Soviet time, Russia is still relying on the export of resources, mainly energy it so gas and oil, but also timber and other natural resources. So since the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, we don't see any major or important development of own industry, and that is really a huge problem. Russia will find out at least now, when it's denied the import of all the goods they keep the God before from the west computers, and machinery, or kind of instruments, et cetera. So there's still a lot of innovation missing and somehow we still have the old structure problem, which is already attested for the early 1970s When in the western industrialised countries. We have a second industrial revolution and recline of heavy industry and the beginning of computer industry. And the Soviet Union had so much resources and oil and gas that they missed this reform because there was no pressure for it. And it's still it's living in this plenty of energy resources, and has no technical development. No. And I have no idea where it will lead to. But yeah, it's not sustainable. It certainly doesn't look like it's going to lead anywhere. Good at the moment. Suzanne, thank you very much. That was That was great. I really enjoyed that. If if people want to discuss or read about these these topics a bit more, what can you direct them towards? Of course, to my book. And yes, maybe I should apologise because a lot of things have not been mentioned here. But at least we've talked about the distance. I don't want to greenwash Brezhnev. But of course, I highlighted the more positive things of or sides of his personality. Here. Yeah. Thank you, Suzanne. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow it on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And for good measure. Leave us a review. You can also follow the hated in the dead on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, so you never miss new content.