How far was Brezhnev responsible for economic decline of the USSR in the years 1964-85?
(20 marks)
In 1964, the Central Committee dismissed Khrushchev after his embarrassing economic
mistakes, agriculture failures especially after disastrous harvest of 1963, and unpredictable
behaviour. This caused Brezhnev to quickly reverse aspects of de-Stalinisation and even
abandoned the word ‘reform’ due to Khrushchev’s failures. What followed was an attempt
to restore the economy, but he faced considerable problems such as the legacy of Stalin,
command economy problems, lack of investment and outdated technology. Resulting in a
period of stagnation. Therefore, it is highly debatable how far Brezhnev was responsible for
economic decline in the USSR.
Brezhnev returned to the system Stalin created simply managing it, the party was reunited
as division between industry and agriculture was ended, the seven-year plans were
abandoned and from 1966 the economy continued to follow five-year plans. But Brezhnev
lacked ambition and so his reforms were weak. In 1965, Alexei Kosygin launched a series of
reforms to stimulate light industry, and proposed factories judged their success not by
production levels, but by the profit they made. Therefore, forcing factories to produce
goods that consumers wanted. Central planners disliked this as they’d be held accountable,
with Brezhnev’s sympathies these reforms were watered down to the point they were
ineffective. Moreover, the Kosygin reforms were introduced in January 1968 but only lasted
until August. This highlights Brezhnev’s inability to control the party and led to economic
weakness once again. So arguably, Brezhnev’s personality and inadequate economic polices
caused economic decline. Economic reform after 1964 was minor, Brezhnev accepted the
economy and instead attempted to lower expectations. For instance, much of Brezhnev’s
focus was elsewhere, such as military investment. He aimed to achieve parity with the USA
as they had larger nuclear arsenals. Notably military spending increased from around 11% of
GDP in 1964 to 13% in 1970 and 30 million people worked on the military-industrial
complex. Furthermore, although nuclear parity was achieved, there was an extreme
economic drain resulting in growing economic problems and ultimately stagnation.
Nevertheless, he did make some attempt at improving the economy, in 1973, major
industrial complexes were joined with scientific research to ensure that latest technology
was applied, ‘an alliance of the working class with science’. However, these attempts to
improve technology were limited due to the rigid nature of the command economy.
Moreover, once again the inabilities of Brezhnev and his policies/ lack of, exemplify the start
of economic decline.
However, the soviet system has a substainal amount to be blamed for, this originated from
the inefficiencies of the party and corrupt, disorganised nature of the system. For instance,
the five-year plans are an example of the ineffective system, the first plan was launched in
October 1928 but only published in April 1929 and Stalin’s purges of industrial managers
and economic planners caused extreme economic problems. Moreover, the system can be
blamed for the economic decline as inefficiency of central planning became self-consuming
during the period 1964-85. However, the golden age of the 1950s indicates that Brezhnev
could in fact hold responsibility. Between 1950 and 1958 the economy grew at an average
rate of 7.1% per year, compared to the USA’s 2.9% per year. However, by 1964 growth rates
were around 2%. Subsequently, although it is easy to hold Brezhnev responsible, this can be
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