How far was Soviet economic decline in the period 1964-85 as a result of a failure of
leadership?
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command economy problems, lack of investment and outdated technology.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 failure of leadership 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
explained by the command economy’s ability to produce extensive growth by building new
factories and workshops. However, failed to create intensive growth, growth based on
improving existing factories, relying on information about each factory. Therefore, the
economic system is clearly at fault. However, arguably this does link back to Brezhnev’s
