Talk:Leonid Brezhnev/Archive 1

Misc
Do we really need to know about every foreign visit Comrade Brezhnev made? The article is 34kB long. Let's purge some items from the timeline, if it is to be kept at all. --Jiang 07:21, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I rewrote the article with the intention of getting rid of the "Timeline." This is an encyclopaedia, not a mediaeval chronicle. Adam 07:28, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I will not argue in this particular case, but it is wikipedia, not traditional encyclopaedia. According to its rules, you may put any amount of information here as long as it is correct. You may even put the length of Brezhnev's penis here, if you can prove it. Mikkalai
 * You are referring to medieval chronicle as if it is something bad. But because of these chronicles we know something about medival times today. Mikkalai 20:12, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could have a separate article for the timeline, linked to from this article, and from there we could transfer information from the timeline into the article itself without cluttering it in the meantime. I wouldn't want to see the info completely lost. Everyking 20:17, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't see how a totally separate secion --Timeline-- can "clutter" anything. Mikkalai 23:02, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I fundamentally differ with Mikkalai about what an encyclopaedia article should look like, and I think anyone looking at biographical articles at this or any other encyclopaedia would agree that they are not just lists of unassimilated factoids, they are essays which place the facts of person's life in its historical context. And this is not even an original list, it has been copied from somewhere else. If people want to read the list they can use the link. I will continue to revert its reinclusion in this article. Adam 02:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, IMO you are a bit overestimating your abilities to know what anyone is looking for. For starters, the keyword is "unassimilated". When you "assimilate", you introduce your judgement of what to assimilate and what to discard. One might think that the record "Meets with Jaruzelski in Crimea. Chernenko there" is unimportant. Do YOU think it is unimportant? How did you "assimilate" it? May be you don't mean it, but the whole your statement above just reeks of arrogance and disrespect to other people's opinions. Mikkalai 02:20, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The writing of any article, as opposed to a mere list of dates, requires the exercise of judgement. That judgement can be based on professional training, or on experience, or both. Part of that process is deciding what to leave out. Even a 500-page biography of Brezhnev would leave many facts out, and an encyclopaedia article must in large part be an exercise in compression. There is nothing arrogant about exercising such judgements within one's field of competence, as I'm sure Mikkalai does every day. He is of course welcome to disgree with my judgements, just as he is free to corerct my errors of fact, and if I disagree with him we can debate that. But he should refrain from ad hominem attacks where there is no ground for them. As I said, if people really want to know the contents of Brezhnev's engagement calendar, they can go to the link. But the list of itself is unencyclopaedic. Adam 03:16, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Exscuse me, there was no ad hominem *attacks*. I didn't say that your judgement is about importance is invalid or underqualified. My only point was that you cannot judge for ALL people. Sending them to an external link is a foul play: we all should know by now that external links have to guarantee to live long life. Exactly because of the ephemerity of "external links" I copied the table here. I hope you don't think that I don't know how to create external references. Once again, I have no doubts as to your qualifications. I doubt only your in rights to impose the selection what is important and what is not, especially expressed in a so compromiseless way. Mikkalai 06:31, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * "Exercise of compression": Yes and no. I suggest you re-read the basic wikipedia principles, the part about removing the limitations of paperpedias. We can disagree about correctness of statements, but IMO a postulate is that inclusion of facts directly relevant to the topic is undeniable. Otherwise wikipedia will be in deep shit. Mikkalai 06:41, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * The timeline's not unsalvageable; it just doesn't belong in a biographical entry. Why not see if you can salvage some of the content by starting something like the Timeline of United States history for Soviet history? 172 07:42, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Every article at Wikipedia is a selection of the unlimited possible facts which could be presented about any subject. In theory I could write a biographical article about Brezhnev which details every minute of his life. It would be a million words long, no-one would read it and it would be useless for practical purposes. All editors, inlude Mikkalai, select which facts they think are useful or relevant for a Wikipedia article, and either omit the rest or relegate them to external links. I agree that we are under fewer restraints than paper encyclopaedias, so that we can write long articles on obscure subjects. That doesn't mean there are no restraints on how detailed an article can be. But if Mikkalai wants to add more detailed material to this article he is free to do so - that it a different matter to attaching a mere catalog of dates. That is unencyclopaedic in any kind of encyclopaedia. Furthermore, many thousands of articles have external links to sources of more information, and if Mikkalai objects to the practice he can take it up at a higher level, but he can't use this argument selectively about this article and not about others. Adam 07:34, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * It was not "mere" list of dates. It was list of dates with events attached to them. I fail to see why your text (btw in which only years are left from dates) with basically the same events only lumped into paragraphs and some philosophy added is better than a "mere" list of dates where no one's opinion is forced unto the reader.
 * Of course, I cannot object against a good encyclopedic summary. But there is no guarantee that it it a history is "tailored" to views and interests of the writer. If you read an excellent EB1911 entry for Alexander II of Russia, you will see how nice he was. But you will not find a word how he, e.g., banned Ukrainian language. Every historian knows that a "mere" list of dates is a source of data, and every politician should knows that a "prepared" history, with only 1-2 dates deleted is a nice propaganda tool.
 * My objection to practice of external links: RTFM. Wikipedia rules themselves, not me, suggest to use them sparingly and not rely on them. There are some reasonable links, like homepages of entities discussed, but the rest is just arbitrary noise. IMO "links for more information" are often an indicator of laziness or of lack of time of the author. If information is important, why not put it here? If it is not, why not let the readers use google themselves? Like I said, external links are ephemeral. I myself culled quite a few ones gone dead. Mikkalai 16:24, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

If that's what you think about encyclopaedias I don't know why you bother participating in writing one, unless it's just to promote your personal agenda, which of course I would never suggest. However I have no time to pursue this argument further. If you think there is useful information missing from the article, feel free to add it, in an encyclopaedia manner. Adam 00:46, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't you suggest? Quite a few people here are not without agenda. Thank you for the discussion. I'll think about it. Mikkalai 01:35, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Implicit political/economic opinions
I like the article, but I've one quibble. Here's a quote:

"Although the regime promised rising standards of living, it was unable to produce the consumer goods which would provide workers with an incentive to improve productivity and earn higher wages."

This statement seems to imply that the only way to improve productivity is to tempt workers with consumer goods. Is it really the only way? How could we know? I think this statement is a little too strong for a Wikipedia article. Can it be qualified in some way (e.g. "some economists would argue that...") or something.

On a lighter note, how can anyone write an article on Brezhnev without mentioning those eyebrows?

--Malcohol 12:45, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * On an even lighter note, I only know the man's name from the 1985 film Letter to Brezhnev, although there isn't really space in the article to mention his posthumous role in advancing the careers of Alfred Molina and Margi Clarke.-Ashley Pomeroy 12:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Never will I write an article with pathetic expressions like "some economists would argue that...". The experience of the Soviet Union settled the debate about the relationship between material and non-material incentives and productivity pretty conclusively. Adam 14:25, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I do not see how the downfall of a single flawed political system can be a conclusive proof of the inviability of one economic system over another. That there has never been a successful experiment in using non-material incentives merely shows how effectively Western capitalistic ideas have established hegemony in economic thought.  Additionally, expressions such as "some economists would argue" are certainly not pathetic; using such phrases merely communicates the fact that there isn't any sort of objective "truth" established.  As it currently stands, this article exhibits a clear bias for Western capitalism.  I am unfortunately not qualified in this area (Brezhnev's biography) to suggest edits, but I would strongly suggest that this article be revised to use more neutral language. Beckism 03:52, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Malcohol that it should be qualified, in the spirit of NPOV (not the spirit in which the present version of the article was written, given that the conclusion was originally a lecture about the inevitable failure and fundamental unworkability of the Soviet system.) Everyking 16:58, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Agreed -- And anyone (Adam) who thinks that economic theories left or right can be definitively resolved as in one of the hard sciences is sadly mistaken. The paragraph in question, if accepted as legitimate, would be like declaring that the collapse of the Argentinian Economy conclusively disproved all of the economic theories informing the IMF and modern neo-liberal economics.  In other words, it's taking a complex event and trying to pin it on a single cause.  No, not even a single cause -- a single *theory* about a particular cause.  Fine for an editorial in the Economist, not fine for an NPOV encyclopedia entry.Dave 18:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Mid 1970's Crop Failures
Should the article mention how Bresnev handled the crop failures in the USSR in the Mid 1970's? I know this was bad for the Soviet Union but very good for U.S. Farmers (high crop prices.) 71.38.174.228 (talk) 02:15, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Planned economy
I think the Wikipedia free encyclopeida is very good, but feel that there is something of a contradiction when analysising the stagnation of the 1970s. I have made additions and they have been reversed without explanation. I think this is mistaken.

How did the economy of soviet Russia grow under Stalin in the 1930s? The crude accumilation of steel, heavy engineering, and so on, was possible with no democratic feed back. This was not so for the increasingly complex economy. It became increasingly impossible to plan "top down."

Some reference to the original concept of workers' democracy, which was supposed to control the economy, in this period, is necessary here.

There were for instance still many illusions in the West that the Soviet Union presented an alternative type of society, whilst crisis wracked the West - started by the rising price of oil, which we see again threatening today. The Soviet bureacracy still encouraged these illusions in the 1970s, and continued to make various facile pretences about workers' democracy.

It is insufficient to say that without market forces providing incentive, as the article does, the soviet economy failed. Since market forces were re-introduced they have brought considerable hardship to the people of the former Soviet Union, instability, war, and enormous poverty. So the article seems somewhat simplistic here.

There is a great deal of scepticism about the "free market," world trade, and so on. The recent election of a "left" President in Uruguay, which had until now had been a traditional US ally, shows that the view that market forces have failed is popular amongst large sections of the world's population, for instance in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Venezuela, to mention only Latin America.

Perhaps those watching this page can take this into account. I will not attempt to re-edit the page, but will await a reply.

An alternative view

 * One difficulty in assessing the performance of a centrally-planned economy is objective measurement - for example, how do you compare an economy measured by profit with one measured by weight (the USSR 5-year plans used this as their baseline, resulting in products massively over-engineered to meet quotas rapidly, after which productive capacity could legally be used for personal benefit, kept religiously separate from the planned economy)? My 1978 thesis into counterpurchase suggested there was, however, another mechanism at work: the general population were doing their own thing (ten million home-knitted bedsock-makers add nothing to GNP until such time as the cottage industry starts selling, which is what happened in the 1990s) while central expenditure was funded by a form of tribute from the Warsaw Pact satellites, asset-stripping them for the prestige projects at home. Once there were no more assets left to strip, the Pact imploded, and the parasite economy experienced real hardship as described while the black market economy filled the gaps resulting.


 * A market economy presumes free access to the market by both sellers and buyers. Internationalisation has reduced the choice of products and blocks access to the market to newcomers, both by using economies of scale and a larger asset base to undercut the newcomers, and by using intellectual property, the WTO, and taxational policies ostensibly aimed at limiting inflation by capping growth, to freeze them out. The Asian model uses false exchange rates to counterbalance this, at the risk of creating a trade imbalance which may yet destroy the trust between governments which the current stability depends on (when the US defaults on its debt, which is inevitable in the long run).


 * While the OECD fails to address the question of Planet Zog (the net imbalance in the sum of the national balance of payments), and local hegemonists create their own mythologies (whether capitalist, shariah, or communist) to disinform their populations, there is little likelihood of avoiding armed conflict. Jel 12:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Arms Race
I deleted the references to the Carter-Reagan military buildup in light of the fact that there is no evidence that the Soviets even attempted to match the American build-up, despite repeated claims that they did.


 * Check the background to the SALT and tactical weaponry in Europe limitation talks for the data for this: the Russians did pull back a number of divisions East of the Urals as a result.Jel 12:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

POV?
How can the article claim that the Supreme Soviet was "decorative"?

Because it's a fact. "NPOV" doesn't mean that we have to accept every government's and organisation's description of itself. Our job is to tell readers the truth. Adam 04:09, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Brezhnev's Funeral
Hello. The description of Brezhnev's funeral matches almost exactly the description of Andropov's, right down to the effusive description of the funeral as "one of the world's most impressive." Perhaps someone should check into the matter to see if there are any factual discrepancies. Furthermore, the verbiage in one needs to be changed, as they are almost verbatim copies of one another. EcceQuamBonum (talk) 09:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I was wondering if anyone will be ok with me adding a photo I have found of Brezhnev's funeral. Zscout370 23:37, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, assuming there are no copyright issues. Everyking 00:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * The image is located at Zscout370 00:18, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

His birthdate in Gregorian and Julian calendars
Our article shows that he was borned on 19 December (N.S.) or 6 December (O.S.) in 1906, but I just found Russian Wikipedia article showing 1 January 1907 (N.S.) or 19 December 1906 (O.S.). Could any Russian-speaking users please double check this. This is very confusing.--Jusjih 10:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Brezhnev was born either 1 January 1907 (N.S.) or 19 December 1906 (O.S.). The authors substracted two weeks from the N.S. in spite of adding them. --Wildead 08:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Place of birth
How Dniprodzerzhyns'k could exist in Imperial Russia? -) It is named after Felix Dzerzinsky--Nixer 17:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

reputation
Brezhnev presided over the Soviet Union longer than any man except Stalin, but his posthumous reputation is very low, both in Russia and among historians.

This is not true. According to a recent poll, most people selected Brezhnev to be most wishable for ruling in Russia from all other Russian rulers from the beginning of XXth century, including Nicholas II, Stalin and Yeltsin.--Nixer 17:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Order of Victory
''Brezhnev also received the Order of Victory, the highest Soviet military award, in 1978, becoming the only recipient not to have participated in World War II.


 * This is not true. He participated in the war, though not as a military commander but as a political commissar (in the rank of a general). Andres 14:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick question: I've heard that he invented a military campaign to give himself battle honours. Is this true?--Crimzon2283 (talk) 14:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Not quite, but he greatly exaggerated his role in a WWII battle, indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.136.225.214 (talk) 21:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Declining heath
''His declining health was rarely — if ever — mentioned in the Soviet newspapers, but it was practically evident with the deteriorating political and economic situation


 * His declining health was evident not from the situation in the country but from his public appearances. Andres 14:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * To elucidate: his robotic performances on the May Day parades in particular left Western analysts convinced that his intellectual capacity was functionally absent - it was even suggested in 1980 that his 1979 stroke had actually left him brain-dead, and that all that was on display was his mindless corpse, surviving with machine support. Some less mechanical reaction in 1982 provided a degree of disproof of this, but his death not long after left the question open. In any case, the open autonomy in decision-making shown by other members of the Politburo in establishing personal power-bases in the regions confirmed an absence of centralised discipline, culminating in a battle between the KGB (Andropov) and Brezhnev's power base (Chernenko, Gorbachev and Yeltsin), finally won by the KGB under Putin.
 * The decentralisation of the power structure left the USSR fatally exposed when the Warsaw Pact ceased to be able to support the central planning system, which had accidentally subverted its own survival by allowing excess capacity above and beyond the set production quota to be used for private purposes: this then established a thriving black market which supported the breakaway political structures and destroyed the hegemony over the Pact countries.Jel 12:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Evil daughter
We all know about the circus-crazy one but didn't Brezhnev have a criminal daughter who was responsible for a lot of corruption in Russia during the time of her father's reign?

Anon

Nationality
Why is his nationality listed as Russian? He wasn't Russian. He was born in Ukraine. He was Ukrainian.1.21 jigwatts 01:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you read the actual article? It's all in there.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed reading that part. Even then, I still think his nationality should read Russian/Ukrainian.1.21 jigwatts 23:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Do the Ukrainians really want to claim this guy??? 74.251.200.216 08:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It's dosn't matter wether they 'want him' or not, it's which ever is true, there are plenty of people like david parker ray who americans would not want to 'claim' but the fact is he is american like it or not. The same for Brezhnev. Thannad (talk) 00:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I know that. What I was referring to was the fact that there are a lot of Ukrainians on this site, who seem to want to stake a claim to anyone who they think has one drop of Ukrainian blood, or who was simply born on the territory of modern Ukraine. But in the case of Leonid Brezhnev, I can't see why anyone would be eager to claim a dictator who ran his country into the ground. 72.148.45.37 (talk) 04:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment
Russians/Ukrainian etc have a slightly different view on ethnicity/nationality than Westerners.

Because there is no such thing as an American ethnicity, that is to say that the America population is the result of recent immigration for all over the world, to be "American" you are simply born in America.

In the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, a country of hundreds of ethnic groups, your ethnicity is not defined by where you live, it's down to actual ethnicity. A Ukrainian in Russian/Ukrainian eyes is not someone simply born in Ukraine. Ukraine has only existed as a country since 1991, before that the border of Ukraine, the Ukrainian SSR changed many times. Ukrainians were the group of people who followed the Ukrainian orthodox church or the Greek Catholic Church and who spoke the Ukrainian vernacular. Therefore just because Brezhnev was born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, it doesn't mean he was Ukrainian. Furthermore in the Soviet Union everyone had an official nationality in there internal passports, and I'm pretty sure Brezhnev was "Russian" [Russkii] 82.24.206.219 (talk) 02:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC).
 * The thing is that he was not an ethnic Russian. Albeit he attempted to conceal his ethnicity due to potentially risky origins (could be part-Jewish), he was registered as Ukrainian. --217.172.29.4 (talk) 13:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Malaya Zemlya
How it was possible to write Brezhnev's biography without mentioning Malaya Zemlya? :) --Ghirla-трёп- 16:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Russian atheist?
But his Wikiquote article says "God won't forgive us if we fail." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.95.30 (talk) 09:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Personality cult
This bit of the article is pretty bad: "Unlike the cult of Stalin, however, the Brezhnev cult was widely seen[by whom?] as hollow and cynical[citation needed], and, in the absence of the purge, could command neither respect nor fear, resulting in apathy and lack of reception[citation needed]."

Three issues with it:
 * 1. It seems to convey the idea that Brezhnev and/or his associates were fostering a Stalin-esque cult around him.
 * 2. It seems to convey the idea that the Soviet purges of the 1930's (which this sentence implies spread fear throughout the nation) apparently inspired genuine belief in Stalin's personality cult rather than, if anything, the reverse.
 * 3. It seems to imply that personality cults can only operate through fear, which would be false.

Brezhnev's cult could never grow too large. After Stalin the Soviet Government stressed the need for "collective leadership" and I doubt his cult was intended to be anything like Stalin's, who had such memorable titles as "Gardner of the Human Soul." Of course one could source this if I am mistaken, but of course this has no sources as it stands.

I don't see the point in keeping it in the article (it's a bit redundant and misleading) when there's already a discussion on the main aspect of his rather limited cult: Malaya Zemlya and how the Government played it up to improve Brezhnev's public perception, just a paragraph above. --Mrdie (talk) 14:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Pages needing disambiguation
I tried to fix these but got an edit conflict when I was trying to fix my original mistake. I mistook one Olympics for another. So I'll let others do it. Not worth getting in edit conflicts over!
 * 1980 Olympics
 * 1984 Olympics

There are quite a few pages that need disambiguation. See. I would fix them but I will be reverted. Thanks, Xtzou ( Talk ) 18:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * P.S. Some of these should not be linked anyway, per WP:Overlinking, especially if you are trying to get GA status. I was going to do the review, but I think I'll skip it, as I like to copy edit the articles I am reviewing. Xtzou ( Talk ) 18:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Why can't you review the article? --TIAYN (talk) 19:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Eastern Europe
The last paragraph in this section is in atrocious shape. I don't know how to fix it; I'm not even sure what it's trying to talk about. Could someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject either fix it, if it is important, or delete it, if it's not? Tyrannophobe (talk) 18:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Copyedit: You were right, it was in "atrocious shape" :D It's better now, but it sure could need a look by a native English-speaker, something i'm not. --TIAYN (talk) 19:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Wonderful when things make sense! Thanks! Tyrannophobe (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Why the USSR collapsed?
Forgive a layman for making a comment unasked, but when one reads the opening paragraph of this otherwise excellent article one could be led to believe that the collapse of the USSR was due entirely to the war in Afghanistan. It just seems like poor syntax - perhaps someone who wont get all their changes automatically reversed could change it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.142.128 (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I must admit, I had misgivings about the same thing upon reading the lead. Xtzou ( Talk ) 21:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Eyebrows
Reading about Brezhnev in the past, I remember that Russians frequently referred to him by pointing to their eyebrows. I can't remember where I read this; any idea if there are reliable sources for this? It might be appropriate to include such a thing in the "Legacy" section. Nyttend (talk) 03:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

decreasing well-educated Soviet labour force?
I would rewrite the first sentence of the following paragraph, but I cannot figure out what the author(s) meant by "decreasing well-educated Soviet labour force." Can anyone make heads or tails out of this? Or out of how it relates to the rest of the paragraph? Jd2718 (talk) 14:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Another mounting problem in Brezhnev's Soviet Union was the decreasing well-educated Soviet labour force. During the Stalin era in the 1930s and 1940s, a common labourer could expect promotion to a white-collar job if they studied and obeyed Soviet authorities. In Brezhnev's Soviet this was not the case. Holders of attractive offices clung to them as long as possible and mere incompetence was never seen as a good reason to dismiss anyone. Social "rigidification" became a common feature in Soviet society, in many ways the Soviet society Brezhnev handed to his successors had become "static". 
 * Rewrote to Another mounting problem in Brezhnev's Soviet Union was the decreasing number of well-educated members of the Soviet workforce. Is this good enough? --TIAYN (talk) 14:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But the following sentences indicate that the numbers of educated workers were not decreasing, but they weren't being promoted? No one is saying that workers were less educated -- it's a comment, rather, on advancement. Do I have that right? Jd2718 (talk) 14:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point; I'll check the reference, and then clean up this mess. --TIAYN (talk) 15:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed it all together; wasn't mentioned in the source. --TIAYN (talk) 15:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Copy editing
Hi. I am responding to a request to help improve the readability of this article by copy editing. I am stuck on this sentence: Brezhnev's answer to these problems was to issue two decrees, one in 1977 and one in 1981, which called for the expansion of all plots owned by the Soviet Union to half a hectare. It doesn't make sense to me. Should it read the expansion of all privately owned plots to half a hectare? or something else? Thanks for clarifying. Rumiton (talk) 15:02, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the source  --TIAYN (talk) 15:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and thanks for the work you are doing :) --TIAYN (talk) 15:59, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thanks! So it seems the increase in size was related to privately owned plots, rather than "owned by the Soviet Union". I will make the change. Rumiton (talk) 02:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I am done now with the copy editing. I hope you like it. If you don't, you know what to do! Rumiton (talk) 14:24, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Awards?
So what is the complete list of awards Brezhnev had?

72.79.138.81 (talk) 15:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Ethnicity
Can we hash this out here, rather than that constant reversions on the article page? Was he Ukrainian, Russian or both? What sources are there supporting any of these options?  freshacconci  talk talk  18:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Repeat. I started with an elementary fact:
 * «He has a russian surname and parents are russians.»
 * «Parents are russian with a territory of the RSFSR.Russian:father,mother and surname...» —
 * Doubts? Father Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874—1930), mother Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886—1975). His parents were born and before moving to Kamenskoe lived in the village Brezhnevo (now Kursc district of the Kursk Oblast). Surname «Brezhnev» in the laboratory Genographic, wikiENG and WikiRU. Everywhere russian. Surname «Mazalova» laboratory Genographic — russian.
 * Answer TIAYN:
 * «Early in his life he called himself Ukrainian, when he rose to power, he called himself a Russian... to make more sense out of it, he is a Russian-Ukrainian» —
 * Firstly, it is a typical crazy WP:OR. Secondly, is not found «clearly and precisely example» where and when he called himself a Ukrainian. This «At different times in his life he would describe himself as Ukrainian or, later on as he moved through the ranks of the Communist party, Russian» is not proof «etnicity». An interesting biographical information, but not proof. Thirdly, how his words affect at etnicity? Yes, because of soviet korenizatsiya many people have used ethnonim titular nation republic. For example Korolev. But if i'm call himself a chinese then my etnicity chinese? It's a lie. Main part «etnicity» = parentage. Else is secondary. Whence «Russian-Ukrainian» etnicity if both parents russians? It is impossible.


 * My WP:RS:
 * — Collier's Encyclopedia (in Russian) "Брежнев Леонид Ильич": «Родился 6 (19) декабря 1906 в русской семье в Днепродзержинске (до 1936 - Каменское) на юго-востоке Украины.»
 * — Brezhnev's trilogy (in Russian) "Воспоминания. Глава первая: «ЖИЗНЬ ПО ЗАВОДСКОМУ ГУДКУ»": «Таким образом, по национальности я русский, по происхождению — коренной пролетарий, потомственный металлург. Вот и все, что известно о моей родословной (Approximate: That's all what is known about my ancestry).»
 * — Брежнев Леонид Ильич (in Russian) : «Родился 6 (19) декабря 1906 года в селе Каменское, ныне город Днепродзержинск Днепропетровской области Украины, в семье рабочего-металлурга. Русский.»


 * I do not know of any WP:RS where his seriously called the «ukrainian». In soviet and russophone data or russian or nohow.


 * 1. 04:44, 21 November:
 * I'm added template {Citation needed|20=November 2010}.
 * 08:27 21 November:
 * TIAYN without explanation removes his. It's was the fourth undid for 24 hour and it was a violation of the rules WP:3RR WP:Vandal.
 * 2. Further — 17:45, 21 November TIAYN wrote:
 * «it referenced in the fucking text»
 * 3. 17:45, 21 November TIAYN:
 * «just fuck off, i will report you later.. i»
 * Warning to him for this was not followed. Freshacconci just helps him in a war edits. Maybe needed were WP:AIV? In the next time necessarily.
 * 4. Further — 00:03, 22 November I'm wrote:
 * «Okay, dude. Good luck with your search.»
 * I demanded bring more proof ethnicity "ukrainian" but he can not do it. Realizing their mistake he removes a string «ethnicity»... 80.250.79.18 (talk) 21:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The Brezhnev's 1947 passport (41 years old) N637805, city of Zaporizhia clearly identifies him as Ukrainian. There is no need for foul language and heritage tracing. There is a big ambiguity when defining Russian nationality such as Россиянин (Rossiyanin) и Русский (Russkiy). In English Russian means native of Rus, not necessarily of Russia (Rhossia). There no references that identifies Brezhnev as Rossiyanin therefore no need to express your discontent in such manner. And just because the Kursk Oblast is a region of the Russian Federation, it does not mean that all people of the region were or are Russians. The 1897 Russian Census shows that Ukrainianphone speakers lived way beyond the borders of contemporary Ukraine. I carry a Russian last name Grigoryev and I am the third generations of Russians in Ukraine. But I consider myself a Ukrainian. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 16:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Stalin got some praises by Leonid Brezhnev.
After Khrushchev's fall from power,Stain got some praises by Leonid Brezhnev. In May 1965, Leonid Brezhnev publicly praised Stalin as a war leader. And in September, the secret police arrested the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel for "the crime" of publishing their novels abroad under pseudonyms. Suddenly, hundreds of leading Soviet intellectuals, writers,artists, and scientists began to send petitions to the party leadership with appeals to free the arrested writers and to stop the backslide to neo-Stalinism. A new movement was born, which demanded public trials and constitutional rights."Dissidents," as the members of this movement came to be called, began to appeal to the world via the foreign media.The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 substantiated the fears of the Soviet anti-Stalinist intelligentsia that the post-Khrushchev leadership might take the country in a neo-Stalinist direction. The crushing of the Prague Spring and its "socialism with a human face" dashed the hopes ofmany educated Soviet patriots that the existing system could be reformed. This produced a remarkable rise of antigovernment sentiment, even among some who were establish in the Soviet elites. Brezhnev praised Joseph Stalin's reign, but refrained from the brutality that Stalin was known for.Brezhnev admissioned "Stalin's serious mistakes about the Cult of personality to himself in his old ages". People's Republic of China (under Mao Zedong) and Albania (under Enver Hoxha) still condemned Brezhnev as Khrushchev as a revisionist,until Deng Xiaoping and Ramiz Alia wield power in the 1980s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NVRENGUANNANREN (talk • contribs) 12:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Pic
Good grief! Is "Brezhnev in 1970s" the best photo available of someone who was Mr. Big for 17 years? Sca (talk) 21:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Greatest russian voted by russian
@ User:Trust Is All You Need, As per the last edit, Even a bad man is popular, but that's not even the point, he is voted as the greatest russian as per this source. I am no way removing the sourced information, but inserting the much more needed one. So once read it, and revert your edit back. OwnDealers (talk) 13:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed, the problem is more with the wording.... I rewrote it...

Soviet economy growing rapidly until 1970s?
This story that is reflected in the sections Leonid_Brezhnev seems quite unlikely. No (fully-)socialist country/planned economy has ever outperformed developed capitalist countries. There are estimates available for comparisons East Germany/West Germany (there's this study e.g., I can't access it but perhaps a fellow contributor can). The conclusion is that the gap between the Socialist East Germany and the capitalist West Germany was GROWING, not evening out. Similar studies are available as to Cuban GDP, with the similar result: that the experiment has been a total disaster GDPwise. CIA Wordl Factbook was known to have inflated figures for socialist countries, e.g. 1990 USSR GNP per capita per capita $9,211 compared with $6,900 for Portugal (GDP). Unless it can be clearly demostrated that the socialist bloc was REALLY outperforming capitalist countries until 1970s, such speculation/minority views should be omitted. I'd be glad if anyone with a background in economics or similar would comment on this. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 16:21, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * First, I reverted you're changes.. The book is reliable, factual and doesn't support a fringe theory.. Secondly, the article doesn't say the USSR were more efficient than the west, it says that it grew at a rate in which would one day reach the same level as the First World.. (This is not outlandish, read newspapers from the 1950s and you'll see that magazines such as Time, The New York Times and so on wrote about the growing USSR economy)... It does not, however, say that USSR had a stronger GDP, or that it was at  the same level as the First World.. It should also be noted that since the USSR was so underdeveloped, it would automatically grow at such a rate (underdeveloped economies grow at a faster rate)..  this is not about East Germany, and East Germany began to surpass the USSR during the 1970s, during the era of stagnation, so you're example is a bad one. --TIAYN (talk) 16:45, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Further, read the footnote in the article (its here, but its sourced in the article); Western specialists believe that that the net material product (NMP; Soviet version of gross national product (GNP)) contained distortions and could not accurately determine a country's economic growth; according to some, it greatly exaggerated growth. Because of this, several specialists created GNP figures to estimate Soviet growth rates and to compare Soviet growth rates with the growth rates of capitalist countries.[31] Grigorii Khanin published his growth rates in the 1980s as a "translation" of NMP to GNP. His growth rates were (as seen above) much lower than the official figures, and lower than some Western estimates. His estimates was widely publicised by conservative think tanks as, for instance, the Heritage Foundation of Washington, D.C.. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Khanin's estimates led several agencies to criticise the estimates made by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Since then the CIA has often been accused over overestimating Soviet growth. In response to the criticism of CIA's work, a panel led by economist James R. Millar was established to check out if this was in fact true. The panel concluded that the CIA were based on facts, and that "Methodologically, Khanin's approach was is naive, and it has not been possible for others to reproduce his results.[32] Michael Boretsky, a Department of Commerce economist, criticised the CIA estimates to be too low. He used the same CIA methodology to estimate West German and American growth rates. The results were 32 percent below the official GNP growth for West Germany, and 13 below the official GNP growth for the United States. In the end, the conclusion is the same, the Soviet Union grew rapidly economically until the mid-1970s, when a systematic crisis began.[33]


 * I've seen the footnote but it does not balance out the fact that the common view (really, I've read numerous sources by authors like Kalev Kukk and Olaf Mertelsmann who have studied it from the Estonian (SSR) perspective) is that the USSR did not outperform anyone. Now as to your points: ″article doesn't say the USSR were more efficient than the west, it says that it grew at a pace in which would one day reach the same level as the First World″ - but the second part of your passage is exactly what I'm disputing: no, the USSR did NOT grow ″at a pace in which would one day reach the same level as the First World″ (i.e. outperform). Finland and Estonia had similar GDP per capita levels as of 1939, but what was the situation in 1991?! The gap was unbelievable. And Estonia was the 'top-performer' among the Soviet republics. As to East Germany you claim it began to ″surpass the USSR during the 1970s″. If you mean its GDP growth rates began to be higher, perhaps. But not in the sense of surpassing the USSR in terms of GDP per capita as it had always been richer than the USSR. People from the USSR (my grandma included) who visited the DDR in the early 1970s were basically astonished at the (relative) abundance of goods available there. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 16:59, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You seem to be mixing to very different concepts into one here.. Economic growth does not need to mean growth in living standards (GNP per capita), it only means national economic growth.. Secondly, it is a common view that the reason for this fast rate of growth was because the planned economy was good at extensive growth, but not intensive growth.. Literally meaning, they were able to build factories (increase labor employment, increasing the industrial base, increasing production etc etc), but when it came to using them efficiently they failed completely (bureucratization, opposition to the introduction of new technology, slow to react to changes, etc etc).. Its a common view that the USSR performed well economically in two, maybe "three" (a bit disputed) periods, during Stalin's crash industrialization program and during the post-wars years, and then again for a short period after Brezhnev took power.. Thirdly, this is no difference from let say modern China - it is growing at a pace now which will catch up to the West, however something may happen (something always happen) ... Its nothing with these statements which can be considered very controversial, since they do not oppose any hard facts. --TIAYN (talk) 17:16, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think I am mixing GDP growth with real standards of living. Though it is true that to estimate the GDP of a socialist country is difficult (that's why the case of contemporary China differs from that of the USSR), some estimates have been made. Even according to the Maddison figures (I think they were based on the CIA figures, which K. Kukk considers seriously inflated - will add the source once I find it again) Estonia's 1990 per capita GDP was $10,733 compared to (according to Hardt & Kaufman 1995, p. 1 and 17) $26,100 for Finland (i.e. Estonia's figure was 41% that of Finland's). Similar comparisons can be found in the article Eastern Bloc economies. Pretty clear, who was outperforming whom.Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 17:36, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * But again, the article doesn't say it was outperforming the West, but that it was growing at a pace which would one day reach the levels of the West. To say that the USSR outperformed the West in anything would be stupid, and again, the article only says it would catch up.. And no, its no different from China, Cambodia, Ethiopia, underdeveloped economies grow faster, the USSR was an underdeveloped economy (or more neutral worded, it was in between, it was a Second World economy). The reason being that underdeveloped economies more often then not focus on extensive growth (China, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Turkey, Vietnam, Mongolia etc etc...) If you feel its biased to have this here, add a line or two which argues that was wrong, e.g. "Some say", "Certain studies show" "Author" I don't care, but WP is not biased, open for all views. But the view you have is no more correct then this view, but please, if you feel its needed, add one or two sentences and reference it... But again, you should check out the Era of Stagnation article (its sourced, I wrote it - hasn't been edited since) --TIAYN (talk) 17:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A poorer country could only be ″growing at a pace which would one day reach the levels of the West″ (at the time when this future convergence takes place) if it was outperforming the West, i.e. had higher average GDP growth rates. All evidence shows that the USSR didn't for any meaningful period of time, unless republics, such as Estonia reduced the gap with Western countries. This did not take place as I explained above. I will take a look at your article.Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 18:24, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course it did, the USSR was destroyed by the Germans.. The economy was rebuilt from scratch in Ukraine, Western Russia, Belarus, etc etc.. You seem to be forgetting that the western part of the USSR was in total disarray after World War II, and that it was the planned economy which brought it back with dramatic speed (extensive growth), when, however, the economy could not expand anymore, the economy stopped growing. Again, you seem to be mixing up, it doesn't say it was better than the First World, "catching up" means "catching up" not better. All evidence does show the USSR having dramatic growth rates during these periods, however, not as dramatic as the official Soviet figures put them. But these guys are not using Soviet figures. --TIAYN (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The chapter 'Economic Damage' by Kalev Kukk is available here. He mentions, in particular (p. 166), that "Assessments of Estonia and the then USSR were as erroneous as those of the German Democratic Republic made under the spell of reunification of Germany. According to approximate assessments, the per capita GNP of Estonia in the end of the 1980s was USD 2200—2300, which can be compared with the corresponding figures for Hungary (USD 2450 and 2560 in 1988 and 1989, respectively).53 This assessment is further supported by the figure USD 1780 for the USSR in 1989, proposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.54". For comparison, the US GNP per capita was $19,800 in 1989. If we use the estimate suggested by Kukk, the GNP of the USSR was % 8.99 (!) that of the USA's. So the figures assumed by some authors for the USSR were pretty much worthless for the reasons explained by the author on previous pages. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 20:31, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Honestly, this is the social sciences, do you really think that because one guy with a fringe theory comes up with a statement it automatically becomes more true than the others? Social sciences are not fact-based. Secondly, those authors are respectable, you can't just say all of them are wrong, WP does not work that way. Thirdly, by 1989 living standards in the USSR had collapsed dramatically because of indecisiveness within the Soviet leadership on what shape economic reforms should take. After 1983 or 1984 living standards decreased dramatically - its a reason why they say that ordinary Russians are not better of now then under the USSR, because the standard of living was reduced dramatically... Fourth, please add that to the article, that Kukk says this and that, but its no more true then the other authors, social scientists, economists.... It just doesn't work that way. --TIAYN (talk) 20:39, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The figure USD 1780 for the USSR in 1989 was proposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Kukk merely reports it among other proposed figures. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 20:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

[http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/public/eas93.pdf Soviet Economic Growth since 1928. The Alternative Statistics of G.I. Khanin]. See Table I. Personally I'm of the opinion that Khanin's numbers are probably the best there are (not all would agree). Maddison's numbers are roughly the same as CIA's numbers. I've also already created an image based on that data:



As can be seen, the official Soviet statistics *always* exaggerated growth, sometimes by a buttload. The CIA generally overestimated actual growth (because 1) they based their estimates on official data and 2) they also wanted to justify higher budgets for themselves and making the Soviet economy a bigger threat served that purpose) but not as much. However, for the purposes of this discussion, it turns out that for the 1950-1960 period, the CIA actually *underestimated* Soviet growth. At the end of the day, it is true that between 1950 (probably a little earlier) and 1970 Soviet economic growth was pretty high. This had three causes. One, it was the rebuilding of the capital stock destroyed in WWII. This almost always happens after wars if political stability is present. Two, high rates of saving and capital accumulation. In a market economy the national saving rate is determined by individuals. In a planned economy it is determined by the state (you just pay people less). So it's much easier to raise savings rate (and hence, temporarily, the growth rate) in a planned economy, at the cost of consumption. Three, there was a substantial reallocation of labor from the low productivity agriculture to higher productivity urban sector. This is a general "one time payoff" that one frequently observes in many developing countries.  Volunteer Marek  20:51, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Both USSR, CIA and Khanin's statistics are used in the article, and we're not discussing which one is more correct, we're discussing the fact that he thinks its okay to say one thing is more correct then the other when the academic community are split on the subject.... But it seems we agree with each other Volunteer Marek. --TIAYN (talk) 20:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I also agree that Khanin's estimates are more likely. It should be emphasized in the text too, up to now views skeptical of Khanin's figures have been given prominence. Will make my suggestions next week (I'm hopelessly overburdened with work at the moment). Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 12:19, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I can probably do it (if I do, I will base it on this Harrison, M. (1993) "Soviet Economic Growth since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin" Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1 (1993), pp. 141-167) --TIAYN (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I won't insist on the image, though obviously I think that a graphical presentation of this sort would be more accessible to most readers than a table. It shows the striking difference between the official statistics and other estimates.
 * I also agree with Miacek (and I guess TIAYN too) that Khanin's estimates should be emphasized more. Currently they are mentioned once in the body... sort of, they're in that table. Then there's discussion of these in the footnote. There's a straight up mistake there as well: " Western specialists believe that...". Khanin isn't a "Western specialist". And I'm pretty sure that current contemporary Russian sources don't take the official Soviet numbers seriously either, though they may take the CIA ones.   Volunteer Marek   18:20, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Voluntarism
In this sentence,
 * Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behavior.

I unlinked voluntarism. Wikipedia's voluntarism page is a disambiguation page with four entries: Voluntarism (action), Voluntarism (metaphysics), Voluntaryism, and Volunteering, none of which have any reasonable connection to the complaint against Krushchev. The Russian Wikipedia article on Brezhnev, Брежнев, Леонид Ильич, does not seem to mention voluntarism. There is no Russian Wikipedia article corresponding to Voluntarism (action). There is a Russian Wikipedia article corresponding to Voluntarism (metaphysics): Волюнтаризм, which does not mention Brezhnev or Krushchev and does not seem to have any reasonable connection to the complaint against Krushchev. I found one useful Internet reference to voluntarism in this context: "References from 'Ozhegov' are translated from S.I. Ozhegov, Slovar' Russkogo Yazyka ('Dictionary of the Russian Language'), Russkij Yazyk, Moscow, 1988.... voluntarism: Term used by N.S. Khrushchev's opponents to justify his overthrow in 1964. From Ozhegov (1988) -- '1. Reactionary tendency in idealistic philosophy, ascribing to divine or human will the basic role in the development of nature and society, denying objective reality and necessity. 2. In politics and social life: subjective and arbitrary decisions, ignoring objectively existing conditions and reality.'—"

There is a Wikipedia article on Sergey Ozhegov. I was not able to find Ozhegov's 1988 definition online, but I am illiterate in Russian and I had to rely clumsily on Google Translate.

Recommendation: We could modify this article near the sentence mentioning voluntarism to explain this meaning, quoting from Cunningham's website or an Ozhegov source. Or, we could add a new disambiguation item to voluntarism, e.g. something like
 * Voluntarism (Russian insult), accusing someone of making subjective and arbitrary decisions

create the redlinked page, and link to it in the above sentence in this article. I leave this task for someone more knowledgeable in Russian.

Anomalocaris (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

More popular than Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev says "According to a major Russian pollster, the only eras of the 20th century that Russians evaluate positively are those under Nicholas II, and under Khrushchev.[273] A poll of young Russians found that they felt Nicholas II had done more good than harm, and all other 20th-century Russian leaders more harm than good — except Khrushchev, about whom they were evenly divided.[273]" Polling tends to get a wide variety of numbers, and hence is problematic for the start of the article, so I'd recommend the opening section of this article doesn't mention any polls. The legacy sections of both Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev should mention some of the same polls; assuming the sources are good, neither Legacy section should be as unquestioningly positive as they are and should reflect the more complex nature of the modern Russian public opinion about them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I wrote the K article some five years ago now, and I don't recall the details. Can you obtain a copy of my source on that?  And what contradictions were we speaking of in the note you left at Talk:Nikita Khrushchev?--Wehwalt (talk) 02:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * If you are using different polls that contradict each other, simply include them both in each article. If they were taken at different times or show a difference in opinion, this should be included in both articles. Evaluating people's opinions about things that have happened as far back as 100 years ago (Nicholas II) in a large country like Russia is almost impossible to do accurately. -- Kndimov (talk) 02:12, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Is anyone actually investigating this? I feel like we're not moving forward on the issue. -- Kndimov (talk) 00:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Brezhnev's nationality
Please note that Brezhnev self-identified himself both Ukrainian and Russian. http://nekropole.info/ru/Leonid-Brezhnev Viktor Š 18:27, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You're using a site that uses Russian Wikipedia as it's reference as a reliable source for this? Please note that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. It's known as WP:CIRCULAR. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:51, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Brezhnev's passport says he's Ukrainian - http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/virnyj/15613979/15840/15840_600.jpg 178.65.44.89 (talk) 17:32, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Economics section, comparison of USSR's analysis of NMP with other methodologies, [Note 1] in table
This could be innapropriate for this page, but I would just like to say that the Note mentioned above was, to be frank, quite wonderful; concise, clear, communicative, well-sourced, and overall a credit and a standard to be met in ensuring the fulfillment of the encyplodeic mission of Wikipedia. 80.41.123.229 (talk) 23:06, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

POV
Some parts of this seem rather POV:
 * "Brezhnev's weakness for undeserved medals was proven by his poorly written memoirs..."
 * It mentions his "vanity" twice.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Ugh. I can't access the book cited, but it reads like a tabloid journalist cherry picked a paragraph and came up with a poorly constructed piece of indictment. His 'weakness' for medals and awards is notable, but most definitely not in the current incarnation. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:04, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Galina Brezhneva
This article says: "Galina in her later life became an alcoholic who together with a circus director started a gold-bullion fraud gang in the later years of the Soviet Union". However, the gold bullion fraud is not mentioned in her article. It mentions jewelry smuggling, but says that she was never convicted.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Robert Service seems to be referenced again. Interestingly, very little of the book can be accessed through Google books, and certainly not anything beyond about the page 43 mark. Has anyone actually verified that the content is in his book? From my knowledge, the Perestroika period generated a lot of rumours that were investigated as a matter of course due to backstabbing and denouncing on the level of hysteria... but nothing came of the investigation. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm the author of 99% of this article... Galina Brezhneva was not arrested because high standing Soviet officers (and their children were not arrested. For instance Yuri Andropov had proof that Sharof Rashidov was involved in corruption, but the man was removed from all his posts and received a generous state pension. It wouldn't be good propaganda that the daughter of the Soviet leader was involved in corruption, so the media never mentioned it. --TIAYN (talk) 21:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * But that doesn't explain the inconsistency between that page and this one.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll check the book, but no worries, I also wrote the Galina Brezhneva article. I'll try to update later today (22ish Norwegian time). --TIAYN (talk) 05:19, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Service; "He [Brezhnev] permitted his family to set a grotesque example. His daughter Galina was a promiscuous alcoholic who took up with a circus director running a gold-bullion fraud gang..." Good enough? :) --TIAYN (talk) 20:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems biased and doesn't address the inconsistency. Gold bullion is not jewelry and diamonds.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I echo Jack Upland's concerns about the bullion, and the unencyclopaedic tone of the content. Of course Wikipedia reflects quality sources, and no one expects that he (or his wife) are painted as being anything other than what reliable sources tell us about the Brezhnevs, but colourful language presented as absolute fact is not a neutral tone. At the very least, it requires WP:INTEXT attribution per WP:CLOP. It is only the one source being used for the content, therefore the voice of the author must be attributed or modified considerably. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I've removed the reference because of the discrepancy.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:34, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

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Assassination attempt
I have updated this article with important (and fascinating) info about an assassination attempt at President Brezhnev. It has been reverted twice. I have no time for an edit war, pursuing WP:ANI or drafting a fuller section therein, so I leave it to one of the more experienced editors (Iryna Harpy?) to step in, rescue it and develop it further:


 * On Jan. 22, 1969 there was an unsuccessful attempt at his life. One person was killed and four wounded, but Brezhnev escaped unhurt.

See also the discussion on the other Wikipedian's Talk Page about it for more context: the WP:GA status, etc. My take on this specious argument: imagine a GA WP article about e.g. Reagan NOT mentioning the assassination attempt on his life. Why should Brezhnev be treated differently?

Zezen (talk) 14:02, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Either you develop it yourself, or wait until someone does. That simple . --TIAYN (talk) 14:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm flat out IRL for at least another month, but I'm happy to take a look into it as soon as I have the opportunity. I used to have access to Soviet magazines, journals, etc., and have recollections about the incident from childhood (yeah, I'm gettin' old). I'll dig around and see what I can come up with. There are bound to be Russian language publications available online referring to the incident. Cheers to you both! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy - thank you! We are in no hurry. @The other (reverting) Wikipedian(s), please read WP:NPA and WP:PASSIVE before such further comments.

Off to the (Eastern European) mountains and away from the bytes and archives. Без отдыха и конь не скачет - as Brezhnev used to say ;).

Zezen (talk) 06:24, 4 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it could be entered under "Repression" with the information that the assassin was treated as a mental patient.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Not under Repression, by far. By the same token, e.g. Lee Harvey Oswald was even more 'repressed' - as he was extrajudicially terminated with extreme prejudice ;).

If anything, Brezhnev's assassin was practically pardoned, given the USSR mores and the legal practice of the day. That is what struck me most here.

Привіт з Бескиди to all! Zezen (talk) 13:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy - so, after almost two weeks: shall you or shall I? Very busy now again, but can (re)take a dig at it. Zezen (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * No need to "develop" this or "dig up" anything – there's already the Attempted assassination of Leonid Brezhnev. SteveStrummer (talk) 19:34, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I hadn't even gotten around to checking Wikipedia! As there's no mention of it in the body of the article, I've temporarily added a 'See also' section with the relevant wikilink. Ultimately, a very brief summary with a hatnote to the main article could be introduced as a section, but I think it's best to try to work it into the existing content. Perhaps could find an appropriate section but, it could be difficult as there isn't any RS information as to the motivation. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * How strange! It's difficult to insert here because the chronological narrative in this article ceases when he becomes leader.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I perused the article and thought the same. Given that it's been broken up into economics and international relations, there's nowhere to broach the subject without the motive as it would end up implying a motive. Technically speaking, the only other way would be to work the content into the lead without it looking UNDUE (in lay terms, 'sticking out like a sore thumb'). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 19:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There shouldn't be anything in the lead that isn't in the body... Short of reworking the article, I wonder if "Repression" could be changed to a neutral heading so that issues like this could be included...--Jack Upland (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Dear SteveStrummer - thank you so much for advising us of Attempted assassination of Leonid Brezhnev. Procrastination is useful sometimes ;), as otherwise we'd have engaged in an edit war here if I was to gradually develop this section on my own. I wonder how Leonid Brezhnev had gained its GA status without mentioning it or at least linking it at all.Zezen (talk) 06:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Look, GA status doesn't mean much. Brezhnev is accused here of awarding himself medals, but this is Wikipedia's crazed obsession. The GA process is entirely internally focussed and self-referential. There is no examination of external evidence. Is the moon really made of green cheese? "Bite it and see" is original research. There are reliable sources which mention this, so this is a GA because I couldn't find any grammatical errors. I have written a couple of articles, none of which are GA. If someone nominated them as GA, they would feel the point of my poisoned umbrella.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Dear Jack Upland, your mockery of OR made me laugh. I note that you said you wrote a couple of articles. Oh no!  You put things together?  SYNTH!!!   Boscaswell   talk  09:51, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

The number of political and religious prisoners in the 1970s
In the Repression section, it says "By the mid-1970s, there were an estimated 1,000 [35] to 10,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union"  Really? The maximum number in the gulag at that time was only 10,000? This is hard to believe. NB. the citation for 1,000 is dead. Boscaswell  talk  09:43, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The Gulag was dissolved on 25 January 1960. This was not the end of forced labor camps, but it is historically inaccurate to talk about the Gulag in the 1970s. It would also be incorrect to use total imprisoned population of the Gulag as political and religious prisoners anyway, since prisoners included petty criminals. I have removed the 1,000 estimate, since the link is not archived and looks dubious anyway. In any case, if there is any reliable source pointing to different numbers, we can review it. --MarioGom (talk) 10:43, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing out my error,  Is there any RS at all about any numbers of those imprisoned for political and religious reasons in the 70s?  Does the 10,000 estimate come from Robert Service’s book?  The citation at the end of the para. is some distance away from the mention of 10,000.  Thanks again.   Boscaswell   talk  10:50, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Good point. I've just checked Service's book, the exact wording is By the mid-1970s there were reckoned to be about 10,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union. Best, --MarioGom (talk) 10:59, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I getcha. Thanks. Boscaswell   talk  11:59, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Is that prisoners who are religious and prisoners who have political opinions?--Jack Upland (talk) 19:55, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * My question is how do you define political and religious prisoners?--Jack Upland (talk) 01:19, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * wiki defines it the way the reliable sources do. for this click to read pp 381-82 of Rjensen (talk) 01:26, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't see how that answers the question.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:47, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert Service pp 380-82 states that Khrushchev had allowed small discussion groups but by 1965 the Presidium was cracking down. It added new crimes to the criminal code so that dissenters could be quickly "branded as common criminals, parasites or even traitors." Even the most famous of them such as Sakharov had their comforts withdrawn. Starting in 1968, according to Service page 382, the dissidents began organizing, including underground political and religious (Christian and Jewish) discussion groups. "By the mid-1970s there were reckoned to be about 10,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union. They were held in grievous conditions"--not just prison camps--[Service uses the word Gulag on page 381 to refer to 1965] but also punitive psychiatry. Service writes: "medicine became an arm of coercive state control as doctors were instructed to expect an influx of cases of paranoiac schizophrenia... And many persistent dissenters were confined for years in mental asylums. Meanwhile the KGB maintain a vast network of informants and agents provocateurs. No group operated for long without being infiltrated by them, and the security police also tried to demoralize camp inmates into repenting their past. Yet Brezhnev and his colleagues refrained from all-out violent suppression." So as I read Service, the 10,000 were members of organized opposition discussion groups that had been infiltrated and identified by the secret police. there are two copies of the service book online that can be borrowed free by clicking here Rjensen (talk) 02:02, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * But that doesn't define "political prisoner" or "religious prisoner". If there is discrepancy in the numbers, this could be partly due to different definitions.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * yes that is how historians define "political prisoner" or "religious prisoner". -- it shows how the regime defined arrested and imprisoned them. Rjensen (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

"Rapidly growing technological gaps with the West"
This is repeated twice in the lead as a characteristic of the Brezhnev era. This is really a misstatement. It implies that the USSR had previously been closer to the West, which is false. According to the text problems developed from 1973, which is towards the end of the Brezhnev era, and I don't see the "rapidly growing technological gaps" mentioned in the text and cited. It is hard to say that in space technology or in military technology, the USSR was rapidly falling behind.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * the consensus favors the text. They were OK with airplanes, guns, tanks and esp rockets 1950s style. But late 1960s brought in computers which dramatically changed industry--and planning--esp weaponry design --& the Soviets failed to master it--to this day they have a hard time building chips. See   For more analysis see  Rjensen (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the wording is wrong.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:24, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * 1977 CPA 4774(Cutted).jpg

"Legitimized ... hegemony"?
What exactly is meant in the lead of this article by "legitimised his country's hegemony over Eastern Europe". Legitimized?! The undemocratic and brutal dictatorship was democratic? Just asking. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 12:14, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposed new infobox image
I propose replacing the current infobox image with this higher quality portrait. Thoughts? Excommunicato (talk) 00:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Plagiarism of the Robert Service source
Many sections of the article which cite the Robert Service book A History of Modern Russia don't glean information from that book so much as they copy it outright, word for word. This is problematic because the Service source was published under a WP:COPYRIGHT.

I understand that the entire text from the Service source is available online. This might account for the large use of that source here in the article. However, the text being available online does not mean that Service's book is in the public domain and can be used here w/o proper WP:PARAPHRASING.

I've listed the problematic sections of text in the table below, showing what the text from the article says compared to the text from the Service source. I'd very much like to hear feedback from local editors about these sections.

If there are no dissenting opinions or discussion, it's my intention to remove these 17 sections of text from the Brezhnev Wikipedia article after 14 days. Spintendo 09:03, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * This needs more discussion. The Wikipedia plagiarism rule is "Do not make the work of others look like your own. Give credit where it is due." from Plagiarism. Every statement is footnoted to the Service book. Every sentence was rephrased so that the phrasing is (somewhat) new and not "word for word". What is involved is a chronological listing of very well known facts included in many different books on USSR. Facts are not copyrightable--and Spintendo shows (notes c-d-e-f) that Service got the facts from other sources. He did not discover any himself.  The solution may be to insert several times "According to Service" or "Service uses Russian scholarship to argue that" --thus making sure that Service gets the credit. The goal here is to follow this Wikipedia INTEXT guideline: " You can avoid inadvertent plagiarism by remembering these rules of thumb: INCITE: Cite a source in the form of an inline citation after the sentence or paragraph in question. INTEXT: Add in-text attribution when you copy or closely paraphrase another author's words or flow of thought, unless the material lacks creativity or originates from a free source. INTEGRITY: Maintain text–source integrity: place your inline citations so that it is clear which source supports which point, or use citation bundling and explain in the footnote."  from Plagiarism Rjensen (talk) 22:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your feedback, it's much appreciated. I found two instances in the article where Service is given intext attribution, and both of those examples I excluded from the table below. Everything else shown are non-intext-attributions.


 * It's unfortunate that so much of the content was placed in the article with hardly any paraphrasing, because I agree with you that it appears to be valuable information, for the most part.


 * Intext attribution is a perfect solution, but there is a hefty amount of information here. That would be seventeen sections of text below, minus the five we can attribute to other authors (shown in notes c,d,e,f) plus two in-text attributions to Service already in the article (17 - 5) + 2 = 14.


 * Fourteen instances of "According to Service...", "According to Service....", "According to Service....." is not a good look for the article, so maybe we should practice an economy of Service, so to speak, by choosing the most important info while trimming the excess? What do you think? Thanks! Spintendo  23:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * According to Wiki Guidelines According to Wiki Guidelines According to Wiki Guidelines  According to Wiki Guidelines  --youre right about repetition. The solution is to use the paragraph as the basic unit, with "According to Service..." to start off and at the end of the para have a footnote saying "info in this paragraph is closely paraphrased from Service page xxx." That seems to me to meet the spirit of INTEXT. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect! How many paragraphs could we do this for? As a guide, roughly every section below is about a paragraph in length. There were two instances where I split the paragraph for the table's sake, leaving us with about 10 paragraphs, which seems excessive.  Spintendo  00:24, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Well there are two issues: 1) rhetorical style (excessive repetition of "according to...") and 2) Wikipedia rules or guidelines. In this case the second factor seems compelling to me. Rjensen (talk) 04:38, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Then we're in agreement here. Those sections which use WP:CLOP without WP:INTEXT are problematic, compelling editor intervention in order to follow WP rules and guidelines. In the absence of any specific suggestions, I'll make changes to the Service text so that whatever sections remain follow the intext guidelines.  Spintendo  06:45, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Personality traits and family
For instance, when Moscow City Party Secretary Nikolay Yegorychev refused to sing his praises, he was shunned, forced out of local politics and given only an obscure ambassadorship. - "sing bis praises" is surely meant metaphorically, but what does it actually refer to? When and how did Yegorychev not hail Brezhnev in the way he wanted him to? Does this refer to a single event or to a general stance Yegorychev took on the cult of personality? And which ambassadorship was he given? Even the most "obscure" countries have a name. 194.29.99.50 (talk) 07:41, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * This is a problematic passage. It's not very encyclopedic. I think it probably should be removed.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:29, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't his profession be listed as politician?
It seems very odd to have a politicians profession listed as engineer. 2A02:C7C:9B36:7D00:7054:6577:3AB3:76 (talk) 06:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)