The Era of Stagnation (, or ) is a term used to describe the economic, political, and social era in the history of the Soviet Union that began during the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982) and continued under Yuri Andropov (1982–1984) and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–1985). It is sometimes called the "Brezhnevian Stagnation" in English. The term was coined by Mikhail Gorbachev to describe the economic difficulties that developed during Brezhnev's rule.
Terminology During the period of Brezhnev's leadership, the term "Era of Stagnation" was not used. Instead, in Soviet ideology, the term "period of developed socialism" () was used for the period that started in 1967. This Soviet concept was officially declared at the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1971. It stemmed from the failure of Khrushchev's promise in 1961 of reaching communism in 20 years and was a replacement for the concept "period of the extensive construction of communism" (). It was in the 1980s that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev coined the term "Era of Stagnation" to describe the economic difficulties that developed when Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. After becoming leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev would characterize the economy under Brezhnev's leadership as "the lowest stage of socialism". Scholars have subsequently disagreed on the dates, the significance, and the causes of the stagnation. Supporters of Gorbachev have criticized Brezhnev himself and the Brezhnev administration in general for being too conservative and failing to change with the times.
History
After the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, a program of policy change was begun, later known as de-Stalinization. Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Stalin's brief successor Georgy Malenkov as Soviet leader, introduced relatively liberal reforms during the period known as the Khrushchev Thaw. This period also brought an economic increase that topped at 6%. The Manege Affair of 1962, during which Khrushchev publicly criticized an exhibition of Soviet art, led to the reassertion of Communist Party control over the arts and marked the beginning of the end of the Cultural Thaw.
Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as Soviet leader in 1964. The Brezhnev Era (1964–1982) began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but gradually significant problems in social, political, and economic areas accumulated. Social stagnation began following Brezhnev's rise to power, when he revoked several of Khrushchev's reforms and partially rehabilitated some Stalinist policies, such as centralized control, suppression of dissent, and economic centralization. Some commentators regard the start of social stagnation as being the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1966, in which two writers were convicted of anti-Soviet agitation and which marked the end of the Khrushchev Thaw. Others place it at the time of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that suppressed the Prague Spring. The period's political stagnation is associated with the establishment of gerontocracy, which came into being as part of the policy of stability.
The majority of scholars set the starting year for economic stagnation at 1975, although some claim that it began as early as the 1960s. Industrial growth rates declined during the 1970s as heavy industry and the arms industry were prioritized while Soviet consumer goods were neglected. The value of all consumer goods manufactured in 1972 in retail prices was about 118 billion roubles. Historians, scholars, and specialists are uncertain what caused the stagnation, with some arguing that the command economy suffered from systemic flaws that inhibited growth. Others have argued that the lack of reforms or the high expenditures on the military led to stagnation.
The stagnation of the Soviet economy was fueled even further by the Soviet Union's ever-widening technological gap with the West. Due to the cumbersome procedures of the centralized planning system, Soviet industries were incapable of the innovation needed to meet public demand. This was especially notable in the field of computers. In response to the lack of uniform standards for peripherals and digital capacity in the Soviet computer industry, Brezhnev's regime ordered an end to all independent computer development and required all future models to be based on the IBM/360. However, following the adoption of the IBM/360 system, the Soviet Union was never able to build enough platforms, let alone improve on its design.James W. Cortada, "Public Policies and the Development of National Computer Industries in Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, 1940—80." Journal of Contemporary History (2009) 44#3 pp: 493–512, especially page 509-10.Frank Cain, "Computers and the Cold War: United States restrictions on the export of computers to the Soviet Union and Communist China." Journal of Contemporary History (2005) 40#1 pp: 131–147. in JSTOR As its technology continued to fall behind the West, the Soviet Union increasingly resorted to pirating Western designs.
Brezhnev has been criticized posthumously for doing too little to improve the economic situation. Throughout his leadership, no major reforms were initiated and the few proposed reforms were either very modest or opposed by the majority of the Soviet leadership. The reform-minded Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Government), Alexei Kosygin, introduced two modest reforms in the 1970s after the failure of his more radical 1965 reform and attempted to reverse the trend of declining growth. By the 1970s, Brezhnev had consolidated enough power to stop any "radical" reform-minded attempts by Kosygin.
The last significant reform undertaken by the Kosygin government, and some believe in the pre-perestroika era, was a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers named "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", more commonly known as the 1979 reform. The reform, in contrast to the 1965 reform, sought to increase the central government's economic involvement by enhancing the duties and responsibilities of the ministries. With Kosygin's death in 1980, and due to his successor Nikolai Tikhonov's conservative approach to economics, very little of the reform was actually carried out.
After the death of Brezhnev in November 1982, Yuri Andropov succeeded him as Soviet leader. Brezhnev's legacy was a Soviet Union that was much less dynamic than it had been when he assumed power in 1964. During Andropov's short leadership, modest reforms were introduced; he died little more than a year later in February 1984. Konstantin Chernenko, his successor, continued many of Andropov's policies. The economic problems that began under Brezhnev persisted into these short-lived administrations, and scholars still debate whether the reform policies that were followed improved the economic situation in the country.
The Era of Stagnation ended with Gorbachev's rise to power, during which political and social life was democratized even though the economy was still stagnating. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party began efforts to accelerate economic development in 1985 through massive injections of finance into heavy industry (Uskoreniye). When these failed, the Communist Party restructured (perestroika) the Soviet economy and government by introducing quasi-capitalist (Khozraschyot) and democratic (demokratizatsiya) reforms. These were intended to re-energize the Soviet Union but inadvertently led to its dissolution in 1991.
Economy
Analysis Robert Service, author of the History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century, claims that with mounting economic problems worker discipline decreased, which the government could not counter effectively because of the full employment policy. According to Service, this policy led to government industries, such as factories, mines and offices, being staffed by undisciplined and unproductive personnel ultimately leading to a "work-shy workforce" among Soviet workers and administrators. While the Soviet Union under Brezhnev had the "second greatest industrial capacity" after the United States, and produced more "steel, oil, pig-iron, cement and ... tractors" than any other country in the world, Service treats the problems of agriculture during the Brezhnev era as proof of the need for de-collectivization. In short, Service considers the Soviet economy to have become "static" during this time period, and Brezhnev's policy of stability was a "recipe for political disaster".
Richard Sakwa, author of the book The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union: 1917–1991, takes a dimmer view of the Brezhnev era by claiming that growth rates fell "inexorably" from the 1950s until they stopped completely in the 1980s. His reasoning for this stagnation was the growing demand for unskilled workers resulted in a decline of productivity and labour discipline. Sakwa believes that stability itself led to stagnation and claimed that without strong leadership "Soviet socialism had a tendency to relapse into stagnation."
According to Edwin Bacon and Mark Sandle, authors of Brezhnev Reconsidered, the economy under Brezhnev was as dynamic as the economy presided over by Nikita Khrushchev, but this dynamism had stalled by the time Yuri Andropov, and subsequently Konstantin Chernenko, became General Secretary. Mark Harrison claims that the economic performance of the Brezhnev era has not been looked at objectively as analysis of the period sometimes used lower estimates. Harrison further claims that in the period between 1928 and 1973 the Soviet economy grew in a phase that would surpass the United States "one day". During the international oil crisis, growth in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc halted abruptly and stalled for a longer period than in the West causing the economy to begin stagnating. One explanation, according to Harrison, is that the Soviet economy could not sustain its extensive growth patterns. Other explanations include: the lack of Soviet, and communist bloc, transparency with other nations hindering globalisation and misinterpretation of a "permanent" post–World War II economic boom leading to faulty economic decisions. He claims that the economic policies of Andropov, and Chernenko, had improved the economic situation in the country and Mikhail Gorbachev inherited a more dynamic and vibrant economy in a "pre-crisis situation" where the economy was still growing with low internal and external debts, compared to the economy that Andropov and Chernenko inherited.
Archie Brown, author of The Rise and Fall of Communism, claims in his book that the term Era of Stagnation "was in many ways a fitting description, for this was a period of declining growth", but noted it could be misleading in non-economic spheres. Brown states there were high growth rates in the mid-to-late 1960s (during the Eighth Five-Year Plan) claiming that the Soviet economy "enjoyed stronger growth in the second half of the 1960s than it ever did thereafter". The link between these growth rates and the Kosygin reform is, according to Brown, "tenuous", but says that "From the point of view of communist leaders, the Brezhnev era was in many ways successful". The Soviet Union's natural resources provided a strong economic foundation, which bore fruit during the 1973 oil crisis and "turned out to be an energy bonanza". On the other hand, Brown states it was a sign of weakness that the Soviet Union grew so dependent on its natural resources, as it did in the 1970s.