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Brezhnev was called "mediocre", but he was able to run the Soviet Union for 18 years, for a surprising reason.
In the Soviet Union, there was a leader who had a similar hobby to the "seal madman" Qianlong, and he was the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. This person is an avid collector of medals and also likes to give them to people.
Sometimes he watched TV at home, and if he saw an actor he liked, he would ask someone to bring him in, and he would personally award him a medal.
But such a strange and willful leader has been in power in the Soviet Union for 18 years.
So, how did Brezhnev become the leader of the Soviet Union in the first place?
When Brezhnev was born, he was still ruled by the Tsar, but a year before he was born, revolutionary movements were taking place in various parts of Russia.
By the time Brezhnev was in his early tens, the "October Revolution" broke out, so he was also one of the first young people to "grow up under the red flag."
After the outbreak of the revolution, he also actively responded to the call of the revolution, joined the Communist Youth League at the age of 17, and became a member of the Communist Party at the age of 22.
In 1935, at the age of 29, he obtained his certificate as a thermal engineer, which led to his entry into the army. Later, he also managed to climb to the position of political commissar of the tank factory.
Later, Brezhnev took advantage of the internal contradictions of the Soviet Union to become the secretary of the municipal party committee and in charge of the city's important military industry.
Later, after the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he was in charge of political commissar work in the army.
During the war, Brezhnev performed very well, and was awarded several medals, promoted to major general in just a few years, and after his retirement, he also held the position of head of the political department of the army group in the local area, and gradually became more and more known.
At that time, he was very much appreciated by Khrushchev, and later he met Stalin with Khrushchev's help, which also laid the groundwork for his later success.
In 1957, at the age of 31, he became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU, and his immediate boss at that time was Khrushchev.
After Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev also followed him closely, and he was a Khrushchev's younger brother.
Khrushchev also regarded him as his confidant and promoted him very much. In this way, Brezhnev managed to enter the center of Soviet power.
But even if he became the first secretary, he did not achieve much, and for other leaders, Brezhnev is estimated to be the least threatening one.
And internationally, Brezhnev is also notoriously mediocre, not only the *** comrades of our country, but also the North Korean leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, has the same opinion.
But it is precisely because of the impression left by Brezhnev in the eyes of everyone that he became the biggest beneficiary in the subsequent political changes.
When Khrushchev first came to power, the CPSU was still very supportive of him, but later he carried out a series of reforms, which not only made the domestic economy very bad, but more importantly, his political reforms directly touched the interests of the bureaucratic class.
At that time, the Politburo of the CPSU was also panicked because of Khrushchev's reformers, and finally one day, they could not bear it anymore and launched a coup d'état.
In 1964, many leaders of the Soviet Union elected Leonid Brezhnev as the new leader.
This meant that Khrushchev's rule in the USSR came to an end.
But Brezhnev's incompetence was so deeply rooted that after the coup d'état, many people felt that he was nothing more than a puppet to be manipulated.
But was Brezhnev really as incompetent as he appeared? If he was really so incompetent, how did he run the USSR for 18 years?
In 1964, a "palace coup" took place in the Soviet Union, and Brezhnev succeeded in ascending to the throne.
The pattern of the Soviet Union's inner political circle was thus changed. So, why did Brezhnev, as Khrushchev's confidant, participate in this coup?
After Brezhnev came to power, he changed Khrushchev's policy, which also won him the support of the bureaucracy.
But soon his own shortcomings were also exposed, and his ability to govern was mediocre and incompetent.
However, thanks to his previous experience, he is very good at interpersonal communication and good at relationships, so he later started the "Dnipro Brotherhood" in **.
In the beginning, Brezhnev was just a "puppet" on the table.
After all, everyone tacitly acknowledged that the main promoters of this coup d'état were Suslov and Sherepin, and although these two bigwigs had no objection to Brezhnev's coming to power on the surface, there were a lot of open and secret battles behind the scenes.
However, in order to maintain a semblance of calm, these two people cannot monopolize power.
In the face of this situation, Brezhnev also behaved very cautiously, always behaved very modestly when deciding on state affairs, said that he could not do anything in every act, and never made a rash decision without the approval of other comrades.
It must be said that Brezhnev was very shrewd, and his performance made people see his attitude, and the other leaders of the Soviet Union were more at ease with him.
Although he was nominally the supreme leader at that time, in fact the Soviet power at that time was divided into three parts.
First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Kosygin, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Podgorny, were listed as party leaders.
If Brezhnev wants to consolidate his power, he must first fight his own competitors.
For Brezhnev at that time, Sherepin was his biggest concern.
Because Sherepin was not only younger than him, but at that time Sherepin was in charge of the KGB of the Soviet Union, the former was the intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, and the latter belonged to the internal armed forces of the Soviet Union.
The side of the couch does not allow others to snore, the power in Serepin's hands is too great, and for Brezhnev, who came to power after a coup d'état, the existence of Sherepin is like hanging a knife over his head.
If Sherepin wanted to, he would be able to place himself in another coup d'état.
In order to eliminate the hidden danger, Brezhnev's first step was to join forces with Suslov to squeeze out Shelepin.
At the beginning, he did not take Sherepin first, but took a roundabout front to cut off his right-hand man, the chairman of the KGB at that time was Semychas, and Semychas was a close confidant of Sherepin, and Brezhnev made an excuse and transferred him to Ukraine.
After that, many of Sherepin's cronies were sent to various places, and slowly, Sherepin's henchmen were eliminated little by little.
At the plenum of December 16, 1965, Brezhnev dismissed Shelepin, which was unanimously supported by his comrades.
As a result, Sherepin was reduced to an ordinary cadre of the CPSU and was completely excluded from the center of power.
Although Sherepin was brought down, Brezhnev's pace of seizing power did not stop, because he wanted absolute power.
Brezhnev believed that if the power was not in his own hands, then he would definitely suffer a big loss at the critical moment.
Therefore, at the congress where Selepin was deposed, Brezhnev also reorganized the **Presidium into the **Politburo* of the Stalin period.
He himself was promoted from "first secretary" to "general secretary", and this was a big step forward for Brezhnev on the road to centralization.
But even so, Brezhnev was not satisfied, if he wanted to completely control the Soviet Union, he would have to start with Kosygin and Podgorny, the first to bear the brunt of it.
Podgorny was born in Ukraine, and he also climbed up step by step from the workers. But compared to Brezhnev, he entered the ** much later.
In 1960, Brezhnev was already in a key position in the capital, but he had just become a member of the Presidium of the CPSU.
Although his personal means were not bad, in the end he was difficult to defeat Brezhnev and was excluded from the CPSU**.
Having dealt with him, Brezhnev took aim at Kosygin.
Compared with the previous two, Kosygin actually had no political ambitions, so when the "palace coup" occurred, he was not the main mastermind, and he did not learn about it until the eve of the coup.
However, Kosygin entered politics very early, when the Soviet leader was still Stalin, Kosygin was active in the political arena and belonged to the kind of old minister who sat firmly in the Diaoyutai platform.
When Brezhnev first came to power, he also valued Kosygin, but after the "Prague Spring" in 1968, Brezhnev changed his attitude.
Kosygin had long been in charge of the economy, and at that time he was also committed to reforming the economic model of the Stalin period, and Brezhnev initially agreed with Kosygin.
After all, Brezhnev was aware of the drawbacks of the "Stalin model", but after the failure of the reforms in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev realized the dangers of reforms.
At that time, Brezhnev directly used force to suppress the "Prague Spring", and when he returned to China, he aimed the spearhead at Kosygin.
Brezhnev also placed a lot of people around Kosygin, and whenever Kosygin wanted to implement the reform policy, he could not continue.
Later, Brezhnev's targeting of Kosygin was even more blatant, openly criticizing Kosygin's economic reform policies at the congress.
Subsequently, he took the opportunity to unite with other cadres and robbed Prime Minister Kosygin of his job, so Kosygin was also completely hollowed out.
The "Big Three" in the early days of his rule were gone, and Brezhnev truly achieved his goal of monopolizing power.
However, he was still not satisfied.
Brezhnev was undoubtedly a special Soviet leader, and his speciality was his mediocrity.
It was such a leader who was considered mediocre internationally, who overthrew other powerful figures in the top of the Soviet Union, and sat in the position of supreme leader for 18 years.
But during Brezhnev's 18 years in power, the Soviet Union did not develop much in all aspects except the military, which is why some people will say that the Soviet Union died at the hands of Brezhnev.
But is that really the case?
Brezhnev defeated his political enemies and achieved a real monopoly on power.
But Brezhnev knew that in order to govern, it was not enough for him to have power, he also had to hold the military power firmly in his hands.
When the "Prague Spring" occurred before, Brezhnev suffered a loss because he had no military power.
He wanted to suppress it by force, but when he was about to send troops, there were many people in the military who opposed him. At this time, Brezhnev realized that it was inconvenient for him to do whatever he wanted without military power.
After the incident, in order to control the military power, Brezhnev vigorously excluded dissidents and constantly replaced the senior leadership of the army with his own cronies.
During this period, in order to buy people's hearts, Brezhnev once ignored the Politburo and directly postponed the ** plenum in order to participate in military exercises.
This is not the end, he is also well versed in the power of ***, and he is engaged in ***
Moreover, Brezhnev also expressed his high recognition of others by awarding medals, and those who were awarded medals naturally felt very honored, and regarded Brezhnev more and more as the leader in their minds.
Brezhnev's "efforts" were not in vain in the end, and he did not only recover military power, but even received the rank of marshal in the army, which was rare in the entire history of the Soviet Union.
At this point, the party, government, and military power of the Soviet Union was all in the hands of Brezhnev, and the leader who was once regarded as a "puppet" really took the Soviet Union into his own hands.
Of course, in addition to these political and military means, Brezhnev also won over the Soviet people through a number of measures in the early days of his rule.
Otherwise, he would not have been able to hold power in the Soviet Union for 18 years, as a leader of mediocre abilities and a penchant for small groups.
I don't know if Brezhnev was lucky or bad, at the beginning of his administration, the world oil crisis broke out.
This made the price of oil rise in the world crazy, the Soviet Union had a lot of oil at that time, and after exporting its own country's oil to the United States, the Soviet Union did make a lot of money.
As soon as the country had money, Brezhnev began to send money to the people below, and this operation undoubtedly won him the hearts of the people.
Outwardly, the economy of the USSR was indeed active at that time, but in fact, the fundamental problems of the Soviet economy had not yet been solved.
The Soviet Union had a strong heavy industry at that time, but the development of their agriculture and light industry almost came to a standstill.
However, the Soviet Union did not realize this problem, but relied on the money from the sale of oil to solve all this problem, that is, all the food they ate in the country was exchanged for oil.
Anyone with a discerning eye knew that this would not work, but the Soviet Union at that time did not take measures to change this situation.
Not to mention that the United States at that time was also particularly active, exchanging grain and consumer goods for Soviet oil.
In the 70s of the last century, the Soviet Union gained the upper hand in the Cold War because of its vigorous export of oil, and even overtook the United States for a time, which undoubtedly made Brezhnev more popular with the people.
At this point, Brezhnev can be said to be a proper winner, after all, he not only holds power but also earns prestige.
But in the final analysis, Brezhnev is indeed mediocre, he may be very good at conspiracies and struggles, but he is really incapable of governing the country.
Therefore, it was during his administration that Kosygin's economic reform policies were hindered, and it was precisely because of this that the Soviet Union was later subject to the United States, and the domestic economy eventually collapsed, until finally dissolved.
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