Talk:Leonid Brezhnev

"Most powerful country in the world"

Nowhere else on Wikipedia is such a claim about the USSR made or substantiated. If such a claim is not made authoritatively on the USSR page, it is surely not appropriate here.

The most that can be said is that certain histories make such claims, maybe. Moreover, this biography of Brezhnev is not the venue to have this debate. The status of the USSR's "powerfulness" (which WP almost certainly shouldn't be making authoritative claims about at all, as any claim will be highly debated by tons of valid sources) is something that absolutely requires consensus, and should not be decided in a low traffic article about a single soviet leader.

Nickelpro (talk) 06:45, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

You don't get to remove reliably sourced content based on your likeness. See WP:JDL.

Also see WP:OSE. It is not necessary for this content to be posted elsehwere before getting any entry here.

The information about being the most powerful country at one time is using reliable sources. Nobody disputes this fact. You have already seen the sources and they verify the information. Rivals like Anwar Sadat had also noted that "Russia has now become the world's strongest military power. It is more advanced than the United States in strategic weapons."[1] You can now read these sources to understand how the USSR under Brezhnev got there:

• Mason, M. (2018). Turbulent Empires: A History of Global Capitalism since 1945. McGill–Queen's University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-7735-5436-8. It was in the Brezhnev era that Soviet Union stood out, at great expense to the development of other aspects of its economy as a military superpower. Under him, the military budget increased eightfold and consumed about 15 per cent of the total.
• Mona Charen (2018). Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62157-914-4. the Soviets achieved parity and then went further, striving for superiority. The US permitted this to happen, believing that through a balance of terror, peace would be maintained. In the decade of 1960s, the Soviets deployed five new ICBMs, one new SLBM and four new models of ballistic missle submarine. Though America's overwhelming nuclear superiority had been key to peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, by 1972, it had been erased. The Soviets had 1,510 ICBMs in 1972 - five hundred more than the United States.
• Roberts, P. (2016). The Power of Culture: Encounters between China and the United States. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-8782-3. In terms of conventional forces, the Soviet Union clearly surpassed the United States. According to each major index of conventional capabilities by 1980 the Soviet Union enjoyed superiority in both quality and quantity. The United States, for example, had 2 million troops, compared to 3.7 million troops for the United Sates. The Soviets had almost five times as many tanks as the Americans did, and seven times as many tactical aircraft as the Americans.

You can add this information on other articles but your claim that this information is "unsubstantiated" or it should be removed because it is not on some other article is not making any sense. Capitals00 (talk) 13:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a deletion discussion and isn't about personal opinions, WP:OSE and WP:JDL are irrelevant.

None of those sources outright support your claim, they suggest elements that may support your claim, but none of them demonstrate a consensus that the USSR was unequivocally considered "more powerful" than the US either by said historians or by US officials.

Moreover, the claim is facially ridiculous and obviously violates WP:NPOV.

A more factual, less subjective, claim would be better suited, "Under Brezhnec the Soviet Union's military budget increased eightfold, supporting the largest arsenal of ICBMs and conventional forces then assembled" or something to that effect. That is directly supported by your sources

If you insist on sticking to the subjective claim I recommend we WP:3O this.

Nickelpro (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

There are two sources on the article with one source clearly saying: "Leonid Brezhnev was the builder of militarily the most powerful country of the world that USSR is today - a fact that even its adversary, the United States of America acknowledges."[2]

The sources I have provided above simply tells how USSR became the "military superpower" and that how it militarily surpassed the United States. I provided them because you were disputing this information as some kind of disinformation. All of these sources are from historians and experts. Now if you really want to hear from the "US officials" then should this book from Marshall Brement should be enough for you. He notes: "By 1975, the cumulative effect of Soviet gains and US weakening lead many Western observers to argue that the Soviet Union had actually surpassed the United States as the world's strongest military power."[3] Capitals00 (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

See the wording Brememnt uses, "Western observers argue". The same wording should be used here. So again, something to the effect of:

"Under Brezhnev the Soviet Union's military budget increased eightfold, supporting the largest arsenal of ICBMs and conventional forces then assembled. This build up led some observers – including Western ones – to argue that by the mid 1970s the USSR had surpassed the United States as the world's strongest military power."

This avoids stating opinions as facts and provides context to the statement of "most powerful".

Nickelpro (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

More appropriate wording as per the above sources: "Under Brezhnev the Soviet Union's military budget increased eightfold, resulting in the possession of the largest number of ICBMs, nuclear warheads, aircrafts, tanks, conventional forces and more military assets. This build up led numerous observers – including Western ones – to argue that by the mid 1970s the USSR had surpassed the United States as the world's strongest military power."

That's for the paragraph in the section. What about the lead? "and by the 1970s he made Soviet Union the most powerful country" is the current sentence which can be changed to "and by the 1970s, numerous observers argued the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States to become the world's strongest military power." Capitals00 (talk) 18:05, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Military power and military endeavours

Capitals00 This discussion thread hardly sounds like proof of consensus in support of your position. I revised the article in accordance with Nickelpro's recommendation. You should content yourself with this or obtain an appropriate consensus via Rfc.Emiya1980 (talk) 04:25, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

You haven't revised anything according to this discussion but only restored your entirely unhelpful edits. You are not even reading the edit summaries made in response to your edits.

You were already told not to add tags on lead because this article's lead is rid of sources but you did it again. Why don't you just read this section where sources have been provided?

Your rampant falsification that all military endeavours of Brezhnev caused decline in economy since he was alive cannot be retained. You are doing it against the long-standing wording which holds that it was only the Soviet-Afghan war that happened to be costly and that too after Brezhnev died.

Nobody is going to open RfC only because you reject the reliably sourced content. Capitals00 (talk) 04:57, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Anybody else want to try reasoning with this guy? (See Brezhnev article's revision history for reference). @Nickelpro, Rjensen, and Ponsonby100:Emiya1980 (talk) 05:20, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

You are required to take responsibility of your own edits instead of demanding others to advocate your problematic edits. Capitals00 (talk) 05:37, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

You've already made clear there is nothing I can say to make you compromise your position whatsoever even though I myself have tried to accommodate you. Only soliciting the opinions of third parties can resolve this impasse.Emiya1980 (talk) 05:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

You haven't made any argument for supporting your edits in the first place. Why do you have to canvass others on your 2nd edit to this discussion? It is clearly because you are yourself unsure about your edits. Capitals00 (talk) 05:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

From the opening of WP:CAN, notification in order to achieve wider consensus is perfectly acceptable.

You have a very sympathetic view towards the article subject and the USSR, and have achieved zero consensus that such a view should be presented in Wikipedia's voice.

But I'm a small-time WP:GNOME, and zero interest in the vitriol of this argument. I support the style of presentation we hashed out above: present claims about subjective judgments on Brezhnev's tenure in the voice of the sources making those claims, not in Wikipedia's voice. Any process beyond talk page is beyond me though, so if that compromise is unacceptable, it's on others to escalate.

Nickelpro (talk) 14:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

• Speaking as an outsider, and an admin that noticed what looks like an edit war, I would say to Capitals00 that you already have a compromise above that is supported by the sources (according to all of you), ie: the "...including Western ones – to argue that by the mid 1970s the USSR had surpassed the United States...". You can start an RFC is you feel it should be an absolute statement, paraphrasing, "the USSR surpassed" in Wikipedia's voice, but the odds are very much against you getting such an absolute statement in Wikipedia's voice, since there isn't a consensus in the sources that it is an absolute truth. It is also very likely impossible to prove anyway, so the claims are compelling, but they aren't definitive, so worth mentioning in their own voice, not Wikipedia's. Regardless, the edit warring needs to stop. I could be wrong, it seems that Capital00 is the one that wants the changes from the status quo (and a read of the discussion says there is definitely not a consensus for his ideas at this time), so just reading a page off of WP:BRD, the burden is on the one wanting the change from the status quo, to first build that consensus before reinserting the contentious changes. Call it an unofficial 3rd opinion, outsider opinion, or just an admin who is concerned he will have to full protect and start blocking multiple people for edit warring if things continue to go downhill, whatever works for you. Both sides need to just hammer it out and find a compromise that multiple reliable sources agree on, or that presents the arguments from the two perspectives. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 07:54, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

  I had already agreed to attribute this information to what "numerous observers argued" as the lead currently states. I have no problem with that. You can also read the first paragraph of Leonid Brezhnev#Soviet–U.S. relations where this information has been detailed and nothing has been written in wikivoice. Capitals00 (talk) 11:50, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

User:Capitals00 Answer me this: Why are you so vehemently opposed to including citations to support your claims in the lede?Emiya1980 (talk) 02:30, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Can you find citations anywhere on the lead? You can't because this article has been designed that way. There is no need of sources on lead when the information has been already sourced on the section. Capitals00 (talk) 09:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Rfc on Citations regarding Soviet Military strength.

This Rfc comes to resolve an ongoing dispute over whether citations should be included in the lede to support the claim that "numerous observers argued the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States to become the world's strongest military power." Should citations be included in the lede to support this claim? Emiya1980 (talk) 21:30, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. As long as material is referenced in the body of the article, citations in the lead section are superfluous. That is the style I generally prefer, and, per WP:LEAD, is entirely valid. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I almost interjected in the above section with exactly the same thing. They are allowed, but not preferred. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• No - text adequately sourced in the main body does not require citations in lead.--Staberinde (talk) 10:03, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
• No - (coming from WP:RFC/A) Per exactly what has been said above. The lead does not require citations which are provided in the body of the article. Fieari (talk) 07:40, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion the word "numerous" can be misleading. A solution can be "some observers". O.maximov (talk) 12:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• No - (coming from WP:RFC/A) Citations are not required in the lede. Nemov (talk) 13:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
• No. It's not even like this is a controversial statement. Per MOS:LEADCITE leaving the phrase uncited is a valid option, and I don't see why this phrase has been singled out. There are many claims that are made in Wikivoice which I feel would be far better candidates for citations. Cessaune [talk] 20:13, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
• No — I agree with the comments already made in support of this position, but I will add that the inclusion of citations can be justified if the content is likely to be scrutinised by readers because it is controversial. I do not think this is the case here, however, as most of what is written in the lead could be perceived with the same level of caution. Yue🌙 18:22, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
• No because the lead does not need sources if its information has been properly sourced on the article body. I would also add that this particular information is accurately described and sourced on the article body. I don't see any issue here. Dympies (talk) 05:12, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
• No Agreed. If cited in the body, why add a superfluous citation in the lead?Coalcity58 (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

To save valuable editor time this RFC should be closed or withdrawn. I'd close it as WP:SNOW and a clear case of MOS:LEADCITE, but since I voted I won't close it. Emiya1980, are you willing to withdraw? Thanks! Nemov (talk) 13:44, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Nemov Yes. Emiya1980 (talk) 15:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Lead is missing key info

Notwithstanding the ongoing discussion above, the current lead is missing key information on Brezhnev's career and leadership. I propose that elements of this revision be added (Special:Permalink/1224486535): it adds detail on his various positions after the war, when he was rising up the ranks in the party, and as the body describes, highlights that he was sponsored by Khrushchev from even before the war and was a long-time loyalist before ousting him. Mentions of SALT I, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Brezhnev Doctrine are also crucial. — Goszei (talk) 18:51, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

His political and militarily career was very broad, thus it would not make sense to point out these particular military endeavours on lead. Capitals00 (talk) 22:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Goszei Compared to what is already featured in the lede, I think Brezhnev's relationship with Khrushchev is a piece of relatively trivial information which is best left for the article's body to expound on. With regards to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the ensuing Brezhnev Doctrine, the lede already mentions that Brezhnev strengthened the Soviet Union's dominion over Eastern Europe and pursued a policy of widespread military interventionism abroad. With that being said, I have no problem with you squeezing in mention of SALT I as a part of detente as long as it doesn't come at the expense of content which is already present.Emiya1980 (talk) 01:46, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

No Strains on Soviet Economy During Brezhnev's Lifetime?

Capitals00 insists on having the lede's third paragraph reflect that the Soviet Union's high military spending under Brezhnev did not strain the Soviet economy until after Brezhnev's death. However, in the section entitled "Economic stagnation until 1982", the article explicitly states "Beginning around 1975, economic growth began to decline at least in part due to the regime's sustained prioritization of heavy industry and military spending over consumer goods." In light of this information, shouldn't the lede's third paragraph reflect that "Brezhnev's preoccupation with strengthening the armed forces as well as supporting Moscow's allies abroad badly strained the Soviet economy during the later years of his rule and long after his death" instead?Emiya1980 (talk) 00:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC) @Ponsonby100, Rjensen, Materialscientist, Trust Is All You Need, LeonChrisfield, Alex Bakharev, Rothorpe, and Xx236:Emiya1980 (talk) 00:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

"Era of Stagnation" was a term coined by Gorbachev. The section says that it started due to "ignoring changes occurring in Western societies; increased authoritarianism in Soviet society; the invasion of Afghanistan; the bureaucracy's transformation into an undynamic gerontocracy; lack of economic reform; pervasive political corruption, and other structural problems within the country".

The part you are pointing only says that it "began to decline at least in part due to the regime's sustained prioritization of heavy industry and military spending". We cannot single out what appears to be "in part" on lead. The section continues "stagnation of the Soviet economy was fueled even further by the Soviet Union's ever-widening technological gap with the West."

There is no reason to relate these things with the outright economic decline that started only after the death of Brezhnev. Capitals00 (talk) 02:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I recommend reading the scholarly studies. There is easy access to "Structural Analysis of the Economic Decline and Collapse of the Soviet Union," a 2016 paper by Numa Mazat published in the Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting. it is online here and lists many other studies Here are some quotes: from the abstract: "After a long period of sustained fast growth of output, the USSR began experiencing in the Mid-1970s an economic stagnation." page 3: "From 1975 to 1984, Soviet economic growth slowed down markedly, leading to a period of relative economic stagnation in the USSR. The average per Capita GDP growth was less than 1% during this period." Page 5: "By the 1970s Soviet leadership identified the problem already and tried to move to a regime of intensive accumulation, with minimization of the costs and increase of ‘efficiency’ (Hewett, 1988; CIA, 1986). But, the attempt to change the composition of the investment and to raise the productivity into improving the ‘efficiency’ failed. This failure was due to the inability to change the attitude toward retirement and replacement of the installed fixed capital, the difficulty in the incorporation of technological innovation in civilian industry, the militarization of the economy, the deterioration of the ‘discipline’ of Soviet workers and the high cost of the industrialization in Siberia." Rjensen (talk) 03:00, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes. As you said, it notes that the "average per Capita GDP growth was less than 1% during this period," the economic growth slowed from 1975 - 1984 but there was still some increase. This is obviously not the same as the economic downfall that started years after the death of Brezhnev.[4] Capitals00 (talk) 10:10, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Saying that Brezhnev's military policies badly strained the economy does not require proof that the Soviet economy went into complete free-fall under his leadership. The fact that the the mid-to-late 1970s saw diminishing returns in Soviet economic growth as well as a significant widening of the Soviet technological gap with the West shows that Brezhnev's policies were already having a detrimental impact on the country well before his death. Therefore, there should be at least some mention in the lede how Brezhnev's spending on the armed forces and support for military interventionism abroad negatively effected the Soviet economy during his lifetime.Emiya1980 (talk) 05:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Here are some sources corroborating the detrimental impact Brezhnev's military policies had on the Soviet economy.Emiya1980 (talk) 07:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

•"[In the early 1980s,] Brezhnev still believed he could resuscitate detente in Europe and abhorred the prospect of invasion of Poland. In addition, he and other Soviet leaders were deterred by the economic dimensions of the Polish crisis. Fighting with the Poles would be disastrous enough, but equally calamitous would be the economic costs of invasion and occupation. Chernyaev commented in his journal in August 1981:'Brezhnev's approach is the only wise approach. WE simply cannot afford to keep Poland as our economic dependent.' Indeed, the Kremlin did not have the surplus resources to pay for its rapidly expanding commitments. By the 1980s, the Soviet Union assisted or maintained sixty-nine Soviet satellites and clients around the world. Beginning in the second half of the 1960s, over a quarter of the Soviet GDP was spent every year on financing the military buildup. The regime routinely filled holes in the budget by borrowing from people's savings, selling vodka, and secretly amassing a budget deficit. Another crucial source of revenue was the export of oil and gas: from 1971 to 1980, the Soviet Union increased its oil and gas production sevenfold and eightfold, respectively, a rate matched by the ever-increasing Soviet deliveries of heavily subsidized oil and gas to Warsaw Pact countries. After 1974, when world prices of oil quadrupled, Moscow was forced to double the price of Soviet oil delivered to its Warsaw Pact allies, compensating them through ten-year, low-interest loans. Soviet economic interests demanded reductions of such generous aid to Central European regimes, but the interests of the 'socialist empire' and bloc commitments dictated instead further increases in this aid."

•"Russians now call the Brezhnev years 'the period of stagnation.' The description is misleading. Brezhnev did a lot worse than simply leave the economy in neutral. He saw salvation in raw military force. So Brezhnev conducted the biggest arms buildup in the history of the world. Under him, the U.S.S.R. grew from a junior member of the nuclear club, forced into a shameful backdown in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, to the world's most heavily armed superpower, at parity with or ahead of the United States in key nuclear and conventional weapons.[¶] The cost to Moscow was a military procurement program spiraling crazily out of control. Some 30 percent of GNP went to defense, robbing funds that should have gone into farms and consumer goods, roads, housing, schools, and health care to name but a few needy areas. In the end, he did more damage to the Soviet system than the dissidents he jailed. [¶] Workers outside the privileged defense sector were underpaid, with little prospect of improved living standards in their lifetimes. Not surprisingly, they underproduced. Absenteeism and alcohol ran rampant. Cynical Soviet workers soon coined this description of their bargain with the state: 'We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.' It was a formula for disaster. Sure enough, Brezhnev's legacy was just that—a collapsing Third World economy, with nuclear missiles that no sane leader could fire"

•"Even official statistics accept that defense spending in the USSR rose 40 per cent between 1965 and 1970, and annual increases continued thereafter at rates which never fell below 2 per cent in real terms. As a percentage of GDP, military spending rose by approximately 3 percent over the period rising to at least 15 percent of GDP by the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982. Despite the constrains such levels of spending placed on the civilian economy, it appeared to be a price the Soviet leadership felt was worth paying."

•"...an inexorable decline set in, as the annual growth rate slipped to 3.7 percent between 1971 and 1975 and then to 2.7 percent between 1976 and 1980. Innovation lagged; much of the Soviet Union's equipment was obsolete. Also, the Soviet Union did not produce many of the finished industrial goods that in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States formed the basis for increased productivity and a far higher standard of living than Soviet citizens knew. Even when the Soviet planners committed additional resources to producing consumer goods, as in the Ninth Five-Year Plan covering 1971—1975, a variety of complications and the continued investment priority enjoyed by heavy industry and the military derailed their intentions."

•"From the point of view of Communist rulers, the Brezhnev era was in many ways successful. This was the period when the USSR achieved a rough parity with the United States – by the early 1970s – as a military power, although the basis of its 'superpower' status depended very heavily on the disproportionately large resources it devoted to military expenditure. Although no economic superpower, the Soviet Union contained some of the world's richest mineral deposits. It was, however, a sign of the weakness of the economy that Soviet exports depended so heavily on the sale of natural resources, especially oil and gas. Yet what was termed the 'oil crisis' in Western Europe – the sharp rise in price of 1973 – turned out to be an energy bonanza for the Soviet Union. The Brezhnev leadership's ability to keep various elites content owed much to the sale at advantageous prices of its natural resources. Keeping them satisfied was, however, harder at the end of the Brezhnev era than earlier. The rate of economic growth was in long-term decline and in Brezhnev's last years had virtually ground to a halt."

Sources

•Bowker, Mike (2002). "Brezhnev and Superpower Relations". In Edwin, Bacon; Sandle, Mark (eds.). Brezhnev Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. pp. 90–109. ISBN 978-1-349-42024-7.

•Brown, Archie (2009). The Rise and Fall of Communism. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-06-113882-9.

•Coleman, Fred (1996). The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire: Forty Years That Shook The World. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-16816-0.

•Kort, Michael G. (2010). The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (7th ed.). M.E. Sharpe, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7656-2386-7.

•Zubok, Vladislav M. (2009) [2007]. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War From Stalin to Gorbachev. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-5958-2.