Word: brezhnevs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Though the rest of Brezhnev's foreign policy remarks went over familiar rhetorical ground, there were a few tantalizing nuances. Among the topics addressed by Brezhnev...
European Security. One of Brezhnev's more intriguing gestures was an offer to extend the area of preannounced Soviet military maneuvers from 155 miles inside the Soviets' European borders to the Urals. The offer was in keeping with the so-called confidence building measures of the 1975 Helsinki accords. But Brezhnev called for a reciprocal, unspecified concession from NATO, even though the alliance is already obliged to report maneuvers anywhere in Western Europe. As one State Department analyst put it, "If they're talking about a zone that extends from the Rockies to the Urals...
Other Communist Countries. Brezhnev saw little chance for an early thaw in Moscow's ideological cold war with Peking. But he did recognize a surprising degree of socialist diversity in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary's new system of profit-making farm cooperatives...
Poland. The Kremlin's most worrisome problem naturally loomed large at the congress. Noting that "the Polish comrades are engaged in redressing a critical situation," Brezhnev said that the Soviet Union and its allies "will not abandon fraternal socialist Poland in its hour of need." As Western analysts saw it, Brezhnev was keeping his options open: he had decided not to invade Poland for the moment, but had not ruled out such possible "fraternal" aid in the future. The next day, Polish Party Boss Kania emphasized, almost pleadingly it seemed, that the Poles could solve their own problems...
...Brezhnev, according to some analysts, might have been looking at Poland last week with one eye on workers in the Soviet Union. The Soviets have paid for their vast military establishment by shortchanging their civilian economy. Now, the U.S.S.R. is beset by rising costs and a wasteful industrial system. To achieve new growth, it must somehow make better use of what it has. Not surprisingly, Brezhnev devoted two-thirds of his keynote speech to domestic affairs, stressing higher industrial and agricultural productivity and less waste. Speaking later in the week, Premier Nikolai Tikhonov spelled out the guidelines...