Word: brezhnevs
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...doubt that he is a determined foe of social corruption and economic inefficiency. He demanded radical improvements in the feeble Soviet agricultural program and lashed out against the misuse of power by Soviet officials. He also etched an acid appraisal of the 18-year rule of the late Leonid Brezhnev, who presided over the 26th Congress in 1981. Back then, laughter from delegates would have been unthinkable...
...recent months Gorbachev has been removing Brezhnev-era holdovers with a blend of maneuver and muscle. Grigory Romanov, the Politburo member responsible for the Soviet Union's military-industrial complex, who reportedly tried to block Gorbachev's rise to power and became the target of a whispering campaign about alleged alcoholism, retired from the Politburo last July. One day later Andrei Gromyko, who had served as Foreign Minister since 1957, was promoted to the honorific post of President. Last month Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, who had commanded the Soviet navy since 1956, was replaced. Nikolai Tikhonov, who had been Premier since...
Since he became General Secretary of the party last March 11, Gorbachev has been reshaping the power structure of the Soviet Union. He has broken the back of high-level cronyism that flourished for nearly 20 years under former Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev, until his death in 1982. The new man at the helm has given fair warning that he intends to wean the country from deeply ingrained habits, including alcoholism, corruption and sloth. Gorbachev's speech this week will show the direction in which he intends to lead his country...
...Soviet Union's disastrous agricultural program, which Gorbachev headed during part of Brezhnev's years, is now being scrutinized and reorganized. Another serious problem facing the country is oil. Petroleum output, which provides more than two-thirds of foreign currency earnings, had begun to decline even before the petroleum glut, and lower market prices will further diminish income. Said Jan Vanous, a Washington-based analyst of the Soviet economy: "The decline in oil prices represents the most serious external challenge to the Soviet Union since World...
...addition to charting the future at the party congress, Gorbachev is likely to blame the Brezhnev regime for much of the corruption and inefficiency that has seeped into Soviet life. Public resentment has been building over the cronyism that Brezhnev fostered. Gorbachev's attacks on the mistakes of a past Soviet leader will bring back memories of the 20th party congress on Feb. 25, 1956, when Khrushchev presented a four-hour report that cataloged Joseph Stalin's use of mass deportation, imprisonment, torture and execution to eliminate real and suspected opponents...