While his rule provided stablity to his country and increased the standard of living, there was also a heritage of political and personal values. When Brezhnev died he left behind a gerontocracy, a group of leaders who were significantly older than most of the adult population. Despite his failures in domestic reforms, his foreign affairs and defence policies consolidated the position of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as a superpower. His popularity among the citizenry waned during his last years, and the Soviet people's belief in communism and Marxism–Leninism slowly withered away but support still continued to be evident, even on the eve of his death. Following his death, political wrangling led to harsh criticism of both him and his family. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, drew support from communists and the Soviet population by criticising Brezhnev's rule, and referred to his rule as the "Era of Stagnation". Nevertheless, Brezhnev has received consistently high approval ratings in the public polls. (Full article...)
During the 1930s, he ranked second in the Soviet leadership, after Joseph Stalin, whom he supported loyally for over 30 years, and whose reputation he continued to defend after Stalin's death. As People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in August 1939, Molotov became the principal Soviet signatory of the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, also known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. He retained his place as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician until March 1949, when he fell out of Stalin's favour and lost the foreign affairs ministry leadership to Andrei Vyshinsky. Molotov's relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, and Stalin criticised Molotov in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. (Full article...)
Image 14Country emblems of the Soviet Republics before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (fifth in the second row) no longer exists as a political entity of any kind and the emblem is unofficial.) (from Soviet Union)
Image 15Anniversary of October Revolution in Riga, Soviet Union in 1988 (from October Revolution)
Image 16American, British, and Japanese Troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support to the White Army. (from Russian Revolution)
Image 17Revolutionaries attacking the tsarist police in the early days of the February Revolution (from Russian Revolution)
Image 18Residents of Leningrad leave their homes destroyed by German bombing. About 1 million civilians died during the 871-day Siege of Leningrad, mostly from starvation. (from Soviet Union)
Image 24Map showing greatest territorial extent of the Soviet Union and the states that it dominated politically, economically and militarily in 1960, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961 (total area: c. 35,000,000 km2) (from Soviet Union)
Image 25Meeting before the Russian wire entanglements (from Russian Revolution)
Image 26Russian troops meeting German troops in No Man's Land (from Russian Revolution)
Image 50Forward gun of Aurora that fired the signal shot (from October Revolution)
Image 51U.S. Lend Lease shipments to the USSR. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. (from Soviet Union)
... that during the first tour to the Soviet Union by any American ballet company, Lupe Serrano danced the first encore in the American Ballet Theatre's history?
... that economist and anti-apartheid activist Vella Pillay arranged for South African revolutionaries to receive military training in the Soviet Union and China?
... that after being arrested for organizing a general strike in 1920, S. Girinis was sent to the Soviet Union following a Soviet-Lithuanian exchange of political prisoners?
... that Estonian minister of war Paul Lill resigned in 1939, citing the unacceptable conditions of the Bases Treaty with the Soviet Union?
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