Is Leonid Brezhnev Living or Dead?

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Is General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev dead? Or ... still alive?

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By Botty Snyder

Updated 18 March 2023

Image info

Artist	Photo by Kohls, Ulrich extracted by Fredy.00 derivative work: Marenko ale (talk)
Credit	File:Leonid Brežněv (Bundesarchiv).jpg, Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-F0417-0001-011
License	cc-by-sa-3.0
Desc	Leonid Brezhnev Portrait
Usage	Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Image info/credit

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Leonid Brezhnev is ...

Dead

Born	6 December 1906 in Kamianske
Died	10 November 1982 in Zareche and Moscow
Age	75 years, 11 months
Cause	myocardial infarction

Sex or gender	male
Country of citizenship	Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Soviet Union
Manner of death	natural causes
Spouse	Viktoria Brezhneva
Child	Yuri Brezhnev and Galina Brezhneva
Occupation	politician, engineer and military personnel
Position held	General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and List of heads of state of the Soviet Union
Awards	Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945", Order of the Red Banner, Order of the Red Star, Order of the October Revolution, Order of Karl Marx, Order of the White Lion, Order of Klement Gottwald, Order of the Patriotic War 1st class, Order of Victory, Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, 2nd class, Medal "For the Defence of Odessa", Medal "For Battle Merit", Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus", Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw", Medal "For the Liberation of Prague", Medal "For the Restoration of the Black Metallurgy Enterprises of the South", Medal "For Strengthening of Brotherhood in Arms", Medal "For the Development of Virgin Lands", Gold medal of Karl Marx, Lenin Peace Prize, Gold Star, Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Gold Star, Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Gold Star, Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Gold Star, Hero of Socialist Labour, Order of Lenin, "Hammer and Sickle" gold medal, Order of Lenin, Order of Lenin, Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Red Banner, Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945", Medal "In Commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of Leningrad", Medal "In Commemoration of the 1500th Anniversary of Kiev", Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR", Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR", Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR", Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945", Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945", Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", Order of May, Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Order of Georgi Dimitrov, Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Order of Georgi Dimitrov, Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Order of Georgi Dimitrov, Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, Hero of Labor, Order of Ho Chi Minh, Gold Star Order, Order of Karl Marx, Order of Karl Marx, Star of People's Friendship, Star of the Republic of Indonesia, Star of the Republic of Indonesia, Order of the National Flag, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, Order of José Martí, Order of Playa Girón, Order of Sukhbaatar, Order of Sukhbaatar, Order of Sukhbaatar, Order of Sukhbaatar, Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru‎, Grand Cross with Star of the Virtuti Militari, Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 2nd class, Medal of Victory and Freedom 1945, Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland, Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Order of Klement Gottwald, Order of Klement Gottwald, Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Order of Klement Gottwald, Order of the White Lion, Czechoslovak War Cross 1939-1945, Czechoslovak War Cross 1939-1945, Order of the Yugoslav Star, Order of Freedom, Gold Mercury International Award, Lenin Prize and United Nations Peace Medal
Member of	Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

About Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev was a towering figure in Soviet politics, serving as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. Born in Kamenskoye, Ukraine in 1906, Brezhnev rose through the ranks of the Soviet bureaucracy to become one of the most powerful men in the world.

Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary was marked by a period of stability and relative prosperity in the Soviet Union. He oversaw a massive expansion of the country's military and industrial capabilities, and presided over a period of détente with the United States and other Western powers.

However, Brezhnev's legacy is also tarnished by his authoritarianism and his role in the Soviet Union's brutal suppression of dissent. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and his policies contributed to the country's economic stagnation and eventual collapse.

Despite these controversies, Brezhnev remains a fascinating figure in Soviet history, and his legacy continues to be debated by scholars and political analysts to this day.

References:

- Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. Harvard University Press, 2000.

- Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

- Zubok, Vladislav. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. University of North Carolina Press, 2007.