This partocracy ossified into gerontocracy, devoid of dynamic leadership. It was not only inimical to change but physically incapable; Brezhnev himself, ravaged by ailments and strokes, gradually deteriorated into a breathing mummy. His colleagues were likewise so infirm that, shortly after his death, the Politburo solemnly addressed the issue of age and ‘solved’ the problem by setting limits on the hours and days that its members should work. This ossified leadership invited rampant corruption and crime, not only in the outlying republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia, but also in core Russian
Economy and Society
Brezhnev’s stewardship also brought sharp economic decline. Whereas national income rose 5.9 per cent per capita in 1966–70, thereafter it fell sharply, bottoming out at 2.1 per cent in 1981–5. GNP followed a similar trajectory: 6 per cent in the 1950s, 5 per cent in the 1960s, 4 per cent from 1970–8, and 2 per cent in subsequent years. This corresponded, predictably, to a decrease in the rate of growth in investment capital (from 7.6 per cent in 1966–70 to 3.4 per cent in 1976–80, including a mere 0.6 per cent in 1979). The regime deftly juggled statistics to mask the malaise: by emphasizing not physical output but ‘rouble value’ (showing a 75 per cent increase in 1976–83), it took advantage of the hidden price inflation and concealed the modest increase in gross production (a mere 9 per cent in the same period).
Agriculture was still the Achilles heel of the Soviet Prometheus. Agricultural output at first increased (by 21 per cent in 1966–70, compared to 12 per cent in 1961–5), but thereafter the rate of growth declined (to just 6 per cent in 1981–5). Apart from bumper harvests (for example, 235 million tons of grain in 1978), most crops were mediocre or outright failures. Thus the yield for 1975 was a mere 140 million tons—the worst since 1963 and 76 million short of the goal. And because of limited port capacities, the government could import only 40 million tons, the shortfall causing a higher rate of slaughter and long-term consequences for animal husbandry. A desperate regime made new concessions on private plots and even encouraged city-dwellers to have garden plots. By 1974 private agriculture consumed one-third of all man-hours in agriculture and one-tenth in the entire economy. The private plots were phenomenally productive: in 1978, for instance, they occupied just 3 per cent of arable land but produced 25 per cent of total agricultural output.
Agriculture became a drag on the whole economy, devouring an ever larger share of scarce investment capital. According to G. A. E. Smith, its share of investment rose from 23 per cent (1961–5) to 27 per cent in 1976–80; allocations to the entire agro-industrial complex (for example, fertilizer plants) increased from 28 to 35 per cent. The United States, by comparison, allocated a mere 4 per cent of investment capital to agriculture. Although total output did increase (the yield for 1976–80 being 50 per cent greater than that for 1961–5), it did not keep pace with demand or rising production costs (covered primarily by gargantuan government subsidies). Subsidized bread prices were so low that peasants even used government bread for fodder. Nevertheless, spot shortages and price adjustments remained a source of hardship that periodically triggered food riots, such as those in Sverdlovsk (1969), Dnepropetrovsk (1972), and Gorky (1980).
The regime could boast of better results in the industrial sector, yet still failed to match past performance or reach plan targets. It could claim salient achievements like the mammoth ‘Baikal–Amur’ project—a 3,000 kilometre railway north of the old Trans-Siberian and linking eastern Siberia with the Pacific.
But the general record on output and productivity was dismal. Although the regime periodically spoke of revamping the system, it did little to raise critical indicators like product quality or labour productivity. Far more characteristic was the bureaucratic posturing, the attempt to solve economic problems with administrative decrees (which mushroomed to more than 200,000 in the late 1970s). Increasingly, the main goal was not reform but control, primarily through the formation of central industrial associations to ensure subordination and vertical integration in a specific sphere of industry.
