ABSTRACT
The effect of the demotion of some competitors and of the promotion of Leonid Brezhnev clients was limited, causing little change in the power distribution. Since 1964 Western analysts have been confronted with a remarkable phenomenon unknown in Soviet history since Lenin: the rule of a collective leadership. Politburo members continued to perform their particular duties, emphatically presented to the outside world as collective decisions taken in full agreement. The chapter aims to characterize the political leadership will embrace some political issues pertinent to the perceived systemic needs for development and include an examination of the working power relationship within the polity. Agreement with both Brezhnev’s economic policy and the structural power of the regional Party leaders is of paramount importance for Brezhnev’s political leadership. Politicians in the Central Committee and Politburo had long experience in the game of power politics and survival and knew only too well what the consequences of revived one-man rule could be.
