ABSTRACT
During the Brezhnev era (1964-82), the political leadership generally showed considerably more sympathy to Russian traditions and Russian interests than Khrushchev had. The top leaders and the central Party apparatus were divided among themselves as to how much leeway should be given to Russian national feeling. The abandonment by General Secretary Leonid Ilich Brezhnev and Prime Minister Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin of Khrushchev’s Utopian aim of achieving communism by 1980, together with the shift towards managerialism and pragmatism, deepened the ideological confusion that had been created by Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin. Some leaders saw the answer in the satisfaction of material demands; others wished to rehabilitate Stalin; others wanted to promote more traditional forms of Russian nationalism. The 1960s and 1970s saw a rise in both Russian and non-Russian nationalism.
