ABSTRACT
The prime directive of security and stability determined the nature of leadership in the Soviet Union. During 1965 and 1966, Brezhnev prevailed in a struggle for power over two serious rivals—Nikolai Podgorny and Alexander Shelepin—and emerged as the leading figure on the Presidium. Brezhnev became the most powerful man in the Soviet Union, he used his power and that of his associates to protect the interests of the various branches of the party-state bureaucracy. The Brezhnev years completed the transition from rule by a single dictator to oligarchic rule by the upper layers of the Communist Party bureaucracy. Public assurances notwithstanding, the first priority for Brezhnev and his colleagues was the faltering Soviet economy. The Soviet economy nonetheless managed impressive quantitative growth, mainly because Brezhnev and his central planners continued to favor heavy industry over light industry and investment over consumption.
