ABSTRACT
Leonid Brezhnev’s much disputed economic leadership, his vulnerable power base in the Politburo and even more so in the Central Committee, and the slow institutionalization of Party rule as envisaged by him, could only marginally strengthen his personal authority. This chapter shows that foreign policy became the major issue of discord, discusses the aspects of Brezhnev’s policy which were so disquieting, and argues that Brezhnev was increasingly forced into a defensive position. One can only speculate about the possible link between Brezhnev’s domestic and foreign economic policy as far as the strengthening of the role of the Party is concerned. For Brezhnev, the conduct of foreign economic policy became a liability rather than an asset in the realization of his goals, at least in the medium and long run. The chapter concludes with an examination of the theoretical-ideological “solution” to the problem of discord in the Soviet polity.
