ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, we saw how the Brezhnev leadership began its rule by quite explicitly distancing itself from its predecessor in power. In the economic sphere, this entailed a thorough purging of the bureaucracy from almost every trace of Khrushchev’s ‘voluntarism’. The territorial organs were abolished and the central ministeries were brought back. Symbolically, the restoration of order even went so far as to reinstate, in their former positions, top-level officials who had been fired by Khrushchev. It is perhaps not surprising that a similar ambition marked events in the political sphere. Among the very first acts to be undertaken here was a re-separation of the posts of Party First Secretary — again known as General Secretary — and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. (After dismissing Bulganin, in 1958, Khrushchev had merged and occupied both of these posts.) Furthermore, the previous division of the Party and the Soviets into an industrial and an agrarian sector was abolished, with parallelism between Party and Soviets instead being stressed. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in order to underline the intention to promote cadre stability within the Party, at the twenty-third Party Congress, held in 1966, Khrushchev’s rule regarding a continuous rotation of the leading Party cadres was abolished.
