Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. To this day, the value of Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary remains debated by historians.
Official portrait, 1972
Brezhnev's Residence house that he lived in from 1929 to 1936
Brezhnev (right) in the rank of commissar giving a Communist Party membership-card to a soldier (1942)
Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Brezhnev's main patron.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the country's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognized leader of the Soviet Union. Prior to Stalin's accession, the position was not viewed as an important role in Lenin's government and previous occupants had been responsible for technical rather than political decisions.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Image: Old Russia Yakov Sverdlov 1918 1
Image: Elena Stasova
Image: Nikolai Krestinsky