Brezhnev, the new party leader,
was not the person to engage in de-Stalinazation or liberal reforms of any sort.
Stalin was never rehabilitated
but the creeping re-Stalinazation went on throughout Brezhnev's era.
More importantly, Stalin's power structures and economic model,
with the exception of prison labor, remained intact.
The Brezhnev era was a time of ideological freeze.
The last attempt to modernize the economy
within the framework of the existing system was made in the late 1960s.
Many at the top echelons of the Soviet power understood that
if the USSR was to have any hope of competing with the West,
politically or militarily, then changes had to be made.
The task of modernizing Soviet industry fell on Alexei Kosygin,
the new chairman of the Council of Ministers.
Kosygin's reforms allowed plants and
factories more independence and some flexibility in disposing of their profits.
Economic incentives were offered to workers.
Procurement prices and agriculture were increased.
Even the planning system was somewhat
liberalized and elements of cost accounting were introduced.
The reforms brought some result.
In the late 1960s,
economic output and productivity
increased and consumption levels of Soviet population did too.
But soon reforms stalled.
Here you can see the figures: 1961-65,
that is still a Khrushchev time;
1966-1970, this is the reforms and you can see
the growth of the percentage of both GDP and national income;
1971-1975, already the percentage of growth is lower;
and 75-79, it is lower still.
The system resisted liberalization.
The leadership was unwilling to take any unpopular steps such as,
for example, closing unprofitable enterprises.
Each director had an acquaintance among
the leadership and he managed to avoid the unpleasant episode.
Technological progress was hampered by the Soviet bureaucracy.
The system was still over-centralized and inflexible.
Prices were strictly regulated.
In the 1970s, the government tightened the planning system again.
Economic incentives stopped to work.
There was no real competition.
With few exceptions kolkhozi remained unproductive.
The government continued to buy the bread abroad.
Military expenses grew exponentially in
the 1970s and the budget was organized around the needs of the Army.
Already in 1970, Kosygin was accused of betraying
socialism and attempting to introduce western ideas and methods on Soviet soil.
The upsurge of oil and gold prices in the 1970s gave the government
enough funds to satisfy the demands of the military and to
buy the grain and cover up the failures of the Soviet economy.
But such good luck could not last.
The 1968 Prague Spring contributed to the watering down of Soviet reforms.
The political and economic liberalization started by
the Czech communist leadership was an attempt to create socialism with a human face.
It was very popular throughout the socialist camp.
The Soviet leadership started to negotiate but finally
decided to stop the slide away from socialism and sent in the troops.
As all protest movements in
the socialist camp this led to a tightening of screws in the USSR.
Thus, the end of the reforms.
Here you can see the tanks,
Soviet tanks, in the streets of Prague.
In December 1979, the Soviet government approved the invasion in Afghanistan.
This finished off the process of the destruction of Soviet economy.
The oil prices boom was over,
food and consumer goods shortages followed them.
There was not enough food,
even in the towns closest to Moscow and Leningrad.
People came to these capitals by trains and by buses. There's a joke:
These trains and buses were called sausage trains because
one of the things that people bought were meat and sausages.
Queues became the norm.