141-530: Gustáv Husák ( UK : / ˈ h uː s æ k / HOO -sak , US : / ˈ h ( j ) uː s ɑː k / HOO -sahk, HEW- , Slovak: [ˈɡustaːw ˈɦusaːk] ; 10 January 1913 – 18 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the President of Czechoslovakia from 1975 to 1989. His rule
282-519: A 1963 plot to remove him from power, possibly playing a leading role. Also in 1963, Brezhnev succeeded Frol Kozlov , another Khrushchev protégé, as Secretary of the Central Committee , positioning him as Khrushchev's likely successor. Khrushchev made him Second Secretary , or deputy party leader, in 1964. After returning from Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia in October 1964, Khrushchev, unaware of
423-893: A campaign to liberalise the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding the backlash to his regime's policies in the mid-1980s, Brezhnev's rule has received consistently high approval ratings in public polls conducted in post-Soviet Russia. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine ) within the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire , to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874–1934) and his wife, Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886–1975). His parents lived in Brezhnevo ( Kursky District, Kursk Oblast , Russia) before moving to Kamenskoye. Brezhnev's ethnicity
564-549: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in
705-605: A critic of Novotný and the KSČ's neo-Stalinist leadership. In April 1968, during the Prague Spring under new party leader and fellow Slovak Alexander Dubček , Husák became a vice-premier of Czechoslovakia, responsible for overseeing reforms in Slovakia. As the Soviet Union grew increasingly alarmed by Dubček's liberal reforms in 1968 ( Prague Spring ), Husák, originally Dubček's ally and
846-457: A decline in productivity and labor discipline. While Brezhnev, albeit "sporadically", through Alexei Kosygin , attempted to reform the economy in the late 1960s and 1970s, he failed to produce any positive results. One of these reforms was the economic reform of 1965 , initiated by Kosygin, though its origins are often traced back to the Khrushchev Era. The reform was ultimately cancelled by
987-613: A deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , the Soviet Union's highest legislative body. In July that year he was sent to the Moldavian SSR and appointed Party First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova , where he was responsible for completing the introduction of collective agriculture. Konstantin Chernenko , a loyal addition to the "mafia", was working in Moldova as head of
1128-501: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating
1269-518: A hectare. These measures removed important obstacles for the expansion of agricultural output but did not solve the problem. Under Brezhnev, private plots yielded 30% of the national agricultural production when they cultivated only 4% of the land . This was seen by some as proof that de-collectivization was necessary to prevent Soviet agriculture from collapsing, but leading Soviet politicians shrank from supporting such drastic measures due to ideological and political interests. The underlying problems were
1410-501: A hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like the Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at
1551-570: A large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it
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#17330860654401692-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
1833-533: A major general during World War II. Following the war's end, Brezhnev was promoted to the party's Central Committee in 1952 and became a full member of the Politburo by 1957. In 1964, he consolidated enough power to replace Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the CPSU , the most powerful position in the country. During his tenure, Brezhnev's governance improved the Soviet Union's international standing while stabilizing
1974-832: A minor one, in public support. The standard of living in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) had fallen behind that of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (GSSR) and the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) under Brezhnev; this led many Russians to believe that the policies of the Soviet Government were hurting the Russian population . The state usually moved workers from one job to another, which ultimately became an ineradicable feature in
2115-717: A moderate supporter of the reform programme, began calling for caution. After the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August , Husák participated in the Czechoslovak-Soviet negotiations between the kidnapped Dubček and Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. Husák changed course and became a leader among those party members calling for the reversal of Dubček's reforms. An account for his pragmatism was given in one of his official speeches in Slovakia after
2256-648: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside
2397-571: A publication from 1986. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as
2538-498: A rapid shift of investment to satisfy Soviet consumers and lead to an even higher standard of living. This did not happen. During 1928–1973, the Soviet Union was growing economically at a faster pace than the United States and Western Europe. However, objective comparisons are difficult. The USSR was hampered by the effects of World War II, which had left most of the western USSR in ruins; however, Western aid and Soviet espionage in
2679-469: A relatively satisfactory living standard and avoiding any overt reprisals like was the case in the 1950s. His regime was not a complete return to the heavy-handed Stalinism that had prevailed during the first 20 years of Communist rule in the country. At the same time, the people's rights were somewhat more restricted than was the case in János Kádár 's Hungary and Josip Broz Tito 's Yugoslavia . Indeed, on
2820-425: A shortage of skilled workers, a ruined rural culture, and inappropriate farm machinery for small collective farms. A significant reform was necessary, but it was not supported due to ideological and political considerations. Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced the conventional methods for organizing the collective farms . Output quotas continued to be imposed centrally. Khrushchev's policy of amalgamating farms
2961-539: A single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in
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#17330860654403102-557: A somewhat half-hearted reform program scheduled to start in 1991. Later that year, however, Husák yielded his post as general secretary to Miloš Jakeš in response to a desire for younger leaders (Jakeš and Ladislav Adamec ) to share in power. On 24 November 1989, the entire Presidum of the Communist Party, including Husák, resigned in the wake of the Velvet Revolution . The party officially abandoned power four days later, when
3243-487: A tank factory. During Stalin's Great Purge , Brezhnev was one of many apparatchiks who exploited the resulting openings in the government and the party to advance rapidly in the regime's ranks. In 1936, he became director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum (a technical college) and was transferred to the regional center of Dnipropetrovsk . In May 1937, he became deputy chairman of
3384-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in
3525-531: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. Leonid Brezhnev First , then General Secretary of the CPSU 1964–1982 Brezhnev Era Foreign policy [REDACTED] Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982)
3666-577: Is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In the South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and
3807-769: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,
3948-605: Is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with the Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in
4089-683: Is known for the period of normalization after the 1968 Prague Spring . Gustáv Husák was born to an unemployed worker in Pozsonyhidegkút, Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary (now Bratislava - Dúbravka , Slovakia ). He joined the Communist Youth Union at the age of sixteen while studying at the grammar school in Bratislava. In 1933, when he started his studies at the law faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava, he joined
4230-530: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and
4371-558: The Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with a regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that
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4512-593: The Central Committee , though the Committee admitted that economic problems did exist. After becoming leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev would characterize the economy under Brezhnev's rule as "the lowest stage of socialism". Based on its surveillance, the CIA reported that the Soviet economy peaked in the 1970s upon reaching 57% of American GNP. However, beginning around 1975, economic growth began to decline at least in part due to
4653-568: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) which was banned from 1938 to 1945. During World War II , he was periodically jailed by the Jozef Tiso government for illegal Communist activities. He was one of the leaders of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising against Nazi Germany and Tiso. Husák was a member of the Presidium of the Slovak National Council from 1 to 5 September 1944. After
4794-463: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in April 1969. He reversed Dubček's reforms and purged the party of its liberal members in 1969–1971. In 1975, Husák was elected President of Czechoslovakia . During the two decades of Husák's leadership, Czechoslovakia became one of Moscow's most loyal allies. In the first years following the invasion, Husák managed to appease the outraged civil population by providing
4935-587: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of
5076-624: The Era of Stagnation . In addition to pervasive corruption and falling economic growth, this period was characterized by an increasing technological gap between the Soviet Union and the United States. After 1975, Brezhnev's health rapidly deteriorated and he increasingly withdrew from international affairs despite maintaining his hold on power. He died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded as general secretary by Yuri Andropov . Upon coming to power in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev denounced Brezhnev's government for its inefficiency and inflexibility before launching
5217-647: The Kazakh SSR , and was promoted to General Secretary in May, following Khrushchev's victory over Malenkov. On the surface his brief was simple: to make the new lands agriculturally productive. In reality, Brezhnev became involved in the development of the Soviet missile and nuclear arms programs, including the Baykonur Cosmodrome . The initially successful Virgin Lands Campaign soon became unproductive and failed to solve
5358-442: The Prague Spring (whose sharp departure from the Soviet model led to its armed suppression in 1968), the reforms provoked a backlash among the party's old guard who proceeded to flock to Brezhnev and strengthened his position within the Soviet leadership. In 1969, Brezhnev further expanded his authority following a clash with Second Secretary Mikhail Suslov and other party officials who thereafter never challenged his supremacy within
5499-511: The Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and
5640-625: The Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of the United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which
5781-484: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over
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5922-824: The Southern Front , with the rank of Brigade-Commissar (Colonel). When the Germans occupied Ukraine in 1942, Brezhnev was sent to the Caucasus as deputy head of political administration of the Transcaucasian Front . In April 1943 he became head of the Political Department of the 18th Army. Later that year, the 18th Army became part of the 1st Ukrainian Front , as the Red Army regained the initiative and advanced westward through Ukraine. The Front's senior political commissar
6063-579: The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 in response to Alexander Dubček 's reforms. Under Brezhnev, the Politburo abandoned Khrushchev's decentralization experiments. By 1966, two years after taking power, Brezhnev abolished the Regional Economic Councils , which were organized to manage the regional economies of the Soviet Union. The Ninth Five-Year Plan delivered a change: for
6204-601: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This
6345-621: The Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire . After the results of the October Revolution were finalized with the creation of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev joined the Communist party's youth league in 1923 before becoming an official party member in 1929. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 , he joined the Red Army as a commissar and rose rapidly through the ranks to become
6486-439: The agitprop department, and one of the officials Brezhnev brought with him from Dnipropetrovsk was the future USSR Minister of the Interior, Nikolai Shchelokov . In 1952, Brezhnev met with Stalin who subsequently promoted him to the Communist Party's Central Committee as a candidate member of the Presidium (formerly the Politburo ) and made him a member of the Secretariat . Following Stalin's death in March 1953, Brezhnev
6627-496: The liberalizing reforms of Khrushchev, and clamping down on cultural freedom. During the Khrushchev years, Brezhnev had supported the leader's denunciations of Stalin's arbitrary rule, the rehabilitation of many of the victims of Stalin's purges, and the cautious liberalization of Soviet intellectual and cultural policy. However, as soon as he became leader of the Soviet Union, he began to reverse this process, and developed an increasingly authoritarian and conservative attitude. By
6768-432: The " Dnipropetrovsk Mafia " that would greatly aid his rise to power. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Brezhnev was, like most middle-ranking Party officials, immediately drafted. He worked to evacuate Dnipropetrovsk's industries before the city fell to the Germans on 26 August, and then was assigned as a political commissar . In October, Brezhnev was made deputy of political administration for
6909-416: The 1968 events, during which he ventured a rhetorical question, asking where the opponents of the Soviet Union wished to find allies of Czechoslovakia that might come to support the country against Soviet troops. Supported by Moscow, he was appointed leader of the Communist Party of Slovakia in as early as August 1968, and he succeeded Dubček as first secretary (title changed to general secretary in 1971) of
7050-405: The 1970s from the level held in the 1950s and 1960s, they likewise began to lag behind that of Western Europe and the United States. Eventually, the stagnation reached a point that the United States began growing an average of 1% per year above the growth rate of the Soviet Union. The stagnation of the Soviet economy was fueled even further by the Soviet Union's ever-widening technological gap with
7191-422: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,
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#17330860654407332-456: The Brezhnev era, the majority of civilian services deteriorated and living conditions for Soviet citizens fell rapidly. Diseases were on the rise because of the decaying healthcare system. The living space remained rather small by First World standards, with the average Soviet person living on 13.4 square metres. Thousands of Moscow inhabitants became homeless, most of them living in shacks, doorways and parked trams. Nutrition ceased to improve in
7473-444: The Central Committee wanted him to undergo punishment of some kind, but Brezhnev, who had already been assured the office of the General Secretary, saw little reason to punish Khrushchev further. Brezhnev was appointed First Secretary on the same day, but at the time was believed to be a transitional leader, who would only "keep the shop" until another leader was appointed. Alexei Kosygin was appointed head of government , and Mikoyan
7614-446: The Communist government's longevity and policies. As the General Secretary of the Party, he was the nominal leader of the repressive state apparatus. There are many documented cases of appeals from politically persecuted persons, but almost none of them was given Husák's attention. As the overall decay of Czechoslovak society was becoming more and more obvious in the 1980s, Husák became a politically impotent puppet of events. Gustáv Husák
7755-435: The Czech part of the republic of then-Czechoslovakia, the clear winners were the Communists), thus complicating the Communist ambitions for a swift taking of power. Husák's loyalty to the central organs of the Czechoslovak Communist party as well as his considerable talent for body politics and a ruthless approach to political opponents contributed largely to the crushing of the Democratic Party's dissent in Slovakia and releasing
7896-651: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication
8037-403: The IBM/360. However, following the adoption of the IBM/360 system, the Soviet Union was never able to build enough platforms, let alone improve on its design. As its technology continued to fall behind the West, the Soviet Union increasingly resorted to pirating Western designs. The last significant reform undertaken by the Kosygin government , and some believe in the pre- perestroika era,
8178-403: The Kamenskoye Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industries of eastern Ukraine. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth division, the Komsomol , in 1923, and the Party itself in 1929. From 1935 to 1936 he completed the compulsory term of military service. After taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in
8319-406: The Kamenskoye city soviet. In May 1938, after Nikita Khrushchev had taken control of the Ukrainian communist party, he was appointed head of the propaganda department of the Dnipropetrovsk regional communist party, and later, in 1939, a regional Party Secretary, in charge of the city's defense industries. Here, he took the first steps toward building a network of supporters which came to be known as
8460-621: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English
8601-407: The Politburo became aggressively anti-reformist , Kosygin was able to convince both Brezhnev and the politburo to leave the reformist communist leader János Kádár of the Hungarian People's Republic alone because of an economic reform entitled New Economic Mechanism (NEM), which granted limited permission for the establishment of retail markets. In the Polish People's Republic , another approach
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#17330860654408742-451: The Politburo issued a resolution titled, "On the Further Development of Specialisation and Concentration of Agricultural Production on the Basis of Inter-Farm Co-operation and Agro-Industrial Integration". The resolution ordered kolkhozes close to each other to collaborate in their efforts to increase production. In the meantime, the state's subsidies to the food-and-agriculture sector did not prevent bankrupt farms from operating and rises in
8883-435: The Politburo. Brezhnev was adept at politics within the Soviet power structure. He was a team player and never acted rashly or hastily. Unlike Khrushchev, he did not make decisions without substantial consultation from his colleagues, and was always willing to hear their opinions. During the early 1970s, Brezhnev consolidated his domestic position. In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of
9024-488: The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union , making this position equivalent to that of an executive president. While Kosygin remained Premier until shortly before his death in 1980 (replaced by Nikolai Tikhonov as Premier), Brezhnev was the dominant figure in the Soviet Union from the mid-1970s until his death in 1982. Brezhnev has defined the iconic "Developed Socialism" as the Soviet-style socialism , which he believed had successfully constructed socialism in
9165-425: The Soviet Army with the rank of major general in August 1946. In May 1946, he was appointed the first secretary of the Zaporizhzhia regional party committee, where his deputy was Andrei Kirilenko , one of the most important members of the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia . After working on reconstruction projects in Ukraine, he returned to Dnipropetrovsk in January 1948 as regional first party secretary. In 1950 Brezhnev became
9306-411: The Soviet Union and reached Vladimir Lenin 's transition stage from socialism to communism. Brezhnev emphasized the advanced technological developments in the USSR with full electrification of the country, the use of nuclear power in production, computer planning, as well as a highly mechanized agriculture. He believed that all social strata within the USSR were closer to each other than ever before due to
9447-400: The Soviet Union fell further and further behind in computer technology, which proved decisive for the Western economies. By 1973 the Era of Stagnation was apparent. The Era of Stagnation , a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev , was attributed to a compilation of factors, including the ongoing "arms race" ; the Soviet Union's decision to participate in international trade (thus abandoning
9588-421: The Soviet Union. However, he was initially forced to govern as part of an unofficial Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika ) alongside the country's Premier , Alexei Kosygin , and Nikolai Podgorny , a Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and later Chairman of the Presidium . Due to Khrushchev's disregard for the rest of the Politburo upon combining his leadership of the party with that of
9729-402: The Soviet collective leadership to remove him from the Party-State Control Committee before having the body dissolved altogether on 6 December 1965. By the end of 1965, Brezhnev had Podgorny removed from the Secretariat, thereby significantly curtailing the latter's ability to build support within the party apparatus. In the ensuing years, Podgorny's network of supporters was steadily eroded as
9870-420: The Soviet economy was expanding at a faster rate than that of the American economy (albeit by a very small margin). The USSR also kept a steady pace with the economies of Western Europe. Between 1964 and 1973, the Soviet economy stood at roughly half the output per head of Western Europe and a little more than one third that of the U.S. In 1973, the process of catching up with the rest of the West came to an end as
10011-425: The Soviet government, a plenum of the Central Committee in October 1964 forbade any single individual from holding both the offices of General Secretary and Premier . This arrangement would persist until the late 1970s when Brezhnev firmly secured his position as the most powerful figure in the Soviet Union. During his consolidation of power, Brezhnev first had to contend with the ambitions of Alexander Shelepin ,
10152-463: The Soviet industry. Government industries such as factories, mines and offices were staffed by undisciplined personnel who put a great effort into not doing their jobs; this ultimately led, according to Robert Service, to a "work-shy workforce". The Soviet Government had no effective counter-measure; it was extremely difficult, if not impossible to replace ineffective workers because of the country's lack of unemployment. While some areas improved during
10293-496: The Soviet invasion and had to constantly resist pressure from hard line Stalinists in the party such as Biľak, Alois Indra and the like. In the early 1970s, he personally pushed for an early withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Czechoslovak territory, which did not happen until 1991; this may be ascribed to his pragmatic attempts to ease the situation and to give an impression that things were leaning toward "normality". However, there are many ways in which he personally contributed to
10434-488: The United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of
10575-404: The United States, he went elsewhere, such as to Argentina . Trade was necessary because the Soviet Union's domestic production of fodder crops was severely deficient. Another sector that was hitting the wall was the sugar beet harvest, which had declined by 2% in the 1970s. Brezhnev's way of resolving these issues was to increase state investment. Politburo member Gennady Voronov advocated for
10716-458: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in
10857-496: The West. Due to the cumbersome procedures of the centralized planning system, Soviet industries were incapable of the innovation needed to meet public demand. This was especially notable in the field of computers. In response to the lack of uniform standards for peripherals and digital capacity in the Soviet computer industry, Brezhnev's regime ordered an end to all independent computer development and required all future models to be based on
10998-476: The country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since
11139-502: The cultural level, the level of repression approached that seen in Erich Honecker 's East Germany and even Nicolae Ceauşescu 's Romania . There was a campaign of repression by the secret police ( StB ) targeting dissidents represented later by Charter 77 as well as hundreds of unknown individuals who happened to be targets of the StB's pre-emptive strikes. The repression intensified over
11280-403: The division of each farm's workforce into what he called "links". These "links" would be entrusted with specific functions, such as to run a farm's dairy unit. His argument was that the larger the work force, the less responsible they felt. This program had been proposed to Joseph Stalin by Andrey Andreyev in the 1940s and had been opposed by Khrushchev before and after Stalin's death. Voronov
11421-502: The dominant leader of Soviet foreign policy in the Politburo. Within the same timeframe, Kosygin was also in charge of economic administration in his role as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. However, his position was weakened following his enactment of several economic reforms in 1965 that collectively came to be known within the Party as the " Kosygin reforms ". Due largely to coinciding with
11562-692: The eighteen years that Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, average income per head increased by half; three-quarters of this growth came in the 1960s and early 1970s. During the second half of Brezhnev's premiership, the average income per head grew by one-quarter. In the first half of the Brezhnev period, income per head increased by 3.5% per annum; slightly less growth than what it had been the previous years. This can be explained by Brezhnev's reversal of most of Khrushchev's policies. Consumption per head rose by an estimated 70% under Brezhnev, but with three-quarters of this growth happening before 1973 and only one-quarter in
11703-470: The eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop
11844-482: The ending of schemes. When Khrushchev left the public spotlight, there was no popular commotion, as most Soviet citizens, including the intelligentsia , anticipated a period of stabilization , steady development of Soviet society and continuing economic growth in the years ahead. Political scientist George W. Breslauer has compared Khrushchev and Brezhnev as leaders. He argues they took different routes to build legitimate authority, depending on their personalities and
11985-560: The first free elections in 44 years , the Communist Party expelled him in February 1990. He died on 18 November 1991, at the age of 78, and was buried at the Cimetière de Dúbravka. There is still some question about Husák's moral culpability for the last two decades of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. After its collapse, Husák kept saying that he was just trying to diminish the aftermath of
12126-542: The first time industrial consumer products out-produced industrial capital goods. Consumer goods such as watches, furniture and radios were produced in abundance. The plan still left the bulk of the state's investment in industrial capital-goods production. This outcome was not seen as a positive sign for the future of the Soviet state by the majority of top party functionaries within the government; by 1975 consumer goods were expanding 9% slower than industrial capital-goods. The policy continued despite Brezhnev's commitment to make
12267-546: The former chairman of the KGB and current head of the Party-State Control Committee . In early 1965, Shelepin began calling for the restoration of "obedience and order" within the Soviet Union as part of his own bid to seize power. Towards this end, he exploited his control over both state and party organs to leverage support within the regime. Recognizing Shelepin as an imminent threat to his position, Brezhnev mobilized
12408-588: The growing Soviet food crisis. Brezhnev was recalled to Moscow in 1956. The harvest in the years following the Virgin Lands Campaign was disappointing, which would have hurt his political career had he remained in Kazakhstan. In February 1956 Brezhnev returned to Moscow and was made candidate member of the Politburo assigned in control of the defence industry, the space program including the Baykonur Cosmodrome , heavy industry , and capital construction. He
12549-399: The growing shortage of skilled workers, a wrecked rural culture, the payment of workers in proportion to the quantity rather than the quality of their work, and too large farm machinery for the small collective farms and the roadless countryside. In the face of this, Brezhnev's only options were schemes such as large land reclamation and irrigation projects, or of course, radical reform. Over
12690-413: The highly developed productive force in the country. Therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat has, according to Brezhnev, moved towards a people's government. Brezhnev believed that all socialist countries would go through the same socialist development and social transformation of the Soviet model regardless of their national and material conditions. Brezhnev's stabilization policy included ending
12831-500: The idea of economic isolation) while ignoring changes occurring in Western societies; increased authoritarianism in Soviet society; the invasion of Afghanistan ; the bureaucracy's transformation into an undynamic gerontocracy ; lack of economic reform; pervasive political corruption, and other structural problems within the country. Domestically, social stagnation was stimulated by the growing demands of unskilled workers, labor shortages and
12972-453: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or
13113-511: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by
13254-495: The late 1970s, while rationing of staple food products returned to Sverdlovsk for instance. The state provided recreation facilities and annual holidays for hard-working citizens. Soviet trade unions rewarded hard-working members and their families with beach vacations in Crimea and Georgia . Social rigidification became a common feature of Soviet society. During the Stalin era in
13395-536: The legislature deleted the portions of the Constitution that codified the party's " leading role ." On 10 December, Husák swore in a new government. Although it was headed by communist Marián Čalfa , it had a non-communist majority—the first in 41 years that was not dominated by communists and/or fellow travelers . He resigned later that day, just hours after presiding over the formal end of the regime he had largely created. In an attempt to rehabilitate its image ahead of
13536-452: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is
13677-493: The massive arms buildup and widespread military interventionism under Brezhnev's leadership substantially expanded Soviet influence abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. By the mid-1970s, numerous observers argued the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States to become the world's strongest military power. Conversely, Brezhnev's disregard for political reform ushered in an era of socioeconomic decline referred to as
13818-479: The mid-1970s, there were an estimated 5,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union, living in grievous conditions and suffering from malnutrition. Many of these prisoners were considered by the Soviet state to be mentally unfit and were hospitalized in mental asylums across the Soviet Union. Under Brezhnev's rule, the KGB infiltrated most, if not all, anti-government organisations, which ensured that there
13959-411: The ministries. With Kosygin's death in 1980, and due to his successor Nikolai Tikhonov 's conservative approach to economics, very little of the reform was actually carried out. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union delivered a disappointing result: a change in growth from 5 to 4%. During the earlier Tenth Five-Year Plan , there had been target of 6.1% growth, but this was not met. Brezhnev
14100-631: The office of First Secretary but retain him as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers , the majority, headed by Brezhnev, wanted to remove him from active politics altogether. Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by Brezhnev's allies, Politburo members voted on 14 October to remove Khrushchev from office. Some members of
14241-435: The opinion of several Central Committee members. After some false starts, fellow conspirator Mikhail Suslov phoned Khrushchev on 12 October and requested that he return to Moscow to discuss the state of Soviet agriculture . Finally, Khrushchev understood what was happening, and said to Mikoyan, "If it's me who is the question, I will not make a fight of it." While a minority headed by Mikoyan wanted to remove Khrushchev from
14382-532: The other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in
14523-513: The party leadership. It is generally acknowledged that the then party leader and president Antonín Novotný repeatedly declined to pardon Husák, assuring his comrades that "you do not know what he is capable of if he comes to power". As part of the De-Stalinization period in Czechoslovakia , Husák's conviction was overturned and his party membership restored in 1963. By 1967, he had become
14664-568: The period 1941–1945 (culminating in cash, material and equipment deliveries for military and industrial purposes) had allowed the Russians to leapfrog many Western economies in the development of advanced technologies, particularly in the fields of nuclear technology, radio communications, agriculture and heavy manufacturing. By the early 1970s, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity, and produced more steel, oil, pig-iron , cement and tractors than any other country. Before 1973,
14805-598: The plot, went on holiday in Pitsunda resort on the Black Sea . Upon his return, his Presidium officers congratulated him for his work in office. Anastas Mikoyan visited Khrushchev, hinting that he should not be too complacent about his present situation. Vladimir Semichastny , head of the KGB , was a crucial part of the conspiracy, as it was his duty to inform Khrushchev if anyone was plotting against his leadership. Nikolay Ignatov , whom Khrushchev had sacked, discreetly requested
14946-476: The popular opinion in the country to the whims of prevailing political currents. In 1950, he fell victim to a Stalinist purge of the party leadership, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, spending the years from 1954 to 1960 in the Leopoldov Prison . A convinced Communist, he always viewed his imprisonment as a gross misunderstanding, which he periodically stressed in several letters of appeal addressed to
15087-556: The position of its ruling party at home. Whereas Khrushchev regularly enacted policies without consulting the Politburo, Brezhnev was careful to minimize dissent among the party elite by reaching decisions through consensus thereby restoring the semblance of collective leadership . Additionally, while pushing for détente between the two Cold War superpowers, he achieved nuclear parity with the United States and strengthened Moscow's dominion over Central and Eastern Europe . Furthermore,
15228-479: The powers it had enjoyed under Stalin, although there was no return to the purges of the 1930s and 1940s, and Stalin's legacy remained largely discredited among the Soviet intelligentsia . Between 1960 and 1970, Soviet agriculture output increased by 3% annually. Industry also improved: during the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966–1970), the output of factories and mines increased by 138% compared to 1960. While
15369-403: The price of produce were offset by rises in the cost of oil and other resources. By 1977, oil cost 84% more than it did in the late 1960s. The cost of other resources had also climbed by the late 1970s. Brezhnev's answer to these problems was to issue two decrees, one in 1977 and one in 1981, which called for an increase in the maximum size of privately owned plots within the Soviet Union to half
15510-474: The protégés he cultivated in his rise to power were removed from the Central Committee. By 1977, Brezhnev was secure enough in his position to replace Podgorny as head of state and remove him from the Politburo. After sidelining Shelepin and Podgorny as threats to his leadership in 1965, Brezhnev directed his attentions to his remaining political rival, Alexei Kosygin. In the 1960s, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger initially perceived Kosygin to be
15651-515: The real power resided with Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Premier. Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure until about 1962, but as he aged, he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of his fellow leaders. The Soviet Union's mounting economic problems also increased the pressure on Khrushchev's leadership. Brezhnev remained outwardly loyal to Khrushchev, but became involved in
15792-477: The regime's sustained prioritization of heavy industry and military spending over consumer goods . Additionally, Soviet agriculture was unable to feed the urban population, let alone provide for a rising standard of living which the government promised as the fruits of "mature socialism" and on which industrial productivity depended. Ultimately, the GNP growth rate slowed to 1% to 2% per year. As GNP growth rates decreased in
15933-575: The second half of his rule. Most of the increase in consumer production in the early Brezhnev era can be attributed to the Kosygin reform . When the USSR's economic growth stalled in the 1970s, the standard of living and housing quality improved significantly. Instead of paying more attention to the economy, the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev tried to improve the living standard in the Soviet Union by extending social benefits . This led to an increase, though
16074-403: The state of public opinion. Khrushchev worked to decentralize the government system and empower local leadership, which had been wholly subservient; Brezhnev sought to centralize authority, going so far as to weaken the roles of the other members of the Central Committee and the Politburo. Upon replacing Khrushchev as the party's First Secretary, Brezhnev became the de jure supreme authority of
16215-684: The story of the confession is false, and the product of Catholic propaganda . Communist Party of Czechoslovakia /KSČ (prohibited 1938, dissolved 1939–1945) Communist Party of Slovakia /KSS (illegal 1939–1944/1945) Slovak National Council ( Slovenská národná rada ) (during World War II a resistance parliament-government, since 1968 the Slovak parliament) Council of Commissioners ( Zbor povereníkov ) (a quasi government responsible for Slovakia) Czechoslovak Parliament (called National Assembly and since 1968 Federal Assembly) Czechoslovak government President of Czechoslovakia Speeches and Writings ,
16356-569: The table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from
16497-587: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All
16638-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with
16779-423: The war, he began a career as a government official in Slovakia and party functionary in Czechoslovakia. From 1946 to 1950, he was the head of the devolved administration of Slovakia, and as such strongly contributed to the liquidation of the anti-communist Christian democratic Democratic Party of Slovakia. The Democratic Party of Slovakia established in 1944 had taken 62% in the 1946 elections in Slovakia (whereas in
16920-582: The words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950), the University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through
17061-414: The world and operates in over 200 countries . English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by
17202-560: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows
17343-500: The world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around
17484-630: The years as Husák grew more conservative. Starting in the early 1970s, Husák allowed those who had been purged in the aftermath of Prague Spring to rejoin the party. However, they were required to publicly distance themselves from their past support for reform. The latter part of Husák's tenure saw a struggle within the Politburo over whether to adopt Gorbachev -style reforms. While the hardliners, led by Vasiľ Biľak , were vehemently opposed to glasnost and perestroika , moderates led by Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal strongly favoured reform. Husák himself stayed neutral until April 1987, when he announced
17625-518: Was Nikita Khrushchev , who had supported Brezhnev's career since the prewar years. Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the Party, and as he continued his rise through the ranks, he became Khrushchev's protégé. At the end of the war in Europe, Brezhnev was chief political commissar of the 4th Ukrainian Front , which entered Prague in May 1945, after the German surrender . Brezhnev left
17766-493: 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 (head of state) 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. Brezhnev was born to a working-class family in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine ) within
17907-432: Was a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers named "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", more commonly known as the 1979 reform . The reform, in contrast to the 1965 reform, sought to increase the central government's economic involvement by enhancing the duties and responsibilities of
18048-489: Was a record-high state investment in farming during the 1970s, the evaluation of agricultural output continued to focus on the grain harvest. Despite some improvement, there were still problems such as insufficient domestic production of fodder crops and a declining sugar beet harvest. Brezhnev attempted to address these issues by increasing state investment and allowing privately owned plots to be larger. However, these actions were not effective in solving fundamental problems like
18189-590: Was able to defer economic collapse by trading with Western Europe and the Arab World . The Soviet Union still outproduced the United States in the heavy industry sector during the Brezhnev era. Another dramatic result of Brezhnev's rule was that certain Eastern Bloc countries became more economically advanced than the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced traditional ways of organizing collective farms and enforced output quotas centrally. Although there
18330-554: Was also unsuccessful; Brezhnev turned him down, and in 1973 he was removed from the Politburo. Experimentation with "links" was not disallowed on a local basis, with Mikhail Gorbachev , the then First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, experimenting with links in his region. In the meantime, the Soviet government's involvement in agriculture was, according to Robert Service, otherwise "unimaginative" and "incompetent". Facing mounting problems with agriculture,
18471-497: Was awarded the title Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic three times, in 1969, 1973, and 1982. In 1983 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Husák allegedly confessed to a Catholic priest before his death, having previously been an atheist. On his deathbed in 1991, Husák received the sacrament of reconciliation from a Catholic archbishop, Ján Sokol . Author Michal Macháček has argued that
18612-405: Was continued by Brezhnev, because he shared Khrushchev's belief that bigger kolkhozes would increase productivity. Brezhnev pushed for an increase in state investments in farming, which amounted to an all-time high in the 1970s of 27% of all state investment – this figure did not include investments in farm equipment. In 1981 alone, 33 billion U.S. dollars (by contemporary exchange rate)
18753-460: Was demoted to first deputy head of the political directorate of the Army and Navy. Brezhnev's patron Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as General Secretary, while Khrushchev's rival Georgy Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers . Brezhnev sided with Khrushchev against Malenkov, but only for several years. In February 1954, he was appointed second secretary of the Communist Party of
18894-557: Was given as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, and Russian in others. A statement confirming that he regarded himself as a Russian can be found in his book Memories (1979), where he wrote: "And so, according to nationality, I am Russian, I am a proletarian, a hereditary metallurgist." Like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 , he received a technical education , at first in land management and then in metallurgy . He graduated from
19035-456: Was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to the UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to
19176-493: Was invested into agriculture. Agricultural output in 1980 was 21% higher than the average production rate between 1966 and 1970. Cereal crop output increased by 18%. These improved results were not encouraging. In the Soviet Union the criterion for assessing agricultural output was the grain harvest. The import of cereal, which began under Khrushchev, had in fact become a normal phenomenon by Soviet standards. When Brezhnev had difficulties sealing commercial trade agreements with
19317-409: Was little to no opposition against him or his power base. However, Brezhnev refrained from the all-out violence seen under Stalin's rule. The trial of the writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky in 1966, the first such public trials since Stalin's reign, marked the reversion to a repressive cultural policy. Under Yuri Andropov the state security service (in the form of the KGB ) regained some of
19458-529: Was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and in June 1957 he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with Malenkov's Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called " Anti-Party Group ". Following the Stalinists' defeat, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo. In May 1960, he was promoted to the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , making him the nominal head of state, although
19599-507: Was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing the award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from
19740-552: Was retained as head of state . Brezhnev and his companions supported the general party line taken after Stalin's death but felt that Khrushchev's reforms had removed much of the Soviet Union's stability. One reason for Khrushchev's ouster was that he continually overruled other party members, and was, according to the plotters, "in contempt of the party's collective ideals". The Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote of new enduring themes such as collective leadership , scientific planning, consultation with experts, organisational regularity and
19881-416: Was taken in 1970 under the leadership of Edward Gierek ; he believed that the government needed Western loans to facilitate the rapid growth of heavy industry. The Soviet leadership gave its approval for this, as the Soviet Union could not afford to maintain its massive subsidy for the Eastern Bloc in the form of cheap oil and gas exports. The Soviet Union did not accept all kinds of reforms, an example being
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