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Brezhnev’s Collected Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Robert H. Mc Neal
Robert H. Mc Neal*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Extract

Thirteen years ago the present writer undertook a similar survey of the works of Nikita Khrushchev. Appearing within a few weeks of that Soviet leader’s well-celebrated seventieth birthday, the article assumed (as Khrushchev probably did) that there was some connection between the ornaments of power and its reality. Yet by the end of the year Khrushchev had been hustled into retirement by the Central Committee, an act that, incidentally, allowed the review article to stand as a definitive one in the sense that no additional books by that particular author could appear in’ the USSR. It seems doubtful that the present survey will be able to make the same claim. Despite the close parallel in the timing of their collected works in the lives of the two septuagenarian leaders, it does not seem that Brezhnev’s administration will end before more volumes will be added to those listed here.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 488 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1977

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References

1. “Khrushchev's Collected Works, ” Slavic Review, 23, no. 1 (March 1964) : 129-36.

2. The Brezhnev anthologies are listed in order of appearance. An asterisk denotes those volumes that should be obtained in order to have the fullest available collection of Brezhnev material without needless duplication.

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    * Molodym—stroit’ kommunizm (Moscow : Politizdat, 1970), 399 pp. KPSS v bor'be za edinstvo vsekh revoliutsionnykh i mirolmbivykh sil (Moscow : “Mysl', ” 1972), 303pp.

  • Ob aktual'nykh problemakh partiinogo stroitel'stva (Moscow : Politizdat, 1973), 456 pp. Second, amplified edition, 1976, 639 pp.

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    * Leninskim kursom : Rcchi i stat'i, vols. 1-5 (Moscow : Politizdat, 1973-76), vol. 1 : 1973, 544 pp.; vol. 2 : 1973, 608 pp.; vol. 3 : 1973, 535 pp.; vol. 4 : 1974, 488 pp.; vol. 5 : 1976, 599 pp.

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    * O vneshnei politike KPSS i Sovetskogo gosudarstva : Rechi i stat'i (Moscow : Politizdat, 1973), 599 pp.

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    * Voprosy agramoi politiki KPSS i osvocnic tsclinnykh zemel’ Kazakhstana : Rechi i doklady (Moscow : Politizdat, 1974), 423 pp.

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    * 0 kommunisticheskom vospitanii trudiashchikhsia : Rechi i stat'i (Moscow : Politizdat, 1974), 599 pp. Second, amplified edition, 1975, 639 pp.

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    * Ob osnovnykh voprosakh ekonomicheskoi politiki KPSS na sovremcnnom etape : Rechi i doklady, vols. 1-2 (Moscow : Politizdat, 1975), vol. 1, 448 pp.; vol. 2, 479 pp.

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    * Voprosy upravleniia ekonomikoi razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva : Rechi, doklady, vystupleniia (Moscow : Politizdat, 1976), 600 pp.

3. There appears to have been some effort to preserve balance among the three most eminent Soviet leaders. Both Kosygin and Podgorny have had nonserial volumes of their speeches published, but by the mid-1970s they were clearly in Brezhnev's shadow in this respect. Suslov, who enjoys a somewhat different status as senior ideological specialist (but without a visible, top-level administrative power base) has been permitted three separate anthologies.

4. The index, surely a token of status, was introduced only in July 1973 when the third volume went to press. The timing of the publication of the first two volumes, without index, and the third, with a retroactive index, is curious. The third volume was given to the press only seventeen days after the first two. Is it really possible that Brezhnev's editors had simply overlooked the possibility of a larger series, extending the coverage beyond 1970, and suddenly had this idea in the first two weeks of July 1973? Or did Brezhnev only then succeed in overcoming some kind of resistance to such cultish publications, index and all?

5. Ob osnovnykh voprosakh ekonomicheskoi politiki KPSS na sovremennom etape, vol. 1 : pp. 99-111 (December 1965 plenum), pp. 244-50 (September 1967 plenum), pp. 371-76 (December 1968 plenum), pp. 414-29 (December 1969 plenum); vol. 2 : pp. 107-12 (December 1970 plenum), pp. 203-12 (November 1971 plenum), pp. 242-56 (December 1972 plenum), pp. 341-61 (December 1973 plenum). Voprosy agrarnoi politiki KPSS i osvoenie tselinnykh semel’ Kasakhstana, pp. 344-55 (December 1973 plenum). O kommunisticheskom vospitanii trudiashchikhsia, pp. 156-61 (April 1968 plenum). Voprosy upravleniia ekonomikoi razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, pp. 575-91 (October 1976 plenum).

6. Cf. Ob osnovnykh voprosakh ekonomicheskoi politiki KPSS na sovremennom etape, vol. 2 : pp. 341-61; and Voprosy agrarnoi politiki KPSS i osvoenie tselinnykh semel’ Kasakhstana, pp. 344-55. It does appear, incidentally, that there is such a thing as editorial carelessness in Soviet political publications, with no plausible political motivation. O kommunisticheskom vospitanii trudiashchikhsia gives the date of the Nineteenth Moscow City Party Conference as May 29, 1968, when in fact Pravda and Leninskim kursom confirm that it was March 29, 1968.

7. Ob osnovnykh voprosakh ekonomicheskoi politiki KPSS na sovremennom etape, vol. 2, p. 110.

8. Voprosy upravleniia ekonomikoi rasvilogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, pp. 358-59. The definition and species of the party decision is discussed in my Guide to the Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1917-1967 (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1972), pp. ix-xviii.

9. Voprosy upravleniia ekonomikoi razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva, pp. 468-78.

10. Ibid., p. 474.

11. Leninskim kursom, vol. 3, pp. 62-100.

12. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 267. On the connection of this with Brezhnev's war service, see Pravda, September 7, 8, and 9, 1974.

13. Leninskim kursom, vol. 1, p. 109.

14. Cf. Leninskim kursom, vol. 4, pp. 160-64; and New York Times, June 23, 1973, p. 9.