(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – One of the last leaders of the Soviet Union gets positive reviews in Russia, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation. 61 per cent of respondents rate the rule of Leonid Brezhnev as good for the country.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – One of the last leaders of the Soviet Union gets positive reviews in Russia, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation. 61 per cent of respondents rate the rule of Leonid Brezhnev as good for the country.
The Soviet Union was officially established in 1922, following the Bolshevik Revolution. Brezhnev was the de-facto leader of the country from 1964 to 1982. During his tenure, Brezhnev declared that the Soviet Union had the right to become involved in the internal affairs of other Eastern bloc nations to “safeguard socialism.” In 1979, Brezhnev ordered a military invasion of Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, Brezhnev’s former chief economic planner Nikolai Babakov expressed satisfaction with the former leader’s tenure, saying, “We were in first place, in front of all the capitalist countries. Maybe we took things a bit too far but the fact remains: people were very careful about how they treated the Soviet Union.”
Polling Data
Leonid Brezhnev ruled the country for 18 years, from 1964 to 1982. Would you rate Brezhnev’s rule as good or bad for the country?
Good | 61% |
Bad | 17% |
Hard to answer | 22% |
Source: Public Opinion Foundation
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,500 Russian adults, conducted on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, 2006. Margin of error is 3.6 per cent.
