Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union as first secretary, later general secretary, of the Communist Party from 1964 until his death in 1982. His long rule brought stability for officials, a military build-up to nuclear parity with the United States and détente in the 1970s, but also economic stagnation and corruption. He crushed the Prague Spring in 1968, justified by the Brezhnev Doctrine, and sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979.