Abstract
Looking back in the summer of 1977 on the period since the conclusions on Soviet politics to the first edition of this book were completed,1 it is, on balance, the continuities in Soviet policy and lack of radical changes which strike one more forcibly than the discontinuities and new departures. Yet, though the XXV Party Congress in 1976 produced neither important policy shifts nor far-reaching leadership changes, there have already in 1977 been two developments of political significance — the publication of the draft of the long-awaited new Soviet Constitution and the accession to the Presidency of the Soviet state of Leonid Brezhnev (an office which he now holds in addition to his general secretaryship of the party).
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Notes
For a much more detailed analysis of this and other trends in party membership, see a recent article by the leading western authority on the composition of the CPSU, T. H. Rigby, ‘Soviet Communist Party Membership under Brezhnev’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, July 1976, pp. 317–337. Unfortunately, Rigby’s article was completed before the important Partiynaya zhizn’ information cited in the present chapter became available. He takes account of it briefly in a one-page ‘Addendum to Dr Rigby’s Article on CPSU Membership’ in Soviet Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, October 1976, p. 615. See also an article which takes issue with a number of Rigby’s interpretations: Aryeh L. Unger, ‘Soviet Communist Party Membership under Brezhnev: A Comment’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, April 1977, pp. 306–16.
For a detailed account of membership trends in the Czechoslovak party, including the deterioration of the age structure, see G. Wightman and A. H. Brown, ‘Changes in the Levels of Membership and Social Composition of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 1945–73’, Soviet Studies, Vol. XXVII, no. 3, July 1975, pp. 396–417.
Olzhas Suleymenov, AZ i Ya. Kniga blagonamerennogo chitatelya Alma Ata, 1975.
See the speech of Tendik Askarov, Literaturnaya gazeta, 30 June 1976, p. 12.
For a description and analysis of different types of Soviet market, see A. Katsenelinboigen, ‘Coloured Markets in the Soviet Union’, Soviet Studiis, Vol. XXIX, no. 1, January 1977, pp. 62–85.
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© 1978 Archie Brown
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Brown, A. (1978). Political Developments, 1975–1977. In: Brown, A., Kaser, M. (eds) The Soviet Union since the Fall of Khrushchev. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15847-8_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15847-8_12
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