Ingenious Drug Addicts Of The Soviet Union. Leonid Brezhnev - Great And Terrible

Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982), Soviet statesman and party leader, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Marshal of the Soviet Union, cannot be called a drug addict in the literal sense of the word. But among chemical addictions there is no less severe - drug substance abuse (dependence on drugs). And if we are talking not about the representative of the bohemia, but about the state leader, then such dependence cannot pass without leaving a trace for his rule

Let's dwell on the personality of the former "secretary general" of our country. “… Brezhnev in his youth dreamed of becoming an actor and even took part in one of the amateur theatrical groups that were so popular in the first years of the revolution - hence his unorthodox poetic hobbies. The penchant for spectacular acting gestures, the desire to influence the interlocutors and the audience emotionally remained in Brezhnev and later, until his illness”(Volkov S., 2008).

Academician Yevgeny Chazov, who at one time was engaged in the treatment of all the rulers of the USSR, writes in his memoirs that since 1973, Leonid Brezhnev began to show the first signs of a disorder of the central nervous system. The secretary general tried to get rid of insomnia by taking large doses of sleeping pills

“From these positions, the pernicious influence of N.'s nurse on Brezhnev, accelerating his degradation, is a concrete objective fact that contributed to the collapse of the country's leadership, which meant more than dozens of speeches by various groups of“dissidents”… In the end, the country lost its concrete leadership … After France, Brezhnev stopped paying attention to our recommendations, without hesitation, under any pretext, began to take potent sedatives supplied by N. and some of his friends … Brezhnev was losing the ability to self-criticism, which was one of the early manifestations of his illness associated with the active development of atherosclerosis cerebral vessels … Brezhnev more and more lost the ability to critical analysis, decreased his performance and activity, breakdowns became more prolonged and deep. In 1975, it was practically impossible to hide them”(Chazov E. I., 1992).

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• Ingenious drug addicts of the Soviet Union. Michael Bulgakov
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Taking into account the publicity of the Secretary General's personality and his desire to appear more often in front of television cameras, speech disorders (dysarthria), an elderly shuffling gait, "attachment" to the text during speeches have already become noticeable. The mental state of Leonid Brezhnev was disturbed to such an extent that "even ordinary sedatives were potent drugs for him."

The reduction in self-criticism and the appearance of the first signs of age-related dementia is evidenced by the increased “love” of the Secretary General for awards and titles. "The" Order "fell on Brezhnev especially intensively after a severe stroke, suffered by him in 1976, when the secretary general already had serious memory impairments" (Akifiev A. P., 2001).

The situation was complicated by the fact that, according to Academician Georgy Arbatov, Brezhnev “had a well-deserved reputation as a poorly educated person, very limited, without his own ideas about many spheres of social life and political problems” (Stepanyan V. N., 2007).

Given the historical proximity of the "Brezhnev era" to our time, it will not be superfluous to recall, referring to modern encyclopedias, that during his reign, conservative trends in the economy, social and spiritual spheres of society prevailed in the country ("Leonid Brezhnev's era" received in the literature the name "stagnation"). Periods of relaxation of international tension gave way to a sharp exacerbation of international contradictions; troops were sent to Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979), which led to an increase in crisis phenomena in Soviet society.

In the last years of his reign, television served Leonid Brezhnev, as well as his elderly followers (Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko), a disservice. “Then only people saw what ruins our leaders had turned into” (Remnik D., 2017).

For Leonid Brezhnev, a factor aggravating the course of vascular dementia was the dependence on sedatives - drug substance abuse. Naturally, the combination of two diseases, each of which caused organic changes in the brain, had a negative impact on government activities, especially in the last years of life.

The philosopher Vadim Rudnev believes that the USSR went through all three stages of “schizophrenic delirium. The first period, Lenin's, is paranoid. Stalin is a paranoid stage with delirium and cruelty. Brezhnev is the third, paraphrenic stage - dementia and delirium of greatness. " Somewhat exaggerated comparisons, but in principle they are correct

Sources:

• Akifiev A. P. Genetics and fate. M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2001.
• Volkov S. History of Russian culture of the twentieth century from Leo Tolstoy to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. - M.: Eksmo, 2008.
• Remnik D. Lenin's grave. The last days of the Soviet empire / per. from English L. Oborin. - M.: Publishing house of AST; CORPUS, 2017.
• Rudnev V. P. Polyphonic body. Reality and schizophrenia in the culture of the twentieth century. M.: Gnosis, 2010.
• Stepanyan V. N. Life and death of famous people. M.: AST; Zebra E, 2007.
• Chazov EI Health and power. Memories of the "Kremlin doctor". - M.: Publishing house "Novosti", 1992.