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Reading my IB textbooks, they say Brezhnev's rule was an "era of stagnation". However they are only able to cite evidence of economic stagnation when claiming that would require "stagnation" in multiple aspects, such as political, economic, social, military, ideological...
From what I read, "stagnation" should refer to a lack of development in itself, and not a backwardness relative to other countries such as the USA, Japan ...?
When an epoch ends, the intellectual leaders of the new epoch name the one that just ended (this is a general observation, cf Early modern vs late modern vs post modern?).
E.g., Khrushchev called Stalin's years "personality cult", Brezhnev called Khrushchev years "voluntarism", and Gorbachev called Brezhnev's years "stagnation" ("застой").
The existential problem of the USSR was its inability to deliver on its messianic promise of prosperity and happiness, and that required an explanation, and the easiest was was to blame the past and the surroundings:
Yes, mostly.
All attempts of economic reform failed, and the nature of communism took over: bureaucracy appropriating all benefits while bearing no risks. During Stalin's years, a "failed" (in the eye of his superior, which might or might not correlate with reality) bureaucrat was often executed. When Khrushchev broke this lame "feed back", bureaucrats stopped caring about the outcome.
The army gobbled up all the oil revenues and achieved missile parity with the complacent USA.
Space industry and research benefited from the arms race. While losing the Race to the Moon and wasting precious resources on the attempt to duplicated Space Shuttle, USSR still made interesting progress with space stations.
The Khrushchev Thaw was over.
Incidentally, I highly recommend Советская детская литература и её современные перспективы: it is a very incisive (if somewhat controversial) analysis of Soviet culture.
With Stalin's fundamentalism and Lysenkoism gone, researches were more free to pursue their interests. E.g., fox domestication! This was limited by the usual funding shortages (if it's not military, you need connections at the top to get funded). Since mathematicians do not need much funding, the Soviet school of mathematics blossomed!
PS. One of the immanent aspects of the Soviet life was the alternation of the leaders: each one was the "antithesis" of the previous one. This is especially evident in the hairdo: Lenin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Putin are bald; Stalin, Brezhnev, and Yeltsin are not. Even the non-entity Medvedev fits the pattern!
Consider a typical day of a Soviet white-collar worker at the time.
The 1970s, Moscow.
In the morning you go to the office. There you do not work, but just chat with your colleagues. You discuss some news or personal stories. Somebody tells about a relative who just returned from abroad and what things he/she brought back. Then one woman says she forgot to ask if anybody likes her new blouse made in Yugoslavia. She bought 3 of them (the rest are at home) but if anyone wants she can bring them to the office. Then another woman asks to try on the blouse to see if it fits her. Then they change blouses and everyone gives their opinion.
Then comes the lunch time. During the lunch you go shopping so to avoid lines that may be after the work hours. This time you go to a book store and find a deficit book by Ivan Yefremov “Thais of Athens”. It is valued because it has realistic sexual scenes.
You return to the office and here they discuss who will get the trade-union sponsored tour to Crimea and who will be less lucky and only get a tour to the Moscow area. Immediately, someone asks you to give them your new book to read for a week and you give.
Finally, the workday is heading to the end, so someone brings a bottle of wine or vodka. Someone also brings a box of chocolates. One needs a pretext to drink so one woman announces her cat has a birthday today. Everyone has a wineglass and then there is some drunk chat with men trying to flirt with women.
The workday ends at about 6 pm and you are heading home.
