Soviets Openly Criticize Brezhnev’s Leadership : Pravda Attacks Late Leader by Name for 1st Time Over ‘Tangible Decline’ in Economic Growth

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda sharply attacked the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev on Friday for his final years of leadership in the first criticism of him by name since his death in 1982.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev previously has assailed a slowdown in economic growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s--a period when Brezhnev was in command of the Soviet government and party.

But the Pravda editorial, published on the 80th anniversary of Brezhnev’s birth, directly accused the former leader of a long series of shortcomings in his final days.

May Foreshadow Purge

Western analysts said the editorial may foreshadow a purge of Brezhnev loyalists in the party. Only this week, the Kazakhstan party removed a longtime Brezhnev supporter, Dinmukhamed A. Kunayev, from his post as first secretary and signaled his ouster from the ruling Politburo at a later date.

Gorbachev obviously approved the editorial, a major statement of party policy, since Pravda is the official organ of the Central Committee of the party and speaks with authority on such matters.

While crediting him with a number of accomplishments in the first decade of his 18-year tenure, Pravda said that Brezhnev became increasingly out of touch with reality and refused to change old ways.

“Attitudes of smugness, permissiveness and a desire to gloss over the real state of affairs proliferated,” the editorial said of the closing years of his rule.

“A gap became visible between the word and the deed,” it added. “There was not enough purposefulness and determination in practical work.

“All this resulted in a tangible decline in the tempo of economic growth by the late 1970s and early 1980s,” Pravda asserted.

In Moscow jargon, Pravda said Brezhnev allowed food and consumer goods shortages to develop and thus created conditions for widespread corruption and black market activity.

‘Serious Shortcomings’

“All this was, to a significant degree, the consequence of the serious shortcomings in the work of party and state organs,” it added in its unusual indictment.

Pravda said that qualifications for party leaders and responsibility for their share of work were lowered during this time.

“At the same time, absence of consistent democracy, openness, criticism and self-criticism, as well as effective control, prevented timely exposure of the negative phenomena,” the editorial added.

In praise of the late Yuri V. Andropov, who succeeded Brezhnev in the top party post, Pravda said that steps were taken to reinforce discipline at the start of his tenure in November, 1982. Andropov, a former KGB chief, was party leader for 13 months before his death in February, 1984.

Andropov’s Successor

There was also indirect praise for Gorbachev, who came to power in March, 1985, after the death of Konstantin U. Chernenko, a Brezhnev protege who succeeded Andropov.

It said the party under Gorbachev began to speed up social and economic development and “revolutionary reconstruction” that were so badly needed.

Brezhnev, who has rarely been mentioned in the official media since Gorbachev took over, forced Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev to resign in 1964.