Brezhnev was a land surveyor in the 1920s before joining the Communist Party in 1931. He later enrolled in a metallurgical institute, graduating in 1935.
He held several important positions as an army officer, engineer and political commissar during the Stalinist administration and rose to the rank of major general in Red Army during World War II.
Leonid Brezhnev became head of state in 1960 at the age of fifty-three and was elevated to Communist Party general secretary in 1964 after the party removed Nikita Khrushchev from power.
Brezhnev shared leadership responsibilities with Alexi Kosygin but quickly became the USSR’s undisputed head of state.
In foreign relation, Brezhnev ordered the military suppression of Czechoslovakia’s experiment in ‘socialism with a human face’ in 1968 via an invasion by Warsaw Pact nations.
In the last years of his tenure Brezhnev ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.
Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)
