Leonid Brezhnev led the Soviet Union as General Secretary then as Chairman of the Presidium, the longest term as leader since Josef Stalin; who was his immediate successor?
Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev On 10 November 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, the third General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the fifth leader of the Soviet Union, died aged 75, a month before his 76th birthday after suffering a heart attack following years of serious ailments. His death was officially acknowledged on 11 November simultaneously by Soviet radio and television. After five days of national mourning, Brezhnev was given a state funeral and then buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Yuri Andropov, Brezhnev's eventual successor as general secretary, was chairman of the
Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev The full understanding of the history of the late Soviet Union and of its successor, the Russian Federation, requires the assessment of the legacy of Leonid Brezhnev, the third General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Leonid Brezhnev was the leader of the CPSU from 1964 until his death in 1982, whose eighteen-year reign was recognised as the time of social and economic stagnation in the late Soviet Union. Despite his failures in domestic reforms, his foreign affairs