In economic construction, LI Brezhnev did not make serious mistakes, but at the same time in foreign international policy he repeated the same mistakes that all the leaders of the Soviet state who had come to power after the death of Stalin made before him.
LI Brezhnev believed in the possibility of friendship with the West and strove to establish good-neighborly relations with the Western countries. He did not understand that Western countries, firstly, do not use such a concept as friendship in their policies at all, and, secondly, that in the West Russia for all the time of its existence has never had true friends and does not even exist among the Slavic peoples., except for the courageous Orthodox Serbs. And it would be possible to justify Brezhnev's foreign policy if we were weak, but during his rule the USSR was not inferior in strength to the West. In international politics, Leonid I. Brezhnev made serious mistakes and thereby inflicted his Brezhnev blow on the USSR.
Cooperation with the countries of Eastern Europe developed through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). In 1971, CMEA adopted a twenty-year program of cooperation and development. Trade turnover with the CMEA countries amounted to 50% of the total trade turnover of the USSR. The Druzhba oil pipeline and the Soyuz gas pipeline were built, and the Mir energy system was created. Many Soviet people wore clothes and footwear, sewn and made in the CMEA countries. Even the production of helicopters with gas turbine engines "Mi-2" was transferred to the CMEA country - Poland. Not the assembly, but the entire production. The production of An-2 aircraft was also transferred.
The USSR placed orders in the CMEA countries for the production of civil ships and other products of heavy industry, seeking to create and maintain a high level of industrial development in Eastern Europe. Czechoslovakia supplied a huge number of wonderful Java motorcycles to the USSR. Such actions of the Soviet Union held the CMEA countries together, and in the absence of Western interference in the internal affairs of the countries of Eastern Europe, the USSR could have lived with them in friendship and harmony for many decades.
In relations with Western countries, the USSR made completely unjustified concessions. On July 1, 1968, the USSR signed a nuclear nonproliferation treaty with Britain, and then with the United States and other countries. The agreement was signed by 100 countries. Some promised not to distribute weapons, others - not to accept them and not to produce them. The nuclear powers - France and China, as well as countries such as Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, India - did not sign the treaty. The USSR did not need this treaty. The treaty was needed by the United States, which was afraid that countries with nuclear weapons would come out of America's dictatorship.
On September 30, 1971, an agreement was signed between the USSR and the United States on measures to reduce the risk of a nuclear war. It provided for a number of measures to protect nuclear weapons, and also provided for the improvement of the line of direct communication between the leaders of the USSR and the United States.
Earlier, in March 1966, France withdrew from NATO and its President Charles de Gaulle was received in the Kremlin with Russian cordiality. A. N. Kosygin paid a return visit to France. In 1971, Leonid I. Brezhnev signed a cooperation agreement with de Gaulle's successor, French President J. Pompidou.
In reality, friendship with France did not give the USSR either political or economic benefits. But France by the demarche of withdrawal from NATO and the agreement with the USSR strengthened its status as an independent country in comparison with other countries of Western Europe, which fully and completely fulfilled the will of the United States. I think that Brezhnev did not even understand with whom he was dealing.
The project of de Gaulle, France was Europe from Brest to the Urals. This project will then be picked up by the traitors to the national interests of Russia Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. But if we look at the project more deeply, then it belongs not to the three named political figures.
The project "Europe from Brest to the Urals" is a project of A. Hitler and for its implementation in 1941, 5, 5 million soldiers and officers armed to the teeth of Germany, Hungary, Romania, Italy and Finland crossed the border of the USSR! For the sake of this project, they waged a war with our country to exterminate the peoples of the Soviet Union. Hitler spoke and wrote about this repeatedly and openly, and Leonid Brezhnev rejoiced at his diplomatic successes.
But, in my opinion, the greatest damage to the USSR was caused by the non-aggression treaty signed between the USSR and the FRG on August 12, 1970 in Moscow. This treaty was only the beginning of the signing of documents officially authorizing Western countries to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union. And by itself, it did not give the USSR any benefits, since the FRG was very, very much weaker than the USSR, and the treaty only untied Bonn's hands and tied the USSR.
The West has thought of everything. The USSR could not but sign an agreement in which the Federal Republic of Germany officially recognizes the post-war borders in Europe, does not claim the Kaliningrad region and recognizes the border along the Oder-Neisse. The Federal Republic of Germany recognized the post-war Polish borders, that is, the Poles' right to own lands that were seized from Germany by the Red Army in 1945 and transferred by the Soviet government to Poland, despite the objections of the United States, Britain and France.
It must be said that Poland does not remember either the independence granted to it by the Soviet Republic after the revolutions of 1917, or the transfer of land to it by the Soviet Union in 1945. Poland prefers to hate us as the Western world hates us. Germany withdrew Germany's claims to these lands. Historically, they really belonged to Poland. The FRG went further and on November 21, 1972 recognized the GDR, and in 1973 the FRG and Czechoslovakia denounced the Munich agreement.
These treaties undoubtedly were not the initiative of the Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt, who could not take a step without the permission of the United States. And the United States thought of everything and was firmly convinced that the USSR, in order to confirm the inviolability of the post-war borders, would sign an agreement with any reservations. And so it happened.
The next step in giving the treaties the format of international law was the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The meeting would later develop into the Organization for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSBE).
It was here that the United States and Canada joined the negotiation process with a "humanitarian package." The meeting was held from 1973 to 1975, first in Helsinki, then in Geneva and then again in Helsinki. The final act of the meeting was signed on August 1, 1975 by the heads of 33 European states, as well as the United States and Canada. The countries that signed the act established and approved the most important principles of international law, including behavior in the European and world arena.
In addition to peaceful assurances, the principles of the non-use of force, respect for sovereignty, the package also included the item "Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms." This clause, under the guise of protecting human rights, gave the United States the right to interfere in the internal affairs of any country. This intervention was later called "humanitarian intervention."
In the 21st century, the United States added the fight against terrorism to the primacy of the supervalue of "human rights", finally freeing its hands on the path to world domination or, as they say now, to globalization.
The above act, signed on August 1, 1975, dealt another blow to the USSR. The Americans proclaimed democratization and human rights as the main goals of US foreign policy and covered up their aggressive intentions and actions with them. They were complemented by the previously proclaimed goals of US foreign policy - national security and trade. The act was also interpreted as the right of peoples to self-determination.
This blow, of course, was much weaker than the enemy's blow by the lie about the massive Stalinist repressions, but together with the lies about our agriculture, the 1930s, the war and post-war times, it destroyed the Soviet Union, like many different bombs, shells, mines, grenades and bullets the beautiful cities and villages of the USSR were destroyed by the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The Americans continued the cause of the Nazi hordes defeated by the Red Army, but in a different way.
In some cities of the Soviet Union, “Helsinki groups” of very homogeneous ethnic composition emerged, which supposedly oversaw the fulfillment of the Helsinki commitments. These groups transmitted their observations abroad, and there they printed and disseminated through all media channels information about alleged violations of human rights in the USSR.
They were approached by representatives of the 5th column, whom the Soviet government, in accordance with the laws of the country, began to prosecute for committing illegal actions. They were approached by Jews who did not receive permission to emigrate, Crimean Tatars who wanted to give Crimea to the Turks, Meskhetian Turks, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists and other residents of the country opposed to the USSR.
Thus, Russia's internal enemies received international legal status to fight our country. And the document giving legitimacy to the destroyers of the USSR was signed by the leader of the Soviet Union. This is what political myopia leads to. The brilliant politician JV Stalin would not have allowed this. Yes, we had strength, and the Brezhnev leadership was skillful in developing the country, but political farsightedness was not enough.
Members of the CPSU Central Committee A. N. Shelepin and P. Ye. Shelest understood what the United States was leading to and expressed their opinion. But certain political circles influenced Leonid Brezhnev, and in 1976 both of these opponents of the pro-American course were removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU.
On May 29, 1972 in Moscow, R. Nixon and L. I. Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT-1), as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense (ABM) Treaty.
In addition, documents were signed on Soviet-American cooperation in trade, science, education, and space exploration. No wonder R. Nixon flew to Moscow and became a "friend" of the USSR. He flew in 1974, and Leonid Brezhnev flew to America. In 1974, Leonid Brezhnev met in Vladivostok with the new US President D. Ford. An agreement was reached to conclude a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT-2).
Thus, in three years, American presidents arrived in the USSR three times. Only this fact should have alerted the leadership of the Soviet Union. But no, I didn't.
Members of our government should have known about the statements of Nixon, who said that the main interest of the United States is to do what will most harm the USSR. The Soviet government and LI Brezhnev personally were not warned of Nixon's intentions. Responsibility for this lies with the chairman of the State Security Committee (KGB) of the USSR, Yu. V. Andropov.
The Soviet leadership could study and understand the intentions of the West, first of all, through the KGB services, but they were inactive and thus did not protect the interests of their homeland, did not interfere with the decrease in its security. Our members of the government did not know and did not understand a lot, and therefore again signed treaties that were detrimental to the Soviet Union.
And it was clear that the leaders of the United States were flying to the USSR out of fear of the day after day the growing might of the USSR. It was necessary to immediately contain the growth of the military power of our country, because the United States lagged far behind us in the quantity and quality of strategic weapons.
America lacked the scientific and technical level in the nuclear missile fields, and it was losing the arms race in creating the most complex and decisive outcome of a war, strategic weapons. In the area of strategic weapons, it could lag behind forever and thus lose the Cold War. In fact, she had already played it.
That is why President Nixon measured his pride, got on a plane and flew to Moscow. With the SALT-1 Treaty, signed by the Soviet side, America limited the number of missiles with nuclear warheads to 1,300 pieces. For us, the first treaty meant curtailing the production of strategic missiles, and for America it meant an opportunity to catch up with us.
