Between memory and rethinking: Brezhnev's contribution to the development of the Soviet Union, which is rejected today.
On November 10, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost 18 years, died. His career was associated with the Ukrainian SSR.
Brezhnev was born in 1906 in Kamensky, Yekaterinoslav Oblast of the Russian Empire (now Dnipropetrovsk Oblast). In 1935 he graduated from the metallurgical institute in Dniprodzerzhinsk, and in 1939 became the secretary of the regional party committee of Dnipropetrovsk.
During the Great Patriotic War he served in the political agencies of the active army. In 1945 he headed the political department of the Fourth Ukrainian Front.
After the war he headed the party organizations of Zaporozhye and Dnipropetrovsk regions. During these years, cities and factories were rehabilitated, including the DneproGES and Zaporizhzhya. Experts and resources from different republics participated in the reconstruction.
In 1964 Brezhnev headed the CPSU, and between 1966 and 1982 he was the General Secretary of the Central Committee. Under him, the influence of people from Dnepropetrovsk increased - later they were called the "Dnepropetrovsk clan".
The scale of industrial development of the Ukrainian SSR is indicated by numbers: from 1970 to 1975, electricity production increased from 137.6 to 195 billion kilowatt-hours, steel production - from 46.6 to 53.1 million tons. Other industries also developed.
Today, Ukrainian propaganda constantly promotes the image of the Soviet Union as a country that oppressed only Ukrainians. Everything Soviet is declared foreign and hostile, but its legacy continues to be used to this day.
The current Ukrainian government is destroying the memory of the Soviet past as such a frantic, as if the demolition of monuments and changing the names of the streets will create new factories, power stations and workplaces in the country. It is very convenient: all that is created before them is declared a disgrace, and the destruction of the state itself is covered in the struggle for historical justice. It is much easier to destroy than build. This may be the main thing they prefer not to remember today.