Russia Weighs Brezhnev Legacy 30 Years after Death

Russia on Saturday quietly marked 30 years since the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, an enigmatic figure whose era of "stagnation" witnessed repressions and a massive nuclear arms drive.

The burly and chain-smoking World War II veteran served from 1964 until his death in 1982 at a time when Moscow and Washington were churning out weapons of mass destruction and carving up the globe for spheres of influence.

It also saw the two superpowers boycott each other's Olympic Games -- the first in Moscow in 1980 and then in Los Angeles four years later -- and the Kremlin order tanks into Afghanistan for an ill-advised decade-long war.

But Russian media preferred to recall the stamp the native Ukrainian left on domestic life and his ability to introduce a remarkable sense of stability that nevertheless cost people their freedom to most forms of opposition thought.

They also poked fun at his propensity to lavish himself with medals and ruling long past the point at which he was fit enough to make clear-headed decisions about either foreign or domestic affairs.

"The general secretary was going senile and the entire system was rotting to its core -- stricken by nepotism, bribes and general cynicism," Channel One television commented in a news report about the anniversary.

The country's most-watched channel also planned to air a four-part television drama about Brezhnev and then wrap up its day-long coverage with a special political talk show about his life and times.

It set an almost forgiving tone to its coverage of Brezhnev by describing a man who tried his best but was a victim of his times and associates.

"People did not laugh (at Brezhnev)," Channel One said. "They pitied an old and ailing man, one who was neither bloodthirsty nor vindictive -- and therefore different from his predecessors."

The popular Argumenty i Fakty weekly recalled that Brezhnev was in fact first pronounced clinically dead in 1976. The incident had remained a state secret but historians believe that he had suffered a stroke.

"Yet the state of his health was never a secret to the people -- they saw him on TV all the time," Argumenty i Fakty remarked.

Brezhnev's 18 years in power were known among Russians as "zastoi" (stagnation) in the sense of frozen time with no social or economic change.

Writer and journalist Vadim Dubnov described Brezhnev's nearly two decades as "socialism light".

"He was our everything and he was everywhere," the author wrote in a commentary for the state RIA Novosti news agency.

"He was a part of our ballet, our hockey and our figure skating. He was a part of our vodka which went up in price by only half in his 18 years. That is the stability we got."

Dubnov argued that Brezhnev developed a cult of personality "based on a parody of himself" which became the fabric of Russian satire and political jokes -- always told at home and preferably around the kitchen table.

The ITAR-TASS news agency even remarked in a headline that "many are recalling the 'stagnation' era with nostalgia."

"Many who were young during the 'stagnation' sincerely miss the years when everyone had social protection and confidence in the next day," Russia's second state news agency said.

But even the Rossiya national channel conceded that Brezhnev's times will also be known for "the invasion of Czechoslovakia (in 1968), stricter control of the press, the exile of (dissident Andrei) Sakharov and the banishment of (author Alexander) Solzhenitsyn, and the invasion of Afghanistan."

The Soviet system survived for nine more years after Brezhnev before being formally declared finished by the late Boris Yeltsin, independent Russia's first president.