Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев; ; Ukrainian: Леоні́д Іллі́ч Бре́жнєв, 19 December 1906 (O.S. 6 December) – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in length. He presided over the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to stop the Prague Spring. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time, but his tenure as leader has often been criticised for marking the beginning of a period of economic stagnation in which serious economic problems were overlooked, problems which eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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“Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today.”
—Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982)