Yuri Leonidovich Brezhnev (russian: Юрий Леонидович Брежнев, link=no; 31 March 1933 – 3 August 2013) was a Soviet politician and the son of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

politician and longtime

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and 1 ...

and Viktoria Denisova.

Life and career

Before his retirement, Brezhnev held a seat in the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...

(CC) of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspape ...

(CPSU), and worked as a First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations. After his forced retirement following allegations of

embezzlement Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...

and

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

, Brezhnev became a

pensioner A pensioner is a person who receives a pension, most commonly because of retirement from the workforce. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom (along with OAP, initialism of old-age pensioner), Ireland and Australia where someone of p ...

. Soon after becoming a pensioner, he was brutally beaten and arrested by police, and all his belongings were confiscated. In contrast to his sister, Galina Brezhneva, who was known for her temper and self-gratification, Brezhnev was a shadowy figure who disliked public attention. His friends and colleagues claim that he only maintained relations with fellow students of the

Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation The Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation is among the oldest diplomatic institutes in the world, which trains specialists in the field of international relations, international economic relations and int ...

. Brezhnev was not active in politics following the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

in 1991. After the Soviet Union's collapse, he stopped making public appearances, and rejected an offer made by the

Russian government The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russ ...

to cooperate with them. In 2000, Brezhnev rejected an offer to appear on a documentary detailing the "

Era of Stagnation The "Era of Stagnation" (russian: Пери́од засто́я, Períod zastóya, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Uni ...

", an era some believe Brezhnev's father started. He denied these allegations, claiming that his father had nothing to do with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was married to Lyudmila Vladimirovna. She gave birth to two sons, Andrei and Leonid. Andrei Brezhnev (15 March 1961 – 10 July 2018) accused the

Communist Party of the Russian Federation The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; russian: Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации; КПРФ, Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii; KPRF) is a left-wing nationalist and ...

(CPRF) of deviating from communist ideology and launched the unsuccessful All-Russian Communist Movement in the late 1990s. He was Secretary General of the All-Russian Communist Movement in 1998. By 2004, Andrei had become a well-established member of the CPRF.

References

External link

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brezhnev, Yuri 1933 births 2013 deaths People from Kamianske Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members Children of national leaders Yuri Brezhnev Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian politicians convicted of corruption Soviet diplomats Deaths from brain cancer in Russia