certain, especially as it was almost impossible to
live strictly within it. The possession of a car,
for instance, necessitated resource to the black
market for spare parts and services. Thus disre-
gard for the law, petty bribery and corruption
were endemic. Higher up the administrative elite,
corruption was practised on a grandiose scale
during the Brezhnev years. Brezhnev himself pro-
vided a prominent example of high living, owning
vast estates and a fleet of luxury cars.
Promotion for men and women of ability still
required the patronage of someone higher up in
the party or a ministry. Corruption was not con-
fined to the Kremlin but was widespread in the
Soviet republics, indeed had become legendary in
Georgia, where huge bribery allowed enterpris-
ing businessmen to build up private empires.
Members of the nomenklaturalived in a style
reminiscent of American tycoons. For the privi-
leged few the products of the West were easily
available: Mercedes cars, hi-fi equipment and
Russian luxuries such as caviar. Andropov’s clean-
up campaign while he was head of the KGB could
scratch only the surface, though it reached all the
way to Brezhnev’s family: his daughter, with her
diamonds, was a conspicuous consumer, while his
son Yuri, though often drunk, lived a charmed
life. The Western lifestyles of many of the chil-
dren of the elite were bitterly resented by the
average Russian.
Brezhnev’s deliberate consumer boom had
nevertheless made many hitherto scarce goods
more readily available, though they were often of
poor quality. One of the most intractable prob-
lems of Soviet central planning was that the
demands that had to be satisfied were those of the
relevant ministries, not those of the consumer for
whom the goods were intended. The consumer
represented a mere abstract unit; the ministries
decided what the consumer needed. Of course,
the citizen’s wishes are not paramount in a
command economy. It can hardly be otherwise,
since no computer can be adequately pro-
grammed to take account of the complexities
of consumer demand – the nationwide supply of
shoes of different qualities and prices, sizes and
fashions that would match consumers’ wishes, to
give just one example – and in any case powerful
computers were in short supply in the Soviet
Union. Another bane of the system was the
notorious ‘gross output’ indicator as a measure-
ment of the fulfilment of plans. The distortions
this created are illustrated by a factory that pro-
duced nails. Its target was set in terms of weight.
The manager accordingly arranged for the man-
ufacture of only very large and heavy nails. When
the ministry discovered this and set the target in
the form of quantity, the manager switched to
very small nails. The story is probably apocryphal
but it provides a good illustration of the short-
comings inherent in central planning. Where the
consumer can set the requirements, as happened
for instance in the supply of weapons for the
armed services, the Soviet Union did better. The
Soviet space enterprise, another example, caught
up with the West and was perhaps even more
reliable than America’s NASA.
The record of the Brezhnev era was uneven. A
start was made in economic reforms, though
without questioning fundamentals. The exploita-
tion of the Soviet Union’s vast mineral resources
- the oil and gas and gold in Siberia and east of
the Urals – and the limited introduction of
Western technology raised output, but the greater
part of industry was not renewed. The restraints
placed on the KGB and the better life enjoyed by
the Soviet people were positive aspects, but the
Soviet authoritarian system was not democratised
in any essential. Brezhnev’s determination to sta-
bilise the power base of the Soviet political struc-
ture entailed a policy of live and let live at the top:
secure party fiefs and party cadres ensured stabil-
ity, while corruption and privileges bought their
support. The ordinary people, however, had few
rights and had to do as they were told. This did
not preclude the emergence of able and incor-
ruptible party functionaries such as Eduard
Shevardnadze, who as party chief in Georgia
carried through a wholesale purge of the sys-
tem erected by his corrupt predecessor. Yuri
Andropov, as head of the KGB, was of a similar
caste, and tried to rid the party of corruption.
Although something like a cult of personality
was fostered around Brezhnev, his power was not
absolute. During his last years of ill health much
of the work had to be carried out by deputies. The
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