Authors

Discussion

This paper seeks to contribute to the academic debate on whether the late Soviet era, especially the Brezhnev years, can be described as a period of stagnation. It takes under examination the first decade of Brezhnev rule that is often described as the most promising of the Soviet era. Using the case of Soviet Lithuania, the paper reveals the efforts of the Soviet Lithuanian nomenklatura to intensify industrial production, to encourage administrators of the ideology to link propaganda and support for culture more closely to the issues of society, and to meet the social needs of the republic’s inhabitants. But were these efforts and attempts successful? Can we see signs of resignation from this policy and identify them as beginning of inertia and stagnation?