Moscow Exhibit Pokes Fun at Late Soviet Leader : Once-Mighty Brezhnev Is Now the Butt of Jokes

MOSCOW —  The recorded voice of former Kremlin leader Leonid I. Brezhnev resounded sonorously through a community center in western Moscow on Saturday.

Amid cracks in the walls, tattered curtains and peeling paint, his photographs were everywhere, showing him strolling in a fur cap, smoking a cigarette, signing a treaty--always with his medals on his chest.

“Help us escape from Brezhnev and the period of stagnation. Donate money for our perestroika ,” read a sign, using the Russian word for restructuring that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev also uses to refer to his reform program.

All in all, it was not a good week for the memory of Brezhnev, who led this country from 1964 to 1982.

First, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet stripped him of his Order of Victory war medal, a public acknowledgement that at least some of the 114 medals bestowed upon the former leader were awarded without foundation.

First of Its Kind

Then, a 40-year-old, dilapidated neighborhood community center raised 1,800 rubles, or about $2,700, for repairs by collecting donations at a first-of-its-kind fund-raiser--an exhibit that poked fun at the former Kremlin leader.

Since Gorbachev became Communist Party general secretary in March, 1985, the Brezhnev era has been steadily discredited and officially dubbed the period of zastoye , or stagnation, a reference to corrupt and apathetic bureaucrats who blocked Soviet progress.

In recent years, a city renamed after Brezhnev was given back its original name, and several factories and farms, squares and streets once honoring his memory also were renamed. A plaque marking Brezhnev’s Moscow residence was unceremoniously removed several months ago.

But both the decision to take back the war medal and the theme of the fund-raiser at the local Dom Kulturi, or House of Culture community center--two blows in the same week--went beyond the bounds of discrediting the former leader to depict him as a buffoon.

“This whole show makes a joke of Brezhnev,” said Dom Kulturi director Vladislav V. Panfilov, 35, who wandered the hall wearing a lifelike Brezhnev face mask.

“But it also has a serious goal. We are trying to show the results of the epoch of stagnation and encourage people to actively work to change things,” he said.

The exhibit, which ended a two-week run Saturday, presented as farcical some of Brezhnev’s pronouncements. “Economy must be economical,” a poster quoted from one of his speeches, and then went on to add: “And culture must be cultural. Butter must be buttery.”

Brezhnev’s recorded speeches droned through the hall. “We play it all day, but I have no idea what he’s saying,” Panfilov said.

Some of the photographs of the former leader were identified as presents from some of the neighborhood’s 2,000 families. A gaping hole in the wall was, according to a sign beneath it, a present from the Moscow Building Committee.

The community center also took a gibe at Gorbachev and today’s social problems. A table displayed all of the things currently unavailable or in short supply in Moscow: sugar, detergent, soap, salt and condoms. A sign noted that even during the stagnation period, these things could be found.

The exhibit included a book in which visitors could write their thoughts and messages to Gorbachev, but the nearly filled book was stolen last week.

Not all visitors have appreciated the cutting humor of the Dom Kulturi fund-raiser.

“One man who came in here was very angry. He said we should be beaten,” said Panfilov. “We said it wasn’t our fault if he didn’t understand our sense of humor.”

In a further step discrediting Brezhnev, Friday’s newspapers carried a decree signed by Gorbachev stripping the former leader of one of his medals--this one the country’s highest military honor, the Order of Victory.

Brezhnev was awarded the medal in 1978 for his role in a minor battle on the Black Sea coast during World War II.

Battle of Little Island

The battle of Malaya Zemlya, or Little Land, was given little attention until Brezhnev became general secretary. Then, historians began describing it as a turning point in the war, comparable to the defense of Leningrad.

Brezhnev’s own account of the battle, which he wrote in a book titled “Little Land,” won the top Soviet literary prize. A song written about it was once a popular tune on Moscow Radio.

The government newspaper Izvestia reported Friday that Brezhnev, who rarely appeared in public without his medals, ordered duplicates and kept them pinned to his suits to save him trouble when changing.

Today, the newspaper reported, “It is quite obvious that L.I. Brezhnev did not deserve such an award.”

“Yes, Brezhnev is now a joke,” said Dom Kulturi director Panfilov. “But it’s a tragic joke. We lost so much time, and it will take much work to modernize our lives.”

Graffiti scrawled on a discolored wall of the community center, and signed by A.P. Zaitseva, expressed similar sentiments.

“I love Russia with a heavy heart,” Zaitseva wrote. “I hate our untalented leadership. But we, because of our silent obedience, are to blame.”