"Slava, slava [glory, glory]," echoed the cheers in Moscow's cavernous Palace of Congresses last week. The words ironically hark back to an anthem of another day that celebrated the power of the czars. As 4,963 Communist Party delegates rose in a standing ovation, General Secretary Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, 64, clasped his hands together like a prizefighter. The 24th Soviet Party Congress was nearly over, and the outpouring of praise for Brezhnev was by all odds the closest that the Soviet Union has come to the adulation of a single ruler since the...
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