Editing Leonid Brezhnev (section)

==Early life and early career==
=== 1906–1939: Origins ===
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in [[Kamianske|Kamenskoye]] (now Kamianske, [[Ukraine]]) within the [[Yekaterinoslav Governorate]] of the [[Russian Empire]] to [[metalworker]] Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev (1874–1934) and his wife, Natalia Denisovna Mazalova (1886–1975). His father lived in Brezhnevo ([[Kursky District, Kursk Oblast]], Russia) before moving to Kamenskoye. The parents of Brezhnev's mother came from [[Yenakiieve]].<ref>[https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/83903/0/leonid-brezhnev-zhizn-po-zavodskomu-gudku.html Леонид Ильич Брежнев Жизнь по заводскому гудку - Жизнь по заводскому гудку]</ref> Brezhnev's ethnicity was given as [[Ukrainian people|Ukrainian]] in some documents, including his passport,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/a/ac/Brezhnev_LI_ListKadr_1942.jpg |title=Wikimedia commons: L.I. Brezhnev military card}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brezhnev_LI_OrKrZn_NagrList_1942.jpg?uselang=ru |title=File:Brezhnev LI OrKrZn NagrList 1942.jpg}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brezhnev_LI_Pasport_1947.jpg?uselang=en |title=File:Brezhnev LI Pasport 1947.jpg |date=11 June 1947}}</ref> and Russian in others.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Brezhnev_LI_OrOtVo_NagrList_1943.jpg |title=Brezhnev LI OrOtVo NagrList 1943.jpg |date=18 September 1943 |type=image |via=[[Wikimedia Commons]]}}</ref>{{sfn|Bacon|2002|p=6}} A statement confirming that he regarded himself as a Russian can be found in his book ''Memories'' (1979), where he wrote: "And so, according to nationality, I am Russian, I am a proletarian, a hereditary metallurgist."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://supol.narod.ru/archive/books/Breznev/zshizn.htm |title=ЖИЗНЬ ПО ЗАВОДСКОМУ ГУДКУ |access-date=12 June 2022 |website=supol.narod.ru |language=ru}}</ref><!-- The linked source needs to be checked for authenticity and reliability. -->

Like many youths in the years after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], he received a [[vocational education|technical education]], at first in [[land management]] and then in [[metallurgy]]. He graduated from the Kamenskoye Metallurgical [[Tekhnikum|Technicum]] in 1935{{sfn|McCauley|1997|p=47}} and became a [[metallurgical engineer]] in the iron and steel industries of eastern Ukraine.

Brezhnev joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] youth division, the [[Komsomol]], in 1923, and the Party itself in 1929.{{sfn|Bacon|2002|p=6}} From 1935 to 1936 he completed the compulsory term of military service. After taking courses at a tank school, he served as a [[political commissar]] in a tank factory.

During Stalin's [[Great Purge]], Brezhnev was one of many [[apparatchik]]s who exploited the resulting openings in the government and the party to advance rapidly in the regime's ranks.{{sfn|Bacon|2002|p=6}} In 1936, he became director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum (a technical college) and was transferred to the regional center of [[Dnipropetrovsk]]. In May 1937, he became deputy chairman of the Kamenskoye city soviet. In May 1938, after [[Nikita Khrushchev]] had taken control of the Ukrainian communist party, he was appointed head of the propaganda department of the Dnipropetrovsk regional communist party, and later, in 1939, a regional Party Secretary,{{sfn|McCauley|1997|p=47}} in charge of the city's defense industries. Here, he took the first steps toward building a network of supporters which came to be known as the "[[Dnipropetrovsk Mafia]]" that would greatly aid his rise to power.

=== 1941–1945: World War II ===
When [[Nazi Germany]] [[Eastern Front (World War II)|invaded the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941, Brezhnev was, like most middle-ranking Party officials, immediately drafted. He worked to evacuate Dnipropetrovsk's industries before the city fell to the Germans on 26 August, and then was assigned as a [[political commissar]]. In October, Brezhnev was made deputy of political administration for the [[Soviet Southern Front|Southern Front]], with the rank of Brigade-Commissar (Colonel).{{sfn|Green|Reeves|1993|p=192}}

When the Germans occupied [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukraine]] in 1942, Brezhnev was sent to the [[Caucasus]] as deputy head of political administration of the [[Transcaucasian Front]]. In April 1943 he became head of the Political Department of the 18th Army. Later that year, the 18th Army became part of the [[1st Ukrainian Front]], as the Red Army regained the initiative and advanced westward through Ukraine.{{sfn|Murphy|1981|p=80}} The Front's senior political commissar was [[Nikita Khrushchev]], who had supported Brezhnev's career since the prewar years. Brezhnev had met Khrushchev in 1931, shortly after joining the Party, and as he continued his rise through the ranks, he became Khrushchev's protégé.{{sfn|Childs|2000|p=84}} At the end of the war in Europe, Brezhnev was chief political commissar of the [[4th Ukrainian Front]], which entered [[Prague]] in May 1945, after the German [[German Instrument of Surrender|surrender]].{{sfn|Green|Reeves|1993|p=192}}