Editing Leonid Brezhnev (section)

===Cult of personality===
[[File:BrezhnevPortrait2.png|thumb|Official portrait of Brezhnev during his years in power]]
The last years of Brezhnev's rule were marked by a growing [[cult of personality|personality cult]]. His love of medals (he received over 100) was well known, so in December 1966, on his 60th birthday, he was awarded the [[Hero of the Soviet Union]]. Brezhnev received the award, which came with the [[Order of Lenin]] and the Gold Star, three more times in celebration of his birthdays.{{sfn|Bacon|Sandle|2002|p=8}} On his 70th birthday he was awarded the rank of [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]], the Soviet Union's highest military honour. After being awarded the rank, he attended an 18th Army Veterans meeting, dressed in a long coat and saying "Attention, the Marshal is coming!" He also conferred upon himself the rare [[Order of Victory]] in 1978, which was posthumously revoked in 1989 for not meeting the criteria for citation. A promotion to the rank of [[Generalissimo of the Soviet Union]], planned for Brezhnev's seventy-fifth birthday, was quietly shelved due to his ongoing health problems.{{sfn|Bacon|Sandle|2002|p=9}}

Brezhnev's eagerness for undeserved glory was shown by his poorly written memoirs recalling his military service during World War II, which treated the [[Malaya Zemlya|minor battles]] near [[Novorossiysk]] as a decisive military theatre.{{sfn|Service|2009|p=403}} Despite his book's apparent weaknesses, it was awarded the [[Lenin Prize for Literature]] and was hailed by the [[Printed media in the Soviet Union|Soviet press]].{{sfn|Bacon|Sandle|2002|p=9}} The book was followed by [[Brezhnev's trilogy|two other books]], one on the [[Virgin Lands campaign]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Abdullaev, Nabi |title=Brezhnev Remembered Fondly 100 Years Since Birth |url=http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=19803 |work=[[The St. Petersburg Times (Russia)|The St. Petersburg Times]] |access-date=11 April 2010 |date=19 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121072945/http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=19803 |archive-date=21 January 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>