The USSR's External Economic Relations and Japan

In 1979-1982 — the last years of the late Leonid Brezhnev — the Soviet economic environment at home and abroad was taking a turn for the worse. At home, agriculture was in poor shape for four years in a row, and industrial growth slowed markedly. As for external relations, the slump of the East European economies, as was clear from the confusion in Poland, brought a heavy burden to the Soviet economy, and the Western camp led by the United States embarked on relentless anti-Soviet economic sanctions.