Order of Victory
Brezhnev's receipt of the Order of Victory was controversial. Brezhnev was a young political officer during the war who did reach the rank of lieutenant general, but did not command responsibility close to the other recipients of the Order. He only received the decoration after he was Premier and thus able to essentially award the medal to himself. As a result of general hostility to Brezhnev after his death and belief that this award had been done out of vanity rather than earned from merit, the Order of Victory was posthumously revoked in 1989.