List of Leaders of The Soviet Union - Summary

Summary

Vladimir Lenin was voted the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Sovnarkom) on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets. His health, at the age of 53, declined from effects of two bullet wounds, later aggravated by three strokes which culminated with his death in 1924. Irrespective of his health status in his final days, Lenin was already losing much of his power to Stalin. Alexei Rykov succeeded Lenin as Chairman of the Sovnarkom, and although he was de jure the most powerful person in the country, the Politburo of the Communist Party began to overshadow the Sovnarkom in the mid-1920s. By the end of the decade, Rykov merely rubber stamped the decisions predetermined by Stalin and the Politburo.

Stalin's early policies pushed for rapid industrialisation, nationalisation of private industry and the collectivisation of private plots created under Lenin's New Economic Policy. As leader of the Politburo, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power by 1938 after the Great Purge, a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution. Nazi German troops invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, but were repulsed by the Soviets in December. On Stalin's orders, the USSR launched a counter-attack on Nazi Germany. Stalin died in March 1953, his death triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev after several years emerged victorious against Georgy Malenkov.

Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions: in 1956 and 1962. His policy of de-Stalinisation earned him many enemies within the party, especially from old Stalinist appointees. Many saw this approach as destructive and destabilising. A group known as Anti-Party Group tried, but failed, to oust Khrushchev from office in 1957. As Khrushchev grew older, his erratic behavior became worse, usually making decisions without discussing or confirming them with the Politburo. Leonid Brezhnev, a close companion of Khrushchev, was elected First Secretary the same day of Khrushchev's removal from power; Alexei Kosygin became the new Premier and Anastas Mikoyan kept his office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. In 1965, on the orders of the Politburo, Mikoyan was forced to retire; Nikolai Podgorny took over the office of Chairman of the Presidium. The USSR in the post-Khrushchev 1960s was governed by a collective leadership. Henry A. Kissinger, the American National Security Advisor, mistakenly believed that Kosygin was the 'Leader of the Soviet Union' and that he was at the helm of 'Soviet foreign policy' because he represented the Soviet Union at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference. The "Era of Stagnation", a derogatory term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev, was a period marked by low socio-economic efficiency in the country and a gerontocracy ruling the country. Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev in his post as General Secretary in 1982. In 1983 Andropov was hospitalised, and rarely met up at work to chair the politburo meetings due to his declining health. Nikolai Tikhonov usually chaired the meetings in his place. Following Andropov's death, an even older leader, Konstantin Chernenko was elected to the General Secretariat. His rule lasted for little more than a year.

Gorbachev was elected to the General Secretariat by the Politburo on 11 March 1985. By the mid-to-late 1980s Gorbachev had launched the policies of perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", but varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency"). The dismantling of the principal defining features of communism in 1988 and 1989 in the Soviet Union led to the unintended consequence of breaking-up the Soviet state into 15 successor states after the failed August Coup of 1991 led by Gennady Yanayev.