List of leaders of the Soviet Union

During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a de facto leader who would not always necessarily be head of state or even head of government but almost always held office as Communist Party General Secretary. The office of the chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World whereas the office of the chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president. According to Marxist–Leninist ideology, the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party (as described in Lenin's What Is to Be Done?).

Following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the late 1920s, the post of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled both the Communist Party and (via party membership) the Soviet government. Often the general secretary also held high positions in the government. Since the post of general secretary lacked clear guidelines of succession, the office's successor needed the support of the Political Bureau (Politburo), the Central Committee, or another government or party apparatus to consolidate power. The President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the general secretary as the highest Soviet political office.

Contemporaneously to the establishment of the office of the president, representatives of the Congress of People's Deputies voted to remove Article 6 from the Soviet constitution which stated that the Soviet Union was a one-party state controlled by the Communist Party which in turn played the leading role in society. This vote weakened the party and its hegemony over the Soviet Union and its people. Upon the departure of an incumbent president from office, the Vice President of the Soviet Union would assume the office, though the Soviet Union dissolved before this was actually tested. After the failed coup in August 1991, the vice president was replaced by an elected member of the State Council of the Soviet Union.

Summary

Lenin was elected chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union (Sovnarkom) on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets. At the age of 53, his health declined from the 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 Joseph Stalin. Alexei Rykov succeeded Lenin as chairman of the Sovnarkom, and although he was de jure the most powerful person in the country, in fact, all power was concentrated in the hands of the "troika" – the union of three influential party figures: Grigory Zinoviev, Joseph Stalin, and Lev Kamenev. Stalin continued to increase his influence in the party, and by the end of the 1920s, he became the sole dictator of the USSR, defeating all his political opponents. The post of general secretary of the party, which was held by Stalin, became the most important post in the Soviet hierarchy.

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 murder, repression and persecution. On 22 June 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, but by December the Soviet Army managed to stop the attack just shy of Moscow. On Stalin's orders, the Soviet Union launched a counter-attack on Nazi Germany, which finally succeeded in 1945. Stalin died in March 1953 and his death triggered a power struggle in which Nikita Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious over Georgy Malenkov.

Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions, first in 1956 and then in 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 destabilizing. A group known as Anti-Party Group tried to oust Khrushchev from office in 1957, but it failed. As Khrushchev grew older, his erratic behaviour became worse, usually making decisions without discussing or confirming them with the Politburo. Leonid Brezhnev, a close companion of Khrushchev, was elected the 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. On the orders of the Politburo, Mikoyan was forced to retire in 1965, and Nikolai Podgorny took over the office of chairman of the Presidium. The Soviet Union in the post-Khrushchev 1960s was governed by a collective leadership. Henry 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 (aged 68 at the time) succeeded Brezhnev in his post as general secretary in 1982. In 1983, Andropov was hospitalized 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 fifteen months after his appointment, an even older leader, 72-year-old Konstantin Chernenko, was elected to the general secretariat. His rule lasted for little more than a year until his death thirteen months later on 10 March 1985.

At the age of 54, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the general secretariat by Politburo on 11 March 1985. In May 1985, Gorbachev publicly admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequate living standards, being the first Soviet leader to do so while also beginning a series of fundamental reforms. From 1986 to around 1988, he dismantled central planning, allowed state enterprises to set their own outputs, enabled private investment in businesses not previously permitted to be privately owned, and allowed foreign investment, among other measures. He also opened up the management of and decision-making within the Soviet Union and allowed greater public discussion and criticism, along with the warming of relationships with the West. These twin policies were known as perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", though it varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency"), respectively. The dismantling of the principal defining features of Soviet communism in 1988 and 1989 in the Soviet Union led to the unintended consequence of the Soviet Union breaking up after the failed August 1991 coup led by Gennady Yanayev.

List of leaders

The following list includes those who held the top leadership position of the Soviet Union from its founding in 1922 until its 1991 dissolution. † denotes leaders who died in office.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:100%;"

! scope="col" | Portrait

! scope="col" style="width:11em;" | Name

! scope="col" style="width:10em;" | Period

! Duration

! scope="col" | Congress(es)

! scope="col" style="width:11.5em;" | Political office

! Premier(s)

! President(s)

! scope="col" style="width:14.1em;" | Policies

| rowspan="2" | 110px

| rowspan="2" | Vladimir Lenin

1st–10th
11th
12th

| Chairman of Sovnarkom

| Himself

| Mikhail Kalinin

| rowspan="2" | Leninism •

| colspan="6" |After the Russian Revolution, Lenin became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in 1917 and leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. He remained in power until his death.

| rowspan="2" |110px

| rowspan="2" | Joseph Stalin

13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th

| General Secretary of the Communist Party Chairman of the Council of Ministers

| Alexei Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov Himself

| Mikhail Kalinin Nikolay Shvernik

| rowspan="2" | Stalinism •

| colspan="6" |Following the death of Lenin, Stalin initially ruled the Soviet Union as part of a troika alongside Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev. However, by April 1925, this arrangement broke down as Stalin consolidated power to become the country's absolute dictator. He also held the post of the Minister of Defence from 19 July 1941 to 3 March 1947 and chaired the State Defense Committee during World War II.

| rowspan="2" | 110px

| rowspan="2" | Georgy Malenkov

| —

| Chairman of the Council of Ministers

| Himself

| Nikolay Shvernik Kliment Voroshilov

| rowspan="2" |Post-Stalin Interregnum • •

| colspan="6" |After Joseph Stalin's death, Georgy Malenkov ruled the Soviet Union as part of a troika alongside Lavrentiy Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov. Despite initially succeeding Stalin in all his titles and positions, he was forced to relinquish most of them within a month by the Politburo. The troika would ultimately break down when Beria was arrested later that year. Shortly thereafter, Malenkov found himself locked in a power struggle against Nikita Khrushchev that led to his removal as Chairman of the Central Committee Presidium and Premier of the Soviet Union in 1955. The day following Gorbachev's resignation as president, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved. Gorbachev was the only head of the USSR to have been born during its existence.

Timeline

List of troikas

Over the course of the Soviet Union's existence, there were four intervals where the country was ruled not by one figure but a troika (i.e."triumvirate") comprising three leading figures within the Politburo. Such instances included: (1) the 2- to 3-year period between Lenin's incapacitation and the rise of Joseph Stalin; (2) the 3 months immediately following Stalin's death; (3) the years between Nikita Khrushchev's fall and Leonid Brezhnev's consolidation of power; and (4) the ailing Konstantin Chernenko's tenure as de jure leader of the Soviet Union.

{| class="wikitable" style="border: none; text-align:center"

! colspan="3"| Members

! Tenure

! Duration

! Notes

| 100px

| 110px

| 103px

| rowspan=2| May 1922 ↓ April 1925

| rowspan=2|

| style="text-align:left" rowspan=2 | When Lenin suffered his first stroke in May 1922, a troika was formed to temporarily rule in his place consisting of Deputy Premier Lev Kamenev, General Secretary Joseph Stalin and Comintern Chairman Grigory Zinoviev. In March 1923, the three assumed permanent control over the country after Lenin suffered another stroke leaving him unable to govern. However, by April 1925, the triumvirate broke up due to Kamenev's and Zinoviev's opposition to Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" policy. After Stalin had consolidated his dictatorship of the Soviet Union by the 1930s, Kamenev and Zinoviev were murdered in the Great Purge.

| Lev Kamenev

| Joseph Stalin

| Grigory Zinoviev

| 107px

| 100px

| 103px

| rowspan=2|

| style="text-align:left" rowspan=2 | After Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, a troika assumed power consisting of Council of Ministers Chairman Georgy Malenkov, Minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria and Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. It dissolved after Beria was arrested and dismissed from the leadership on 26 June 1953. Thereafter, a power struggle ensued between Malenkov and the First Secretary of the Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev, that ended decisively in the latter's favor by 1955.

| Lavrentiy Beria

| Georgy Malenkov However, as Brezhnev increasingly consolidated power within the regime, the troika's effectiveness as a guarantor of collective leadership steadily declined. It was ultimately dissolved in 1977 after Brezhnev took Podgorny's place as head of state.

| Leonid Brezhnev

| Alexei Kosygin

| Nikolai Podgorny

| 114px

| 101px

| 105px

| rowspan=2|

| style="text-align:left" rowspan=2 | Despite succeeding Andropov as the de jure leader of the Soviet Union, Chernenko was unable to concentrate policymaking in his hands due to his poor health and lack of popularity among the party elite. This compelled him to lead the country as part of a troika alongside Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov. This arrangement lasted until Ustinov's death in December 1984 which made way for Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power in March 1985.