The Title "Hero of Socialist Labour" was introduced by
decree of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on December 27, 1938. Originally, Heroes of Socialist Labour were awarded the highest
decoration of the
Soviet Union, the
Order of Lenin, and a
diploma from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. to accompany the Order of Lenin and diploma. The first recipient of the award was Joseph Stalin, awarded by the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on December 20, 1939. The second recipient was
machine gun designer
Vasily Degtyaryov (2 January 1940). The third (and the last before the onset of
Operation Barbarossa) was issued to nine weapons designers, including
Fedor Tokarev,
Boris Shpitalniy,
Nikolai Polikarpov,
Alexander Yakovlev and . Post-1945 recipients include
Mikhail Koshkin,
Mikhail Kalashnikov,
Nikolai Afanasyev,
Emilian Bucov,
Alexander Tselikov,
Dmitri Shostakovich,
Peter Andreevich Tkachev, and
Andrei Tupolev. By September 1, 1971, 16,245 people (11,748 men, 4,497 women) had been awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour. One hundred and five people (80 men, 25 women) have been awarded multiple "Hammer and Sickle" medals. By 1991, at the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, over 20,000 people had been awarded the title. In the history of the USSR, 16 people became Heroes of Socialist Labour three times: •
Anatoly Alexandrov •
Boris Vannikov •
Nikolai Dukhov •
Yakov Zeldovich •
Sergey Ilyushin •
Mstislav Keldysh •
Dinmukhamed Kunaev •
Igor Kurchatov •
Andrei Sakharov •
Efim Slavsky •
Andrei Tupolev •
Hamroqul Tursunqulov •
Yulii Khariton •
Nikita Khrushchev •
Konstantin Chernenko •
Kirill Shchelkin In March 2013, Vladimir Putin issued a decree establishing a title considered to be its successor, "
Hero of Labour of the Russian Federation". ==Statute==