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 ==