List of leaders of the Soviet Union
| Leader of the Soviet Union | |
|---|---|
| Лидер Советского Союза (Russian) | |
| Type |
|
| Term length | Life tenure |
| Formation | 30 December 1922 |
| First holder | Vladimir Lenin |
| Final holder | Mikhail Gorbachev |
| Abolished | 26 December 1991 |
| Politics of the Soviet Union |
|---|
Soviet Union portal
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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.[a][2] The office of the chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World[1] whereas the office of the chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president.[2] 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,[3] the post of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union,[4] because the post controlled both the Communist Party[5] and (via party membership) the Soviet government.[3] Often the general secretary also held high positions in the government.[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] 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.[9] After the failed coup in August 1991, the vice president was replaced by an elected member of the State Council of the Soviet Union.[10]
- ^ a b Armstrong 1986, p. 169.
- ^ a b Armstrong 1986, p. 165.
- ^ a b Armstrong 1986, p. 98.
- ^ Armstrong 1986, p. 93.
- ^ Armstrong 1986, p. 22.
- ^ Ginsburgs, Ajani & van den Berg 1989, p. 500.
- ^ Brown 1996, p. 195.
- ^ Brown 1996, p. 196.
- ^ Brown 1996, p. 275.
- ^ Gorbachev, M. (5 September 1991). ЗАКОН Об органах государственной власти и управления Союза ССР в переходный период [Law Regarding State Governing Bodies of the USSR in Transition] (in Russian). Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
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