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Stalin's office was near Lenin's in the Smolny Institute, [122] and he and Trotsky had direct access to Lenin without an appointment. [123] Stalin co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers, [124] and co-chaired the committee drafting a constitution for the newly-formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. [125]
On October 16, 1952, Stalin formally abolished the position, but he retained ultimate power and his position as Chairman of the Council of Ministers until his death on 5 March 1953. [20] At a tenure of 30 years, 7 months, Stalin was the longest-serving General Secretary, serving almost half of the USSR's entire existence.
This decision led to the creation of the office of the General Secretary which Stalin assumed on 3 April. Stalin soon learned how to use his new office to gain advantages over key persons within the party. He prepared the agenda for the Politburo meetings, directing the course of meetings. As General Secretary, he appointed new local party ...
Upon death, resignation, or removal from office of an incumbent president, 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]
Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. [44] By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the country and, by the end of the 1920s, established a totalitarian rule.
As Stalin consolidated his rule the party itself ceased to be a serious deliberative body under Stalin with Party Congresses, particularly after the Great Purge, being little more than show pieces in which delegates would sing the praises of Stalin in what became a cult of personality. No party congresses were held at all between 1939 and 1952.
Stalin's policies granted the Soviet people access to free health care and education. Widespread immunization programs created the first generation free from the fear of typhus and cholera . The occurrences of these diseases dropped to record-low numbers and infant mortality rates were substantially reduced, resulting in the life expectancy for ...
The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939. Annals of Communism Series. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300104073. Khlevniuk, Oleg (2009). Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle. The Yale-Hoover Series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300110669.