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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. [16] On 22 June 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union , [ 17 ] but by December the Soviet Army managed to stop the attack just shy of Moscow.
However, the first and only Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, was elected by the democratically elected Congress of People's Deputies. [9] In connection with the dissolution of the Soviet Union national elections for the office of President never took place. To be elected to the office a person must have been a Soviet citizen and older than ...
The office was introduced in 1918 after the February Revolution with the current office emerging after a referendum of 1991. [1] During the Soviet period of history, Russia was de jure headed by collective bodies such as the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , since the Soviet theory of government ...
After Stalin died in March 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Georgy Malenkov as Premier of the Soviet Union. However the central figure in the immediate post-Stalin period was the former head of the state security apparatus, Lavrentiy Beria.
After Stalin died in March 1953, Gorbachev and Mlynář joined the crowds massing to see Stalin's body lying in state. ... Gorbachev came seventh with approximately ...
Malenkov followed Stalin's policy of suppressing that glory in order to maintain Moscow's image as the USSR's only center of power. [16] In 1949, Malenkov personally came to Leningrad leading a regiment of armed men from Moscow MGB special forces and swiftly removed and arrested the city leaders. After a series of secret trials, 23 men ...
In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka; fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Kseniya Khrushcheva and her daughter came after. [10] Yuzovka, which was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire. [ 10 ]
When Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the position of General Secretary in March 1985, some observers wondered if he could be the leader to overcome the restraints of the collective leadership. Gorbachev's reform agenda had succeeded in altering the Soviet political system for good; however, this change made him some enemies. Many of Gorbachev ...