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On 23 August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which included a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. [2] Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II.
Another myth is that the Soviet Union’s role in the Second World War began on 22 June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked the USSR. In reality, the Soviet Union was a leading participant from the very start, colluding for nearly two years with Nazi Germany. The brutality of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, including massacres and ...
- Vladimir Lenin
- Joseph Stalin
- Georgy Malenkov
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Leonid Brezhnev
- Yuri Andropov
- Konstantin Chernenko
- Mikhail Gorbachev
Vladimir Lenin was the founder of the Russian Communist Party and the first Soviet head of state. Following the February Revolution that ousted the Russian monarchy and ended the Russian Empire in 1917, Lenin helped lead the October Revolution(or Bolshevik Revolution) that established a new Soviet government. The October Revolution sparked the Russ...
Joseph Stalinparticipated in the 1917 October Revolution and started working for the Soviet government during Lenin’s tenure. His concentration of power began in 1922 when he became secretary general of the Communist Party’s Central Committee—a position he held until his death in 1953. Lenin disapproved of Stalin and even sought to remove himas sec...
The first to take control of the Soviet Union was Stalin’s heir apparent Georgy Malenkov, who had helped facilitateStalin’s purges in the 1930s. Of all the Soviet leaders, Malenkov is the one who held power for the least amount of time. The day after Stalin died, Malenkov succeeded Stalin as the Soviet Union’s premier and de facto leader of the Com...
Nikita Khrushchevbecame first secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party and, in 1958, its premier. His rule was characterized by his attempts at de-Stalinization and improving the Soviet Union’s international relationships. Khrushchev ruled the Soviet Union during the construction of the Berlin Wall, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion (in wh...
Leonid Brezhnev was one of the longest-serving Soviet leaders, second only to Stalin. Brezhnev was 10 years old during the 1917 revolutions, which means that he was the first Soviet Union leader to come of age under the Soviet state. He joined the Community Party youth organization as a teen and served in the Soviet military during WWII. Brezhnev w...
Yuri Andropov was head of the KGB, the Soviet national security agency, between 1967 and 1982. When Brezhnev began to have health problems, Andropov left the KGB to compete to be Brezhnev’s successor. Andropov was successful—two days after Brezhnev died, he became the new general secretary of the Communist Party. The strained relationship that Brez...
Konstantin Chernenko, who had also competed to succeed Brezhnev in 1982, took over as the Communist Party’s general secretary in 1984. That year, the Soviet Union led a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympicsin retaliation for the United States boycott four years before. Like Andropov, Chernenko suffered from poor health during most of his tenure....
The last leader of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Gorbachev, who succeeded Chernenko as general secretary after Chernenko’s death in 1985. He initiated the period of perestroika and glasnost, or “openness,” in which the Soviet Union loosened restrictions on the press and personal expression, and began to reevaluate its Stalinist past. Gorbachev overs...
- Becky Little
However, by April 1925, this arrangement broke down as Stalin consolidated power to become the Soviet Union's absolute dictator. He also held the post of the Minister of Defence from 19 July 1941 to 3 March 1947 and chaired the State Defense Committee during World War II. Georgy Malenkov (1902–1988) 5 March 1953 ↓
PortraitName (lifespan)PeriodDurationVladimir Lenin (1870–1924) [32]30 December 1922 [32] ↓ 21 January 1924 † ...1 year, 22 days1st – 10th [a] 11th 12thJoseph Stalin (1878–1953) [13]21 January 1924 [13] ↓ 5 March 1953 † ...29 years, 43 days13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19thGeorgy Malenkov (1902–1988) [37]5 March 1953 [38] [39] ↓ 7 September 1953 ...186 days—Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) [43]7 September 1953 [40] ↓ 14 October 1964 ...11 years, 37 days20th 21st 22nd4 days ago · Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; U.S.S.R.), former northern Eurasian empire (1917/22–1991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. The capital was Moscow, then and now the capital of Russia.
World War II was a conflict principally between the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied powers (France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China). The war was in many respects a continuation of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The 40 to 50 million deaths caused by World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.
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8 hours ago · World War II was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during 1939–45. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). It was the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in human history.
